I’ve noticed that as well, by and large; the major exception in recent years being Juan Pablo Montoya - although he didn’t ever win a championship, he did shake people up, win several races and finished 3rd in the Driver’s Championship twice.
Bourdais managed to secure two points in his first race, despite his engine dying three laps from the end. That’s fairly creditable. There were a lot of things happening, but he drove through them and got some points for his team. I think he might bear watching.
Another name that snagged my attention was Ross Brawn. After his sabbatical year, he’s taken charge at Honda. That team might bear watching if he can instill some of the team consistency that Ferrari had for years although his drivers won’t be as good as Michael Schumacher. But then, who is as good as he was?
Thing with Montoya, though, is that his history is a bit different from the other Indy-F1 jumpers in that he came up through the traditional F1 progression (karting > Formula Ford/Vauxhall/whatever > British/German/Brazilian Formula 3 > European F3000 > F1 testing > full fledged F1 racing, usually), rather than the traditional US feeder circuits (ARS/Indy Lights/Toyota Atlantic Series/sprint cars/whatever).
So you’d sort of expect him to do well in F1. I suppose you could say the same about Zanardi, though.
The reason they do that is because, if they left the pits open, cars that were near the pit entrance when the safety car comes out would be able to get into the pits, take tires and fuel, and get back out without losing either time or position, while the cars that got stuck behind the safety car wouldn’t have that opportunity. So they close the pits until the queue forms behind the safety car so that nobody has that advantage.
It’s true that it causes a problem for anybody that is about to run out of fuel while the pits are closed, but that is a calculated risk that a team takes when they decide to cut it that close. And the penalty is just a 10-second stop-go, which is just a simulated pit stop to make up for the “free” one they had when the pits were closed.
If your thesis is that driving F1 is harder and prepares you better for Champ Car/IRL, I’d like to see some evidence. It seems to me that there are about as many examples of success and failure in one direction as the other.
Emerson Fittipaldi and Nigel Mansell are probably the two most successful transplants from F1 to US open wheel. But Mario Andretti, Jacques Villeneuve, and Montoya were just about as successful going the other way.
In the meantime, there are plenty of talented drivers who went in one direction or the other, but didn’t find the right combination of luck and chemistry to succeed in their new series.
The real issue is that, these days, at least, the F1 budgets, and hence the pressures, are astronomical, and so any driver who doesn’t show results quickly – even in a lackluster car – is soon replaced. That’s what happened to Da Matta and Speed.
In the coverage for Sunday’s race, someone mentioned that Bourdais’s salary at STR is higher than the full budget for some two-car Champ Car teams.
Well this year for certain, since Champ Car went the way of the dodo last month. I would imagine the lower-end of the Champ Car grid scraped by on a couple million last year, so this wouldn’t be too surprising.
Nice to see the drivers actually actively controlling their cars this past weekend. The two tire compound/common electronics/safety car rules brings a nice Champ Car flavor to F1. That being said, I hope it never comes to pass that F1 stops being a constructor’s game though.
I was originally just remarking that F1 drivers have done better in CART/Indy/whatever than vice versa. I sort of took it as read that F1 attracts better drivers; I didn’t think that was really a question, honestly.
Mario Andretti doesn’t really count. He made his F1 debut in the late 60s, specifically during a period when drivers swapped back and forth during the season - witness Jim Clark winning the F1 driver’s championship and the Indy 500 in the same season, a feat that will almost certainly never be achieved today.
Again, I don’t think Montoya is a good example either, for the reasons given in my earlier post. He wasn’t a particularly good F1 driver anyway.
Villeneuve, again as mentioned above, had one very good year, during which he happened to have the best chassis and engine, and hasn’t accomplished anything since. He hasn’t had the best equipment, but it was far from the worst. Anyway, you don’t have to take my word for it…
I’ve got nothing against American open-wheel racing; I used to love the pre-Champ Car CART series. I just don’t believe it attracts or produces the talent that F1 does. Hell, Nigel Mansell himself was never as good as his '92 season might imply; he just happened to be in the right place at the right time, when Honda decided they’d build a V12 just to show Ferrari they could do it better, and Renault suddenly became the kings of the F1 engine hill. But F1 has produced the finest driving talents of the last thirty-odd years: Senna, Schumacher, Alain Prost, Nelson Piquet; I don’t think there’s been a US-based open-wheel racer you could honestly compare to them since AJ Foyt or Andretti Sr.
I would imagine the lower-end of the Champ Car grid scraped by on a couple million last year, so this wouldn’t be too surprising.