Friday, August 15, 2008

rumour roundup: friday Aug 15

Fisrtly I would like to apologize for the lack of posting. I have been super busy this last week and I did not even manage to see the Kentucky Indy race. I will try to fuind a replay to watch it and publish a report, but I don't know when. But I do have some interesting rumours to talk about and potentially create.

I will start in F1 where all does not appear to be well in Sebastien Bourdais-land. The four time Champ Car champion has been trounced regularly by his teammate Sebastien Vettel (who according to some is the next coming of Michael Schumacher, Alain Prost, or Jesus) and is now suddenly finding himself in a spot of bother when it comes to his future. Seabass as he is sometimes annoyingly called over here could find himself on the outside looking in next year as team co-boss Gerhard Bergercould be looking at replacing him with Super Aguri refugee Takuma Sato. berger has said he wants an experienced driver with a talented rookie and Taku appears to be considered as the best experienced free agent out there. I am a bit skeptical about this as Taku never really had that great a career. He had some spectacular runs but he also was extremely accident prone and it doesn't seem logical to have a leader by example who runs into others habitually. Bourdais has said he is not fully comfortable with the car but I hope he gets to keep his job as he is a talented driver who was in the North American motorsports environment for too long, which is much different than F1. We will see but I hope it ain't true.

Continuing with my Toro Rosso theme, the race for Sebastien Vettel's job is heating up with various rookie drivers trying to stake their claim. The two frontrunners are Bruno Senna and Sebastien Buemi, but scottish DTM driver Paul di Resta is now insisting that he deserves a chance at the seat. Di Resta has been racing in German tin-tops for a couple of years now and has been impressive, but is the DTm really a good feeder series for F1? The only driver to have come from the DTM to f1 recently was Christijan Albers who had two and a half unsuccesful seasons with Minardi, Midland, and Spyker. If Di resta does get an f1 seat it would be a cruel kick in the groin to Gary Paffett who has been on the cusp of getting into F1 for years now but has never gotten the call. I highly doubt that Di resta has a shot and I think it is jut a young ego with delusions of grandeur talking as opposed to something really serious.

Coming back to the IRL there have been some interesting faces appearing at a test session at Sonoma this week. One of the most interesting is Mike Conway testing for The panther team. Conway has Honda backing and has tested for the Honda f1 squad but his time in GP2 has been less than succesful. If Panther were to expand to two cars they hay be able to get some Honda running for Conway, who is no slouch behind the wheel and could impress, although he would need to learn how to race ovals. A larger car count is always good, especially when they are filled with talented drivers like conway as opposed to hacks like Duno and Roth.

Other notable test drivers driving at Sonoma were Laex Lloyd for Ganassi and Romain Dumas for penske. dumas drives for Penske in the ALMS and knows the track very well, he is a sports car specialist so we are unlikely to see him in an IndyCar but Lloyd is a different case. Lloyd drove the Indy 500 and did a decent job and has been linked with various full time rides. Testing for Ganassi probably won't open up a seat for him for 2009 but it could definetly lead to a seat somwhere elseo, potentially with Rahal-Letterman racing. Both Lloyd and Conway would be great additions to the IRL.

Speaking of Ganassi, Dan Wheldon is still without a cotnract. The 2005 Champion is one of the highest paid drivers in the field but he has not been great last year and this year, being soundly trounced by teammate Scott Dixon both years. Wheldon is not stupid and he knows that he won't get anywhere near the reported $3 million per year he is making now but he may be chafing to get out of Dixons shadow. Wheldon is one of the ebst on the ovals but has been decidedly average on the road and street courses, which will hamper his value. Unfortunately for the Englishman the only place to be if he wants a top ride is at Ganassi and his ego may take him on a Jacques Villeneuve-esque move for big money to a smaller team with disastrous consequences for his career. He is still one of the top oval drivers in the IRl (witnessed by his two oval wins this year) but with the ever increasing number of road and street courses his value is dropping. A move to rebuild his career at a newer or smaller team is a good idea on paper, there is noone out there but Ganassi who has the money to pay him what he will probably ask for. I expect him to sign a one year contract with Ganassi while he actively seeks something else.

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