Toro Rosso Deny Bourdais' SMS Jibe

Scuderia Toro Rosso team boss Franz Tost hit back at Sebastien Bourdais after the Frenchman's comments late last week. The former 4-time Champ Car winner last week revealed that his boss fired him from Scuderia Toro Rosso over the SMS and did not have the decency to announce him personally of the sack.

In his interview with French publication Autohebdo, Bourdais also reckoned he was partially to blame for the loss of his Formula One seat, but insisted the way Toro Rosso parted ways with him was not “decent”.

In response, the Austrian official revealed he personally told Bourdais of STR's plans for the future and also gave the media a few insides on why the Frenchman was let go before time. The poor lap times Bourdais had recorded in comparison with newcomer Sebastien Buemi were what triggered the whole operation.

“I told Monsieur Bourdais personally that he is not going to drive any more and did not write any SMS. I can understand that he is disappointed, but his performances were simply not what we expected,” Tost said in an interview with German newspaper The Bild.

“We wanted an increase in speed from him in his second year and it did not happen. On the contrary: our youngster Sebastien Buemi, in his first season, was better than him,” added the Austrian boss.

In the meantime, the 30-year old was replaced by young Spaniard Jaime Alguersuari who, in his first practice session in the STR4 in Hungary, recorded a better lap time than Buemi.