Toro Rosso see red as rookie Bourdais goes off the rails in Barca

SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS was left red-faced yesterday after wrecking Toro Rosso’s new car on its maiden appearance.

The team unveiled the STR3, a car they are hoping will make its full debut at next month’s Turkish Grand Prix in Istanbul.

But Frenchman Bourdais, four-times Champ Car champion, in his debut season in Formula One, crashed into a barrier late on in the third day of this week’s test at Barcelona’s Circuit de Catalunya.

The damage means team-mate Sebastian Vettel will be unable to use the new car in the final test day today, and will instead take to the track in the older version.

Toro Rosso team principal Franz Tost summed up Bourdais’ accident by stating: “He simply went too fast.”

The 29-year-old finished the day eighth quickest of the 10 drivers in action, completing 71 laps, with his best a one minute 20.715 seconds. His time was nearly 2.3secs adrift of Fernando Alonso, who topped the unofficial timesheets in his Renault, albeit with his time set on slick tyres.

A number of teams are using this week’s test to evaluate slicks that make a return to the sport next season.

Alonso comfortably pipped old rival Michael Schumacher into second place in his Ferrari by almost a second. The seven-times world champion was helping the Italian team run their own appraisal of the Bridgestone rubber.

Alonso, who has struggled this season on his return to Renault, was happy enough with his day’s work.

The two-time world champion said: “The day has been good and I was happy with the developments to the car but we still need to keep improving because it seems our competitors have also improved, so it is difficult to say how we really compare with them.

“We have to wait until next week to get a full picture of where we stand, but it was fun to try the slick tyres, which gave very good grip.”

Adrian Sutil was third quickest for Force India, followed by the BMW Sauber of Robert Kubica, Williams’ Nico Rosberg and Rubens Barrichello in his Honda.

Lewis Hamilton continued his preparations for next week’s Spanish Grand Prix at the same track by completing 102 laps, setting the seventh best time of 1:20.591.

Behind Bourdais were Mark Webber in his Red Bull and Toyota’s Jarno Trulli. The only team not taking part in this week’s test is Super Aguri who are on the brink of collapse after a potential backer yesterday pulled out of a multi-million euro deal for the team.