I would know what do you think about this, because for example here in Spain, 99% of people that are fans of FA they are only because he is Spanish. Do you think this is correct? Am I obligated to be a fan of him only because we are from the same country? Here I am a strange because I always loved M.Schumacher and I´m fan of Ferrari team instead of Alonso and McLaren. What do you think about?
I think nationality doesn´t matter in car racing. The glory of a victory goes to the driver and all team, not to the country like a football match between Brazil and Italy. What happens in a local race where all drivers are from the same country?
I post this because I´m tired to be weird in my country only because I want Alonso lose

It depends really ...

In a series that you start following (in my case, Red Bull Air Race - it's sheer class) you inevitably will follow a driver (OK, in this case a pilot) from your country. But it depends on who was at that team before and the history etc as well. But as seen as I am fan of generally British drivers (Lewis Hamilton, Tom Onslow Cole, Paul Bonhomme), yes.

Christian Albers is Dutch, but I'm not a fan of him. I liked Schumacher a lot better, even though he's a German. To me the nationality doesn't matter at all.

Nationality doesn't matter at all. It's not your country that wins the race or championship, it's a bunch of individuals.

Also, to deliberately be a fan of someone just because he is your countryman seems just ridiculous to me.

This is exactly what I think Gunn But is not good saw in my country

Quote from NitroNitrous :

This is exactly what I think Gunn But is not good saw in my country

Fernando is a skilled driver and world champion, so many fans will like him for genuine reasons, but yeah, I'm sure there's a lot of nationalistic support for him too.

There will be some sort of nationalism in u.. For example, u would usually support ur own country in A1 is it not? However nationality wouldn't matter much to me.

I'm not patriotic (sp?) at all with football, can't stand it really, however, having Lewis Hamilton at the sharp end has renewed my interest in F1!!

Andrew

Quote :

Paul Bonhomme

I caught the Air Race at work for once and he couldn't hold a candle to the Hungarian!

Quote from TiJay :

I caught the Air Race at work for once and he couldn't hold a candle to the Hungarian!

Yeah, but he's leading the championship

Yes but also no... I don't like Raikkonen. He's such and jerk, **** and nearly dumb (both meanings for this word).

Yes but also no... I didnt like Michael Schumacher. He's such a jerk, **** and arrogant cheater.

Im always happy when Heidfeld and Rosberg do well, though.

Apart from in A1GP, not particularly. I do kinda find myself drawn towards supporting drivers from my own country, I.E. Coulthard, and to some extent hamilton, button and davidson, but i dont so much support them as want them to do well. The last few years ive supported mclaren because my dad was a mclaren kinda guy and i just kinda went with it, but also alonso just because i hated sc(h)um.

I also support BMW Sauber basically because of the car in this game, but thats a bit of a weird thing.

For me the nationality doesn`t play a role. Maybe because I`m also a member from a small "community". I like the "lion" (like Nigel Mansell or so ). So what I want to say is: I`d rather like the personaöities then the countries.

Only place it really matters for me is A1GP, but it's kind of the idea there.

The British media are among the most jingoistic anywhere in the world. There seems to be an inordinate amount of support for British drivers, regardless of talent. Over the years they've thrown their weight behind a shed load of drivers, recently it's been all Lewis Hamilton but it's also been there for Button, Hill, Mansell etc. Some of them deserve(d) it but some probably didn't. I don't follow drivers purely because they're Scottish (I've never been a big fan of Coulthard), but if Jackie Stewart and Jim Clark were around these days I'd probably support them because of their talent, ability and personality over their nationality. The second most jingoistic media I've seen is the Australians, they really get behind their sports personalities. One example I read about a while ago was two Irish trained horses had finished first and second in the biggest Australian horse race of the season. The headline of the paper read "Australian horse finishes third!".

It depends what kind of country you live in, in the UK we don't just support people because they are British. We like people with a passion for what they do, who always put in 100% effort and enjoy what they do. We don't respond to arrogance very well, but confidence and honesty are good qualities to have and earn our respect.

We also love the underdog, I was cheering for Sato today, for me his 6th place was better than Hamiltons win. So I think that the fans nationality probably has more of an effect than the drivers.

For the record I never was a fan of Button, for me he was over hyped and made bad decisions that seriously hurt his career. I think he will be cursing himself tonight after the Williams got a podium and his Honda didn't even get off the line.

I would say no just to be nice about it, but I think that location really does have an effect on faster drives. I don't want to pick on anyone or anything, but I have noticed that a fair amount of the best drivers seem to come from Finland.
Of course you'll get some odd ones every now and then, note Lewis Hamilton and F1 this weekend. But over the course of history many of the best drivers seem to be Finnish, I don't know if that is due to the way Finnish are raised or what, but I think that location and the way you are brought up have an ENORMOUS effect on how someone drives.

That is just me, some people may say Italy or England or wherever, but for me I think that the Finnish seem to be the best race drivers in the world.

Quote from XCNuse :

That is just me, some people may say Italy or England or wherever, but for me I think that the Finnish seem to be the best race drivers in the world.

The Finns make the best rally drivers, but I think for racing drivers you're overlooking two important countries, namely Brazil and Scotland. Brazil has given us Senna, Barrichello, Piquet, Fittipaldi, Massa, de Ferran and Barros among others. Scotland have given us Clark, Stewart, McRae, Ireland, McNish and Franchitti, among others. Finland has given us Hakkinen and Rosberg, but I don't think they compare to the Brazilians or Scots.

Nah. The idea that you should be obligated to cheer for a particular driver because you're from the same country or because all your friends do is silly.

EDIT:
Personally I can't stand NASCAR, but that actually might be a similar phenomenon, except in reverse.

Well if you have ever seen the roads in Finland you will understand why they produce so many top drivers.

Quote from amp88 :

The Finns make the best rally drivers, but I think for racing drivers you're overlooking two important countries, namely Brazil and Scotland. Brazil has given us Senna, Barrichello, Piquet, Fittipaldi, Massa, de Ferran and Barros among others. Scotland have given us Clark, Stewart, McRae, Ireland, McNish and Franchitti, among others. Finland has given us Hakkinen and Rosberg, but I don't think they compare to the Brazilians or Scots.

I agree... no idea how XCNuse came up with this view. F1 and rally are not the only forms of motorsport. Outside of rally and F1 you don't see many Finnish drivers, especially not in touring car series (well except DTM, ALMS and FIA GT - but two of the three drivers being ex-F1 anyway). We don't even have a decent or competitive touring cars series and only couple of small club tracks. Luckily karting (--> F1) doesn't need huge tracks and rallying only needs forest roads... and those we have a lot.

.

Quote from deggis :

Outside of rally and F1 you don't see many Finnish drivers, especially not in touring car series (well except DTM, ALMS and FIA GT - but two of the three drivers being ex-F1 anyway).

Help me out here. You're thinking of Mika Hakkinen, JJ Lehto and Mika Salo? Yes, Hakkinen is a great driver, but Lehto and Salo? Seriously? I think we differ on the definition of great here. Lehto was, at best, below average in 1994 with Benetton (arguably his best chance to shine in F1). In the races where both he and Schumacher were driving for Benetton Schumacher's average qualifying position was 1.5 on the grid. Lehto's average was 13th. Great? I think not. Salo was promising early on in his career but never delivered. In his brief spell at Ferrari in 99 when Michael broke his leg Mika would have won the German GP had he not been told to move over for Irvine, but for the most part of his career he wasn't exceptional. I didn't say there were no Finnish racing drivers, I just said the number of great Finnish racing drivers was limited, and I still believe this to be the case.

Quote from amp88 :

You're thinking of Mika Hakkinen, JJ Lehto and Mika Salo? Yes, Hakkinen is a great driver, but Lehto and Salo? Seriously? I think we differ on the definition of great here.

I wasn't talking about great drivers, just amount of drivers in general outside of F1/rally.

I was referring to Hakkinen and Salo, JJ Lehto is not currently racing. Lehto was below average in F1 but 2-times Le Mans winner (1995 and 2005 I think) can't be expectionally bad driver either.

Quote :

I didn't say there were no Finnish racing drivers, I just said the number of great Finnish racing drivers was limited, and I still believe this to be the case.

I wasn't disagreeing with you in the first place, maybe you misunderstood because I quoted your reply but I was more like answering to XCNuse.

Quote from amp88 :

The Finns make the best rally drivers, but I think for racing drivers you're overlooking two important countries, namely Brazil and Scotland. Brazil has given us Senna, Barrichello, Piquet, Fittipaldi, Massa, de Ferran and Barros among others. Scotland have given us Clark, Stewart, McRae, Ireland, McNish and Franchitti, among others. Finland has given us Hakkinen and Rosberg, but I don't think they compare to the Brazilians or Scots.

Good points, I guess it's more or less that I don't really know where everyone has come from.
All those Brazilians you pointed out I had no clue they were from Brazil, I thought they were mostly from Spain. Goes to show how little I travel lol.