When Formula One driver Piers Courage was killed in a car entered in the 1970 world championship by Frank Williams, driver Tim Schenken waited until after the funeral to call and ask for the ride.
He was lucky he got it because you can bet Williams received calls from other drivers looking for work even before Courage’s body was cold.
That’s racing: a beautiful sport that can also be the most cruel.
Which makes Ferrari’s decision to replace the injured Felipe Massa with Grand Prix veteran and Ferrari test driver (and slow as molasses) Luca Badoer very puzzling. Yes, it’s commendable that Ferrari is saying to Massa, "Your seat is safe, take all the time you need to recover."
But what about the millions of fans? What about Ferrari’s reputation as a front-runner in the sport’s most demanding class?
A week ago, I officially launched this blog by naming my personal Top Ten drivers of all time. No. 1 on my list was Mario Andretti. In the course of discussing why I picked him, I told the story of 1982, when Ferrari needed a driver to replace the injured Didier Pironi. Il Commendatore, Enzo Ferrari, didn’t muck around. He went looking for the most talented driver available, someone who could get the job done and defend the honour of Ferrari. That man was Andretti, who went out and won the pole at the Italian Grand Prix.
So what’s happening at Valencia this weekend – Badoer is 20th on the 20-car grid – is an embarrassment. He is even behind two rookies, including Renault new boy Romain Grosjean (six positions ahead) who had never driven an F1 car other than in a straight line until yesterday. This is clearly unacceptable.
Sebastien Bourdais is available and sufficiently talented to fill in positively at Ferrari until Massa returns. Ferrari should put him in the car at the next race, Spa.
Why does the Star keep commenting on F1 when it has no knowledge on the subject matter? Luca's running on 690.5 kg of fuel, while Grosjean is running at 677.7 kg of fuel. Not to mention Grosjean has already RACED at Valencia while in GP2 multiple times, while Badoer has never even raced or practiced there in his life.
Badoer was 2.57 seconds off of the top time (103% of top time) in Q1. Hakkinen was 104% off of the top time when he came back from retirement. It'd be nice for the Star to actually ANALYZE instead of spewing random qualitative touchy-feely opinions. Badoer's done a good job given the situation, and will improve dramatically in the following races where he knows the track.
Posted by: Ivan | 08/22/2009 at 09:52 PM