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Archive: gerhard-berger

Vitantonio Liuzzi: the forgotten champion

3 March 2009 00:29

Categories: Opinion

Over the past couple of days, Vitantonio Liuzzi has re-emerged into the consciousness of this F1 fan. He remains in his role as test driver for Force India. But apparently it’s an “open secret” that the Italian has a contract to race for the team in 2010 and 2011.

I, for one, applaud this news. I have always been perplexed by the way Liuzzi was sidelined and shunned by all teams. That goes especially for Force India, who have possibly the two most easily-dropped drivers on the grid.

Giancarlo Fisichella — never the most exciting of drivers — is well into the waning phase of his career. Meanwhile, Adrian Sutil has precious little to show for his two full seasons, besides a one-off good run in Monaco which he partially attained by illegally overtaking under yellow flags. The only way you could construct a rustier partnership with current F1 drivers would be if you paired Rubens Barrichello with Nelsinho Piquet.

But why Liuzzi?, I hear you ask. Quite simply, he hasn’t had a proper chance to demonstrate his considerable talent in F1.

I say considerable talent, because that is what he has. Look back at the 2004 Formula 3000 season. Liuzzi was not only the last-ever F3000 Champion. He utterly dominated the field.

Granted, the field wasn’t the most exciting. The only other drivers to win a race that season were Enrico Toccacelo (whose career path fell off the edge of a cliff after that season), and Robert Doornbos and Patrick Friesacher, both of whom got a drive in F1 with disappointing results.

But someone who wins seven out of ten races and finishes second in two of the others in one of the most important feeder formulae needs to be seriously talented. Indeed, at one point he was supposedly destined for a role at Ferrari.

Unfortunately for him, he ended up getting tied up in the overly political world of the Red Bull driver development programme. In his first season as a Red Bull F1 driver, he was forced to share the seat with Christian Klien (another person whose career was left on the scrapheap). Even then, it was not exactly a fair share. He ended up racing just four times, as the Red Bull management clocked that having two drivers with limited experience was not as good as having one driver with solid experience.

For 2006, Liuzzi was offloaded to Toro Rosso where he partnered Scott Speed. It was the first year of the team’s existence, and an outdated and (deliberately) underpowered Cosworth engine did not help matters.

2007 should have been better, and things did begin to look up towards the end of the season. If we believe what we read, the atmosphere within the team was very political, and neither driver saw eye-to-eye with the management. Scott Speed left the team after allegedly being physically assaulted by team boss Franz Tost. After that, Speed came out and said that Franz Tost and Gerhard Berger were “pushing like hell to get rid of me and Tonio.”

Nonetheless, Liuzzi, unlike Speed, saw out the season. He was partnered by a certain young Sebastian Vettel. Today people note what Vettel has gone on to achieve, and how Liuzzi’s performances in the same car show the Italian in a more favourable light — as the Grandprix.com article highlights. This is perhaps slightly unfair. Vettel’s F1 career was just a few races old. By the end of 2007, Liuzzi had 39 races under his belt.

Nonetheless, you cannot avoid the fact that Liuzzi has not yet had a fair crack of the whip. He has never had decent machinery, nor has he ever had a favourable political environment to let him get on with the job.

Now his relatively large amount of experience would make him an ideal candidate for an F1 drive. This is especially the case now that (thanks to the ever-ingenious Max Mosley and the FIA) young drivers can’t get enough testing mileage to get proper experience before being thrown in at the deep end.

Tonio Liuzzi has played a canny move by taking part in the Speedcar series. Apparently his performances have turned heads. It certainly ensures that he won’t get race rusty.

I, for one, hope he makes it back into F1, if only for him to get a proper chance to show what he’s made of. A race seat at Force India is not exactly the Ferrari that seemed to be his destiny four or five years ago. It’s the least he deserves.

4 comments

Six GP2 drivers looking for an F1 seat

11 July 2008 18:45

Categories: Non-F1, Opinion, Report

I can’t leave the British Grand Prix weekend alone without enthusing about the awesome weekend of GP2 action that came with it. Beforehand I wasn’t too sure about the skills of the current crop of GP2 drivers. But after the races there were a few drivers that I knew I had to keep an eye on for the future.

The feature race was quite slow to come alive. But then Pantano surged his way through the field in the hunt for the lead. Then towards the closing laps there was some thrilling battles at the sharp end of the field. The race was a demonstration of six of the hottest talents in GP2. The stakes are high enough — these guys are racing for a career in F1. The six protagonists of the British feature race may all have done themselves a favour.

In the British feature race the widely-tipped Romain Grosjean was leading early on. But struggling on badly-worn tyres the canny Giorgio Pantano used his experience to outwit his younger counterpart at the Abbey chicane.

Later on Pantano pulled off a really intelligent move while battling for the lead with the fancied Lucas Di Grassi. Pantano lined himself up for a pass on the outside at Stowe. Di Grassi was preparing to defend on that basis, when all of a sudden Pantano lurched to the inside to catch Di Grassi completely unaware. Pantano had the speed to pull it off. An amazing overtaking manoeuvre.

Meanwhile, Andreas Zuber back in 4th place was finding himself under a lot of pressure from a growing train of cars that eventually included Karun Chandhok, Bruno Senna and Sébastien Buemi. Zuber desperately defended his position, even banging wheels with Chandhok after leaving it far too late to close the door.

There was an inevitability about Zuber eventually losing his place, and in the end the Austrian couldn’t cope with the pressure and went off the circuit after going way too deep at Vale. Having held up the three drivers behind him, he lost the three places immediately.

Once Zuber was out of the way, Karun Chandhok had two things to contend with. First of all Romain Grosjean was still struggling with his tyres and the whole train was beginning to reel him in. But Chandhok himself was coming under pressure from Bruno Senna. Senna in turn had to deal with Buemi.

With five laps to go another train for third place had formed, but this time with Grosjean instead of Zuber under pressure at the front. For the final five laps we were treated to a jaw-dropping display of hammer-and-tongs racing between the four drivers.

Sébastien Buemi was the first to strike, taking Senna at bridge after the Brazilian was compromised by being too close to Chandhok. But it was only a matter of time before Chandhok could take Grosjean. The Indian was released. Once that had happened, Grosjean, Buemi and Senna were three abreast through Maggotts and Becketts. Holding each other up, Chandhok was now assured third place.

Now the battle was a three-way tussle for fourth place. It doesn’t sound like especially high-stakes stuff — the difference between 5 points and 3 points — but they were all driving their backsides off in the final two laps of the race, probably looking to impress the F1 bosses.

Coming down the Hangar Straight, Buemi was losing out as a result of the side-by-side driving through Becketts. Senna bounced over the grass in his desperation to re-take Buemi, but he lost little time and was right back on the tail of the train.

In the final lap, for the second lap in a row the drivers went three abreast through Maggotts and Becketts. This time Buemi got the advantage over Grosjean. Soon enough Senna too was harrying Grosjean along the Hangar Straight and got him through Stowe. But ultimately Grosjean was able to re-gain the advantage as Senna ran wide at Priory, one of the very last corners of the race.

It wasn’t all bad news for Bruno Senna though. He took the sprint race in difficult damp conditions. Then this week have come rumours that he is in line for an F1 drive.

So what about the six protagonists of the race, who all finished in the top six of the British feature race, and are all looking for an F1 seat?

Giorgio Pantano

Pantano may have been dismissed as an old has-been. He is the only former F1 driver in a GP2 field filled with young hopefuls. But Pantano has the drive as well. And his weekend at Silverstone demonstrated an astonishing intelligence to his driving that I haven’t appreciated in him before. Not only did he plough his way to a race in in the feature race, but he also impressed in the damp conditions during the sprint race where he finished 3rd despite starting 8th on the grid as a result of his feature race win.

Giorgio Pantano may not have impressed in his first stint in F1, but I am starting to wonder if he deserves a second try. He is, after all, pulling out an impressive lead at the top of the GP2 standings. And he has the experience and racecraft to make a decent race out of a bad situation, as he showed by coming through the field twice in Silverstone.

Lucas Di Grassi

Lucas Di Grassi is currently the Renault F1 team’s third drivers. Having finished 2nd in GP2 last year behind Timo Glock, he has his foot in the door of F1. But he has only one GP2 win to his name — the 2007 Turkey feature race. And despite finishing second three times in his four GP2 races so far this year, I don’t see him as a potential F1 star after he was outwitted by Pantano.

Karun Chandhok

Chandhok impressed by seizing the initiative. He wasted relatively little time in passing Grosjean compared to Buemi and Senna, and in the end managed to pull out a 5 second gap to the three remaining scrappers.

It is difficult to say if Chandhok is F1 material. But his Indian nationality may prove useful to a certain back-of-the-grid team that gets a lot of publicity in India. If Force India want an Indian driver, they should seriously consider Karun Chandhok. After all, he can’t be that much worse than the increasingly embarrassing Giancarlo Fisichella, can he?

Sébastien Buemi

I don’t understand why more people don’t tip Buemi for a race seat. He seems to have it all. He’s certainly got the talent as his performance in Britain demonstrated. He also impressed in the damp conditions of the French sprint race by storming through the field from 21st on the grid to take the race win. Along the way he made a smart move on his team mate Senna on the run up to the Adelaide hairpin.

Sébastien Buemi also has the advantage of having backing in the form of the Red Bull Junior Team driver development programme. Although the scheme has had limited success in the past, impressing as part of the programme does help drivers get a drive at Red Bull or, more likely, Toro Rosso. He is already a test driver at Red Bull Racing, although Sebastian Vettel is more likely to get the race seat for next year.

That neatly leaves a gap at Toro Rosso though. Even though there is uncertainty as to the future direction of the Toro Rosso team, it still seems feasible that a Red Bull junior driver would get the spare seat, as pointed out by Toro Rosso chief Gerhard Berger. Plus, with a name like Sébastien, I don’t know how Toro Rosso can resist!

Romain Grosjean

Romain Grosjean was widely tipped to win the GP2 series prior to the start of the season. He won last year’s F3 Euroseries and dominated the winter GP2 Asia series. He also looks set for an F1 drive some time in the future as he is currently Renault’s test driver.

But this year he has struggled a bit in the GP2 series. His relatively poor performance in Britain, struggling on badly-worn tyres, underlined that he is not yet the complete package. I think another year in GP2 is required before Grosjean can start thinking about getting into F1.

But you never know with Renault. If they get fed up with Nelsinho Piquet, he could be in with a good shout of taking that race seat.

Bruno Senna

Senna has turned heads during his GP2 career. He won in Monaco, inevitably launching a thousand cheesy comparisons to his uncle Ayrton Senna. There is more to the comparison than just the name though. Bruno seems to have some genuine talent. The disappointment of the British feature race was forgotten when he took victory in the difficult conditions of the sprint race.

Now rumour has it that Toro Rosso are interested in his services. I would say that Bruno Senna is inevitably going to get a race seat in F1. Whether he has the talent to shine enough in F1 is almost by the way. The PR opportunities for a team having a driver by the name of Senna are massive. It is helpful that he also also handy behind the wheel. Senna may have to wait a year before getting an F1 drive. At least he doesn’t seem to be fazed by the rumours surrounding him at the moment.

3 comments

In praise of The Inside Line podcast

11 June 2008 18:44

Categories: Opinion

I want to bring attention to a podcast that I think somehow passes under the radar of many F1 fans. I certainly did not pay much attention to it until recently. But the editions I have heard have been A-grade stuff.

The Formula One Inside Line With Maurice Hamilton and Ian Phillips

Okay, so it’s not the catchiest title, but the podcast itself is excellent. I assume it is similar to The Guardian‘s F1 podcast which was also fronted by Maurice Hamilton and Ian Phillips. For whatever reason the newspaper isn’t responsible for the podcast any more, but it lives on independently.

Maurice Hamilton and Ian Phillips are well-known voices to listeners of BBC Radio 5 Live’s coverage of Formula 1 races. I can tell you, ‘The Inside Line’ is not an exaggeration when it comes to this pair. They certainly know what’s what in the paddock.

The Canadian GP podcast contains everything I have come to expect from this podcast — an incisive review of the race’s major events, and an insider’s take on the paddock gossip. Here, the experience of Maurice Hamilton’s decades writing about F1 and Ian Phillip’s journalistic background combined with the insider knowledge attained in his role as Force India’s Director of Business Affairs comes into its own.

This podcast contains the clearest explanation of the simmering war between Bernie Ecclestone and Max Mosley I have heard yet. There is also an explanation that every team in the paddock and everyone else involved wants a Concorde Agreement except the FIA. And the threats of a breakaway are quite real. And Luca di Montezemolo did mean to say that Max Mosley should step down. Ian Phillips explains why very well, and I’d recommend you go and listen to the podcast for the full explanation.

Then Maurice Hamilton’s connections allows him to bring us the fact that Bernie Ecclestone and Luca di Montezemolo were spotted having lunch together in New York. It’s pretty clear now that something is happening, and the discussion in this podcast has made that more clear than anything else I have read in the past few weeks.

This isn’t the first time The Inside Line podcast has come up with the goods. Of course, this year’s Monaco Grand Prix will always be remembered for the rotten luck that Adrian Sutil encountered. Who better, therefore, than Ian Phillips to get literally the inside line on the race’s top story? And being stationed in the Force India garage meant that they got a good interview with Adrian Sutil as well.

That podcast also contained a pretty trenchant criticism of Max Mosley’s letter that was sent out in the run-up to the Monaco Grand Prix. To top it off, Ian Phillips had more information on the controversial press conference that was perceived to be rigged in Max Mosley’s favour, with Gerhard Berger reading out a prepared statement.

Clearly, the star of the show is Ian Phillips. But even when he was away, the podcast still came up with the goods. Because the person who stood in was no less a person than Mike Gascoyne, Force India’s Chief Technical Officer. He was surprisingly good in his analysis of the Turkish Grand Prix as well.

That weekend Maurice Hamilton got the credit for the “one car teams” theory that was beginning to emerge. That was because he repeated it on the Chequered Flag which is heard by more listeners. But listening to The Inside Line podcast, it’s clear that the theory actually originated with Mike Gascoyne.

If there is one problem with the Inside Line podcast is that it’s clearly recorded a bit too early for a full analysis of the race to take place. Often mechanical problems will be glossed over as it is still unclear why a driver retired. Some more time may be needed to allow the dust to settle. But there are probably time constraints as no doubt everyone involved in the podcast has other commitments to wrap up, flights to catch and so on.

However, by my reckoning there really is no better way of getting a feel of what’s really happening in the paddock than this podcast. It doesn’t have the same backing that the Chequered Flag gets from the BBC, so The Inside Line is not so well known. But it deserves to be heard by as many Formula 1 fans.

9 comments

F1 season review: the constructors (11th–6th)

25 November 2007 23:09

Categories: Formula 1

2007 F1 season review

A series of posts

F1 season review: the backmarkers
F1 season review: the frontrunners
F1 season review: the constructors (11th–6th)
F1 season review: the constructors (top 5)
F1 season review: broadcasts
F1 season review: podcasts
F1 season review: websites

This is the third of my posts looking at different aspects of the 2007 Formula 1 season. I have discussed the drivers here and here.

This post is the first of two in which I will assess the constructors. Or is that teams? Toro Rosso and Super Aguri barely deserve to be called constructors. Nevertheless, this post will rank the teams on all aspects of their performance — on the track, in the pitlane and beyond. So don’t expect this list to mirror the Constructors’ Championship!

11 — Spyker–Ferrari

This is becoming a familiar story. Once again Spyker struggled all season to lift itself from the back of the grid. And once again it changed owners. Spyker Cars ran into major financial difficulties this year meaning that it been sold yet again. The team that was once called Midland and was once called Jordan is now called Team Force India. This makes it four name changes in as many years.

They seem to be in competition with Super Aguri to see who can have the most ridiculous sounding name. Super Augri and Team Force India both sound like bad super hero characters from a Japanese comic.

Anyway, back to this year’s performance. There is not much you can say really. They came up with an under-performing car, and hired largely under-performing drivers. Some people rate Adrian Sutil, but Christijan Albers, Sakon Yamamoto and Markus Winkelhock were never going to set the world alight.

The team worked hard to bring out a new chassis for mid-season. Embarrassingly, however, it failed its crash test so had to be delayed still further. Even so, when the car was eventually brought to the race track, it wasn’t much more competitive.

There were a few flashes of promise for the car. A particular stand-out was the Belgian Grand Prix, where Adrian Sutil spent a considerable amount of time in 12^th position before eventually finishing 14^th. However, even here the only other cars running behind Sutil at the end of the race were Super Aguris, and Sakon Yamamoto still managed to finish last of the classified runners.

At least at the following race, the rain-soaked Japanese Grand Prix, Adrian Sutil managed to score a point. Even this was a bit of a fluke though, as it was awarded in the stewards room after it was judged that Vitantonio Liuzzi passed him under yellow flags. In the following two races, Spyker were back to their usual positions on the back row.

Still, a point is a point and this was enough to save Spyker’s blushes. They didn’t finish at the bottom of the table. Even this is a pyrrhic victory though. The only team that finished behind them was McLaren, who built arguably the best car this year and had their points taken away by an over-zealous FIA.

They have taken Minardi’s place as Formula 1′s perennial under-achievers. But thanks to their status as a temporary home for naive businessmen, they completely lack the romance that made Minardi a fans’ favourite.

10 — Honda

Oh dear. What an embarrassingly bad season Honda have had. Even Nick Fry sounded pretty pessimistic at times. I thought I’d sooner see the apocalypse.

It started off with a cheesy PR stunt to paint the Earth on the car in a supposed bid to highlight environmental concerns. While this is a laudable enough idea, it came off badly. Those in the know observed that Honda probably only did this because they couldn’t find any sponsors. Meanwhile, the reaction from non-F1 fans that I saw invariably pointed out the hypocrisy of a energy-greedy F1 team trying to boast about its environmental credentials.

Then there was the car itself, which was about as disastrous as it could get. Early in the season the drivers reported that the car had a tendency to behave unpredictably under breaking, which is hardly going to give the driver the confidence to push to the limit.

While this problem was seemingly ironed out, the car had a more fundamental issue: a lack of speed caused by fundamentally flawed aerodynamics. Undoubtedly part of the reason for this must be the inexperience of the car’s designer, Shuhei Nakamoto. Nakamoto’s experience is in motorcycles, and apparently he had never designed a car in his life. It also seems that there is a serious flaw with Honda’s wind tunnel.

The result was an embarrassingly awful car. Good reliability, but precious little speed. Honda’s RA107 chassis was regularly outpaced by the Super Aguri SA07, which was essentially last year’s Honda car. It really is something to think that Honda would have been better off with last year’s car. Every time the drivers were interviewed they sounded utterly demoralised. And who could blame them?

Thanks to some heroic performances from Jenson Button, Honda managed to score 6 points, and it could have been more at Japan. Given how bad it all looked at the start of the season, that is pretty good going. But it is a far cry from the 86 points scored in 2006 or the 119 points they scored when they finished second in the Constructors’ Championship just three years ago.

At least Honda are now doing the right thing to rectify the problem. Hiring Ross Brawn — one of Formula 1′s greatest talents — was a master-stroke. Results might not come as early as next year, but undoubtedly Honda will be on their way up again (not that they could possibly go much further down).

9 — Scuderia Toro Rosso–Ferrari

If you are a naive businessman looking to buy Team Force India in around ten months’ time, look at Toro Rosso for an example of how not to run your team.

The first thing to point out is probably the disgraceful treatment of the drivers. They refused to confirm Scott Speed as one of their drivers until about 5 minutes before the flight for Melbourne was about to leave. This is hardly the way to get your drivers in the right frame of mind.

Things went from bad to worse as it became clear that team bosses Franz Tost and Gerhard Berger were none too pleased with their drivers. Barbed comments were constantly being made about driver performances through the press and even in the team’s own press releases.

Things came to a head at the European Grand Prix where it was rumoured that Franz Tost had physically attacked Scott Speed during an altercation. Tost had blamed Speed for spinning in the rain, even though several other drivers — including the much-lauded Lewis Hamilton — had done exactly the same thing. The row was the end of Scott Speed’s relationship with Toro Rosso, and Formula 1.

It seemed as though Vitantonio Liuzzi was not in favour with his bosses either. It was obvious by mid-season that they didn’t want him there. How Berger and Tost expected Liuzzi to get better under these circumstances is still unknown.

On the track, Toro Rosso’s performance leaves a lot to be desired as well. With this year’s Adrian Newey-designed Red Bull chassis and this year’s Ferrari engine, you would expect them to be running a lot higher than they were.

Despite those woes, the team showed considerable improvement towards the end of the season. The Toro Rosso car seemed particularly strong in the wet, and Sebastian Vettel in particular put in some great performances towards the end of the season. They came close to scoring in Japan, and scored a massive 8 points in China.

8 — Toyota

Ugh, who cares any more? Really. It is the same old story. Gigantic budget, precious little to show for it. The team is run by committee. The management has its head in the sand. We all know the story. It shows no sign of changing.

How long will it take before the Toyota big wigs start properly taking notice? My hunch is that they would sooner pull out of the sport altogether rather than make any real changes.

For once, Ralf Schumacher is right. The fact that Toyota refused to speak to Ross Brawn says it all.

7 — Super Aguri–Honda

They might sound like the title of a discount NES game, but Super Aguri are in fact a wonder of Formula 1. They might have their chassis made by Honda. But let’s not forget that it’s last year’s Honda. And beyond that they seem to get very little help from Honda at all.

The odds are against them, yet they still manage to put in highly respectable performances. Regularly outpacing the Honda ‘A’ team, Super Aguri have been hard done by in the Constructors’ Championship. In the end they only scored 4 points to Honda’s 6. But the reality was so different.

The highlight of the season came in Canada where Takuma Sato pulled off a brilliant pass on Fernando Alonso to net Super Aguri 3 points. Delightful.

Apart from the odd sponsorship difficulty, they are fairly anonymous off the track. Especially given the events of this year, that is how it should be. In this era of big budget manufacturers and drinks companies crushing the privateers, Super Aguri have become the small team that everybody loves.

I just hope they don’t have to put up with that dire Honda car next year.

6 — Renault

I don’t like to see Renault doing badly, but 2007 was a bit of a stinker for them. The team has looked exceptionally strong since 2004, and it has taken two Drivers’ and two Constructors’ Championships in the process. But this year’s car was obviously not up to those standards. Pat Symonds said that in Australia the car was almost as bad as the Honda.

I don’t things were quite that bad. But for a Championship-winning team, it is shocking that they were never in a position to win a race all season (except, arguably, in Japan). They were comprehensively outpaced by BMW all season long.

The departure of Fernando Alonso clearly hit them hard. Indecision left them lumbered with the increasingly sluggish Giancarlo Fisichella and the wet-behind-the-ears Heikki Kovalainen. Kovalainen had a disappointing start to the season and later on in the year Fisichella was becoming badly covered in cobwebs.

Now Renault once again can’t seem to make their mind up about drivers. Despite impressing, Heikki Kovalainen seems to be left without a drive as the team seems set on promoting Nelsinho Piquet and wooing back Fernando Alonso.

Worst of all, events since the end of the season have been highly damaging. With McLaren having been put through the wringer for so-called “spying” allegations, Renault now face allegations which are every bit as serious as (if not more so than) what McLaren faced. Moreover, Renault have already confessed that more engineers knew about the drawings than McLaren.

It’s difficult to see how it could be worse for Renault. They won’t succeed in wooing Alonso under these circumstances, especially since Alonso has just escaped a similar mess at McLaren. And if the FIA is consistent (I know, but bear with me), Renault are headed for a huge penalty. And if that happens, chances are that Carlos Ghosn will pull the plug.

Those are my thoughts on the not-so-good six constructors. Check back next Sunday to see my top five ranking.

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