Drivers

How come this man doesn't have his own thread yet? DC is a true Gentleman and a credit to the sport we love. If it wasn't for him pushing for Safety in the 90's and 00's and even now when he's retired, we would have seen more deaths in F1 after the very sad weekend in San Marino back in 1994. DC was always the nearly man when it came to his F1 career piped to the title on more than one occassion by either Hakkinen and Schumacher. I wouldn't say DC was a number 2 either in his career. DC in his 247 Grand prix starts scored 13 wins, 62 podiums, 535 points, 12 poles and 18 fastest laps. DC at this current time is the all time points record holder for a Britain in F1. Can Hamilton or Button break his points tally of 535? DC has only...

Daniil Vyacheslavovich Kvyat or Danny Kvyat to you and I seemed to come as a shock to some as Toro Rosso's choice for a race seat that prompted all sorts of money accusations however if people had been paying attention then it might have been less of a shock. With Ricciardo being promoted to the A-Team it was only logical that Toro Rosso were going to promote one of their youth squad to the race seat and whilst Kvyat was not at the front of the queue in the fame stakes he certainly got there in the results stakes. At the begining of 2013 he was third in line to the throne sitting firmly behind the ever popular 'oh-my-god-he's-a-future-world-champion' Felix Da Costa and the 'oh-my-god-he's-the-talented-son-of-a-rally-driving-champ'...

I noticed young Daniel didn't have his own thread so thought I'd give him on as sure he'll be around for a good few years. Born in 1989 (that makes him 22 before you do the maths) this aussie started karting at the age of 9 and in 2005 entered the Western Australian Formula Ford Championship as a privateer driving a car that was 15 years old at the time and managed to finish 8th. He won a scholarship to compete in Formula BMW Asia the following year. As we all know he eventually became involved in the Red Bull young driver programme after winning the British Formula 3 championship in 2009. Became Red Bull's test driver and has now stepped up to drive for HRT. Has been really hyped as the next big thing by the Red Bull team and the...

I was just watching the Qualifying buildup for Singapore 2009 and found this piece with Damon Hill pretty interesting. This was soon after the Renault crash-gate revelations where some were questioning the legitimacy of the sport.

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...

2018 sees the much talked about Charles Leclerc make his debut in F1 in the Sauber. Its fair to say there is a good bit of excitement around that. He was born in October 1997 (no really) in Monaco and does race under the Monegasque flag. He was a childhood friend of the late Jules Bianchi. His father Herve Leclerc was also a racing driver, taking part in Formula 3 but unfortunately passed away last year at 54. I'm sure both these connections will make his F1 debut a bit bittersweet as they both should be there. I first saw Leclerc racing in European F3 and instantly made a joke about Napoleon's brother-in-law and General of the same name. As soon as I made the joke I realised not many people know who that is and therefore the joke is...

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...

Congratulations to young Bruno Senna for a fantastic qualifying session today. I'm sure his uncle would be very proud knowing he's starting the Belgian Grand Prix - his first race of the year - from 7th on the Grid. Spa-Francorchamps is a special circuit. A real challenge and known as a "driver's circuit" which "separates the men from the boys". Add to that the tricky, greasy conditions you had today and Bruno's consistency in ALL 3 sessions at this circuit means there's some talent there. The Renault is by no means a Top 4 car...so to be 7th on the grid ahead of the likes of World Champions Alonso and Button (both of whom have superior Ferraris and McLarens) and his somewhat highly rated teammate Petrov, is a very good achievement...

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...

Today (19 August 2011) "Senna" opens in Toronto and i'm taking off early from work to catch a matinee' viewing. This is about as good a time as any to open this thread... From Prost's thread: There was no greater expert on the sights and sounds of a Formula One car at Aida that day than Senna himself...And if his expert ears and eyes noted that only Schumacher's B194 sounded and reacted like it had traction control then i'm going to believe it. Period. As per the accident at Tamburello...well, the saftey car that day wasn't exactly a Mercedes-Benz AMG...I believe it was an Opel and, as a result, a bit 'too' slow. The tyre pressures dropped significantly and that would have affected the ride height. Tamburello had a few bumps and...

Thought I'd write an unexpected thread for an unexpected debutante. Giovinazzi's performance in his late call up seems to have impressed everyone and so he is a very worth add to the CTA Formula One Drivers section. Born in Martina Franca, Italy he is the grand old age of 23. To make some of us feel old Alain Prost had already won 4 titles and retired (twice) before he was born. Started the usual way with success in Karting and winning some trophies there (Italian and Euro), moved on to British F3 (runner up in 2013), European F3 (runner up in 2015) and GP2 (runner up in 2016). Along the way he's also had a couple of races in DTM and a go at Le Mans last year. He's certainly held his own in every series he has entered. Personally I...

I couldn't find a thread on him so apologies of there is one already. Alexander Rossi (21) is a racing driver from Auburn, California USA currently competing in GP2 and reserve driver for Caterham F1. Regular readers of Clip The Apex discussions may have noticed that I rarely get involved in discussions about new or relatively new drivers until they do something stupid. One of the reasons for this is that few of the newcomers have really grabbed my attention in their pre-F1 careers. However, having had a little look at Rossi's statistics, I have a feeling that at the very least he is one of the best young American talents that we have seen for a while. Not only that, he has clocked up a couple of championship wins, third place...