Grand Prix Rejects

kostas22 wrote:The only championship Sebastian Vettel won before racing in Formula One was the Formula BMW ADAC in 2004.

Ah, but he did get experience of challenging for a title against Gary Paffett, which is important experience for a driver to get. Having split the season between GP3 and Formula Renault 3.5, AFDC has missed out on developing the skills one gets from conducting a title battle.

P.S. Don't know if it will influence you to lobby for him to get a seat, but I believe that Davide Valsecchi is a fellow Inter supporter.

Backmarker wrote:

kostas22 wrote:The only championship Sebastian Vettel won before racing in Formula One was the Formula BMW ADAC in 2004.

Ah, but he did get experience of challenging for a title against Gary Paffett, which is important experience for a driver to get. Having split the season between GP3 and Formula Renault 3.5, AFDC has missed out on developing the skills one gets from conducting a title battle.

P.S. Don't know if it will influence you to lobby for him to get a seat, but I believe that Davide Valsecchi is a fellow Inter supporter.

Add the fact that ac Milan are 15th in the table now seems to be a good time to be an internazionale fan

Zetec wrote:Some new rumours suggest, that Karthikeyan may be up for another year with HRT, if he's able to raise the biggest bag of money.
German sources on the other hand claimed, that he's in talk with Force India.

An Indian driver at Force India? Craziness!

the Masked Lapwing wrote:Half a season in an HRT. Just ask Senna, Chandhok, Klien and Liuzzi what that's done for their careers

Well, you ask Senna, and you find out it got him a Lotus drive, which led to a Williams drive. If he hadn't been in that HRT then Lotus wouldn't have taken him on a reserve, so Heidfeld's replacement would have been someone else, and thus Bruno would never have ended up at Williams afterwards.

kostas22 wrote:Well, you ask Senna, and you find out it got him a Lotus drive, which led to a Williams drive. If he hadn't been in that HRT then Lotus wouldn't have taken him on a reserve, so Heidfeld's replacement would have been someone else, and thus Bruno would never have ended up at Williams afterwards.

No, money got him the Lotus and Williams drives.

Captain Hammer wrote:

kostas22 wrote:Well, you ask Senna, and you find out it got him a Lotus drive, which led to a Williams drive. If he hadn't been in that HRT then Lotus wouldn't have taken him on a reserve, so Heidfeld's replacement would have been someone else, and thus Bruno would never have ended up at Williams afterwards.

No, money got him the Lotus and Williams drives.

I'd say his HRT experience for Lotus and money for Williams.

kostas22 wrote:

the Masked Lapwing wrote:

BaconLettuceNinja wrote:Toro Rosso should can Ricciardo already, what Da Costa has done in FR3.5 is quite incredible.

Why Ricciardo? He's been destroying Vergne recently, he's scored in four of the last five races (and it should be 5/5) while Vergne's only scored twice (but arguably three if the old man hadn't been involved). Plus he only finished behind Vergne in Korea because he had a brake problem, and when you consider he started from amongst the Marussias...

You are the only person in the known universe who supports Daniel Ricciardo.

I bring you to this post from after the Japanese GP. For the record, it's now 8-2 and 5-2 respectively in Ricciardo's favour but if it wasn't for the Toro Rosso's brakes going to shite near the end, it'd be 6-1.

Backmarker wrote:

kostas22 wrote:The only championship Sebastian Vettel won before racing in Formula One was the Formula BMW ADAC in 2004.

Ah, but he did get experience of challenging for a title against Gary Paffett.

Enough said

eurobrun wrote:

Backmarker wrote:

kostas22 wrote:The only championship Sebastian Vettel won before racing in Formula One was the Formula BMW ADAC in 2004.

Ah, but he did get experience of challenging for a title against Gary Paffett.

Enough said

If you're talking about Euro F3, it was di Resta not Paffett.

van der Garde's got another practice session at the Indian GP...looks like he could be in with a big shout of a Caterham seat next season.

BaconLettuceNinja wrote:van der Garde's got another practice session at the Indian GP...looks like he could be in with a big shout of a Caterham seat next season.

I don't know why anyone would want to go there though. It'll kill his career.

pasta_maldonado wrote:

BaconLettuceNinja wrote:van der Garde's got another practice session at the Indian GP...looks like he could be in with a big shout of a Caterham seat next season.

I don't know why anyone would want to go there though. It'll kill his career.

Did he have a career to speak of in the first place?

Nuppiz wrote:

pasta_maldonado wrote:

BaconLettuceNinja wrote:van der Garde's got another practice session at the Indian GP...looks like he could be in with a big shout of a Caterham seat next season.

I don't know why anyone would want to go there though. It'll kill his career.

Did he have a career to speak of in the first place?

If by "career" you mean "bank account", then yes.

JeremyMcClean wrote:

Captain Hammer wrote:

kostas22 wrote:Well, you ask Senna, and you find out it got him a Lotus drive, which led to a Williams drive. If he hadn't been in that HRT then Lotus wouldn't have taken him on a reserve, so Heidfeld's replacement would have been someone else, and thus Bruno would never have ended up at Williams afterwards.

No, money got him the Lotus and Williams drives.

I'd say his HRT experience for Lotus and money for Williams.

I would say that money helped him into the seat at Lotus more than his experience at HRT - the team did have a few financial problems hanging over from their 2010 season (Boullier did mention that the team had spent more heavily than anticipated in 2010 in an attempt to reel in Mercedes), so the extra cash that Bruno brought in would have been very welcome indeed.

BaconLettuceNinja wrote:van der Garde's got another practice session at the Indian GP...looks like he could be in with a big shout of a Caterham seat next season.

It has also been announced that Max Chilton will be driving in FP1 in Abu Dhabi - early days yet, so it is dangerous to read too much into it, but it sounds as if he is angling for a potential race seat next year?

Petrov to HRT.
You've heard it here first.

solarcold wrote:Petrov to HRT.
You've heard it here first.

No...not here. I heard it somewhere else earlier. His manager says that Petrov has has contact from two teams other than Caterham - despite claims to the contrary, it only makes sense for those to be two from Force India, HRT and Marussia, and of those I would say that HRT would be most amenable to having him. I do wonder what the line up will be next year, de la Rosa - Petrov, de la Rosa - Clos, Petrov - Clos, or some other combination involving Karthikeyan and/or Ma.

Maybe they will have De La Rosa and Karthikeyan/Petrov in a Red Bull-esque rotation.

Petrov to Force India.
You heard it here first.

Klon wrote:Maybe they will have De La Rosa and Karthikeyan/Petrov in a Red Bull-esque rotation.

So, Petrov for a couple of races, then Karthikeyan for a couple of races, then Petrov for the rest of the season after proving he is an infinitely superior driver.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/20093455 Paul di Resta disappointed at missing out on big name drives

Any fondness I had for him is well and truly gone. Maybe he's trying to compete with Lewis for the biggest spoilt brat in the paddock prize.

Face it, you weren't good enough. Hulkenberg has had the measure of him this year and of course any team boss is going to go for the man who put a Sauber on the podium three times.

If di Resta is very lucky, he might be the new Jenson Button and sneak a flukey title one day. But he's no more than that.

LellaLombardi wrote:http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/20093455 Paul di Resta disappointed at missing out on big name drives

Any fondness I had for him is well and truly gone. Maybe he's trying to compete with Lewis for the biggest spoilt brat in the paddock prize.

Face it, you weren't good enough. Hulkenberg has had the measure of him this year and of course any team boss is going to go for the man who put a Sauber on the podium three times.

If di Resta is very lucky, he might be the new Jenson Button and sneak a flukey title one day. But he's no more than that.

Whoops, I just posted this on the Indian GP discussion thread. It's like he's read his F1 Slate persona's various comments and thought, "Yeah, that seems reasonable."

LellaLombardi wrote:http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/20093455 Paul di Resta disappointed at missing out on big name drives

Any fondness I had for him is well and truly gone. Maybe he's trying to compete with Lewis for the biggest spoilt brat in the paddock prize.

Face it, you weren't good enough. Hulkenberg has had the measure of him this year and of course any team boss is going to go for the man who put a Sauber on the podium three times.

If di Resta is very lucky, he might be the new Jenson Button and sneak a flukey title one day. But he's no more than that.

I wouldn't say that Hulkenberg has totally had the measure of Di Resta this season - on the contrary, over the course of this season the balance between the two drivers has been fairly even (Hulkenberg is only one point ahead of Di Resta, with Di Resta spending 412 laps ahead of Hulkenberg and Hulkenberg spending 425 laps ahead of Di Resta this season).

LellaLombardi wrote:http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/20093455 Paul di Resta disappointed at missing out on big name drives

Any fondness I had for him is well and truly gone. Maybe he's trying to compete with Lewis for the biggest spoilt brat in the paddock prize.

I've actually heard that di Resta does not get along very well with his engineers. Apparently he ignores their advice, can't fully articulate what he wants from the car, and gets upset with them when the car doesn't do what he expects it to.

I've also heard that this is the major reason why McLaren didn't want him, though they'd never admit to it. Apparently Hamilton wasn't getting along with his mechanics, either, particularly after the Twitter incident in Belgium. The team didn't want to swap one driver who wasn't getting along with the team for another cut from the same cloth.

That said, I've heard that Paul di Resta was never in the frame for a drive at McLaren, which makes sense given how quickly they signed Sergio Perez up. It seems that there was never anything connecting di Resta to the vacant McLaren seat than media speculation, most of it fuelled by the British press in general and David Coulthard in particular. Which, when you think of it, is a pretty scathing assessment of his abilities.

Captain Hammer wrote:

LellaLombardi wrote:http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/20093455 Paul di Resta disappointed at missing out on big name drives

Any fondness I had for him is well and truly gone. Maybe he's trying to compete with Lewis for the biggest spoilt brat in the paddock prize.

I've actually heard that di Resta does not get along very well with his engineers. Apparently he ignores their advice, can't fully articulate what he wants from the car, and gets upset with them when the car doesn't do what he expects it to.

I've also heard that this is the major reason why McLaren didn't want him, though they'd never admit to it. Apparently Hamilton wasn't getting along with his mechanics, either, particularly after the Twitter incident in Belgium. The team didn't want to swap one driver who wasn't getting along with the team for another cut from the same cloth.

That said, I've heard that Paul di Resta was never in the frame for a drive at McLaren, which makes sense given how quickly they signed Sergio Perez up. It seems that there was never anything connecting di Resta to the vacant McLaren seat than media speculation, most of it fuelled by the British press in general and David Coulthard in particular. Which, when you think of it, is a pretty scathing assessment of his abilities.

Not to worry, the British excuse machine is already here to rescue!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/motors ... in-F1.html

Other excuses to be used for di Resta:
- Perez does a better Gangnam Style dance
- Massa has a more famous cousin
- Sutil keeps glassing his tires
- The US Election
- Syrian Civil War
- The riots in Libya

According to Martin Brundle on Sky a minute ago, rumour has it the Lotus team might be changing ownership in the next few months. Make of that what you will.

Wizzie wrote:According to Martin Brundle on Sky a minute ago, rumour has it the Lotus team might be changing ownership in the next few months. Make of that what you will.

From Genii Capital to someone else? I guess it makes sense, given that we knew the Group Lotus money couldn't be that secure. Will be interesting to see who the new buyer is - David Richards, turning the team into Aston Martin Cosworth?

Wizzie wrote:According to Martin Brundle on Sky a minute ago, rumour has it the Lotus team might be changing ownership in the next few months. Make of that what you will.

If Lotus would be renamed again, they would tie with Mercedes (4 previous names)

pi314159 wrote:

Wizzie wrote:According to Martin Brundle on Sky a minute ago, rumour has it the Lotus team might be changing ownership in the next few months. Make of that what you will.

If Lotus would be renamed again, they would tie with Mercedes (4 previous names)

I don't really see how, BAR > Honda > Brawn > Mercedes. In mo opinion BAR was a completely new team and not related to any predecessors

eurobrun wrote:

pi314159 wrote:

Wizzie wrote:According to Martin Brundle on Sky a minute ago, rumour has it the Lotus team might be changing ownership in the next few months. Make of that what you will.

If Lotus would be renamed again, they would tie with Mercedes (4 previous names)

I don't really see how, BAR > Honda > Brawn > Mercedes. In mo opinion BAR was a completely new team and not related to any predecessors

British American Tobacco were the actual owners of Tyrrell in 1998, so I see it as being related...

East Londoner wrote:

eurobrun wrote:

pi314159 wrote:
If Lotus would be renamed again, they would tie with Mercedes (4 previous names)

I don't really see how, BAR > Honda > Brawn > Mercedes. In mo opinion BAR was a completely new team and not related to any predecessors

British American Tobacco were the actual owners of Tyrrell in 1998, so I see it as being related...

And they probably would have been better off in 1999 if they just updated the 98 Tyrrell and stuck some BAT stickers on it

Wizzie wrote:

East Londoner wrote:British American Tobacco were the actual owners of Tyrrell in 1998, so I see it as being related...

And they probably would have been better off in 1999 if they just updated the 98 Tyrrell and stuck some BAT stickers on it

I doubt that, the BAR was definitely a quicker car - not exactly reliable, of course, but the '98 Tyrrell never was anywhere near to places where Villeneuve at least occasionally could take the BAR.

QuickYoda41 wrote:

Wizzie wrote:

East Londoner wrote:British American Tobacco were the actual owners of Tyrrell in 1998, so I see it as being related...

And they probably would have been better off in 1999 if they just updated the 98 Tyrrell and stuck some BAT stickers on it

I doubt that, the BAR was definitely a quicker car - not exactly reliable, of course, but the '98 Tyrrell never was anywhere near to places where Villeneuve at least occasionally could take the BAR.

But at least it wouldn't blown up anywhere near as often. Plus it never would have gone quick enough for Zonta to write them off anyway

The Team Lotus sale should be interesting to follow. Hopefully they will find a owner who 1) cares about Formula One as a sport, not just as an investment 2) has enough money to invest in the right things. I don't really know if selling the team to Proton would be a good thing?

I'd like to see David Richards and Kimi Raikkonen work together though

Backmarker wrote:

Wizzie wrote:According to Martin Brundle on Sky a minute ago, rumour has it the Lotus team might be changing ownership in the next few months. Make of that what you will.

From Genii Capital to someone else? I guess it makes sense, given that we knew the Group Lotus money couldn't be that secure. Will be interesting to see who the new buyer is - David Richards, turning the team into Aston Martin Cosworth?

Prodrive did submit a rival bid to Genii Capital when Renault announced that they were cutting their ties with the team, but whether Richards would consider having a second crack at buying out the Enstone outfit remains to be seen. He has been rather critical of the current regulations for being too restrictive, and he has been especially critical of the top four teams in the sport for watering down spending caps in order to protect their position.

Speaking of budget caps, Bernie has been suggesting, as part of the ongoing discussions about the Concorde Agreement, that a budget cap should be put in place across the teams, although he was suggesting that it should cover all aspects of the team (including driver salaries), not just their technical activities. Mind you, Bernie's suggestion wasn't exactly restrictive - he was suggesting a limit of £155 million should be put in place.
By way of comparison, McLaren's estimated expenditure for 2011 was £160 million, whilst Mercedes's accounts indicate they spent £125 million - only Red Bull Racing and Ferrari would, by the sounds of things, be especially badly burned by such a deal (Ferrari's accounts do not seem to have been published yet, whilst Red Bull Racing spent about £177 million - however, that only covers 52 key employees (the BBC claim that sum rises to £210 million once the activities of Red Bull Technologies, where Red Bull's design team is based (and has nearly 500 employees in total, though some of those are Toro Rosso staff), are factored into account). Perhaps Bernie is trying a little bit of his old "divide and conquer" tactics by suggesting a limit that might appease the medium sized teams but antagonise the larger teams?

Interestingly, though, Whitmarsh has been rather critical of Bernie's proposals, even though arguably McLaren might benefit from that budget cap (if that figure of £160 million is reasonably accurate, they are only just over the spending limit of £155 million whereas their two major rivals seem to be spending significantly more than them if the accounts are reasonably accurate). http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/20110248

mario wrote:Interestingly, though, Whitmarsh has been rather critical of Bernie's proposals, even though arguably McLaren might benefit from that budget cap (if that figure of £160 million is reasonably accurate, they are only just over the spending limit of £155 million whereas their two major rivals seem to be spending significantly more than them if the accounts are reasonably accurate). http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/20110248

Well, you will not see any top team ever admit that a budget cap would be a good idea since the budget cap was the official reason for Formula Elaborate Bluff, so if they were ever to agree to a budget cap they'd pretty much publically state that their bluff was nothing but which would be a stab in the back to any future plans of threatening to break away from F1. Which is why we need a dictator to enforce the budget cap Führerbunker Style.

As far as Prodrive go: they can stay exactly where they are. F1 doesn't need failures like them, never had and never will.

Raikkonen confirmed at Lotus

Not surprised, really

Klon wrote:

mario wrote:Interestingly, though, Whitmarsh has been rather critical of Bernie's proposals, even though arguably McLaren might benefit from that budget cap (if that figure of £160 million is reasonably accurate, they are only just over the spending limit of £155 million whereas their two major rivals seem to be spending significantly more than them if the accounts are reasonably accurate). http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/20110248

Well, you will not see any top team ever admit that a budget cap would be a good idea since the budget cap was the official reason for Formula Elaborate Bluff, so if they were ever to agree to a budget cap they'd pretty much publically state that their bluff was nothing but which would be a stab in the back to any future plans of threatening to break away from F1. Which is why we need a dictator to enforce the budget cap Führerbunker Style.

As far as Prodrive go: they can stay exactly where they are. F1 doesn't need failures like them, never had and never will.

With the teams having a say in the overall running of the sport via the F1 Commission, Technical Working Group and several other assorted bodies, the FIA knows that the teams could potentially veto any changes the FIA wants to make to the regulations to enforce such a cap (Red Bull have made it clear that they will do exactly that if the FIA wants to impose a chassis cost cap but not an engine development cost cap). Other outfits, such as Williams, have made it explicitly clear that they would regard any attempt by the FIA to impose a cost cap as unwarranted intervention by the governing body in their internal affairs and that they would also veto an FIA cost cap.

As for Prodrive, I wouldn't exactly call them a failure when it comes to F1 - it is worth noting that they were responsible for the 2004 BAR-Honda (the most successful car that outfit produced) and were active for a fairly long time as an outside consultant to the sport. A Prodrive run team would, I expect, be fairly competently managed, which isn't something that you can say about every team on the grid right now.

JeremyMcClean wrote:Raikkonen confirmed at Lotus

Not surprised, really

I thought that Kimi signed a two year contract when he joined the team, so his seat for 2013 was pretty much secure for quite some time anyway. Besides, it isn't as if he could move to a more competitive team anyway given the top teams are already locking their drivers into long term contracts, so why would he have wanted to move anyway?

Vijay Mallya does not rule out Adrian Sutil returning, and does not confirm that The Hulk has left :

http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/10/29/mallya-sutil-formula-one-fi-force-india-idINDEE89S05520121029

Here's a snippet :

"I offered an extension to both drivers. I hear from the media that Nico has signed with Sauber. Well, if he has then good luck to him," said Mallya.

"I have not been officially notified by Nico of anything," added the principal. "He hasn't sat down with me and told me that. I would expect that he would if he was on his way...I have an excellent relationship with him, he's a wonderful guy. He's done well for us."

mario wrote:As for Prodrive, I wouldn't exactly call them a failure when it comes to F1 - it is worth noting that they were responsible for the 2004 BAR-Honda (the most successful car that outfit produced) and were active for a fairly long time as an outside consultant to the sport. A Prodrive run team would, I expect, be fairly competently managed, which isn't something that you can say about every team on the grid right now

They had their chance in 2008 and choked. Sure, they might be more professional now but nobody would take a rebirth of USF1 seriously, hardly anyone would take Dome seriously if they were to try to set up another F1 team even if either effort would be more professional than McLaren, Sauber and Williams combined so I personally refuse to give any bit of respect to David Richards and his bunch and their entries and from what we have seen neither does the FIA (thank HWNSNBM). I know this may be a bit harsh, but not turning up is the cardinal sin in all of F1 - for me, teams that have a grid slot but fail to make it to a race are worse than Andrea Moda. And I ain't takin' that back even if Richards' fifth attempt works out and we see Prodrive on the grid.