Was Alguersuari over Bourdais the right choice?

[niky]

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

It's not even that he couldn't do well in Formula One... it's that he couldn't do well in that particular team in that particular car.

There are some absolutely excellent drivers who can't make a go of it in F1 due to a wide variety of factors... the physical strain and strength required... the non-competitiveness of their teams... the strength of the field...

F1 simply isn't a level playing field, not by a long shot. If all new drivers were lucky, they'd get the Lewis Hamilton treatment... get a handle of the car before actually racing... be groomed by the organization and familiar with your team before even setting a foot in the car, and have experience in series which most closely simulate F1. This is not to say Hamilton would not have been competitive without all this, but every little bit of acclimatization helps.

Some drivers who exit F1 and go to other series, with more evenly matched cars win them. Once again, I'll point out Kovalainen's whupping of Schumacher and... of all people... Sebastian Loeb... in the Race of Champions. In cars which don't punish you with 5gs every corner, he is pretty damn good. In F1, with the current McLaren? Not so.

Karthikeyen did pretty well in A1GP... though the Indian team has suffered from poor competitiveness (it's a money thing...)... and did well at LeMans.

Zanardi got nowhere in F1, but he was a multi-titled CART champion.

F1 is about skill... but it's about the particular skill of being able to drive the cars and take the punishment at the same time. Sort of like trying to play billiards with a prize bull sitting on your shoulders.

 

[The Outlaw]

Funny how people can make excuses all day long for some drivers (like Bourdais or even Fisi), yet other drivers don't get cut any slack whatsoever (i.e Piquet Jr., Grosjean)

Bourdais got utterly destroyed by the 21 y.o. rookie, Sebastian Vettel last year in the STR. I think the team just got tired of hearing SB's excuses all day long as to why he was under performing, and decided to throw his lame asz out the window...as it was rather obvious they were going nowhere with him after two seasons with lots of testing time as well. Not to mention he also had way more open wheel experience than most F1 rookies, so it shouldn't have taken him as long to adapt in comparison, given all of his experience. He just never managed to get the training wheels off lol

It's not even that he couldn't do well in Formula One... it's that he couldn't do well in that particular team in that particular car.

There are some absolutely excellent drivers who can't make a go of it in F1 due to a wide variety of factors... the physical strain and strength required... the non-competitiveness of their teams... the strength of the field...

F1 simply isn't a level playing field, not by a long shot. If all new drivers were lucky, they'd get the Lewis Hamilton treatment... get a handle of the car before actually racing... be groomed by the organization and familiar with your team before even setting a foot in the car, and have experience in series which most closely simulate F1. This is not to say Hamilton would not have been competitive without all this, but every little bit of acclimatization helps.

Some drivers who exit F1 and go to other series, with more evenly matched cars win them. Once again, I'll point out Kovalainen's whupping of Schumacher and... of all people... Sebastian Loeb... in the Race of Champions. In cars which don't punish you with 5gs every corner, he is pretty damn good. In F1, with the current McLaren? Not so.

Karthikeyen did pretty well in A1GP... though the Indian team has suffered from poor competitiveness (it's a money thing...)... and did well at LeMans.

Zanardi got nowhere in F1, but he was a multi-titled CART champion.

F1 is about skill... but it's about the particular skill of being able to drive the cars and take the punishment at the same time. Sort of like trying to play billiards with a prize bull sitting on your shoulders.

I saw that you added some bits to your post. Excellent points that I'm glad you brought up 👍 I completely agree...there are so many variables between the different racing series that are often overlooked, which cause a driver to perform better in one series vs. another.

F1 definitely has to be the most demanding in terms of being able to take the physical strain while still being able to operate mentally at the absolute maximum lap after lap (as Schumacher was so good at, as well as many of the new breed of drivers who have immense mental and physical fitness from both physical training and cognitive training, that has really been a main focus of drivers of the past decade). This is also one reason why I don't think you can fairly compare drivers from this era to drivers from say 25 or more years ago...as the levels of fitness and mental capacity simply weren't there back in the day, which might hurt some of you guys to hear unfortunately...but that's a fact.

F1 cars are the quickest four wheeled cars around most circuits by a fair margin. Moving at the rate a Formula 1 car is capable of traveling at requires that much better reactions and feel for the car so you can comfortably push to the absolute limit. Bourdais didn't seem to have as much raw talent in this department, from some of the complaints that I heard from him throughout his time in F1...which illuded to the fact that the cars were simply too demanding and quick for him to handle.

Drivers who come to mind who posses those naturally lightening quick reflexes/reactions would have to be Hamilton, Raikkonen, Vettel and Alonso. When you watch their onboards, they have no fear for when or if the car steps out...they simply push to the limit and know exactly what the car is going to do and are able to ride a moment out extremely well/comfortably.

Sorry for going a bit OT