Drivers

Was drafted into F1 with not an ounce of testing and replaced Nelson Piquet Jr in the middle of 2009 when he was possibly on route to becoming the GP2 Champion that season, which went to Nico Hulkenburg. In his 7 races in F1 he failed to impress and the no in-season testing rule didn't help his course. Plus having Fernando Alonso as his teammate couldn't have helped either. In 2010 Grosjean went to do Auto GP, before returning back to GP2 on July 20th for a few guess appearances for DAM'S. But in 2011 Grosjean was given a full-time drive by DAM'S for the 2011 GP2 series and went on to become the 2011 GP2 Champion. My question is will Grosjean get a drive for 2012? Plus how far can this guy go if he gets into F1?

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?

Lots of threads have alluded to having a discussion about the current world champion so lets get it all off our collective chests (oooeer!) Lots has been has been written about this young man from his testing debut with BMW Sauber in 2006 aged just 19 - he then progressed to the the toro rosso team for his first full race season in 2008 - the memorable race being his drive in the wet at Fuji where he managed to rear end his future team mate Mark Webber who said ""It's kids isn't it... kids with not enough experience – they do a good job and then they :censored: **** it all up." - Little was Mark to know he would be paired with the "Kid" just 2 years later. His maiden win came at the 2008 Italian GP where he qualified up from, the race...

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...

So, exactly who is Sergiy Sirotkin? Well, he's been in Formula Abarth and the Formula Renault Euro Series as well as Formula 3 in Italy. He's scored one podium in the Renault Series and lies 8th in the Championships. For F1, he is Russian, and that seems to be enough. Although Sauber have plucked a driver from obscurity before...

Sergio Perez Mendoza also known as 'Checo'. 21 years of age and 12 Grand Prix under his belt. Already has a contract for Sauber for next year, is part of the Ferrari driving acadamy, current favourite to replace Massa but what he didn't have was his own thread on Clip the Apex so I thought I'd sort him one out. Won British Formula 3 at 18. Finished 12 in GP2 at 19. Finished runner-up in GP2 at 20. Made his GP debut at 21 and finished in the points only to be DQ'd later due to both Saubers breaking car regs. Had a big accident at Monoco and even chose to pull out of the Candian GP after realising he wasn't back to 100%. Has had 2 points finishes so far this season with his highest being a 7th place at Silverstone. Has been quite highly...

Realized this man doesn't have his own thread yet, so thought i'd give him one! Jackie Stewart started his F1 career at Owen Racing Organistion (BRM to you and I) in 1965 and raced alongside Graham Hill thats year. On his debut he scored his first World Championship point in South Africa coming in 6th. The very same year he went on to win his first F1 Grand Prix Race in Monza going head to head with Graham Hill for the win. Stewart ended his rookie season in F1 finishing in 3rd place of the Championship. In 1966, Stewarts BRM team went through a tough season ending up with 2 designed cars to fight for the championship. Stewart did win one race this season at the opening round in Monaco. Jackie went on to finish the season 7th in the...

A place to put all the posts from all the other threads primarily but love him or hate him, and even for the indifferent amongst us this is the place to discuss the marmite that is Lewis Hamilton, to learn a thing or two about his rise, talk about those controversial, genius or mad moments and something that i am bemused by, the recent articles that suggest something quite different to my perception of what's going on. Any experiences of meeting LH? Brundle had to write a Lewis Hamilton article recently and in my tweets (which were probably ignored) I asked him to talk about LH the driver not LH the personality. It seems that you can't have one without the other. So as a starter for ten, here is a fairly recent LH article. Posts...

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...

Well I was looking in the drivers section and was surprised not to see a thread on this fellow. So it's about blooming time this dude had his own thread! Having driven for 3 teams in his 6 year stay in here are the teams: 2002: Jordan 2003-05: BAR Honda 06-08: Super Aguri At Jordan he didn't have the best of times and a crash with an out of control Heidfeld at Austria was his low point. However, he did end up scoring 2 points 5 behind experienced team-mate Giancarlo Fisichella at the time. He also out qualified Fisi 4 times this season. In 2003, Sato moved to Japanese Honda powered team BAR as a reserve/test driver. However, at his home race in Suzuka, Sato replaced Jacque Villneuve in the car and partner Jenson Button to...

So what do we think of Virgin Racing's No1, one of 6 (5 if Nick Heidfeld doesn't get his seat back at Lotus Renault) German drivers on the grid? Timo debuted in F1 back in 2004 with Jordan and scored a couple of points on debut. After a few more races in '04 he went Champ Cars for '05 and then GP2 for '06 and '07 - winning the GP2 title in 2007. For 2008 and 2009 he partnered Jarno Trulli at Toyota but lost his drive when Toyota pulled the plug on their F1 project at the end of '09. He managed two 2nd places, one 3rd and 1 fastest lap at Toyota, probably not much of a return for the money invested in the team. He found refuge at Virgin but has been hampered by a pretty rotten car for both 2010 and 2011. So, Timo Glock, the real...

…….and finally Williams confirm that Valtteri Bottas will be in the race seat for the 2013 season. As I’m seen on here as his biggest fan I thought I better get an article written and a thread started for the lad. Born 28th August 1989 in Nastola Finland he currently resides in Oxford. His single seater career started in 2007 with a 3rd place in the Formula Renault 2.0 NEC series, he followed that up in 2008 by winning the Formula Renault 2.0 NEC series and the Formula Renault 2.0 Eurocup series. In 2009 he stepped up to the Formula 3 Euroseries coming 3rd but winning the Maters of Formula 3 one off race a feat he was to repeat in 2010. 2011 was the year he suddenly jumped to everyones attention when he cruised to the GP3 championship...