Alguersuari to replace Bourdais
July 13, 2009 by Negative Camber
Filed under People & Events
Jaime Alguersuari is set to make his F1 debut at the Hungarian Grand Prix in two weeks time. This according to Autosport.
It seems this weekends speculation about Sebastien Bourdais have materialized much to the dismay of Bourdais fans world wide. the Frenchman has had a difficult season so far and much could be attributed to the cars lack of performance if you look at his teammate’s results as well.
Interestingly the Autosport story suggests a lack of in-season testing as a reason to place Alguesuari in the seat to prepare him for the 2010 season and while this makes sense, it is odd they didn’t try the same option with their former reserve driver Brendan Hartley who left the team due to a lack of actual testing or driving.
Alguesuari will become the youngest driver to start an F1 race at 19 years 125 days eclipsing the previous record held by Mike Thackwell who drove for Tyrrell in Canada 1980. It is suggested that Alguersuari also brings Repsol sponsorship as well.
So what will become of Bourdais? Many speculations are flying and the most prevelant is that he would return to American open-wheel racing but the Indycar series is not ripe with cash or rides. I am suggesting that a Le Mans series ride would be an excellent alternative as Bourdais certainly proved his worth at the wheel of the Peugeot at this years 24 Hours of Le Mans. The ALMS series would do well to secure the services of Bourdais as well as Americans know the Frenchman from the CHAMP car days and he has a pedigree here in the states.
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Ohh so all this all official now? Till yesterday none of the camps ( driver and team) had not made any official announcement. But for one fleeting glimpse of Sebass embracing the STR race engineer. Good Luck Sebass, I wish you get right environment to work and excel ( and I don’t mean brackley based squad either)
Autosport says it is to be announced in the next few days.
BBC commentators were very sure this is a done deal during the race weekend.
This is pretty unfair for Bourdais in my opinion. He’s a good driver (regardless of what the points say) that has had a bad run of luck with his car this year (which is obviously off the pace when neither driver can really push it) and last year he showed some of his ability placing well in some qualifying sessions only to be let down by the car (which is why i said the points didn’t reflect his true potential)!
Returning to an answer i got from a comment on a different thread, even if Bourdais’ contract had a performance clause would that really fly considering his team mate only has one more point than him and he is clearly being forced to drive a deficient car with some serious reliability flaws.
And on a truly random side note, is this not a sign that the ban on testing is doing more harm than good when the only way to give a driver any experience in an F1 car of the current regulations is to remove one of the current racing drivers from his seat? (I do apologise for this rant =P)
Red Bull consider STR is a driver developemnt team. Seb got his chance and got beaten by his rookie team mates twice. Why keep him?. He may get a drive in one of the new teams. Is he a good fit for USF1 as he is well known in the states?. Not sure how the american audience viewed him in Cart?
I am assuming there are clauses and what not but in the end, I think the most pertinent thing is that you mentioned the lack of testing. This is true in my opinion. If the only way you can get a driver in the car is to actually race them, then there are a lot of young kids out there that could really cause problems. It’s not as if they haven’t driven race cars before but F1 is a different beast. Testing helps develop the talent.
What a great idea NC. I would take that farther and suggest one of races they should let the GP2 drivers to compete for the current teams, the team principles just pick up drivers in lottery. Would have loved to see loads of Carbon fibre on Turn one yesterday if there were more drivers to give company to certain Lewis Hamilton in missing the breaking point.
All the F1 forums are mum on that incident thanks to certain Rubinho stealing Young Brit’s Thunder :D
Love the thought. Maybe if testing were still limited, but you could do it with one potential driver for maybe a maximum of 12 months prior to starting their rookie year and up to 6 months into it? Then the teams can test new components and the kids can get seat time.
Its clear Bordais is talented and was letdown many times by the car. I can’t recall many on-track incidents that were particular his fault (crashes, offs, ect), though he has had a few. It was clear that the team didn’t like the guy from his first day there, maybe he would do well with a change of scenery, say to Renault if they rid themselves of Piquet or to Williams if they lose Rosberg.
I think Grosjean has the Renault seat squarely in his cross hairs. :)
!!It was clear that the team didn’t like the guy from his first day there,!!
You said it Beckett, F1 as in life is all about perceptions,
There are drivers who thanks to Good PR get a good press and from then on their mistakes are team problems and other end of spectrum drivers with bad PR first there is “mur mur” campaign and then full blown “Bad Driver” movement.
Like JPM recently quoted in his official NASCAR press release “Its not that Lewis forgot to drive over the winter and Jenson learnt to drive” Its more about Team’s openness to take Driver Feedback on board and give driver the confidence that they are backing him to the hilt.
Take any Driver-Team fallout story, and its always the fundamental mentioned above is violated by the team.
While Arm chair critics will support “their Teams” and castigate drivers, by defending what is team’s interest in ruining drivers race, they are losing that way, The critics conveniently forget the corollary to the theorem – “Which driver want to blemish his resume and not want to win races and points”
Just picking up something publishedon EGR’s website
Quote – “Time really flies,” Montoya, who won the Indianapolis 500 as a rookie there, said. “It’s actually surprising that three years ago I flew up here and did the press conference and it was the first time really looking at the cars and everything. It was really exciting. To see how far we’ve come over the three years, I think everybody, really, when I came in, didn’t know what to expect.
“For me, when we talked to Chip (Ganassi), we knew the team wasn’t where it needed to be.
We needed to do a lot of changes and things were going to happen and it was going to be up and down. And I was OK with it. And we built a team. Things are getting better. We’re getting more competitive and right now where we are in points is all about surviving and bringing the car home every week and see what happens.”
UnQuote
Its the same driver whom F1 Press/Pandits castigated as “temperamental”, “moody”, “Divise”. And he learned his ropes in “Their Land” Europe and came to US on Loan to CGR. He is still the same,” Vocal” “Aggressive Driver on Track”, but with right “Environment”, he and the team have moved forward not to mention the Dumping Dodge Lump in the car has helped.
In Case of STR the weakest link is “Toast”, Burnt Toast tastes bitter and hence must be thrown out before it ruins the most healthy meal of the day ;-)
Mr Dietrich Mateschitz are you listening :-?
I’d really like to hear from someone who followed Le Seb closely over the years explain why he performed so poorly in F1. A poor car can’t be the full excuse because even in that cast he should have been well out-running Buemi this year.
So… what happened?
Bourdais isn’t exactly being thrashed by his team mate – he’s only got one point less. The crash in Spain cant be fully blamed on Bourdais… he simply didn’t have enough time to hit the brakes and bring his car to a stop before plowing into a car that was only just in front of him (and lets not forget that Buemi hasn’t exactly kept the nose of his car out of the rears of others i.e. Monaco – this stuff happens)! He has outperformed his team mate at several of the races, and has also had a faulty car yet only his mistakes are counted against him!
He’s been defeated by Vettel last year and Buemi this year. Buemi and Vettel are novice drivers. Is this what’s expected from a multi-champ-winner? errr no, i dont think so….
He’s just a waste of time for Red Bull and STR, they better use STR to discover new sensational drivers for Red Bull. So i think Jaime’s move is an inteligent one…