Villeneuve out - Davidson in?

I have confidence the Jacques will find good pace within the next couple of races. At least he better do it, cause I really want to see a fellow canadian drive an F1 car in person.
Judgement on his ability to set up a car and his skills as a driver can't really be questioned after one bad race, especially when its his first race with a new car after a year off(driving for renault for three races probably just made the transition hader since he had to learn a new car and then unlearn it after two months).
Hell if we look at schumacher's performance only in his last four races, I'd have to come to the conclusion thats he's lost his pace and is now washed up. But I'm sure everyone would disagree with that, and I'm sure he'll be back on top in no time too.

 

imho sauber doesn't need that kind of driver leadership. the leadership at sauber is peter himself who formed a true, enthusiastic, efficient but unspectactular TEAM. sauber is not a struggling team. sauber is the team with the far best budget/success ratio. sauber needs very good drivers and i hope that villeneuve will be soon successful.

 

JV was a pain in the ass at BAR, and he continues to be a pain in the ass at Sauber. He was slow for Renault last year, and he will be slow at Sauber.

He will be gone by the 5th round, and Ant will take his place.

He did nothing...nothing for 5 years at BAR and he will do nothing in a year at Sauber.

Sure, he can point fingers and say the car setup was not optimal.

The engineers know better.

 

It's just looking oh so familiar. And the rumors of bad feelings in the team does not bode well for any improvement.

 

I don't know how many times I'v explained JV's performance at BAR. Here's a quote from a member at atlasf1.com.
"1999 at BAR he constantly qualified the car in the top 10, even 5th at Imola, 6th at spain. held off Michael Schumacher in spain for half the race, sitting 3rd, then retired. he had that piece of **** in the pointts many times when it broke. It was the 6th/7th best car of the year.........

In 2000 he had the 5th best car at best yet qualified in the top 6 a few times (monza 4th, canada, spain) and was the starter of the year, as he constantly jumped places at the start and manfully held off faster cars, Canada being a great example. he held of Hakkinen and Barrichello for many laps. battled manfully with Frentzen at Indianapolis for a podium eventually finshing 4th, his car lacking huge amounts of downforce. had a brace of 4th place and points finishes, took BAR to equual 4th in the WCC and fiinished 7th in the WDC. was even voted in Italy as driver of the year, against Schumacher winning the title for Ferrari.

in 2001 very much similar as 2000 except that BAR slipped further back due to major flaws in the car. JV took 2 podiums, one lucky (hockenheim) one on merit (spain, where he outpaced Trulli in the faster Jordan and finsihed ahead of Coulthard in the Mclaren) Drove superbly in Monaco to finish 4th and again finished 7th in the WDC. easily beat Panis who was a huge improvement over Zonta."
After refusing a contract with Renault in 2002, BAR had maybe their worse year. The car was not working at all. He had a big accident in australia(broken wing). JV did finish ahead of Panis in the championship. 2003, David Richards was being a p****k with JV. It may sound stupid but it seems that Button had the fastest car while JV's car was always breaking down. (?) At the end JV was fed up and I don't blame him.

 

...but the story has a Happy ending, Richards gives JV the boot, is able to focus on racing rather than deal with internal bickering and bad press that JV regularly gives them, and they end up kicking everybody's a$$ (expect Ferrari) in 2004...

 

Friday's second practice in Sepang is not helping either. Massa 1st and Villeneuve 18th, although they seem to be running very different tire and fuel set ups...

 

Massa is keeping their sponsor Petronas happy, probably with fumes in the tank. But the pressure is on Villeneuve to deliver goods this weekend.

Imagine Sauber sacking Jacques: It would be the end of his career.

 

It wouldn't be great to see a former world champion go like that but if he does not deliver soon, Peter Sauber has no option as Jacques was supposed to run fast out of the box.

 

This is what Peter Sauber said after Practice 2:
"This was a good test day for us, and of course it is always gratifying when you finish a session fastest. What was important is that we completed our programme, with both cars. Felipe and Jacques ran different tyre specifications and fuel loads at different times, so the gap between them is not representative. We are satisfied with what we have learned today, and will use that to go faster still tomorrow."
http://www.grandprix.com/race/r733friquotes.html

 

I hear you. What's a bit troubling is the fact, that even the Swiss newspapers now talk about Villeneuve's shaky seat. It is not just wishful thinking by the Brits anymore.
Sauber OTOH is under pressure to produce results in case he wants to sell his shop to BMW by the end of the year.

Hopefully Jacques can squelch all this by a stellar qualifying session tonight.

PS: In the same session where Jacques was 18th, MS was 16th. So pretty much meaningless anyway.

 

Unfortunately, from the performance of the last race Massa might be the one with the full tanks on hard tires while JV is empty with soft tires...


You know I'm just kidding guys.

 

Gosh, how cool would that be? Well, the Sauber might be fast this year, but not THAT fast.

 

Getting increasingly worried about Villeneuve after Sepang.

Speed commentators actually mentioned Sauber is talking to Dennis to have Wurz back.

If Jacques gets sacked, I hope it won't happen before the Canadian GP. Would be a blow for that race.

 

Davidson, now Wurz, who's next? Pizzonia?
I suspect Wurz is too tall to drive the Sauber anyway.

Davidson driving for Sauber was a complete fabrication by autosport/atlas.

 

Sauber to use 3rd car.
The team is currently evaluating if there is the possibility to run a 3rd car and a test driver.

It might be Alex Wurz the 3rd driver for Sauber. (rumors)
Good test driver and was in line to be McLaren's 3rd driver, until they found out that he couldn't fit into the MP4-20. As you see its De la Rosa who took his place.

 

According to Pollock "JV lacks mileage and can only show 85 percent of what he is capable of." JV has also admitted that he can't get used to braking the Sauber.

http://www.itv-f1.com/News_Article.aspx?PO_ID=32366

If this is the case maybe JV needs to retire before his sacked. Little confidence, the fact that he can't adjust to the car, and Massa making him look like a rookie are worrying signs that his best days are over.

 

It ain't easy for Villeneuve:

http://www.sportnetwork.net/main/s200/st64618.htm#vote

An official Sauber fan site and they have sacking Jacques as one of the options. Not good.

 

Took this from the atlasf1forum.

"Danish TV2 has reported today, that Nicolas Kiesa has visited the Sauber factory. Apparently he has got the money and is willing to pay."

Kiesa replaced Justin Wilson at Minardi in 2003 for the last 5 races. I remember he was very very slow compared to Verstappen in the other Minardi. I'm not sure he is the right choice for the 3rd seat but if he has the money than pick him.

 

Pollock dismisses Villeneuve/Davidson rumours

Craig Pollock has dismissed reports from Autosport that his driver Jacques Villeneuve, could be forced to hand his seat over to British American Racing’s third driver as pure speculation, confirming to the British magazine that Peter Sauber’s denials of a switch because the 1997 world champion wasn’t performing as well as originally hoped were indeed true.

The original report indicated that there was a performance clause in Villeneuve’s contract with the Sauber Petronas team that would enable them to oust him from the ride if they deemed fit and after just one race the Swiss based squad were so disillusioned with the driver that they immediately contacted Anthony Davidson in regard to taking over, even though the weather was a huge contributing factor in regard to the end result.

"There is no performance clause in his contract," Pollock said. "I as his manager would never have accepted that. I keep hearing the rumours about Anthony Davidson probably taking over Jacques cockpit at Sauber. Anthony is a good driver and a nice person, but I know his contract since I did it when I was working for BAR. Anthony in a Sauber is a pure speculation of the British press which seems to be eager to get another British driver into F1."

This doesn’t mean that Anthony hasn’t been spoken to by the team, with further reports that they are considering running a third car later in the season and would require a good third driver.

As to Jacques’ performances at Sauber, Pollock simply passed them off as not having enough time in the C24 to gain the necessary confidence that his teammate Felipe Massa has.

"Basically it is rather simple. When Jacques stepped into a Grand Prix car for the first time, he was quicker than David Coulthard after ten laps. If you have that capability, then you are quick - presuming however that you have confidence in the car,” Pollock explained. “Right now, this 100 percent confidence is not there, because Jacques does not feel comfortable with the set-up. He lacks mileage and can only show 85 percent of what he is capable of. So both driver and team have to find out how to get back to 100 percent. Jacques knows that Sauber is a good team and he has huge experience with Grand Prix cars. But the confidence is not yet there."
gp2005.com

 

That is the same line that was used to counter JV's poor performance at Renault last year...no confidence in the car... If he is so good and can blow DC away after ten laps in a Formula Car that he had never driven, why is he struggling so much. He is no longer a rookie, the problem is the driver not the car... Couple more driver errors like at Sepang and he gets the boot! Hope things turn around VERY soon for him!

 

The Sauber team was disappointed about Villeneuve's test performance in Spain yesterday and sent him home. Not only was he slow, but also very unsteady in his laptimes, which made the tests useless.

Massa took over for him today and was over a second faster, but still lost over three seconds on Button.

=> Sauber is struggling and Villeneuve is. Neither is helpful for his future.

 

There will be bad weather and a lot of rain on Friday, so the team has changed the running schedule. In this way, they both get time in decent weather in the car.

Massa fastest lap was 1.1s faster than JV's.

By the way, yesterday JV had electronic problems, brake failure and a major handling imbalance on his car during testing.

I say we should stop worry about JV for a moment. Before Christmas JV was faster than Massa in the C23 with Michelins.
Right now the C24 is not a good car. Peter Sauber said that when the C24 gets going then he make an opinion on his drivers. Fix the car first then the drivers.