Fletch, Rod's assertion that Schumacher asked Gordon to come to F1 is something I'll have to look into (at least, I don't
think I've heard it before), but the esteemed gentlemen before me are correct: Jeff was very, very impressive in the Williams. One of several men in NASCAR who I feel could quite easily have given F1 a hell of a good run under different circumstances.
fletcher21 wrote:I have a few friends in the UK, and they think the US is a joke when it comes to F1. Indy would have been perfect to continue on the F1 tradition, but money always ruins good things. I think the US needs a GOOD F1 driver for anyone here to really care too much. Jeff Gordon really turned a lot of people on to neck car with his good looks and driving style. We need the next Hamilton to be an American.
One last thing. Why did they pick Austin of all areas? Why not a track that is already made, such as Road America or Road Atlanta?
Because there isn't a track in the USA, Indianapolis excepted, with the infrastructure to host Formula One races, and because there aren't many more that reach the FIA's required safety standards. I don't know about Road Atlanta, though I suspect it would fall short, but Road America would need an awful lot doing to it. Same deal at the Glen, or at Laguna (have a look at how much run-off there is at the Corkscrew. There isn't very much) or pretty much any other fabulous American track you could name. Getting F1 to go to any of them, then watching the changes that would need to be made..."be careful what you wish for" is the phrase that comes to mind.
Further to that, you can bet the house that when Bernie's thinking up his next ideal F1 venue, he isn't thinking of a track just outside a little village in Wisconsin.
When you talk about the UK, you talk about a country whose total landmass isn't that much greater than, for example, that of Florida. I could quite easily drive down the entire country in a day, and across it in far less time even than that. We don't have massive domestic series like NASCAR or the IndyCar Series - our biggest is probably the BTCC, but its drivers are known better for a few brief appearances on Top Gear (and Tom Chilton's recent appearance on a dating show. I sh*t you not) than for anything they've ever done on a racetrack. You don't see Jason Plato or Matt Neal during a commercial break like you might see Joey Logano advertising Home Depot or Jimmie Johnson with a smattering of Lowe's employees.
It's alright for people here to view the USA as a joke in F1 terms, and the USF1 saga won't have done very much at all to shift that view, but the truth of the matter is that we're approaching F1 from two completely different angles. Without it, British racing would exclusively be the domain of the enthusiast. America already has plenty of its own high-performance, big money racing to attract the casuals - there's no pressing need to have F1 established there, and you could just as easily argue that there's no obvious place for it either.
No question in my mind Alonso will finish ahead of his teammate for a Ferrari 1-2 at Monza and Jenson and Lewis will finish 23rd and 24th in tomorrows race.
I never understood why anyone had any distain for Schumacher. As far as I knew, he was the Jack Nicklaus of F1. Polite. Professional. Top of the game. These old videos with Murray are just GREAT!!
