Was Alguersuari over Bourdais the right choice?

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Tezuka18
Out of 8 Grand Prix starts in 2009, Alguersuari racked up 5 retirements and his best finish was 14th. This switch made absolutely no sense to me, replace an open wheel veteran with a 19 year old kid thats in over his head and cant produce the results. I don't think ill ever understand the STR management.

What's your opinion on this guys?
 
He's a young driver and needs to learn. Like Romain Grosjean for Piquet. Same situation.


The only way he was going to learn, was by racing.
 
Frankly I'm enjoying Alguersuari falling flat on his face after all he said of Bourdais. Truthful or not, you don't criticize your predecessor if you haven't proven anything yet (especially if you're a 19 year old), because you might have it come back to haunt you.
 
From a purely statistical point of view, Alguersuari may be seen as a mistake. He's had five retirements - but not all of them were his fault. In Belgium he did hit Hamilton, but Hamilton backed off when he saw Grosjean's collision with Button behind him. Although Alguersuari did technically cause the collision with Hamilton, it's a bit of a grey area. Driver error, yes, but he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

His retitement in Italy was by no means his fault - the transmission packed it in. Mechanical failure as opposed to driver error. It was the same story in Singapore when his gearbox decided it had had enough, and up until then, he'd actually done a pretty good job of holding off the faster Adrian Sutil.

Japan was most defiantely his fault, his inexperience showing through all weekend. However, until he made those errors, he'd made a fine showing of it. And last night's race in Abu Dhabi was once again a mechanical failure, with the gearbox being the culpit for the second time in four races. He was dead in the water before he pitted the first time.

I also don't think that his pit stop gaffe was entirely his fault. In fact, I don't think it was his at all. His in-lap was noticeably slow, and he had to know there was a problem. He would have radioed ahead, and he was expecting the team to be ready for him. They weren't. But Alguersuari saw a purple-clad team standing out in the pit lane, clearly ready to receive a car. Because Toro Rosso carry the 11 and 12 and Red Bull have the 14 and 15, their pit garages are right beside one another. Alguersuari saw exactly what he expected to see and acted accordingly. But the team got their wires crossed.

As with many of the Class of 2009, we should go easy on Alguersuari. Like Ferrari, Toro Rosso were caught with their pants down: given the choice, I think they would have preferred to run Brendon Hartley. But Harltey stepped down from testing and reserve driver becaue he wanted to concentrate on his WSR program and other racing series. Alguersuari was therefore the only person in Toro Rosso's ranks when Bourdais was cut loose, and he has been hurt by a lack of testing. He's got some races to his name, and with teams able to test over the winter, he'll at least have a standard that he can be judged to.

As a solution to this problem of a lack of testing, I think the FIA shoud establish their own "team". Lola have a chassis that they were hoping to first of all run in 2010 under the Lola name, and then sell to one of the new teams as a design studio. But the four teams are doing their own thing, so Lola have a chassis and no-one to run it. So I think it could be a feasible solution for the FIA to purchase it and establish a testing-only team made up of personnel who have no affiliation with any of the current teams. That way, when a newcomer is called up, the FIA can organise a test session for them and monitor it (with a representative of the team). Because the problem with allowing tests for first-time drivers is that teams could easily use it to get feedback on the car, thus gaining an unfair advantage.
 
ROAD_DOGG33J
Meh...it's not like Bourdais was going to get anywhere.
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But who are you comparing him to?

Vettel was Red Bull's poster boy and Buemi, somehow, had the same car but was just better.

Bourdais is an excellent driver, you don't win the Champ Car World title four times without being a good driver and it wasn't like he was dominating because he was up against some quality drivers.

I just think he had really bad luck.
 
interludes
As a solution to this problem of a lack of testing, I think the FIA shoud establish their own "team". Lola have a chassis that they were hoping to first of all run in 2010 under the Lola name, and then sell to one of the new teams as a design studio. But the four teams are doing their own thing, so Lola have a chassis and no-one to run it. So I think it could be a feasible solution for the FIA to purchase it and establish a testing-only team made up of personnel who have no affiliation with any of the current teams. That way, when a newcomer is called up, the FIA can organise a test session for them and monitor it (with a representative of the team). Because the problem with allowing tests for first-time drivers is that teams could easily use it to get feedback on the car, thus gaining an unfair advantage.
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But as Fisichella has proven, each car is so different to another that a generic F1 car would probably be of no help to anyone. Rookies need seat time in the car they're trying out for.

Having said that, it would be better than no testing at all.
 
Ian Poole
I just think he had really bad luck.
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He was said to be very difficlt to work woth. He'd go out and complain when the car was bad, but he never did anything else. He'd just say "It's understeering!" rather than "It's understeeting in the Parabolica, but not in the chicanes."
 
Ian Poole
But who are you comparing him to?

Vettel was Red Bull's poster boy and Buemi, somehow, had the same car but was just better.

Bourdais is an excellent driver, you don't win the Champ Car World title four times without being a good driver and it wasn't like he was dominating because he was up against some quality drivers.

I just think he had really bad luck.
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Bourdais is not an excellent driver, he completely failed to adapt to F1 and has to go down as one of the worst drivers of the last few years.
 
Sureboss
Bourdais is not an excellent driver, he completely failed to adapt to F1 and has to go down as one of the worst drivers of the last few years.
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But you can hardly compare him to Alguesari can you?

He has more titles than he does and, he scored more points in F1 than Alguesari and he has less retirements this season than Alguesari and instantly, he is called one of the worst drivers in F1.

Bourdais's finishes this year were 8th, 10th, 11th, 13th, Ret, 8th, 18th Ret, Ret and Alguesari was 15th, 16th, Ret, Ret, Ret, Ret, 14th, Ret.

If Bourdais is " one of the worst drivers of the last few years", what does that make Alguesari?
 
Ian Poole
If Bourdais is " one of the worst drivers of the last few years", what does that make Alguesari?
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An inexperienced rookie. Don't forget that Bourdais had been in Formula One for eighteen months before he left - three times longer than Alguersuari when he started. Like Grosjean and Badoer and Liuzzi, Jaime has been bitten by regulations that don't allow him to test. Alguersuari might have had five retirements, but three were mechanical related and while one of them was plaingly his fault, the other - at Spa - is very difficult to settle on since it's likely Hamilton would have collided with him if they roles and positions had been reversed.
 
nissan tuner
But wouldn't racing in GP2 be a better way to learn instead of jumping into the deep-end?
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Like playing in some backwater College is going to prepare you for the NBA?

Maybe...

But as with basketball players, it'll be a case-to-case basis. It's whether you want a driver with maturity or one with youth and possibly more physical fitness and more useable racing seasons left in him.

Eventually, all drivers with F1 aspirations will have to jump into the deep end. With the ban on testing, the rookie seasons of all new drivers will be much, much more difficult than for guys like Lewis Hamilton, who had a lot of seat time before their first race.
 
I don't think the issue is with Bourdais or even Alguersuari. I think the issue is that Toro Rosso don't know their arse from their elbow. They have a great chassis and a great engine but can't make them work as a complete package. What they need as a driver line-up is a cheap rookie who can pay for himself and an experienced driver who can help them develop the car.
 
I think that what we've learned is that Toro Rosso are even worse at driver management than Renault.

Although I don't share others' excitement about the quality of the ChampCar field (as was), I am surprised that Bourdais didn't make it in F1. I also think that there is more to the Hartley departure than was publicised. He must have known that Bourdais was on the way out, and therefore I think he'd been told he wasn't going to get the seat.
 
I think that what has happened this year shows that when you start the season with a driver you really should stick with him until the end of the season. It's not fair on a new and inexperienced driver to come in with no testing allowed. He's not doing himself any favours at all.
 
interludes
Jaime has been bitten by regulations that don't allow him to test.
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Fair point sir but why wasnt Kobayashi hampered?

He, like all said drivers didn't have time to adapt to the car because of the testing ban but he hasn't done that bad has he?
 
Ian Poole
But you can hardly compare him to Alguesari can you?

He has more titles than he does and, he scored more points in F1 than Alguesari and he has less retirements this season than Alguesari and instantly, he is called one of the worst drivers in F1.

Bourdais's finishes this year were 8th, 10th, 11th, 13th, Ret, 8th, 18th Ret, Ret and Alguesari was 15th, 16th, Ret, Ret, Ret, Ret, 14th, Ret.

If Bourdais is " one of the worst drivers of the last few years", what does that make Alguesari?
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I didn't compare him to Alguesari at any point, I was just rebuking the awful claim that Bourdais is or ever was a great driver.

Alguesari? I don't think he's good enough, though he has had some bad reliability issues.
 
I think Bourdais would be a lot more expensive to employ due to his success in other series, SB wasn't doing well so why not try out a new guy who would take the seat at rock bottom price?

If STR didn't take a few risks, they would never have found Vettel...
 
I wouldn't consider Bourdais a bad driver. When given the right car, he can perform. Look at Belgium, Italy and Japan last year. He was ahead of Vettel for most of Belgium and Japan, until the heavens opened and that unfair penalty was given, and if his car hadn't stalled at the start of Italy, it could've potentially been at Toro Rosso 1-2. He set the 2nd fastest lap of the race, whilst Vettel was somewhere around 15th fastest.

He said that this year the car felt even worse on Slick Tyres, yet he still scored at Monaco in arguably the slowest car at the time, with few retirements during the race.

Sometimes he had bad luck, but the rest of the time he was nothing special. Even so, they should've kept him and waited till 2010 for Alguersuari.
 
I liked Alguersuari. Hes 19, he's young, he's raw he's got a decent future.

I don't think he'll set the world alight but I can see him having a future in F1's middle order.
 
Hmm, Jaime wasn't better but I agree with the sentiments that it was better for STR to try a new driver out rather than wait till next year. I mean, imagine if Renault only found out in 2010 that Grosjean was poo?

However....Jaime's comments about Bourdais' lack of commitment were a little arrogant considering he didn't do much better with an upgraded car (remember that Bourdais, like Scott Speed earlier, got sacked just before a major upgrade to the car).

Bourdais wasn't going to go anywhere after STR so in my opinion he was better off getting out of there earlier than later - they would have just made him look worse by season's end.
However, I'm not sure Bourdais was quite F1 material. After all, despite not being used to the car, you would have thought that a single-seater veteran champion could beat 2 rookies, especially Buemi who didn't seem all that in GP2.

As we have seen with Grosjean, Piquet, Magnussen and so on - success in other open wheel formula does not mean you will be good in F1. I think Bourdais is better off with those V12 Superleague Formula cars and Peugoet LMPs. 👍
 
It was a mistake as far as points haul is concerned. However, in the long run, since they seem to want to keep him, it was a good idea. He's a long-term investment, like Vettel.
 
Ian Poole
Fair point sir but why wasnt Kobayashi hampered?

He, like all said drivers didn't have time to adapt to the car because of the testing ban but he hasn't done that bad has he?
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Kamui Kobayashi has been Toyota's testing and reserve driver for years. Like Luca Badoer, he knows his car. Unlike Luca Badoer, he is quick about it. Plus, Alguersuari's only real experience is in the World Series by Renault. Kobayashi has several GP2 and GP2 Asia seasons to his credit. And as Martin Brundle pointed out, sometimes drivers thrive in the spotlight, other times they wither. I think you're being far too critical of Jaime Alguersuari; you should be concentrating on what makes Kobayashi faster than Grosjean when Grosjean had the better run of results in GP2.
 
+1. Kobayashi has lots of experience behind the wheel of the Toyota... which helped him... a lot.

I agree... Algesuari's performance should only be compared to Grosjean and Fisichella... as these are the other two drivers who were also struggling with unfamiliar cars without the benefit of testing.

Makes one wonder... will this mean that the traditional holdover of using veterans for test drivers will be scrapped next season? I can seem many teams looking to invest in new drivers by rotating a crop of potential future drivers as test drivers over the course of the season... or at least two or three... to make the most out of talent available to them...
 
Sureboss
Bourdais is not an excellent driver, he completely failed to adapt to F1 and has to go down as one of the worst drivers of the last few years.
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So, a driver, who has multiple championships in other leagues, is automatically a bad driver because he can't do well in Formula 1? Rubbish
 
niky
+1. Kobayashi has lots of experience behind the wheel of the Toyota... which helped him... a lot.

I agree... Algesuari's performance should only be compared to Grosjean and Fisichella... as these are the other two drivers who were also struggling with unfamiliar cars without the benefit of testing.
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I agree with you for the most part, although I don't think it's at all fair to compare Algesuari or Grosjean to Fisichella who's been in F1 for 13 years now.

On another note, I don't think it's fair of people to write off Grosjean as being a complete flop either. I mean the kid has made quite a few mistakes so far, but IMO he's only trying to make something of nothing, often pushing over the limit of probably the worst car on the grid at the moment. When you consider he's paired up with one of, if not the best driver on the grid, in probably the worst car on the grid...he's likely to look worse than he really is. Add to the fact that he's only had 7 races (2 DNF's) with absolutely no prior testing in F1. You can't expect all of the new drivers from GP2 to be supermen as soon as they jump into a F1 seat 👎 That's absolutely absurd...because I'd say at least half the drivers on grid would probably struggle just as bad as him if they were rookies without ANY prior experience, trying to be as competitive as possible in a COMPLETE dog. C'mon people...

PJ-FFL
So, a driver, who has multiple championships in other leagues, is automatically a bad driver because he can't do well in Formula 1? Rubbish
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He's not of good enough caliber to be competitive in F1...so he goes to other lesser racing series to make himself look good.
 
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