Drivers

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?

When I started these retrospectives of F1 drivers I said I wouldn't cover any World Champion's, so now I'm going to break my own rules but, as you will see, Keke Rosberg won his title in the most bizarre year F1 ever suffered. Most of you youngsters will know Keke as the father of Nico Rosberg and someone who used to drive an F1 car, back in the day. How best to describe Rosberg senior? Balls out probably just about sums it up. Whenever Keke got behind the wheel of an F1 car I don't think he knew how to give less than 100%. His record in the lower formulas isn't exactly stellar. In four seasons of the European F2 Championship he won 3 races, one each in 1977, '78 and '79. But when you consider he was racing against the likes of...

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...

Who is this guy? asked Fernando Alonso. Well Fernando log on to Clip The Apex, click the link to the drivers section and I'll put you in the picture. Will Stevens was born in Essex and was karting from a young age with some success in the Asia-Pacific Championship. He then went on the usual path of racing Eurocup and Formula Renault and whilst his results wer fairly good he was not setting the world alight. He then jumped up to WSR 3.5 in 2012 with the Carlin team and hardly set the series alight with his first year. However a move to the Straka Racing team in 2013 saw a sudden dramatic change. Stevens suddenly blossomed and whilst he did not secure any race wins all season he mixed it up with the front 3 of Magnusen, Vandorne and...

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 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...

Before reading further, just consider this. If someone told you that there was a driver who finished second on his Indy 500 debut and within 4 years had not only won the Indy 500 but the Indy Championship title and the Formula One world championship. You would think to yourself that sounds like one hell of a driver...... As soon as people mention the name Jacques Villeneuve however, the above paragraph gets completely forgotten and the view that forms in most peoples minds is one of a driver only motivated by money and who paddled around in an uncompetative car and struggled to beat the likes of Ricardo Zonta. He finally left F1 with his tail between his legs after being dumped mid season by Sauber. The question is, does he deserve...

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...

An homage to my favourite driver. Fast, honest and one of the unluckiest Grand Prix drivers ever. Jarier was born in 1946 and after competing in Formula France moved on to F3, finishing 3rd in the French Championship in 1970. 1971 saw him in F2 and debut in F1 in a rented March at Monza. For 1973 Jarier raced in F1 for March and also in the F2 Championship. His exploits in F1 were pretty unremarkable that season and he was replaced at various points by pay drivers as the March team were struggling for cash. However, he took the F2 title with seven wins beating the likes of Jochen Mass,John Watson and Patrick Depailler. For 1974 Jumper, a name he acquired at March as Robin Herd's son pronounced Jean-Pierre as "jumper", moved on...

As I did a thread for Vergne last week I thought I better give Charlie Pic his own one too so as not to leave him out as part of this new wave of Frenchmen that F1 has for 2012. Born Feb 15th 1990 Charles Pic will be the second youngest driver on the grid in 2012 being 3 weeks younger than Sergio Perez and 2 months older than Jean-Eric Vergne. Its been a fast rise for Pic but a patchy one in fact he's never won a championship in any of the formula's he's raced in however he's impressed enough to be promoted up to the next level - maybe a bit too quickly. He came 3rd in Formula Renault Campus in 2006, 3rd in the Eurocup Formula Renault 2.0 in 2007 and 3rd in the Formula Renault 3.5 series in 2009. He gained victories in all these...

It's going to be a long, slow day at work so here's a profile of Rene Arnoux, one of the most difficult drivers to pigeon hole. On occasions blinding quick, on other occasions a mobile road block who made Jarno Trulli look like a rank amateur. He was also very well balanced with a chip on both shoulders. I first saw Rene racing in 1980 when at the all French Renault team partnered with Jean Pierre Jabouille. There's an interesting comment in his Grandprix.com entry: I think this explains the enigma that is Rene Arnoux, not very technically gifted but a real balls out racing driver as this video of the closing laps of the 1979 French GP demonstrates perfectly. Jean Pierre Jabouille won Renault's first ever Grand Prix at that...

This will be the first in a series of profiles of F1 drivers from days gone by. My ambition is to learn more about drivers who were great personalities in F1 but never won a Championship or, perhaps, even a race and I hope you will enjoy finding out what I discover. To that end I will kick you off with "Monsieur Mans", Jacky Ickx. As his nickname suggest, Jacques Bernard Ickx is probably mostly remembered by motor racing fans for his exploits at Le Mans and, until Tom Kristensen came along, Jacky was indeed the master of Le Sarthe with 6 class wins starting in 1969 and ending in 1982. Like many, Ickx came to motor sport via motorcycles and was Belgian Trail Champion in 1963. He moved on to racing saloon cars and was Belgian...