Of the rest, I am looking forward to seeing what
BMW Sauber does and if the Swiss-based outfit have made any steps forward during the short three-week summer break.
Nick Heidfeld took advantage of Massa and Alonso’s problems in Hungary to secure the final place on the podium - and it is clear now that, if
McLaren or
Ferrari make a slight mistake, then BMW will punish them.
Prior to Hungary, BMW released their third driver,
Sebastian Vettel, so that he could go and race for Toro Rosso and that was very nice of them - not very F1, but commendable nevertheless.
Vettel, of course, made his
Formula 1 debut earlier this season when he stood in for
Robert Kubica at the USGP and, while he was never going to be able to achieve the same sort of thing with the STR02, he put in quite a solid performance, especially when you consider he had never even driven the car before practice on the Friday.
STR has since confirmed that Vettel will drive for them in 2008 as well, alongside Champ Car star
Sebastien Bourdais.
The Frenchman has done very well in the USA but, for some reason, drivers coming from the other side of the pond - at least in recent years - never seem to be able to do that well in
F1.
We have had Michael Andretti, Alex Zanardi, Cristiano da Matta – all very good racers, to mention just three – yet, in
Formula One, it just didn’t gel for them. I really don’t know why. I have raced in Champ Car – or CART as it used to be known in my day – and it is a very good series, with lots of good drivers. I really hope Sebastien can buck the trend, even if things aren’t going to be easy with
STR.
What his signing does mean though is that there is no place for Vitantonio Liuzzi and we will have to wait and see if he can secure something elsewhere, because he is seemingly out of favour with
Red Bull as well as STR.
