Ok so put Jeff in Juan's car and Juan in Jeff's and see how they go. Jeff has been doing this for over 10 years now and has the best car, Juan just started and has a second tier car at best. Juan won anyway. 7th is just the 6th of the losers. A win is a win. "The Whiner" as you put it is now in the elite company of Mario Andretti and Dan Gurney having won in champcar, F1 and Nascar. Add a Champcar crown, the Indy 500 and the Monaco GP to that as well and it makes one hell of a resume. Nobody else out there now can claim anything close to that. Period. Haste him all you want, he just smiles and keeps winning.
All I know is, down here in "good ol' boy" NASCAR country, I can wear a big smile Everyone I know that watches NASCAR knows that I'm a Formula 1 fan. Needless to say, they goffed at my noting that he would shake up NASCAR in his rookie season. Now he's won TWO road courses. Anyone hear eggs breaking? I wasn't a JPM fan while he was in F1, but now I finally have a NASCAR driver to root for
Hendricks racing has other cars in NASCAR. I believe the cars are the same except for driver preferences. Jeff gordon is the best of the best in NASCAR. I would love to see JG represent the US in F1 but it will never happen. He is too old now and has too much to lose financially. Only other option is to have JPM move to Hendrick's Racing. Doubt if that will happen, but you never know. Now JPM is a good racer. He is errartic at times and impatient. Exciting to watch. Yes. World Driving Champion. No. He is not in the same class as Schumacher, Alonso, Senna and Mario Andretti IMVHO. He is a good racer, not a great racer. Maybe he will mature into a great racer. Time will tell.
It don't really feel that Senna, Schumacher or Alonso are in Andretti's class either. Those 3 were and are F1 specialsts. Would they be able to adapt and win at Indy or in NASCAR? We'll never know, they didn't or haven't tried. In terms or versatility and being able to adapt to a car, no one comes close to Mario, AJ Foyt and Dan Gurney's success with the exeception of JPM. He didn't fullfill his promise in F1, ok ,that doesn't make him a wanker at the wheel either. Is he too hotheaded and makes an arse out of himself sometimes? Sure, then again who doesn't. Schumacher looked like an ass plenty of times too. Hendrick has 4 cars out there and now with Dale Jr in one of the cars it should be good next year. With Gordon, Johnson, now Dale Jr and Casey Mears in the cars the only seat that could be available is Casey's. The rest of the drivers all have long term deals.
JPM has won at Monaco, Indy 500, 24 hours of Daytona, and now Cup race. That's pretty impressive. Hopefully he races in the Sebring 12 hours and eventually the 24 Hours of LeMans.
rik...i feel the same way. i have always been impressed (jealous) w/ the show nascar puts on...and lamented as to why we are unable to get behind and do the same thing for road racing. enter jpm and i am either watching or checking the results to see where he finished. he has had some very good runs this year and as i have said before, if he was to race w/ a tier 1 team such as hendrick...he not only would be racing for rookie of the year but also the cup championship. i hate to say it but i am actually watching this roundy round stuf...ugh!!! i hope there is a recovery/support program out there as eventually i want to cure myself. pcb
+1 Thing is though, that he didn't have an opportunity for a top seat. He recieved offers from Toyota, Williams and STR, but why would he step down from a championship level team to a point scoring team? Check this vid out, interesting what the drivers and Ron has to say. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTWB3ZN2chM
What? How was that going to work out when Alonso was already signed and Ron definately wanted to keep Kimi? I never heard of anything even resembling Ron wanting to keep Juan.
James, Ron told Kimi and JPM "supposedly" whoever had the better year would be in contention for the second seat in 07. Sounds like a load of BS, RD thought until the very end he would keep Kimi.
Yeah I wouldn't believe that either. I just hope we see Juan in something else besides a Nascar in the future.
Wow, a JPM love fest. I always liked him, kind of a bull. His first year in Cart I was at a test day and he picked up my then 4 year old son and put him in the car. My son is a race fan from that day. I was there when he won Indy, kicking dirt in the IRL's eyes.
What else is there for him to do? DTM? ChampCar? IRL? ALMS? JGTC?!?!? All of those would be a huge step down from Nascar imo.
no...there is only one stop for him after making a mark in nascar. if the ride was there, he would make another run at f-1. he knows that is where he needs to be to put an exclamation on the end of his resume. if the ride is offered...he would go back in a second.
I don't think he wants to have his family travel so much now that he has a young kid. Even though the Nascar race calendar is about 2x as long, you're not gone for weeks at a time at different continents. You fly back home after each weekend and the truck drivers bring it all back then, too.
Why not try the 24 hours of lemans? That's like the European Indy 500. There is also more coverage of the 24hrs worldwide compared to the 500.
But that's not a series like Nascar. There may be more coverage (nowadays) than the Indy 500, but in Nascar, you get A LOT of endorsement deals as well as exposure. At least in the US, which has 300 million people. I think that's the entire population of the EU combined.
