Soldato
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Avoiding saying normal things just to be 'PC' is worse than just saying it. He clearly doesn't meant anything by it.
Marussia car crashed during testing
- Thread starter Gonzo0
- Start date
Avoiding saying normal things just to be 'PC' is worse than just saying it. He clearly doesn't meant anything by it.
Unaccomplished yes, inexperienced no. Apart from her lower formulae experience she tested a Renault for 300km last year.
Maria de Villota's racing CV:
2012 Test driver (Marussia F1)
2011 Test driver (Renault F1)
2009-2011 Superleague Formula
2009 Formula Palmer Audi
2009 Trofeo Abarth Europe
2008 Euroseries 3000
2008 Italian Superstars
2007 ADAC Procar - Division I
2007, 2010 Spanish GT Championship
2006-2007 WTCC
2005-2006 Ferrari Challenge Europe
2001-2005 Spanish Formula 3
Poor woman, great to see she's getting through it but it'll surely damage her career hopes in a big way
I cant see her racing again. I'm sure we need 2 eyes to judge speed and distance. I may be wrong I'm not a Dr.
I meant inexperienced in an F1 car. 300km in comparison to race drivers is a very minimal amount of driving and it was her first drive of the MR-01.
Sure, but it's straight line testing. Teenagers with less experience are given straight line tests...unless you think Marussia should have taken the $$$ and let her sit there doing nothing?
Possibly, although I know of one international professional footballer with only one eye. Dean Shiels, although he has been without it for most of his life
Man of Honour
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Just saw the latest news, very sad
The role of stereoscopic vision in judging speed and distance is usually overstated; the brain has a range of methods it employs. However, the most rapid is stereoscopic so it's presumably key for racing.
Associate
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Paul Drayson managed alright, although admittedly he's been without it for years.
Soldato
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Realistically I don't think she was ever going to make it into F1 properly, not at 32. I'm not really aware of any up and coming female drivers currently that would considered for F1 (Not that I profess to be super knowledgeable here). There's always been speculation about Danica Patrick, but she's getting on a bit now too. Shame really.
Not really, because de Villota's results in F3, WTCC, etc were incredibly sub-par - she was no Lella Lombardi or Michele Mouton, that's for sure. I've already said that though - Marussia simply hired her for sponsorship money, letting her drive in a straightline test is not unreasonable.
As for Danica Patrick - as I understand it, in IRL\Indycar she was poor at setting up the car for road courses and thus qualified low on the grid, making it more difficult to get a good result. Certainly wasn't due to crashes as she had a 2 year run of zero DNFs (and before that she was taken out by Matos).
To pick one example, Graham Rahal doesn't exactly have a stellar racing record (his latest goof was losing the lead at Texas with 2 laps to go by hitting the wall) but he's still driving for Chip Ganassi. Marco Andretti was (and still is) wasting a seat at Andretti Autosport. That's at least two teammates of Patrick's that were usually worse. Ryan Hunter-Reay was initially worse but improved and picked up multiple wins.
Simona de Silvestro seemed quick in Atlantics but signing with HVM for three years has put her at a disadvantage, especially with the Lotus engine fiasco this season. Ana Beatriz started winning in karts at the age of 8 but hasn't been so hot in Indycar (the spin in this year's Indy 500 was a real shame as a top 10 finish was on the cards).
There is also 3 women drivers in GP3, I'm guessing they are young being in GP3 but I'm not sure, so far none of them have scored any points but it's certainly possible they could improve in a another season or two before moving up class.
They're young but not very talented. Two of them (Piria and Jorda) are purely ride buyers that drive around at the back, and the other (Powell) is around midfield level. To give you an idea of how far off the pace they are, Mitch Evans is leading the GP3 championship with 76 points, Powell is 16th with 0 points (two 11th place finishes).
Unfortunately Frey and Wolff are on zero points so far (with a highest finish of 12th between them). Bearing in mind Paul di Resta had to spend 4 competitive seasons in DTM (despite beating Vettel to the F3 Euroseries title) to get anywhere near F1, so I don't hold any hope for those two women making it. Wolff's test driver duties are just for PR.
Until more females get into karting, I don't think we're going to see another Lella Lombardi anytime soon. The lady driver pool is too shallow right now.
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Desiré Wilson was the best female driver I saw, at least she won several top class events including the Silverstone 6 hours and Monza 1000k's with Alain DeCadenet in his custom built Group 6 car. She also won a round of the Aurora F1 championship, which I believe also had this girls dad in it and she pedals cars really well at the Goodwood Revival each year. Quickest female circuit racer of the lot in my book.
She didn't qualify for an F1 championship race so that puts her below Lombardi in my book. Still, it's more than 99.9% of women in racing managed, I'll give you that.