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The worst kept secret in Formula One is now official.  Jaime Alguersuari will replace Sebastien Bourdais at Toro Rosso from the Hungarian Grand Prix this weekend.

The Spaniard has been competing in World Series by Renault and is the reigning British F3 Champion.  He will also be 19 years, 4 months and 3 days old on Sunday 26 July.

This will make him the youngest ever driver to compete in the Formula One World Championship, beating the previous record held by New Zealander Mike Thackwell of 19 years, 5 months and 1 day although this record is debatable.

Thackwell did line up on the grid at the 1980 Dutch Grand Prix but he was involved in an accident on the first lap which caused the race to be restarted.  According to the regulations, if a race is stopped on the first lap, that lap is annulled and the race is started again.  As Thackwell’s car didn’t make it to the grid for the restart, technically his first race was not until four years later.

This means the record was really held by Ricardo Rodríguez, the brother of Mexico’s only Grand Prix Winner Pedro Rodríguez, who was 19 years, 6 months and 27 days when he started the 1961 Italian Grand Prix.

Sebastian Vettel remains the youngest Formula One driver to appear at a race weekend, though.  In August 2006 he was BMW’s Friday driver at the Turkish Grand Prix when he was just 19 years, 1 month and 22 days old.

It is going to be hard for Alguersuari to make his debut half way through the season when he has never driven the car before and will have zero testing time but he seems to know what he is getting himself in for:

I am aware that I’m facing a very tough challenge, because coming into Formula One is never easy, coming into Formula One in the middle of a season is even harder and doing so without any testing is really difficult. But already I feel that I am getting great support from the team, who have quite a reputation for looking after rookie drivers.

Team boss Franz Tost seems to have limited expectations anyway:

I do not expect anything from him for at least his first three races, during which he has to get used to the car, the team and to the Formula One environment.

It seems a strange choice to me to drop (an admittedly struggling) Sebastien Bourdais for a rookie halfway through the season.

Toro Rosso will be bringing their new double diffuser to the Hungaroring this weekend.  It will be interesting to see what the two young drivers can do with it.

Image: Getty

According to a Nielsen survey, from February 2008 to February 2009 Twitter grew 1,382 percent and now has close to 2 million users.

And it’s not just your mates tweeting about what they had for breakfast, either.  Everyone from Barack Obama to Paris Hilton is using Twitter and a few Formula One drivers are, too.

There are official team Twitter pages like McLaren and Brawn GP, but some of the drivers also have their own Twitter accounts which can be a bit more personal.

Today there was this little exchange between Jenson Button, Rubens Barrichello and Nelson Piquet Jr:

It is expensive running a Formula One team these days and unless you are bankrolled by a billionaire or wealthy Middle East investors it can be hard for an independent team to make ends meet.

Despite leading the World Championship there is a distinct lack of sponsors on the mostly white Brawn GP cars so to raise some funds they are having a bit of a clear out, seeing what junk they can find lying around the factory and flogging it at auction.

Bonhams auction house will be selling a number of old Honda and BAR cars at the Silverstone Classic on 25 July including a chassis that was driven by Jenson Button to finish third in the 2006 Malaysian Grand Prix at Sepang.

Brawn CEO, Nick Fry said:

Brawn GP is extremely proud of our heritage with British American Tobacco and Honda, and we have inherited a vast collection of historic race cars and memorabilia from the team’s early years. We are delighted to be able to give collectors and our fans the opportunity to share in our history and purchase some fantastic items, including actual race cars, through this unique sale.

None of the cars have engines or gearboxes but even so the estimates look strangely affordable.  A show car will set you back £7000 – £10,000, while you can get one that Jenson Button himself raced for under £20,000.

I don’t know where I would put it but I am almost tempted to place a bid.

The prediction game results are up and Andrew has managed to take back the lead from Sergio.

A few people thought Mark Webber would score a podium on Sunday but only Andrew and I predicted he would be standing on the top step (and no, I didn’t peek at your predictions first, Andrew. ;-)).

Andrew also equals Miguel’s record for the highest score ever; 23  points out of a potential 34.

While there were a couple of predictions for McLaren and Renault no-one seemed to have hopes for Ferrari, despite Massa’s strong performance at Silverstone.  Ferrari have now scored two podiums this year and are running fourth in the Constructors’ Championship.

Ironically, now that Ferrari is starting to look stronger, team boss Stefano Domenicali told the BBC they are getting ready to stop development on the 2009 car and concentrate on next year’s challenger:

We’ve already started work on the new project and in the next couple of weeks we will move on to that. We want to start with a different pace compared to this year.

Image: Red Bull/Getty

No other Formula One driver has had to wait so long to score their first Grand Prix victory.  Rubens Barrichello took 124 starts, Jarno Trulli, 117 and Jenson Button, 113.  For Mark Webber it took 130 races and eight years but he finally did it.

And boy was he relieved.

We get a lot more of the radio communications being broadcast now and it’s always interesting to hear the conversations that go on between the teams and drivers.  During the race we hear drivers argue about whether to pit or not or give advice on which tyres to use next.

After the race the director always switches to the winning driver.  Usually there will be much congratulating between team and driver, perhaps with the occasional shout of victory, but of course it is being broadcast live so you can never be sure exactly what is going to be said.

For Mark Webber, as Martin Brundle commented, there was nothing scripted about his reaction to claiming his first Grand Prix victory and becoming only the third Australian ever to win in Formula One.

Best.  Radio communication.  Ever.

Image: Red Bull/Getty