If Danica ever gets in an F1 car, she will be the biggest embarassment to the United States in F1 since Michael Andretti. She has one thing going for her - her gender. I'm not saying she's a terrible driver, but she is not as good as at least half the field (probably being generous here). She gets tons of press because she's a young semi-good looking woman and that sure sells in racin'. She has done little to impress in the series' she is in, and nothing at all to show she'd be a candidate in F1. Alex Yoong would hand her a$$ to her in an F1 car. seriously.
Dudes, it was a rhetorical question, most of us would give our right one to trade places with MS. Hugh Hefner is a good choice too. It aint gonna happen, why all the fuss?
Who would you dump ? But more importantly, who would you get to take their place ? And for whatever reason, I think Kathy Legge can outdrive Danica any day of the week, but first we have to get them together. No, I didn't say Danica was bad, I just think Legge is better. And let's put Paul Tracy in an F1 car.
Yes, I remember see a lot of pictures of her in the Prodrive Ferrari and some European races. I also agree that she has a lot of potental to be a great road racer, but until she wins a few races in the IRL, I don't think she'll get any call from F1 bosses.
BWUAHAHAHAHAAAAA The only why Bernie will allow Danica on an F1 track, is as a grid girl. Image Unavailable, Please Login
Couldn't agree more with you. There are far better women involved in racing at this time. Anyone ever ask Melanie Troxel if she wants to slow down and go roundy-round or run road courses?? (Tony Schumacher might not get beat by his own teammate then!) When asked once about comparison to Patrick, Melanie commented, "I'm prettier and I win races!" - love it!! Carol
Mid Ohio, race 1. Simone DiSilvio, 17 yr. old Formula BMW. Started 10th. Charged to 4th. She might have had 3rd or better but the race finished under caution with 4 laps to go.
You guys are missing it. Danica would be GREAT for F1. And Bernie would be the first in line to sign her up. Why? Because Bernie is all about MONEY. He is a businessman. And Formula One is a traveling show. People wonder why the rules keep getting changed to help Ferrari? Because when Ferrari wins, F1 revenue goes up; when Ferrari loses, people lose interest and F1 revenue goes down. What has Scott Speed done (F1 or otherwise)? Yet look at all the hype about him. Why? He's American. Now add a couple of "Hooters" (pun intended) and just see how much more coverage F1 recieves in the U.S.
Spot on. Bobby Rahal saw this too. Come on, if a midget was in the IRL he/she would get more attention than the average driver. Now substitute a babe in a sport dominated by men and WaLa, Danica Mania. Put all that aside and remember that she is not driving around at the back of the field. Was it 4,5,6 laps to go at Indy last year. She drafted into the lead at 235+ and turned left. She would have won if her car was stronger than those who followed. Has she won? No. Will she? We don't know. Is the attention good for the sport? Most likely.
So, it will be OK for us to ride someone's butt like IDE, but if a girl performed at the same 'level', that's OK as long as it sells tickets ? And, I have seen almost NO hype for Scott Speed.
Actually, she could have and might have won if she hadn't had to revert to "economy mode" to finish the race without running out of fuel. She was hobbled by her engineer telling her to dial back from the "rich" fuel map that gave her the juice to stay ahead of the other guys (they fueled later in the race). Instead of being a "zero" by leading and running out of gas, or pitting for a splash and go, she dialed the fuel map back and made it to the cool-down lap in fourth! THAT is a smart race driver. Too bad the Panoz is a POS compared to the Dallara this year. Still, to shade Buddy Rice in most of the practice sessions and to go quickest of the month in qualifying and shade Buddy yet again, she IS the real deal. -Peter
The big question. Would Michael trade with her? h*** no! I'm a photojournalist that has covered professional to little league sports my whole life. And no I'm not a sexist pig, but I have seen this thing about women competing with men in sports from girls wrestling in high school to Patrick. It's all fine if the stage is even, I say come on everybody. The trouble is most times the women attracts all the attention not for being great, but for being a great women. That's not the idea of competitive sports like professional auto racing. Even when women run near the back of the pack, they grab a disproportionate amount of the sponsor money purely because they're women. Sponsors know every idiot news organization in the world will want to cover them because they are the big story. It's not fair to the people with more talent. Let Danica totally dominate for a couple of seasons and then she might deserve a shot. I have a tremendous amount of respect for Cha Cha Muldowney and Angele by the way. Both women who made it huge in drag racing with no unfair advantage and kicked all the guys butts straight-up.
I agree. The Anna Kournikova-like hype surrounding her career has made her much more famous than she is talented........ And as we all know, F1 is merciless.......... I bet she WOULD like to trade places with Schumi, wouldn't we all!
i want to be Sato for a day, let alone MS. are you serious? she hasn't won a thing in her pro career so far in lower formulas. she would get her azz whooped in F1.
I was waiting for somebody to cover that very point. Very true. Schumi has driving talent, that fact cannot be denied. This was a rhetorical question, but all things being fair, throw her in a few F1 races, see what she does with it. One of two things will happen.
Big AP article in papers today talking the point that press-wise and fan wise she's the hottest thing since sliced bread but struggling to run mid-pack.
I don't think Danica would bring much to F1, success or money. Scott Speed is, on paper, a great asset to F1. He's a young, handsome American with plenty of pizazz and the perfect name. What sponsors flocked to Red Bull after he was signed? Coke? Microsoft? Walmart? Citibank? Nope... has F1 viewewship increased in the USA? Not that I've seen. And they are pushing him HARD. They devoted a ton of the pre-race show to him last year at Indy. The situation would be even worse with a girl who doesn't deliver the results. Danica is a lesser driver than Speed and after a dab of initial hype, her stock would drop like a rock. I imagine she'd not even last a full season in F1 and rather would join the ranks of the greats like Ide and Yoong. Interestingly, if you take away the F1 debacle, Yoong is 10 times the driver Danica could ever hope to be. Some of the CART/IRL greats like Zanardi, Da Matta and others have done horribly in F1. Danica isn't even half as good as those guys, and those guys were never F1 greats, so what hope does Danica have? None.
Formula 1 is a show but above everything, it's about teams wanting one thing and one thing, alone: A WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP. It's not like Kimi was hired for his charm. A driver will stay if he can generate points, not hype.
