Again you fail to understand how it works.
Think of Motorsport Open Wheeler as a pyramid. F1 Championship is the top.
Go-cart is the bottom. tens of thousands of people drive go-carts.
If you perform really well and win race after race, some team might pick you up.
That is if you perform and really shine among thousands of drivers.
I like my 1/100 thesis. maybe only 1 in 1000 go-karters actually become top F1 drivers, but the point can be made that a good portion of racers are not even close to their true potential.
A good point is made that most who "make it" in motor sports did it because they had the money, they knew the right people, etc, ect. NOT because they were better drivers. Look at how incredibly successful Jeff Gordon has been, holy crap!!! Would he have ever stepped foot in a Nascar without being raised in a very well off family, definitely not. Could he have started karts with only a little bit of money, sure.
Not you could argue that some have "rose" from legitimate lack of money, like Vettel did. But thats pretty damn rare, and yes Vettel does have real talent. But most of the F1 drivers are simply above average with a lot of practice & $$$. You arent going to convince me otherwise by attacking me and saying I couldnt do this or couldnt do that.
Webber might drive circles around me at first, but give me or anybody who determined some practice time and it wouldnt be that way for long.
You arent going to convince me otherwise by attacking me and saying I couldnt do this or couldnt do that.
Rich SNow when you have millions of kids playing Basketball, Tennis, baseball, it IS impressive when somebody rises through the ranks & comes out on top.
Rich SWebber might drive circles around me at first, but give me or anybody who's determined some practice time and it wouldn't be that way for long.
It is out of character from me F1......but its not ludicrous. I'm not a big believer race drivers are that special. Gifted, well you could say they are in the since they've gotten where they are through a variety of circumstances.No one is attacking you. Personally, I am just rather surprised to see an out of character ludicrous claim from you.
Hammond still is not an F1 fan by the way.
Joe Saward reported the same thing.They claim that part of the Kimi deal would be Kimi becoming share holder in Williams... Sounds wild...
Williams sure needs it! They have been downhill since 2004.
korza493They've been downhill since 1998.
Another Retro Williams in 2012?
Something struck me today, and it’s kinda cool.
So we all know the Kimi Raikkonen to Williams rumours for 2012, right? Of course we do. The thing is though, they are gathering pace with every passing week. The latest rumour is that Sir Frank Williams has spent the last few weeks in Qatar and Saudi Arabia, trying to drum up enough cash to lure the 2007 World Champion back to the sport.
Anyway, here’s where it gets cool.
It is rumoured that Williams, along with finding some finance from the Qatar National Bank, is trying to get a few old sponsors back on board … namely Saudia, Albilad and TAG.
This year, Williams is running a pretty mega livery, in homage to the Rothmans livery of the mid 1990s.
What chances the 2012 Williams features a Green and White livery, with the old boys back on the sidepods?
And you know the even cooler thing? Think back to 1982. 2012 will be the 30th anniversary of Keke Rosberg, the Flying Finn, taking the title for Team Willie. A mega fast Finn? In a Green and White Williams? Thirty years on?
It’s too tasty, isn’t it?
I wonder if they mean Kimi will be paid in stock rather than cash...
Sometimes tabloids can be painfully accurate.
You guys you guys....the KERS/DRS doesnt mean a damn thing. The KERS he used before, the DRS is simpler than passing a sobriety test. You push a button.
Vettel won Australia without KERS didnt he? Dont remember. Its a very minor issue.
Motor sport is not an athletic sport. The car does the work, the driver is along for the ride more or less.
This isnt Michael Jordan's comeback...its not Lance Armstrong's attempt at a return, its a guy getting in a car and trying to nail apexes.
Heck, you could throw me in that RB7 and I'd bet $20 bucks I'm within 0.5 of Webber's fastest time within 30 laps of practice.
I think you are over-stating the importance of being familiar with everything. Sure its important, but it doesn't make 1-2 seasons of difference like it has for Schumacher. Schumacher's slow return to form has been more than just getting familiar with everything - its also been down to his driving style, the behaviour of the Mercedes, the switch in tyres (interesting to note he has been more competitive on Pirellis than Bridgestones), a variety of factors can explain his long wait for pace. Even now though he was still almost an entire second off Rosberg for Abu Dhabi qualifying.
Part of it is also that Schumacher just isn't as good anymore. As I said earlier, he wasn't exactly at his prime in 2005 and 2006 either...which is why he retired in the first place.
Yes I realise its more than just 1 test day. There is also being on the simulators, being involved with the team season by season and being there to experience the changes each season. Being a reserve driver is useful for this and is somewhat good preparation. But at the end of the day, its appeared to be fairly negative for a driver's career to spend any amount of time as a reserve driver. We've seen that the drivers who have kept their racecraft up and competed in other motorsports during their time away have comeback and performed better than those that simply sat around as reserve/test driver.
Why have De La Rosa, Wurz, Klien and Kathikeyan not won a race? Because obviously they were either never good enough or never had the car to do that. It has very little to do with their time away from the sport.
De La Rosa in particular is very impressive as generally everytime he has stepped in cars he has been competitive. Ironically his career slumps were when he had full time race seats.
Raikkonen has been at least taking part in competitive motorsports. While its not anything like open-wheel racing, the mindset is pretty similar and preparation and training is pretty close to identical. Martin Brundle has regularly mentioned that even spending a year away from racing is pretty disastorous for your race craft. So even racing motorbikes and rally cars is better than sitting around on the pit wall every race weekend.
Oh darn forgot about the fact that if you are a fan of F1 you automatically gain 2 seconds per lap.
It's a little tricky to get this one right, because it's being translated from German into Finnish into English, but AMuS is reporting that Raikkonen wants to buy a 20% stake in Williams as part of his contract.