Jean-Éric Vergne

Well I've been talking him up a lot on other threads so I thought I'd finally give next years youngest driver(unless HRT shock us) his own thread. Jean-Eric Vergne or JEV for short. All jokes concerning journeying to the centre of the earth are indeed welcome. The third new Frenchmen on the grid and certainly the one I see as having the most potential.

Just to make us all feel old JEV didn't get into single seater racing until 2007 where at the age of 17 he raced in the French Formula Renault Campus. Not only did he race in it but he won it by a country mile finishing on the podium 10 times in 13 races. It certainly made him stand out and his was signed to the Red Bull Junior Team on the back of it. He also became a member of the French Automobile Sport Federation (FFSA) who have done a sterling job of bring thorugh French drivers of late. Basically after one years single seater racing Vergne was part of 2 organisations that were heavily pushing him towards F1. He still had to get the results though. In 2008 and 2009 he drove in the Formula Renault 2.0 competitions winning rookie of the year in 2008 and finishing close runner-up in 2009 losing out to a Spaniard of the same age named Albert Costa. Not the Tennis player apparently.

In 2010 Vergne took the big leap of moving to the British Formula 3 Championship to become one of 6 drivers for the Carlin team. The move paid off big time as he won 12 of the 30 rounds to take himself to the title. He won all 3 rounds on the same day at Spa marking himself as bit of a specialist round the old track. He was the third Red Bull Junior driver in a row to take the title following in the footsteps of Alguersauri and Ricciardo.

Continuing the Red Bull route Vergne moved into Formula Renault 3.5 for 2011 once again racing for Carlin. He'd actually took part in the final 3 rounds (6 races) for Tech 1 in 2010 where he'd took to the series amazingly quickly scoring 5 podiums one of which was a win. This form carried on into 2011 and he and his Carlin team-mate Robert Wickens pulled clear of the field eventually despite the strong challenge of Alexander Rossi and Albert Costa and the 2 took the title right down to the wire and the final race. Vergne was 2 popint behind Wickens going into the final race and the two collided on thefirst lap. Wickens retired and Vergne carried on and it looked like he was about clinch the tilte when he himself whilst lapping Fairuz Fauzy thus handing the title to Robert Wickens. Incidentally his new team-mate Danial Ricciardo took part in 12 of the 18 rounds and only managed to finish in front of Vergne 3 times.

As for Formula One experience JEV drove and F1 car for the first time at the Goodwood Festival of Speed in 2010 before driving the Toro Rosso at the Abu Dhabi young drivers test in 2010. He then did Friday practice sessions for Toro Rosso in 2011. At Abu Dhabi he was 0.3 seconds off the pace of Alguersauri which probably helped his eventual choice as Toro Rosso driver. What certainly helped was his 3 days in the RB7 at Abu Dhabi where he set the fastest time of anyone(by a clear margain) each day.

Whilst there has been a lot of people upset by the replacement of Buemi and Alguersauri at Toro Rosso I don't feel this should be reflected on to Jean-Eric. He has won titles, races and awards in every cateogry he's raced in and usually right from the begining. His raise to F1 has been quick but there is no doubt in my head that its deserved. Personally I think Vergne's awesome form last year and the way he conducted himself in the young drivers test gave Red Bull no choice but to take a chance on him. Since 2010 they've had Ricciardo penciled in as the next big thing and Vergne came along last year and made them doubt that so I think they couldn't put Ricciardo in without giving Vergne a shot too and its certainly going to be interesting to see what he makes of it. Theres no doubt from looking at the record for his junior career though that it can almost be viewed as Vettel-esqe - we can only see if he continues that in F1.

Jean-Eric Vergne is actually the first of a bunch of drivers who have been moving through the levels of Motor-sport together who are likely to make up a good part of the F1 grid. I personally can't wait to see Robert Wickens in an F1 car and with Alexander Rossi, James Caledo and Albert Costa all gradually making their way through too for me they are the next 'golden-age' after the last spurt of Rosberg, Kubica, Hamilton, Vettel and co. Vergne to me is at the head of that and after seeing the way he performed in the 3.5 series I'm going to stick my neck out and say he will be the guy that Red Bull chose to replace Mark Webber and in a season or two we could see him rock the boat at Red Bull and give Mr Vettel a team-mate to worry about.

So there you go - I've stuck my neck out and I'm fully prepared for you lot to hit me over the head with it when I prove to be utterly utterly wrong. Anyone else have high hopes or even low expectations?
 
Well the Monaco retirement definitely wasn't a matter of JEV being a car breaker as they both retired. And I think Bahrain he was a Sutil victim. Although he has out-retired Ricciardo each of the last two years, 4-1 in 2012 and 5-3 in 2013 not counting a race in which Ricciardo failed to finish but completed enough laps to be classified.
 
I have to admitt that deep down I kind of still believe JEV is better than Danny Ric.

However I can't help but think he's got no hope and Bob Hope this year. If he beats Kyvat then he should have done and if he doesn't then he's blown it. Add to the fact that there is no space for him to be promted to the A Team with at least 3 Red Bull juniors currently smashing it in the junior formulas and the liklihood is that however good JEVs season is he'll be out of the Red Bull programme.

I think his best hope is to string some results together and hope another team takes him.
 
Vergne has been given an extended chance. He's greatly responsible for not having seized his opportunity. Of course he's better than Maldonado and his oily money, but that could go for any number of drivers as well. Not to mention the fact that pay drivers aren't exactly a new phenomenon in F1.

For every JEV there's a dozen guys of similar skill that never get a single GP ride, nevermind 3 seasons worth.
 
I do take your point KekeTheKing but as JEV pretty much kept pace with Ricciardo and Ricciardo has gone on to do great things. Should we be reassessing JEV.

Where JEV lost out to Ricciardo was in his qualifying which appears to be an issue he has got on top of this season.
 
I think he has a chance of a seat at Lotus or Sauber, but he falls in-between the "world champion potential" category and the "filthy rich" category and it's difficult to survive in F1 is you're not one of those now.
 
I feel as if Toro Rosso drivers almost always perform better than they should in the car that they're given, just nobody realizes just how well they are doing because they are both doing equally well so we assume the car is better than it is. If that makes sense. So nobody notices until you do something absolutely remarkable like Vettel did. But I feel like this led to good drivers being driven out of F1 with Buemi and Alguersuari and it may happen again with JEV. Nobody though much of Ricciardo either until he got a chance with Red Bull, and nobody would have thought twice about it had his career gone down the same path as Buemi and Alguersuari before him. Maybe we need a better way to evaluate drivers in F1 because of how difficult it is to judge a driver's competency by comparing them to their teammates and the rest of the field.
 
F1Yorkshire just broke the news on the Formula E discussion thread that JEV will be driving for Andretti in the Formula E race in Uruguay this weekend.

Looking forward to seeing him in Formula E but wonder if he is maybe hooking up with Andretti with the prospect of a drive in the states.

F1's loss is Formula E and maybe Indy Cars gain.
 
soccerman17 you can't say the policy has failed since Vettel and now Ricciardo have proven it works . Every driver going through the Red Bull young driver knows the score if they succeed chances are they will end up driving for Red Bull if not their career is finished ( well no second chances with them)

Its brutal but given the time and money invested in each driver only one can come out on top each time

Algarsuari has moaned that Helmut thinks you need to win in the car to get recognition. Clearly the STR is never going to be a race winner now Red Bull team gets a lion share of F1 budget
 
I'm not saying Toro Rosso's strategy hasn't worked I just think they've passed up on quite a few drivers as good as Ricciardo's performance was pretty standard for Toro Rosso yet he is absolutely killing it at Red Bull. Buemi, Alguersuari and Vergne did just as well as Ricciardo at Toro Rosso, don't you think they'd be doing well at Red Bull right now too if they were there?
 
I think that part of the problem is that Red Bull have a tendency to leave it very late in the year before announcing what drivers they decide not to retain in their set-up. Too late for said drivers to have much chance of opening serious negotiations with any rival team. And once you're out of a drive for younger drivers, chances are they won''t make it back in if the last 10 years are anything to go by.
And the other part of the problem is that the Red Bull program is such that the image of young drivers become associated wuth the the brand. Everything become centred around the program, image, sponsors etc... it's a very exclusive club. It's got its advantages as long as you're part of it but as soon as you're out you're left with not a lot else in terms of partners or backers etc....
 
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