31 replies to this topic

[rodders47]

I am bewildered why it is that so many top quality USA drivers fail to gain any creditable results in F1. Apart from JV no one that hails from the USA seem to get much a foothold in this WORLD sport? Why ???

[wapi]

"Steering wheel is much too complicated for what they are capable of learning" I read this explanation somewhere, yesterday. Sounds funny, but I guess it is a real mistery.

[Jean Todt]

wapi, on 18 July 2009 - 07:34 AM, said:

"Steering wheel is much too complicated for what they are capable of learning" I read this explanation somewhere, yesterday. Sounds funny, but I guess it is a real mistery.

1.JV is not from USA. Okay, he raced in US..
2.Arrogance when not least needed....you don't be arrogant when you have achieved nothing...
3.Impatient to get past the car in front of him even though he knows he has a slower car.
4.Simply not fast enough.

At the same time, I doubt any of the F1 drivers can make the same impact as some of the drivers who came from the American racing have done. Monty and JV....remember?

[JHS]

It's not just American drivers though, i mean look at Piquet. Just as bad if not worse than Bourdais. And Bourdais is French for the record

[mikathegreat2]

They can't turn right!

[Quiet One]

Dan Gurney, Mario Andretti (for better or worse), Phil Hill, Eddie Cheever...ahem...Scott Speed...those are from the top of my head, I guess more knowledgeable members can remember many others
Yeah, cerrtainly not very impressive when compared to UK, Italy, Germany, Brazil or even Argentina. But the truth is that is more than adequate for a country that never really gave adamn about F1. It's the same as soccer. They simply don't care enough to have many talents going towards F1.

Other than that, they don't fare any worse than most other countries with a small to nonexistant F1 tradition/interest. YOu could have asked the same question with regards to Zimbabwe. Actually, it makes more sense if you ask that regarding Japanese drivers. After all, there is much more interest in F1 in Japan than in USA (or so it seems from the outside, Maure can help us here)

[JHS]

Quiet One, on 18 July 2009 - 01:50 PM, said:

But the truth is that is more than adequate for a country that never really gave adamn about F1. It's the same as soccer. They simply don't care enough to have many talents going towards F1.

Don't let Cinco hear you say that!

To be honest, you always get good and bad drivers from any country. It's just more recently, American based drivers haven't.....well.....been setting the world alight with their performances in F1 (Speed and now Bourdais).

[Argento Reloaded]

abbas_gear, on 18 July 2009 - 08:01 AM, said:

1.JV is not from USA. Okay, he raced in US..
2.Arrogance when not least needed....you don't be arrogant when you have achieved nothing...
3.Impatient to get past the car in front of him even though he knows he has a slower car.
4.Simply not fast enough.

At the same time, I doubt any of the F1 drivers can make the same impact as some of the drivers who came from the American racing have done. Monty and JV....remember?

Remember Fittipaldi and Mansell? They were finished by F1 stds and then gone to USA to be champions! Just to name a few! Fangio and Clark outperformed everything and everyone at Indy 500 but couldn´t won because of mechanical failure so it is no new.

[Cinco]

Quiet One speaks the truth, I think.

Our best talents in go-karts make the transition to local stock cars when they turn 16 and go to NASCAR.  No one pursues F1, just like no one pursues soccer.  If all our best drivers like Tony Stewart, Jeff Gordon, etc from day one went to Europe and, in Stewart's case, didn't gain 100 kg, they'd be well-qualified and they would succeed.  We have a lot of talent, but it's just being wasted.  If F1 was more popular in the USA, there'd be better US American talents.

Watch out, though.  There are two guys for the future that might just be good enough.  Josef Newgarden, and to a lesser extent, Alexander Rossi.  Newgarden is racing in Formula Ford UK right now and has a crapload of wins.  He also ran the first three Formula Palmer Audi races and won two of them, but didn't have funding to continue from there.  He's only 17 so in a few years we could really see him progress through the ranks.  Rossi isn't as impressive, but he won the Formula BMW Americas championship in 2008 on 10 wins in 18 races, including F1 circuits Montreal and Interlagos.  He then won the Formula BMW World Final.  He's fifth in International Formula Master this year with one win in Brno.

As for drivers from Champ Car...for whatever reason, it just didn't add up.  I think part of Bourdais' problem and maybe some of the others (def Michael Andretti) was commitment.  In CCWS/CART, most of the drivers just met the bare minimum of physical fitness to race (look at Paul Tracy, he wasn't exactly slim).  They took things less seriously in CART than in F1, they actually had fun off the track, but to do that, they weren't as serious about going to the gym every single day (that's not to say they weren't athletes...Tony Kanaan weighs 65 kg and can bench press 136 kg).  Bourdais was definitely one of the least as far as interested in going to the gym, he's just not that kind of guy, he's older, he has a wife and a kid.  He had other things to do and wanted to enjoy his time a little more.

Now, all there is is the IRL, which is a pathetic series with slow cars that don't turn right very well.  You won't see anyone get hired from there, and rightfully so.

And yes, an F1 driver could easily dominate the IRL, even Piquet.  In Champ Car, if you were a winner in F1, you'd run with the big guys.  In NASCAR, it's just so foreign.  JPM's finally gotten the hang of it but hasn't finished in the top five yet this year.

Edited by Cinco, 18 July 2009 - 03:15 PM.

[armil]

Well what I think is the american driver has another priorities like NASCAR, as european and brazilian boy dream about drive at F1 american boy dream about NASCAR or INDY. beside has to be very convenient to have a very high paid champioship in your own contry

[Cinco]

armil, on 18 July 2009 - 03:25 PM, said:

Well what I think is the american driver has another priorities like NASCAR, as european and brazilian boy dream about drive at F1 american boy dream about NASCAR or INDY. beside has to be very convenient to have a very high paid champioship in your own contry

This.  Though no American dreams of Indy anymore.  But besides Kimi and Valentino Rossi, NASCAR drivers are the highest paid racers, so it's pretty clear where I'd want to go if I was a Yankee pursuing a racing career.  F1 money without leaving home.

[Quiet One]

There's another difference and I think it was mentioned in some of the articles about Bourdais. Categories like ChampCar are much more mechanical grip dependant than aerodynamical grip dependant. It's like being a Sumo wrestler champion and expecting to fare well at kick boxing.

[YHR]

As others have said, I know F1 is huge in Europe, but in North America it hardly garners a sports headline on race day.

The different cultures surrounding the racing are clearly evident as well.  F1 is cutthroat, lying, deception, cheating.  Whatever it takes to win.   It is so bad that everyone is assumed to be cheating, there are some that just haven't got caught yet. Drama and politics on the track, garage and locker room.  Americans are not prepared to play those games.  Far better to live in Florida, and have some fun racing, while still having a life to enjoy with your friends, wife and kids.

[Jean Todt]

mikathegreat2, on 18 July 2009 - 12:49 PM, said:

They can't turn right!

Yeah, thats right.

[Jean Todt]

Argento, on 18 July 2009 - 02:45 PM, said:

Remember Fittipaldi and Mansell? They were finished by F1 stds and then gone to USA to be champions! Just to name a few! Fangio and Clark outperformed everything and everyone at Indy 500 but couldn´t won because of mechanical failure so it is no new.

Oops! I didn't pay attention to that, but thats another Era Argento!

[dribbler]

Yanks are crap at F1, Finns are good at rallying, female Japanese porn stars don't move enough and make too much noise. The joys of different cultures.

[Jean Todt]

dribbler, on 18 July 2009 - 06:14 PM, said:

Yanks are crap at F1, Finns are good at rallying, female Japanese porn stars don't move enough and make too much noise. The joys of different cultures.

well said!

[Argento Reloaded]

abbas_gear, on 18 July 2009 - 05:59 PM, said:

Oops! I didn't pay attention to that, but thats another Era Argento!

well the world didn´t start yesterday... the problem with american is they consider USA the world: if you win the NBA you are "world champion", baseball has it "world series" where all the team are from USA and so on. Nowadays the learnt -painfully- GM is no the larger neither the best manufacturer in the world... so there is a world out there... don´t be shy americans go out and see it!

[rodders47]

all good points.

BUT the Ämerican Raceing drivers, no matter what country they were born in, are still good drivers in the American racing leagues, BUT apart from a couple they just can't seem to get to grips with I guess a much higher technology of car. It's like foreign to them, and I guess it is this technology that has them baffled. I guess driving at the speeds they do around an oval seems impressive, but they sure don't have a need for or even HAVE the breaking equipment that an F1 car has for example. Maybe this is what confuses them :-)

[Persevere]

This is a good topic with a  number of interesting responses and theories.  I would speculate that there are a number of reasons why.  "abbas_gear" mentioned arrogance:  well said.  There is an awful lot of chest-thumping but very little humility in Americans.  We always assume we are the best at everything, and when the facts prove otherwise we possess an all encompassing optimism that we will therefore strive to become the best.  

"wapi" made a tongue-in-cheek remark about the complexity of the steering wheel in an F1 car.  Sounds silly but again I think there is something to that.  A big part of the attraction of NASCAR for the public is it's so damn simple compared to most forms of racing.  Big, heavy cars that bear a passing resemblance to what you see on the street, typically making left-hand turns on an oval for hours on end.  And fitness in the drivers is not especially critical as a number of you have pointed out.

When Michael Andretti took a stab at F1 (in 1993 if I recall) everyone assumed he would be the next big thing.  Now he certainly possessed a degree of arrogance but he was also damn fast.  Still he could not come to grips with the technology, couldn't shake off the style and habits he'd grown used to in American open wheel racing.  He may also have been lacking in the total commitment required.  If I remember correctly he continued to live in the U.S. during that year, when a move to Europe - to minimize travel time and maximize on-hands exposure - was essential.  Granted the McLaren that year was not a world beater.  The Williams-Renault was the class of the field and Benetton was the benefactor of the latest Ford-Cosworth engines.  Honda had pulled out at the end of 1992 (oops, deja vu) and McLaren was left standing with hat in hand for an engine supplier.  Still Senna managed, what, 4 or 5 wins?  Michael returned to the States before the season finished, his F1 career over before it started.  When J.V. took the Williams offer a couple of seasons later some of the racing press said it was too soon.  To his credit Andretti disagreed saying Jacques was ready and should go.  Andretti said that his mistake was waiting too long and finding it too difficult to 'un-do' habits learned in American cars.

Perhaps the days of Phil Hill and Dan Gurney and Mario Andretti  - to name 3, and yes I know Mario was born in Italy - are long gone.  Also, every time a driver comes from a U.S. series, whether American or not (I'm thinking of S. Speed and S. Bourdais) and fails to deliver in the eyes of the team and/or the racing press, it's another nail in that coffin, a cumulative effect.  It's one more U.S.-based driver to add to the list stretching out over decades.  {There may very well be a subtle anti-American bias within the F1 community.  If Piquet gets his marching orders at the end of the season it won't tarnish the reputation of the next Brazilian driver waiting in the wings.  That's more speculation than paranoia on my part.  Were I a team owner in the market for a new young driver the last element of concern I would have would be country of origin.}

In any event I have rambled on.  I'll continue to check in on this topic as you are obviously providing a good cross-section of opinions.  Besides it helps to take my mind off the out-sized soap opera that F1 has become in 2009.

[Jean Todt]

Persevere, on 19 July 2009 - 09:43 AM, said:

This is a good topic with a  number of interesting responses and theories.  I would speculate that there are a number of reasons why.  "abbas_gear" mentioned arrogance:  well said.  There is an awful lot of chest-thumping but very little humility in Americans.  We always assume we are the best at everything, and when the facts prove otherwise we possess an all encompassing optimism that we will therefore strive to become the best.  

"wapi" made a tongue-in-cheek remark about the complexity of the steering wheel in an F1 car.  Sounds silly but again I think there is something to that.  A big part of the attraction of NASCAR for the public is it's so damn simple compared to most forms of racing.  Big, heavy cars that bear a passing resemblance to what you see on the street, typically making left-hand turns on an oval for hours on end.  And fitness in the drivers is not especially critical as a number of you have pointed out.

When Michael Andretti took a stab at F1 (in 1993 if I recall) everyone assumed he would be the next big thing.  Now he certainly possessed a degree of arrogance but he was also damn fast.  Still he could not come to grips with the technology, couldn't shake off the style and habits he'd grown used to in American open wheel racing.  He may also have been lacking in the total commitment required.  If I remember correctly he continued to live in the U.S. during that year, when a move to Europe - to minimize travel time and maximize on-hands exposure - was essential.  Granted the McLaren that year was not a world beater.  The Williams-Renault was the class of the field and Benetton was the benefactor of the latest Ford-Cosworth engines.  Honda had pulled out at the end of 1992 (oops, deja vu) and McLaren was left standing with hat in hand for an engine supplier.  Still Senna managed, what, 4 or 5 wins?  Michael returned to the States before the season finished, his F1 career over before it started.  When J.V. took the Williams offer a couple of seasons later some of the racing press said it was too soon.  To his credit Andretti disagreed saying Jacques was ready and should go.  Andretti said that his mistake was waiting too long and finding it too difficult to 'un-do' habits learned in American cars.

Perhaps the days of Phil Hill and Dan Gurney and Mario Andretti  - to name 3, and yes I know Mario was born in Italy - are long gone.  Also, every time a driver comes from a U.S. series, whether American or not (I'm thinking of S. Speed and S. Bourdais) and fails to deliver in the eyes of the team and/or the racing press, it's another nail in that coffin, a cumulative effect.  It's one more U.S.-based driver to add to the list stretching out over decades.  {There may very well be a subtle anti-American bias within the F1 community.  If Piquet gets his marching orders at the end of the season it won't tarnish the reputation of the next Brazilian driver waiting in the wings.  That's more speculation than paranoia on my part.  Were I a team owner in the market for a new young driver the last element of concern I would have would be country of origin.}

In any event I have rambled on.  I'll continue to check in on this topic as you are obviously providing a good cross-section of opinions.  Besides it helps to take my mind off the out-sized soap opera that F1 has become in 2009.

Yeah, thats right.

[rodders47]

There is an awful lot of chest-thumping but very little humility in Americans. We always assume we are the best at everything, and when the facts prove otherwise we possess an all encompassing optimism that we will therefore strive to become the best.

Yes to me that is exactly how I percieve the american Auto Racers, and for that matter most of the American sports teams

[wapi]

Persevere, on 19 July 2009 - 09:43 AM, said:

{There may very well be a subtle anti-American bias within the F1 community.  If Piquet gets his marching orders at the end of the season it won't tarnish the reputation of the next Brazilian driver waiting in the wings.  That's more speculation than paranoia on my part.  Were I a team owner in the market for a new young driver the last element of concern I would have would be country of origin.}

Superpower and collonial power nations are brainwashed through schooling system that they are best there is in the world, that their nation is capable of [different wonders]... With such arrogant attitude people enjoy when you are defeated. This is the same type of joy some people feel when priest is charged with child abuse. Why priest, why not mailman? Because main selling point of religion is morality and you found out that that morality is something fake... Any person that has doubts about religion would love to  read about priest abusing child because it fuels opinion "it told you they are not that good/moral as they say. I always knew there is something fishy...".

If you come from some of Goliath nations, you have lots of Davids against you watching your every step.

[Persevere]

I'm delighted to see the on-going discussion on this topic, especially as many of you can provide opinions that are much more varied than would otherwise be if you were all from the U.S.  Many Americans are very insulated and have little knowledge of how the rest of the world views our words and actions.  Thanks for speaking your mind.

[maure]

Quiet One, on 18 July 2009 - 01:50 PM, said:

Dan Gurney, Mario Andretti (for better or worse), Phil Hill, Eddie Cheever...ahem...Scott Speed...those are from the top of my head, I guess more knowledgeable members can remember many others
Yeah, cerrtainly not very impressive when compared to UK, Italy, Germany, Brazil or even Argentina. But the truth is that is more than adequate for a country that never really gave adamn about F1. It's the same as soccer. They simply don't care enough to have many talents going towards F1.

Other than that, they don't fare any worse than most other countries with a small to nonexistant F1 tradition/interest. YOu could have asked the same question with regards to Zimbabwe. Actually, it makes more sense if you ask that regarding Japanese drivers. After all, there is much more interest in F1 in Japan than in USA (or so it seems from the outside, Maure can help us here)

I agree. It's a matter of interest. If Americans really wanted to get into F1, they would and they would succeed. The ability to breed the extraordinary freaks that make top-dog in F1 is not missing in the US...

Regarding Japan, there is no simple answer. I would say it's a combination of disinterest, pragmatism, and X.

X is the most important but I will not discuss it here because the resident bigots would gather up, flip out, and yell out their hatemongering.

Pragmatism can be seen in many regards. For example, Japanese manufacturers much prefer to sell an engine/brand than a driver. The Japanese car market is captive, don't forget.

And disinterest. Motor racing is a subculture in all countries. In Japan, tihs subculture has better defined edges. Either you are in or you are out. Mainstream is out (for instance, TV coverage of F1 in Japan is incredibly poor in _every_ respect). If you are in, however, you have access to quite an interesting wealth of insights, foresights, rumors,...

[dribbler]

maure, on 20 July 2009 - 12:46 PM, said:

X is the most important but I will not discuss it here because the resident bigots would gather up, flip out, and yell out their hatemongering.

Contenders for 'X';

1. Yellow skin
2. Small penis
3. Too much in-car kung fu fighting
4. Inability to walk.

[monza gorilla]

I disagree. X is obviously acne.

[mikathegreat2]

monza gorilla, on 23 July 2009 - 07:56 AM, said:

I disagree. X is obviously acne.

X marks the spot!

[F1 FANatic]

But can you have too much X. Say, is it better to have two X because it makes you twice as good then say an X and a Y or does XX make you a worse driver?

[dribbler]

F1 FANatic, on 23 July 2009 - 01:48 PM, said:

But can you have too much X. Say, is it better to have two X because it makes you twice as good then say an X and a Y or does XX make you a worse driver?

XXXX makes you a bad driver with no taste in lager.