Sebastian Vettel

I thought the samething, Patrese was a good number 2, but by that time he was way past his sale date.

 

Rosberg and Heikki were both rookies. It takes a little while to adjust and now Nico and Heikki are driving the doors off of Wurz and Fisi who combined have over 20 years of F1 experience. Kubica on the other hand was somewhat disappointing this year, but I don't think it was completely his fault, that crash in Canada was pretty nasty.

 

+1

 

Speed was a lot worse than Liuzzi plus had a sucky attitude to boost, that's why he got fired.

STR is not an Italian team. Half the folks are British since the Minardi days and the team management is Austrian (Mateschitz, Tost, Berger).

People quickly forget that Speed was recruited by Red Bull's driver search. They had all the interest in the world to keep him on board as long as possible. By firing him, they basically admitted that the whole search was for nothing. The US is an important (if not the most important) market for Red Bull. They really didn't want to alienate the US fans, but they had no choice. If favoritisms had played a role they would have gotten rid of Liuzzi first.

 

Quite a lot of people on here have suggested that nearly any driver (maybe even a chimp ) would have had a good chance of winning the WDC this year if they had been driving a McLaren, but I don't agree. There hasn't been much to choose between the McLarens and the Ferraris this year, sometimes the McLarens were quicker sometimes the Ferraris. I believe that if McLaren hadn't had two of the best drivers around the WDC would almost certainly have been in the bag for Kimi before now.

 

Driving the doors off Fisi and Wurz... Whoa!! Stop the presses!!

One guy is already out of F1, the other is on his way. I am not impressed. Hamilton took how much time to adjust to F1? One qualifying session? Nico took an entire season to match the pace of Webber. Webber, for chrissake! Heikki is only now starting to outdrive Fisichella, he is lucky he didn't get canned 5 races into the season.

The great drivers are evident from Day One. We saw it with Senna in his debut, we saw it with Prost in his debut, we saw it with Schumacher in his debut, and we see it now with Hamilton. If you want to see how Nico and Heikki's careers will develop, simply take a look at the likes of DC, JB, Trulli and Rubens. That is what you have with those two guys. An occasional strong performance followed by a race in which he is nowhere to be found. Quick one day, mediocre the next.

 

Sure, if they are the only one driving the car. Unfortunately the other seat is occupied by the 2X reigning WDC. Could Nico or Heikki or Kubicka win in a McLaren? Probably on occasion. Could they beat Alonso? Not a snowball's chance in hell.

Patrese drove alongside Mansell and did nothing. Rubens spent how many seasons driving arguably the greatest F1 car ever made. How many WDCs does he have to show for it? It is not enough to simply be in the best car. You have to be better than the other guy in that same car and chances are he will be very good indeed.

 

Nico had fastest lap in his first race in a WILLIAMS.
Heikki beat Michael in the IROC a few years ago.
Both are great drivers, but F1 is a whole different game, it takes some time to get used to compared to what they were driving in GP2.
Hamilton had a decent amount of time testing with McLaren before hand.

 

Both Heikki and Nico had far, far more testing time prior to this season than did Hamilton.

 

BS!!!! No he did not. Late in the GP2 season, the only testing he had done in the Mclaren was a couple of straight line drags. This was quoted during the GP2 race at Silverstone when Lewis was being interviewed.

 

Another thing that impresses me about LH is his last min Q3 under pressue he strings the fast lap together just when he needs to amazing..

 

very very similiar to MS in a way...

 

Yes I agree, Brian I will hang around if you want me to

 

LoL!!

it's gonne be a very boring 4-5 month...

 

1) Rosberg never matched Webber.
2) Webber matched Heidfeld. What's your opinion of Heidfeld? Personally, I don't think Heidfeld is any worse than Massa (and quite close to Kimi). Remember, Heidfeld and Kimi did have a season together...

 

I think Heidfeld is one of the more underrated drivers in F1 today.

He had the measure of Kimi when they were teammates, however at that time Heidfeld was an F1 veteran and an F3000 champion, Kimi had only 23 races total under his belt. Heidfled should have blown Kimi away muchmore than he did. That Kimi was as close to Heidfeld as he was with so little experience is the reason McLaren chose Kimi and Mercedes dumped Heidfeld.

I think Heidfled is a much better driver than Massa and would certainly outperform him in equal machinery. I would love to see Heidfeld pick up a win or two next season. He has shown speed in the BMW but more importantly he has shown consistency. That to me is the mark of a strong driver.

 

+1

Nick has been brilliant this year. Makes me wonder how Jacques would have performed with this BMW. Jacques was in a couple strong points positions before his engine went kaboom last year. Running 5th at Indy etc.

 

I think Vettel will prove to be a good driver but to say he is already better than Luizzi and Speed is simply false based on results thus far. In the wet, yes he has performed better. But on a dry track, which is most of the time in F1, LUI has outqualified and out raced Vettel. And Speed was beating LUI consistently, so that places Vettel 3rd out of the 3 drivers. And running into someone when the safety car is out is pure stupidity regardless of whatever brake checking LH may have been doing up front.

Vettel will eventually be the best of the 3 but you are getting ahead of yourself if you want to draw that conclusion now based on the results from a wet track.

 

Sure:
- 2006 Average grid position
Speed = 16.16
Liuzzi = 15.5

- 2006 points
Speed = 0
Liuzzi = 1

- 2007 Average grid position
Speed = 17.6
Liuzzi = 16.18

- 2007 DNF rate
Speed = 70%
Liuzzi = 43%

- 2007 points
Speed = 0
Liuzzi = 3

Granted the difference is not that great, which is why I can't wait for Liuzzi to get axed as well. "A lot worse" was an exaggeration racing wise, but accurate regarding his personality. At least Liuzzi is a pleasant guy.

PS: It is LIU, not LUI. That's a French magazine...

 

Averages are horribly misleading as an unusually bad or good finish distorts the result. Variation analysis is required for the data to have any real value.

Speed TV did an analysis after the firing showing how Speed had outperformed his teammate in virtually every area including cars passed on track, qualifying position, laps completed before being lapped, etc. The results tipped more and more into Speed's favor as the year progressed. You are the first person I have heard with the opinion that LIU was outperforming Speed this year. In 2006, sure, Speed was not as good in his rookie year. Likewise Vettel is proving to be slower in anything but rain, but will improve and end up being the better driver.

 

One more thing you can consider, is that Liuzzi had much more racing experience than Scott did before 2006. Liuzzi also was a tester for Redbull and apparently did some races in 05.

 

It does make me wonder, although he has moved on to Nascar now. He was finished with f1 and f1 was finished with him. I thought last year really vindicated him. He was had some bad luck, but he was faster in qualifying, and had the race pace. He was a bit over cautious sometimes, different from when he was younger, but I think his style would have been beneficial this year, especially in the wet races. He would not let Alonso pass him for position that easily, he had a very wide car, like unlike how Kubica let Alonso pass him earlier this year. I can't imagine him shutting his mouth up about the spy scandal either. Or the behaviour of Hamilton behind the safety car. Or, you get the picture.

Anyways back to f1 right now. Luizzi has the reputation of being a slacker and not having the work ethic to move things forward. Vettel does. Obviously, it's hard to trust what you read, or what you hear from people. Ralf is definately on his way out, that will open up a race seat. I think Jarno and Alonso was an interesting pairing. Jarno is a fantanstic qualifier, and outpaced Alonso more than Fisi did. He even won Monaco when he was with Renault. An Alonso and Trulli pairing at Toyota would be interesting. Interesting to see if Alonso can take that team forward, and have Trulli and him resume their duels.

 

Basically you are admitting Webber isn't overrated. Thanks.

I barely know anyone that rates Webber near Heidfeld, despite the fact that they were virtually identical in 2006. That would imply that Webber is underrated...

 

Somehow I'm not surprised that Speed TV painted a better picture of the US driver. Bias? All I remember from this season is that Speed had lots and lots of DNFs and crashes.

Since I'm the first to tell you this, I take it you don't read much of the Euro press. They all couldn't wait with getting rid of Speed. Bias?

In the end it hardly matters. They were both useless. And I'm not even a Vettel fan btw. Nor a STR fan.