GPWizard F1 Forum
F1 News & Discussions => General F1 Discussion => Topic started by: The Stig on July 15, 2007, 10:17:47 PM
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Former grand prix driver and F1 analyst Martin Brundle has hit out at the sport's struggling teams.
The Briton, who drove more than 150 races in F1 including for McLaren in 1994, reserved his most biting scrutiny for Toyota and Spyker, whose involvement in the sport baffles him.
"It's difficult to see what Toyota are achieving in F1," Brundle wrote in the Sunday Times, criticising the Japanese giant for using a "huge budget" for poor pace and reliability.
He said: "It's going to take a sea change of attitude to make that any different."
On the other end of the budgetary scale is the backmarker Spyker, for whom Brundle predicts a dim future.
"I don't quite understand what they are doing in F1," he said.
"Their owners have all the hallmarks of people who are just passing through. It's difficult to see how they can move forward."
Brundle manages Red Bull's David Coulthard but he says the energy-drink owned team have gone down the wrong path with the woefully-unreliable seamless gearbox.
"They should really have bought that technology in rather than do it themselves," he said.
Countryman Brundle even dares to pore over rookie sensation Lewis Hamilton's season, observing that the McLaren driver "slipped badly off the pace" at F1's two recent grands prix.
He said: "Something is wrong there. I don't know whether it's the distractions or pressure or just coincidence, but Hamilton needs to get his programme back on track at the Nurburgring next weekend.
"At Silverstone it was explained away as saving the engine, but when you are chasing a championship you must stay right on your rivals, pressuring them into errors, and ready to pounce if they have contact or reliability problems in the closing stages."
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I think Hamiltons downfall may be in not
copying Alonsos race setups
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I think they were both told to turn down the wick to preserve engines.Ferrari were in front and all the diagnostics said that they could not catch or win the race.
Save The Engines...
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That's true Stig,but don't you thinh Alonso's
been sandbagging a little on Fri. pratice so
Lewis isn't getting his good setups
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No,I think they called the race wrong from the start.
The tyre choice was wrong from the start,and from then on things could only degrade,like the tyres.
I would blame the Team rather than the drivers.
With the way Hamilton has been going,i dont think you can say he has the wrong set-up.
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OK so whether we believe it or not, if drivers deliberately go slow to save their engines, then isn't this another clear reflection of how daft the 2 race engine rule is?
I was always thought that your right foot should always be hard on the throttle or hard on the brakes. Any time it isn't, you're wasting time.
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I agree with what you're saying Johnbull, F1 should not be about saving engines, especially not at your home Grand Prix as was the case with Lewis.
However, I think in relation to the main article, Brundle always talks sense and I think this is the case again.
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I think the idea about Hamilton using Alonso's settings comes from one of 'Nando's interviews with a Spanish newspaper. Apparently he excused his performances by saying that he did all the setting up and then the settings were transferred to Hamilton's car. This led to speculation that Alonso has been sandbagging in Friday practice for the last few races, thereby preventing Hamilton from getting the best settings and forcing the newbie to set up his own car.
There may be some truth in this for it has been admitted that Hamilton has been getting it wrong of late. And, if it is true, who can blame 'Nando? Let the new boy learn his trade... ;)
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Frankly I have my doubts about all this.
Surely at the end of the day the engineers, who are working for the team and couldn't give a dried fig who of their drivers wins so long as one of them does, would set up the cars as best they can, so if driver A is having difficulty and driver B isn't, they would set driver A's car with driver B's set up, and try again, wouldn't they?
Or am I so old fashioned that I still think you can mix the words sport and formula 1 in the same sentence?
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As I understand it, John, F1 teams have two sets of engineers, one for each driver, and they work very closely with their designated driver. You will even find that members of a driver's "team" will follow him to a new team at times. Everyone will support the employing constructor, of course, but, when it comes to competition between team mates, they can be quite partisan. After all, he carries their reputation with him as well as his own.
In McLaren's case, Ron Dennis has been scrupulously fair, insisting that the settings and telemetry of both drivers be available for all to see (or so we're told). The trouble is, Alonso's are worth something, whereas Hamilton is still learning...
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We need to remember that, as good as Hamilton is, he is still a rookie. At Silverstone, he almost pulled out with the fuel rig still conected, like Albers in France. I think he just needs to settle down a little and he'll be fine.
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Nothing is wrong with Hamilton according to me. Its just that he is getting on the learning curve. Regarding Spyker, Toro Rosso and the others. Running a team is a potential exit model. Toyota are there to win and they will, however amount of time and money it takes. Toyota seem to be in a better position than Honda anyway.