"New" Drivers Fail To Deliver

[Glen]

Nobody (well almost nobody) expected miracles ASCII Man. I was merely pointing out that no matter how you spin the story, you can hardly call that a good performance. Jacques himself is not happy about it, and neither should racing fans be. It's great that he's back, he brings much needed colour and character, and sparks more enthusiasm among supporters than any other driver. But he has to do the basic job too.

And, the comparisson I made was just as sensible a the previous one.

Also, btw, I think the problem is not so much familiarity with the car as with the tyres. He has never been on the Michelins before, as I pointed out before the race, and they have very specific characteristics.

[GP Racer]

Why is it, we have no problems criticising other drivers immediately, like Pizzonia, Gene, and Pantano, but we cannot critique the greatness of JV?

Glens critique was very fair, as were the other's, much fairer than I've seen other drivers get critiqued here. We all know he didn't have much prep time for this race, but the fact is, he accepted the drive, and he knew what Renault needed to get out of it. So its fair to be critical...

[Kirk]

Ummm, I would be curious to know just how many passes (ON THE TRACK) were made for position in this race. You guys make it sound like there was overtaking going on everywhere. Let me see, MS took several laps to get past Glock, got held up by Klein then crashed into him, DC hit Ralf trying to pass him. No one passed Alonso the entire race that I saw. JV and Webber were together with JV unable to get by. RB, JB and Kimi remained in line .. hmmm. Maybe the China track isn't condusive to passing at all.... or should I say not with the configuration of today's F1 cars anyway.

[Wrex]

Webber passed JV (after JV beat him off the line) on lap 1. JV himself also took Montoya IIRC. Did'nt Button pass Alonso as well?

[Kirk]

Yeah lap 1 (at least the first 6 corners of it) as usual had some action but after that lap, not much. But my point is it wasn't an easy task for anyone, let alone a rusty JV in an unfamiliar and less than ideal handling Renault, trying to get by a "notoriously wide" - David Hobbs again - Mark Webber. Webber was quite excited about it actually; he had his hands full and should be given a little more credit for not making a mistake and holding that position.

[Jordi]

I wouldn't say the Renault was a far superior car. I think Jacques drove where the car deserved to be. With Alonso's experience, better qualifying position and better start = 4th place.