d'Ambrosio: See the stats and make your mind up.

Does d'Ambrosio deserve a shot higher up the grid?


  • Total voters
    34

RasputinLives

No passing through my dirty air please
Contributor
Has been a lot of people saying on the rookie thread that they are unable to judge our friend Jerome due to the car he's been driving so I decided to look at his stats compared to the only driver you can do which is his team-mate Timo Glock and on looking at them he seems to come out quite well.

In Quali Glock wins 5 to 3 however when you look at who finishes in front of who in the race the results are reversed and d'Ambrosio is ahead 5 to 3 - even if you take into account Glocks 2 non finishes and his none start he is still ahead on merrit 3 to 2 in the race (he had one non-finish himself).

What is really interesting is fastest laps during the race. Once again d'Ambrosio comes out on top 5 to 3. Although Glocks fastest lap time in Spain was a full 1 second faster than him in every other race he's faired quite well. In Australia his fastest lap in the race was 1.2 seconds faster than Glock and in Canada his fastest lap was over 2 seconds faster than Glocks - he even finished in front of Glock despite a drive thru penalty as well.

If you compare him to Virgin's closest rivals who are HRT he fairs pretty well too - Canada was the only time he's actually finished behind the HRT's (apart from his retirement in Malaysia where he was classified behind Liuzzi).

Also, all be it on countback, he is the only rookie who is currently ahead of their team-mate in the WC standings. Although you might say this is more because of luck and him picking up higher places due to retirment he still had to beat Glock to do this.

So what do we conclude from all those stats? poor qualifier but good racer? maybe. You also have to take into account Glocks number 1 status and the fact he's more likely to get the new updates - which actually could be why Glock has 3 retirements to d'Ambrosio's 1. You have to conclude though that Mr d'Ambrosio obviously has good race craft as not only does he seem to be able to bring the car home but also seems to be able to get that Virgin to go the fastest race wise.

So what does this mean? Well obviously we're only 7 races in but we have to say that Glock comes highly rated as a GP2 champion, someone who has scored podiums on merit and has been considered for drives higher up the grid. If d'Ambrosio does continue to get the best of him you have to conclude that he has the potential to at least match what we've seen for Glock. If he continues his current form I'd be very interested to see what he could do in a car further up the grid.

I do feel a bit sorry for him as Di Resta and Perez get all the praise as rookies when in actual fact it looks like d'Ambrosio is doing a better job. I just wonder if Virgin was on the same pace as say the Force India whether we'd be talking about his chance of getting a bigger drive.

So What do you guys think? Cream of the crop or just a big pudding?
 
I would like to see him in a Force India, Sauber or Williams to give a decent assessment.

I reserve judgement until then.

PS: his driving is not pudding, the car is though.
 
That is a good question Jez - he has been in a little bit of a strop it has to be said. I don't really understand that though. If he wants out at Virgin surely the only way to get out is to remind teams further up of how good he is.

d'Ambrosio can only beat whats in front of him though and we have to judge him on that because we don't know - If Glock needs motivating then surely having his rookie teammate set a lap in the race 2 seconds faster than him has to be some motivation.

I guess we could compare him with Di Grassi's stats last year where I think he'd be quite a bit ahead.
 
I've been saying one or two similar things about D'Ambrosio, but for me there is one major factor that makes the situation very murky, very tough to decipher. That factor is reliability. All things being equal, I am positive there is absolutely no way D'Ambrosio is anything more than, say, 0.3s faster than Glock on a single lap. It is difficult to read too much into the times of both drivers during the race, because first and foremost, the Virgin team will never get a mention on the TV coverage, be it in Britain or elsewhere. Not even in the post-race "analysis" will you hear a single word from either driver, and in most cases, not even a mention that they exist. So you will not really know whether or not the cars have had problems during the races which limit them from matching each others' pace.

It would be a worthwhile exercise to regularly check the Virgin website and any online news sources, because reliability is the biggest problem the lower end teams have in most cases. Yes, they lack raw pace but without a reliable car they can't make it go much quicker. For instance, during the Spanish GP I think it was, the TV coverage was discussing how Jarno Trulli was something like 1s off Kovalainen's time, yet for a long time they completely ignored the fact that his DRS wasn't working. Oh, and he probably had power steering problems.

After the Montreal race, Timo said :

But then I had a massive lock-up on both front tyres which cost me badly at the end. I couldn’t go flat any more on the straights because of all the vibrations, so when Karthikeyan came up behind me I tried to stay in front but he made a move into the last corner and pushed me off the track. He shortcut the chicane when he overtook me and Jérôme got by in that incident too.


So looking at the lap times, I think Glock must've had his lock up on lap 63, because soon after he's doing mid 1.25s while D'Ambrosio is doing high 1.24s and mid 1.23s.

Until that point D'Ambrosio's pace in Montreal really wasn't that impressive. Having said that, he had made 5 forays into the pit lane, but was rescued somewhat by the SC towards the end.
 
Good research Rasputin - Gotta admit those stat's look really good for Jerome. But agree with the others just how motivated is Timo Glock? He was good last season and now seems to have developed the Sutil Syndrome.

Agree with Sarinaide that i'd like to see him in a midfield car to judge him better.
 
So what does this mean? Well ... we have to say that Glock comes highly rated ...
Hehe. :snigger:

Rasputin, my old friend, Glock was effectively fired by Toyota and replaced by Kobayashi because he (Glock) was unable to do anything special with a car (the 2009 Toyota) that had about 2 wins - or a handful of podiums at the very least - in it that year. Glock was inconsistent and didn't even dominate a journeyman like Trulli. He had his chance.

I don't rate Glock. :) Sorry, Rasputin my friend, but that's how I feel.
 
Hehe. :snigger:

Rasputin, my old friend, Glock was effectively fired by Toyota and replaced by Kobayashi because he (Glock) was unable to do anything special with a car (the 2009 Toyota) that had about 2 wins - or a handful of podiums at the very least - in it that year. Glock was inconsistent and didn't even dominate a journeyman like Trulli. He had his chance.

I don't rate Glock. :) Sorry, Rasputin my friend, but that's how I feel.

Glock is only decent it it refers to the gun, otherwise the only highlight of Glock's career came at Brazil in 2008 when he rather easily allowed Hamilton to pass him in the final corner to finish 6th and win the title.
 
At one point glock was the talk of the town, but rather gone south since then, maybe a better drive for Glock will paint a better picture.

For Trulli the only thing everyone agrees on is that he is Trulli awe-full or awful.

For D'ambrossio to be in F1 he has to be pretty decent enough, but decent is not a fair indication based on the car.
 
Fair enough Ray but I think you'll prob be in the minority.

Not sure how you concluded that Glock was fired by Toyota as we all saw the crash he had in Japan where he injured himself. On top of which his last race for Toyota was a second place in Singapore which equaled his best result in Hungry the previous year. What was impressive about both those results was he scored them on merit rather than through retirements. He may have been a bit lucky in Hungry with Massa's late retirement but he certainly had the best of defending world champ Kimi who was driving arguabley the best car in the field that day.

Also in 2009 he scored 12 points finishes out of 14 races - including 10 point scoring finishes in a row. In a season that the field jumped around so much thats quite impressive.

Anyways - the article was about d'Ambrosio
 
Actually Glock finished ahead of Trulli 9 times to 6...He also had 2 podiums - a 2nd and a 3rd.

Would it help if I said I don't rate Trulli either? ;)

As I said, that Toyota had 2 wins in it...and about 5 or 6 podiums for either driver to take. They didn't and Toyota packed up after they failed to attract Raikkonen who stole one of those potential wins from them (Spa, 2009).
 
Its funny how drivers reps change isn't it? I remember when Trulli was the next big thing - Ferrari driver in waiting - Then Flav got his hands on him and black balled him out of the big teams.

He still had a great season for Toyota in 2005 despite all the critics. He can be hit and miss but on his day Trulli was pretty awesome.

I guess some drivers just stick around for too long.
 
Not sure how you concluded that Glock was fired by Toyota as we all saw the crash he had in Japan where he injured himself. On top of which his last race for Toyota was a second place in Singapore...Also in 2009 he scored 12 points finishes out of 14 races - including 10 point scoring finishes in a row. In a season that the field jumped around so much thats quite impressive. Anyways - the article was about d'Ambrosio

Toyota used an injury as a mask to pry Glock from that drive. Toyota had a car that was capable of taking 2 wins that year. Toyota had a car capable of many podiums that year, let alone scoring points. So, Glock's results weren't good enough. That's what i'm saying. Trulli was also a dissappointment in 2009. They were both underperforming. Glock binned the car at Suzuka when he should have been putting that car on the front two rows of the grid for Toyota's home Grand Prix. So, after binning that car, Toyota over-stated Glock's "back injury" and told him to look elsewhere for a job. That's why Kobayashi drove at Abu Dhabi.
 
Toyota used an injury as a mask to pry Glock from that drive. Toyota had a car that was capable of taking 2 wins that year. Toyota had a car capable of many podiums that year, let alone scoring points. So, Glock's results weren't good enough. That's what i'm saying. Trulli was also a dissappointment in 2009. They were both underperforming. Glock binned the car at Suzuka when he should have been putting that car on the front two rows of the grid for Toyota's home Grand Prix. So, after binning that car, Toyota over-stated Glock's "back injury" and told him to look elsewhere for a job. That's why Kobayashi drove at Abu Dhabi.

Can you please provide me with a link to prove this please? Sounds all like gossip to me - especially as we know he had a cracked vetebra and that Toyota were pulling out of F1 anyways
 
Its funny how drivers reps change isn't it? I remember when Trulli was the next big thing...Then Flav got his hands on him and black balled him...He can be hit and miss but on his day Trulli was pretty awesome.

Everything's relative. Since Trulli had his limelight in '04/'05 a new breed of very good drivers entered the scene, namely Vettel, Hamilton, Kubica and Rosberg...driver capable of worrying even the Alonsos of the world. So...everything changes. Plus you said it yourself: "hit and miss". That means poor consistency. Add to that a lack of staying power over a Grand Prix and you have a driver who was good over a shorter stint at a time when the driver era wasn't as strong and as deep as it is now. This is a mighty driver era, right now.
 
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