The 2012 Driver transfer discussion/speculation thread

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RTSolvalou
Excellent. And it is amusing that Petrov gets signed on the same day that Gerard Lopez at Lotus decided to run his ignorant noob mouth about him and Formula 1 in general:
http://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/lotus-says-losing-seat-vital-shock-for-petrov/?v=2&s=1&i=1

I came here just to point out this Lopez article but I find Petrov has signed, a nice surprise.
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Funny thing about Lopez is that Petrov knew what was going wrong. He even spoke up about what was wrong to the team and media. So for Lopez to say that when qualifying 14th Petrov was more comftorable than mad, actions of Petrov clearly say otherwise and Lopez is just spewing garbage. Renault obviously didn't like Petrov's comments about bad runs due to the car, yet in that article he acts as if he is suffering from short term memory loss.

A few things come to mind, he wanted Petrov to do these things but when he did that was bad. So a case of "do as I say not as I do" or damned if don't and damned if do.

Like I said before, F1 to me when it comes to the politics of it is the sport of hypocrisy.
 
Good bye Jarno. I will miss those days where you really pulled a result out of nowhere. So many promising starts at teams that ended in nothing for a variety of reasons. Jarno was almost the guy to make Toyota win on several occasions.

 
In wake of recent events, I bet Jarno Trulli will try to skip the the following track on his iPod as fast as possible:

 
Good on him nt publicly being bitter. He's 37, so I doubt he was surprised the team would want a younger driver with more sponsorship.

GTs for him next?
 
MazdaPrice
Good on him nt publicly being bitter. He's 37, so I doubt he was surprised the team would want a younger driver with more sponsorship.

GTs for him next?
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How could he be bitter? he must have had a great deal... its not like they could just let him go...
 
His F1 days may be over but he is still insisted in getting back into racing. His professionalism shown when the news came in is what made him a very likeable character. Eventhough I have always wanted him to stay but younger drivers must come and take a place, regardless of whether he's a 'pay driver' or not. We'll miss him for sure... :(

I think this is the first time since what, 1970 that we have no Italian drivers on the grid?
 
InvincibleM5
I think this is the first time since what, 1970 that we have no Italian drivers on the grid?
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For a season perhaps, but per race there were no Italian drivers on the grid for the 1996 Japanese Grand Prix. Gio Lavaggi failed to qualify.
 
LMSCorvetteGT2
Stuff happens. Jarno isn't going to get a seat it's too late. And everyone thought the way Rubens was dropped being rough.
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I meant it was odd that there were no Italians on the grid for 2012. You'd think the one nationality that would be adequetly represented on the grid would be Italy.
 
MazdaPrice
For a season perhaps, but per race there were no Italian drivers on the grid for the 1996 Japanese Grand Prix. Gio Lavaggi failed to qualify.
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It sounds more impressive when you say "for the first time since 1970, there are no Italian drivers starting the season" as opposed to "for the first time since 1996, there are no Italian drivers starting a race".
 
Heh, that is the case but still... researching the facts is fun. For me anyway.

For a sinle race I knew it was 1996 at the earliest thanks to Trulli being there since 1997 and I was unsure if there was a race when neither Fisichella nor Lavaggi nor Badoer nor Montermini raced.
 
MazdaPrice
Heh, that is the case but still... researching the facts is fun. For me anyway.

For a sinle race I knew it was 1996 at the earliest thanks to Trulli being there since 1997 and I was unsure if there was a race when neither Fisichella nor Lavaggi nor Badoer nor Montermini raced.
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Where do you get such info from?
 
prisonermonkeys
It sounds more impressive when you say "for the first time since 1970, there are no Italian drivers starting the season" as opposed to "for the first time since 1996, there are no Italian drivers starting a race".
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Didn't Andrea de Adamich qualify for a race or two in 1970 with that McLaren-Alfa Romeo?

(What a bizarre, short-lived combo that was.)
 
Alex p.
Where do you get such info from?
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Because I'm a loser who spent far too much time watching BTCC and F1 vids growing up.

Pupik
Didn't Andrea de Adamich qualify for a race or two in 1970 with that McLaren-Alfa Romeo?

(What a bizarre, short-lived combo that was.)
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A quick wiki shows that he did. France, Austria and Italy.
 
tribolik
How could he be bitter? he must have had a great deal... its not like they could just let him go...
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There's more to life than money. Especially when you have been an F1 driver for the past 15 years. Now everything else will seem tame in comparison.
 
Jarno can only be going to sportscars I reckon, unless he too gets tempted away into Indycars - I doubt it though as his reputation appears to be at a low, Barrichello is getting the helping hand because of his mates Kanaan and de Ferran as well as the obvious Brazil interest. Whereas Jarno doesn't really bring anything like that.
I could kind of see him taking up touring cars but I don't think he would appreciate the bumper cars nature of that.

Could be a nice AF Corse dreamteam? Fisichella/Trulli? Shame Alesi is now a Lotus man.
 
Pupik
Didn't Andrea de Adamich qualify for a race or two in 1970 with that McLaren-Alfa Romeo?
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Yeah, but his first appearance was the 1970 Spanish Grand Prix at Jarama. De Adamich did not race at Kyalami. That's what we mean by "start the season": there will be no Italian drivers at Melbourne.
 
I don't have a direct link, but Gerard Lopez has weighed in on why Petrov and Senna were dropped. He claims that Petrov got too comfortable in the team, and was content to cruise around so long as his sponsors paid. He also reckons that Senna was very happy to qualify fourteenth in India when he should have been annoyed with himself for not pushing harder.

However, based on the performances of the R31, I'd say fourteenth was the best that Senna could have managed (even if Petrov set a time good enough for Q3). Lopez's comments reek of blame pushing, as if the R31 was competitive all season long and the team's poor performances were a result of drivers who simply phoned it in rather than a car that was never properly developed.
 
Maybe Lopez just didn't like the attitude and the actual placement wasn't that important as the car wasn't really good enough?
 
Maybe, but he was highly critical of both drivers and he never acknowledged the way that the car was clearly lacking in development. Just look at the way Renault went from being competitive enough to score points in Italy, to running behind the Caterhams in Singapore, and then scoring points again in Japan - and all of it within the space of a month. Something was obviously very wrong with the R31 for it to be bouncing around that much, but Lopez never acknowledged it. So if Senna was happy to be 14th on the grid, I'd wager it was because he felt 14th was the best the car could do. It certainly dovetails with Petrov's comments that by the end of the season, even picking up a single point required a phenomenal effort from the team.

I'm not saying that there weren't problems with the drivers, but looking at Renault's performances over the last few races of the season, you can't pin all the problems on them the way Lopez has.
 
If there would be a third Toyota TS030 car next year, I'd set the chances high to see Jarno in that car.
 
I think it is highly unlikely that Toyota would field a third TS030. However, he might join the World Endurance Championship (and do Le Mans) with AF Corse - Gianmaria Bruni and Giancarlo Fisichella are driving a 458 Italia in the GT-Pro category.
 
I wouldn't say that he is being nice, but more so forced to be modest now. He made comments back in december about Petrov and Senna not being good enough drivers and that is why they were dropped from Renault. Well the irony now is he is being replaced by one of the two and the other replaced a man a few years older than him with more to his name. So really there isn't anything he can say, I mean he could be bitter but that would just be counter productive.

astrosdude91
I meant it was odd that there were no Italians on the grid for 2012. You'd think the one nationality that would be adequetly represented on the grid would be Italy.
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I know what you meant but it just for some reason doesn't seem all that important to me. Perhaps because I'm not italian...well I am part due to blood, but I mean actually born and raised. That is why maybe?

Anyways I'm sure another italian will be in a racing seat in the next couple years.
 
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