Formula 1 2013: General Discussion Thread

frostie500 · 16-04-2013 11:58am

The whole pay F1 driver scene has changed in recent years. Guys like Perez, Sutil and Maldonado all bring substantial backing to their teams (although not in Perez' case this year but that will change in 2014 presumably) but are all very talented and thoroughly deserve their place on the grid. Alonso brought Santandar to McLaren and now to Ferrari so even the best on the grid have to bring a budget.

Down the field someone like Chilton is a proper pay driver. He wouldnt be anywhere near the grid if it wasnt for his dad's money but because of it he is pretty safe at Marussia.

the culture of deference · 16-04-2013 12:08pm

frostie500 wrote: »

Down the field someone like Chilton is a proper pay driver. He wouldnt be anywhere near the grid if it wasnt for his dad's money but because of it he is pretty safe at Marussia.

Does anyone know exactly how much max's dad is paying a year?

frostie500 · 16-04-2013 12:16pm

the culture of deference wrote: »

Does anyone know exactly how much max's dad is paying a year?

I would imagine somewhere north of 15 mill and possibly by quite a bit. Marussia need something like 1.5 million to cover expenses on a weekly basis and Razia was thought to be bringing in over 10 million so you'd have to imagine that Chilton is bringing in a bit more than that

Daniel S · 16-04-2013 12:17pm

christy c wrote: »

Wasn't there some guy in the 90's who basically bought a seat for one race with someone like Pacific Ford and radioed that he was coming in to the pits cause he had too much grip!!

Also retired as he was too tired...

Scotty # · 16-04-2013 12:21pm

LIGHTNING wrote: »

Hold on a second, Sutil has no talent You have no idea what your talking about, I suggest you look at his career.

To be fair, I never said that. I said he's not outstanding. There's a difference.

Would he have got a drive without the money? Answer is no. Not outstanding enough for the big teams and the smaller teams can't afford drivers not bringing money with them.

16-04-2013 2:22pm

christy c wrote: »

Wasn't there some guy in the 90's who basically bought a seat for one race with someone like Pacific Ford and radioed that he was coming in to the pits cause he had too much grip!!

Chanoch Nissany and it in the mid 2000s I think

16-04-2013 4:00pm

Is Chilton really that bad? Didn't he get a win in GP2 last season?

I think it's worth making the point that someone can be a pretty excellent driver but just not suited to F1. Look at the Indycar last year, a field of F1 rejects or people who couldn't find a budget and a bunch of them beat Barrichello all season. Pagenaud moved over from GT and ran consistently top 5. Bourdais dominated Champcar, moved to F1 and was beaten by Vettel, but in his defence the dice really didn't fall for Bourdais. He moved back to Indycar and was much more competitive.McNish had a pretty decent GT career but never seemed to have that last bit of talent for F1.
So yeah, I don't think it's necessarily fair to only look at F1 when judging drivers.

recyclebin · 16-04-2013 4:12pm

Anyone know if any of the European Satellite TV stations have English commentary?

There is a list on liveonsat.com of the Eurpean TV stations showing the Bahrain GP. Some are free, others are subscription. If just one of them had English commentary then I could ditch Sky.

http://liveonsat.com/lv__alt_motor.php

Jordan 199 · 16-04-2013 4:37pm

Deleted User wrote: »

Is Chilton really that bad? Didn't he get a win in GP2 last season?

I think it's worth making the point that someone can be a pretty excellent driver but just not suited to F1. Look at the Indycar last year, a field of F1 rejects or people who couldn't find a budget and a bunch of them beat Barrichello all season. Pagenaud moved over from GT and ran consistently top 5. Bourdais dominated Champcar, moved to F1 and was beaten by Vettel, but in his defence the dice really didn't fall for Bourdais. He moved back to Indycar and was much more competitive.McNish had a pretty decent GT career but never seemed to have that last bit of talent for F1.
So yeah, I don't think it's necessarily fair to only look at F1 when judging drivers.

This is Chilton's career so far. Tell me what you think of it, and then compare it to his team mate Jules Bianchi.

paddy147 · 16-04-2013 6:48pm

How does everyone rate Paul DiResta??

Would be a suitable/worthy replacement for Massa next year??

Jordan 199 · 16-04-2013 7:12pm

paddy147 wrote: »

How does everyone rate Paul DiResta??

Would be a suitable/worthy replacement for Massa next year??

No chance. I'd say Hulkenberg or Bianchi will replace Massa for next season.

Rascasse · 16-04-2013 7:12pm

I'd imagine that Bianchi would be the most likely driver to get a Ferrari seat being one of their academy drivers.

Di Resta would probably be a competent no. 2 to Alonso, but he has links to Mercedes so I'd imagine if he'll be in a Merc powered car next year (McLaren perhaps if they dump Perez).

Frankie Lee · 16-04-2013 7:16pm

paddy147 wrote: »

How does everyone rate Paul DiResta??

Would be a suitable/worthy replacement for Massa next year??

Di Resta is a solid F1 driver who is a little short of top quality. If he gets lucky in his career he might make it to a top team where he would be a good number 2. Time is still on his side too.

Jordan 199 · 17-04-2013 1:42am

Max_Charger wrote: »

Very disappointed in him so far this season, finished almost 30 seconds back from JB today.

Yeah, not a great start to the season for Perez. I see him improving when the races in Europe start.

Rascasse · 17-04-2013 7:38am

Kovalainen rejoining Caterham for the next two races FP1's. Two inexperienced drivers can't develop the car? Who'd have thought?

I don't want to sound like a broken record, but I really think Tony Fernandes should reconsider his sports investments as they've been a disaster so far.

Frank Bullitt · 17-04-2013 10:19am

Tony Fernandes couldn't run a bath, never mind 2 sports teams, both of whom are fighting for scraps in their respective sports.

GarIT · 17-04-2013 10:42am

paddy147 wrote: »

How does everyone rate Paul DiResta??

Would be a suitable/worthy replacement for Massa next year??

No way, Mass is 10 times the driver Paul is. If Paul is lucky he might get a job at one of the smaller teams after FI get rid of him.

Jordan 199 · 17-04-2013 1:24pm

Rascasse wrote: »

Kovalainen rejoining Caterham for the next two races FP1's. Two inexperienced drivers can't develop the car? Who'd have thought?

They should have had Kovalainen or Petrov to partner Pic this year.

Jordan 199 · 17-04-2013 2:33pm

LIGHTNING wrote: »

I wouldn't be surprised to see Kovi driving races this season.

I agree. I can see him replacing van der Garde.

GarIT · 17-04-2013 4:56pm

LIGHTNING wrote: »

Massa usedto be better than Paul, not anymore which is a shame.

Massa has had a great start to this season to be fair and he would have done a lot better in at least two of the races if he wasn't shafted with pitstops. He would have been 2nd in China if he had of pitted on the same lap of Alonso. Traffic ruined his race.

PDR is consistently average. Decent driver but never going to be a star, there's probably 12-15 drivers on the grid and another 10 off it that are better than him, where Massa has a chance of winning a few races if he wasn't Ferrari's second. I think FI should have gone with Blanchi and Sutil.

frostie500 · 17-04-2013 5:24pm

GarIT wrote: »

Massa has had a great start to this season to be fair and he would have done a lot better in at least two of the races if he wasn't shafted with pitstops. He would have been 2nd in China if he had of pitted on the same lap of Alonso. Traffic ruined his race.

No chance Massa would have been second in China. He might have been fifth ahead of Button but he didnt have anywhere enough pace to match Alonso, Raikkonen, Hamilton and Vettel on the prime tyre. He admitted as much afterwards too.

GarIT · 18-04-2013 10:30am

frostie500 wrote: »

No chance Massa would have been second in China. He might have been fifth ahead of Button but he didnt have anywhere enough pace to match Alonso, Raikkonen, Hamilton and Vettel on the prime tyre. He admitted as much afterwards too.

I suppose it's only opinion as we will never know, but Alonso was a bit ahead by the end and wasn't challenged much throught the race. I think if they pitted together Massa would have been able to keep up with Alonso. Once he got caught in traffic it slowed him for the whole race. I think we will just agree to disagree.

18-04-2013 2:50pm

frostie500 wrote: »

No chance Massa would have been second in China. He might have been fifth ahead of Button but he didnt have anywhere enough pace to match Alonso, Raikkonen, Hamilton and Vettel on the prime tyre. He admitted as much afterwards too.

No chance even of that, Button would've finished ahead of Hamilton only for the pit ****-up. Would've been interesting then to see what Mercedes did about Rosberg getting held up.

andyman · 18-04-2013 6:16pm

Paul Di Resta had a chance to show what he was about last season, but was shown up by a superior team-mate in Hulkenberg (as expected). Both had 1 season in F1 and even at that, Hulkenberg didn't race the season before. To suggest Di Resta is a better driver than Massa is ridiculous.

If any top drive comes up, Hulkenberg should be the name at the top of the lists. Only Alonso, Hamilton, Vettel, Button, Kimi and Massa have more raw talent than him (although I know I'm missing someone). Bianchi wouldn't be too far behind him, then.

Point I'm trying to make is that if I was a Team Principal, I'd look elsewhere before going for Di Resta.

19-04-2013 12:13am

I hate to keep banging the tyres drum (not really) but I only noticed the other day that the wikipedia page for races for the last few years has a lap-leading chart. I thought I'd go with the fun 2007 season to show just how static things were in the vast majority of races:

Australia
Malaysia
Bahrain
Spain
Monaco
Canada
United States
France
Britain
Europe (Nurburgring)
Hungary
Turkey
Italy
Belgium
Japan
China
Brazil

A quick look at 08 and it looks as bad (probably worse) apart from unreliability for leaders.
Be careful what you wish for. :pac:

youreadthat · 19-04-2013 1:51am

It's a tad misleading, considering that the mass tire degradation meant teams had widely different strategies and so cars that were never going to win the race regularly make the front for a bit. Also DRS adds to this somewhat, especially on the tracks like China that don't need it.

I guess a casual fan who doesn't understand what's actually going on might be dazzled by a Force India being at the front for 2 laps (while being out of sequence with other teams' strategies).

19-04-2013 3:52am

youreadthat wrote: »

It's a tad misleading, considering that the mass tire degradation meant teams had widely different strategies and so cars that were never going to win the race regularly make the front for a bit. Also DRS adds to this somewhat, especially on the tracks like China that don't need it.

I guess a casual fan who doesn't understand what's actually going on might be dazzled by a Force India being at the front for 2 laps (while being out of sequence with other teams' strategies).

Somewhat, yes, but so far this season the podium for quali-race are like this:
Australia:
1st started 7th
2nd started 5th
3rd started 1st

Malaysia:
1st started 1st
2nd started 5th
3rd started 4th

China:
1st started 3rd
2nd started 2nd
3rd started 1st

Admittedly China isn't as good as the other two. :pac: I'll do the first 3 races of 07 now:

Australia:
1st started 1st
2nd started 2nd
3rd started 4th

Malaysia:
1st started 2nd
2nd started 4th
3rd started 3rd

Bahrain:
1st started 1st
2nd started 2nd
3rd started 3rd.