So Max Mosley has again said he will not run for president of the FIA, and Jean Todt will, and Mosley will support Todt. Okay. I believe it this time. The first time Mosley said he was quitting the presidency, a few years ago, I believed it. Turned out he wasn’t. So naturally, when he announced he was quitting last month, I didn’t really believe it, and I said so on this blog. I was right (the next day). But it looks as if this third time is the real one. Still, I cannot help feeling that I’m being naive. But I’ll just put that feeling behind the stronger one that Mosley may really stick to his word this time. What strengthens that thought is that Todt has announced he is running for the presidency, and Todt is not the kind to change his mind or to announce that kind of thing without being serious about it.
And Sébastien Bourdais? Can Toro Rosso really expect to put a completely inexperienced driver into its second seat alongside a very low experience driver - Sébastien Buemi - and come out with better results than with Bourdais? I’m doubtful. Nevertheless, here is what Franz Tost had to say:
“In Sebastien’s second year with us, the partnership has not met our expectations and therefore we have decided to replace him as from the next round of the World Championship, the Hungarian Grand Prix.”
While I have always been a Bourdais supporter, I did wonder on this blog - sorry for this second prediction stuff in the same post - some time around when Bourdais re-signed with the team if they might turn around and drop him in the summer as they did Scott Speed…. It is a very serious case of déjà vu, isn’t it?
Perhaps money is behing it, ultimately, combined with the fact that Bourdais did not deliver what was expected. I will always recall when Gerhard Berger announced in the Toro Rosso motor home in 2007 that Bourdais would join the team his reasoning for it. Berger spoke of Bourdais’ results in all the lower series, and particularly in Champ Car, and the point I remember particularly was how he said that it was very important to have a fast and experienced driver who would get perhaps just those couple of a tenths of a second more than his teammate that would make all the difference in qualifying.
Well, we know that more often than not those couple of tenths came from Bourdais’s teammates and not from him. Still, it can never be said that Bourdais did not, or does not, merit a place in Formula One. He proved he did. And I think he still does.
Comente