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F1: Toro Rosso confirms Sebastien Buemi

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Khatir Soltani
From GMM

There is no deadline for the announcement of Toro Rosso's race driver line-up for the 2009 season, the Faenza based team insists.

With the exception of the beleaguered Honda Racing F1 outfit, Red Bull-owned Toro Rosso is now the only team yet to confirm its driver plans for the forthcoming season.

The Swiss rookie Sébastien Buemi has been confirmed Friday, while the French incumbent Sébastien Bourdais, and Japanese veteran Takuma Sato were in the pre-Christmas tests effectively vying for the other.

A spokesman for the team told the Dutch portal f1today.nl that Toro Rosso plans to be a sixth team present at the upcoming test at Portugal's new Algarve venue.

But as for the drivers, he added: "The drivers for the coming season have not been specified yet, and we have not set ourselves a timeframe for the decision."

The actual official deadline for teams to finalise their drivers for 2009 is the Thursday prior to the season opener in Australia in late March.
photo:Toro Rosso
Khatir Soltani
Khatir Soltani
Automotive expert
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