Pierre Gasly/the pope at Renault?

[chunterer]

So what you're all basically saying is, he was in a massive grump for half the season and all of a sudden thoughts i'd better get on with it again?

[knighty]

Originally Posted by wnut

I must admit, it must be really frustrating for a team to see a driver stroking it around for 14 races and then suddenly improve at contract time.
If it was my team I would take it as a validation of my technical staff, and confirmation that a replacement driver is needed!

Originally Posted by broadrun96

I am surprised more teams don't have that attitude, obviously racecraft is not the motivating force for that driver. And seems to happen often with guys barely hanging on, the kind of guys you'd expect to be pushing harder.

In all fairness, Kvyat only got the RedBull drive in 2015 because Vettel surprised RedBull in 2014 and caught the team un-prepared by announcing he was leaving to go to Ferrari in 2015, so the first person in the que at TorroRosso was Mr-average - Kvyat, he had not done anything special at TorroRosso in 2014, other than out perform his also average team mate and had a solid first year in F1 in 2014.......Kvyatt is probably above average and a solid driver, but he aint yet "good", more time needed.....but for sure I can see Kvyat fitting in well at Renault in 2017, it will give Renault brand exposure in Russia, a huge market for selling crap cars, and lets be honest, next years Renault is not going to be anything special, probably a solid mid-field car at best, so Kvyat will be an ideal bloke to drive it having experience of both average and good F1 cars.

You can imagine Renault could easily negotiate his move with Helmut Marko......."give us Kyyat for free, and we give you another 20bhp"......Marko will probably be only to pleased to let him go, and I wouldnt be surprised to see Kvyat then develop himself into a "good" driver and start making some real progress, a bit like Button did in his first 6 years......then one day he might overtake a RedBull and give them the middle finger when he does

The king of stroking an F1 car and only going fast when threatened with replacement was Nick Heidfeldt......how the hell he had such a long F1 career is beyond me, I suspect is only linked to his nationality and appeal to the european car markets from BMW and Renault.......when Lewis Hamilton arrived on the scene in 2008 I honestly though he was going to be the next Nick Heidfeldt, as he came along the same McLaren path, but thankfully he was not!

[chunterer]

Trouble is Le Regie have already got one Russian of interest in Sirotkin, who quite probably has access to a lot more money that Daniil even if Red Bull pull a few strings?

[peebee2]

Kyvat would have the budget if wanted.

[knighty]

I think its a given that one form of Russian driver, or another will compete next year, either Sirotkin or Kvyat.......just think, how can Bernie sit next to Putin at the Sochi race and there not be a Russian driver on the grid, come what may, Bernie will get a Russian driver on the grid.....the fact that Kvyat was demoted literally the day after the 2016 Russian GP just goes to show how much Bernie calls the driver shots from behind the scenes......watch it happen, its going to happen for one of them, perhaps both

[S griffin]

Kyvat showed in Singapore he still deserves a place in F1, but he needs to do that kind of performance more consistently, maybe if he had more support he would

As for Heidfeld, I feel he was slightly underrated for while he was never the fastest he was a solid driver who could get the car to the finish although the only problem was in the era of super reliability it didn't quite work. But he could race, still remember his double pass at Luffield in 08 and he regrets letting Kubica through at Canada that day

[BSchneiderFan]

Off-topic, I realise, but I thought Heidfeld was mighty in F3000; I really thought he was the next big thing and expected him to be world champion for McLaren. But F1 didn't really seem to work for him.

[chunterer]

He got royally passed over, twice by my reckoning.

Ok so he wasn't quite on Montoya's level in 3000 in terms of raw talent but not many are/were tbh. '97/98 were very strong years in terms of depths of talent so to come out in the top 3 in either of those years showed you were a very very good pedaller even if the cars were more basic than pre' 96.

Nick would have done as good a job as DC in a McLaren surely!

[BSchneiderFan]

I think so. He showed well at Williams. I remember thinking in the early 2000s that Mercedes' long-term plan was to pair Heidfeld and Schumacher - always thought MB regarded Schuey as unfinished business. Didn't realise it would take *quite* so long for them to snag him.

[chunterer]

Guess he was another one of those like Patrese or Trulli or Panis? Much early promise only to fizzle out when the right breaks didn't come soon enough.

[knighty]

yep, there has been umpteen F3000 and GP2 championship winners that have come into F1 and completley floundered (Heidfeldt, Liuzzi), others have thrived (Montoya, Hamilton).....but there have been other mid-field / podium capable F3000 and GP2 drivers that have come into F1 and flourished (Hill, Alonso, Webber, coultard) .......the general point being, there is no hard rule, it seems that competing well in F1 is like throwing mud at the wall, whereby some of it sticks, and most of it doesnt, hence RedBull keep throwing a lot of mud at the wall to find the nice sticky bits like Vettel, Riccardo, Verstappen.

even pay-drivers are necessary evil, people forget that Alonso, Hill, Schumacher were pay drivers in their early first F1 races.....they would not have broke into the sport unless a big cheque was handed to the F1 teams they drove for, this is a fact.

.

[davec]

Originally Posted by knighty

yep, there has been umpteen F3000 and GP2 championship winners that have come into F1 and completley floundered (Heidfeldt, Liuzzi), others have thrived (Montoya, Hamilton).....but there have been other mid-field / podium capable F3000 and GP2 drivers that have come into F1 and flourished (Hill, Alonso, Webber, coultard) .......the general point being, there is no hard rule, it seems that competing well in F1 is like throwing mud at the wall, whereby some of it sticks, and most of it doesnt, hence RedBull keep throwing a lot of mud at the wall to find the nice sticky bits like Vettel, Riccardo, Verstappen.



.

To use alonso/webber/coulthard as "podium capable" or midfield I think is harsh. Alonso was 4th in the championship in his first and only year (2nd of car racing) while Webber was 3rd and 2nd in his 2 years of the championship (4 wins I think). Coulthard was lower but getting podiums in his first year and wins with 3rd in championship in his second is not really midfield.

[chillibowl]

Originally Posted by knighty

even pay-drivers are necessary evil, people forget that Alonso, Hill, Schumacher were pay drivers in their early first F1 races.....they would not have broke into the sport unless a big cheque was handed to the F1 teams they drove for, this is a fact.

didnt Merc pay Jordan around 100K for Schumi's first drive?...a far cry from the many millions now required to secure a seat.

in fairness, i dont think you can compare the situations, both in terms of the size of the cheque (100k vs 20mil a year for Maldonado for example) and the sources of the money (from a car company vs a private family's holdings).

also a difference by paying to drive for a Jordan or Minardi vs securing a seat with Williams.

maybe just a matter of semantics though.

[Hawkwood]

Originally Posted by knighty

yep, there has been umpteen F3000 and GP2 championship winners that have come into F1 and completley floundered (Heidfeldt, Liuzzi),

.

In double figures for F1 podiums, yeah Heidfeld completely floundered...

[BSchneiderFan]

"Floundered" may be putting it a bit too strongly, but he never fulfilled his promise. You sort of sense he was never the same after being passed over in favour of Räikkönen for the McLaren seat for 2002.

[S griffin]

Well he outqualified all his team mates early in his career including Alesi, Kimi, Massa and HHF, so he was no slouch

[Beryl]

Originally Posted by S griffin

Well he outqualified all his team mates early in his career including Alesi, Kimi, Massa and HHF, so he was no slouch

Not to mention he was beating Webber and Kubica after he had "fizzled out" and "floundered".

[wnut]

Originally Posted by Beryl

Not to mention he was beating Webber and Kubica after he had "fizzled out" and "floundered".

... and Giorgio Pantano humbled Heidfeldt.

[wnut]

Originally Posted by wnut

... and Giorgio Pantano humbled Heidfeldt.

Sorry, the above I rubbish.

HIs career does however show what is wrong with the motor racing progression structure.

https://willthef1journo.wordpress.co...rves-his-shot/

[knighty]

Originally Posted by wnut

Sorry, the above I rubbish.

HIs career does however show what is wrong with the motor racing progression structure.

https://willthef1journo.wordpress.co...rves-his-shot/

am happy to agree to disagree......Heidfelts is the definition of a journeyman F1 driver, just like Perez, Hulkenberg, Grosjean, and many others......Alesi, DeLaRosa, Frentzen, Trulli, Kovalainen.....just flashes in the pan.....

Back on subject, I see reality has now kicked back into place for Renaults fabled F1 return.......well I have to say you reap what you sow, the corporate Renault mob hung around too long in 2015 in the hope that Lotus-F1 would go bust and then Renault could subsequently buy the F1 remains for peanuts, but what actually happened was all the decent F1 staff left to join other F1 teamns as they became worried about the instability of the buy-out situation......and now the Renault F1 effort is a rudder-less entity and they are struggling to attract all the good talent that left early-mid 2015.......PMSL......let me reach for my violin......this is a classic case of corporate arrogance coming to bite them back on the backside within 1 year......not bad I must say......even for next year I really do not see Renaults yellow cars improving at all.

[chunterer]

Come on!! Let's be honest most of those drivers you've listed were considered top liners at one point or another in their F1 careers so hardly journeymen.
More like they were not in the right place at the right time which would include the likes of Warwick, Fisichella, and we ought to say people like Barrichello, Button and Hakkinen who for a good part of their careers were nearly men until they got a plum drive (that's an entirely different debate).

[Greem]

Instead of looking at various drivers or groups of drivers as 'journeymen', isn't it more accurate to look at each era and note that there's usually a couple (and rarely more than that) of real standout stars, and there's everyone else?

Unfortunately for the latter group, the real standout folks do have a habit of coming along and setting the world alight once every 5 or 6 years.

It must be a terrible feeling for the 'journeymen', earning all that money, travelling the world, schmoozing with the great and the good, having a crazy adventure and driving the greatest tracks the world can throw at them while looking over their shoulder at the next big thing coming to eat them up.

Or maybe not

[BSchneiderFan]

There is, I think, a distinct sub-category of drivers who could have been world champions if the cards had fallen their way and it wouldn't have been outrageous; Barrichello is one example at Brawn in 2009. Another is Patrese - if Mansell hadn't agreed terms to go back to Williams, Patrese would have won the 1992 title for sure. See also Jacques Laffite.

[S griffin]

Or if Del Boy had agreed to go to Williams for 85, although the reason he didn't was because the Renault had more potential than the Williams-Honda at the time

[Razzzor]

We're talking about the same Nick Heidfeld that has only had 1 victory since his 1998 F3000 season (18 years)? The same Heidfeld that's a backmarker in Formula E?

I always thought Heidfeld was a bit overrated, he was just a mid-card driver, but somehow (through consistency perhaps?) seemed to end up with a decent haul of points in F1.

Anyway I returned to this thread because I was curious about Gasly now after his recent round in Gp2. He's lost the title lead to his teammate who was very impressive in race 1 taking the win despite his team botching the strategy. Meanwhile Gasly finished around 11th and couldn't pass anyone. In fact Evans in the Campos piece of sh-t even passed him twice in the race.

He saved himself a lot in race 2 and managed to get ahead of Gio, but only because Maldona, sorry Rowland ran Giovinazzi clean off the track. Is there some sort of favoritism for Rowland? That was a clear penalty. Rowland is one dangerous driver to go wheel-to-wheel with.

But Giovinazzi chased Gasly for the rest of the race. That shouldn't be happening with the #1 GP2 driver expected to be stepping up to F1. It's going to be a laugh if Gio takes the title, because he'll have to move out of GP2 next year with no F1 seat available probably, and if Gasly blows it in the last round I don't think RB can keep him as a junior in GP2 for another season. Will they still move him to TR? Kyvat really appears to be a waste of a seat.