Rubens, Giancarlo, and David To Return In 2008

All the drivers you like to complain about, apparently their teams like their work.

So Rubens Barrichello, Giancarlo Fisichella, and David Coultard have all resigned with their respective teams for 2008.

 

Again you twist things around. Who else are these loser teams going to get? Rookies who haven't raced in F1 cars and have never seen F1 tracks? Or people who've been kicking around for several years?

It's not that the teams automatically think their drivers are the best, they could be stuck with them!

Not all contracts expire at the end of the same month on the same year. Maybe they are the only few who these teams had to choose from.

You twist things soo much alll the time. Everything with you has to be soo precise and factual even if you have to put words in people's mouth.

 

Barrichello and Fisichella - BIG mistake to resign those guys. Then again, as bad of a driver a Rubens is, Honda is a worse team (this year), so provided they have done a short-term deal, it may not be that bad of an idea. I still think they ought to keep Button and try someone else - nobody could be that much worse than Rubens.

Fisi - well, I bet he would have been out were it not for the fact that Heiki has stumbled in the car. They wouldn't want to get rid of the better performing driver, and I bet they got him cheap.

As for Coulthard... its hard for me to say that he should be out of F1. He's a decent guy, and finally accepts that he's not (and never has been ) WDC material. Hes probably a better driver than the RB is a car so until they are a top tier team, do they need a top tier driver? At least he can tell them how much ground they have to cover (in R&D, management, etc) to achieve parity with McLaren

Let's just hope that Ralf is out this year. If he gets re-signed next year, it will be a crime against all the young drivers with talent who would take no salary just to have his opportunity.

 

Ok so according to you, all the others deserve to be kicked out, but DC can stay because he's warming up to you? Your first reason for defending him is saying "he's a decent guy" Pardon me, but both Rubens and Fisi are known for being the nicest guys around. You say how bad Rubens is, but so far this season he's been quicker than Jenson both in qualifying and race pace.

The same reasons that you defend DC, can be attributed to the other drivers. They're all "nice guys", their cars are currently crap, and "they're all probably better drivers than their cars are", especially in the case of DC and Rubens. As far as your opinions on Fisi and Ralf? I agree with those. Fisi is seriously only being kept because Heiki is bombing. Also, Ralf needs to seriously be kicked out as well.

 

i disagree. if u look at this season, Rubens has been outperforming Button, Heikki is no where near Fisi, and DC has been doing a great job. so, no reason for them not to be re-signed.

 

What's wrong with Fisichella? It's Button who should be getting the boot.

 

Did you read my post? I didn't say DC should be kept because he is a nice guy. I said that its hard for me to say he should be booted because I see him as a nice guy - then I went on to say the reason he was probably kept was because he's a more fruitful driver for where RB is at right now, than other drivers would be. He has experience in a top team. RB wants to be a top team. He is probably a better driver than the RB is as a car, so while he is not a WDC winning driver, they are not a WDC winning team and they do not have a WDC winning car. DC can probably help them move towards that goal. Once they are in a position to be a top contender, they need to ditch DC or let him take on a Barrichello-like role (as he had in Ferrari) where DC is the backup to their #1 guy. DC won't be that #1 WDC-fighting guy, but he can certainly help RB to move towards their goal.

Contrarily, Rubens has not ever shown that he accepts he is not a top driver, nor does he seem to have much ability to drive anything less than a perfect car, nor does he seem to be a very good R&D driver, and hence should be dropped.

Fisi should also be dropped because he was consistently outperformed by his teammates. He was REAL lucky this year in that his teammate was an even worse performer. Flavio probably looked around and saw that, while he had crap now, the only other choices were even worse, and figured it was better to stick with a known quantity that is mediocre vs an unknown that may be useless, especially given the other driver he's got ain't raising any eyebrows for steller performances.

 

Honestly, I feel bad for DC. He is getting crushed this year.

And Fisi has only be truly beaten by one teammate - Alonso. Certainly not a poor comparison.

 

Someone asked Eddie Jordan once why team managers were not bringing more promising new talents and kept 'old hands' at work well after the spark had gone.

Candidly Jordan replied: "Money" and added"with new drivers, the repair bills just go up and up".

Ken Tyrrel was of the same opinion, and thought preferable for a private team to have older experience drivers than young guns taking too much risk to make a name for themselves.

Of course, it's generalisation, but in view of Kubica's accident last Sunday, they may have a point.

Barichello, Fisichella and Coulthard are 'safe hands', who generally don't try anything silly and bring the cars back home. That matters for a team manager. I doubt if a new 'hotshoe' would do better with their cars.

Not every team manager has Ron Dennis' luck to discover a new driver who don't crash and win.

 

Last year Button had almost double the points that Rubens had. Rubens is a washed up hump of a driver - he is simply useless. If he put in an honest effort every race, that would be one thing, but this is a man who has nothing to say but whine whine whine and complain about how quick he WOULD have been if X, Y and Z hadnt happened. Button does some whining, but given his level of talent and the level of team he is in, he could do a lot more justified whining. He also has had 2 DNF's this year, and the times he has finished he was only ever a couple of positions away from Rubens. Neither of them has scored any points this year, and until they do its hard to draw comparisons. I'd wager Button finishes the season with more points that Rubens. Anyone wanna take that bet?


As for Fisi, he absolutely deserves to be gone from Renault. He sucks. He is a much worse driver than the Renault is a car. His saving grace is that he is a fair bit better than his teammate, who is substantially worse than he is. I am almost positive that if Alonso was still in that other Renault seat with a 5-year contract, Fisi would not be at Renault. If ANY good driver had Heiki's seat, Fisi would not be there. His reason for survival at Renault can be summed up in one sentence... "at least he's not as bad as Heiki!".

 

Did you even read mine? I addressed all of your points, and said that the attributes that you use to legitimize DC can be attributed to Rubens. I also said I agree with your points on Fisi and Ralf. It sounds like a double standard to me. DC is a nice guy, and Rubens is known for being the nicest guy on the grid, yet DC being nice makes it hard for you to say he should be fired. Also, when did DC ever say "Hey, I know i'm not WDC material, and Hakkinen destroyed me when I had the car to get it done"? Otherwise, please tell me how your certain that he "finally accepts he's not WDC material" and Rubens doesn't. Once again, I said I agreed with you that Fisi only has his seat because Heiki bombed, so I don't know why you're repeating yourself there.

 

Interesting perspective and one I'm sure that has truth.

 

Last year is last year. This year Button has not looked good at all. In fact, Sato has been most impressive out of all the Honda-powered drivers. I think he's matured to the point that he could outdrive Button in equal cars.

 

I am in the minority on RB. I think the guy is a great driver. I think he just hasn't meshed well with Honda. He did a great job at Ferrari in my opinion. DC is just too careful and needs to get a little edge. He is a great driver too.

 

Yes, I did. You said "Ok so according to you, all the others deserve to be kicked out, but DC can stay because he's warming up to you?". That is not what I said. What I said was DC is a nice guy so its hard for me to say he shouldn't be in the team. I said he SHOULD be there because he's a better driver than the RB is a car/team. Him being a nice guy was not my justification for him being there, so I don't know why you'd say "Ok so according to you, all the others deserve to be kicked out, but DC can stay because he's warming up to you?" - I never said that nor implied it.

The points about DC cannot be also attributed to Rubens, because Rubens is an inferior driver to DC. Rubens is not a good R&D driver. He is not a car-developer. He is a whiner. When things do not work out as he likes he complains and makes excuses as to why things went wrong. To me, that says that when the race is done, he is convinced he did nothing wrong and the car/team caused him to fail. If he does not acknowledge his own shortcomings, then how can he judge where he needs improvement and where the car does? DC can admit he's not a WDC runner, and that is a valuable trait. That is why DC deserves to be with RBR and thats why Rubens should be canned from Honda. Any other mid-pack driver would have done as well (or better) in RB's Ferrari seat as he did.

 

Agreed, Button has not looked good. Although with 2 DNF's I would submit that 4 completed races is not much to go on, especially when he had double the points last year, and has been very close to Rubens performances this year. RB has also had some dismal qualifying performances, that cannot really be explained away by the car, whereas many times Button seems to have had genuine bad luck during the race.

But, to each his own. I'd be willing to bet that Button finishes the season well ahead of Rubens in points. Let's revisit this issue after the end of the season and see where they stack up.

 

DC is a great guy and used to be a great driver. He's sort of dangerous on race day IMVHO. He need to retire.

 

How do you figure?

evidence please?

Apparently, on these boards, so are 95% of all other racing drivers

Rubens Barrichello at Today's driver interview at Indy: " When I look back, I feel there were times when I could have done better, and times when I wasn't allowed to do better(enter laughter from audience)"

Sounds to me like he ackowledges both his shortcommings while making a joke about the times where he had to pull over for Schumi.

Once again I ask where DC said anything like this.

Eh just sounds like your more of a fan of DC than Rubens, which is fine. The good thing, well to me, if that their both being retained and they both get a shot at going out on a better note.

 

There's nothing wrong with DC or Kelsey Grammer in light of the cars they are driving.

Fisi is just a seat warmer.

Button, Webber, Trulli and Ralf are human log jams that should leave F1.

 

?

I twisted nothing. I put no words in anyone's mouth.

Once again you make one of your silly moronic comments in a futile attempt to prove something, not sure what. All I did was to quote the press information, that's it. My only embellishment was the comment about the fact that on FChat these three drivers get a lot of flak. Which is true.

Rubens is doing better than his teammate and is very active in car development, Giancarlo has been the primary participant of Renault development for years (not Alonso), Coultard has been immense help with the development of his car, although he is the question for me. There are enough young likely faster drivers out there, that these teams could have hired. But they didn't.

No team is stuck with any driver. I would suggest that the respective team principals know a bit more as to the ability of their drivers than you or I.

Especially you. :}

 

I doubt GF will be back at Renualt. I think Piquet Jr will be in one of the cars. David is good technically and so is Rubens. He's pretty much mopping up Button this year. I'm glad they'll be back.

 

Actually the point of this thread is that all three will be back. Of all three, I would think that Fisichella has the most stability as he has been an intregal part of Renault development for years.

 

Question: Why do people think Fisi is slow?

 

Mainly because of the 2006 season. Alonso was challenging for his second title and winning several races, while Fisi wasn't. There were also times where Fisi was needed up front to do some blocking for Alonso, but wasn't. Basically Rubens and DC were in similar situations, they had the best cars on the grid along with their teammates, but their teammates were the ones who got the job done.

 

That seems like a poor way to gauge drivers. Fisi has a fairly impressive record against teammates.