American driver in Formula 1

Yeah, last season's USGP tire mess really hurt American race fans' interest in Formula 1, but maybe this will help. It was just announced that American Scott Speed will get a race seat with Red Bull's newly-purchased 2nd team, Scuderia Toro Rosso.

Earlier this year it was announced Speed would get the 3rd/test driver's seat on the Red Bull team. Then Red Bull purchased Italian-based team Minardi. Now Speed got bumped up to join Vitantonio Liuzzi at Toro Rosso. Minardi has always consistently been at the bottom of the standings...last season I think the only points they scored was at the USGP when only 6 cars ran...so don't expect too much. But hopefully he'll drive well enough to be around for a few years.

The last American to drive in an F1 race was Michael Andretti in 1993, and the last American to drive in a USGP race (Speed was the 3rd/test driver for 2005's Canadian GP and USGP) was Eddie Cheever in 1989, when the race was at Phoenix.

 

I was shocked to see an English driver win the Indy series...I am not sure anyone in England even knows who he is!

 

I don't think anyone is the US does either hehe. The only non-NASCAR driver people talk about is Danica Danica Danica.

Dan Wheldon is a good driver and it's amazing he left Andretti/Green Racing and went to Target/Ganassi Racing to team up with Scott Dixon for this upcoming season. Along with that Ganassi is dropping Toyota engines and switching to Honda...what Wheldon had last season at AGR.

If he does well, I think this upcoming season will be Wheldon's last in the Indy series and he'll move to Formula 1. He could have taken a 3rd driver F1 seat for this upcoming season, but he's looking for a race seat and another great season might help him get one. His agent has strong ties to F1 and Ganassi also has ties to the Williams F1 team, producing drivers like JPM and Bruno.

 

Did you know Danica went thru several of the driver programs in England?


Anyway I welcome her.. time for the US open wheel cars to get back in the light a little.

 

Re: RE: American driver in Formula 1

Yeah, in the Formula Ford and Vauxhall series. At one point last season there was talk that Danica and Tony Kanaan would both get a one or two day test drive with BAR Honda F1 team, courtesy of Honda to show thanks for their Indy series efforts. Kanaan got the test drive, she didn't.

She's a good driver, but I guess what really bugs me about her, which isn't even her fault, is the media. She doesn't get tons of press about her successful rookie campaign. She gets media attention because she's a female driving a race car. I guess it would be something special if she was the first female to drive a race car, but she's not even the first female to race in the Indy 500. Sure the press is great for the sport, but I wish it was focused more on her racing rather than gender.

 

Re: RE: American driver in Formula 1

hehe, well yes, to a certain extent though. If there isn't a seperate gender based league formed then if they, male or female, are good enough to compete, let them play. Like if a high school girl wants to try out for the school's football (american football) team, let her go. The only way she'll get to play football is with the boys because there isn't girls high school football (at least not around here).

But, for example, I'm not too fond of Annika Sorenstam playing PGA Tour events; I think she should stick to LPGA (the Skins Game is fine though, that's just for fun anyways). And while it may be success overall in this country for athletics equality, there have been a couple times when I was cursing the Title VI decision...like when a couple of my baseball playing friends were forced to transfer to different universities because the baseball program was dropped in order to fund a new women's hockey team.