Scott Speed to test Red Bull F1 in Spain on Thursday

can't wait till he's in f1 full time, we need an american there and this kid is fast, has won at every level he's raced, though he's practically unknown here in his homeland cause he has been racing in europe,etc.

 

I just read on F1-live, Scott Speed was the fastest, outpacing both williams cars and Neel Jani, but Jani got to test in the morning whereas Scott Speed testing in the afternoon. He was half second quicker than Nick Heidfeld, pretty impressive for Scott Speed.

 

Awesome!
I'm sure Bernie will be all over this and find him a seat in F1. After all the US is THE market for F1 to conquer.

 

I think the Red Bull seat is his best bet, unless they want to loan him out to minardi for a year. I could see him driving the third caron Fridays assuming RBR doesn't finish in the top 4, which is unlikely. This IMHO is the best part of RB buying out Ford, ironic too if you think about it, that there is now a direct path for a US driver to make it.

Perfect name for a racing driver by the way.

 

The name is so good, it reminds me of my favourite comic hero Michel Vaillant.

 

Talk about eye-opening times courtesy of the young American... look at the testing results from Barcelona!

Thursday Testing times from Barcelona (March 24)


1 SPEED Red Bull 1m16.122s

2 HEIDFELD Williams 1m16.674s

3 PIZZONIA Williams 1m17.160s

4 JANI Red Bull 1m18.037s

 

As with all testing times you have to take them with a big grain of salt. We have no idea about the conditions these cars run in and what the purpose of the test was.

What I do see is, that he has the necessary speed. Something unfortunately I wouldn't say about my compatriot Jani. But neither is a suprise: Jani was never really fast (which is why Sauber dropped him) and Scott always had speed (pun intended) in everything he drove.

 

As I said in an earlier thread, Scott is the real deal, I raced with him in 2001 (Russell Racing Series) and nobody could touch him, he was amazing. I know testing times need to be taken with a grain of salt, but being at the top of the charts is pretty impresive.

 

This is probably the best thing he could have done.

 

the way he is fast outa the box kinda reminds me of a couple of other guys, like senna and schumi, maybe it has something to do with s's!

 

Andy did you only one run season of Russell? You know who amazes me is Steve Hill. That guy is the only one I know of that can challenge the karting kids in that series. I have talked to Scott about it and he was blown away too how well that guy can drive. Its great to see Scott get this far. I know he wanted to stay away from ChampCar but none of us thought he would be able to get over to europe and compete. Thanks to Red Bull for sure. I still would like to see him and AJ Allmendinger duke it out. AJ turned down the Red Bull offer to drive here and I think he would have done pretty well over in Europe.

 

What would be even sweeter is if Scott Speed drove for Ferrari.....oh man that would be a dream come true an American driving for Ferrari....im actually getting misty eye just thinking of that

 

Makes you appreciate Hill and Andretti all the more, doesn't it?

 

Definitely....no question about it.

Can you imagine if Scott was to drive for Ferrari...and Hill and Andretti were to pay him a visit.....I wonder what would they say to Scott ? what advice would they give him ?

I would love to have a picture of all 3 of them around a Ferrari F1 car.

Of course i would like it more if I was in it

 

OK, I'm not F1 expert so dumb question probably:

What keeps him from being the Red Bull driver? I thought Red Bull was wanting to find an American to drive F1? If this kid can do it, why isn't he already?

 

OK that's part 1. Part 2 is the car. I thought Red Bull made a drink. ??!!

Who "makes" the Red Bull car, or is it a "mutt"?

And is it particularly fast?

 

Red Bull purchased the bulk of the Jaguar team assets. They took a team that was an embarrassment and, in a few short months, seem to have righted it towards respectability.

 

I have run the series for several years and continue to. Steve is a great guy and very fast and gives the young kids a run for there money.

 

I was at Three Rivers Quebec a few years ago when a fan came up to one of our drivers at the time by the name of Michael Valiante. She had him sign a couple of copies of her comic "Michel Vaillant". Strange name coincidence indeed. http://www.michael-valiante.com/

For those who have never heard of Michel Vaillant he is a race driver comic character http://www.michelvaillant-lefilm.com/

Scott definitly has the best name for a man in his profession though.

 

I think you heard this from me. Redbull was ready to put him in this year, but his father intervened and said no. He was worried about his safety. He felt he was not ready to drive an F1 car. He was willing to pull Scott Speed out if Red bull put him in the car. The test he just did is not his only test, he will be testing quite a bit this year. You may even see him at the end of the year in one or two races.

 

Didn't know there was a real driver with a similar name, cool.

I grew up reading all the Vaillant comics and as an adult I was able to source most of them and bought them all back. They're really cool as they also show real characters competing and of course Michel never ages so he raced against Stewart as well as Senna.

BTW: I wrote the Vaillant based "Paris track" as an add-on to GP3. Was at the time the most downloaded track.

 

Guys,

I just spoke to Mike Speed(Scott's dad) and said Scott was very excited about his test and results. He said he was actually quicker than what times are posted. After his test, BMW Williams approached Speed's mgr. to see if they can buy out his contract for the rest of the season. In addition, Redbull compared Speed's telemtry to Coulthard(Coulthard tested the same day but times were not posted) and saw speed was outbraking Coulthard everywhere. There is a very good chance we may see speed racing in F1 this season. I will keep you guys updated once I find out more.