Sébastien

For a third consecutive year, Sébastien fills the role of reserve driver at the Infiniti Red Bull Racing team. A major rule change involves plenty of work in the simulator and Sébastien spends plenty of time in the Milton Keynes factory. He still attends all the Grands Prix.

In 2013, Sébastien continued as the reserve driver for the World Champion team and again attended all the Grands Prix, while also playing his part in the development of the RB9. Infiniti Red Bull Racing won the Constructors’ World Championship for the fourth consecutive year.

Having raced three full seasons for Toro Rosso, Sébastien was taken on by Red Bull as the team’s third driver. His main role was to work on the development of the car in the team’s hyper-sophisticated simulator, while also being on hand at every race to stand in for one of the two drivers in a Grand Prix if the need arose.

For 2010, a change to the regulations meant that Toro Rosso had to design its entire car without any help from its big sister team Red Bull Racing. Starting from zero meant life wasn’t easy for the team’s drivers. Sébastien however, still managed to lead the Canadian Grand Prix for a lap, before finishing the race in eighth place. By the end of the season, having finished in the points four times, he ended the year 16th on 8 points.

The first Grand Prix of Sébastien’s career went off like a dream. His family made the trip in force to support him, as his father and two uncles came along. In his first ever F1 qualifying session, Sébastien took his Toro Rosso STR4 to thirteenth on the grid. In the race, he was just outside the points right up to the closing stages, until a collision ahead of him saw him make up two places and finish eighth. Later, when Lewis Hamilton was disqualified, it promoted him to seventh and so Sébastien scored points on his debut Grand Prix, something only the great drivers had done before, such as Sebastian Vettel, Kimi Raikkonen and Alain Prost.

The 2008 GP2 season was not easy for Sébastien, who had to deal with a car that was very difficult to drive, to the extent his team-mates notched up hardly any decent results. Despite this, Sébastien managed to score two wins, in France and Hungary, which saw him end the championship in sixth place. During the season, he pulled off a real feat that underlined his talent and no doubt helped in securing him the Toro Rosso Formula 1 drive: in Magny-Cours on Sunday morning for the short race, Sébastien found himself down in 21st place on the grid. Despite the rain, he gambled on starting on slick tyres on a circuit where overtaking moves are reckoned to be impossible. After an amazing display of driving, he won the race, having passed all the other cars, or at least those that had stayed on track... He was the only 2008 GP2 driver to make it to Formula 1 in 2009.

It was in Monaco in 2007 that Sébastien made his GP2 debut, as a last minute replacement for Michael Ammermuller. Right from the off, he was second fastest in the very first practice session, even though he had never raced at Monaco nor even sat in a GP2 car. He then ended the season with ART Grand Prix, while still fitting in plenty of F1 and F3 testing.

Called in as a last minute replacement for Neel Jani, Sébastien raced in the 2007 A1 GP in Shanghai. He also took part in the New Zealand round.

At the end of 2003, Sébastien took part in the “BMW scholarship” which he won. The fund meant he could compete in the 2004 Formula BMW championship, finishing third behind Sebastian Vettel who was runner up that year. Picked up by Red Bull, he signed a 5 year contract with the Austrian company, which became his sponsor as of 2005. That year, he won the title in this category, before being robbed of it in the Stewards Room, because of a complex affair linked to the safety car. It is the most unhappy memory of Sébastien’s career.

It is one of the victories that Sébastien is most proud of: from over 300 candidates and after several elimination rounds in Portugal and then France, Sébastien won the European karting championship, at Angerville in 2002.