Drivers

Dedicated Formula One driver discussions.
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...
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...
Nico Erik Rosberg, son of Keijo "Keke" Erik Rosberg, is about to have his 100th Grand Prix meeting this weekend in Hungary. I was about to write my "best wishes" to him in 'his' thread...but I couldn't find one...so, I figured I might as well start it off. What is very interesting is that his father, Keke, took part in 114 Grand Prix races in his entire Formula One career, winning 5 of them - all for Williams from 1982 to 1985 - as well as a World Championship. It's interesting in that Nico is approaching that number quickly and he's already about to finish off his 6th season in a few months...but without a win to his name...and no win in sight given the current pecking order of the cars. Some say Nico is a great talent...while...
Never have I known so many people rate a test driver as a future world champion so I thought I'd start a thread for people to pass there opinions on young Nico. Has an incredible record in other Formula's - won A1 Go in 06, won F3 euro masters in 08, won GP2 in 09 and then came into F1. There was a lot of hype around Mr Hulkenberg in arriving in F1 as he was seen as the next 'Lewis Hamilton' but in all honest in the car he was driving he was never going to be able to match what Lewis did as a rookie the question remains though did he do enough? He scored 25 points to his experienced team-mate Rubens Barrichello's 47 which doesn't look good - however is it unfair to judge a rookie against the most experienced F1 driver in history...
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...
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...
So I went to post Narain's response to Vettel's comments on his thread only to find out that he is the only driver on the current grid who doesn't have one! bless his little cotton socks. So I thought I'd write him one. Born in Madras in 1977 the son of a rally driver and also related to Indian motorsports legend Karivardhan its not surprising that Narain grew up with the ambition to be India's first ever F1 driver and if you look at his junior career its no surprise really he made it. He won British Formula Ford in 1994. He won Formula Asia in 1996. He came 4th in the championship for the Stewart team in British Formula 3 in 2000 and then spent the next 4 years working his way up the leader boad in the Formula Nissan World Series...
Just realised that this truly great world champion doesn't have his own thread, and thought he deserved one! Been the orignal flying Finn Mika Hakkinen was a two time F1 Drivers Champion. He was one of the main reasons i got into F1 and decided to follow DTM. Mika started his F1 career at at Team Lotus at the United States GP way back in 1991. That year at the San Marino GP he picked up his first points in F1. In 1992 Hakkinen continued on at Team Lotus and was partnered alongside British Driver Johnny Herbert. In 1993 Hakkinen joined Mclaren as a reserve/test driver, after Michael Andretti was sacked for poor results Hakkinen was promoted to full time driver, at Estroli where he out-qualified the late great Ayrton Senna. In...
The Vettel thread surprised me as such that when I searched for a Schumacher thread, I could not find one. So I propose this thread for Schumacher because regardless of your opinion whether his return is succesful or not, I think we can all agree that there's always something to talk about whether he's had a good or bad race. Historical Discussion may be allowed on the thread as long as it's on topic. Enjoy! :)
2015 sees the arrival of the youngest driver ever to sit in an F1 car. Max Verstappen was born on 30th September 1997 and, assuming he makes the grid in Australia, will only be 17 years and 167 days, beating Jaime Alguersuaris' record by 1 year and 323 days (assuming my maths is correct). How can such a young man be ready for F1? As the son of former F1 driver Jos Verstappen Max started racing karts at 4½ years old. In 2006 he won the Belgian Minimax Championship in the KF5 category and in 2007 he won both the Dutch and Belgian titles as well as the Belgian Cadet Championship. In 2009 he won the KF5 Flemish Championship and moved up to International Karting. In 2010 Max finished 2nd in the KF3 World Cup, won the Euro Series and...
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?
I'm a little puzzled as to why Webber doesn't have a page in the teams and drivers section, as Webber is a pivotal figure in the story upfront. There are questions that need to be asked. Why can Vettel win, and Webber struggle to get on the podium fighting Ferraris and McLarens? Why is the man that was noted as a good qualifier unable to get near Vettel? Did the leg break in late 2008 do him serious performance damage? and What should Webber do in the near future? Mark Webber. Over to you...
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