Scott Speed 3rd in the 2nd practice, right behind both of the Red cars. 
Every dog has his day, let's enjoy it while it lasts. :tongue:
Every dog has his day, let's enjoy it while it lasts. :tongue:
Scotty got beamed up!!
- Thread starter 92 white 0650
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It's nice to see that Honda got some air time. Too bad it was all talk about how horrible they are doing this season. They are in disbelief that a team with so much money can be doing so piss poor.
Speed did do a great (and suprising) job out there. Hopefully tomorrow will yield similar results. Who knew Red Bull would start breaking up the pack???
Speed did do a great (and suprising) job out there. Hopefully tomorrow will yield similar results. Who knew Red Bull would start breaking up the pack???
Isnt the Red Bull team using Ferrari engines this year? Or was that last year? If they are, probably explains their performance. Give them a couple years to work with the F engines and they will up in the running eventually. Good for them and Mr Speed. :biggrin:
Maybe Honda needs to steal some engines and reverse engineer them. In all honestly I am a Honda fan till the end, but I am sick of hearing excuses and false promises about "how we had a great run today...blah blah". BS is BS, I'd rather see JB and RB say it as it is, our team sucks, in public, maybe it will light a fire under the Honda execs to do something. At this point anything is better than what they are doing.
Maybe Honda needs to steal some engines and reverse engineer them. In all honestly I am a Honda fan till the end, but I am sick of hearing excuses and false promises about "how we had a great run today...blah blah". BS is BS, I'd rather see JB and RB say it as it is, our team sucks, in public, maybe it will light a fire under the Honda execs to do something. At this point anything is better than what they are doing.
When you don't really care about F1 like Fukui it's no surprise that they're doing as poorly as they are when he lets his buddy with no F1 experience design the car. Clearly the problem is the car as Super Aguri (last year's Honda chassis) are consistently beating Honda. Button & Barrichello are better drivers than Sato and Davidson. Period.
The only reason Aguri isn't scoring is because McLaren, Ferrari and BMW are so much faster this year than last year and Aguri's drivers are less skilled. If JB and RB were driving the Aguri they might be ahead of Renault at least by now. If Lewis Hamilton drove for Super Aguri they might have seen a podium by now.
As far as Speed, all he's got to do right now is beat Liuzzi and he must beat him every time out--end of story. Liuzzi is not considered a particularly quick driver by anyone in F1 and any driver who has scored a point this year could beat him every time out.
Clearly Webber has shown the Red Bull can be fairly quick and Speed needs to eventually beat Webber. Webber is showing that he's the best of the 4 RB drivers. If you can't beat Webber you are not going to amount to anything in F1 especially since Webber will never be an F1 champion. Not saying that one should necessarily be kicked out of F1 if they can't beat Webber (although Ide wasn't going to beat Webber either) but after a few years of sucking Webber's tailpipes they will have become like Fisichella, Coulthard, J. Villeneuve, Ralf Schumacher or even Trulli who are likely never going to see more overall success than they already have. At least all those guys have won multiple races.
Barrichello clearly will never be more successful than he already has and JB is different b/c even though he's only won once he has many, many poles and podiums and has been haunted by failures for many years. IMO he could win it all in the right car. We all know Kimi should be a champion and Massa could be as well.
Webber I think can still rise a bit but when I see young drivers like Davidson, Kubica, Vettel, Koval and, of course, Hamilton who hit the ground running I have serious doubts that Scott Speed's F1 career will be a long one. Finding a driver to replace him should not be hard.
Rest assured they are saying that privately but publicly they are just being professionally loyal at this point. They have hinted those sentiments publicly but I don't think anyone thinks they're happy especially after incidents such as when they gave Rubens that car that was totally unbalanced and the steering had been changed and he didn't even get a lap to feel it out before qualifying.
Jenson is in a tougher position publicly and would be eating serious crow after all the maneuvering he did to get a seat at Honda and the now amazing success at McLaren. It would be beyond difficult to extricate himself from his Honda contract at this point.
Furthermore, where would he go? There are no quality seats available in F1 right now. And he's also no longer England's golden boy--that title is now owned by a rookie.
Rubens also knows there are no other options for him and he's never going to be world champ. Bashing his team publicly serves no purpose.
Honda has serious personnel issues now and as long as Nakamoto is running the show they are going to be behind the 8-ball. The RA107 is inferior and I doubt they have the personnel to correct that nor does Fukui care. If this is how it's going to be Honda just needs to pull out of F1 and save their money.
I don't think thier corporate honour would let them pull out of F1. The rivalry between Honda and Toyota is too strong.
at some point the worldwide embarrassment is going to surpass the corporate honor. $300+ million/year is a lot to dump into a failing project--especially for Civic-loving Fukui to justify.
Toyota can at least save some face because they've never been close to victory. Not so with Honda. They have tasted victory and now are in the depths of despair. They are being consistently outqualified by Red Bull. Plus, Rubens and Button are better than Ralf and Trulli.
If Toyota had A drivers they'd have some podiums this year. But until they get the car fast enough they're not going to lure an A driver. I think Toyota would be a decent option for Jenson if he decides the Honda team is at a dead-end and he has to get out. If Toyota could lure any of the BMW guys--Heidfeld/Kubica/Vettel to the team they would be looking myuch better driver-wise. BMW definitely has a talent surplus. Any of those drivers they could get at a substantial discount from what they're overpaying Ralf.
at some point the worldwide embarrassment is going to surpass the corporate honor. $300+ million/year is a lot to dump into a failing project--especially for Civic-loving Fukui to justify.
Toyota can at least save some face because they've never been close to victory. Not so with Honda. They have tasted victory and now are in the depths of despair. They are being consistently outqualified by Red Bull. Plus, Rubens and Button are better than Ralf and Trulli.
If Toyota had A drivers they'd have some podiums this year. But until they get the car fast enough they're not going to lure an A driver. I think Toyota would be a decent option for Jenson if he decides the Honda team is at a dead-end and he has to get out. If Toyota could lure any of the BMW guys--Heidfeld/Kubica/Vettel to the team they would be looking myuch better driver-wise. BMW definitely has a talent surplus. Any of those drivers they could get at a substantial discount from what they're overpaying Ralf.
No question there will be driver changes at Toyota. Honda has competitive, if not championship drivers in thier stable, as demonstrated by RB & JB qualifying and finishing fairly close together.
Their chasis sucks. They have a very good engine. I think we'll see changes in the design office at Honda, but very much doubt they'll pull out of F1 because of their results this season.
Honda has a performance & racing heritage that is global, and their F1 team will be a part of thier global branding for some time.
Sounds like Toro Rosso is a mess. Both Speed & Liuzzi are pretty much screwed. Webber and DC are showing that the car is faster than Speed and Liuzzi can drive them and neither one is consistently beating the other. Clearly Speed is quicker than Liuzzi but he just isn't consistent enough for any other team to take a chance on him--even as a tester. Webber is really showing what the Red Bull car can do and is putting into perspective how far off Speed, Liuzzi and even DC are.
The only chance Speed has to stay in F1 is to beat Liuzzi every race from here on out handily and start challenging DC on a regular basis. He's not going to beat DC but if he can just stay with him hopefully, at some point, experience will kick in and he will become better and maybe as quick as DC. If you can't drive as fast as DC you're not going to stay in F1, period. You might last longer than some but your days are still numbered.
Speed is in a really tough spot right now. Even if he drives lights-out the rest of the season there are probably not going to be any seats available in 08 and it's looking very unlikely he will drive for Toro Rosso past this year. Liuzzi is certainly finished, maybe sooner than later, and I would wager anything he will not be in F1 in 2008.
As far as the team they are going to find that word of team tumult travels fast and new talent will be hesitant to sign contracts longer than one season and once they prove themselves they will be out the door. Vettel is the real deal IMO and he will have a seat soon. He would be wiping the floor with Liuzzi and other teams would see that and although there are no quality seats right now there will be plenty of seats within 2-3 years--just enough time for a young driver to showcase his talents with Toro Rosso next year and run out the door.
Toyota, Renault, Honda and Williams should all have seats available within the next 2-3 years. If the Toro Rosso team mgmt. doesn't get their stuff together it's going to be an uphill battle to lure legitimate young talent and even harder to retain them once they prove themselves.
