Bruno Senna

[Chris Jenkins]

More like he wouldn't want to go back to HRT. I think he'd rather be a reserve driver than drive that car again, based on his comments this season.
Unfortunately there's not many options left for him.

 

[Victor Ivanov]

People have too high expectations for him. Of course it's not easy to live with that name and his mother's embargo totally destroyed his career. I hope he'll find a place somewhere and not as 3rd driver.

 

[Hampus Andersson]

Well he´s not Ayrton that is for sure. In my opinion he does not have what it takes to take a place within the 24 lucky ones.

I like him very much but to stay realistic i think the only thing keeping him in F1 is test roles, third driver roles etc.

 

[Victor Ivanov]

Too bad that these days you need to buy F1 seat. I think only 4 guys on the grid don't pay for their place.

 

[Hampus Andersson]

What is the definition of a pay driver?

Alonso for example is not getting paid by Ferrari. That bill stands Santander for and they are a huge sponsor.

 

[Michael Brown]

My definition is a driver who brings sponsorship with them, which gives the team money if they sign the driver. It's not so much the driver paying the team, it's the team that wants their sponsorship money.

 

[Victor Ivanov]

And Alonso is the biggest example of that.

 

[Chris Jenkins]

It's a shame that this seems to be Senna's only option for 2012.
He wouldn't benefit from going to a slower team, as he's not quick enough to out-perform a car. But he's not going to benefit from another year on the sidelines either.

Shame.

 

[Dmitry Zaharov]

It's okay option, i expect Growjohn to be replaced mid-season

 

[Hampus Andersson]

My definition is a driver who brings sponsorship with them, which gives the team money if they sign the driver. It's not so much the driver paying the team, it's the team that wants their sponsorship money.

Then you can say Alonso is a pay driver.

Vettel and Hamilton is not though, Mclaren and Red Bull basically sponsored them almost all they way up to F1.

 

[Chris Cronshaw]

The biggest wasted seat on the Grid has to be Pator Maldonado.

I would like to see Senna take a Williams drive but it's more than likely Sutil will take the 2nd seat their.

It's a shame as I actually think the best line up Williams could currently have would be Sutil and Senna.

Maldonado is just drift wood imo.

Definitely agree that Alonso is pretty much a pay to drive driver though.

Although to be their he'd get that seat with or without the backing of Santander anyway.

 

[Terry Rock]

Senna's best option right now is to stay put as a reserve driver for a semi-decent team...Renault. Without the benefit of Thursday practices to get acclimatized, he'll need all the resources...(i.e some Friday testing and simulator time) to stay active and ready. Lower teams want instant driver results....with little money. It's kind of ironic and a bit of a vicious cycle. On the one hand, they need to perform to get more funding. On the other, they keep hiring average drivers with large purses....but not that "special something" to develop the car and get decent results. A lower team would see him bounced around with no benefit, while staining his career with "dog" cars. He' quickly fall from the radar...despite the name Senna.

 

[tilmanke]

spam removed

 

[Hampus Andersson]

The biggest wasted seat on the Grid has to be Pator Maldonado.

I would like to see Senna take a Williams drive but it's more than likely Sutil will take the 2nd seat their.

It's a shame as I actually think the best line up Williams could currently have would be Sutil and Senna.

Maldonado is just drift wood imo.

Definitely agree that Alonso is pretty much a pay to drive driver though.

Although to be their he'd get that seat with or without the backing of Santander anyway.

You do know that Maldonado is a GP2 World Champion right? Meaning you can´t be drift wood in order to win a season of the best up an coming drivers on the planet.

Alonso is a pay driver but he is not a pay to drive driver. Had Santander not been there he would still be in Ferrari.
It´s not the money that landed him that seat, it´s his skills of driving a car.

 

[Kyle Puttifer]

Senna has not had enough of a chance to prove himself in F1. After all, he was GP2 runner-up in 2008, so he has talent.
2010: HRT. Don't need to say any more on that year.
2011: half season watching, second half in crap Renault. Faced up Petrov quite well, considering Petrov had 2 years to acclimatise with the car, and Senna had only driven it on 2 occasions before Spa FP1 (pre-season and Hungary FP1).
Everyone rates him down because they think his only saving grace is his name, but they forget his history in lower formulae and his unfortunate circumstances in F1. Add that to Viviane stopping his career after Ayrton's death, when he should have been developing his skills, and you have a pretty unlucky driver. Basically, I don't think he's as good as he could have been, but better than people seem to think.

I say: Give him a chance. A proper one.

Williams may be the way to go, as they know exactly what was wrong with the FW33 and didn't bother to fix it for 2011, concentrating instead on 2012 as they were never going to beat STR. They have Mike Coughlan so they'll steal some designs from some other team (sorry, I had to), and they can fix the problems with the FW33, and a Renault engine, meaning that the FW34 has potential. Get rid of Maldonado as well and his dodgy money. If it is found to be illegal then he has nothing to offer other teams without money. Senna will probably be able to get more than Maldonado anyway (and probably already has).
If not Williams, then I don't know. Another year on the sidelines wasting away is just no good, and there's no point sticking him in a Caterham as it will be at the back of the field.
If Perez leaves Sauber for Ferrari (assuming they dump Massa), then Sauber will have a choice of Massa or Senna. I'm inclined to think they will pick Senna - he has money, potential, and Massa is nowhere near as good as he was in 2008. Plus, Sauber has developed a reputation for being great at developing rookies (remember Raikkonen?), so this would be the perfect place for him to settle down until a larger team snatches him (McLaren if Hamilton gets fed up?).

He's 28 now, if he's going to get anywhere in F1 he needs to get a move on, and refuse to settle for pointless 3rd driver roles.
End of rant.

 

[Luke McVicar]

I doubt Senna will be a Proper Full time f1 driver agian, unless its with a backmarker.

 

[Chris Cronshaw]

Alonso is a pay driver but he is not a pay to drive driver. Had Santander not been there he would still be in Ferrari.
It´s not the money that landed him that seat, it´s his skills of driving a car.

I did say this!

You do know that Maldonado is a GP2 World Champion right? Meaning you can´t be drift wood in order to win a season of the best up an coming drivers on the planet.

And yes he was GP2 Champion, in fact he was the first driver to ever to win 6 or 7 (cant remember exact figure) consecutive feature races. However. It was his 3rd bite at the cherry so was massively more experienced in the GP2 series than any of the up an coming up starts, and alot of F1 pundits eluded to this when he got his drive.

Comparing him to the other drivers that have progressed from GP2.
Rosberg
Hekki Kovalainen
Hamilton
Glock
Petrov
Di Grassi
Grosjean
Kobayashi
Chandook
Buemi
Senna
D'Ambrosia
Perez

Maldonado has been driftwood, his perfomances haven't been as good as any of the drivers listed, in fact there is probably only Grosjean he's been equal too, and grosjean in all fairness wasn't really given enough time to prove himself 1st time round.[/quote]

 

[Hampus Andersson]

Maldonado for being a rookie has done a good job. He´s a rookie so crashes and silly mistakes is a given.
Then you can´t compare drivers from different teams, it´s pointless. You compare a driver with his team mate.

Average Qualifying Position
Maldonado 14.63
Barrichello 14.79

Matched a veteran of the sport.

Three best Qualifying positions
Maldonado - 7,8,9
Barrichello - 11,12,13

Clearly the better qualifier.

Average gap to teammate
Maldonado -0.119s

Amount of times having reached Q3
Maldonado - 3
Barrichello - 0

Barrichello has taken 4 points and Maldonado 1 point. For a rookie, this is a good start.

Especially considering how well he was doing in Monaco before the incident. And all of this in his first year in F1 with a car that was horrendous.

 

[Chris Cronshaw]

So Barrichello has scored 75% more points than Maldonado. That is a massive deficit to your team mate on who apparently is the only person comparable too.

By your logic Lewis Hamilton has been better than Jenson Button this season out qualifying him 13-6 and having
Average Qualifying Position
Hamilton - 3.42
Button - 4.63

But of course this is ludicrous talk as we all know in race trim Button was a class apart from Hamilton this season.

I think we'll just have to agree to disagree, but imo Maldonado has not done anything to warrant keeping his seat this season. Nor has Barrichello for that matter, he just seemed to be going through the motions until he realised his seat was in jeopardy.

 

[Kyle Puttifer]

Nor has Barrichello for that matter, he just seemed to be going through the motions until he realised his seat was in jeopardy.

So give him a race-by-race contract. It kept McLaren in line in 1993.