So, they've buttoned up the young driver test in Abu Dhabi. I guess some teams made a bunch of money. Jools (thanks, Is ) topped the times in the RB all three days and ultimately wound up 0.4 seconds behind Seb's pole time (!) OK, no doubt the track got faster, but that's still a pretty impressive time from someone who, AFAIK, had never sat in an F1 car before (?) Suggests to me that the majority of the current grid could do the same..... Cheers, Ian
If it is all about the car as the OP suggests, then explain the Vettel-Webber and Alonso-Massa difference to me please.
Webber is not getting along with these tires. As for Massa, he is just no Alonso. Then again, I believe Alonso is every bit as good if. It better than Hamilton yet Hamilton statistically cleaned his clock at Mclaren. Things are not always as they seem
Exactly the point I was trying to make...... [Should have put a smiley in there.] Anyway, easy answer; Fred & Seb are superior drivers to their #2's. Cheers, Ian
And whose fault is that? The driver's. Driver again. They ended up with equal amount of points. Not exactly "cleaned his clock".
Wasn't Jules Bianchi THE new hope of Ferrari, or am I wrong here? 3s off the pace doesn't strike me as a new Vettel/Hamilton.
This is testing, only the teams can know how good times are. 0.4s off pole is the only one easy for us. If we just went off face value Mercedes should sack MS for Bird and not look back.
Massa sucks. That one's a given. For Webber I think he just signed his balls away with his new contract and just doesn't care to give it a huge shot for the most part anymore. I think he's just riding it out until retirement. The times above show how stupid fast the Red Bull really is. Not that we needed any confirmation of that. lol
That's what I thought...but in GP2 he's been mediocre. Giedo van der Garde held is own against Grosjean, but had some bad luck and a bad race here and there...
I don't recall him being promoted as the next coming - He's been a "solid" if unspectacular member of their academy for a few years, but so have many (~12?) others. And yeah, it is just testing, but believe me they *all* want to put in a good time somewhere over the three days - And are indeed encouraged to do so unless things have changed massively since I was around. "Just don't put it in the fence!"...... Cheers, Ian
And sometimes they are exactly as they seem. IMO Alonso is a better overall parkage because of his ambition and motivation. Hamilton has more natural pure raw speed. Luck played a huge part. That year raw speed trumped ambition.
I was actually hoping Vettel could make it back to the pits and rejoin the race. He would of been in the back of the grid and then we could really see just how fast that car is and how much he would advance.
Test session times=useless. Besides that, yes, it´s mostly about the car. IMO, actually there is a minimal difference between drivers. When there is a big gap between team mates, most times they´re not getting equal equipment or attention from their engineers because the team decided to put all their bets on the slightly better driver. That´s the reason of Webber being so far from Vettel this year despite they were quite close in 2010. I really doubt that suddenly Webber forgot how to drive. As Fangio said: "...son carreras de autos..." (it´s car racing).
We beg to differ. Sure, they were all being driven by no-name rookies, but the times do confirm what we already knew.... Disagree here too..... Even Mark will tell you he had identical equipment to Seb this year. He hasn't forgotten how to drive, he's just not as quick as Seb. Phil's not as quick as Fred etc. Neither of them "suck", they've just got very, very fast teammates. Cheers, Ian
+1 Agreed, of course team orders have to be taken into account. I'am not a fan of team orders, however a good #2 driver IMO has to show he is not a #2 driver until more or less ordered to become one, in the race that is. I believe Mclaren do not have team orders, (not always) and I often wonder, would Button be where he is now, if told from the onset he had to play 2nd fiddle to Hamilton.
Button had no other others ... The fact he is British probably helps from a team order (or lack of) perspective. Pete
Do you mean other options as in a drive other than Mclaren.? If so I don't mean it as such as in that, but rather whether he would be 2nd in WDC, IF he had been told he could not race against Hamilton. My point being is, if you as a driver are told as long as your team mate is racing you cannot have a shot at the title, that to me could somewhat take some of the fire out of your racing belly. And could this be affecting Webber, last year he seemed to me to be really going for it, this year not so much.
Ive been working since 2:30am so my posts might not make sense. I think proving that he is better or equal to LH has been enough fire for Button. Webber on the other hand does not believe in himself enough. Last year for a few races he did and he finally was doing the business but then Vettel won and Webber is back down not sure if he is the real deal or not ... IMO. Pete
You are not sure? So how many more seasons should we give him to find out? After all this is "only" his 10th season in F1. The few who have it, show that talent early on. Normally in their first or second year of F1 (Hakkinen being the exception): - MS stunned everybody in his very first qualifying session. Made me a believer right then and there. - Alonso made the Minardi look better than it deserved and then went on to win the first title for Renault beating MS. - Vettel won in the Minardi. - Hamilton matched Alonso in his rookie year. Granted Webber did well in the Minardi in Australia. But after that not much else happened.
He did alright last year, but since then, he's been on the nose a bit. (relatively speaking, of course) Having said that, Button gave him a HUGE rap on the BBC forum last week. He must see something in him to rave the way he did.
