Drivers

Dedicated Formula One driver discussions.
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...
I couldn't find a thread on him so apologies of there is one already. Alexander Rossi (21) is a racing driver from Auburn, California USA currently competing in GP2 and reserve driver for Caterham F1. Regular readers of Clip The Apex discussions may have noticed that I rarely get involved in discussions about new or relatively new drivers until they do something stupid. One of the reasons for this is that few of the newcomers have really grabbed my attention in their pre-F1 careers. However, having had a little look at Rossi's statistics, I have a feeling that at the very least he is one of the best young American talents that we have seen for a while. Not only that, he has clocked up a couple of championship wins, third place...
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...
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...
Sebastien Buemi - know to some in these parts as The Moose - has always been a bit of a mystery to me. I go through stages of rating him and stages of just thinking of him as an avergae midfield driver so thought I'd put an article up there and see if the rest of you are as confused about him as me. His junior formula record is not that impressive. He's was a front runner in the majority of series he ran in but champion in none. The season before he came into F1 he finished runner-up in GP2 Asia and 6th in proper GP2 season - including 2 wins. One of the wins came in France where he started 21st on the grid - which is pretty impressive. He arrived in F1 with very little fanfare and you can pretty much say he's not made much louder...
My 1st article on clip the apex Do you think we will ever see Kovalainen at the sharp end of the grid again? He had much potential pre-McLaren. He spent 9 years in karting and did relatively well winning the 2000 Nordic championship. He was Formula Renault 2001 rookie of the year. He was also British Formula 3 2002 rookie of the year finishing 3rd with 5 wins. He moved to world series by nissan in 2003 and won the championship in 2004 with 6 wins. In 2005 he moved to GP2 and battled Nico Rosberg for the championship finishing runner up with 5 wins. He built a bit of a reputation for himself by winning the race of champions in 2004 defeating David Coulthard, Michael Schumacher and Sebastien Loeb. He was also test driver for Renault...
2014 GP2 champion Jolyon Palmer joins the grid for 2016 for a deserved shot at F1. The son of Dr Jonathan Palmer but probably quicker than he ever was. He has a younger brother named Will Palmer who is BRDC F4 champ and probably quicker than him but that's for a future debate. Palmer's pedigree is questioned by some due to that fact he spent 4 years in GP2 before winning the title but when you see that he joined the series as a 20 year old, and had only done 2 years of single setters prior, it's easy to see he did his development within the series. Anyone who saw his impressive 2014 championship will have no doubts this boy is a racing driver. He showed he was the master of consistency and very good at being in the right place at the...
There has been speculation about this guy potentially being on the F1 grid next season as the 2nd Marussia driver so does this guy deserve to be there on merit or is he a pay per driver ? Brother of Tom who races in touring cars because he is too tall for F1. His junior record is not impressive as he was only 4th in British F3 2009 won by his teammate Daniel Ricciardo and 4th in Gp2 this season behind Sauber bound Gutierrez, Razia and Valsechi ( neither of the latter two appear have found drives for 2013) However he has shown capability now and then to race at the front with wins and podiums occasionally Before the British press starts hyping this guy as a potential world champion. What is his true potential out of curiousity?
Now here's a driver who polarises opinion. A really nice bloke or a bitter man who should have grown a pair at Ferrari instead of bitching about it after he left. The most experienced driver ever in F1 but now, perhaps, past his sell by date? A brilliant car sorter who helped Jenson Button realise his title ambitions at Brawn or someone who failed to take an opportunity when it came his way? Rubens Barrichello: 314 GP starts 11 wins (No. 25 in the list of GP winners - ahead of Ronnie Petersen but behind Alan Jones) 14 poles 17 fastest laps Everyone's favourite No.2? The best choice Williams could could have made to lead there team or would they be better off without him?
Its been announced this week that Belgian Mclaren development driver Stoffel Vandoorne will return to the GP2 series in 2015 again driving for the ART team. Vandoorne is hoping a successful championship year with ART will be the pathway for him to get into F1 for 2016, preferably with Mclaren, but is that actually really likely to happen? Vandoorne’s potential is not in any doubt. He won the F4 Eurocup title in 2010 and then had a close tussle with Dani Kvyat in Eurocup 2.0 in 2012, a tussle he eventually won and took the title. In 2013 he jumped up to the WSR 3.5 series and scored a win on his debut. He scored 4 wins in total with 10 podiums in 17 races, all this in the much unfancied Fortec car as well. He was piped to the title by...
Nick made his debut in F1 in the year 2000 for Prost Peugeot finishing his first season in the sport in 20th position scoring no points. In 2001 he moved to Sauber and was joined in the team by rookie Kimi Raikkonen and scored a respectable 12 points finishing 8th in the WDC standings for the midfield team beating his rookie teammate. At the end of 2001 is was widely reported that Nick would replace retiring F1 legend Mika Hakkinen at Mclaren but he was left disappointed because it was infact his rookie teammate that landed the drive at Mclaren ahead of him. So in the end he ended up spending another two seasons with Sauber paired with rookie Felipe Massa in 2002 scoring 7 points and in 2003 he was partner by fellow German...
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