F1 Fanatic

After his lackluster GP2 last year – I think question marks may have been raised about his ability to nab results under pressure. Pity. He was a good talent IMO. However Sam Bird seems to be taking his renewed WSR opportunity with both hands though, and is doing well. His win in a steering-damaged car (in Monaco of all places!) was nothing short of superb.

There were rumours a while ago that Mikhail Aleshin was trying to get onto the grid for 2011, but Vitaly Petrov’s management blocked it to keep Petrov as the pre-eminent Russian on the Formula 1 grid. I don’t think it’s true, though – Aleshin was linked to a drive with HRT while Petrov was still racing for Renault. He wouldn’t have been any threat to Petrov.

I don’t know too much about Kvyat. Red Bull support will certainly help, but the problem for him – and Sainz and Williamson – is that they’re all really young. If Mark Webber were to leave Red Bull, and the team looked to Toro Rosso to replace him, they’d no doubt want to promote a member of the program to fill the vacant Toro Rosso seat. But I don’t think Kvyat, Sainz or Williamson are ready for Formula 1.

The real problem they face is what happens when Red Bull find a second high-calibre driver to race alongside Vettel. They would no doubt want to hold onto both drivers for as long as possible, which means that Toro Rosso would just be a waste of money. Especially if drivers cannot easily move from Toro Rosso into other teams. I suspect that once they have two good drivers in Red Bull, the company will sell Toro Rosso and bankroll a Formula Renault team and/or a GP2 team instead.

But for what it’s worth, I think Sergey Sirotkin is the most exciting of the young Russian drivers. Add in Kevin Korjus and Robert Visoiu, and eastern Europe is undergoing a real motorsport renaissance. It’s a wonder Bernie hasn’t cottoned onto this yet – we’ve got the Hungarian Grand Prix, and we’re getting the Russian Grand Prix, but I’m surprised he hasn’t tried to get the likes of Romania, Estonia and Serbia interested. I do know there was an attempt to get a race in Bulgaria, though …

It’s pretty much accepted these days that GP2 is a two-year programme.

And it goes without saying that GP2 results are not necessarily representative of a driver’s future in Formula 1. Just look at Kamui Koabayashi and Romain Grosjean in 2009 …

Inteesting story at Autosport about Lotus’ disaster of an Indycar campaign:

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/100137

The HVM-Lotus is likely to be parked at Texas. The mebarrassment for all involved could put Simona de Silvestro on the market – and of all the current female drivers (Wolff, Frey, de Villota, Legge, etc.), de Silvestro is probably the driver with the most talent, and therefore probably the most likely to succeed in Formula 1.

And she’s only 23, so she’s still fairly young.

You seriously believe any other driver would have won in Interlagos and AbuDhabi in that Toyota?

It wasn’t a race winning car by the time Koba got into it, but yeah, the R29 was an absolute shopping trolley.

Webber will probably stay for next season, but in 2014, Ricciardo and Vergne will both have had two years at Toro Rosso. I would assume this will be the time where one moves up and the other moves on, they will both be gone by 2015. At the moment it looks like Kvyat and Sainz will be the next in line for those two seats. Unless Toro Rosso is sold, as suggested above.

It will get very interesting at Toro Rosso and Red Bull at the end of 2013. Webber will most likely stay for next year; however, Mark will be 37 by the end of that year, and will most likely retire. Mark is getting old. Vettel has a contract until 2013 for Red Bull, and I remember him saying his dream is to be a driver for Ferrari, but then he recently said he can’t imagine a life without Red Bull. He can’t seem to make up his mind.

In 2014, the most likely scenarios I can imagine are:

1 – Both Vergne and Ricciardo are both very impressive at Toro Rosso in 2013. They both move on to Red Bull while Webber retires and Vettel moves on to Ferrari. Sainz and Kvyat replace them at Toro Rosso.

2 – Both Vergne and Ricciardo fail to impress Red Bull, they are both dropped while someone else fills up RBR’s second seat, preferably Hamilton or Webber might stay for another year, or perhaps both if Vettel does move to Ferrari. Horner feels that the Red Bull junior programme is a waste of time and money, and sells Toro Rosso as the rumours suggest.

3 – One of the Toro Rosso drivers moves on to Red Bull to join alongside Vettel. The other STR driver is either replaced by Sainz and Kvyat, or either one of the young guns is put alongside Ricciardo/Vergne (whoever fails to impress) as a benchmark; or Toro Rosso is sold.

@raymondu999
I know you’re quite a Vettel/Red Bull fan, so I’ll ask you this: Based on what you’ve seen from both so far, do you believe either Daniel Ricciardo or JE Vergne have what it takes to drive for Red Bull some day? Someone will have to replace the ageing Mark Webber as soon as he retires.