Teenage F1 stars: Will Jaime be one?

It is now old news that teenager Jaime Alguersuari this weekend is set to become the youngest ever driver to compete in an F1 race at the age of 19 years and 125 day. He is not the youngest ever driver of an F1 car, that honour belongs to Nico Rosberg who drove a Williams-BMW F1 for 38 laps at sweet seventeen. He is also not the youngest driver to participate in an F1 weekend, Sebastian Vettel when he drove in the Friday practice for the 2006 Turkish Grand Prix was just 19 years and 53 days. Currently the youngest driver to start in an F1 is New Zealander Mike Thackwell at 19 years and 182 days at the 1980 Canadian Grand Prix.

Other drivers who have driven in F1 when they were less than twenty include Ricardo Rodriguez (19 years, 208 days) at the 1961 Italian Grand Prix, Fernando Alonso (19 years, 218 days) at the 2001 Australian Grand Prix, Esteban Tuero (19 years, 320 days) at the 1998 Australian Grand Prix, Chris Amon (19 years, 324 days) at the 1963 Belgian Grand Prix and Sebastian Vettel (19 years, 349 days) at the 2007 United States Grand Prix. Jenson Button started his F1 career at a relatively old 20 years and 53 days at the 2000 Australian Grand Prix.

For some starting so early was clearly not the right decision. Mike Thackwell in his first race was involved in an accident on the very first lap and the race was stopped as a consequence. Since he was not in a situation to restart the race he in the eyes of F1 regulations had not started the race. In this case Mexican Ricardo Rodriguez would be the youngest F1 driver to start a race. Sadly Mike Thackwell only attempted five F1 races and only qualified to start in two.

Argentinian Esteban Tuero’s career although stretching a full season was not much more successful. His entry was controversial since he did not fully qualify for a FIA super-licence. The F1 driver Martin Brundle said

As for Tuero, it would have been scary. I don’t like to see these guys out there with so little experience. Imagine it: even if he didn’t qualify, he’d be getting in the way during qualifying. And if he did qualify, then he’d definitely be being lapped plenty. He’d have really needed to have his wits about him. To be honest, it annoys me, people like that, with zilch credibility.

Nevertheless he was allowed to enter and qualified second last in his début race and during the season only made the top ten once at Imola. In the last race of the season (Japanese) he had an accident injuring a vertebra in his neck. He retired from F1 citing personal issues which probably reflected the extent of the injury to his neck.

Ricardo Rodriguez qualified second in his first F1 race driving a Ferrari. During the race he battled for the lead with the likes of Phil Hill and Richie Ginther, but a fuel pump failure sidelined his incredible F1 début. Ferrari did not give him a seat every race that year, but when they did he produced the results taking second at the Pau Grand Prix, fourth at the Belgian Grand Prix and sixth at the German Grand Prix. In the same year he also won the legendary Targa Florio. Ferrari elected not to enter the non-Championship 1962 Mexican Grand Prix so Ricardo signed to drive Rob Walker’s Lotus, but was tragically killed on the first day of practice. In his short career of six F1 starts no other teenage F1 driver has been more successful.

In contrast Fernando Alonso did not score any points in his first F1 season driving for Minardi, but in his first race he out-qualified teammate Tarso Marques by 2.6 seconds. In his fourth start he out-qualified both of the Benettons, he also repeated this achievement latter in the season. In his final race of that year he finished eleventh beating Heinz-Harald Frentzen in the Prost-Ferrari, Olivier Panis in the BAR-Honda, both Arrows and team mate Alex Yoong. In his career he became, at the time, the youngest F1 driver to start from pole (2003 Malaysian Grand Prix) to win a race (2003 Hungarian Grand Prix) and become World championship (2005) which he repeated in the next season.

Chris Amon is considered to be one of the unluckiest of all F1 drivers that survived their racing careers. He did not even get to start his first F1 race he entered. His experienced teammate Maurice Trintignant had problems with his Climax V8 powered Lola and so took over Amon’s car to race. The Lola proved unreliable, and he just missed points with seventh position in the French and German Grand Prix. Despite a long career and close to 100 starts Chris never won an F1 championship race. Mario Andretti once joked of Amon that

if he became an undertaker, people would stop dying

Sebastian Vettel started his first F1 race after qualifying seventh in the BMW Sauber for the 2007 USA Grand Prix replacing the injured Robert Kubica. In the race he finished eighth and in the points. He went onto to beat both Fernando’s records for youngest pole-sitter and F1 winner at Monza 2008. He also is the youngest F1 driver to win a Grand Prix in two consecutive teams. Judging by this season he could even become the youngest-ever world champion which is currently held by Lewis Hamilton. The other record Sebastian has is for the quickest driver to receive a penalty fine ($1000) just nine seconds into his career for pitlane speeding.

So what is in store for young Jaime? Unlike Ricardo or even Sebastian he is not starting in a competitive car, let alone one that can win a race. In the last few races the Toro Rosso have been the slowest team and indeed Bourdais, who he replaces qualified last in the last the Grand Prix. Consequently neither the team nor Jaime are setting very high targets. To make matters worse this season there has been a ban on mid-season track testing. The only glimmer of hope is that there is a significant up-grade to the car for the forthcoming race which includes the introduction of a double rear diffuser.

While I trust that Jaime’s F1 career will start more successful that some of the other teenagers, most people are predicting it to be fairly anonymous. Indeed James Allen goes further to say…

F1 is so competitive now that young drivers have little choice but to take the offer when it comes. Sometimes drivers are ready, like Vettel or Jenson Button or Kimi Raikkonen. This one doesn’t seem ready to me, but I look forward to being proved wrong.

Few will expect Jaime to qualify anything other than last and it will be a good start if he can just keep the car on the track and finish his first Grand Prix. Given his racing history, no experience of an F1 car and an uncompetitive team the learning curve is going to be steep. One can only hope his character is as big as the sponsorships that promoted him to an F1 career so rapidly. Good Luck Jaime you are going to need a lot to survive your first F1 season.

Reverse Order for Red Bulls 1-2 Victory

From never having won a GP until this year (excluding STR’s victory) Red Bull have scored a third 1-2 in a third of the races this season.  Well done Christian, Adrian and your team.  The only difference is the guy from down under came out on top this weekend. Only six months previously Webbo must have wonder what his chances were this season, in bed with a broken leg and not disclosing to the team he also had a broken shoulder.

This weekend Webber eventually got his first GP win and did so in a fairly commanding style despite being over-aggressive and hitting both Rubens and Lewis in his  “Demolitian Derby” start. His team mate Vettel never looked as “dialed in” this weekend but the Red Bull advantage over every other team today was very evident and he finished second.  Red Bull are in the hunt to chase down Brawn, and I for one think they can do it (I will make a blog on my reasons for this sometime)

Brawn must be worried, in practice they got their grid positions by being lighter on fuel than everyone else. This ultimately hampered their race and the strategy would only have worked if interrupted by rain or a safety car.  The problems though, were deeper the Brawns simply could not make the intermediate tyres work so most of the race had to be run on the softs which probably could not last the distance required of a two stop strategy.  More bad luck in the first pitstop for Rubens with a fuel rig problem saw him lose any chance of victory despite a stellar start to lead off the line.  Bringing Rubens in early for his last pit stop saw Jenson yet again beat him on the track if not on racing merit.  I did noticed the skilled way the Brawn team got Jenson ahead or Rubens.  That extra point could help win the championship.

Gradual improvement is the best way to describe team Ferrari.   Felipe having made a good start brought the Ferrari home to his first podium of the year. Kimi was again outclassed by his teammate and again seemed to have a magnetic attraction to Adrian’s car while the latter was in a strong position. Fortunately Kimi did not get a penalty, but why leave it until after the race to make the decision? Adrian was remarkably resigned to the situation and very professional in not putting any blame on Kimi.  To me it was a genuine racing incident and it might have been possible for Kimi to have avoided it but this is racing.

For Force India it is a case of so close and yet so far to scoring points – the cars are now genuinely in the mid-field and should be scoring points. I wonder if FIF1 should not do an STR trick and draft Luizzi rather than Fisi – Adrian is getting the better of his veteran team mate.

McLaren are improving especially with the new specs of the car Lewis drove.  Lewis and Kovy both made good starts (Lewis’ was superb), but for the incident on the first corner Lewis would probably have been on the podium. The light fuel load of Lewis’ car would have prevented victory today but the team should be encouraged by the HUGE progress. Kovy for me, yet again disappoints, a good start but seems to go backwards during the race – still one is one point (but if I were Macca I would be looking for another driver next season – particularly Timo).

Williams were rather anonymous in the race.  I did not see much of Nico but another very solid drive ensured more points for the team and more chance he wil stay with them. Kaz had problems at the start with an encounter of the Trulli kind and that finished his race.

I am perplexed by Fernando, spins on the warm-up and yet gets fastest lap of the race and scores some points – what are Renault’s problems?  PK having out-qualified his team mate for the first time ever had a rather poor race and is yet to bother the score board.  While there has been recent improvement in the young Brazilian, is it enough?  Will Renault decide to replace him for the next race or could they in a patriotic spirit grab the soon to be released LeSeb?  I think very unlikely but in the strange world of F1 I guess anything is possible.

I am biased, but I think Timo impressed starting last from the pitlane and finishing 9th in the Toyota (which generally struggled with low temperatures at a circuit not suited to their aerodynamics). Were it not for the KERS in the Macca I wonder if he would not have got past Kovy. His team mate had trouble at the start that finished any chances in the race and Toyota had a miserable day at their home circuit.

The other home team of BMW Saubers were again terrible – they should put Nick on a one-stop strategy like Timo to stand any chances of getting points. Kubica had a good start but otherwise a dreadful race with tyre issues.  Nick still beat his teamate in qualifying and in the race and yet the rumours still insist that he is for the chop.  If realised I say stupid team – Nick is a great driver but he needs a winning car.  If I had a wish I would put him in a Brawn with Jenson and design a car for their smooth driving styles.  Incidentally it seems he was close to moving to Honda last year – Nick Fry is apparently a bit of a fan of the quiet German.

Toro Rosso are the only team not to have a rear double diffuser.  If that was their only problem a cure is in sight with its introduction at Hungary.  It seems the stream of technical emails from the Red Bull factory has run out and the team is floundering.  Buemi is over-driving and making mistakes but still impresses more than his experienced team mate.  Surely there is nothing to lose now for Toro Rosso to put Jaime Alguersuari in the seat to get experience for next year. They are the slowest on the grid and my prediction is they will remain so for the rest of the season.

Finally my driver of the day (and indeed the weekend) had to be Webbo. Losers of the day (and weekend) were Brawn GP who are now not longer even second best – arguably Ferrari and Macca were equal and even Williams are close. The factory teams of BMW-Sauber, Renault and Toyota will have some more explaining to their board members. At least Renault customer engines are now winning which is some consolation.

So Long SeaBass, and Thanks for All the Fish

Over this last weekend rumours  did the rounds that it would be SeaBass’ (Sebastien Bourdais) last race this season for Scuderia Toro Rosso (STR).  The BBC commentary discussed this during the German GP was as if it was a  fait accompli.  LeSeb is not saying anything other than he has a contract and the Team Boss Franz Tost has not denied the rumours.  Poor Sebastien had a miserable weekend and qualified in last place.  This year he has been out-qualified by his young team mate Sebastien Buemi in his first season seven times and has scored fewer points.  During the race he retired and body language as he hugged team members said it all.  Even his wife is reported to have said it was his last race with the team.

So what went wrong for the four-times USA CART Champion?  During 2007 there was much fanfair when STR announced their signing of LeSeb to replace the Italian Vitantonio Liuzzi.  The team also had Sebastian Vettel who had more lucky breaks in the season over the Italian but was not really much, if any faster.  During 2008 the young German wonderkid scored the teams first pole and GP win and he become the youngest ever driver to achieve these.  At the end of the season Vettel had 35 points to Bourdais’ 4.   Poor LeSeb had all the technical gremlins and a very harsh penalty by the FIA marshals at Japanese GP.  Yet in his very first race he got up to fourth before the car retired right at the end of the race but still was awarded seventh and two race points.

Seabass is set to be replaced by the Spanish teenager  Jaime Alguersuari, the youngest-ever British F3 champion.  He apparently brings a healthy dose of Repsol sponsorship.    Jaime has only recently replaced the androgenous-looking Brendan Hartley (a.k.a Goldilocks) as the reserve driver for both Red Bull teams.  One wonders if the decission to relieve Seabass from his contract pre-empted replacing Goldilocks.

Given that this years STR is fairly rubbish and most certainly the slowest car on grid, I wonder if it is not best for Seabass to bid farewell.  He was spectacular at this year’s Le Mans and finished second.  Hopefully a gap in Le Mans Series or a return to USA open Wheel series is possible so he can regain his reputation.  Of course with three new F1 teams set to compete in 2010 there is still the chance of seat in the F1 series come the new year.

So why did Red Bull replace their reserve driver just before announcing the replacement of one of their drivers?  It is fairly clear that they did not want poor Goldilocks as their driver.  I can only speculate that it revolves around image since Brendan is no slouch in a racing car and was on occasions faster than Jaime but ultimately not as as consistent.  Should Jaime find himself  at the wheel of the STR for the Hungary GP he will be the youngest ever F1 driver at 19 years and 125 days.  I wonder if this is more of a marketing tactic than anything else, and coincidentally it will be the first outing that the team will deploy their rear double diffuser.  I am not sure if Jaime will sink or swim, but he is certain to grab headlines for his first few races based on his youth and presentable good looks.

PS I guess I need to learn  to pronounce his last name.