Drivers

Dedicated Formula One driver discussions.
It looks as though this guy has secured the Manor drive though it hasn't been officially announced yet. So who is he? He's an Indonesian race driver aged 23. He's had a lot of single seater experience. For the last four years he's raced in GP2 for different teams with mediocre results ( 14th 19th 15th) until last year 2015, when he raced for Campos and finished 4th. And that was quite a string field. In 2014 when he finished 14the he was partnered with Rossi, but comparing results is difficult because they didn't race against each other all season, there were team changes. Prior to his GP2 career, he raced in GO3 in 2010 he raced for Manor and finished5th , he was also F1 test driver that year. And in 2011 he raced for Marussia...
So Roberto Mehri looks set to make his F1 debut for Caterham in the 2014 season, if not at Monza at least at some point of the season. Merhi's sudden step up to F1 is a dramatic change of fortunes for a driver who had basically dropped out of single seater racing two years prior to 2014. At 18 Merhi started racing in the F3 Euroseries and whilst his first two seasons were consistant rather than spectacular he certainly showed he had a sensible head on his shoulders. He jumped into a GP3 seat near the end of the 2010 season and scored a double podium on his first weekend. It was all a pre-cursor to his championship year in F3 Euro in 2011 where he streaked away from the rest of the field. Merhi had one retirement all season with only...
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...
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...
You know the little fat feller on Sky? He used to be an F1 driver you know. In fact, he was a pretty bloody good driver who overcame career threatening injuries to win 3 Grands Prix. In 1987 John Paul Herbert won the British Formula Three championship driving for Eddie Jordan. The next step was F3000, again with Jordan racing. Johnny won the season opener at Jerez and was third at Monaco. A couple of races later the circus moved to Brands Hatch. Johnny was on a high, he had signed a contract to drive for Benetton in Formula One who were managed by his long time mentor, Peter Collins. Johnny was on pole but lost a couple of places at the start. As the cars came back from the trip into the country side (they were using the full...
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...
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...
On this very day thirty years ago came to an end the life of one of Formula One's most perduring legends. A man who embodied the concept of motor racing in its purest, most romantic form. It's hard to think of anything that hasn't been said already about Gilles Villeneuve. A man devoid of fear, who never gave anything other than his very best whatever the circumstances often capable of achieving breathtaking feats often in the face of impossible odds. We hear often the words "taking the car into positions it has no right to be in" about drivers who out-perform their machinery when they display impressive form. That expression could have been invented for Gilles, for whom the heroic was a matter of routine. Heroic feats he was made to...
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...
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...
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...
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