This Year's Formula One Rookies: Some New, Some Slightly Used

This Year's Formula One Rookies: Some New, Some Slightly Used
By Stuart Sykes


That’s not the cars were talking about – it’s the quintet of drivers who will compete in the 2008 FORMULA 1™ ING Australian Grand Prix for the first time in mid-March.

The five Melbourne newcomers this year form a very mixed bunch indeed – not just because of their nationalities, ranging from Brazilian to French to German and Japanese, but also because of the diversity of their racing backgrounds.

Only two of them are new kids on the F1 block: one is Nelson Piquet, son of the three-time World Champion, while the other is one of the most experienced racers out there. That’s Sébastien Bourdais, who arrives in F1 at the ripe old age of 29 and via a rather round-about route. Since he and his 2008 team-mate at Scuderia Toro Rosso are both new to racing in Melbourne, let’s start with them.






If you believe in destiny, Bourdais was born to motor racing. That’s because he was born in Le Mans, home of the fabled 24-Hour endurance classic. By 10 Bourdais had his hands on his first kart; by 1995 he was in the nursery class called Formule Campus before graduating to Formula Renault and then taking out the French F3 title in 1999. His career path seemed all marked out when he was snapped up by former World Champion Alain Prost’s Junior GP Team.

The plan was to complete the apprenticeship in F3000 before making the final step up to F1, but we all know what happens to plans, don’t we? Prost’s career as a team principal was considerably shorter than his career in the cockpit, but when the French outfit folded Bourdais was picked up by the highly-regarded David Sears and his Supernova team and went on to claim the 2002 F3000 title.

With F1’s doors apparently closed, Bourdais headed west – across the Atlantic, that is, to join top-notch Champ Car outfit Newman-Haas. Pole position on his first outing established his credentials, as did three wins in that first year. But as the Americans like to say, you ain’t seen nuthin’ yet…

From 2004 to 2007 Sébastien Bourdais took four successive Champ Car titles, the first driver to take the title three times running and adding the fourth in a valedictory flourish last year when he knew the F1 door had opened at last. With 31 wins from 73 Champ Car starts, and after finishing second in a Peugeot in his home town’s 75th running of its 24-Hour race last year, Bourdais arrives in F1 at the ripe old age of 29, the first French driver to grace the Grand Prix scene since 2004.

The STR garage could cause us some confusion this year. Alongside Bourdais sits another Seb: Sebastian Vettel (no accent on the ‘e’, and an ‘a’ before the final ‘n’), who is making his second visit to Melbourne but will be racing here for the first time. Last year he was BMW Sauber’s ‘Man Friday’, the third driver, and also drove the F1 car in the Ultimate Speed Comparison.

German Seb, as opposed to French Seb, is just 20. At 19 years and 53 days, in Turkey in 2006, he was the youngest ever to take part in a Grand Prix weekend when he did the Friday job there, taking over from Robert Kubica when the Pole was promoted to replace Jacques Villeneuve. Seb was actually quickest that day – a little too quick, because just nine seconds into his F1 career he was pinged for speeding in pit lane on his way out on to the track!

The baby-faced Vettel, who worked his way up through Formula BMW and F3, got his Grand Prix start last year, again replacing Kubica after Robert’s spectacular crash in Canada. At 19 years and 349 days, at Indianapolis in the US GP, he became the youngest man ever to score a World Championship point when he finished seventh.
Vettel is notorious here for the accident with Mark Webber behind the Safety Car in Japan last year that possibly cost the Aussie his first Grand Prix victory and certainly provoked a ferocious verbal spray, but he made a more positive impression with a fine drive to fourth place in China next time out. With points already for two different F1 teams, he’s a Melbourne newcomer with a bit of form.

So is Toyota’s Timo Glock, who is actually making a comeback to the F1 ranks. Back in 2004 you would have seen his name on the time sheets for Friday practice here, albeit in 21st place, and later that year Timo made his full debut for his Jordan-Ford team when regular driver Giorgio Pantano fell behind on payments for the drive.

Like Vettel, Glock scored points on debut, finishing seventh for Jordan in Canada. When called up again for the final three races of the 2004 season he showed remarkable consistency – he finished 15th every time.
Like French Seb, Glock has also seen Champ Car action. In fact he was Rookie of the Year in that category in 2005, and also has Formula BMW and F3 experience under his belt, but it was GP2 that restored his reputation and led to Toyota’s call.

Fourth in the F1 feeder series in 2006, he won five races last year and weathered season-long storms to emerge as GP2 champion, where he keeps company with previous winners Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton.
“There are not so many guys who make their way back again in F1, which makes me quite happy,” says Glock, who turns 26 two days after the Melbourne race. “We worked pretty hard in the last couple of years to get the second chance. Even though I have not raced in Formula 1 since 2004, I have tested quite regularly so I expect it will take very little time for me to get back in the groove.

“I have been lucky enough to race and succeed in several different championships in my career but my goal has always been to become a full-time Formula 1 race driver. I believe my experience has made me stronger as a driver and as a person.”

As Toyota’s chassis specialist Pascal Vasselon points out, “What we get with Timo is the advantage of a young driver without the disadvantage of a lack of experience.”

Briefly, we profiled Williams newcomer Kazuki Nakajima, son of former F1 racer Satoru, in an earlier release (#2 in this series). Kazuki announced his own arrival in unfortunate fashion when he debuted in the final race of 2007 – and knocked over one of his crew at his first F1 pit stop.

But the 22-year-old comes to his first full year as GP2 Rookie of the Year. “That was a great way to end,” he says. “I’ve definitely learnt a lot from GP2: above all it’s allowed me to improve my race craft.”

Last but not least, Piquet, also 22 and also profiled earlier, moves up from Renault test and reserve driver to a race seat alongside Fernando Alonso. Runner-up to Hamilton in GP2 in 2006, he is – like his father – a former British F3 champion, a race-winner in A1 Grand Prix with Le Mans experience to boot. As we said, a quick and quirky quintet…

source: paddocktalk.com