"Rossi Shines in F1 Test"

Originally Posted by Peter Henry

Good point Jordan.

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[Supervox]

Even so, in his first 'mass' test he rates 9th out of 15 drivers - even if most pf the others are test drivers & not full blown racers (does anyone know who was at the test ??) that's still pretty good going in my opinion !!

No it's phenominal - he's going to be an F1 star, you mark my words .


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Jonboy wrote:

No it's phenominal - he's going to be an F1 star, you mark my words .

In a sport where personality is severely lacking I have no doubt that he will be a star. Whether he will be a winner is a completely different mater.

As with all tests it's very hard to gauge an accurate image of comparable of times as you don't know what fuel load, setup all the drivers are using.

[Supervox]

Just found this on the Newsgroup at work :-

01 F. Alonso Renault 1:11.219 52 laps
02 J. Button Honda 1:11.327 89 laps
03 M. Schumacher Ferrari 1:11.831 72 laps
04 JP. Montoya McLaren 1:11.998 68 laps
05 R. Barrichello Honda 1:12.062 112 laps
06 H. Kovalainen Renault 1:12.113 29 laps
07 J. Villeneuve BMW 1:12.619 78 laps
08 R. Zonta Toyota 1:12.660 88 laps
09 V. Rossi Ferrari 1:12.856 52 laps
10 D. Coulthard Red Bull 1:12.930 36 laps
11 A. Wurz Williams 1:12.925 82 laps
12 G. Paffett McLaren 1:12.937 116 laps
13 M. Webber Williams 1:13.050 67 laps
14 J. Trulli Toyota 1:13.076 105 laps
15 R. Kubica BMW 1:13.332 65 laps

The same source gives Vale driving a 2004 spec car with detuned V10 engine.

[Balky001]

As mentioned earlier, the F1 guys are pretty shrewd. The fact that MotoGP has a growing following , which I'm sure Rossi contributes to considerably, and could bring all sorts of sponsorship opportunities to F1 won't be lost on them.

I'm sure Rossi is capable of racing an F1 car at a high level and he seems faster than your average debutante. His ability to set up a bike wont be totally transferable to an F1 car but he appears to understand the technical side and give decent feedback so I'm sure he's not going to suffer for long there. Plus the teams seem to be more involved in setting up the car from the telemetry. But how many wheels will be left on the car when he goes for inside of the final corner - elbows out and rubbing paintwork on a bike might work but those cars are very delicate!

[northwind]

I think Rossi'll be less of a hot property after the sponsorship problems he's had this year... One fo the reasons he was so in demand was that everyone assumed he'd bring loads of high value sponsors with him, but that ended up not being the case.

[Balky001]

Originally Posted by northwind

I think Rossi'll be less of a hot property after the sponsorship problems he's had this year... One fo the reasons he was so in demand was that everyone assumed he'd bring loads of high value sponsors with him, but that ended up not being the case.

Personal sponsors maybe, for if F1 gets a big injection of new viewers, F1 may become more popular with the adverisers as a whole

[fizzwheel]

Originally Posted by Supervox

Just found this on the Newsgroup at work :-

01 F. Alonso Renault 1:11.219 52 laps
02 J. Button Honda 1:11.327 89 laps
03 M. Schumacher Ferrari 1:11.831 72 laps
04 JP. Montoya McLaren 1:11.998 68 laps
05 R. Barrichello Honda 1:12.062 112 laps
06 H. Kovalainen Renault 1:12.113 29 laps
07 J. Villeneuve BMW 1:12.619 78 laps
08 R. Zonta Toyota 1:12.660 88 laps
09 V. Rossi Ferrari 1:12.856 52 laps
10 D. Coulthard Red Bull 1:12.930 36 laps
11 A. Wurz Williams 1:12.925 82 laps
12 G. Paffett McLaren 1:12.937 116 laps
13 M. Webber Williams 1:13.050 67 laps
14 J. Trulli Toyota 1:13.076 105 laps
15 R. Kubica BMW 1:13.332 65 laps

The same source gives Vale driving a 2004 spec car with detuned V10 engine.

Detuned V10's are allowable this year under the regulations. This was supposed to make it easier for the smaller teams as they could run last years engine and save money.

There was talk in Autosport of Mclaren doing this as their V8 isnt reliable at the moment. I dont think it keeps the power in the engine.

As an aside big up Jenson Button, that lap time has got to be promising for this year.

Ah well if Rossi does go to F1, that'll mean motogp drops in popularity so hopefully it wont take as long to get out of donnington once / if hes gone to F1