To those of you interested (i.e. North Americans ), looks like Scott Speed's been sacked following an altercation in the pits with one of the STR team bosses. Prior to the race he had some brutally honest things to say about his bosses and I'm quite happy he let some of the issues in the team be known.

http://www.speedtv.com/articles/auto/formulaone/38937/

I think they had unrealistic expectations of him and Liuzzi, especially given that their cars have had performance issues from the beginning. They also screwed around with Speed prior to the season, only giving him 2 days of practice in their new car (V8 vs. V10) before Melbourne. They've had unrealistically high expectations for their cars and honestly believe that with the right drivers they'd be consistently in the points. Perhaps with a true racing prodigy it would be possible to squeeze 0.5s / lap, but I have a feeling that would involve a perfect setup. Besides, if two drivers with different backgrounds (Liuzi F3000 champ, Speed GP2 Bronze) consistently end up placed closely in the grid with the same car, I think it's safe to say that the car is mostly to blame.

Now, I'd hardly consider Speed to be the next Schumi, but him being American, he's the closest thing to a Canadian driver there is and it was still fun to root for the underdogs (him and Liuzzi). Now that he's gone my interest in F1 has definitely lowered, since once again I have to watch a field of foreigners battle it out . I'll still watch, for sure, but I'm still disappointed that Speed wasn't given a better chance in F1, especially since he's had some solid results that were consistently better than his teammate's. But I guess that's F1; you don't always get the ideal circumstances to showcase your talent.

I think my hope rests in Marco Andretti making it to F1, which would be very influential in popularizing F1 in North America.

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but him being American, he's the closest thing to a Canadian driver there is

I'm never going to leave you alone for this one

Interesting you mentioned F3000 and GP2, something IMO isn't working with them. The cars should be more closer to F1 - ideally a spec chassis based on an old F1 one and something like a Judd sportcar V10 so the engines can last a whole season without servicing.

Marco Andretti simply is not ready for F1. He needs to make the step up to GP2 and do a few years there, learning the circuits and driving dedicated road course cars on road courses.

Heh, that's funny, I never liked Speed :P

Never much cared for Speed, but supported the idea of having an american driver.

Marco is just a conceited kid, or at least he comes across that way. Like his dad, high on ego, slightly lacking in Mario's skillset.

Speaking of conceited, I'd much rather see Danica Patrick in a F1 car. She comes across as a crazy angry female, rarely does anything noteworthy in a racecar, but i'd rather see her than Marco or Speed.

Here's SS's version of events:

http://www.speedtv.com/articles/auto/formulaone/38964/

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“The fact of the matter is when we left the pit wall, Franz was furious that I’d crashed in Turn One, regardless of the fact that nearly every single driver behind Button did the exact same thing, including Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg. He was furious that I crashed. When I asked him about the pit stop he said it doesn’t matter because you crashed, and he didn’t want to hear any criticisms about what the team did. He was trying to blame me about the pit stop. After that I just turned away and walked towards the garage, and I guess he must have caught up behind me. When he reached me, he hit me in the middle of the back with a closed fist. Everyone in the team saw it. As I was leaving the garage, he then followed me behind the partition, where none of the mechanics could see. He grabbed me from the front of my shirt, jerked me around, ripping my firesuit a little bit, and pushed me against the wall. After that, my only response was to back up in the middle of the garage and ask him if he wanted to hit me in front of everyone else.”

Q: So did anybody see what happened when he grabbed you?

“There were a couple of people who saw. He grabbed me right below the neck, on my fireproof T-shirt, and jerked me back and forth, let go, and then pushed me into the wall behind where the cars are. There were two team people there, and another person, who saw it.”

Q: What happened next – is it true that you went to Gerhard Berger and said something?

“Immediately after that situation, as you can imagine, I was furious. I walked to the pit wall and wanted to inform everyone that this happened. So I looked at my team manager, the technical director, and Gerhard Berger, and told them that if my team chief ever touches me again, I’m going to knock him out.

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It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to read the press and know that Franz and Gerhard are pushing like hell to get rid of me and Tonio.

Scott Speed said this earlier. How right he was.

Quote from srdsprinter :

Speaking of conceited, I'd much rather see Danica Patrick in a F1 car. She comes across as a crazy angry female, rarely does anything noteworthy in a racecar, but i'd rather see her than Marco or Speed.

Good idea - F1 needs another personality

The atmosphere in that team has never looked right. It's like the team management and the team's drivers were both selected by Mateschitz and told to work together, when they clearly weren't going to get along.

In Speed's debut year he came across as a bit of a spoilt brat, but it can't have been easy working in a team like that.

I have to wonder if his conquering of Ulcerative Colitis in mid to late 2004 has affected his confidence in general. Defeating a nasty disease that could leave you sh*tting bloody stools into a bag for the rest of your life could definitely change your outlook on life .

Quote from DrDNA :

Here's SS's version of events:

http://www.speedtv.com/articles/auto/formulaone/38964/

If that's true, it's an awesome display of self-control.

good ridance!

even if the car is slow, he can't blame the team for him crashing it almost every race. i could never stand that guy.

and as for him being the closest thing to a canadian... bah! i'd rather root for a brazilian. oh wait, i do.

Well I would say that the drivers crashing was probably due to the extreme pressure they were under, they were simply over driving a bad car. I think the best thing for Red Bull and for F1 is for Torro Rosso to just sell up to a new team, perhaps one of the better bids that Prodive somehow managed to beat.

IIRC most of his teams dnf's were mechanical failures....

Quote from evilgeek :

good ridance!
even if the car is slow, he can't blame the team for him crashing it almost every race.

Well, out of the 10 races so far this year he's finished 3, in 14th, 9th and 13th places. He had 3 retirements because of the car breaking down in one way or another and 4 crashes, one of which he was hit from behind and another being this past weekend when he fell victim (as did several others) to standing water.

So that's 2 DNF's in 10 races that you could blame on him, which is what you really meant to say, right?

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i could never stand that guy.

I won't delve into whatever personal issues you've had with Scott, but I hope you two can work it out.

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and as for him being the closest thing to a canadian... bah! i'd rather root for a brazilian. oh wait, i do.

When Brazil starts influencing F1 popularity in the US then I might starting rooting for Massa.

Yeah right...
[Little addition]:

Just seems to me that if you were on an *underfunded race team trying to compete in an underdeveloped, unreliable car and routinely being blamed for its shortcomings, then you might be a bit snappy/smartassed when your boss tries to blame things on you yet again. I'm not saying it's entirely justifiable to smirk in your angry boss's face (or even remotely smart, since it probably cost him his seat) or that Speed's an incredible driver, but I can partly see where his frustration came from, especially when your failings are routinely made to overshadow those of the team.

Look at Super Aguri. In 2006 they were pretty much always at the back of the pack and Sato was labeled as a regular crasher. 2007 comes, they acquire better cars and suddenly they're scoring points. If your car can't keep up on the grid then you're forced to overdrive it, which leads to driver error when the car fights back.

*lowest team budget still, afaik

Very nice post DrDNA, fun read too. Shame you only have 50-odd posts in 4.5 years here.

Good, maybe we'll see him land a Champ Car ride soon?

I'm really not surprised or interested either way, I wasn't expecting Scott to last much longer (for a variety of already noted reasons). STR really needs to call up Bourdais, that man deserves a shot.

Quote from DrDNA :

Look at Super Aguri.

I think the management style makes the difference. Their team revels in every success, no matter how small. They win and lose as a team, and there seems to be a real fraternal atmosphere in that organisation. Toro Rosso, meanwhile, is entirely the opposite. They've been blaming the drivers for everything.

O/T: Did anyone else catch the McLaren explanations for their shortcomings during the European GP? They apparently prefer to blame inanimate objects rather than humans when things go wrong:

1) Hamilton's crash in quali was due to a "Wheel gun failure". Not a failure by the mechanic using it, but the machine itself. This I can just about swallow.

2) - this one really starts to push the boundaries of feasibility - Alonso was slow in the dry part of the race because he was "hampered by a wing adjustment tool failing". A wing adjustment tool failure? Aren't they basically just ****ing allen keys?

Was Ron Dennis' son working the wing adjustment tool on Sunday or something? Pfft!

I saw this coming a long ways back. I mean Speed was barely given the race seat this year; they made him wait till the last moment to tell him that he was actually being given a drive. Toro Rosso wants results which are impossible with their inferior car at the moment. They should think about that rather than blaming and pressuring their drivers.

Quote from XenoWolf :

STR really needs to call up Bourdais, that man deserves a shot.

Why, winning a joke championship over Paul Tracey a couple a times? Or does he deserve his F1 shot for doing a LFS NOOB Turn 1 at Le Mans?

Quote from srdsprinter :

Why, winning a joke championship over Paul Tracey a couple a times? Or does he deserve his F1 shot for doing a LFS NOOB Turn 1 at Le Mans?

LOL, although I wouldn't call Champcar a joke championship it definitely seems like there's not nearly the level of competition that's present in F1.

Quote from srdsprinter :

Why, winning a joke championship over Paul Tracey a couple a times? Or does he deserve his F1 shot for doing a LFS NOOB Turn 1 at Le Mans?

Harsh tr00f. I like it.

Quote from srdsprinter :

Why, winning a joke championship over Paul Tracey a couple a times? Or does he deserve his F1 shot for doing a LFS NOOB Turn 1 at Le Mans?

Hehe, three championships won ATM, maybe four soon ? :P
If it's so easy, why the other drivers don't win ?


Source: http://www.sebastien-bourdais. ... /biographie2/palmares.php

I believe the guy is quite good and he deserves a tryout in F1. TBH we expected him to join the Renault F1 team, but there is something which is not working good between Reanult and Bourdais, not sure if it's about some sponsor issue or because he was approaching Peugeot at a time and you may know that Renault and Peugeot really hate each other.

Anyway let him drive a F1 and we'll see

Frenchman defending a french driver. Nothing against that, but honestly:

Champcar is just weak. He's on the best team, which has a lot more to do with his sucess than his talent. He won't do anything noteworthy at a low-funded F1 team, so why not just enjoy being sucessful in a second-rate series?

He botched the first turn of the first lap of the most prestigeous 24 hour race in the world, from the pole position. Following that, his drive in the rain was hardly inspiring.

Ever seen him post-victory? He is a wet blanket, no personality. And he whines... "Boo hoo, I'm the best Champ Car driver but no-one will take me to F1..." News flash, Champ car hasn't been the feeder series to F1 since Zanardi failed miserably in his comeback to F1 after huge CART sucess.

Also, he's too old. He's already 28, not the age to be starting a F1 career. Teams want young talent.

Quote from srdsprinter :

Also, he's too old. He's already 28, not the age to be starting a F1 career. Teams want young talent.

Wasn't Webber about that age when he got his start in F1?

I agree that Bourdais is not racing driver megastar material, but there's not many of them on the F1 grid these days anyway.