What an awful car that was! please log in to view this image So many orange logos, it's like they were proud to put their name on it Never knew Red Bull sponsored them though!
Didn't know that. I love finding things like this out: had he not suffered mechanical problems in Formula 3000, he would have beaten both Webber and Alonso in that year's championship. He was set to get a seat at Sauber in 2001 only for Peter Sauber to choose the (then unknown) Kimi Raikkonen, which led to Red Bull pulling their sponsorship of Sauber and instead offering it, along with Bernoldi, to Arrows. Kind of makes you wonder what might have happened if things had been different really.
I think Tom's observation is very apt, Bando. Now, I am not going to explore the pros and cons of Bernoldi â nor indeed of Webber, Alonso or Räikkönen; but I would like to expand upon the point that he makes (whether deliberate or not). 'Luck' (of one sort or another, and called by any other name) is a huge factor in determining the success of a race driver. This can of course, be extrapolated to motor racing in general; just as it can be extended beyond motor racing to all walks of life. In this sense, it can be unfair to form a strong opinion of the merits of one driver over another. Of course, there are plenty of exceptions and it is probably true to say that F1 tends to attract about 75% of the world's top drivers at any one time. However, even this estimate is nothing more than an ill-educated guess; and for every driver who makes it (by whatever means) there are about 10 who might have stepped straight into those very same shoes, if the circumstances had been only the tiniest bit different. Having said that, I will now make an apparent contradiction in claiming that today's F1 grid is of a quality as good as â or better than â witnessed in any previous era, although even in the present, this does not preclude exceptions at both ends of the scale; it just makes them less likely. I say this because I believe the sifting process is far more scientific than long ago, thus reducing the chance of low quality and increasing the chance of high quality.
So true, I have a friend who has been British champion in 5 different classes who entered a Williams F1 karting competition, the prize of which was a test for Williams. He won his heats and semi finals, in the final he got himself into the lead and controlled the race from start to finish, winning it fairly comfortably, did he get the test prize? no. They gave it to the guy who span at the start and ended up 2nd.
