pob
Podium Finisher
Carmen Jordá Buades is Renault's development driver. You may have noticed her in the R̶e̶n̶a̶u̶l̶t̶ B̶e̶n̶e̶t̶t̶o̶n̶ T̶o̶l̶e̶m̶a̶n̶ Lotus garage last year. Her job is to get the team's sponsors a few more seconds of airtime on the world feed when she waves at the camera (this sounds misogynistic of me, but bear with me). She probably first came to the attention of most of the f1 viewing public because of being wolf whistled by her own mechanics:
If F1 had any meaningful testing, she would be sharing the Renault test driver duties this year with Mercedes loanee Esteban Ocon and French GP2 driver Nicholas Latifi, but as there is so little testing nowadays, her F1 experience has been limited to using the simulator and a small runout in an old car around Bahrain.
As well as the simulator work, she has been undergoing a vigorous gym regime to prepare her body for the rigours of an F1 car.
Jorda fell in love with motor racing at a young age thanks to her role model and father Jose Miguel Jorda.
She started karting aged 10. Her first professional competition was a local championship in Valencia, where she finished third
aged 12.
One year later she was seventh (maybe sixth, records aren't clear) in the Spanish national championship.
Sadly though she has not seen a proper podium since karting.
Her single seater career is dire. She is mostly to be found tootling around at the back. The only good thing to say is that, as she is so slow, she for the most part keeps herself out of trouble. What follows is a summary of her career so far with smilies to emphasise:
She started out in Master Junior Formula, a Spanish version of Formula BMW for teenagers. In 2005 she was a respectable 7th in the championship
. The next year was not as good and she was classified last-but-two (it would have been last-but-one if not for another driver being excluded) 
.
2006 also saw her take part in a DTM test at Hockenheim alongside Valentino Rossi, which I would really like to know more about:
She then graduated to Spanish F3. She was part of the "copa" class for drivers with low budgets using a slightly older chassis which is naturally a disadvantage, although I'd like to point out being in copa class didn't didn't stop Sebastien Buemi's female cousin Natacha Gachnang from taking 3rd in the main championship in 2008!
2006 one-off weekend at Valencia where she placed 18th in both races
2007 0 points, but performed better than at least 2 others in her class
.
2008 1 point for 9th at Jerez. Does fairly well finishing 8th in her class for the season
(7th in her class was Qingha Ma who went on to be HRT and Caterham test driver, and he outscored her despite only doing the last two thirds of the year. Manor driver Roberto Merhi also did a couple of races in copa class that year when he wasn't busy challenging Daniel Ricciardo for the Formula Renault title.)
2009 1 point for a 9th place at Magny-Cours. Apart from the guest drivers, she only performed better than one driver in the field.
2009 also saw her take part in le mans series in an lmp2 rookie team. They arguably performed the worst of any driver trio, scoring 0 points all season
.
In 2010 she moved to America to take part in Indy Lights, the feeder series for indy car. She was classified last in 3 of the 5 races she entered, but to be fair that was as much to do with her car than her driving. She did manage points in the other two races thanks to carnage higher up in the field. She was dropped by her team mid-season due to poor performance
.
In 2011 she raced in the Lamborghini Super Trofeo Europe (Pro-Am). She was part of the worst driver trio, scoring 0 points.
With her motor racing career looking like it was fizzling out, 2012 was a big turning point as she secured enough funding to race in both GP3 and MRF-Challenge.
MRF-Challenge is the name of Indian F2000. She took part in the 2 meetings at Irungattukottai in 2012/13 against the likes of Alice Powell, Josh Hill, Conor Daly and Jordan King and was the worst driver of the field. In 2013/14 she raced at the 2 meetings in Bahrain against the likes of Arthur Pic and Sam Brabham and was classified 10th, 13th, 13th, dnf, 12th, dnf out of a field of 20, so maybe not terrible 
but one of the DNFs is where she was involved in a startline incident that took out half the field.
Those of you who follow GP3 will already know of her poor record there:
2012: worst driver of the field. Failed to qualify at Silverstone due to being outside 107% which is crazy in a one-make series! 0 points.
2013: worse than everyone except maybe Ryan Cullen. She was disqualified from one race for not taking her penalty for exceeding track limits. 0 points.
2014: worst driver of the field, finished last every race except 3 races where she was last-but-one. 0 points. She was replaced by Dean Stoneman for the final 2 venues, and he took both feature race victories and came 2nd in one of the sprints.
So, if Jorda has such a bad record, why would Lotus pick her as a development driver? As far as I understand it she doesn't come with much financial backing (there is a rumour that she has a family connection to Santander but I think this rumour only started because she is Spanish). If Lotus wanted a token female driver in their lineup then there are probably a hundred others to choose from with better records.
Let me take you back to the last season. Lotus were struggling financially, even with the help of Maldonado's millions of dollars of oil money. There was a real possibility that the team would fold. It was Bernie who kept the team afloat until the Renault buyout could be completed (remember the rumours that Bernie had paid their wage bill?) Bernie allegedly placed Jorda at the team as part of a deal to help out Lotus. Now why would Bernie help out an obscure female driver when we all know of Bernie's quotes in the press about women? It's because Jorda is allegedly shagging Bernie's friend Alexandre Molina (he's the guy who gives out the hats to the drivers before they go onto the podium).
this is Molina:
he's one of the few people able to make Raikkonen laugh in public:
Jorda hasn't had a sniff of a proper podium since karts and even points finishes are rare. She should be nowhere near F1 and will hopefully never be granted a superlicence.
The only F1 driver that I can think of with a similarly bad record is self-acclaimed worst ever F1 driver Taki Inoue.
She was most recently in the F1 press responding to comments from Danish driver Marco Sorenson, who took being the opportunity of being dumped by Renault to take a parting shot at Jorda, claiming he was 12 seconds faster per lap in the simulator than her
. Based on her record though, I can believe she was that slow (at least when she first joined the team, although to be fair, with Lotus' guidance she may have improved dramatically over the past year).
If F1 had any meaningful testing, she would be sharing the Renault test driver duties this year with Mercedes loanee Esteban Ocon and French GP2 driver Nicholas Latifi, but as there is so little testing nowadays, her F1 experience has been limited to using the simulator and a small runout in an old car around Bahrain.
As well as the simulator work, she has been undergoing a vigorous gym regime to prepare her body for the rigours of an F1 car.
Jorda fell in love with motor racing at a young age thanks to her role model and father Jose Miguel Jorda.
She started karting aged 10. Her first professional competition was a local championship in Valencia, where she finished third
aged 12.One year later she was seventh (maybe sixth, records aren't clear) in the Spanish national championship.
Sadly though she has not seen a proper podium since karting.
Her single seater career is dire. She is mostly to be found tootling around at the back. The only good thing to say is that, as she is so slow, she for the most part keeps herself out of trouble. What follows is a summary of her career so far with smilies to emphasise:
She started out in Master Junior Formula, a Spanish version of Formula BMW for teenagers. In 2005 she was a respectable 7th in the championship
. The next year was not as good and she was classified last-but-two (it would have been last-but-one if not for another driver being excluded) .2006 also saw her take part in a DTM test at Hockenheim alongside Valentino Rossi, which I would really like to know more about:
She then graduated to Spanish F3. She was part of the "copa" class for drivers with low budgets using a slightly older chassis which is naturally a disadvantage, although I'd like to point out being in copa class didn't didn't stop Sebastien Buemi's female cousin Natacha Gachnang from taking 3rd in the main championship in 2008!
2006 one-off weekend at Valencia where she placed 18th in both races
2007 0 points, but performed better than at least 2 others in her class
.2008 1 point for 9th at Jerez. Does fairly well finishing 8th in her class for the season
(7th in her class was Qingha Ma who went on to be HRT and Caterham test driver, and he outscored her despite only doing the last two thirds of the year. Manor driver Roberto Merhi also did a couple of races in copa class that year when he wasn't busy challenging Daniel Ricciardo for the Formula Renault title.)2009 1 point for a 9th place at Magny-Cours. Apart from the guest drivers, she only performed better than one driver in the field.
2009 also saw her take part in le mans series in an lmp2 rookie team. They arguably performed the worst of any driver trio, scoring 0 points all season
.
In 2010 she moved to America to take part in Indy Lights, the feeder series for indy car. She was classified last in 3 of the 5 races she entered, but to be fair that was as much to do with her car than her driving. She did manage points in the other two races thanks to carnage higher up in the field. She was dropped by her team mid-season due to poor performance
.
In 2011 she raced in the Lamborghini Super Trofeo Europe (Pro-Am). She was part of the worst driver trio, scoring 0 points.
With her motor racing career looking like it was fizzling out, 2012 was a big turning point as she secured enough funding to race in both GP3 and MRF-Challenge.
MRF-Challenge is the name of Indian F2000. She took part in the 2 meetings at Irungattukottai in 2012/13 against the likes of Alice Powell, Josh Hill, Conor Daly and Jordan King and was the worst driver of the field
. In 2013/14 she raced at the 2 meetings in Bahrain against the likes of Arthur Pic and Sam Brabham and was classified 10th, 13th, 13th, dnf, 12th, dnf out of a field of 20, so maybe not terrible but one of the DNFs is where she was involved in a startline incident that took out half the field.Those of you who follow GP3 will already know of her poor record there:
2012: worst driver of the field. Failed to qualify at Silverstone due to being outside 107% which is crazy in a one-make series! 0 points.
2013: worse than everyone except maybe Ryan Cullen. She was disqualified from one race for not taking her penalty for exceeding track limits. 0 points.
2014: worst driver of the field, finished last every race except 3 races where she was last-but-one. 0 points.
She was replaced by Dean Stoneman for the final 2 venues, and he took both feature race victories and came 2nd in one of the sprints.
So, if Jorda has such a bad record, why would Lotus pick her as a development driver? As far as I understand it she doesn't come with much financial backing (there is a rumour that she has a family connection to Santander but I think this rumour only started because she is Spanish). If Lotus wanted a token female driver in their lineup then there are probably a hundred others to choose from with better records.
Let me take you back to the last season. Lotus were struggling financially, even with the help of Maldonado's millions of dollars of oil money. There was a real possibility that the team would fold. It was Bernie who kept the team afloat until the Renault buyout could be completed (remember the rumours that Bernie had paid their wage bill?) Bernie allegedly placed Jorda at the team as part of a deal to help out Lotus. Now why would Bernie help out an obscure female driver when we all know of Bernie's quotes in the press about women? It's because Jorda is allegedly shagging Bernie's friend Alexandre Molina (he's the guy who gives out the hats to the drivers before they go onto the podium).
this is Molina:
he's one of the few people able to make Raikkonen laugh in public:
Jorda hasn't had a sniff of a proper podium since karts and even points finishes are rare. She should be nowhere near F1 and will hopefully never be granted a superlicence.
The only F1 driver that I can think of with a similarly bad record is self-acclaimed worst ever F1 driver Taki Inoue.She was most recently in the F1 press responding to comments from Danish driver Marco Sorenson, who took being the opportunity of being dumped by Renault to take a parting shot at Jorda, claiming he was 12 seconds faster per lap in the simulator than her
. Based on her record though, I can believe she was that slow (at least when she first joined the team, although to be fair, with Lotus' guidance she may have improved dramatically over the past year).
Last edited:
