off the iracerstuff forum. despite his shameless plug today no one seems to be using it original was posted by colin monahan so i can't take the credit for it
given that he's more relxed these days and showing his sense of humour more (top gear etc) i recon he'll not be too concerened about his reputation. he's come out of retirement, he's not looking to restart his career etc which wasn't the case with mansell.
if he gets reasonably close to kimi everyone will be impressed, if he's a bit slow, everyone will say he quit at the right time and if he's quicker than kimi then it's kimi, and by association massa, who have to worry about their reputations plus given the events last weekend and BMWs anouncement, F1 needs a good story at the moment. just pray he doesn't get hurt
which is why this thread is so busy, it's the closest we can get to it at the moment. dammit we're like crack addicts looking for crumbs in the dirt on the carpet
just a thought, if she gets an F1 drive can you imagine the italian marshalls reactions if she has a crash and they have to help her out of the car. it could take days by the time they have all had the chance to hold her
to be fair she has apparently being doing a lot of work to improve her road work and her overall performance. that sort of attitude will go a lot further with people in F1 than michael andretti's attitude did in 93 when he wouldn't believe he needed to do more and insisted on living in the US and "commuted" to test sessions and races. obviously with USF1 there won't be the distance problem but for any F1 driver to be really succesfull they need to dedicate themselves to the team almost on a daily basis so hopefully marco will learn from his father's mistake if he gets the chance.
i.d definatly keep in touch with iRacing as chances are there may be a few pro licence holders not taking up their places and if your as close as you think you could be in
what might happen is that this could cost wurtz his rumoured place with USF1 as heidfeld is a similar driver in terms of experience and reputation for testing and development and has current regs race experience and is easier to fit into a car
could be but as i said he's got marco and danica ahead of him in the standings plus a lot of european, australian and south american drivers. on the plus side his dad at least knows what F1 is like though that experience with jaguar may make him wary of his son going into F1. must admit i liked his dad in the past, same with marco's grandfather and both of themwould have a high profile with the US press because of their families.
basically we seem to have 3 drivers, all who hit the requirement of being promotable to the US either because of their gender or their heritage. the fastest one (currently) is gernerally percieved as being as high as she's going to get and weak on road courses, the middle one is developing steadily after making a dramatic start but his attitude can be volatile at times and the youngest one is beginning to make a name for himself
perhaps they should get them all to test, along with scott speed and discard anyone who's not faster than speed ?
senna's problem now is that the very thing thats made him stand out in the past, the fact that he's risen through the ranks so fast with very little race experience. with the testing ban, he could be seen as being seriously short on expereince even compared to other younger drivers given his age makes him in F1 terms almost middle aged these days
unlikely isn't it but you have to start wondering, marco seems to have gone off the boil and the michael andretti / scott speed experiences haven't exactly helped the image of US drivers in F1 ( plus bourdais after his successes in US racing ). when you look at the indy series standings you see that danica and marco are currently the 2 highest ranked US drivers with rahal the only other US driver in the top 10.
you'd think there should be someone out there but where ?
if weber manages the hulk (didn't know that) then the price williams had to pay for ralf may work against him.. williams like heidfeld and they respect him as a development driver . patrick head said it was one of the biggest mistakes he'd made when he lost him and he'd be the perfect steady driver if they could hang on to nico or gain a fast number one driver. alternatively he may replace barichello at brawn
kubica to end up at either mclaren or which ever of the renault / ferrari seats alonso isn't in if massa or kimi aren't at ferrari next year.
of course if massa isn't able to continue and if kimi is retiring, ferrari may actually need two drivers so could be alonso and kubica there together though i bet alonso wouldn't like the idea
edit just thought
how about the hulk as the young fast german guy at williams with heidfeld as the more experienced german driver leading him to future F1 triumph? heidfeld has probably realised he isn't going to be world champion so being credited as one of the influences of possibly germany's next champion might sit pretty good with him and williams gain a fast replacement for nico, a driver that knows how they work that they respect and who can communicate exactly what he means to his young team mate, they stay popular with any german sponsors that nico may have attracted and if toyota decided to pull from F1, williams would be very hard for mercedes to ignore with two german drivers needing engines
good timing by webber to sign his contract extension last week
pity to see BMW go but no surprise, i posted a quote of a post of mine, from last oct, in the hungarian GP thread, i hate to say a told you so and wish i was wrong but the facts were there last year if you looked
oh i so hope so. also i hope they've learnt their lesson. last season their driver was in the running for the title after canada and they halted their development because they had achieved their 08 target of a win and it was planned to challenge for the title in 09. time and time again it's been proven in motorsport that if you have a chance of challenging for a title you have to take that chance rather than wait for a better one