Franz Tost and his drivers

I'm not that surprised with him putting Kvyat over Ricciardo tbh. This season Ricciardo looks a bit better than Kvyat. But even then their average race finishing position is the same and the WDC points are really close. Without Australia where Ricciardo got 8 points and Kvyat didn't even race, Daniil would already be ahead of Daniel. Watching them both, I saw many rookie mistakes from Kvyat and sometimes he's been really off the pace. But even then he's matching Ricciardo. Probably because Ricciardo goes backwards at starts and he's been also off the pace or outqualified at times. When you considered the fact that this is Kvyat's 1st season in RBR team and 2nd season in Formula 1, I see very good potential in him. I think that might be the sort of thing Tost based his rankings on.
 
I'm surprised he can rank Vettel so far ahead of Ricciardo after the 2014 season.
5 Places ahead of Webber, yes, I would understand that. Ricciardo, no.
 
Honestly, I actually do agree with the order of Tost's list, based on what I've seen. Kyvat's doing brilliantly for his second year in F1, and the Toro Rosso kids are exceeding expectations, yes there are rookie mistakes, but here's the thing... they are rookies, they are going to slip up once in a while. Meanwhile, I just can't say I'm impressed by Ricciardo. Maybe I had to be there to see it when he was on top? For sure, he's better than Ralf Schumacher though. Oh lordy was he bad!
 
Ricciardo was very impressive even before being promoted to Red Bull in my opinion. I didn't notice at the time mind you, but in retrospect the signs were there, especially in qualifying.

In 2011 he was dumped into the backmarker HRT team midway through the season without ever having driven the car. Despite this he tied Liuzzi 5-5 in qualifying and beat him 4-1 in races.
For reference Vettel was dumped into Toro Rosso midway through 2007 in a similar fashion to Ricciardo, but was actually beaten by Liuzzi 4-3 in qualifying and 3-1 in races, although he outscored Liuzzi 5-3 (12-10 under the modern system)

In 2012 Ricciardo beat Vergne 16-4 in qualifying and 10-8 in races, but lost 16-10 in points (although his average finishing position was slightly higher). Then in 2013 Ricciardo beat Vergne 13-6 in qualifying, 7-4 in races and 20-13 in points.


I just don't see how Ricciardo was not impressive at Toro Rosso, but Sainz and Verstappen somehow are. We didn't have anybody to compare them to, but both Ricciardo and Vergne had very strong junior careers, arguably stronger than any other drivers on the grid then or now bar Hulkenberg.
Furthermore, Tost and Verstappen have both made a lot of noise in recent times about the Toro Rosso chassis being the second best on the grid, behind only Mercedes. If true then neither driver is having a good season. Verstappen is only in his second season of racing so is still early in his development as a driver, whilst Sainz's junior career was merely decent.

EDIT: Also don't understand the dig at Ralf Schumacher. He was very closely matched with highly rated drivers like Trulli and Montoya.
 
Spinodontosaurus said:
In 2011 he was dumped into the backmarker HRT team midway through the season without ever having driven the car. Despite this he tied Liuzzi 5-5 in qualifying and beat him 4-1 in races.
For reference Vettel was dumped into Toro Rosso midway through 2007 in a similar fashion to Ricciardo, but was actually beaten by Liuzzi 4-3 in qualifying and 3-1 in races, although he outscored Liuzzi 5-3 (12-10 under the modern system)
Click to expand

You do realize at the time Ricciardo was 22 and Vettel was 19. Not to mention the fact that when Vettel beat him Liuzzi was 27 years old, it was 32 with Ricciardo. There were 10 races with Ricciardo, but only 7 races with Vettel in that half a season. Also, you alluded to the fact that Ricciardo had slightly more single seater experience than Vettel had at the time. I don't think it's like for like. Otw, someone else might say Vettel started beating him more quickly in quali, and beat him by a larger margin in races. Remember Japan'07? He was on for a podium and his teammate was not in the points until he DNF'd.
I think it was 5-3 for Liuzzi vs Ricciardo in quali though. Races should be 1-4 to Ricciardo's favor.
It was also 4-3 for Liuzzi vs Vettel in quali, and races should be 2-1 to Liuzzi's favor.
 
Tost is known as a hard man to please. Speed and Liuzzi I don't think he rated either of them having trying to promote Vettel and court Bourdais from Indycar

Ralf Schumacher he's worked with the longest.

Vettel had the benefit that Toro Rosso were able to use basically the old Red Bull chassis bolted with a Ferrari engine when the team was at its most competitive. They've not had as good as car until probably this season

I see there is no mention of the Moose or Jaime ..I thought Jaime did a decent job in what he had

Ricciardo until he got his opportunity at Red Bull - you always felt was just a 1 lap specialist
 
Age doesn't matter so much, it is the relative levels of experience that matter. In that sense you have a point about their junior careers. Vettel spent 4.5 years in the junior ranks before being promoted up to Formula 1, but Ricciardo had 6.5 years.

You are right about the Ricciardo/Liuzzi stats. I counted the Vettel ones myself, but I just lifted the Ricciardo/Liuzzi ones from elsewhere as it was easier. I have now counted them myself and I agree with it being 5-3 to Liuzzi in qualifying. It is still impressive to be as close or closer to Liuzzi than Vettel managed.

Either way my point was that Ricciardo's early seasons in F1 were actually very impressive, even if that is only apparent with the benefit of hindsight. Whether they were slightly better or slightly worse than Vettel's was not my point.
 
Spinodontosaurus said:
Age doesn't matter so much
Click to expand
Imo it does. 19 is not overly young, but physical aspects of the sport will certainly play their part. Nowadays it's a bit more easier for F1 drivers anyway.... Take junior categories though, to some extent the younger you are the harder it's to compete with guys older than you. If you are 13/14 years old and everyone around you is 15+, you have a serious disadvantage. 19 vs 22 is relatively normal though.
I agree with you on Ricciardo's results versus his teammates in any case. I just thought imo Vettel/Ricciardo vs Liuzzi is not really more favorable for either driver than the other.
 
Spinodontosaurus As I missed much of Ricciardo's early career, I hadn't seen all of that. As I said, maybe I had to be there to see it? As to the dig at Ralf Schumacher, yes, he compared favorably to Trulli and Montoya, but as I don't rate either of them very highly as F1 drivers either, that doesn't help Ralf's position at all in my estimation.

For the record, I rate Montoya well for Indy/Champ, but that's a level down from F1, so what I'm saying is I don't think he, Ralf, nor Trulli were really good F1 drivers, but could have been great at lower levels in the sport.
 
^It probably didn't help that he had the misfortune of racing in F1 at the same time as his brother. But I've never understood why people rate Ralf so badly.

Over his career he was narrowly outscored by Fisichella (as a rookie), Damon Hill and Montoya, whilst he slightly outscored Trulli, convincingly outscored Button (who was a rookie) and thrashed Alex Zanardi. He was not on the level of his brother, obviously, but his results against some very strong tea mates were overall pretty good, especially when you consider Trulli is so far the only driver ever to outscore Alonso over a single season.
 
You're probably right that Ralf's greatest misfortune was that he raced at the same time as his brother. As much as I make no secret of deeply disliking Michael Schumacher, I am forced to concede that when he had Ferrari buying their way to success on his behalf, he was very successful. That's as close to a compliment as I'm giving on that - MSC and Ferrari almost drove me away from F1 for good. It is certainly possible that part of my bias against Ralf Schumacher comes from disliking his brother so intensely, but I'd still maintain that he just wasn't very good.

Outscoring Trulli isn't really that impressive, he's a one lap specialist. He only has to beat you in quali, then light the wick for a lap or two at a time to keep you behind him. If you out-qualify him you needn't worry about him until pitstop time. That Trulli was the only driver to outscore Alonso tells me one of two things: Alonso isn't as great as some people say, or Trulli showed rare and exceptional form in that season.
 

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