Drivers

Dedicated Formula One driver discussions.
He’s the first rookie to be confirmed on the 2013 grid and the announcement has raised more than a little debate so its about time he had his own thread. Due to the fact he’s replacing a very popular driver who has had a fair rate of success, and the Mexican sponsorship the Sauber team has, his appointment hasn’t exactly been met with a wave of excitement and the words ‘pay driver’ can be heard being mumbled in dark corners of internet forums. I will have to say being a massive Kobi fan I was one of those mumblers but then I took a closer look at the stats. Esteban Manuel Gutiérrez Gutiérrez (so good they named him twice) was born 5th August in Mpnterrey, Nuevo Leon Mexico. At 16 Esteban graduated from Karting to single seater racing...
Personally, I'd be very keen to know what people here think of Nigel Mansell - who had a very similar record in some ways to Button.... Autosport ran a very interesting article a few weeks about some of Nige's stats - did you know that Mansell only outqualified his team-mate 87-83 over his entire career? Yes Mansell did win 3 times as many races as Button has during his career, but you have to just compare their careers - Mansell won in his 6th season of F1, Button his 7th, but whilst Mansell then had the best car on the grid the following year, Button had just about the worst! Mind (And I know this is off topic) - Mansell regularly gets tarnished for his time at Ferrari as team-mate to Prost - but did you know that the qualifying...
Well I've been talking him up a lot on other threads so I thought I'd finally give next years youngest driver(unless HRT shock us) his own thread. Jean-Eric Vergne or JEV for short. All jokes concerning journeying to the centre of the earth are indeed welcome. The third new Frenchmen on the grid and certainly the one I see as having the most potential. Just to make us all feel old JEV didn't get into single seater racing until 2007 where at the age of 17 he raced in the French Formula Renault Campus. Not only did he race in it but he won it by a country mile finishing on the podium 10 times in 13 races. It certainly made him stand out and his was signed to the Red Bull Junior Team on the back of it. He also became a member of the...
Carlos Sainz Jr (is he dropping the Jr now?) may be the first rookie to come into F1 already demoralised and thinking his team do not believe in him. Sainz was number 1 in the Red Bull Driver programme and completely aced his season in WSR 3.5 and pretty much cruised his way to the title. Despite all of this it must have been a crushing blow to him when it was announced that Max Verstappen, who had been in the Red Bull Driver Programme for 2 weeks, was announced at Toro Rosso F1. Sainz was not happy and his form did drop off probably out of pure frustration. However Vettel's sudden departure to Ferrari opened up another space in the Toro Rosso team but even then Red Bull waited a good 3 months before announcing Sainz in the seat. In...
So German born Pascal Wehrelein looks set to be the next new driver on the F1 grid joining the Manor team. If the PR is to be believed he's joining the Manor team at a good time as they set to jump up to the midfield pack. We have been promised that before though. As for Wehrelein himself most fo us will know him as the Mercedes test driver and DTM Champion but will have seen very little of him in single seaters. Thats mainly because Merc took him out of single seaters fairly quickly and he last did a full season of single seaters in 2012 doing mainly F3. His result were top end but not overly impressive but Mercedes obviously saw something. Wahrelein is very much one of Toto Wolffs men and I think that has helped him a lot in finally...
Vitaly Petrov started racing when he was 17 unlike most top drivers he started racing late and not in go-karts, but Lada cars. In 2002 when racing in the Lada Cup he dominated the championship, winning all rounds and amassing the maximum points possible of 500. So the talent was there. In 2003, Petrov began racing in Formula Renault, racing in the Italian Championship for Euronova Racing, finishing 19th overall. He also competed in some rounds of the Eurocup Formula Renault 2.0.He also finished fourth in the British Formula Renault Winter Series at the end of the year, taking one win.He also made his debut in Euro Formula 3000 at Cagliari. Not a great first sseason in single seaters. However in 2006 he had a more promising year. He...
At the start of the 2016 season the two drivers I considered deserved to be on the grid most that weren't there were Stoffel Vandorne and Esteban Ocon. I'm very happy to say that both have now got their shot. At just twenty years of age Ocon certainly has the pedigree and the time to become one of the best in the sport and hopefully now has a shot in the Manor to show that potential. Ocon was the European F3 champion in 2014 and the GP3 champion in 2015 beating fairly strong opposition along the way to do so, most noticeably Max Verstappen. In both of his championship years he was face with opposition that was in better form than him and who had their machinery hooked up better than him, How did he do it? Well consistency was the name...
I thought I'd give poor old Jerome his own thread to sit in the current drivers section for a little bit as I think, unfourtunatly, he'll be moved to the past drivers section very soon. Got to feel a bit sorry for this nice Belgium bloke as you can't really credit him with having done much wrong on his debut F1 season but as the Virgin car was designed on a ZX Spectrum 48k its proven once again to be permantly glued to the back of the grid. He's not done too badly compared to his more illustrious team-mate. Out of the 8 times they've both finished the GP who's finished in front of him 3 times and sits in front of him in the championship due to having 2 14th place finishes - one on his debut in Australia and one in Canada. Glocks...
The man who feels like a god when he puts his crash helmet on does not have his own thread and due to the fact we've found out his Godly status I shall write his thread in the approproite style. So please be upstanding for the 10 commandments of Alguersuari. Thou shall not judge a driver by his age! He broke the record for the youngest person ever to compete in a Grand Prix when he took part in the 2009 Hungarian GP at the age of 19 years and 125 days. He also won the British F3 Championship at 18. Jaime is not even 22 yet and he already has 40 grand prixs under his belt. As long as he can keep a seat he must be looking at breaking Barrichello's record. Thou shall judge thy too early! Like the Phoenix Jaime has shown the potential...
Nelson Piquet - The Forgotten Racist Champion Whenever lists of the "greatest" drivers are put together one man who never seems to figure is 3 times World Champion Nelson Piquet. I thought it worth giving a little biog of the man and then maybe discussing why someone as successful as Piquet rarely gets the credit he probably deserves as a multiple World Champion. Early Years Piquet was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1952 Nelson Souto Maior. Piquet was his Mother's maiden name and he used this at the start of his racing career to hide his racing life from his family. Like many F1 drivers Piquet started in karts and then progressed onto Formula Super Vee in Brazil. Moving to Europe, in 1978 he was BP Super Visco British Formula 3...
2014 was always supposed to be the year Marcus Ericsson came into F1 but it was all suppose to be done so differently. In the pre 2013 season it was announced, in a big blaze of glory, that Ericsson had signed for DAMS for the 2013 GP2 series and would be their lead driver. DAMS had secured the last two GP2 drivers championships and the already rated Ericsson would drive in the number 1 car in what was sure to be a dazzling championship season before his all out assault on F1 in 2014. Unfourtunatly it didn't happen like that as his car started the season by falling apart and he continued it by managing to find accidents and,while he scored a couple of impressive results, 6th in the GP2 championship must have been gutting. It wasn't that...
Well having had a look to see if he had his own thread i thought that Montoya is long over due one. Juan Pablo Montoya divided alot of F1 fans opinions of him. Some thought he was a bit of a dill and others thought he was quite cool. Myself i thought he was a man with a big ego with bags of talent but never let it out. Montoya entered F1 in 2001 replacing Jenson Button at BMW Williams and partnered Ralf Schumacher for 4 years before moving to Mclaren in 2005 to join Kimi Raikkonen at the team. Montoya announced himself to the F1 world with a sensational move on the Legendary Michael Schumacher at turn one in Brazil 2001. But his F1 career didn't get off to the best of starts, he retired from his first two races. However at the...
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