To save money on sign-writing on the car and on driver overalls, we advertised for a new team-mate for Sebastian Vettel, the only condition being that he too should be called Seb. We found a multiple Champ Car champion called Bourdais. Vettel was angry at no longer being the only Seb in the team and went on a go-slow protest, only  completing 39  laps in  the first four races  of the season. Bourdais meanwhile would have finished fourth in his first GP in Melbourne and was eventually classified seventh after his car let him down in the closing stages. But the result still meant we had some points right from race one.

We  had  to  wait  until  Monaco  to  get  some  more  points,  courtesy  of  Vettel's  fifth place.  The  street  race  also  marked  the  debut  of  our  new  car,  the  STR3,  which Bourdais qualified 13th. It should have appeared a fortnight earlier in Turkey, but it got "broken" in a testing accident. The team might have been for sale this weekend or maybe not, it's hard to remember.

In  Canada,  Vettel  was  still  sulking  about  having  another  driver  called  Seb  in  the team, refused to go to the grid, but was eventually persuaded to start from pit lane, to bring home another point for eighth place. This weekend the team was going to be bought by a consortium of Nigerian Banks. All we had to do was send them one hundred dollars and all our bank details and they would send us millions by return.

At  the  French Grand  Prix, the  whole  country  was  in  party mood as Red  Bull  was officially on sale in France for the first time. President Nikolas Sarkosi offered to buy our team out of gratitude: "It is only because I drink Red Bull that a beautiful woman  like Carla Bruni would even look at a short man with platform heels in his shoes," he said (allegedly.) Out of politeness to the French, as Red Bull Racing uses Renault
engines,  Ferrari-powered  Seb  and  Seb  let  Webber  and  Coulthard finish  ahead  of them at Magny-Cours.

From Europe to China, our Sebs stepped up a gear, with both men getting into the Top Ten on the grid every time, apart from Bourdais in Singapore. And apart from Shanghai, we scored points at every venue. Did something happen at Monza? Oh yes, Gerhard Berger's memory was even worse than usual and for some reason, he walked  onto  the  podium  at  the  end  of  the  Italian  Grand  Prix.  Fortunately,  Vettel
quickly ran up and brought him down again. He was given a nice big trophy for his quick thinking.
Paying  great  attention  to  detail,  Franz  Tost  insisted  that,  in  preparation  for  the Singapore night race, the team be kept in the dark and only allowed out at night. For our Communications Department this was normal procedure at every race.

Giorgio  Ascanelli  did  not  come to  Fuji. Worried about  another  potential  Air  Traffic Controller's  strike  preventing  Father  Christmas  from  delivering  a  2009  car,  our technical director decided to stay at home and make his own. Going into the final race of the season, Scuderia Toro Rosso has one win and 34
points. Last year it scored a total of 8.