Drivers

He built up a reputation as a good qualifier in the mid-late 00's. We also had the famous Trulli train back in those days too. Jarno's one and only win to date came way back in 2004, but IMHO he should have won more races in his career. He was famously dropped by Renault for losing a poduim finish at the French GP in that same season. Jarno's list of teams include: Minardi Prost Renault Toyota Lotus Jarno also owns his own vineyard out in his home country of Italy.. I've always thought Trulli was a average racing driver and even though i did feel slightly sorry for him when he got publicly sacked by Renault, i've never been given the impression by him that he's ever tried in races to go for that extra point. What are your opinions...

Some time ago I was nominated to write a thread about Brendon. I'm not sure why, never met the bloke and don't really like him. Anyway, he's 28, comes from New Zealand and his wife is called Sarah. What more do you need to know? More serioulsy, in 2010 he was dropped by the Red Bull young driver programme and now drives for Toro Rosso and is (probably) the oldest driver to debut for the Bulls ever. If this assertion is wrong I'm happy to be corrected. Looking back through his junior career there really isn't anything that jumps out as to why Red Bull would have taken him on in their young driver programme but with their support he won the Formula Renault 2.0 series in 2007 so Dr Marko must have seen something. He was 3rd in the...

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 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...

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...

So a fan favourite is no longer in the series so Lando is drafted in to soften the blow for all the hardcore fans........but enough about Star Wars we're here to talk about F1. Yes the only other Lando you know will make his F1 debut with McLaren this year and if McLaren aren't already in talks with Disney about a special Star Wars promotion on the car for some races this year then they really are out of touch with the world. Lando Norris (cue FB posting a pic of Norris from Coronation Street) is a 19 year old whizz kid from Bristol. I've watched him quite a bit over the years and from the very first moment I saw him drive the words 'next Lewis Hamilton' floated into my brain. He has won championships in every series he has raced...

Elio de Angelis' rise to F1 was quite phenomenal. In only his 3rd season of racing, with backing from his rich Roman parents, Elio entered F1 with the Shadow F1 team at Monaco in 1979. Prior to his F1 debut Elio had won the Italian F3 championship in 1977 and the Monaco GP F3 support race in 1978. However, Shadow was not a team on the up and de Angelis and team mate Jan Lammers both struggled at the back of the grid. The highlight of the '79 season came in the last race where Elio took fourth place at a wet Watkins Glen and this, combined with a a cash injection, secured Elio a seat alongside Mario Andretti at Team Lotus for 1980. 1980 was a season of rebuilding at Lotus after the disaster that was the type 80. The type 81 was a...

When I first started taking a serious interest in F1 in 1980 John Watson was driving a very un-competitive McLaren M29 and was partnered with a young driver, fresh from F3, called Alain Prost who was showing him a clean pair of heels. I didn't take much notice of this bloke at the back and had no idea of his history in F1. Come 1981 John led the non-championship South African GP for a few laps as other drivers stopped for fresh tyres in a wet dry race and all of a sudden the specialist magazines were full of articles about this softly spoken Ulsterman who would be team leader of the new McLaren team under the stewardship of Ron Dennis. A few races into 1981 the McLaren MP4 appeared and things changed, but I'm getting ahead of...

Today marks the 45th anniversary of that most tragic day at Hockenheim when Jim Clark, the greatest driver I ever had the pleasure of seeing in action, was killed when his Lotus crashed. Clark amassed some incredible statistics: 33 F1 poles in 73 races, 25 wins in 72 starts. What always amazed me was how effortless he made it all appear. The one race of his that I will never forget was Monza in 1967. Clark was leading, but had to pit with tyre issues, thereby losing a lap. Upon rejoining, his brilliance was such that he not only recovered the lap he lost, but he regained the lead. Ultimately he ran out of fuel on the last lap, handing the win to Surtees in the Honda, but EVERYONE knew who was the "real" winner. And it's not like the...

So after the news yesterday that Pedro will once again be on the drivers list - this time at HRT - I thought I'd put a thread up to discuss his exploits. Spain's second greatest racing driver - unless Jamie Alguersauri finishes above 9th in Brazil on Sunday - in which case Spain's 3rd greatest racing driver! Started out as test driver for Jordan back in 1998 before getting a race seat with the Arrows team in 1999. He joined the exclusive 'scoring points on your debut' club by finishing 6th in his first race in Australia. Back then points only went down to 6th so it really was an achievment. He did benifit from both Mclaren's breaking down and Schumacher getting a puncture and ending up a lap down. Having said that he was running as...

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...