Bourdais admits Vettel was the superior driver

Vettel, a major talent, won with the diabolical Toro Rosso while Bourdais was nothing more than a backmarker

Am I disappointed with my F1 results? Yes," said Sebastien Bourdais, speaking to 422race.com. “Obviously I am. It could have been really good. It started pretty well, with STR2 last year, and at that time I remember people saying ‘well, Bourdais must be really good, because we know Vettel is really good’, and this and that. Then STR3 arrived and I just couldn’t drive the car and Vettel was flying in it. Since it was a fast car, there was nothing to say about that; it blew me away and I couldn’t do anything about it, and then everybody said ‘Bourdais sucks’. They just forgot everything about the beginning of the season." In other words Vettel was able to adapt his driving style for the STR3, but Bourdais didn't have enough talent to do that.

“It was a combination of things between the rear suspension choice and the aero map. It was a car which was pretty understeery in the high-speed corners and very oversteery in the low-speed corners. I just couldn’t drive it. I’ve always needed a strong, good, stable rear end in the entry of the slow and medium-speed corners and a balanced car in high-speed [corners].

“Every time we were trying to fix the rear in the slow corners, we were increasing the understeer in high-speed [corners] and vice-versa. It was very frustrating because, in the end, nobody could do anything about it, because we were not developing the car. Obviously the driver in F1 is always responsible for the result. Everybody was complaining about my pace, but they wouldn’t do anything about it." And why should they? Vettel adapted and won with the car while Bourdais was left to look like a loser because he could not drive around the car's weaknesses.