Who will be the likeliest candidates for the 5-year program that Danny Sullivan and Red Bull are starting to get Americans into F1?
If they have the money and it would take a huge pile of money, Tony Stewart. He has open wheel expierence and the ego to win at F1.
It all Depends on the money that the sponsers pay the drivers. Take away the top five drivers in F1 and how much do they make?
Basically Minardi wanted to have Bryan Herta for the Monza and Indianapolis GP, but pressure of the Malaysian sponsor forced them to give the cockpit back to permanently last ranked Alex Yoong.
There is no question that the popularity of NASCAR has had harmful effects on the quality of American drivers. It is by far the most lucrative form of racing in the USA and requires the least skills. If there was no Nascar, it is possible that Jeff Gordon would have eventually ended up in F1. He's the only American driver that has impressed me in years. Stewart doesn't. I had higher hopes for Michael Andretti, but he never panned out, especially in F1. Not that he hasn't had a good career.
He's under contract (Panther) for next year. So is Danica Patrick (Rahal). Those are the two I would have chosen off the bat.
No. However, the travel schedules are roughly the same in terms of intensity. A race every two weeks across the globe is at least as rough as one every week across America. If not rougher. NASCAR and the IRL are mainly purse-driven in terms of paydays. F-1 and CART are mostly sponsor and team in terms of salary.
The europeans thinks that the next American F-1 driver will be Richard Antucci. He is currently racing in the British F-3 series. He is only 21 years old. http://www.autosport.com/driverprofile1.asp?id=11128&s=11
I can't think of an IRL driver who is F1 material. CART is a less unlikely source but I can't think of any Americans in that series who would want to go over unless they were in a competitive car (ie. - Ferrari or maybe a Williams or McLaren if they don't mind constantly finishing behind whichever Ferrari also finish the race). It wouldn't be worth it for a competitive CARt driver to slosh around in some also-ran nowhere team. I agree with E-Goat that the next American F1 will almost certainly be someone we haven't heard of yet who starts in the British F3 ranks.
My top two choices currently (racing in the US) are Sam Hornish and Tony Stewart. I can't speak for anyone racing in lower European circles since I have no idea who they are. But Hornish and Stewart are the top two youngish Americans in the US. And I'd put Stewart first. Personality problems aside (and I'm not sure how 'bad' he really is), Stewart has the driving skills to do it. Thing is, who really wants to race over there in a crap car? And what are the odds an American gets a ride in a good car? That's the problem with F-1. Too uncompetitive to be entertaining. I'll be at my 3rd US GP here in Indy later this month, but, well, how exciting do you guys really think the race will be? It's likely to be the least interesting of the 3 so far, and with ticket sales down again, odds are sales will be down even more next year. Simply because it's not very good racing. Great cars, great technology, great drivers, but terrible racing. That's hard to sell in the US.
The kid I mentioned is also Eddie Cheever's nephew. He has been racing very well in Europe for a few years. The problem with American drivers is that they started racing late. Most people don't know that the top race drivers actually started early. I looked at the profile of several top CART/IRL drivers. They did not start racing until after they were in college. The European drivers started racing Go-Kart when they were 12 or 13 years old. The Schumacher brothers started around 5 or 6 years old.
Actually, that's not really true anymore. Lots of American CART drivers have come from the kiddie karting ranks (Scott Pruett springs to mind). Of course, guys like Michael Andretti and Little Al didn't need such an early start. The real problem with producing an American F1 calibre-driver is that the money over here is not in road racing but in oval racing and drag racing. So your typical teen whose family has enough $$$ to let him pursue a racing career is much more like to try midgets or modified than road racing karts or Formula Fords. The CART/IRL split simply increased this tendency and now a prospective Indy 500 driver doesn't have to learn how to turn right at all if he or she doesn't want to.
I think another thing that is hard to sell is the lack of access to the drivers. You can buy pit passes and meet drivers at just about every other form of motorsport EXCEPT F-1. Now, I heard an interview with a NASCAR driver on RPM2night a couple of days ago, saying that today's level of fan access is distracting (see: Jeff Gordon before qualifying). I hope NASCAR doesn't make its stars into recluses.
If your surname is Unser or Andretti, you will be racing Go-Kart when other kids are playing Little League Baseball.
This was also brought up in this past weekend's race up in New Hampshire (I think it was NH..that one that kept getting rain delays) and one of the announcers was saying that NASCAR would look into restricted access to drivers in the future.
And yet, it was exactly the approachablity of the drivers to the fans that was absolutely instrumental to making NASCAR what it is today. If NASCAR drivers start resembling baseball players, it might hurt the sport more than they realize.
Driving around in circles for 3 hours would be difficult to sell in other countries but thats what people are used to so thats what they want. I'll be half way up the North-West vista next weekend and it should be fairly exciting to see who brakes last going into turn 1 each lap.
But at least, there are overtaking in the ovals. It 's hard to say F-1 is more exciting when the only overtakings are in the first lap or in the pit. Then when you switched to CART, they almost traded lead every single turn. I once read Andretti and Montoya trades leads liked 60 times in a single race. They ended in a photo-finish. It happened once back in F-1 when Arnoux and Villeneuve fought for second at the 1979 French GP. And I am speaking of a F-1 fan who followed F-1 since 1977. I had seen on TV once CART race in my life.... the 2002 Indy 500!!!!!!!
Sarah Fisher will at least drive some laps in a McLaren-Mercedes in Indianapolis, maybe she can impress some - though women of course have it difficult to find entry in F1 (last was Giovanna Amati in 1992). Fisher is the first woman ever driving in a McLaren. An article plus pic on Fisher/McLaren in German: http://www.sport1.de/coremedia/gene...rund/f1_20mclaren_20frauen_20power_20mel.html
In English there is a small blurb on the McLaren site. http://www.mclaren.co.uk Found the direct link. http://www.mclaren.com/pressroom1/pressreleases/sarahfisher.htm Cool good for her.