Hehe yes nice joke.
icef1mkd wrote:Opened the topic, but never said my opinion.
Piquet this year recorded much more minuses than pluses, so my impression in general is negative. I think Renault was focusing on his pluses - they had similary uninspired Trulli who in contrary got sacked, but I think they see here a much better second fiddle next season. Hence the new chance next year, but no more.
Nakajima…can’t find any reason to be impressed, nor disappointed with him in what has been a fairly disappointing season for the team, apart the shock podiums.
Bourdais gets my vote. Until Barcelona, in terms of speed he was at least on the same level with Vettel, if not better. The mid-season stint with the new car was a disappointment, but from Valencia onwards he showed improvement, consistency and promise. All of that, delivered under pressure. Here are some scraps of an interview with him.
Q: In Champ Car you had a very close relationship with your engineer Craig Hampson and the team management. How is the relationship with Toro Rosso developing?
SB: ….The biggest difference and the biggest problem I find is that you have so many people involved in the [decision-making] system. In Champ Car it was only Craig and I; there was nobody else to justify or to talk to….Here it’s like a polygamous relationship. There are just so many more people involved in the thinking process.I’m starting to have a very good relationship with Claudio [Balestri], but the truth is you still have a lot of people to refer to, to get the understanding, to get the right timing and it takes a bit longer than a normal driver-engineer relationship [in other formulae].
Q: Some drivers who have come over to F1 from Champ Car in the past have found that it takes longer than they are used to for the team to trust them when it comes to making set-up calls. Have you found that?
SB: Well for us it’s even harder than this because obviously we [Toro Rosso] don’t decide on development, so if we’re not happy with the car, tough luck, that’s what you’re going to have to deal with until something else happens. So obviously that’s a bit harder.In Champ Cars we also had a lot more things to play with in terms of car set-up than we do in Formula 1. F1 is very much optimised, and whether the car functions or not, by design, by concept it’s not adjustable. Everything on the suspension is the way it is; if you want to change the castor for example you need a whole new suspension.So that limits the influence and the impact of driver comments in some respects.Especially since if you have an engineering office or a design office that responds to your comments, that’s one thing, but we [as Red Bull's 'B' team] are second-hand.So it’s very different, and obviously when you fight a problem, it’s much harder to find solutions and it takes much longer as well.
AFAIK we’re not professional drivers, team-bosses, nor race engineers here, but still I’ll ask you (primarly Vyselegend and Miguel) do you think his remarks / complaints are justified? IMO, in these circumstances, he did well enough against super – Vettel and for the title “Rookie of the year”.
Yes, those remarks are pertinent. For sure STR is a particular team in that way. The other remark, about F1 having a narrower setup level of action is a bit more surprising, because I remember in his early winter test days he was emphasing on the fact champcar seting up of the car was
"a tweak on the suspention, nothing more" while F1 had so many more means etc.
As you say we're no team managers, so I don't really know, perhaps those comments aren't contradictory, and Bourdais is telling the truth while pointing the reasons of his failures. But there are so much precedents of promising drivers spending years on explaining why they didn't score here, why they couldn't capitalise on that, why the car is unsuited to their needs, while their team mates rocks the place...
So I throw the ball back to you: What in your opinion is different between Bourdais' whinning and Fisichella's or Ralph's? And how would you justify sacking both Speed and Liuzzi for such a driver?
Btw I have read a traduction of Berger's interview from Sport Build
(not a very good reference I know), and he was saying
"Bourdais is full of talent but he is lacking self confidence. Both on and off the track..."
Sounds to me like
"he's a nice guy but hasn't what it takes to succeed in F1".
Takuma Sato is the one on testing duties for the three day test next week, and rumors say he doesn't come empty-handed if signed, so it doesn't smell good for Seb...
Miguel wrote:Regarding Piquet, I said the following on the Renault lineup thread. But nobody really wants to discuss about Piquet there.
Yes, I spoted that. Seems it is the last trend on the forum these days. Going severly off topic for several pages...
Regarding the comments on Nelsinho, I think we agree on that, the better the car performs
(and so the more confident the driver can be), the closer Piquet will be of Alonso
(in terms of lap times, because in terms of results he's not quite there ATM. The little off track while he was coming back on Raikonen in Japan was an highlight of his confidence weakness IMO.)
and mark has neither...in other words, i think vettel will consistently outperform webber...
