As Daniel Ricciardo admits there is a chance he could make his F1 debut in 2011, Sebastien Buemi insists he is not losing sleep.

“Compared to my teammate I’ve never done badly,” Swiss Buemi, referring to Jaime Alguersuari, is quoted as saying by the British newspaper The Sun.

The pair have both been told to up their game in order to keep their seats at Toro Rosso this year, but rumours suggest it is 22-year-old Buemi who is first in the firing line.

Australian Ricciardo now appears in the Ferrari-powered STR6 each Friday morning at grands prix, with Buemi well aware of his presence.

“Red Bull gives young drivers a chance to get into F1, so you always know that besides you there are other guys that try to show their abilities and aim to drive for the team.

“If you give up, it’s over for you,” said Buemi.

Ricciardo, 21, was asked by motorline.cc about the rumours a race seat could open up before the end of this season.

“That would be great,” he admitted, “but my focus is on the Formula Renault 3.5, and for the rest we will see.

“I want a fixed place in formula one in 2012,” the Australian clarified.

Another young Red Bull-backed charger close to his F1 debut is Frenchman Jean-Eric Vergne, who denied the next step for him after 2011 is a season in GP2.

“Definitely not,” he insisted. “I want to do a good job in Formula Renault 3.5 this year and have an F1 cockpit for 2012. At the moment, for me, that’s the only goal.”

Another way for Buemi and Alguersuari to look at the situation is that if Ricciardo does arrive at Toro Rosso in 2012, and Mark Webber moves on, they might be staring at the vacancy at Red Bull’s senior team.

“From my point of view I know that if I do my maximum and get important results, then my value can increase and I can have a chance,” Buemi said.

“I focus on this. The rest is just gossip.”

Sebastien Bourdais has admitted he is unlikely to ever return to the formula one grid.

The Frenchman, who was ousted by Toro Rosso mid-way through the 2009 season, now races in the Superleague series and a Peugeot in Le Mans races.

He arrived in F1 in 2008, after establishing himself as the dominant driver of the now defunct American open wheeler series Champ Car.

But Bourdais admits a lack of sponsorship is preventing his return to a top seat in the US, and he also acknowledges that returning to F1 is unlikely.

“I am 31 years old,” he told France’s sports.fr. “I don’t see how I could be back in a F1 cockpit, especially since it already did not go so well.

“If someone offers me a car, why not? But, personally, I have stopped chasing it,” added Bourdais.

He admits his relationship with Toro Rosso was always difficult, insisting the Faenza based team wanted “a guy who shuts up and drives”.

“They did not decide the development of the car or the technical paths, so it was always going to end in the way it did.

“Now, I have no regrets, but I would have if I had not tried it,” added Bourdais.

He was linked with the vacant Renault seat over the past winter, but Bourdais denies he ever had talks with the team’s new boss Eric Boullier.

“I know him very well, he is a friend, and we didn’t even talk about it,” said Bourdais. Renault needed a driver who could bring money.

“I was hoping that Romain (Grosjean) would be retained. There are many talented French drivers but our economy is such that it is difficult to find financial support.

“And, unfortunately, seats in F1 are rare and expensive,” added Bourdais.
(GMM)

Michael Schumacher says he ground his first day of trying in a GP2 car useful preparation for his Formula 1 return, even if wet weather meant he couldn’t complete any serious running on dry tyres.

With the returning seven-time champion unable to get back in F1 machiney until the testing ban is lifted at the start of February, his new team Mercedes GP managed to get permission from the FIA for the 41-year-old to carry out three days worth of track testing in the GP2 Series’s next-generation car at Jerez this week.

Schumacher, who has spent the past three years in retirement, hadn’t been behind the wheel of single seater since driving a two-year-old Ferrari last summer as part of his preparations for a temporary comeback bid which he soon had to abort due to a lingering neck injury.

The opening day of his GP2 test, however, in southern Spain was hit by poor weather, meaning the track was too wet to complete running on slick tyres.

However despite the rainy conditions and the fact the GP2 car doesn’t put his now-healed neck through the kind of g-forces he will experience in an F1 cockpit, Schumacher says he still happened the day invaluable – particularly as it proved to him his peerless wet-weather skills were still intact.

“The day today was good especially because after a long time I could drive again in a car that came almost close to a current Formula 1,“ he said on his personal website.