- 25 Jul 09, 12:33#136014
Lewis Hamilton 2008 Formula One World Champion
With Bourdais now gone and Alguersuari in and with growing rumours over Piquet's future and maybe even Nakajima leaving Williams, I just thought, 'What can the teams gain from putting young inexperienced drivers in Formula One?' And the answer really is not a lot.
Lets take the Alguersuari situation, the 'kid' had never driven a 2009 spec Formula One car around a corner until yesterday morning yet he has a seat for what won't even be half a season. Bourdais was given the sack from Toro Rosso not because of his name certainly not, the Red Bull franchise seem obsessed with the name Sebastian (or Sebastien), but instead he got the boot because he wasn't scoring points for Toro Rosso on a basis let alone a consistent one! But what difference is Alguersuari going to make? Lets be honest here is no Lewis Hamilton, the likelihood of him scoring a single point this weekend is much less than the chance Bourdais would have had. The boy has gone straight from Formula Renault to Formula One, the leap there is huge not only in speed but in quality of racing. I'm not saying that Formula Renault isn't exciting but the standards are no where near as high as those in F1. Even in Formula Renault he was a rookie after driving in British F3 in 2008. But Alguersuari won't even get to race the full 8 remaining races due to, yet another Sebastien, Sebastien Loeb having agreed to race in Abu Dhabi and if Autosport Magazine is to be believed it could even be earlier if Loeb wraps up the WRC championship early or if he gets the consent of Citroen! If I was Alguersuari I would be worried about this because surely the main reason he was given a seat is because they will be assessing him for 2010 seat and lets be honest again, I would rather have Loeb a proven Motorsports champion and someone who has done a few days testing for Red Bull where he was lapping relatively good lap times, over a young 19 year old who is still yet to prove himself in the higher forms of motorsport.
But can Renault and maybe even Williams gain anything if they get rid of Piquet and Nakajima respectively? Well I personally believe they can. The two drivers who would take the seats would be Romain Grosjean for Renault and Nico Hulkenburg for Williams. Both drivers are currently first and second in the GP2 series with Nico just leading. So these drivers are showing good current form in the closest series to F1 whereas Alguersuari is only 8th in the World Series by Renault a class that is slightly lower down the pecking order.
Lets take the Alguersuari situation, the 'kid' had never driven a 2009 spec Formula One car around a corner until yesterday morning yet he has a seat for what won't even be half a season. Bourdais was given the sack from Toro Rosso not because of his name certainly not, the Red Bull franchise seem obsessed with the name Sebastian (or Sebastien), but instead he got the boot because he wasn't scoring points for Toro Rosso on a basis let alone a consistent one! But what difference is Alguersuari going to make? Lets be honest here is no Lewis Hamilton, the likelihood of him scoring a single point this weekend is much less than the chance Bourdais would have had. The boy has gone straight from Formula Renault to Formula One, the leap there is huge not only in speed but in quality of racing. I'm not saying that Formula Renault isn't exciting but the standards are no where near as high as those in F1. Even in Formula Renault he was a rookie after driving in British F3 in 2008. But Alguersuari won't even get to race the full 8 remaining races due to, yet another Sebastien, Sebastien Loeb having agreed to race in Abu Dhabi and if Autosport Magazine is to be believed it could even be earlier if Loeb wraps up the WRC championship early or if he gets the consent of Citroen! If I was Alguersuari I would be worried about this because surely the main reason he was given a seat is because they will be assessing him for 2010 seat and lets be honest again, I would rather have Loeb a proven Motorsports champion and someone who has done a few days testing for Red Bull where he was lapping relatively good lap times, over a young 19 year old who is still yet to prove himself in the higher forms of motorsport.
But can Renault and maybe even Williams gain anything if they get rid of Piquet and Nakajima respectively? Well I personally believe they can. The two drivers who would take the seats would be Romain Grosjean for Renault and Nico Hulkenburg for Williams. Both drivers are currently first and second in the GP2 series with Nico just leading. So these drivers are showing good current form in the closest series to F1 whereas Alguersuari is only 8th in the World Series by Renault a class that is slightly lower down the pecking order.
Lewis Hamilton 2008 Formula One World Champion
