Comments on: Sébastien Bourdais: Lemonade From A Lemon

By: elmondohummus

elmondohummus — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 13:33:41 +0000

@Don

I wonder if the whole “narrow” characterization is a myth. Or possibly a consequence of the last two years Indycar raced there (several road courses ended up being parades at times; I don’t know if Barber was unique in that regard, given the car and how it handled road courses). At any rate, I kept on hearing and reading people call Barber a “motorcycle” course, yet when I looked it up myself I noted that Grand Am races there, plus the Porsche driving school uses it.

There are all sorts of memes and myths on the internet. And heck, outside of it too (anyone watch the myth refuting History channel shows on Titanic recently? Even the BBC print side has gotten into the act). The point is that even *I* thought this was the case with Barber, but looking up the facts plus seeing the racing there has indicated that I need to reconsider the opinion formed from what I’ve been told.

I’ll defer to other, more knowledgeable minds on this. But I do wonder if the meme is accurate, or instead is myth.

By: gnome

gnome — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 03:42:38 +0000

As far as SeaBass on an oval, don’t forget George, he’s won twice at Las Vegas speedway,and won a stock car IROC race at Texas. He’ll be just fine.

By: Steve K

Steve K — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 23:37:30 +0000

You forgot Michael Andretti as a failure in F1. The temptation to be the next Villenueve or Montoya is too tempting. I suspect as IndyCar continues to regain its strength along with the international economy, we will see F1 raid IndyCar again.

By: james t suel

james t suel — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 19:59:37 +0000

SEABASS made a beliver out of me sunday! what a great drive,thanks for noting it in your blog.

By: Rick

Rick — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 17:15:11 +0000

Wow, so much to comment on…
First, I’ve always said that F1 is where racing driver’s careers go to die. It looks to me like CART/Champ Car champions were desperate to fulfill their dreams and drive in F1-no matter who they had to drive for to do it. Villenueve, Zanardi, Montoya, da Matta, Bourdais: Only two had any success in F1 after winning championships stateside.
I’ve touched on it before, but I don’t believe the Lotus is THAT far off, though missing the Indy test this week is a blow.
Any doubts about Bourdais’ talent are being dispelled. It will be fun to watch him the rest of the season.

By: Steve K

Steve K — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 16:38:17 +0000

In hindsite Bourdais was doomed to fail in F1. The Toro Rosso chasis was junk. His teammate just happened to be a legend in the making. Sebastian Vettel, who is probably the second best open wheel driver in the world today (Alonso), improbably took the car to the top of the podium at Monza that year. This all made Bourdais look bad and put him on a short leash and another bad car led him out all too soon. Toro Rosso has since fored his replacement and Vettel’s replacement after he was promoted to Red Bull and have hired on two more young drivers. If you are an IndyCar star, stay out of F1 unless you get an offer from the top 4 teams or you can tolerate losing for the bump in pay.

By: billytheskink

billytheskink — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 14:21:04 +0000

Here is where I like the old USAC and CART point systems (and CART manufacturer’s championship system) that only paid out to 12th place.
Those systems don’t generally produce different results than the current system among the top drivers, but they do better illustrate great performances by part-timers and those running with disadvantaged teams and cars. Much could be made of Bourdais scoring Lotus’ first points at Barber, it’s another way to highlight his significant accomplishment.

For another example, despite Bourdais’ tear at the end of last year, he placed 23rd in the standings, 1 point behind James Jakes. Using the CART and USAC systems rewards Bourdais’ top 12′s as opposed to the current system rewarding Jakes’ showing up for 7 more races.

Bourdais jumps to a tie for 16th with Mike Conway using CART’s points, passing full-timers Jakes, Beatriz, de Silvestro, Kimball, Viso, and Meira.
Using USAC’s race distance-adjusted points, Bourdais moves up to 18th, past full-timers Jakes, Beatriz, de Silvestro, Kimball, Viso, Conway, and Meira. He falls behind Dan Wheldon and Ed Carpenter, though, who won oval races where the increased race distance increased the points payout.

By: Savage Henry

Savage Henry — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 13:56:05 +0000

What SeeBass and Dragon Racing are doing is all the more impressive if you account for the fact they had literally no off-season testing and limited track time on race weekends due to technical problems. They’ve got to be just making good guesses on setups. Obviously SeeBass is driving the wheels off it. Perhaps someone should give Marco some video of these races when he starts griping about evil cars.

I’m actually pretty impressed that Lotus has been as competitive as it has been considering their challenges so far. If they’re funding holds up and they can catch up a bit I think that they could have some respectable performances. I don’t think they are destined to the the HRT of the IICS.

By: billytheskink

billytheskink — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 13:51:01 +0000

I always took the “Barber is narrow… and a gorgeous facility” comments to mean that the racing line is narrow, rather than the track surface itself. I wouldn’t know how to go about proving or disproving that, but I do know that passing being at such a premium during the first two events certainly created the perception of a narrow racing line (at least when approaching passing zones), if not evidenced it.

Hopefully this year’s race is the start of a trend, because it was quite good.

By: JohnMc

JohnMc — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 13:35:42 +0000

My observation about the Lotus program is that it is going to show who is an experienced race car driver and who has a good team. I have always been impressed with SeaBass and I will point out that the Dragon team is coming along with their car and driver completing the race in good fashion. Because of the performance of the Lotus engine I think no better than a podium.