Toro Rosso reportedly replaces Sebastien Bourdais with 19-year-old Jamie Alguersuari
(85 posts, started )
Toro Rosso reportedly replaces Sebastien Bourdais with 19-year-old Jamie Alguersuari
Oh well. Montoyas scenario. Just Montoya had a good car.
If they really think that replacing a very skilled driver will solve their problems then they are very much mistaken. STR are obviously nowhere when it comes to getting their car ready, or Buemi would be destroying Bourdais, which isn't happening.
What I think is most likely is that Bourdais is expensive (mature, experieinced, skilled) and Alguersuari is cheap/free (young, lots of sponsors)
What I think is most likely is that Bourdais is expensive (mature, experieinced, skilled) and Alguersuari is cheap/free (young, lots of sponsors)
Good thinking there.
I believe this too might be the case.
Seb had pretty much lost all motivation, he'll probrably end up full time on the Pug Sports Car team, that is if Pug are carrying on? 
Or seeing his previous Champ car experience, he may also look into Indy racing
Indy racing has changed a fair bit since he left, but yeah I guess he has a chance.
This will have nothing to do with Alguersuari's Repsol money, oh no!
Well all I can say is that it's 48 hours later and no news has been announced that he's parted with Toro Rosso ...
Hopefully he'll be at Hungary with the new package that's been promised
Would be a shame to see him disappear off the grid to be replaced by a rookie who's preparing for his 2010 season.I won't be sad to see Bourdais go if the story is true. No real personality, no real speed. Another champion of American open wheel racing failing to cut it in F1. Slightly better than Michael Andretti though.
Go the young gun 
But no surprise really, Bourdias could of produced good results it just never happened.
But no surprise really, Bourdias could of produced good results it just never happened.
TBH I am quite surprised at the lack of apparent talent in the USA. These drivers come over after dominating there own backyard, to find out that the real competition is very hard. Fair enough, the cars/teams have alot to do with it, but still I would expect a few American drivers in F1 who could cut it 
Also, seen as the USA is such a huge market, then why don't teams give the yanks a chance in a good car, at least for monetary/sponsorship reasons...
Edit: May I take Football (soccer) as an example - the USA is doing pretty well now, but only after quite a few years (100+) of America thinking of it as a minority sport. If only the USA would integrate with the rest of the world in more ways, do I think that they can be a real force in World Sport. We still have the crazy situation of them claiming the World series in baseball (come on, we did that when we were 12, then never again), and other sports, when really they only play a few sports with the rest of the world. Golf, tennis, football & boxing is as much as I can think of atm. America is rightly very good at these, when they integrate with the rest of the world and stop thinking that the world is the US of A
I would like to see in the future American drivers doing more feeder series in Europe and testing themselves against the best the world can offer. It is only a plane ride away, which us Europeans have to do for every race meet. If this happened, I think we would see more Americans in F1, the top of motorsport, which they should be in tbh
Also, seen as the USA is such a huge market, then why don't teams give the yanks a chance in a good car, at least for monetary/sponsorship reasons...Edit: May I take Football (soccer) as an example - the USA is doing pretty well now, but only after quite a few years (100+) of America thinking of it as a minority sport. If only the USA would integrate with the rest of the world in more ways, do I think that they can be a real force in World Sport. We still have the crazy situation of them claiming the World series in baseball (come on, we did that when we were 12, then never again), and other sports, when really they only play a few sports with the rest of the world. Golf, tennis, football & boxing is as much as I can think of atm. America is rightly very good at these, when they integrate with the rest of the world and stop thinking that the world is the US of A
I would like to see in the future American drivers doing more feeder series in Europe and testing themselves against the best the world can offer. It is only a plane ride away, which us Europeans have to do for every race meet. If this happened, I think we would see more Americans in F1, the top of motorsport, which they should be in tbh
Bourdias is french. Despite his CART success I still view him as french, afterall he was F3000 champion.
Probably american racers are too busy dressing up as mascots and doing commercials.........
Probably american racers are too busy dressing up as mascots and doing commercials.........
Ya, he's not American, he's French.
Kinda reminds me of Alex Zanardi's situation
Then you'll plunge into the ugly argument of whether IndyCar is a valid series.
Nevermind NASCAR, closed wheel motorsports are an entire different sort (and NASCAR drivers have done well in other closed wheel events such as Terry Labonte taking 12hours of Sebring and the 24h of Daytona wins as well as various of other NASCAR drivers finishing respectibly in endurance racing).But strangely...graduates from C.A.R.T, ChampCar or Indy have never really done well despite a few being obviously talented (Zanardi). But results from these set of drivers just never came. Then there's Mansell who came over and was competitive (well...atleast in his rookie season) in Indy.
Of course the Indy field has changed a bit since back then and F1 failures have been finding it a bit harder to do as well as they did before (Ernesto Viso, Enrique Bernoldi).
But then...who came directly from Indy into F1 in recent ages (this is not a rhetoric question)? I personally know of no one (feel free to prove me wrong) and most if not all came from ChampCar.
So is Indy just a crap series that can never measure up to F1 or even GP2?
EDIT: But then again, do you consider Indy drivers and ChampCar drivers to be the same thing?
...
He's an F3000 champion
There have been plenty champions of the lower European / Japanese formulae (e.g. British F3, International F3000, Formula Nippon) who have struggled in F1, so you can't really use it as an indicator of performance for F1.
No no, I'm not saying that because he's an F3000 champion he should do well in F1.
I'm just saying that Bourdais isn't necessarily an American product. Ya he dominated in ChampCar, but he rose from F3000. It's not like he went from Formula Atlantic to Indy to ChampCar or from Indy Lights to IndyCar.
All I said was that this was another champion of an American series failing in F1. Whether he started his career in France, the UK, Australia, America or wherever else the fact is he was a 4 time Champ car champion right before he got an F1 drive and he was pretty dominant there (in Champ car). When he got into F1 he really looked out of his depth, so the point I was trying to make was the difference in the strength of the field in F1 compared to Champ car. As soon as I heard Bourdais was going to drive in F1 I couldn't help but think of Michael Andretti. He was a pretty successful CART driver (champion and runner up a few times) and when he came across to F1 he just couldn't become competitive. The difference in technology of the cars (particularly the brakes and aerodynamics), the new tracks, the better driving field and all the circus that comes with F1 ended up in a pretty embarrassing adventure for Andretti. At the same time that Andretti was flopping in F1 Mansell went across and won the title in CART. Quite a few F1 rejects over the years have gone across to America and done well in the higher open wheel series over there, but the traffic the other way has been pretty light.
I think F1 is its own sepreate catagory, in order to get noticed to get a drive you have to win a feeder series but imo even the guy that came last in every race of that series may go better in F1 becuase hes racing style suits perfectly.
Its happened too many times to be honest, i mean look at Bourdais, Piquet Jnr, Zanardi for eg. all 3 have won or gone close to winning a premier feeder class to F1 yet all fail miserbly.
Then you look at drivers like Vettel, Kimi and Buemi who where not even in the top feeder classes and they all have done exceptional(buemi is still in his first season but so far so good).
Also Don't ridicule American catagorys they did Produce Montoya remember, he was dominated by Zanardi the year before he got hes CART title, and look at the difference in there F1 experince, Zanardi got dominated badly by Ralf then Montoya came to Williams and after hes 2nd season dominated Ralf himself.
The problem with Montoya is he started F1 too late he would of been alot better if he had of started about 2-3 years earlier as he drove like a completle nutter.
I think Bourdais would of been in a much better situation if he got a drive after the F3000 title.
Its happened too many times to be honest, i mean look at Bourdais, Piquet Jnr, Zanardi for eg. all 3 have won or gone close to winning a premier feeder class to F1 yet all fail miserbly.
Then you look at drivers like Vettel, Kimi and Buemi who where not even in the top feeder classes and they all have done exceptional(buemi is still in his first season but so far so good).
Also Don't ridicule American catagorys they did Produce Montoya remember, he was dominated by Zanardi the year before he got hes CART title, and look at the difference in there F1 experince, Zanardi got dominated badly by Ralf then Montoya came to Williams and after hes 2nd season dominated Ralf himself.
The problem with Montoya is he started F1 too late he would of been alot better if he had of started about 2-3 years earlier as he drove like a completle nutter.
I think Bourdais would of been in a much better situation if he got a drive after the F3000 title.
Some mod fix the title, its Jaime, not Jamie
Very good points Mustafur.
It is perhaps very very different but in general I would say that ChampCar standards are lower than F1. IndyCar might be a very different story however...as the oval biased Dallara chassis are so different. Different style, different animal, with a much faster top speed while slower acceleration than the F1 cars.
And F1 rejects aren't doing well in IndyCar recently as they did well in ChampCar.
Robert Doornbos moved to champcar. In his rookie season he scored 4 podiums and 2 wins. Seems like another F1 reject thrashing the American open wheel eh?
ChampCar fell, and he moved over to the normally more competitive Indy field. To this day his best finish in Indy is 9th. And he crashed out of the practice and race of the Indy 500. Enrique Bernoldi, and Ernesto Viso met the same reception moving to Indy as well. Also, lets not forget Johnny Herbert not qualifying in Indy.
Currently it seems that ChampCar is a weaker series, but Mustafur is right. Zanardi dominated Montoya in CART, but Montoya dominated Zanardi.
Who's to say what would have happened if it was Indy instead of ChampCar with IRL's freak of a chassis
An announcment - http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/76988
Shame, as I liked Bourdais. Funny how people want more human characters in F1, and then criticise them for wearing their hearts on their sleeves... C'est la vie...
Shame, as I liked Bourdais. Funny how people want more human characters in F1, and then criticise them for wearing their hearts on their sleeves... C'est la vie...
I liked him also, it's a shame that they have dropped him. I think if he had a half-decent car than he would have produced the goods, but I suppose with Red Bull focusing on the RB5 I doubt that would have happen soon
Toro Rosso reportedly replaces Sebastien Bourdais with 19-year-old Jamie Alguersuari
(85 posts, started )
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