Jaime Alguesuari

[Dan Long]

What a load of ballony. Free Practise, why should he pull over to ruin his fuel run when Vettel in the faster car should be able to pass him easily, he is World Champion after all and should deal with it like a big guy and not expect them to back off for him.

 

[David O'Reilly]

In my view Vettel has no right to be let past in a practice session.
If he is faster then overtake, if he can't overtke then let the Toro Rosso drive hard.
Its an impossible situation for Algi. Who is his boss? he is answerable to his race engineer who has him testing the car, the Toro Rosso team Boss and then this egomaniac Helmut Marko who tells him off for simply maintaining his racing line in a practice session.
Toro Rosso is supposed to be an independent team yet this Marko character can march between the teams issueing orders.

In a professional organisation Marko would have communicated via the organisations management structure rather than embarrassingly cause this scene in front of Algis actual boss and TV cameras. This makes him very unprofessional and not entitled to a professional response. Vettel is a great driver but these things make me think of the "little Seb" who should have been allowed to pass Webber at Turkey when he collided with him as Honer said "Seb has buit up a better fuel margin" (yeah right in Webbers wake).
His ego then made him sack Algi and he lacked the decency to give a few weeks warning to allow the guys to look elsewhere.

..anker

 

[glight]

Guys, WE TALKIN' BOUT PRACTICE, NOT THE GAME, PRACTICE!

So did it do Algi any good to stick to his racing line? What for? Like others said, he is in STR so RBR is an eventuality if he performs well and plays his cards right. Why in the world would he want to ruin that by blocking Vettel and then having an arguement with Marko?

What happened on track I don't really have a problem with(should have been no big deal to either guy) what happened off the track is the issue. Yes Marko was being an a-hole about it but Algi should have just apologized and then it would have been water under the bridge! Besides, it was JUST PRACTICE!

If this was Quali or the Race then we could talk about politics and even playing fields and a-hole upper management, but it was JUST PRACTICE.

 

[Markus Neumann]

Quite frankly, there is no way to know if Algersuari got fired for this or for the reason that Toro Rosso gave, which was perfectly rational and at least as plausible as the 'egomaniacal Dr. Marko' angle.
Might as well give Toro Rosso the benefit of the doubt instead of accusing them of something that can't be proven without a smoking gun.

 

[David Jundt]

I never liked Marko; I never will. Maybe he's just bitter his career was cut short due to his accident.

Also, what's the fuss about? Don't have to behave all high and mighty in practice, there's no need for it.

 

[Chris Jenkins]

After his Toro Rosso ousting, Jaime Alguersuari could emerge with the Mercedes team in 2012.
The Spanish sports daily AS reports that IPIC, Abu Dhabi’s international petroleum investment company, is unhappy with Red Bull for ousting the young Spaniard from its driver programme.

IPIC owns the Spanish oil company Cepsa, which last year became a major Toro Rosso sponsor.
Alguersuari, according to the report, “had become the image of the company in its international expansion plans”.
Through its investment vehicle Aabar, Abu Dhabi is also involved in F1 as a significant shareholder and sponsor of the works Mercedes team.

AS said the Abu Dhabi link could see Alguersuari, 21, line up as the official reserve driver for Michael Schumacher and Nico Rosberg this year.
The report added that an Abu Dhabi-backed Alguersuari could be important to Mercedes, amid rumours the team’s title sponsor Petronas might leave the sport.
Petronas, the Malaysian oil company, recently stopped sponsoring the Yamaha team in MotoGP.

Interesting development.
I bet DiResta is unimpressed with this rumour, as he's eyeing up Schumacher's seat in 2013.

 

[Xosé Estrada]

It could be a good replacement for the Kaiser when he decides to leave.

Probably the performance of DiResta against Hulkemberg this season can be a good benchmark about the best option for Mercedes.

 

[Chris Jenkins]

DiResta's in the best position though as he's still part of the Mercedes driver programme and has a very strong relationship with Norbert Haug from his DTM days.

 

[Bruno Sousa Ferreira]

Still I would be worried if I was Di resta, it gives another option for mercedes which can affect him.
But then again Force india with the Sahara group might find themselves up there with mercedes in a couple of years.

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

Jaime is now confirmed as BCC radio commentator.

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

Former Toro Rosso driver Jaime Alguersuari could have been driving for Lotus this year, but turned the offer down because he thought to continue at Toro Rosso. When he was fired on 14 december by that team, the seat was already occupied at Lotus.
He revealed this in his blog at Mundo Deportivo

 

[Chris Jenkins]

Red Bull really screwed that guy over. I feel bad for him.

Saying that though, Grosjean was a no-brainer because Boullier loves him (and he is pretty good) and Raikkonen is a much better driver than Alguesuari, so I'd say Lotus got it right.

 

[ufunacaoenn]

Red Bull really screwed that guy over. I feel bad for him.

Saying that though, Grosjean was a no-brainer because Boullier loves him (and he is pretty good) and Raikkonen is a much better driver than Alguesuari, so I'd say Lotus got it right.

We won't really know if Raikkonen is better then Alguesuari until they both race each other.

 

[Kennett Ylitalo]

We won't really know if Raikkonen is better then Alguesuari until they both race each other.

Maybe so but if you compare their path to F1 i would say that Kimi showed extra-ordinary talent plus when he got his first F1 seat, he did in stellar way.. Jaime didn't... So just by comparing their chances and success, i would say Kimi is clearly better.

 

[ufunacaoenn]

Maybe so but if you compare their path to F1 i would say that Kimi showed extra-ordinary talent plus when he got his first F1 seat, he did in stellar way.. Jaime didn't... So just by comparing their chances and success, i would say Kimi is clearly better.

Well in that case we could go and call Rosberg a champion because he have been out performing his team mate two seasons in a row because Schumi has such big F1 career behind him and there for should simply be faster then Rosberg...
I am sorry but I don't find your argument right because it could be used in so many ways to make one driver with a lot of history behind him seem better or worse compare to someone who lacks history.

Plus I would like to add that Kimi started racing in F1 a different year, the tightness in the grid, consistancy and so many other things were different back then compare to when Alguesuari was racing so they can't be compared based on media impresion, they need to be based by driving neither the same car or in the same year with cars that are quite competitive to fight each other.

 

[Chris Jenkins]

You don't always need a direct on-track comparison to know that one driver is simply better.

Otherwise Karthikayan could argue that he would've been quicker than Senna?

 

[ufunacaoenn]

You don't always need a direct on-track comparison to know that one driver is simply better.

Otherwise Karthikayan could argue that he would've been quicker than Senna?

Well you can't judge two drivers until they are being put through the same circumstances. It is kind of the same with the Vettel story, people call him a worse driver then the other champs because he doesn't have any of the other 5 champions as his team mate to measure how good Vettel really is.

 

[Chris Jenkins]

Sometimes you just have to use common sense.

 

[Kennett Ylitalo]

Well in that case we could go and call Rosberg a champion because he have been out performing his team mate two seasons in a row because Schumi has such big F1 career behind him and there for should simply be faster then Rosberg...
I am sorry but I don't find your argument right because it could be used in so many ways to make one driver with a lot of history behind him seem better or worse compare to someone who lacks history.

Plus I would like to add that Kimi started racing in F1 a different year, the tightness in the grid, consistancy and so many other things were different back then compare to when Alguesuari was racing so they can't be compared based on media impresion, they need to be based by driving neither the same car or in the same year with cars that are quite competitive to fight each other.

I didn't think of the rest of Kimis career, just the years before F1 and his first season (second don't count as he was given a top-team seat..). Of course one has to think of the teams they were in: Sauber circa 2001 and Toro Rosso circa 2009-11 are pretty much comparable in terms of speed vs top teams therefore chances they both had were similar enough to draw comparisons.. As much as i like Jaime, stats are not on his side. Most likely he got the seat too early. But he's young and can rise back to F1.

If we wait for drivers to be on the same team and not have in-team politics meddling, we would never get to compare anyone... If we compare Jaime and Romain, there's a real conundrum if we just look at stats But with Kimi and Jaime, there really is just one conclusion.

 

[ufunacaoenn]

Common sense is defined by Merriam-Webster as, "sound and prudent judgment based on a simple perception of the situation or facts." Thus, "common sense" (in this view) equates to the knowledge and experience which most people already have, or which the person using the term believes that they do or should have.

Often ideas that may be considered to be true by common sense are in fact false.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_sense

Neber the less, common sense won't tell me if Vettel is better or worse then Hamilton, Burron, Alonso, Schumi or Raikkonen. Plus it should be common sense that RBR would have once again the fastest car in the grid if we look on their 2011 performance. I could twist the term a bit more and say that RBR should be unstoppable with their 2010 and 2011 performance.

Sorry I am not trying to be mean in any ways but I want accurate facts that say that "indeed Raikkonen is better then Alguasuari". Based on none accurate facts people can draw endless amount of conclusions depending how they want to use that as their argument and we all would end up disagreeing. Kind of what common sense is.

Edit: I agree that this is the only way to compare drivers but to put a driver in the box with all the other none good drivers is kind of wrong because Alguesuari have shown improvement from year to year while Raikkonen showed talent from year one. We all aren't going to be good at something on our first try. Alguesuaris performance last year wasn't that bad at all so for him to get a Lotus seat means something in the first place.