F1 Midfielder or Winner Elsewhere?

[Mephistopheles]

Nope well I'm sure he'll remember it for the rest of his life anyways.

Which begs the question:

If you were an F1 driver would be you happy just being there at the top of the sport making money and enjoying all that it brings just driving around in the mid field like some drivers seem to be?

Or

If you couldn't get a drive that gave you a chance at the WDC would you give it up and do something else..

I ask because I believe that there are some drivers that although they have made it into F1 will never be the WDC no matter what car they get to drive, a mister Eddie Irvine for example and dare I say it Rubens Barrichello although Rubens certainly had and has the heart of a champion, where as Eddie just loved the lime light and still does, yet both have driven for championship winning teams and in Rubens's case more than one and not won.

Does this question deserve a separate thread?

 

[landogeorgelewis1]

Go for it mate. I'm sure it'd produce some brilliant comments . Plus a sensible debate on the subject.

 

[downforce]

Well at once I would be overjoyed to simply be in F1 and I would also be doing everything possible to get the best machinery possible and to do the best with the machinery I had - so sort of both.

I mean I would love to go and drive a HRT for 1 lap around valencia tomorrow

And If I was in F1 I would make McLaren my target

 

[downforce]

Are demo tyres any use for something like this?

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/97140

will that actually help him much.

Cant they pay bridgestone to make some 2010 race spec tyres or something?

 

[no-FIAt-please]

Well they're better than nothing!

It's unlikely that Bridgestone would make some tyres just for a few tests, because it isn't cost effective to start up your huge tyre making machine for a few dozen tyres and although they're demo tyres they will be closer to how the actual Pirelli's perform rather than a Bridgestone soft tyre than could do a whole GP.

 

[Jen]

As an OAP, I hope that I will have the courage to hand in my license when I can't drive safely - in the same way I would hope that the drivers who have no chance in F1 would move on to make way for those who might.

 

[Viscount]

It takes a lot of effort, talent and money to make it to F1 which is an achievement in itself. All the drivers have won at some point in their racing career before F1 and I'd imagine that every driver once in F1 believes that in the right car they can win again. So most will spend their careers just hoping they'll get that opportunity to win again.

As people often say, 'Formula One is the pinnacle of motorsport' so I don't think winning in any other would be the same.

I don't think Heikki Kovalainen will win another race in F1 let alone become a world champion, but if I were in his shoes there's no way I'd give up the chance in the hope that someday I could be the Formula One World Driver's Champion.

 

[Slyboogy]

It was always my dream to be in F1, and if I got there, I would stay there as long as I was competitive and close to my team-mate, even if it is in the midfield.

Having been doing go-karting and never thinking I was going to go far with it as I thought I wasn't going I win, i was competitive though, I managed to progress very well and won several tournaments and was in negotiations for Formula Renault and BMW until my crash.

So from speaking from experience, I would stay as long as I was competitive as I believe I would still have a chance, if I reached 36-38 then I would quit.

 

[Mephistopheles]

DC has often been heard saying of himself "I wasn't good enough" now his career is over, I wonder if he thought that when he was driving, which may explain why he never won the WDC self belief must play a massive part in winning

 

[Mephistopheles]

As an OAP, I hope that I will have the courage to hand in my license when I can't drive safely - in the same way I would hope that the drivers who have no chance in F1 would move on to make way for those who might.

Nobody is an OAP as long as they are enjoying life. I speak to some fascinating people who are in their 70s all of whom tie me in knots with laughter...

 

[landogeorgelewis1]

DC has often been heard saying of himself "I wasn't good enough" now his career is over, I wonder if he thought that when he was driving, which may explain why he never won the WDC self belief must play a massive part in winning

I generally believe in DC's mind in his Mclaren days he was better than he actually was. I think he had belief in himself, or else why else would he have run Schumacher close to the title one year.

 

[Slyboogy]

He won 13 grand prixs and many of them being at great tracks, I don't think Dennis' favouritism towards Hakkinen did him any good, Jerez 97 and Melbourne 98 must have been a kick in the balls.

Although when you look back at things, you have a different view, maybe that's the situation with Coulthard, very good of him to tell it how it is, no excuses just straight forward "I wasn't good enough" - that is very hard for someone to say.

 

[Mephistopheles]

I agree Ron definitely had his favorite son in Mika

 

[landogeorgelewis1]

I agree Ron definitely had his favorite son in Mika

Totally.

I think Kovalainen might come in this caterogy aswell. I don't think he believed he could catch Lewis so settled for 2nd best, but for me i think Whitmarsh always used to give Lewis the new parts first and Heikki would only get them 1 or 2 races later. But i generally do think he could have gotten the better of Lewis on one or more occassions.

 

[no-FIAt-please]

There was a reason Kovalainen got the new developments later, he was less likely to do anything with them. Look at Monza 2009, he was given the preferential fuel strategy and made good use of it on Saturday, but come Sunday he was horribly slow while Hamilton was putting in qualifying laps even to the point of crashing and still couldn't catch the Brawns due to an inferior strategy, if I remember correctly Hamilton's strategy cost him an additional 6 seconds and he was only 2 seconds behind Button when he crashed.If you want a larger sample size Hamilton scored 49 points to Kovalainen's 22 in 2009, and that's with 6 points deducted from Oz.

In relation to this thread I think this may have had a negative impact upon his performances, but he can either be beaten by Hamilton most of the time and have a chance at the odd win or the alternative is to do what he did (I realise it McLaren's choice), move to the back of the grid and be beaten by Hamilton all of the time.

 

[Slyboogy]

It's been stated in 2008 he wasn't given a fair chance by Kovalainen and Whitmarsh, however in 2009 he was poor, but then you could bring up the development argument again after he got the Hungary developments late (I think it was the updates for Hungary) as for Monza it was a bad performance.

But it's the only time you can say McLaren gave him a fair chance, even then it was stated that was the race which would make his fate for staying or leaving McLaren.

 

[RasputinLives]

I'm surprised Rubens Barrichello hasn't come up in this discussion. I honestly think that during the early 2000's as Mika's interest faded that he was probably the only driver in the field who could realistically challenge Schumacher but due to him being signed as Ferrari's number 2 never got the chance too prove it.

Do we think that Rubens - who lets face it had been passed over for top drives before - chose the number 2 seat at Ferrari thinking he was never going to be top of the pile anyway so he might as well get access to the best equiptment and be runner-up or do we think he saw it as a stepping stone to be able to land a drive where he could challenge for the title. If the later was the case why did he hang around at Ferarri for so long?

If you were in F1 and there was a driver as dominant as Schumacher around would you chose to be his team-mate and share some reflective glory in the hope that one day you're allowed to actually challenge him or would you chose to try and go up against him in the knowledge you'd probably lose?

 

[sportsman]

I can't see any F1 driver willingly giving up his seat be it a midfielder or even "tail end charlie".
Simply to be there is the culmination of his wildest dreams and although he may dream of being WDC one day in their heart of hearts most drivers know that its a remote possibilty.
I think Coulthard summed it up pretty well with his "simply not good enough comment".
Having competed in several series myself with reasonable success I knew fairly quickly that I had only the remotest chance of winning the series championship as I was simply not good enough.I still loved the racing and competing and the odd win or podium was the best I could hope for.

 

[siffert_fan]

I think it would come down to this: if the only way I could make it into F1 was as a pay driver, it would be a waste of time as that is a clear indicator that the talent is lacking. Getting there on merit would change the picture, and I would hang on and hope to impress one of the better teams into taking a chance on me.

 

[Galahad]

I'd sooner have the CV of Dario Franchitti or Tom Kristensen than that of, say, Adrian Sutil. I hope I've understood the question correctly there.

Of course, whether Sutil has the talent to achieve what those others did is a key point.