Rossiter: “Young talent doesn’t get a chance”

2013 F1 season

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James Rossiter, who tested for Force India last week, says today’s young drivers are disadvantaged by the ban on testing.

“I was very lucky that I got to do tens of thousands of kilometres in a Formula One car while I was still racing in Formula Three and that made a huge difference,” Rossiter told F1 Fanatic.

“I feel very sorry in a way for the young drivers these days that the young talent doesn’t really get a chance to show what it can do in a Formula One car, unfortunately at the moment it seems to be, unless it’s paying for a test.”

Rossiter tested for BAR and Honda before the in-season testing ban was introduced in 2009. He said that experience has helped him since joining Force India last year to work on their simulator:

“It was more important that I had F1 experience,” he said. “You know what a car should feel like, how to tune a hydraulic diff, how to work with the engineers on that level.”

“And that’s very different compared to, say, GP3 or GP2 or anything like that. Because in a GP3 or GP2 car you don’t have all the things you can change on a Formula One car. You can really only get used to all these changes that engineers like doing in Formula One if you’ve driven a Formula One car.

Rossiter drove for Force India during last week’s test at Jerez. “It was great to get behind the wheel again,” he said.

“That was certainly a very exciting thing to do and I was very impressed with the car and where Formula One is at the moment. It’s different to how I remember it.

“Many things have changed now: you’ve got KERS and DRS so there’s more actively for the driver to do over every lap because you’ve got to use KERS a couple of times per lap, the DRS a couple of times per lap.

“But at the same time that becomes very routine, you don’t even think about it. In the end you know how much KERS you’re going to use on what part of the circuit and where you’re going to open the DRS.”

F1 Fanatic’s one-to-one interview with James Rossiter will appear here tomorrow.

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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19 comments on “Rossiter: “Young talent doesn’t get a chance””

  1. Blame EU for banning Cigarrette sponsorship…..

    1. If I remember correctly, Marlboro aided many, many sub par paydrivers and tobacco companies barely sponsored midfield and backmarker teams. I’m not entirely sure how the EU got the testing ban through either.

      1. and tobacco companies barely sponsored midfield and backmarker teams

        In 1999 7 out of 11 teams were sponsored by tobacco companies, including the 5th, 6th, 7th, and 11th placed teams (and the 11th placed team was sponsored by 2 brands).

        1. top 7 teams bar one, then the last guy. It kinda makes his point. In general, the lower teams went ignored.

          1. I would call the 5th, 6th and 7th placed teams midfielders (none won a race), which actually goes against his point, although I admit that backmarkers were generally ignored.

          2. They hardly sponsored them anywhere near as much as Ferrari, McLaren and Williams, though. Should have made that more obvious, sorry.

      2. vuelve kowalsky
        15th February 2013, 17:44

        andrea de cesaris being the driver most sponsored by phillip morris in the history of the sport.

  2. I get the point about giving young drivers more time but the question is how do you do it?

    The immediate answer is usually ‘bring back testing’, Problem been that nobody really had the budget to go testing which is why FOTA rejected Jean Todt’s calls to reintroduce it last year.

    The best solution is to go back to what we had 2004-2006 & allow 3rd cars during FP1/FP2 on Friday, That worked well.
    However there are only maybe 2-3 teams that could really afford to run them & a complaint back then from fans was that the actual race drivers then didn’t do much running in those sessions leaving the 3rd car to gather the required data.

    1. Perhaps making a rule which makes it mandatory for the constructor’s outside of the top 4 to run a driver under 30 with no less than 5 GPs experience in one of their cars. A third car would cost a lot more money and would thus be an easy prey for paydrivers.

    2. I agree that this might be a solution GT_Racer. The (probably very unpopular) alternative being to have a race driver in only one of the cars during the friday and have a mandatory rookie/young talent driving the other one.

    3. how do you do it?

      Make a dummy team funded by all teams, and Get FIA to regulate it. This could then also be integrated as a part of the process of obtaining a super license, and prevent entry of “paying drivers” who may not be qualified.

  3. I always had this idea which I think could benefit everyone, teams, fans, drivers.

    – Bring in an evolved Formula-2 series to race on Saturday’s after F1 qualifying, scrapping the GP2.
    – They would all be junior or b-teams of the bigger teams, with the exact chassis. Example, Scuderia Dino Ferrari and Diet Red Bull Renualt. :p
    – However for cost effects, the cars would be raw, four wheels and engine with no eletronics what so ever, go-kart stuff, as well no telemitry, fixed wings, and no pits for a 40min race.
    – Only drivers with no previous F1 expereince would be allowed to race.
    – And make it that the top driver, will be financially sponsored by the FIA to race in any of the senior teams the following year.
    – As well, this will allow sponsors to scout and back talent, instead of handshakes, and would sponsor this junior league, which would bring money to the senior teams.

    Okay, you can all laugh now… :(

    1. I won’t laugh @ivano, but I do think your idea does not solve the issue.

      However for cost effects, the cars would be raw, four wheels and engine with no eletronics what so ever, go-kart stuff, as well no telemitry, fixed wings, and no pits for a 40min race.

      would mean the exact things Rossiter mentions are missing experience for drivers coming into F1

      “You know what a car should feel like, how to tune a hydraulic diff, how to work with the engineers on that level.”

      – that work with the engineers needs having complicated systems on the car, otherwise it won’t work.

      1. You’re very right on that point.

  4. Correct me if I’m wrong, but wouldn’t the top teams at least be allowed to test young drivers in one of the older cars? Of course we also have the young driver’s tests but I feel that needs to be properly regulated to prevent it becoming a test session and also then I think there should be two at least, but undoubtably that would require extra incentive from the FIA etc. for the teams (as otherwise they are spending lots of money for no real benefit).

    I do agree though; young drivers are being hampered by the costs of competing in the junior formulas and then the lack of prepeparation for the step up to F1. Really it ought to be reversed but that will take a huge revamp of the current ladder to F1, which sadly I don’t see happening.

    1. Drop Valencia!
      16th February 2013, 6:50

      They can, but running an F1 car with the proper engineering team is currently very expensive, I imagine Ferrari would want Millions per day if someone wanted to run one of their old chassis at the fez test track…

  5. Scumbag racer: Runs over front jack man, says young drives don’t get the chance :D

  6. Just reintroduce testing. The teams that can afford to test will test, and those that can’t will perish. Survival of the fittest. It’s sport, after all, not schoolyard tiddlywinks, where everyone gets a ribbon just for participating, thereby giving rise to an entire generation of pansies unprepared for the savage brutality of real life.

    1. thereby giving rise to an entire generation of pansies unprepared for the savage brutality of real life.

      isn’t the single target of civilization to make life easier for its participants though @joepa?

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