Most sucessful Driver 2004

[Full Version]

Richard Lyons without doubt has been the star of 2004. Winning 2 championships against the odds in Formula Nippon with the joke team Dandelion.

3 years ago Dandelion had tried drivers such as Cochet Manassinan etc and yet they could not manage to do a thing with the clown outfit. Lyons took grip of the team and within 4 races climbed onto the podium....something no other driver could manage in there previous 6 years. baring in mind they also had never made it into the points!

Now 2 1/2 years later they are champion. People rate all these young kids that come through F3 and pay for the top drives... The question is how do they possibly rate them against the likes of Lyons.

Well Lyons never had money and went to Japan with nothing... How did he get his drives? Thro driver shoot outs against F3 champions... Andre Couto, Cochet, Manning to name a few....So he went to Dandelion and managed to drive this team to the Top beating the precious F3 drivers.

Formula Nippon is by far the most competative series. The drivers are all professional drivers so they have their position in their teams by merit not by daddy's cheque book. The races are similar length to F1 with pit stops including refuelling and tyre changes. The driver must be pyhsical fit and also be able to manage his fuel and tyres over such a distance. Now can you say a F3 driver or even a F3000 driver has this ability... I should think not.

The other series that Lyons competing in was GT. He worked his way thro Honda learning the trade of chassis engine and tyre development. The crack Nismo outfit hired him for this experience to help steer them to there first win in over 2 seasons (fuji rd2 2003). One year later after developing the new Z car he took the Debut win and championship win. GT in Japan is like no other championship where you have many manufactures of engines chassis's and tyres all competing against one another. The tyre development is only beaten by Formula 1.

Now please try and tell me that this 25 year old is not ready for F1 and please try and give me an example of someone that is better prepared to make the jump. I should think you have to look harder than your pay drivers from F3000 and F3.....

[ASCII Man]

Yep, like we the fans make up the decisions of who makes it into F1 or not.
Also your utter dismissal of F3000/F3 drivers like they are all a bunch of idiots who don't know a thing about racing is laughable at best.

Smells like sour grapes to me...

Shouldn't this be in National & International Single Seaters?

[Kicking-back]

Richard Lyons may well have an F1 test drive for next season - we'll see where he goes from there. He's certainly had a good season - but the competition in Nippon is not what it was in the glory days.

[Silk Cut Jaguar]

Unless he secured a drive with one of the top teams, which while he may deserve it isn't likely until 2007. So he would probably be better off exploring FIA GT or Le Mans (ALMS/LMES).

That said, he's doing well enough in the JGTC and probably getting paid a decent wage for the priviledge.

[Super Tourer]

This is a big difference between being ready and being able.

If making it to F1 were just about ability, currently there are plenty of under employed ex-champions at various levels that should be there, but aren't.

Sadly, you can be as well prepared as you like, but without the dollars to back it up F1 is hard to break into - that hasn't really changed much in the last 20 years or more.

It's a fact that pay drivers keep Minardi and Jordan in business, but that's another story for another thread I guess.

[karting legend]

I agree totally... with Full Version anta:

Yes Hummm, Richard is a talented driver and has been ever since he started racing Karts and i dont wish to take anything away from him but please you make it sound like he had to beg to getmoney just to be able to eat Ha Ha Ha the Lyons family could easily pay for a test driver position for him but they are not that stupid!! his best bet is to forget about F1 for the near future and go to america before it is to late!! Why do one year driving a minardi oreven worse a Jordan what do you do the following year absolutely nothing!!

Well i hope his test in america in the coming weeks goes well!
Farcnield

[flexible-flyer]

although the obvious bias towards richard reeks on that message its no doubt that lyons was the class of the field in both series. despite so much bad luck he still managed to take the nippon title with indeed the team that seemed for so long to be the minardi of nippon. and a gt title aswell which is just as impressive. fantastic year. he has really come on as a driver since he went to japan. although i want to see him come back to europe first!

[Russfeld]

Who is this doof, David Kennedy?