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Buemi glad of wet weather mileage

Scuderia Toro Rosso driver Sebastien Buemi believes that the past two days of wet testing at the Algarve circuit have helped his development as a Formula One driver

The 20-year-old has topped the first two days of the session running a 2008 Toro Rosso set up to simulate this year's lower downforce levels, but his track time was restricted by a heavy hailstorm in the middle of Tuesday afternoon.

He said that although he was frustrated that the circuit was only very briefly dry, it has been beneficial for him to get more mileage in a F1 car in wet conditions.

"It was important to drive because I have had just half a day in the wet before at Jerez and that is it," Buemi told autosport.com. "The track was slippery and there was no grip at all, so it gives you a really good feeling for what an F1 car can do and how it slides.

"But it is really frustrating when you wait all day for the circuit to get dry, you go out, do a couple of laps and then it is wet again. Then it takes ages to dry up. But that's life - it's the same for everybody."

Buemi added that an important part of his duties for this test was to work on many of the ancillary activities of driving an F1 car, such as operating the electronics and learning team procedures.

"This test is more for me to get used to the controls for the start and all of the procedures like the pit-stops and everything you can change on the car like the differential and the torque maps.

"Even if it's wet we try to work on that. If we can do that, then the test will be good for us."

Buemi will not have the chance to drive the 2009-specification Toro Rosso until March and his work with the team until then will focus on acclimatising to F1 and gaining seat time ahead of his debut season as a race driver.

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