F1 Fanatic

I am not convinced as of now. His stint in HRT can not be held against him but his time at Renault had very mixed results, which we can also blame on car. I think we will need to see at least 5 more races to understand where he is at in terms of qualifying, and consistency. Malaysia is kind of hard to judge because of the weather.

It is also hard to rate him because of his teammates. All of his teammates were inconsistent and it is no different with Maldonaldo. To be honest I do not think he has a bright future because of the drives he is landing. It would be far more beneficial for him if he landed a seat alongside Glock, or Kovalainen because of there consistency and experience. The only drivers Bruno has been around with hardly have any experience and that can lend a hand, provide tips or look up to.

My opinion on the matter is that I think he is very talented. Why? in Spa in 2011 in the rain he looked great and he looked great in the rain in Malaysia. Rain separates the goods from the greats and he was lapping as fast as the front runners. He made some good clean overtakes and imagine he had not had to work from the back; he could have been on the podium. I think that he has had a rough time and his confidence has been hurt in his F1 career so far and when that happens it is tough to recover. People doubt him, call him a pay driver, say he is using his uncle’s name and then he has the pressure of being a Brazilian and being the nephew of Ayrton. Not only that but his team give his free practice session to the reserve driver and that sends a negative and unsupportive message. Who has it that tough? Look his dry pace needs work but I think that is a question again of time and confidence. He is attacking more and getting more aggressive behind the wheel which is good and now he has had a taste for 6th position he will want to be up there. I think that a lot of drivers in F1 already have fine tuned their driving art by the time they get to F1 and therefore you do not see a lot more from them but Bruno is actually improving and learning race by race and that is interesting to watch. People just assume that you land in an F1 car and if you are good you will win from day one but that is simply not true. People kart for years and work there way up the formulas and when they land in F1 they have that pedigree. His dad dies two years after Ayrton – his Grandfather would not speak to him when he took up motor racing and his Uncle died. Give the man a break! I would love to see him shut the critics up. His story could be a heroes one!

I don’t rate Senna. He’s had chances at HRT and Renault to show what he’s got, and he didn’t make the most of them in my opinion. People say you can’t measure someone’s pace at HRT; I say you can, if Senna was consistently taking on the Virgins in 2010 I would have been impressed. At Renault, he was beaten by Petrov, who I don’t rate that much either. All he proved at Renault was that the team’s decision to bring him in was wrong. Senna hasn’t had the easiest introduction to Formula One, but surely a great driver would have made better of the situation.

He did perform very well in Malaysia, but that’s the only time he’s ever done anything noteworthy. Under normal conditions, I don’t think he has the raw pace to score big points like he did in Malaysia.

His qualifying at Spa in the rain last year? And you say that you would only have been impressed with him at HRT had he been taking on Virgins, but who knows if the car had the pace capable of that?

Good on him for qualifying well at Spa last year, it’s just a shame that it didn’t mean anything in the end after he made an amateurish error at the start of the race.

For your second point, maybe the HRTs could not fight the Virgins on raw pace. But Senna did nothing to indicate he had potential. He didn’t consistently beat his team mates and he barely brought the car home whilst his team mates were finishing races. Alonso in 2001 had a slow Minardi, but still showed he had great potential.

Senna has not showed to me that he has a long term future in the sport. He shouldn’t even be in the Williams over drivers like Buemi and Alguersuari.

To be fair to Bruno, he did very well in the HRT considering his car failed in almost every race. People quickly forget things like his spin in Spa were not driving errors.

I don’t know whether Bruno has what it takes, and time certainly isn’t on his side given his age, but I really want to see him well. Why? Because he gets far too much criticism. He’s infinitely more likeable than his late uncle and I’ve not seen any evidence to suggest he can’t mix it with the best. If anyone has, however, I’d love to see some examples!

But judging him on his brief and sporadic appearances in F1 is way too harsh. He was very unlucky in 2010 before being dropped for someone with deeper pockets, thrust into a seat at Spa in 2011 — where he performed admirably despite his “rookie” (hey, he’d been away for a long time) mistake into La Source on lap 1 — and then went on to match his team-mate’s pace for the rest of the season.

His performance in Sepang may be a one-off, but I think it would be unwise to write him off given his rough ride in F1 up to this point.

@enigma – People have been far too tolerant of Senna because he’s a Senna.

@damonsmedley – I think he’s worse than the rest of the field because his results are worse than the rest of the field. This is the opening post of this thread:

For many years everyone has named him spoiled, talentless, pay-driver, useless but after an stunning performance during the Malaysian GP I am somewhat convinced he does share the same talent of his uncle. He was involved in a first lap shunt which saw him reduced to last place. Luckily for him the red flag situation worked out well and after the restart he stormed to a career best 6th place.
How convinced are my fellow f1 fanatics?

What, exactly, has he done that is so fantastic? The team made the right tyre choice in Malaysia, and the race suspension enabled them to fix the car. He hasn’t done anything to make us sit bolt upright and pay attention, like when Alonso drove 53 qualifying laps at Suzuka in a Minardi, or when Raikkonen won a race from 17th on the grid. People are acting as if Senna is a World Champion in the making, but he hasn’t actually done anything becoming of a World Champion.