Hello!!

Yesterday, Peter Windsor was in Fox Sports Channel, and sayd that USF1 have "serious talks" with the Argentine driver José María "Pechito" López.,

http://www.corsaonline.com.ar/2009/09/13/N...con-pechito.php

Nice!!

Can't seem to find any reference to Jose Maria Lopez on the web. Do you mean Sebastian Loeb?

Glad to see Peter Windsor producing high quality yet again....

I wonder how much sponsorship this kid brings?

Probably about fifty million for Bernie. The Argentine government is said to be backing him, and I've heard that if he gets a race seat, a resurrected Argentin Grand Prix could be on the cards.

Hehehe nice work if you can get it....!

Hmmm, 3 seasons in F3000/GP2, finishing 6th, 9th and 10th (a record not dissimilar to that of Olivier Grouillard), before moving off to ALMS and then Argentine Touring Cars

I hope he's bringing the team a significant amount of cash, because he won't be earnng them any points!

So what part of the United States is this "Argentina" of which you speak? Is it near Pittsburgh?

No. Further South. Closer to Montoyaville.

Ah, NASCAR country.

José Maria López:

Champion of Italian Fórmula Renault, defeating Kubica (2002)

Champion of Fórmula V6 by Renault Series, defeating Kovalainen (2003), sign contract for tester driver for Renault F1 Team.

2004 and 2005, race in team DAMS in F3000., make 14.000 Km in test with the Renault F1 team

2006 López race in GP2., won two races.. 5000 km testing the Renault V8 F1 engine.

2007, returns to Argentina, won 3 races in TC 2000 (Argentine 2.0 litres Touring series), and race in the Sebring 12 hours

2008, five races in FIA GT, (two podiums, two fastes laps), and won the TC 2000 Championship because he won five races and make eigth consecutives pole positions., won the classic race "200 Km of Buenos Aires" with the BTCC legend Anthony Reid.


José López testing the Renault F1 car:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHCdwZPFlgQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zAnCMXOtgE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-rkFXtdK7A


Greetings

He's neither american neither an experienced F1 driver. So for this to happen, USF1 would have to dump their entire plans for a big jar of cash.

José Maria López testing the Williams FW 29:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UMFnhRtnos

López testing the Minardi F1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Qaz6Wgur9Q

Yeah I know he was a tester. He's never raced in F1. He's not what the team needs.

Oh comeon he was third tester for Renault 5 years ago, behind Kova and Montagny .... hardly news

Pedro de la Rosa and Alex Wurz aren't American either, but USF1 might take either of them.

What are they going to do if they can't find an American driver who they think would be suitable and someone who can't pay if they're unsuitable? They can't rightly run one car ...

He was a handy driver, quite good actually. It's just that Briatore and Michel thought he must win GP2/F3000 with any team, so he was never in a top team and then got dropped off RDD.
Still, I'm more inclined to Guerrieri, because Lopez may have burned, the dream broke and stuff like this has happened to him, then dealing with Flavio... while Esteban is always very fast in everything and still has his efforts in open-wheelers. Guerrieri is probably more ready for the job - in his head, while Lopez may be was more talented.

Yes, but he has a fantastic racing name for Windsor to write his utterly wretched novella race reports around:

"As Pechito Lopez left the USF1 motorhome that morning, the low sun glinted from the sleek PW-1 YouTube Doritos Wal-Mart Texaco Disneyworld Cosworth setting off a wicked grin flickering around the Argentine's firm, tanned jaw. Then he recalled his mother and brother back home in Argentina on the farm he grew up on, the hardships they faced and he set his face to one determined to go through the 4th gear double apex right hander faster than he ever had before; perfectly manipulating the 700 horses of the American power unit between traction and forward motion in a delicate arc of sustained, physical, deafening momentum.

He walked torwards the faintly humming, glowing track; quickly".

The monumental twat.

Hah, quality!

Well they said they wanted an American, and you could argue that Argentine is in 'America', so technically, this could be................


....wait, why am I trying to defend Peter Windsor? This would be incredibly stupid. Not that the guy would be a disaster, but because it would go against what USF1 have been saying they want in a driver.

I prefer Guerrieri too... but López wasn't bad at all in GP2 and... since when being a GP2 top driver is a guarantee of something? Just look at Piquet and Kova(and Nakajima!!): they are not bad, but they are not world champion material either. And López is a trmendously fast driver, the problem is that he's too 'wild' (or nervous?) in races, but he has the speed. At least he's not less than Piquet. And for the money, I've been reading some stupid things and let me put this clear: there's NO WAY López would bring something like 50 million dollars to US. And the Argentine government is not giving money for this (thank God). Fpor what we know right now, money comes from YPF (which is is a little part Argentine and most of it belongs to Repsol) and a cell phone company (it could be Spaniard Movistar, from Telefónica, or Claro...or Telecom, which already sponsored Tuero). The ACA is directly behind the project, I would say we should trust them: the only times in F1 history when the ACA decided to go with a program to get Argentine drivers to F1, they brought Fangio, Froilán González and Reutemann, so I hope they are up to their history. Now if you think that Tuero wasn't bad at all in Minardi, there's no reason to think López wull embarrass himself: he's way too much faster than Tuero. And not even talk about that Mazzacane.
But as I said before, I would prefer Guerrieri: I found him a more complete driver: great tester and car developer, excellent in the set up, agressive when needed, cold minded, great in wet conditions and you don't see a driver that adapts to a new car as fast and as well as Guerrieri every day (just look what he did in f3000: he was confirmed one week before the start of the season, never tested a car of those before being the most powerful machine he had dealed with before a 185 bhp FR, and he was inmediatly close to his experienced teammate Tocaccello. And what he did in WSR last year: Ultimate became a top team from the instant he joined them at Silverstone)

He was second tester behind Kova in 2006... and he did the set up before races, not Kova...

Dunno... "USF1", "serious" and "Jose Maria Lopez" in the same sentence sound just way too weird.

This guy Maria Lopez... is he the guy from "Saved by the Bell"?

Montoyaville is more or less at the same distance form Buenos Aires (the famous capital of Brazil) than from the Unitedstassians... anyway, López is from Río Tercero...

Oh, did he use the name 'Franck Montagny' in 2003?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_World_Se...y_Nissan_season

wrong series..
and he did not defeat kovalainen in 2003 but Kubica in 2002..

Sorry, but Lopez never impressed me much in GP2. And you can say whatever you want about Piquet, Kova, Speed and the rest, but if they were bad in F1, do you really expect Lopez to be any better? Probably just another Gaston Mazzacane.

Argentina should busy themselves in putting money on a young talent that actually is worth something, not some has-been who never made the grade.

Also, if Peter Windsor is claiming that Lopez is now in line for USF1, then its slowly but surely becoming clear (and it pains me to say this) that he's going to need a pay driver after all.

Precisely, you don't get many guys like him in junior series, he's done everything with success. I think it will be smart on YPF if they split their efforts and help Esteban at Manor, he has links there from his F3ES days. It's like insurance that they will have the best Argentine driver, it's either of them of them:)

In the Renault V6., not the Nissan..,

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Mar%C3%ADa_L%C3%B3pez

Geographically speaking, Argentina seems to be in America

OK, but Kovalainen was not there.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_Formula_..._Eurocup_season

What the hell for he's rubbish !

Beautiful, and sums up this shower of shhh so well.

I wish they'd consider Justin Wilson. He ran rings round everyone in his championship year in "GP2", or whatever it was called then, including a certain Australian now in F1 and regarded by many as a contender for champion. He scored more points and victories than even Montoya had done and yet he couldn't get a decent seat in F1. He may be an Englishman but he is certainly established well in the USA...

F3000. He beat Mark Webber in a straight fight. It was a fantastic achievement, yet no one gave him an F1 seat, whilst Webber moved straight up. Jaguar found him mightily convenient when they sacked Pizzonia mid season but then royally shafted him when they gave his seat to Klien.

It's sad, but Justin gets overlooked wherever he races. I just hope that having won a race for Dale Coyne, one of the top teams take notice and sign him up.

I feel sorry for Lopez - I mean it's obvious isn't it? Windsor has picked a relative unknown so that he can attempt to influence him more....

Lopez should prepare for long and tedious lectures on the importance of the "friction circle" and other Windsor hobby-horses....

Windsors championing of Lopez must be worrisome for him though - the man can't discern driving talent... this was the guy who said that between them, Ralf and michael Sch would win 13 championships - and while Michael did his part (and let's face it - he already had 2 when PW speculated this - so it's no positive reflection on PW) I don't remember ANYBODY else picking Ralfi to win a WDC, never mind multiples....

....

I wonder if it's a co-incidence that he's picked and Argentine? The wags used to call PW "Mrs. Reutemann" because he followed Carlos around so slavishly (while inventing the concept of the friction circle and applying it to any driver he thought was good....)

Last notice: (19:33 Hs)

The ESPN channel say "is a fact" the partnership USF1-José López:

http://espndeportes.espn.go.com/news/story...&type=story

That 's it..,


Cheers.

There's no way for López to be another Mazzacane, simply because López is a much better driver: he has been far more succesful than Mazzacane in the junior series (the only thing Mazzacane did was winning an Italian f2000 title, after that, nothing...) and they have been racing together in Argentina and the difference is huge (López fights for wins every weekend, Mazzacane has a good weekend if he becomes a mid-fielder). The same can be said in comparison to Tuero (although Tuero is clearly better than Mazzacane too). Now, as I said before, Tuero wasn't bad at all in F1 considering the car he was driving and his short age and experience, so there's no reason to think López will do worse: logically, he should do better with the same guns...

Now, somke GP2 results, let's see:

2005: Team: DAMS

Round 1: San Marino
Q: 3rd (teammate Fauzy:21st)
r1:2nd (Fauzy: DNF)
r2:11th (Fauzy: 12th)

Round 2: Spain
Q: 3rd (Fauzy: 26th)
r1: 6th (Fauzy: 12th)
r2: 1st (Fauzy: 7th)

Round 3: Monaco
Q: 23rd [out] (Fauzy: 19th)
R: DNF (Fauzy: DNF)

Round 4: Europe
Q: 6th (Fauzy 26th)
R1: 13th (Fauzy 14th)
r2:DNF (Fauzy: 10th)

Round 5: France
q: 7th (Fauzy 19th)
r1: 2nd (Fauzy: 14th)
r2: DNF (Fauzy 10th)

Round 6: Britain
q: 7th (Fauzy 19th)
r1: 9th (Fauzy DNF)
r2: DNF (Fauzy DNF)

Ropund 7: Germany
q: 20th (Fauzy 21st)
r1: dnf (fauzy DNF )
r2: 10th (Fauzy 16th)

Round 8: Hubgary
q: 17th (Fauzy 19th)
r1: DNF (Fauzy DNF)
r2: DNF (Fauzy 13th)

Round 9: Turkey
q: 3rd (Fauzy 15th)
r1: 6th (Fauzy DNF)
r2: 7th (Fauzy 17th)

Round 10: Italy
Q: 5th (Fauzy 23rd)
r1: DNF (Fazuy 13th)
r2: DNF (Fauzy 11th)

Round 11: Belgium
Q: 10th (Fauzy 16th)
r1: 10th (Fauzy 13th)
r2: 7th (Fauzy 14th)

Round 12: Bahrein
q: 12th (Fauzy 20th)
r1: 4th (Fauzy 11th)
r2: 4th (Fauzy 10th)

CHAMPIONSHIP STANDINGS:
Rosberg (ART): 120
Kovalainen (Arden): 105
Speed: (ISport) 67.5
Prèmat (ART) 67
Carroll (Supernova) 53
Pantano (Supernova) 49
Jani (Racing Engeneering) 48
Piquet (Piquet) 46
López (DAMS) 36
Bruni (Coloni) 35

2006: Supernova

Round 1 Valencia:
Q: 6th (teammate Fauzy: 22nd)
r1: 5th (Fauzy: DNF)
r2: DNF (Fauzy 10th)

Round 2: San Marino
Q: 2nd (Fauzy: 23rd)
r1: DNF (Fauzy: DNF)
r2: DNF (Fauzy 15th)

Round 3: Europe
q: 5th (Fauzy: 25th)
r1: 4th (Fauzy: DNF)
r2:3rd (Fauzy: 9yh)

Round 4:Spain
q: 8th (Fauzy: 25th)
r1: DNF (Fauzy: DNF)
r2: DNF (Fauzy: 14th)

Round 5: Monaco
q: 15th ( Fauzy: 21st)
r: DNF (Fauzy: DNF)

Round 6: Britain
q: 18th (Fauzy: 23rd)
r1: DNF (Fauzy: 12th)
r2: 15th (Fauzy: 8th)

Round 7: France
q: 1st (Fauzy: 23rd)
r1: 3rd (DNF)
r2: DNF (15th)

Round 8: Germany
q: 26th (out) (Fauzy: 17th)
r1: 7th (Fauzy: DNF)
r2: 2nd (Fauzy: 10th)


Round 9: Hungary
q: 2nd (Fauzy: 25th)
r1: 8th (Fauzy: DNF)
r2: DNF (Fauzy: DNF)

Round 10: Turkey
q: 2nd (25th)
r1: 9th (DNF)
r2: 11th (DNF)

Round 11: Italy
q: 15th (25th)
r1: DNF (DNF)
r2 DNF (10th)

CHAMP:
Hamilton (ART) 114
Piquet (Piquet) 102
Prémat (ART) 66
Glock (BCN/Isport) 58
Pantano (FMS) 44
Viso (Isport) 42
Bruni (Trident) 33
Carroll (Racing Engineering) 33
Lapierre (Arden) 32
López (Supernova) 30

As I said, López was far from mediocre in qualy (he showed that before in the fr v6 and in Argentina nowadays). His irregular race results could be analysed by many points of view: there are some driving mistakes, of course, but those miostakes you commit when you try to be faster than the car you are driving, there are several machanical failures too, and team mistakes, like in France 2006, when López was building an inmense win from pole and the Supernoiva guys threw it all away with a horrible pitstop. López was lucky to grab a podium at the end. You can also see what his teammate did at the same time (the bteammate is th efirst point of comparison: how can we know what L´ñopez could have done on an ART car? The only time he tested for ART he got tyhe fastest time, half a second faster than the second classified, testing teammate Nelsinho Piquet.... I am concerned specially in the speed, which you can see in qualy performances more than races (there are a lot more factors involved in races that raw speed). Now think someonme like Mazzacane wouldn't have done better than Fauzy at that time (I consider Fauzy a better driverv than Mazzacane, but let's think they are equaly good)... Now, since he has been racing in Argentina, López has showed more and more consistent and intelligent behind the wheel: he's not the rush-of.blood-to-the-head driver he was two or three years ago. An he has kept his great raw speed. He would be much better than Mazzacane: now if he will be just an OK driver like someone like Buemi or being something else, that's a thing we still have to see, if he gets a seat next year, of course...

More news...

Yew, Felipe McGough (the man behind Fontana not signing with Tyrrell in 1998) is one of the negotiators, although not the main one, thank God Mr.Rosales form the ACA is leading all of this... McGough admits talks with US (apparently the best chance), Campos (still quite likely), they are considering Manor too (thou there are no talks yet, I understand) and they talked to STR but nothing happened there.

You should've saved yourself the trouble of writing Fauzy so many times. Saying he's better than Fauzy is like saying he's better than a blindfolded grandma.

And in the Brazilian webs too:

http://tazio.uol.com.br/f-1/textos/13589/

Salu2

Pechito López drilled hole in the ass to ROBERT KUBICA and Liuzzi in a Fórmula Renault..,

You know who is Kubica., didn't you??

Fauzy has been a quite decent WSR and GP2 Asia driver indeed...

no, Peter is finally realizing he can not get the currently best open wheel american born driver, Danica..who really wants to go to nascar and make far more than she ever could in f1, indeeed, counting those ads where the strips down to almsot nothing, far more money than Kimi or Lewis will ever see.......

not that i am a fan of hers, INDEED ABSOLUTELY NOT!!!!
just stating the sad sad facts.... .

maybe ole scot speed might come over.......

She's not the best. If she was, she'd be winning championships; as it stands, she has one race victory to her name. And she's useless on street circuits; her worst results have almost exclusively come on circuits that are not ovals. In a series where there are no ovals, she'd struggle for sure.

errr, excuse me, I did not say the best, I said the best american born....

oh i suppose u could argue little marco or little rahal is better.......but if you wanted to tell me that one of those boys is twice as good as Danica, my response would be that 2 times zero, is still zero.....

I think back to a time when there was a Gurney, Mario, Revson, Donohue, Phil Hill, or even Eddie Cheever.......but now all we have is......

USF1 will take the best drivers available to them.

Danica Patrick has a history of poor results on road and street circuits.

Fomula One is a calendar made up entirely of road an street circuits.

Therefore, Danica Patrick is not one of the best drivers available to USF1.

I realy doubt whether José María López would get a superlicense today, given that he hasn't even raced an open wheel car for several years! I really doubt that he would be anywhere near the pace if he went into F1 with that background, and overall I think he'd be axed halfway into the season!

It's funny how Argentineans never mention Hockenheim where Lopez was leading the race and choked under pressure from Glock on the last lap...

Lopez was probably lucky to have Fauzy as a teammate for both years in GP2: he couldn't look too bad when his teammate is unable to score a point. Kind of like having Tahinci as a teammate. But he had two years, didn't show anything, and was let go by Renault: he can hardly claim he didn't get a fair go at it. He was quick in qualy but always seemed to fall backwards in races, so it would be pretty unlikely that he'd get a call up to F1 now.

And if he has that sort of money behind him, why didn't he go back to GP2 and prove his worth?