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22 Oct 2002, 10:13 (Ref:410066)
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#1 | |
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Veteran
Join Date: Dec 2000
Posts: 1,473
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Yoong moves in on CART deal
Alex Yoong, Malaysia's first Formula 1 driver, looks set to turn his back on the series and is close to landing a drive in the US-based CART championship.
The Minardi team, for whom Yoong drove in 14 grands prix, still has an option on his services for next season, but it looks likely that he'll be given permission to find a drive elsewhere. "We are very close to signing with a winning CART team," he told his personal website. "The moment this is done we'll have to get the release from Minardi and we'll move on from there." Yoong has had a difficult year in F1 this season, failing to qualifying on three occasions. However, after a mid-season break he came back stronger and showed his best form to date in the final three races. This led to the opportunity of a test role at Minardi, but Yoong is determined to find a race seat. "A year's testing would do me good for sure, but I do not believe Minardi will be testing much in 2003," he said. "I feel a year's racing would be better and am looking forward to CART. Also the fact that there is a chance to win races instead of racing at the back is very attractive to me. The competition in CART is very intense but it's possible for me to do well there. The series have quite a number of races outside America and I'm sure it will expand further." Yoong's best F1 result came in the first race of the 2002 season, when he finished seventh in the Australian GP. www.autosport.com Well, if this does happen, I hope he brings enough funding so that the supposed 'winning team'(?) can run two cars and give a legitimate racer a break. |
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22 Oct 2002, 10:24 (Ref:410068)
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#2 | ||
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Veteran
Join Date: Jul 2002
Posts: 5,073
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Sorry, I know this won't be popular but Yoong is a "legitimate racer." He may of been in over his head in F1, but so would a lot of people currently in CART or Sportscars. Geez, he is what, 24? It is not like he is an Eddie Cheever, holding a seat based on his F1 "success."
He really did have a better 2nd half driving a fairly crappy car. His biggest criticism was he did not spend enough time in the lower formula, so let's see if he can do it or not. Failure at F1 does not make him a bad driver. I can think of many terrific drivers who just didn't have what is needed to make it in F1. |
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__________________
"He's still a young guy and I always think, slightly morbidly, the last thing you learn is how to die and at the end of the day everybody learns every single day." - The Ever-Cheerfull Ron Dennis on Lewis Hamilton. |
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22 Oct 2002, 10:47 (Ref:410078)
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#3 | ||
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Veteran
Join Date: Feb 1999
Posts: 12,451
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He's a nice boy and he deserves a chance. I wonder if he's signing up with PacWest? Or the new team that used to be PacWest?
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__________________
"If we won all the time, we'd be as unpopular as Ferrari, and we want to avoid that. We enjoy being a team that everybody likes." Flavio Briatore |
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22 Oct 2002, 10:56 (Ref:410084)
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#4 | |
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Veteran
Join Date: Dec 2000
Posts: 1,473
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OK, Yoong didn't have a lot working in his favor at Minardi(lack of testing, secondary equipment etc etc..) but I don't like to imagine how he'll handle ChampCars.
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22 Oct 2002, 11:02 (Ref:410086)
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#5 | ||
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Veteran
Join Date: Jul 2002
Posts: 5,073
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Why can't you imagine it? It may just be his cup of tea. Look at a guy like Jackie Ickx: if it were raining, he was terrific. Not exactly WDC the rest of the time. But in Endurance/Sportscars he was absolutely top-shelf. He is to me, still a great driver.
Liz, do you think PacWest is coming back? Is Yoong talking to an established (and active) team perhaps? he seemed to be speaking of a team using the present tense. Rahal has a strong F1 connection and needs some sponsorship... |
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__________________
"He's still a young guy and I always think, slightly morbidly, the last thing you learn is how to die and at the end of the day everybody learns every single day." - The Ever-Cheerfull Ron Dennis on Lewis Hamilton. |
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22 Oct 2002, 11:06 (Ref:410089)
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#6 | ||
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Veteran
Join Date: May 2001
Posts: 10,040
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I was thinking Rahal as well.
We may well find that he goes pretty well in CART next year, but the thing is is that the winning team he is talking to him probably only started dealing with him due to his money. |
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__________________
"The Great Race" 22 November 1960 - 21 July 1999 |
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22 Oct 2002, 11:07 (Ref:410093)
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#7 | ||
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Veteran
Join Date: Jul 2002
Posts: 5,073
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$$ make the wheels go around!
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__________________
"He's still a young guy and I always think, slightly morbidly, the last thing you learn is how to die and at the end of the day everybody learns every single day." - The Ever-Cheerfull Ron Dennis on Lewis Hamilton. |
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22 Oct 2002, 11:45 (Ref:410122)
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#8 | ||
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Veteran
Join Date: Aug 1999
Posts: 9,208
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Yoong could probably pick up a drive with every team in the field
 Good luck to him, but I still think we need to resurrect King Hiro! |
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__________________
Love you long time |
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22 Oct 2002, 11:49 (Ref:410128)
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#9 | ||
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Veteran
Join Date: Dec 2000
Posts: 4,071
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Welcome to the best open wheeled series in the world Mr. Yoong! Just don't win any races or I'll have to take back my comments on the IRL forum about "I hope Yoong wins to show how pathetic IRL is"
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__________________
Don't let manufacturers ruin F1. RIP Tyrrell, Arrows, Prost, Minardi, Jordan. |
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22 Oct 2002, 11:51 (Ref:410131)
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#10 | ||
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Veteran
Join Date: Feb 1999
Posts: 12,451
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A friend of Bruce McCaw has bought PacWest's assets, so I would assume he is planning to bring back the team in some form. Unless he just wanted the cars for his den.
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__________________
"If we won all the time, we'd be as unpopular as Ferrari, and we want to avoid that. We enjoy being a team that everybody likes." Flavio Briatore |
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22 Oct 2002, 11:53 (Ref:410132)
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#11 | ||
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Veteran
Join Date: Aug 1999
Posts: 9,208
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So what's Barry Green doing (is he Bruce's friend?)?
Has he done the wise thing and bought a Hawaian Island? Last edited by Crash Test; 22 Oct 2002 at 11:54. |
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__________________
Love you long time |
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22 Oct 2002, 14:24 (Ref:410209)
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#12 | ||
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Racer
Join Date: Aug 2002
Posts: 221
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The Rahal guess would be good, but I see that as a third car along with the Shell and Gigante cars. It's said to be a "winning" team but I'm still leaning toward's Walker.
Yoong was put in the inferior-spec Minardi and his testing time was very minimal. A couple season's in CART will be good for him. A Malaysian link will be great for CART. |
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22 Oct 2002, 16:21 (Ref:410282)
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#13 | ||
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Veteran
Join Date: May 2002
Posts: 5,276
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Shell is out of Rahal, Tiresmoke.
Yoong could be good. Who knows. |
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__________________
"Many people depend on motor racing for their livelihood, to them it is a business. To me, it is a sport." -Jim Clark |
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22 Oct 2002, 19:53 (Ref:410490)
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#14 | ||
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Veteran
Join Date: Jul 1999
Posts: 6,038
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Yoong will be in Cart for the exact same reason he was in Formula 1! $$$$$$$$
Will he be good? I doubt it.... On the plus side, Cart could use more backmarkers... |
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__________________
"I used to hate writing, but now I enjoy it. I realized that the purpose of writing is to inflate weak ideas, obscure poor reasoning, and inhibit clarity. With a little practice, writing can be an intimidating and impenetrable fog!" - Calvin and Hobbes |
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22 Oct 2002, 19:59 (Ref:410502)
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#15 | ||
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Racer
Join Date: Aug 2002
Posts: 221
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I think Jourdain proved that anybody can be decent with a competitive car. Yoong's got some talent, its just hard to see when your overdriving a slow Minardi.
Shell's out, huh? ****. |
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22 Oct 2002, 20:05 (Ref:410512)
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#16 | ||
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Veteran
Join Date: Jul 1999
Posts: 6,038
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Some people that drove bad cars in F1 and came to Cart because they still had money to spend on racing: Shinji Nakano, Tora Takagi, Tarso Marques, Jan Magnussen....
That's quite a bunch Yoong is about to join... |
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__________________
"I used to hate writing, but now I enjoy it. I realized that the purpose of writing is to inflate weak ideas, obscure poor reasoning, and inhibit clarity. With a little practice, writing can be an intimidating and impenetrable fog!" - Calvin and Hobbes |
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22 Oct 2002, 20:07 (Ref:410518)
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#17 | ||
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Rookie
Join Date: Oct 2002
Posts: 53
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I think that Yoong is quite an attractive package, he is a good driver, maybe not f1-top-flight good but good anyway, and he comes with a lot of money behind him, enough to make a difference to a Cart or Sportscar team. Money may be able to buy you a seat but seldom will it keep you there if you can't drive!
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22 Oct 2002, 22:42 (Ref:410736)
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#18 | ||
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Veteran
Join Date: Feb 1999
Posts: 12,451
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Nakano and Tora turned out to be quite good, haven't they? And Jourdain is phenomenal.
Every one of us would welcome the chance to buy ourselves the chance to prove we can make the grade in Champ Cars. Don't deny it, you know that if somebody offered you an unlimited budget you'd do it! And if you were a team owner and I came up to you with $30 mil and a big name sponsor or two and said "Please, sir, can I drive one of your race cars?" and I had Yoong's credentials, you'd kiss my feet and give me the best seat in the house. But as formulastudent observes so aptly, you wouldn't keep me there unless I could drive. For more than two years. (e.g. Tora. )
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__________________
"If we won all the time, we'd be as unpopular as Ferrari, and we want to avoid that. We enjoy being a team that everybody likes." Flavio Briatore |
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22 Oct 2002, 23:24 (Ref:410775)
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#19 | ||
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Racer
Join Date: Aug 2002
Posts: 254
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Young was only a second off Webbers times in the last two GP's and led him for a while at Suzuka in what is a sub-Webber standard car. He feels he won't get much testing in at Minardi if he stays and he's got some good sponsorship. CART is so close in lap times and will be more so next year. The difference is in the little nuances in setup, not in driver ability. This year good drivers have looked bad because they are well down the grid but the difference between pole and grid 14 would have covered the top five cars in the early to mid 90's. Yoong is not a Schumacher or even an Alesi or Berger but he will be as good as Magnussen, Johansson, or Jordain given a decent setup. if you had looked at jordain over the 1998-2001 seasons would you have predicted the consistency and pace he exhibited in the first six races 2002. No way! He was dropped because he wasn't getting results and went to a better team. The person who took his place did as well as he did with the old team. Its not the driver, its often the team. a good team can make a good driver look great, just as a poor team can make a good driver look inadequate.
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__________________
greg |
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22 Oct 2002, 23:39 (Ref:410785)
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#20 | |
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Veteran
Join Date: May 2001
Posts: 5,702
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He only led Webber at Suzuka because he had a much lighter fuel load.
Yoong will do OK. He's no Nigel Mansell, but his last few races (at tracks he knows), were quite reasonable. Rahal is my guess too. |
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23 Oct 2002, 01:24 (Ref:410827)
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#21 | ||
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Veteran
Join Date: Aug 1999
Posts: 9,208
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The latest news is that Stoddard might be starting up a satelite CART team, after discussions with Dan Gurney and Mr Pook.
That adds a bit more fuel to the fire... |
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__________________
Love you long time |
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23 Oct 2002, 02:33 (Ref:410850)
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#22 | ||
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Veteran
Join Date: Feb 2002
Posts: 4,936
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Yoong's a nice enough guy, but he's a miserable driver, even by _club_ standards! He has exactly _zero_ national or higher championships to his name.
 At least he has the sense to get out of the way of cars coming up behind him, though. |
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__________________
"Put a ****ing wheel on there! Let me go out again!" -Gilles Villeneuve, Zandvoort, 1979 |
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23 Oct 2002, 02:51 (Ref:410857)
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#23 | ||
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Racer
Join Date: Oct 2001
Posts: 183
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no... he won the formula asia championship in 1996 (i think 96). but his dad did run the series and about 6 cars ran that year. but he will proberbly do ok in a champcar. i say he'll run midfield and if luck goes his way on the day he'll be up there. like 3/4ths of the feild.
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23 Oct 2002, 04:56 (Ref:410893)
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#24 | ||
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Veteran
Join Date: Jul 2001
Posts: 7,294
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Stoddart setting up a satellite CART team? Isn't he meant to be broke?
While I'm sure Yoong does have some talent (they say that even the backmarkers have incredible talent) I'm still not convinced he'd even do well in CART, and probably won't. |
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__________________
Sunderland Til I Die! |
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23 Oct 2002, 06:24 (Ref:410940)
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#25 | ||
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Veteran
Join Date: May 2001
Posts: 979
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well good luck to him and his wallet; may it fund some team very well. Maybe we could eventually see a CART race in Malaysia.
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