Author: Pat W

Weekly Question – Foreign Drivers

UOWWBA asks:

Is the prominence of foreign drivers in the league hurting the IRL?

The answer to that depends on which drivers you’re talking about. If you’re referring to the highly successful championship winning drivers Helio Castroneves, Scott Dixon, Dario Franchitti, Juan Pablo Montoya, Cristiano da Matta and all the rest – then clearly you are insane if you think that somehow hurts IndyCar or any other series they’ve run in over the last decade. Joel at IRL-O-Rama wrote a good piece in answer to this same question, and I agree with him entirely.

On the flip side if you’re referring to the ride buyers which propped up the last few years of Champ Car then yeah, it does hurt. Several of those guys had no business being in a top line single-seater. But then you could say the same about the ride buying Americans which propped up the first years of the IRL.

Us hardcore fans of racing don’t give a monkey’s where the drivers come from if they are talented and are able to get a ride in a good team.
What I think the question is driving at is the appeal to the more casual fan. The guys who only watch when someone of their nationality is winning. We have the same in Britain, many more people watch F1, tennis, golf, etc. whenever a Brit is winning or competing for wins.

Those ‘fans’ will never change and that’s a shame because they are missing some great racing and great sport generally. They seem to miss the whole point of Indy-style (and sportscar) racing as opposed to NASCAR – bringing top drivers from around the world and racing them against the best America has to offer to see who’s best. And guess what guys: sometimes the Americans win!

From my limited knowledge of the beginnings of the Indianapolis 500 I seem to remember something about those first races consisting of drivers from everywhere racing cars from all over the place to see which combination was best over a distance. I’ll wager that’s one of many reasons why the 500 became so huge in the first place. Surely as the Speedway enters what it terms the ‘Centennial Era’, that’s the one thing it needs to hold on to?

Let me compare it to our little BTCC. Ten years ago it was at its height with big fields of British drivers alongside the cream of talent from all over Europe choosing to join them and race here. Result: big crowds at the circuits, good TV ratings, sponsorships, all the rest of it.
Nowadays we have smaller fields of British drivers and only one foreign driver, albeit he’s one of the best tintop drivers around. Result: far smaller crowds, relatively low TV ratings, and less sponsorships (and this was before the crunch).
OK the modern cars aren’t as good as those a decade ago and you didn’t have WTCC then, but still the point remains:
BTCC fans not only appreciate the foreign drivers racing here but consider it something to be proud of that some the best talent from across Europe chose to race here instead of DTM or any of the other national series. There really isn’t any reason why IRL fans can’t look at it the same way.

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Speaking of non-Americans looking for IndyCar rides, check out Dan Clarke’s quotes when he was interviewed by Autosport.com prior to this weekend’s A1GP event.

“I’m still living in Indianapolis, and we’re still gearing up for a season in IndyCar. But if the opportunity arises to do more of these (A1GP) races then I will jump at them, of course. But after this race I will go back to Indianapolis and continue with the negotiations that we’re having there with the teams in IndyCar.”

More on Autosport.com.

Launch Season: BMW Sauber F1.09

BMW Sauber F1.09

Earlier this week the new BMW Sauber was launched at the Ricardo Tormo circuit in Valencia, Spain.

Like the other ’09 cars it is a much cleaner design than the ’08 car, although that wasn’t difficult in the case of the 2008 BMW! Also in common with other teams there are fewer sponsor logos on this car. Long-time backer Credit Suisse, who supported the team long before BMW supplied Williams let alone Sauber, have withdrawn their backing. Given the present condition of the banking sector globally this isn’t a huge surprise, it is maybe more surprising that RBS remains with Williams. It also looks like the Intel sponsorship has disappeared. Again in common with most other teams, BMW Sauber insist they remain on a solid financial footing.

On the whole this looks like a fairly ordinary car compared to the more radical designs of the McLaren and Renault, say. The nose is conventional albeit higher than in previous years, there is no engine cover fin, and the front wing is one of the most basic we’ve seen – particularly the endplates.

This team is widely tipped to continual their steady rise in performance and become contenders for race wins rather than picking up when McLaren and Ferrari falter. They need to be wary of Renault who had a resurgence of form towards the end of last year.

BMW are believed to be the most advanced in their development of the KERS system yet are still claiming they may not use it for the first race or two. I’m not sure I believe that.

Here’s a comparison to the 2008 car, kindly set up by BMW:

Sorry if the pics appear slightly fuzzy, I think I buggered up the upload and resizing and I’m not messing around with it any more, it is Friday night…

There are further details at www.bmw-sauber-f1.com/ – though be warned the site doesn’t work well in Firefox.

Weekend Preview: 24-25 January 2009

Weekend Preview: 24 & 25 January 2009

Welcome to the first proper weekend of racing in 2009!


Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series [website]
Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona [website]
Round 1 of 12
Daytona International Speedway, Daytona Beach, Florida, USA
A field of 52 cars and a huge cast of drivers take to the ‘roval’ (horrible word) course at Daytona for the annual sportscar classic. Will Ganassi triumph again, will arch rivals Penske’s entry spoil their party, or will it be a team ‘native’ to Grand-Am rather than one of America’s big racing powerhouses?
It gets under way at 3.30pm local time, 8.30pm UK. Coverage is live in the US on Speed (with the start on Fox). It looks like you guys get lots of hours of coverage. Here in Europe we’ll get 5 hours live on Eurosport 2 with a highlights show some time later. Note these are not a continuous five hours, and we don’t get the start. We should get from 9.30-11pm Saturday, then 6.30-7pm and 8-9pm on Sunday. I say ‘we’, I don’t actually have Eurosport 1 or 2…

A1GP [website]
4 of 10 (or thereabouts)
Taupo, New Zealand
The World Cup of Motorsport arrives down under. Marco Andretti, Robert Doornbos and Dan Clarke do battle with A1 regulars Adam Carroll and Neel Jani in the new Ferrari cars. The race is live on Sky Sports 1 at 00.30 on Sunday morning (okay, Saturday night). There are replays throughout the day on Sunday on both Sky Sports 1 and 2, the same is true for qualifying.

GP2 Asia Series [website]
3 of 6
Bahrain International Circuit, Sakhir, Bahrain
The revolving cast of drivers arrives in Bahrain for what should be an entertaining couple of races, not that anybody will see them. Bahrain attracts zero spectators. This one is for schmoozing the sponsors. These races are on Eurosport. They were due to be delayed but because women’s skiiing got cancelled, should actually be live. Note these races are on Friday and Saturday.

Speedcar Series [website]
2 of 6
Bahrain International Circuit, Sakhir, Bahrain
Speedcar returns on the double-bill with GP2 Asia as part of the ‘Grand Weekend’ which I think is a translation error.. I don’t believe live coverage exists outside of Asia but I could be wrong.

Intercontinental Rally Challenge [website]
Monte Carlo Rally
1 of 12
Valence, France; Monaco
This former World Championship rally switches to the IRC this year and has actually got under way already, the organisers taking the opportunity to extend the rally away from the constraints of the WRC.
There is coverage on Eurosport – some of it live – because the network part-owns the series! I believe live coverage is on Friday evening.

Andros Trophy [website]
6 of 7
Serre Chevalier, France
The penultimate round of the French ice racing series.

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I’d planned to put logos up for most of these but ran out of time.

Before you complain, yeah I know I’ve not done the BMW F1 launch post yet. I’m getting around to it. Tomorrow. Promise.

Mike Conway to IndyCar

In a surprise announcement about 24 hours ago, Dreyer & Reinbold announced Mike Conway as their first race driver of 2009. I’m guessing that wording means one or two drivers will be added to the programme, and that one of those is probably Milka Duno. It’ll be interesting to see if she does the full year this time.

I’d just like to say hi to anyone coming over here as a result of Jeff’s kind link at MyNameIsIRL.com. I commented over there about Mike Conway’s race history. MyNameIsIRL.com has been the source of most of my visitors for some time now, so thanks for coming!

Mike Conway is a fast driver who doesn’t seem to pull a decent year together. He’s one of those guys who you always think it’ll only be a matter of time before he does pull a good year together. A bit like Vitor Meira, he runs quickly but always seems to have a backmarker take him out or a little bit of mechanicals go wrong at just the wrong time. There’s never a right time, but mid-race when you’re running in the top three or four is particularly galling.

I commented on his test with Panther at the time and noted how that story seemed to come from nowhere – and this new announcement certainly did as well.
I wrote at the time:

Conway won a race at the Monte Carlo round of the GP2 Series, supporting the Monaco GP, and currently sits 11th in points. Not stellar, but respectable given the competitiveness of the midfield in GP2, and a win at Monaco is nothing to be disregarded. I saw that race and he was dominant, it was not a fluke.

Since then he put in some good performances but still only wound up 12th in points. Given his speed this is a bizarre finishing position to find himself and I struggle to explain it because he was a top 5 driver all season. Okay so his team did fade a little toward the end of the year, but not THAT badly!

I also noted how only autosport.com had the story. Clearly the ‘name’ US journos we all know and love (Miller, Cavin) must have known about the test – the guy was fastest – but I assume they didn’t take the prospect of him driving in 2009 too seriously. I didn’t either, I expected him to go for a full GP2 title assault with a top team!

I wish him well for 2009, it’ll be fascinating to see how he adapts. I have a feeling he’ll turn out to be a good oval racer but it might take him most of the year to get into it.