Rubens Barrichello may be poised to rewrite Riccardo Patrese's long-standing record for the number of grand prix starts this season, but he may not extend the new marker to far from the Italian's current tally if the rumour mill is to be believed.
Just a small point, and not really related to the topic, but does anyone else get the impression that Crash reporters don't seem to just report facts any more, and tend to add pointless comments/their own often worthless opinions into their articles? For example "it's hard to accept that Barrichello is a senior driver" In what possible way is it hard to accept that fact????? Nearly 36yrs old Driven for four different teams over 15 years Won 9 races, 13 poles, 16 fastest laps etc etc. Pretty senior if you ask me.
Why all the hype around Marco Andretti? He's certainly not developed enough for F1 next season. For me Graham Rahal is the next US hope, he still only 19 and was impressive in Champcar, and just won his first Indycar race.
It may be that the news is just a press release from Honda or from the US where Barrichello is an unknown.
I cannot believe that Marco Andretti would go to F1 next year - he struggles in Indycar - he would totally out of his depth in F1 - like his dad Michael was in a Mclaren in 1993.
Got to agree with Max - Rahal is far more mature - other than Champcar he's raced in A1GP as well
Marco only has 2 retirements in the first 3 races. He finished 2nd in Homestead. And second Scott Speed should not have ever had the opportunity to represent the US driver in F1. He was horrible and furthermore most of America didn't know who he was anyway. And it shows that he blows as a driver saying that he is only in the third tier of NASCAR instead of in the top tier. I think Marco is a much better driver than Scott Speed will ever be.
Posted by josh - Unregistered (76 days ago)
1 people agree.1 people disagree.
It would be interesting to see how Marco would do without being on his fathers team. Something you have to give credit to Rahal for. It would also be intesting to see if Marco took F1 more seriously than his father by actually moving to Europe instead of flying in from the US for the races.
While I am no fan of Scott Speed the nascar comparison is not the best gauge. Just look at the difficulties other open wheel drivers such as Franchitti, Villinueve, Pruett, AJ Almondinger,... have had.
I don't think we ever got to see if Scott Speed was good or not. That car was absolutely horrible. I would also add that Speed TV showed a breakdown of driving statistics when Scott Speed was booted and he had clearly outperformed Liuzzi in every category.
Posted by Steve - Unregistered (76 days ago)
1 people agree.2 people disagree.
Looks like the topic sort of deviated from it's original post but just to add my opinion I believe that a good US driver for F1 and bring the interest of the country to F1 would be Danica Patrik, Marco or Rahal Jr in that order... Danica you all could say has not proven herself in road tracks but we forget that in the Indy series the cars do not have all the servo assistance as the F1 cars have and hence I believe she would do very well in Europe/F1 plus bring the US media and interest to the sport.
Posted by FrankG - Unregistered (76 days ago)
3 people agree.
What happened to the days where old F1 drivers were still considered competitive race drivers? Remember when Mansell was called into Williams in '94 after retiring from F1? He was still a race winner. Too bad his career ended like it did with the disasterous McLaren of 1995.
Rubens will do very well in Indy. Most of the F1 guys who move into Indy make an impact almost immediately. F1 drivers, dare I say it, become better Indy drivers than Indy drivers become F1. Can anyone name an Indy driver (apart from Jaques because he made hard work of the 97 championship in a very good car. And you can't count Juan Pablo either cuz he was just a crazy man with no fear and one intention which was to beat Shu at all costs with the cost usually being a gravel trap) who came to F1 and did the biz? F1 to Indy?..... Mansell, Wilson, Franchitti, blundell......the list gets bigger.
"And it shows that he blows as a driver saying that he is only in the third tier of NASCAR instead of in the top tier. I think Marco is a much better driver than Scott Speed will ever be"
Both Montoya and Franchitti had their first stock races in ARCA. Despite what many here beleive Stock Racing is not easy and you can't just jump in at the deep end with no experience.
As for Marco, I dunno if he would make a could F1 driver or not, I think Rahal would be a better option. But it's hard to tell without sticking them in an F1 car to find out.
To be fair most drivers grab any F1 seat they can find, then wonder why it all goes tits up when they choose a crap drive. Despit being mainly a national series, running in Nascar or IRL is probably just as big for an American as F1 is here. So while it might be hard for them to accept many would do well to take a testing role for a year. That would enable them to get experience at the tracks, of the car and hopeully land a better drive than they would jumping straight into a race seat.
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