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Van der Garde


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#51 Rob

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Posted 02 February 2013 - 22:50

Allan McNish was McLaren's test driver in 1990. Twelve years later he made his debut in F1 for Toyota.

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#52 dau

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Posted 02 February 2013 - 23:18

Tell that to Fernando Alonso and Mark Webber. :)

That's two. What's with the "decent drivers" from the years before Stoddard? Gene, Badoer, Tuero? Or those from 2003-2005? How do you think would they fare against a Senna or Petrov?

#53 KWSN - DSM

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Posted 02 February 2013 - 23:24

To be fair both Frijns and van der Garde's biggest claim to fame is the exact same - the World Series by Renault title. It's just that Frijns has won 3 different highly rated championships in his 4 years in cars, whereas Giedo's WSR title is his only trophy in 10 years...

I'm a little shocked Giedo managed to hang on for long enough to finally do this, he basically "patiented" his way into the series. He just needed to wait for the moment the economy would be bad enough for a team to be desperate...


I do not think that Van der Garde is anything special, but he did win a championship speedwise he is not completely hopeless, so for a back of the end team there have been a lot of drivers with less credentials.

Webber have never won a championship, only one he can claim as far as I recall is the FFord Festival. So you can be a fairly good F1 driver without winning anything, I am not sure Alonso really won anything until he was in F1.

:cool:


#54 Rob

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Posted 02 February 2013 - 23:25

That's two. What's with the "decent drivers" from the years before Stoddard? Gene, Badoer, Tuero? Or those from 2003-2005? How do you think would they fare against a Senna or Petrov?

Gene and Badoer were good drivers. Tuero was a bit of an enigma.

For pre-Stoddart I'll also name Alessandro Nannini, Pierluigi Martini, Gianni Morbidelli, Giancarlo Fisichella and Jarno Trulli.
In 2003 they had Justin Wilson and Jos Verstappen which was a very strong lineup.

#55 travbrad

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Posted 02 February 2013 - 23:31

Sad that the far more talented FR3.5 field hasnt seen as many promotions. Bird and Bianchi should have seats. Frijns as well.


Indeed. I know a GP2 driver is attractive to an F1 team because they have experience travelling to the same tracks/weekends/etc as F1, but when it comes down to the actual driving/racing talent I don't think GP2 is any better than FR3.5 (just depends on the year).

#56 noikeee

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Posted 03 February 2013 - 00:45

I do not think that Van der Garde is anything special, but he did win a championship speedwise he is not completely hopeless, so for a back of the end team there have been a lot of drivers with less credentials.

Webber have never won a championship, only one he can claim as far as I recall is the FFord Festival. So you can be a fairly good F1 driver without winning anything, I am not sure Alonso really won anything until he was in F1.

:cool:


Alonso did win something - he won the Euro Open Nissan (sort of equivalent to WSR nowadays, maybe a little weaker) in his first year, his second year he did F3000 as a frontrunner and he was off to F1 immediately. That was extremely impressive and pretty much the opposite of a Van der Garde - went up the ranks incredibly quickly.

Webber is a rare case, I'm not saying you must win something before F1, but it kind of helps your cause. Also Webber got a lot closer to the F3000 title - the equivalent of GP2 then - than Van der Garde ever did.

I agree in theory there's been far worse F1 paydrivers than Giedo, he can still be a late bloomer and does have some talent, I remember some rumour he had a record laptime in the McLaren simulator or something along those lines. I think the odds are against him though.

#57 dau

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Posted 03 February 2013 - 01:38

Gene and Badoer were good drivers. Tuero was a bit of an enigma.

For pre-Stoddart I'll also name Alessandro Nannini, Pierluigi Martini, Gianni Morbidelli, Giancarlo Fisichella and Jarno Trulli.
In 2003 they had Justin Wilson and Jos Verstappen which was a very strong lineup.

Gene and Badoer were pretty mediocre in single seaters, weren't they? Not 'bad', sure, but the same applies to most of today's paydrivers. I'd agree with Nannini, Fisico and Trulli but i don't see how the rest of those drivers you named would be a step above the Maldonados and Sennas of today.

Anyway, my point was that those completely hopeless paydrivers of yesteryear don't really exist anymore. At least not in F1. Whether it's Chilton, Gutierrez, Pic or van der Garde - every single one of them has had a pretty comprehensive junior career and won races in international championships. They're not going to be several seconds off the "real" drivers or spinning three times a lap. We're not talking Ricardo Rosset here.

Teams choose paydrivers because even though they probably won't emerge as the next Hamilton, they are usually still pretty decent racers and their money helps develop the car and keep the team afloat. Nobody 'wants' to take on paydrivers but they can be the best option. It's not really much different from Minardi back then. Which is why it's a bit weird to see GCM complain about that and you making it sound like other teams realistically have a choice.

#58 ensign14

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Posted 03 February 2013 - 08:19

Anyway, my point was that those completely hopeless paydrivers of yesteryear don't really exist anymore. At least not in F1. Whether it's Chilton, Gutierrez, Pic or van der Garde - every single one of them has had a pretty comprehensive junior career and won races in international championships. They're not going to be several seconds off the "real" drivers or spinning three times a lap. We're not talking Ricardo Rosset here.

Thing is, you defeat your own argument by raising Rosset. Because in his one season of F3000 he won races and finished 2nd in the championship. Which is a better record than most you mention.

One reason why so many drivers have won junior formulae though is because there are so many of them. The old ladder days are gone. Instead of shoehorning nearly everyone into F2/F3000 they are split between GP2 and FRenault 3.5 for a start. In the past about the only way to leapfrog that into F1 was by winning an F3 title or doing something in the world sportscar title or Indycar. Those routes are gone; now you can get in via half-a-dozen parallel European formulae or doing a load of testing.

#59 peroa

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Posted 03 February 2013 - 08:27

Why don't we just let the boy drive for a couple of laps before we declare him absolute rubbish.
Pic is decent, gave Glock a headache or two, so he will be good for comparison.


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#60 Ferrari_F1_fan_2001

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Posted 03 February 2013 - 11:43

All this criticism will either motivate him and he'll be very impressive or he'll be a broken man and his confidence will be shattered from the off.

#61 peroa

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Posted 03 February 2013 - 11:49

All this criticism will either motivate him and he'll be very impressive or he'll be a broken man and his confidence will be shattered from the off.

lol, I'm sure he'll be crying himself to sleep after reading the oh, so important autosport forum.

#62 dau

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Posted 03 February 2013 - 12:27

Thing is, you defeat your own argument by raising Rosset. Because in his one season of F3000 he won races and finished 2nd in the championship. Which is a better record than most you mention.

One reason why so many drivers have won junior formulae though is because there are so many of them. The old ladder days are gone. Instead of shoehorning nearly everyone into F2/F3000 they are split between GP2 and FRenault 3.5 for a start. In the past about the only way to leapfrog that into F1 was by winning an F3 title or doing something in the world sportscar title or Indycar. Those routes are gone; now you can get in via half-a-dozen parallel European formulae or doing a load of testing.

Good point about Rosset, guess i should have checked that before or used someone else as an example. :D
Though i wonder about the quality of the F3000 grid that year. Sospiri dominating in his fourth year seems a lot like Pantano or Valsecchi nowadays. And they're not really rated amongst racing fans, are they?

There's not that many junior formulae and it's not like they won in obscure championships against people who were then never seen again in the racing world. Everyone i mentioned has won in GP2 for example. And while there are different ways to get to F1, it's basically all pretty similar. Karting->F3/FRenault2.0->GP2/FRenault3.5. Sure, there's people like Bottas, who enters straight from GP3, but that's the exception rather than the rule. Also not a paydriver.

Edited by dau, 03 February 2013 - 12:28.


#63 BRG

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Posted 03 February 2013 - 12:35

Sure, there's people like Bottas, who enters straight from GP3, but that's the exception rather than the rule. Also not a paydriver.

Isn't he? I thought he brought some money from sponsors, firstly to get his test driver seat, then to secure his race seat.

#64 Anderis

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Posted 03 February 2013 - 12:44

As far as I recall, there were some interviews with Wolff and Wihuri and they admitted that it wouldn't be possible for Bottas to be at Williams now as a racing driver, if not quite significant sponsorship package they've managed to gather from Finnish sponsors.

#65 ensign14

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Posted 03 February 2013 - 13:05

Good point about Rosset, guess i should have checked that before or used someone else as an example. :D
Though i wonder about the quality of the F3000 grid that year. Sospiri dominating in his fourth year seems a lot like Pantano or Valsecchi nowadays. And they're not really rated amongst racing fans, are they?

It wasn't a vintage year, the best amongst them was probably Kenny Brack.

And while there are different ways to get to F1, it's basically all pretty similar. Karting->F3/FRenault2.0->GP2/FRenault3.5.

True - but the doubling up of the "second tier" means double the winners. Indeed, quadruple, given the double-headers. Whereas twenty years ago for example you could only have one F3000 winner per race, these days you could have had Panis win the GP2 feature, Beretta the GP2 sprint, Coulthard the FRenault feature and Lamy the FRenault sprint. It took them half the season to win in 1993; it could have taken them a weekend in 2013.

#66 santababy

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Posted 03 February 2013 - 14:13

I thought we are not supposed to have drivers thread, or am I wrong? :confused:

#67 noikeee

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Posted 03 February 2013 - 16:09

Thing is, you defeat your own argument by raising Rosset. Because in his one season of F3000 he won races and finished 2nd in the championship. Which is a better record than most you mention.

One reason why so many drivers have won junior formulae though is because there are so many of them. The old ladder days are gone. Instead of shoehorning nearly everyone into F2/F3000 they are split between GP2 and FRenault 3.5 for a start. In the past about the only way to leapfrog that into F1 was by winning an F3 title or doing something in the world sportscar title or Indycar. Those routes are gone; now you can get in via half-a-dozen parallel European formulae or doing a load of testing.


I don't think this is right, I think back then the drivers were more split. To start with the best guys got picked up quickly from F3 and the lesser guys then went to F3000. So back then you'd have everyone much less trained than these days when, bar rare exceptions like Bottas, everyone has at least 2 seasons at WSR/GP2 level and 2 or 3 more at lesser levels - sometimes more. And then to top it off everything was split between F3 Britain, F3 Germany, F3 Japan and other random F3 series. These days the series are international and everything is condensed into WSR and GP2, even the lower series are now very condensed with GP3 and FRenault Eurocup having the cream of the crop from the entire world at those 2 levels.

So back then you'd have the likes of Magnussen and Sato beating **** grids in FFord, quickly doing the same dominating in a bad year of F3 Britain, they get promoted to F1 quickly as the next big thing and are shown to be completely out of their depth. These days they'd have to beat much better international grids and they would have to prove themselves through more years, as no team will pick them up with only 2 or 3 years of experience in cars. See Frijns he's beaten 3 world class international grids at 3 different levels in 4 years and he's still seen as too inexperienced.

That being said you are right on Rosset he had decent credentials and was a shock he was that bad in F1.

Edited by noikeee, 03 February 2013 - 16:13.


#68 noikeee

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Posted 03 February 2013 - 16:11

I thought we are not supposed to have drivers thread, or am I wrong? :confused:


This isn't really a "van der Garde thread", more like a "van der Garde to Caterham" thread, I don't think the discussion has been unhealthy yet as per the kind of thing that made driver threads banned.

#69 SenorSjon

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Posted 04 February 2013 - 10:38

FR3.5 back then had a pretty poor grid, a long way from what it is today, and his results in GP2 showed little progression or improvement over 4 years.

To put it into perspective he started in Euro F3 the same year as Hamilton and Sutil, the year before Di Resta and Vettel, two years before Kobayashi and just to show how slow he has been at progressing he also started in the F3 Euro Series 5 years before fellow rookies Bottas & Gutierrez did.

I know, its the way F1 works but he's not fast, he's rich, don't make the mistake of thinking he's worked his way up to F1 because of his "talent".

And yes, your right, he's not the only culprit and one or two others are more reliant on their funding than he is.

Put into perspective the small Dutch market in comparison to two Brits and two Germans. I guess he hopes Bianchi doesn't get the second FI-seat, he costed him a whole lot of championship points in GP2.

I laughed at Bianchi's outrage against Frijns while remembering his GP2 days.

Edited by SenorSjon, 04 February 2013 - 10:39.


#70 mnmracer

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Posted 04 February 2013 - 12:53

I laughed at Bianchi's outrage against Frijns while remembering his GP2 days.

Same here :rotfl:
That just felt like justice served.

#71 Jackman

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Posted 04 February 2013 - 12:56

You could argue that Frijns was just avenging his countryman :D