Grand Prix Rejects

eurobrun wrote:

LellaLombardi wrote:Mark my words, we haven't seen the last of her in motorsport just yet.

I hope so, I can imagine her competing in touring cars some time in the future.

Didn't she drive a Chevy Lacetti in the WTCC once or twice? Or was it her dad

kostas22 wrote:

eurobrun wrote:

LellaLombardi wrote:Mark my words, we haven't seen the last of her in motorsport just yet.

I hope so, I can imagine her competing in touring cars some time in the future.

Didn't she drive a Chevy Lacetti in the WTCC once or twice? Or was it her dad

She did a race in the SuperStars series in 2008 I think. Other that that I don't know.

eurobrun wrote:

kostas22 wrote:

eurobrun wrote:I hope so, I can imagine her competing in touring cars some time in the future.

Didn't she drive a Chevy Lacetti in the WTCC once or twice? Or was it her dad

She did a race in the SuperStars series in 2008 I think. Other that that I don't know.

After checking Wikipedia, it turns out I was indeed correct. She competed in a privateer Chevrolet Lacetti at her home round of the series in 2006 and 2007. 18th, 20th, 21st and Ret were her four results, so not great...

Don't get too excited. This news at first means nothing aside from the - obviously most important news, when you think about it - fact that she won't die on us. Her racing prospects at the moment are still darker than black.

And it's going to take a long time before she even thinks about racing again. She needs rehabilitation first, training too. It'll take a year or two I reckon.

Haryanto and Chilton are now eligible for superlicence after performing in Young Drivers test.

Bleu wrote:Haryanto and Chilton are now eligible for superlicence after performing in Young Drivers test.

Yep, which means that we should expect one or both to become de facto reserve drivers for the team in the absence of de Villota, though I doubt the team will make any formal announcement until Maria is fully recovered.

Good news for the team was that they got a fair bit of running done over the two days of the test, and were able to calibrate their recent upgrade package for Silverstone, having missed out on the running at Duxford, as well as the wet practice session during the Grand Prix. They're pretty confident after Glock finished just 25 seconds behind Kovalainen in the race that the upgrades are working, so it'll be interesting to see how they progress over the next few races!

Also, as an aside, Pic ran in the team's demo car, that old Super Aguri, in Moscow today, coinciding with the inaugural races at the Moscow Raceway.

Bleu wrote:Haryanto and Chilton are now eligible for superlicence after performing in Young Drivers test.

And I predict that one of them will end up in the second Marussia next year.

eurobrun wrote:

Bleu wrote:Haryanto and Chilton are now eligible for superlicence after performing in Young Drivers test.

And I predict that one of them will end up in the second Marussia next year.

And I also predict Charles Pic disappearing in the Curse of the second Marussia/Virgin driver. (Sorry, AndreaModa.)

Bleu wrote:Haryanto and Chilton are now eligible for superlicence after performing in Young Drivers test.

This is looking good, but my question is: Why the Marussias are so fast in YDT?
(Yes, I admit I'm Indonesian, but I'm currently living overseas, hence why I say it's good that, especially towards Haryanto)

AndreaModa wrote:Also, as an aside, Pic ran in the team's demo car, that old Super Aguri, in Moscow today, coinciding with the inaugural races at the Moscow Raceway.

How they get those Super Aguris?

FMecha wrote:

Bleu wrote:Haryanto and Chilton are now eligible for superlicence after performing in Young Drivers test.

This is looking good, but my question is: Why the Marussias are so fast in YDT?
(Yes, I admit I'm Indonesian, but I'm currently living overseas, hence why I say it's good that, especially towards Haryanto)

Wow, until then I had absolutely no idea where you were from.

FMecha wrote:

Bleu wrote:Haryanto and Chilton are now eligible for superlicence after performing in Young Drivers test.

This is looking good, but my question is: Why the Marussias are so fast in YDT?
(Yes, I admit I'm Indonesian, but I'm currently living overseas, hence why I say it's good that, especially towards Haryanto)

Part of that is probably simply down to the track conditions being significantly better than they were during the race weekend itself - the track would have been quite well rubbered in (something which would have continued thanks to Bottas racking up several hundred km of test mileage), whilst the ambient and track temperatures were a little more favourable too. Furthermore, the YDT drivers could have drawn on the information that Marussia gathered during the race itself, which would have been beneficial for their set up work.

On another note, Marussia have been holding an internal enquiry into the events behind de Villota's accident, which has been running alongside two other investigations (one by an independent forensics team specialising in accidents and a second enquiry being held by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE)). Marussia have published a statement on their investigation which, they feel, rules out any issues with the car:

Team principal John Booth said: "We are satisfied that the findings of our internal investigation exclude the car as a factor in the accident. We have shared and discussed our findings with the HSE for their consideration as part of their ongoing investigation.

"This has been a necessarily thorough process in order to understand the cause of the accident. We have now concluded our investigatory work and can again focus on the priority, which continues to be Maria's wellbeing. In that regard, we continue to support Maria and the De Villota family in any way we can."

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/101236

By the sounds of things, therefore, the cause of the accident seems to be human error rather than mechanical problems, though it should be stressed that the other two investigations are likely to shed more detail on what went wrong.

FMecha wrote:

AndreaModa wrote:Also, as an aside, Pic ran in the team's demo car, that old Super Aguri, in Moscow today, coinciding with the inaugural races at the Moscow Raceway.

How they get those Super Aguris?

The car was bought at the liquidation auction by FV10, who ran it for a while, and then I believe was bought by Virgin in 2010.

What is the point of straight line tests anyway? Does it act like a big wind tunnel?

pasta_maldonado wrote:What is the point of straight line tests anyway? Does it act like a big wind tunnel?

It allows the teams to verify the performance and characteristics of new aerodynamic parts in real life rather than through CFD or a windtunnel where it would be a smaller model version of the car.

Just came across a news update / prediction :

Germany's Auto Motor und Sport said Marussia is planning to release "within the next ten days" a further report about the circumstances leading up to de Villota's impact with a stationary truck.

The report said the finding will depict a "chain of unfortunate circumstances and mistakes" that led to the front of her helmet striking the truck loading ramp.

Auto Motor und Sport said de Villota's trajectory from the Duxford runway to the temporary pits included a curve, resulting in her struggling to find the clutch lever as the steering wheel was not in the normal 9 and 3 o'clock position.

Spaniard de Villota had reportedly already forgotten to push the neutral button, and with cold tyres and brakes then struggled to stop the car as the 750hp engine powered it forwards in a low gear.

A role may also have been played by "panic", or "doing the wrong thing at the wrong moment", the German publication added

madmark1974 wrote:Just came across a news update / prediction :

Germany's Auto Motor und Sport said Marussia is planning to release "within the next ten days" a further report about the circumstances leading up to de Villota's impact with a stationary truck.

The report said the finding will depict a "chain of unfortunate circumstances and mistakes" that led to the front of her helmet striking the truck loading ramp.

Auto Motor und Sport said de Villota's trajectory from the Duxford runway to the temporary pits included a curve, resulting in her struggling to find the clutch lever as the steering wheel was not in the normal 9 and 3 o'clock position.

Spaniard de Villota had reportedly already forgotten to push the neutral button, and with cold tyres and brakes then struggled to stop the car as the 750hp engine powered it forwards in a low gear.

A role may also have been played by "panic", or "doing the wrong thing at the wrong moment", the German publication added

That's an unfortunate conclusion, should that report be proven correct, but perhaps one that shouldn't come as much of a surprise. All rookies, new in a car, are going to make mistakes, it's just that here those mistakes have resulted in a freak accident with pretty awful circumstances.

On a more positive note, Maria is now completely out of hospital, having been transferred to Spain previously, so now the only further surgery she'll undergo will be corrective plastic surgery to restore her facial features as much as possible to prior to the incident.

Henrique wrote:http://www.gpupdate.net/en/f1-news/282238/tension-suspected-between-marussia-team-mates/

Looks like the perfect excuse to get rid of Timo then

I don't understand the nature of Glock's complaint. He's upset that Pic is blocking him? How does that work? It's not like Glock is lapping him. I'd say Pic is defending his position ...

Captain Hammer wrote:I don't understand the nature of Glock's complaint. He's upset that Pic is blocking him? How does that work? It's not like Glock is lapping him. I'd say Pic is defending his position ...

Unless Glock was complaining that he felt that Pic was holding him up in qualifying, perhaps? A number of teams do tend to send their drivers out reasonably close together, so Glock could be complaining that Pic is going too slowly on his out lap and compromising him in Q1.
It can't have been in the race itself, because Glock was stuck behind the HRT's for much of the race (having fallen behind them thanks to his spin in the opening laps), and even then he was arguably slower than Pic when he finally was in clean air in the final stint. Unless this is a case of a disheartened and frustrated Glock trying to impose himself on the team given that Pic has been beating him in the past few races (both in qualifying and race trim)...

Pointless bickering on Timo's part IMO.
Most likely he just realised the situation he's in and vents his fury on Pic, who seems to get the better of older and much more experienced Timo.

mario wrote:

Captain Hammer wrote:I don't understand the nature of Glock's complaint. He's upset that Pic is blocking him? How does that work? It's not like Glock is lapping him. I'd say Pic is defending his position ...

Unless Glock was complaining that he felt that Pic was holding him up in qualifying, perhaps? A number of teams do tend to send their drivers out reasonably close together, so Glock could be complaining that Pic is going too slowly on his out lap and compromising him in Q1.
It can't have been in the race itself, because Glock was stuck behind the HRT's for much of the race (having fallen behind them thanks to his spin in the opening laps), and even then he was arguably slower than Pic when he finally was in clean air in the final stint. Unless this is a case of a disheartened and frustrated Glock trying to impose himself on the team given that Pic has been beating him in the past few races (both in qualifying and race trim)...

I suppose that Glock was talking about qualifying, I don't think he was saying that Pic had to let him pass during the race... actually Glock was almost a lap behind Pic if I'm not wrong, so I suppose that was impossible to be blocked by Pic during the race.

If Glock decides to leave Marussia, anyone think a Pic-Chilton combo would be good?

BaconLettuceNinja wrote:If Glock decides to leave Marussia, anyone think a Pic-Chilton combo would be good?

For Marussia's bank account, yeah.

In terms of results, not so much.

kostas22 wrote:

BaconLettuceNinja wrote:If Glock decides to leave Marussia, anyone think a Pic-Chilton combo would be good?

For Marussia's bank account, yeah.

In terms of results, not so much.

It's not like they're getting any good results now though...and Pic is starting to get the better of Glock.

kostas22 wrote:

BaconLettuceNinja wrote:If Glock decides to leave Marussia, anyone think a Pic-Chilton combo would be good?

For Marussia's bank account, yeah.

In terms of results, not so much.

I'm pretty sure Pic can take over on the results side of things, given that he's been showing Glock up recently.

BaconLettuceNinja wrote:

kostas22 wrote:

BaconLettuceNinja wrote:If Glock decides to leave Marussia, anyone think a Pic-Chilton combo would be good?

For Marussia's bank account, yeah.

In terms of results, not so much.

It's not like they're getting any good results now though...and Pic is starting to get the better of Glock.

I personally see Glock coming to the end of his useful life with Marussia, he's had three seasons, plenty of time to input his knowledge into the development of the car, and the team have only fell further behind Fernandes' team in their various guises. They need to take a gamble, and Pic could be the driver to do so with, and then bring in someone else to train up. Whether that's Chilton, or even Haryanto, I don't know, but it would be good to see the team adopt a bit more of an aggressive strategy, ditch Glock and see where it takes them.

Sunshine_Baby_[IT] wrote:

mario wrote:

Captain Hammer wrote:I don't understand the nature of Glock's complaint. He's upset that Pic is blocking him? How does that work? It's not like Glock is lapping him. I'd say Pic is defending his position ...

Unless Glock was complaining that he felt that Pic was holding him up in qualifying, perhaps? A number of teams do tend to send their drivers out reasonably close together, so Glock could be complaining that Pic is going too slowly on his out lap and compromising him in Q1.
It can't have been in the race itself, because Glock was stuck behind the HRT's for much of the race (having fallen behind them thanks to his spin in the opening laps), and even then he was arguably slower than Pic when he finally was in clean air in the final stint. Unless this is a case of a disheartened and frustrated Glock trying to impose himself on the team given that Pic has been beating him in the past few races (both in qualifying and race trim)...

I suppose that Glock was talking about qualifying, I don't think he was saying that Pic had to let him pass during the race... actually Glock was almost a lap behind Pic if I'm not wrong, so I suppose that was impossible to be blocked by Pic during the race.

He did finish a lap down on Pic after the race, and in the latter stages of the race he was coming under pressure from De La Rosa (he finished barely half a second ahead of De La Rosa) and was lucky not to finish in last place altogether.

AndreaModa wrote:I personally see Glock coming to the end of his useful life with Marussia, he's had three seasons, plenty of time to input his knowledge into the development of the car, and the team have only fell further behind Fernandes' team in their various guises. They need to take a gamble, and Pic could be the driver to do so with, and then bring in someone else to train up. Whether that's Chilton, or even Haryanto, I don't know, but it would be good to see the team adopt a bit more of an aggressive strategy, ditch Glock and see where it takes them.

Given that Glock has sometimes vented his frustration about Marussia (such that a lot of commentators were surprised that he chose to sign a contract with them for multiple years), you do wonder whether he is supporting the team to the best of his abilities or, as some have suggested, he is beginning to get a little apathetic behind the wheel.
Mind you, what Marussia really desperately needs is a major infusion of capital - they simply lack the budget for any really meaningful development work (consider that Caterham, for example, can only afford to develop part of their car this season (the mechanical internals of the car have seen relatively little refinement), and that is a team with considerably more resources). kostas22 is right that Chilton could potentially give Marussia's coffers a boost, but if Glock is failing to deliver on the few areas he can trade on as an experienced driver - such as in set up work - then why should Marussia keep him on board?

So if one of Marussia's drivers IS to be replaced, I am now extremely sad that Maria di Villota is not in a position to capitalise...

All this is a shame really. I like Glock since his Toyota days and I think he is wasting his talent in a Marussia. Realistically though, if he doesn't pull the results (i.e. consistently beating his rookie team-mate) then probably he has no place in F1 anymore.

dr-baker wrote:So if one of Marussia's drivers IS to be replaced, I am now extremely sad that Maria di Villota is not in a position to capitalise...

I'm sure we'd have all liked to have seen it, but come on dude, there was no way in hell she was ever going to get a race drive. I doubt she would have even made a Friday practice session to be honest.

AndreaModa wrote:

dr-baker wrote:So if one of Marussia's drivers IS to be replaced, I am now extremely sad that Maria di Villota is not in a position to capitalise...

I'm sure we'd have all liked to have seen it, but come on dude, there was no way in hell she was ever going to get a race drive. I doubt she would have even made a Friday practice session to be honest.

In my heart of hearts, I knew it, but can't a man have dreams? / /

AndreaModa wrote:I'm sure we'd have all liked to have seen it, but come on dude, there was no way in hell she was ever going to get a race drive. I doubt she would have even made a Friday practice session to be honest.

Exactly. If Glock is out, it's far more likely that Max Chilton or Rio Haryanto will join the team in his stead.

What kind of backing does Haryanto have? Don't see how he can compete with Chilton's endless stream of money from Bank of Rich Daddy unless his financers have some serious clout.

kostas22 wrote:What kind of backing does Haryanto have? Don't see how he can compete with Chilton's endless stream of money from Bank of Rich Daddy unless his financers have some serious clout.

http://rioharyanto.com/sponsor.php
Apparently Rio is backed by state-controlled refinery, mobile operator, national airlines, stationary manufacturer and... anti-drug bureau?

Pointrox wrote:

kostas22 wrote:What kind of backing does Haryanto have? Don't see how he can compete with Chilton's endless stream of money from Bank of Rich Daddy unless his financers have some serious clout.

http://rioharyanto.com/sponsor.php
Apparently Rio is backed by state-controlled refinery, mobile operator, national airlines, stationary manufacturer and... anti-drug bureau?

Aye, he's got cash, but he's not quite as good at this moment in time...he could do with another year in GP2 just to develop some consistency. Chilton's come on leaps and bounds this season, so I think he'd be a good fit for 2013.

BaconLettuceNinja wrote:

Pointrox wrote:

kostas22 wrote:What kind of backing does Haryanto have? Don't see how he can compete with Chilton's endless stream of money from Bank of Rich Daddy unless his financers have some serious clout.

http://rioharyanto.com/sponsor.php
Apparently Rio is backed by state-controlled refinery, mobile operator, national airlines, stationary manufacturer and... anti-drug bureau?

Aye, he's got cash, but he's not quite as good at this moment in time...he could do with another year in GP2 just to develop some consistency. Chilton's come on leaps and bounds this season, so I think he'd be a good fit for 2013.

Does anybody think that Robert Wickens might stand a chance? He is a Formula Renault 3.5 champion, which would mean that he is definitely eligible for a superlicence, has links to Marussia (he was sponsored by Marussia in FR3.5 and was their reserve driver in 2011) and is developing some links with Mercedes's Junior Driver program.
Given that Marussia are trying to develop a relationship with McLaren, and potentially Mercedes too (if they want KERS in the future, as an example, the Mercedes system would be very attractive), that could be just as attractive as Chilton's cash if they could get similar backing to what Di Resta is reported to bring to Force India.

Pointrox wrote:

kostas22 wrote:What kind of backing does Haryanto have? Don't see how he can compete with Chilton's endless stream of money from Bank of Rich Daddy unless his financers have some serious clout.

http://rioharyanto.com/sponsor.php
Apparently Rio is backed by state-controlled refinery, mobile operator, national airlines, stationary manufacturer and... anti-drug bureau?

Because, in Indonesia (admit it, I and Haryanto are both Indonesian), [illicit] drugs is a very great issue.

Klein, Sato, luca b