F1 Fanatic

I think Bourdais was unfairly treated, he did a decent job in 2008 and was unlucky but really should have beaten Buemi in 2009 to prove himself.

I also heard that he was an absolute nightmare to work with. Apparently he was exceptionally moody and hard on his mechanics. I suppose he couldn’t handle being mediocre. I think this was a large factor when they decided to let him go.

So Hartley’s been dropped from the Red Bull young driver programme… presumably they felt he hadn’t been making enough progress? Another reason why STR retained their drivers, perhaps.
If things had gone differently, it could have been Hartley with a year’s STR experience under his belt… as it is, you have to wonder where his career is going.

I just looked over the results and team line-ups of all the years Bourdais won Champcar championships. Penske and Ganassi were no longer in Champcar which left Newman/Haas (Bourdais’ team) by far and away the most experienced and competitive team in the series. In addition, the only true, consistent talent that Bourdais ever faced was Allmendinger, and he was stuck bouncing around teams and moved the the more lucrative NASCAR before he could really challenge for the title(Forsythe was the only descent drive Allmendinger found, but they were not near as consistent as Newman/Hass were). The rest of drivers in the field were either F1 drop-outs or drivers who had been around American Openwheeled racing for a long time and had either never really done anything consistently enough to be a threat, or, like Vasser, were past their prime (da Matta possibly could have challenged when he came back but couldn’t find a good enough team). Hence, my suggestion is that it made Bourdais look better than he actually was. It took Bourdais 3 seasons to win the F3000 championship and in the year he won not a single other driver in the that year’s championsip went on the make a successful career in Formula One. So did Torro Rosso make a mistake in letting him go or did they just take longer to come to the same conclusion that all the other F1 teams came to the year Bourdais won the F3000 championship?

Haha what’s your beef with the Toro Rosso drivers? For your information I cheered for Buemi and Jaime at Hockenheim on Friday Saturday and Sunday (well what I saw of Buemi on Sunday…). Just because noone cheered near you doesn’t mean they don’t have fans. In fact I saw a lad with the swiss flag painted on his face with Buemi on his forehead. Jaime was brought into the team I assume because he’s perfect for Red Bull, he’s a good looking young DJ that brought a sponsor with him. Buemi’s actually done a decent job in the races that he hasn’t been taken out in a first lap incident (and when you look at those they’ve normally been someone taking him out).

They’ve both done a solid job in a poor car. They seem to be doing a good enough job anyway, I think it was Tost who said ‘if they don’t crash they’re not trying hard enough’ so he obviously sees it more as a learning experience for them and to develop than anything else. I think it’s great they’ve been kept on, but I hope Riccardo finds a spot in F1 soon, he’s such a great guy and doing well in World Series.

Well he overtook all the new teams which is what you’d expect, not sure where you expected him to finish when he had an incident on the first lap. Also not sure who you think were their good drivers apart from Vettel…Bourdais is now not even sticking with superleague and wasn’t cut out for F1, Scott Speed is in NASCAR (’nuff said), Liuzzi is doing great isn’t he :-P The drivers aren’t particularly good but neither’s the car. Like I said, they’re doing enough for Tost so whats it matter? He’s happy with them, I’m happy with them.

By the way it’s Jaime not Jamie.

Yeah I’m a big Toro Rosso fan :) I really hate Fernando, especially after Sunday, what a joke!

Anyway, I watched from different places over the weekend including the Virgin Racing garage for practice, Red Bull garage and Energy Station for qualifying then back to the cheap seats for the race down at the hairpin. It may not be glamorous but we saw some of the only action during the race haha.

I didn’t see the Seb helmet guy myself but I saw some pictures of him on my mates facebook who saw him, he looked amazing!

Wow you varied your seats more than we did haha! Can’t say I’m a fan of Lotus or their energy drink ;)