58 replies to this topic

[Risil]

Where is Hadrien David now? Quick look at Wikipedia suggests he's working his way up the sports car ranks?

 

(I will lend my support to any driver named after a Roman emperor.)

[Viryfan]

Having seen both David and Hadjar on the french scene i kinda see where William is coming from.

But racing is also about timing.

When David won the F4 championship, he had to be automatically signed by Renault Sport Academy.

So Red Bull had no say about it nor for Martins by the way.

Then David struggled a lot to match Colapinto in 2020 who was also a rookie (not completely but at last it has his first full time season) in Eurocup back then so Mia Sharizman decided to fire him like many frenchman in the academy on the first occasion (ask Fenestraz or Martins).

Then without Renault's backing he still managed to land a seat at R-ace Gp where he became teammate with Hadjar.

Even though over the course of the season David ended up ahead of Hadjar (which was to be expected due to his 2020 season under his belt), Hadjar made an instant impression when raced on F1 support bill at Barcelona and Monaco where he proved to be much more potent than other rookies such as Mini or Beganovic and even outclassing David during those week ends.

Hadjar signed with Red Bull right after his win at Monaco where he just blew out of the water the field.

As for David yes he did finish P2 overall but Eric Bouiller failed on him regarding how to raise budget in order to move to F3 so he had to settle for a strange deal with Alpine. Then Hadrien struggled to gel with the new Pirelli rear tyre in FRECA which meant he was not able to better his 2021 results.

[Viryfan]

Where is Hadrien David now? Quick look at Wikipedia suggests he's working his way up the sports car ranks?

(I will lend my support to any driver named after a Roman emperor.)

He is now an lmp3 driver alongside his studies in politics in Paris as a far right supporter.

Edited by Viryfan, 03 January 2025 - 11:46.

[Risil]

Is nothing sacred!

[tyker]

Looking at Hadrian David he spent 3 years at FRECA or similar level and was driving for a good team in R-ace GP, having finished 2nd the year before I guess he would have been favourite for the title but only finished 4th, he was also a bit unfortunate with that year being  stacked with good drivers, Beganovic, Mini, Aron and Bortoleto, that wasn't good enough for a driver with limited funding while a driver like Aron with similar results can bankroll himself all the way to F2 and then be on the verge of F1.

 

Seemingly a very good driver but because of the level of his backing he needed to show himself as being a bit special which he wasn't quite able to do.

[William Hunt]

....Then David struggled a lot to match Colapinto in 2020 who was also a rookie (not completely but at last it has his first full time season) in Eurocup back then so Mia Sharizman decided to fire him like many frenchman in the academy on the first occasion (ask Fenestraz or Martins).

Then without Renault's backing he still managed to land a seat at R-ace Gp where he became teammate with Hadjar.

Even though over the course of the season David ended up ahead of Hadjar (which was to be expected due to his 2020 season under his belt), Hadjar made an instant impression when raced on F1 support bill at Barcelona and Monaco where he proved to be much more potent than other rookies such as Mini or Beganovic and even outclassing David during those week ends.

Hadjar signed with Red Bull right after his win at Monaco where he just blew out of the water the field.

As for David yes he did finish P2 overall but Eric Bouiller failed on him regarding how to raise budget in order to move to F3 so he had to settle for a strange deal with Alpine. Then Hadrien struggled to gel with the new Pirelli rear tyre in FRECA which meant he was not able to better his 2021 results.

.....

Oh man, such a fantastic post. And some things I forgot, the Colapinto thing I forgot (Franco looked very very quick in F Renault Eurocup). Well my memory has wholes in it and well that should repair but....it's doing strange stuff since well...let's not go that way....

 

Your post filled up a lot of wholes in my memory. And it pointed out exactly the weak part of what I was saying or of what has missing in my post.

 

So many other things about that year are coming back to me now, those things were missing in my original post which lacked nuance and more info about the other drivers he was compared to in those days. 

 

In 2020, the final year that championship was called F. Renault Eurocup (now it is called Formula Regional Europe), David was a rookie after his amazing rookie campaign in French F4 in 2019 that earned him a spot in the Renault Junior Academy.

 

I remember very well now, but had forgotten it, how disappointing I was with Hadrien David's rookie F. Renault Eurocup campaign: it was lacklustre and not what you expect from a big talent who just blew away the opposition in his first year in cars.

 

And now I remember I thought: I would have dumped him (Hadrien David) for sure too from the Renault Academy that year because there were other drivers  who impressed that year and he couldn't build on  the amazing form he showed the year before.

 

Then there was also Brazilian Caio Collet in the Renault Academy in those days. Collet had won the Winfield Race School shootout that earned his a fully funded (by Winfield) French F4 campaign and he won that title and was then added to thje Renault (now Alpine) F1 Academy. He is in Indy NXT these days, IndyCar's prime feeder series.

 

 

But my memory is messed up since October and the nuanced things that are important to give a more complete image are sometimes missing now. You filled them partly up but there's so much more that comes back to me now.

 

 

 

On Isac Hadjar: he came on the radar for the first time earlier as Monaco, in Januari-Februari 2021 during the F3 Asian Championship (a bit later renamed to F. Regional Asia and then F. Regional Middle East). Hadjar, like the much much better known Dino Beganovic that year, only did the first 9 out of 15 races.

Hadjar was pretty much a rather unknown driver in those days if you consider his quite anonymous karting cv (he drove on a private kart run by his dad though, except the final year when he was at the British Forza Racing in OK Junior (Hadjar jumped straight to cars from Juniors, so without doing the Senior category or shifter karts which is something you don't see anymore today.

 

Hadjar scored +- the same results as Beganovic did but... he did outperform Honda Junior (those were his first races outside Japan) Ayumu Iwasa, who did the full campaign, easily.

You mention that Hadjar was hired by Marko after en because of his Monaco performance in '20 F. Renault Eurocup. True but I believe Marko would never have done that had he not shown those flashes earlier in Dubai & Abu Dhabi.

 

 

Hadjar ended up as best rookie of 2021 in F. Regional Europe and finished just ahead of Franco Colapinto (he missed 4 races though) and more importantly before Gabriele Mini (who was the quicker and more complete driver for sure though and a former karting superstar, he still is imho) and more importantly: other much better known rookies that year:

 

- Dino Beganovic (two Swedish and an Italian karting title 6th in the European champ., 2 ind in the WSK Super Masters and 4th in the WSK Euro Series)

 

- Mari Boya  (came from IAME series so not from the major WSK / FIA championships, three Spanish karting titles)

 

- Gabriel Bortoleto  (CRG, they have always bring Brazilian talent over to Europe, took him to Europe in 2017 in the Junior category and during his 2nd year in Europe he showed a lot  of potential coming 3rd in the FIA European karting championship (behind Paul Aron and Gabriele Mini) and 3rd in the FIA Karting World Championship (behind Victor Bernier and Gabriele Mini) and 4th in the WSK Super Master Series (behind Mini and just before Paul Aron)

 

- Kas Haverkort (German junior karting champion, known for his unique driving style leaning far on his back in the kart with hands more stretched)

 

...they finished 13-14-15-16th overall and Hadjar 5th overall. But Hadjar was quite an unknown driver, not to say a complete unknown driver with a blanco cv, compared to them. So that did stand out as very odd.

 

 

 

There was another interesting driver in those days in Formula Regional Europe. One who had no money at all to even go to single seaters. But he had easily been Spain's biggest talent in karting for years. In Spain, well in karting, he was compared to a young Fernando Alonso. Tony Kart (comparable to the status of Ferrari in karting, they always use a green livery) had hired him as one of their factory drivers for three years.

David Vidales.

He should have moved to F4 after karting but remained with Tony Kart in shifter karts, he didn't have the money at all to go racing single seaters. Then one or more former F1 drivers (I think de la Rosa & Gené) helped set up a funding program to take him to single seaters.

But since he was already 18 now, and you usually start at 16-17 in F4, they decided that he should jump straight in a Formula Renault 2.0 (called F. Regional now) ...from a kart. Quite a big jump these days. And he only started from the 2nd weekend because the money was there a bit late and it was all done last minute with the Italian outfit JD Motorsport.

 

Vidales debut was stunning and truly unbelievable. A lot of people were thinking that weekend... ok this is the next Fernando Alonso for sure. During his first weekend racing in a car, and not in F4 but immediatelly a serious step higher, Vidales... scored pole position for his first race and two wins with two fastest laps in his first 2 car races (not in F4, higher level).

In the next 5 races he scored 4 podia. Then the momentum slowed but 6th overall was still a very good end result that year, it was better as other rookies ... French F4 champ Hadrien David (10th overall) and the 2018 European Junior Karting champion Paul Aron (a Mercedes Junior, now Alpine reserve driver).

 

That David Vidales career completely slowed down, he simply never produced the expected results and more importantly never showed that mega promise during his insane car debut weekend at Imola in 2020 in F. Renault Eurocup...it's strange, very strange. That debut of his was simply the most stunning debut one can imagine and it never was extended in results that confirmed the potential he showed then and there. Strange. For one weekend he made everyone believe he was the next Fernando Alonso. That weekend in Imola he was the hero, but I didn't last long.

Edited by William Hunt, 03 January 2025 - 14:46.

[noikeee]

I don’t see why being good at the off track skills isn’t being meritocratic. At least with the super licence system now everyone reaching F1 is of a base level of talent and there’s far less difference nowadays between the best and worst on the grid that it was 20 years ago, let alone 30 or 40.

The problem with off track skills is they're often not skills, for example people often say driver A "raised a budget" whilst driver B didn't, but that might just be because driver A is directly much wealthier, and/or has better connections from either family wealth or having had the luck to attract someone who finances his career early on.

Driver B might still be better skilled at "attracting sponsorship" or "raising a budget" than driver A and still be at a huge financial disadvantage because he wasn't born in the right place or at the right time.

[Sterzo]

The problem with off track skills is they're often not skills, for example people often say driver A "raised a budget" whilst driver B didn't, but that might just be because driver A is directly much wealthier, and/or has better connections from either family wealth or having had the luck to attract someone who finances his career early on.

Driver B might still be better skilled at "attracting sponsorship" or "raising a budget" than driver A and still be at a huge financial disadvantage because he wasn't born in the right place or at the right time.

Agree totally, and would add that while those who possess the skills to market themselves deserve credit, I for one prefer motor racing to be about motor racing not marketing. If I were a marketing enthusiast I'd have gone round the corner to watch my firm's marketing people at work, instead of following car racing as I do.

[ANF]

He is now an lmp3 driver alongside his studies in politics in Paris as a far right supporter.

So he's gone from meh to eww.