They are wasting good drivers with no money

[Belatti]

Norberto Fontana is former German F3 Champion, raced 4 times for Sauber in 1997 and would score 1 point in his debut if FIA wouldnt make him start from last position because a stupid missunderstood.

He was unlucky then, now he is Argentina´s TC champion with Dodge.

He was born in Arrecifes, cradle of champions, the same place were Froilan Gonzalez (1st Ferrari F1 winner) was born and the same place were DiPalma (the same DiPalma that went with a "Toro" to Nurburgring 24hrs in the 70s and kicked butt) was born

[Ciro Pabón]

Some people here is well aware of Mr. Fontana's career. Where I live we follow closely the TC championship (even the smaller argentinian series) at T y C channel. He had won the TC2000 championship in 2002.

Last time Mr. Fontana was mentioned here it wasn't for his racing deeds, but for his surprising El Gráfico's (I believe) interview:

viewtopic.php?t=3258

Of course, those commentaries were a little weird and sounded like an excuse...

Unfortunately, Mr. Fontana earned a place at F1Rejects: http://f1rejects.com/drivers/fontana/index.html but the comments are about a "wasted talent". I'm a little surprised to see him along Gastón Mazzacane (or our own colombian reject, Ricardo Londoño-Bridge, who NEVER got a superlicense, even after presenting himself at Brazil for his one and only GP... ), but that's life... He (Fontana) is a great driver. Ralph is not that bad, either, if you ask me. Both are extremely good at excuses...

I contrast that attitude (in which we could include, sorry, Jenson Button, for example) with JPM "take no prisoners" attitude (if you ask me, I concede happily that JPM should have an extraordinarily prominent place at F1Rejects! ).

About who's better, well, I don't know. I'll bet on Norberto, but that's a purely latin thing...

[dumrick]

I remember following Fontana's career in Europe in F3 in the early 90's and being convinced that he was F1 material. Someone that performed so well then (as depicted in his profile at F1 Rejects, for instance) can't be other than a talented driver.

However, I'm also sure that we could open threads like this for dozens of other drivers that, by lack of luck, poor management or lack of funds never reached F1.
I can tell you one thing: F1 is too hyped in the sense that neither the drivers that reach it are outstanding talents nor the ones that don't make it are necessarily worse than the ones that do it. Two decades ago, you could have drivers placed in many highly-regarded championships, without that "value judgement" of being inferior if they weren't in F1. Since then, circuit motorsport has been drained heavily to reach this current state of things...

But I don't think that's really a waste of Mr. Fontana's talent. Sure he must make good money, doing something that he probably likes (racing cars). Your local TC championship seems very interesting and competitive. It's not like he's driving a taxi in Buenos Aires...

[TERRASTAR18]

F1, in fact all motorsports has been crooked, they invest in talent and milk them for all their worth, but half the time i think they choose style over talent-raik over schu. And let us not think that eccelstone promises lh a ride fool you...
http://msn.foxsports.com/motor/story/7024148

[TERRASTAR18]

I contrast that attitude (in which we could include, sorry, Jenson Button, for example) with JPM "take no prisoners" attitude (if you ask me, I concede happily that JPM should have an extraordinarily prominent place at F1Rejects! ).

JPM WASN'T THAT BAD....all he needs is a lemans win and he has the motorsport triple crown, i wish he was still here he could be in contention for the title.... i like lh but no one really has impressed...massa should have a nice but his car's lack of reliability and his own mistakes have cost him.

[Ciro Pabón]

...
I can tell you one thing: F1 is too hyped in the sense that neither the drivers that reach it are outstanding talents nor the ones that don't make it are necessarily worse than the ones that do it. Two decades ago, you could have drivers placed in many highly-regarded championships, without that "value judgement" of being inferior if they weren't in F1. Since then, circuit motorsport has been drained heavily to reach this current state of things...

Amen.

JPM WASN'T THAT BAD....all he needs is a lemans win and he has the motorsport triple crown, i wish he was still here he could be in contention for the title....

Well, I think JPM it's clearly in the All Times Top Drivers Short List (I'm probably a little influenced by the fact that I'm living in Colombia... ). All I'm saying is that he is probably one of the most controversial rejections in history. Not all drivers take the "WTF, I can drive somewhere else because this thing is boring if you're not in the top four" approach that Juan has.

Anyway, Mr. Fontana's history is amazing. I remember he was stopped from competing in karts because he was too young! (or so I read somewhere).

He was the undisputed king of Argentinian karts for a while. He went to Europe really young, without money. I remember reading about him in Corsa (an argentinian magazine) many years ago, so I'm not sure about all what I'm saying, but I think he won the Swiss Formula Ford for starters, easily. In his second race in F3 at Nürburgring he went from last (twenty-something) to top-ten, also with ease, in a race that I watched when I was visiting France. BTW, he competed there not only against Ralph, but also against Wurz, who is another great driver with little luck.

Fontana was teammate of Jarno Trulli at F3. I quote: "With ten poles and ten wins out of 14 races and 256 points in total, he had made absolute mincemeat of Schumacher, Trulli, Wurz and co. Ralf was second, 85 points behind".

I know he hurt his neck at Macau (in a race that I believe Pedro de la Rosa won) and I guess that accident must have taken a big toll on him. He rejected Chip Ganassi's offers to drive at CART and was replaced by Alex Zanardi and we all know what Zanardi did there.

I also know that he seated "on his hands" for a year at Sauber before he could drive an F1 car (even being official test driver) and that must have hurt his abilities a little more.

In the end, having beaten so many present F1 stars and having such a horrible luck at the track (I also think he was punished by stewards at EVERY ONE of his F1 races), I cannot avoid thinking that success in F1, as JPM's history proves, depends not only on talent, but heavily on having good guidance and a team that cares about you.

[Belatti]

Thanks for your opinions guys;

Ciro, JPM was something of the best things that happened to F1 in earlys 2Ks, he put spice in every race he could.
I think what F1 needs, more than rule changing to make overtaking easier, is to have F1 drivers with BIG BALLS!!! (and less fragile cars!!!)

Dumrick, I agree, drivers are not inferior if they are not in F1, but some of what made me write these posts is that, without ARG F1 drivers (and little future perspectives) there is less chance of a GP, and with the big difference between ARG$ and USD or Euros, its almost imposible for me to travel to F1 races...

[dumrick]

Dumrick, I agree, drivers are not inferior if they are not in F1, but some of what made me write these posts is that, without ARG F1 drivers (and little future perspectives) there is less chance of a GP, and with the big difference between ARG$ and USD or Euros, its almost imposible for me to travel to F1 races...

I totally understand you. But you know, Monteiro was in F1 and there were no talks about the Portuguese GP returning. Even worse, have you ever heard about the Finnish GP? And Hakkinen and Raikkonen are or were even title challengers or winners...

This to get back to MY reasoning in the US GP thread: the location of a GP isn't anymore determined by the popularity or the attendance of the race itself (selling TV rights means HUGELY more money). It comes down to having some "classical" events for the prestige and the continuity of the sport and demanding BIG BUCKS for other locations. And this kind of money only comes usually from countries that have Petrodollars to spare and a big interest in self-promotion, usually for tourism's sake... I know that's hard, but it's the trend as I see it.

Concerning the driver's ability being determined by if he races/raced F1 or not, I know that in this forum people usually agree that it is not like that at all, but unfortunately that's what all FIA's investment in one single high-profile championship is leading increasing number of less informed watchers all over the world to believe. Just ask around who's better driver, Narain Karthikeyan or Tom Kristensen. They may ask you "Tom who...?" And I'm not even wanting them to know who Bob Wollek was...