Unpopular F1 opinions

[TomWazzleshaw]

Petrov is good enough to be in Formula 1 on merit.

I thought that was established as widespread opinion halfway through last year

[FullMetalJack]

Petrov is good enough to be in Formula 1 on merit.

I thought that was established as widespread opinion halfway through last year

I saw plenty of people stating in the 2013 Silly Season thread that he's only at Caterham because of his money.

[RonDenisDeletraz]

Sauber have currently the best driver pairing on the grid.

As an incredibly biased Sauber fan I agree with this.

[tommykl]

Bruno Senna is useless and does not deserve to be in F1 on his own merits.

I won't go as far as saying he's useless, but he is far from being part of the top half of the grid in terms of talent. If he got in on merit, then I can think of at least one driver who should have returned to Formula 1 before he did, that driver being Giorgio Pantano.Timo Glock did it, why couldn't he?

[CoopsII]

Sam Michael was useless at Williams and hes useless at Mclaren.

[DanielPT]

Sam Michael was useless at Williams and hes useless at Mclaren.

I actually agree with this. He is responsible for the team's trackside operations management and development in which I include pitstops and fuelling operations. Enough said, I guess.

[AndreaModa]

Sam Michael was useless at Williams and hes useless at Mclaren.

I actually agree with this. He is responsible for the team's trackside operations management and development in which I include pitstops and fuelling operations. Enough said, I guess.

I agree too. I reckon if McLaren throw away this year in the fashion they're currently doing, then a lot of people will moan about Martin Whitmarsh not being as good as Ron Dennis. Whilst that might be partly true, I think the real reason is the employment of Sam Michael. I always thought it was an odd decision, ever since he was at Williams the team were bloody awful, and I really don't think he's don much good at McLaren.

[TomWazzleshaw]

Sam Michael was useless at Williams and hes useless at Mclaren.

I actually agree with this. He is responsible for the team's trackside operations management and development in which I include pitstops and fuelling operations. Enough said, I guess.

I agree too. I reckon if McLaren throw away this year in the fashion they're currently doing, then a lot of people will moan about Martin Whitmarsh not being as good as Ron Dennis. Whilst that might be partly true, I think the real reason is the employment of Sam Michael. I always thought it was an odd decision, ever since he was at Williams the team were bloody awful, and I really don't think he's don much good at McLaren.

Sam Michael is, in my opinion, getting more and more overrated by the minute. It's telling that McLaren hired him in a completely different role to the one he held at Williams... not that it made much of a difference

[mario]

Sam Michael was useless at Williams and hes useless at Mclaren.

I actually agree with this. He is responsible for the team's trackside operations management and development in which I include pitstops and fuelling operations. Enough said, I guess.

I agree too. I reckon if McLaren throw away this year in the fashion they're currently doing, then a lot of people will moan about Martin Whitmarsh not being as good as Ron Dennis. Whilst that might be partly true, I think the real reason is the employment of Sam Michael. I always thought it was an odd decision, ever since he was at Williams the team were bloody awful, and I really don't think he's don much good at McLaren.

I think that quite a few people were wondering whether McLaren were making a wise decision in hiring Michael given his recent track record - yes, it is true that Michael has been successful in the past, but his style of management has been criticised in the past by former drivers at Williams (like Webber) and his recent record isn't stunning. True, given that he arrived at Williams as they were losing the support from BMW, which meant that the finances of the team were in a mess for the next few years, and realistically Williams's results from circa 2006 to 2010 were probably about as good as they could have been for a privateer team competing in a period of very heavy spending, but at the same time it did feel a little like Williams were lacking a sense of purpose at times.

Mind you, whilst Whitmarsh has done a decent enough job at McLaren, and took over in slightly tricky circumstances, I do feel that he has sometimes not been decisive enough - the issue of sluggish pit stops is one area where you feel that more should have been done at an earlier time. It wasn't until Bahrain that he announced that there would be a review of the teams proceedings in the pit lane (following that incident with Hamilton when they didn't move that tyre out of the way before he set off), and it wasn't until Monaco that they decided to make some modifications to reduce the chances of cross threaded wheel nuts.
Even now they haven't totally solved their issues in the pits - Hamilton's second pit stop in Canada cost him time, whilst Button's, although they went much more smoothly, were still a bit sluggish (his first two stops were 0.7s and 0.6s slower than Ferrari's stops - Ferrari's pit stops were very consistent too, with less than 0.02s difference between their fastest and slowest pit stops). Whilst Michael should be doing more to crack down on those problems as it is supposed to be part of his remit, given that there have been problems with sluggish pit stops at McLaren since last year at least, you would have thought that Whitmarsh should have called for an investigation to be held earlier in the year.

[Phoenix]

Petrov is good enough to be in Formula 1 on merit.

Just about!

I feel he's pushing Kovalainen a lot more than Trulli was.

Fixed.

[Ataxia]

- Jerome D'Ambrosio was actually quite good. He matched Timo Glock more often than not...
- Martin Brundle was good enough to have won a race.
- Rubens Barrichello probably wouldn't be doing a much better job than either Maldonado or Senna at Williams. Maldonado got his car into Q3 two or three times, and I don't think at any point Barrichello managed this (Barrichello just beat Maldonado 10-9 in qualifying, not including grid penalties). If partnered with Barrichello in 2012, I would expect Maldonado to have outqualified him more often than not and Barrichello to have scored about the same amount of points than Senna, maybe fewer.
- One Hot Minute was actually quite a good album (not bothered that this isn't even slightly related to F1).
- Senna can shine, he just needs some stability. It's not helped that he's had 3 seasons in F1 with 3 different teams, and speculation about Bottas replacing him can be unsettling. He needs to prove a point, but also mustn't try too hard to do so. He's got talent, maybe needs to calm down.

[Aerospeed]

- Jerome D'Ambrosio was actually quite good. He matched Timo Glock more often than not...
- Martin Brundle was good enough to have won a race.
- Rubens Barrichello probably wouldn't be doing a much better job than either Maldonado or Senna at Williams. Maldonado got his car into Q3 two or three times, and I don't think at any point Barrichello managed this (Barrichello just beat Maldonado 10-9 in qualifying, not including grid penalties). If partnered with Barrichello in 2012, I would expect Maldonado to have outqualified him more often than not and Barrichello to have scored about the same amount of points than Senna, maybe fewer.
- One Hot Minute was actually quite a good album (not bothered that this isn't even slightly related to F1).
- Senna can shine, he just needs some stability. It's not helped that he's had 3 seasons in F1 with 3 different teams, and speculation about Bottas replacing him can be unsettling. He needs to prove a point, but also mustn't try too hard to do so. He's got talent, maybe needs to calm down.

The first three are agreed on. Even if Barrichello is one of my favourite drivers

Never heard of 'One Hot Minute' so I can't say anything else about that

And Senna's way to unlucky to succeed in F1. He needs to get a good luck charm or jump out, so that someone else can have a shot of success in F1.

Also, a cousin of mine thinks Pastor Maldonado can contend for the second Ferrari seat Don't know where he gets this from, to be honest

[RonDenisDeletraz]

Bottas is overhyped and overrated, if he was in the Williams now then he would be doing worse than the current drivers.

[pasta_maldonado]

Jules Bianchi is massively unrelated. Don't know if this is unpopular or not

[Ataxia]

The first three are agreed on. Even if Barrichello is one of my favourite drivers

Never heard of 'One Hot Minute' so I can't say anything else about that

And Senna's way to unlucky to succeed in F1. He needs to get a good luck charm or jump out, so that someone else can have a shot of success in F1.

Also, a cousin of mine thinks Pastor Maldonado can contend for the second Ferrari seat Don't know where he gets this from, to be honest

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Hot_Minute

[AdrianSutil]

Jules Bianchi is massively unrelated. Don't know if this is unpopular or not

Unrelated or underrated?

I don't think he's anything special IMO. Just another overly-hyped driver who won't get a seat for several years.

[TomWazzleshaw]

I was thinking earlier today about how one diagnoses a driver with Fisichellitis as so far we've got Fisichella (obviously), Kovalainen and Heinz-Harald Frentzen as confirmed sufferers with Nico Rosberg in the unconfirmed category. Suddenly, the penny dropped and I realised the following:

Rubens Barrichello has AT LEAST a mild case of Fisichellitis.

Think about it for a minute. He spent most of the 90s dragging Jordan and Stewart to places they had no right to be in before being hired by Ferrari. Everyone knows that early-00 Ferrari was effectively a Michael Schumacher show but even so, the gap between the two was usually so large that team orders weren't necessary and Barrichello only ever bet Schumacher on raw pace alone once or twice a year. Then we move on to the Honda years where he spent 2006 being upper midfield before generally having the wood over Button for the next two years when the car was unimaginably shite. Then we go onto 2009 where Barrichello only started beating Button once the car lost some of it's competitive edge relative to the field. Barry moves back into the midfield in 2010 where he proceeds to absolutely thrash Nico Hulkenberg, ending his long term career prospects in the process and he was generally better than Maldonado last year and wasn't doing THAT badly by hauling his crapbox of a Williams into the midfield more often than not. If that's not a case of Fisichellitis, I don't know what is.

[LellaLombardi]

Having come into this quite late, could someone define Nick Heidfeld Syndrome and Fisichellitis for me?

[TomWazzleshaw]

Having come into this quite late, could someone define Nick Heidfeld Syndrome and Fisichellitis for me?

I'm not sure what NHS is but Fisichellitis is a fairly well known disease and can be split into two categories:

1. The classic case, first discovered in the Giancarlo Fisichella in which the disease was named after. The sufferer tends to show incredible amounts of ability in midfield cars by hauling them into places they have no right to be in yet, for whatever reason, simply fail to perform in a top car.
2. The Liuzzi strain of the disease is a much more severe form of the disease, where the sufferer is unable to perform even in a midfield car and only seems to do his or her best in a backmarker team.

[RonDenisDeletraz]

I think that Nick Heidfeld syndrome is the complete inability to ever win a race.

[the Masked Lapwing]

Having come into this quite late, could someone define Nick Heidfeld Syndrome and Fisichellitis for me?

I'm not sure what NHS is but Fisichellitis is a fairly well known disease and can be split into two categories:

1. The classic case, first discovered in the Giancarlo Fisichella in which the disease was named after. The sufferer tends to show incredible amounts of ability in midfield cars by hauling them into places they have no right to be in yet, for whatever reason, simply fail to perform in a top car.
2. The Liuzzi strain of the disease is a much more severe form of the disease, where the sufferer is unable to perform even in a midfield car and only seems to do his or her best in a backmarker team.

I assume NHS is a disease that causes the sufferer to either be physically unable to win a race, or to just be really boring.

[Ataxia]

I think that Nick Heidfeld syndrome is the complete inability to ever win a race.

No, it's for when a driver is so awesome, they don't need to win a race...

[QuickYoda41]

I think that Nick Heidfeld syndrome is the complete inability to ever win a race.

No, it's for when a driver is so awesome, they don't need to win a race...

This.

[Gerudo Dragon]

Japan makes the best engines.

[WaffleCat]

Japan makes the best engines.

Maybe,considering Honda's success with McLaren,Jordan and that one season with BAR in 2004.Toyota can also lay claim to a season without any engine failures,believe it was 2008.

[Gerudo Dragon]

Japan makes the best engines.

Maybe,considering Honda's success with McLaren,Jordan and that one season with BAR in 2004.Toyota can also lay claim to a season without any engine failures,believe it was 2008.

Nope, turns out Nico Rosberg's Toyota-powered Williams had an engine failure in Spain that year

[AdrianSutil]

Japan makes the best engines.

Certainly the case with their road cars. Honda once tested a VTec lump designed for the Civic Type-r and it went to a million miles without any engine related problems. Amazing reliability so I'm not surprised to see them replicate that in their race cars. Sure, a few failures here and there happen, just look at Ferrari for that.

That's why my next car will be Japanese...

[Londoner]

- Jerome D'Ambrosio was actually quite good. He matched Timo Glock more often than not...
- Martin Brundle was good enough to have won a race.
- Rubens Barrichello probably wouldn't be doing a much better job than either Maldonado or Senna at Williams. Maldonado got his car into Q3 two or three times, and I don't think at any point Barrichello managed this (Barrichello just beat Maldonado 10-9 in qualifying, not including grid penalties). If partnered with Barrichello in 2012, I would expect Maldonado to have outqualified him more often than not and Barrichello to have scored about the same amount of points than Senna, maybe fewer.
- One Hot Minute was actually quite a good album (not bothered that this isn't even slightly related to F1).
- Senna can shine, he just needs some stability. It's not helped that he's had 3 seasons in F1 with 3 different teams, and speculation about Bottas replacing him can be unsettling. He needs to prove a point, but also mustn't try too hard to do so. He's got talent, maybe needs to calm down.

Never heard of 'One Hot Minute' so I can't say anything else about that

An 1995 album by RHCP. Not many people know of it's existance, because John Frusciante had quit the band a few years previously, before rejoining in 1998. Still, it's a heck of a lot better than the latest RHCP album which came out last year. It was bloody awful! I blame the fact that Frusciante quit the band again, and his replacement isn't very good.

Eddie Irvine wasn't as overrated as people think. He just had a lot of bad luck (a run of EIGHT straight retirements in 1996), and saddled with terrible Jaguars for his last few seasons...

[Ataxia]

An 1995 album by RHCP. Not many people know of it's existance, because John Frusciante had quit the band a few years previously, before rejoining in 1998. Still, it's a heck of a lot better than the latest RHCP album which came out last year. It was bloody awful! I blame the fact that Frusciante quit the band again, and his replacement isn't very good.

Eddie Irvine wasn't as overrated as people think. He just had a lot of bad luck (a run of EIGHT straight retirements in 1996), and saddled with terrible Jaguars for his last few seasons...

I disagree, I think that I'm With You is a very good album indeed. I'm a huge fan of John Frusciante, but I think his replacement Josh Klinghoffer is equally adept and brings a more subtle, textured style of guitar play. John and Josh have been friends for years and have played together on lots of John's solo works (which are awesome). You couldn't really have drafted anyone else in because they're technically similar, just have different styles of play.

If you've seen any of the live stuff then you'll see Josh is very comfortable playing all of the songs, and maybe makes some of the songs a little better.

But yeah, I do like I'm With You and I do think that despite the fact that it's a fair departure from the styles in Stadium Arcadium, the Chilis have never always had this style of play. If you check out their first three albums they're massively different because they're more funk-punk.

But then again, it's all down to personal taste. (And I'm not some RHCP super-fan, I didn't like Mother's Milk, and I think BSSM was perhaps over-rated because of the commercial success of 'Under the Bridge'. Don't get me wrong, it's a good song, I just understand why John got quite uncomfortable with it.)

Back on topic...

Irvine was a very good driver, and given equal equipment in Ferrari could have beaten Schumacher on a more regular basis. The Jags were aerodynamically poor, and at tracks like Monaco where aerodynamics matter less this showed. Irvine definitely did as well as possible given the materials and was a very good driver. But the fact he always referred to himself as the 'world's second-best driver' when there were more able racers (Coulthard, Montoya, Fisichella, maybe even Ralfie and Hakkinen) was a bit of an overstatement.

[FullMetalJack]

Having come into this quite late, could someone define Nick Heidfeld Syndrome and Fisichellitis for me?

I'm not sure what NHS is but Fisichellitis is a fairly well known disease and can be split into two categories:

1. The classic case, first discovered in the Giancarlo Fisichella in which the disease was named after. The sufferer tends to show incredible amounts of ability in midfield cars by hauling them into places they have no right to be in yet, for whatever reason, simply fail to perform in a top car.
2. The Liuzzi strain of the disease is a much more severe form of the disease, where the sufferer is unable to perform even in a midfield car and only seems to do his or her best in a backmarker team.

Surely the original case of Fisichellitis was within Ivan Capelli.

[CoopsII]

Surely the original case of Fisichellitis was within Ivan Capelli.

I think thats a bit unfair on Capelli. He had alot less F1 experiance when he entered the jaws of the Ferrari machine, which duly chewed him up and spat him out, than when Fisi did.

But as Unpopular F1 Opinions go its pretty unpopuar with me so.....good work!

[Aerospeed]

Surely the original case of Fisichellitis was within Ivan Capelli.

I think thats a bit unfair on Capelli. He had alot less F1 experiance when he entered the jaws of the Ferrari machine, which duly chewed him up and spat him out, than when Fisi did.

But as Unpopular F1 Opinions go its pretty unpopuar with me so.....good work!

To be fair to Fisichella there, he was thrown into the car after Belgium 2009 and didn't have much time to make his impact on Ferrari... Capelli on the other hand had a whole off-season and had about 7/8 of a season to prove his worth... basically a modern day Massa, really.

[FullMetalJack]

Surely the original case of Fisichellitis was within Ivan Capelli.

I think thats a bit unfair on Capelli. He had alot less F1 experiance when he entered the jaws of the Ferrari machine, which duly chewed him up and spat him out, than when Fisi did.

But as Unpopular F1 Opinions go its pretty unpopuar with me so.....good work!

To be fair to Fisichella there, he was thrown into the car after Belgium 2009 and didn't have much time to make his impact on Ferrari... Capelli on the other hand had a whole off-season and had about 7/8 of a season to prove his worth... basically a modern day Massa, really.

Fisichella was also underwhelming at times during Renault. Champions in two of those years. The only time he was particularly good at Renault was the first half of 2007, where the car was underwhelming.

[Salamander]

Having come into this quite late, could someone define Nick Heidfeld Syndrome and Fisichellitis for me?

I'm not sure what NHS is but Fisichellitis is a fairly well known disease and can be split into two categories:

1. The classic case, first discovered in the Giancarlo Fisichella in which the disease was named after. The sufferer tends to show incredible amounts of ability in midfield cars by hauling them into places they have no right to be in yet, for whatever reason, simply fail to perform in a top car.
2. The Liuzzi strain of the disease is a much more severe form of the disease, where the sufferer is unable to perform even in a midfield car and only seems to do his or her best in a backmarker team.

Nick Heidfeld Syndrome is sort of a strain of Fisichellaitis. The symptoms are very similar, the main difference is that an NHS sufferer will never, ever, ever win a Grand Prix.

[DemocalypseNow]

Mika Salo deserved to be Schumacher's replacement at Ferrari in 1999 more than Luca Badoer did.

[Gerudo Dragon]

Luca Badoer deserved to have more races with Ferrari in 2009.

[FullMetalJack]

Luca Badoer deserved to have more races with Ferrari in 2009.

I think everyone on the forum agrees with you, maybe except the spambots.

[AdrianSutil]

Luca Badoer deserved to have more races with Ferrari in 2009.

I think everyone on the forum agrees with you, maybe except the spambots.

We all love Badoer so obviously we'd agree. But from a professional sporting view, he needed more time. It's well documented that Badoer struggled with two things:

1. In-season testing had a total ban. So unless he had a few laps at Mugello or wherever, the first lap he did in anger wouldve been FP1 in Valencia. You can't expect ANYONE to be right on the pace under those circumstances.

2. The car itself wasn't as strong as people, or even, Ferrari themselves believed. Raikkonen was overdriving the car to achieve the results he did. A bit like this year and Alonso. I'm sure it wasn't until round 3 or 4 that Raikkonen SCRAPED a 6th or something like that.

[Klon]

The only difference between Pastor Maldonado and Ayrton Senna is the former has not won a world championship yet.

[dr-baker]

The only difference between Pastor Maldonado and Ayrton Senna is the former has not won a world championship yet.

One is Venezuelan, the other is Brazilian.
One has won for Williams-Renault, the other sadly did not.
One has a nephew racing in F1, it is unclear whether the other will or not.
One is a pay-driver, the other was not.