Thought you still needed one just to drive during an F1 weekend? Otherwise, any old crap could turn up and drive for enough £m's on a Friday. edit: Yeah, both Kyvatt & Verstappen had to have superlicences granted before they did FP1's with Torro Rosso. Powell has no chance looking at the criteria.
Merhi did FP1 with Caterham at Monza and didn't have one, though, the whole point was he was doing free practices to get the testing mileage, I thought. Hmm. I mean, Channock Nissany got one...
let's not get started about who should never had been given a superlicence!! That's a whole new thread
I can't imagine it would have made it as far as the BBC if the idea was a non-starter. I mean Andrew Benson is obviously the last word in journalistic integrity. Her results aren't spectacular, but they're comparable to Susie Wolff's. Powell was both the youngest female competitor and youngest female race winner in British F3, and held her own against her team-mates (Damon Hill's son interestingly). I doubt she'd ever be under consideration if it wasn't for Caterham's desperate situation, but there we go. If Marcus Ericsson has terminated his contract, if Caterham were to make it then their line-up would be very interesting! Presumably Kobayashi has told them where to stick it too? They'd have to be using two pay drivers who've already got superlicences, and I'm struggling to name any really.
Jolyon Palmer? If they get there, it could be Win-Win for him. Do a great job in a dog of a car, then it could be a case of "The boys got talent.." Do not so great, then it could be a case of "Well, it is a dog of a car..."
Think I'm going to skip voting on this one... Can't win anyway, so it's not worth the potential jinx.
There's an obvious media appeal to this story from the combination of female driver + comes from Chipping Norton + "Has the backing of the Prime Minister". I first saw it in the Daily Mail; funny that. Oh, and there's also some stuff about a supposed crisis in F1 and crowdsourcing from a desperate team going bankrupt but that's probably less important Certainly less important than Jack 'n' Geri getting hitched. I'll be very surprised if she makes it onto the track at Abu Dhabi. She might have more luck asking her neighbour Clarkson for a job as The Stig.
I noticed last night as well that Caterham are screwed by the Sporting Regulations too. A team is only allowed 4 race-day drivers per season, so unless they kiss and make up with Kobayashi, or can coax Lotterer back, they can only run one car. Jolyon Palmer doesn't have a superlicense, does he?
Looks more likely, Lotterer has turned down their offer: http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/116796
Is the 4 drivers in a season rule still in place? If so that confirms Kobayashi, since they won't be running Lotterer or Ericsson.
So quiet on here, to say it is the last race of the season and a title decider and the only two drivers in contention are team-mates who were previously best mates and there has been a lot of trash talking this season already and there are double points. Very quiet indeed. I guess this will be a 100 pager thread once the race is over haha.
Think I've been turned off to the season closer a bit because of some of the attitudes from some people in the sport recently. Think I'll just be happy when it's over tbh.
I get you, I really hope next season is a change for the better. Some legitimacy in the sport would be welcome.
