Apologies for the delayed reaction here, but been rather busy slogging away at uni work. Aplogies too if it's a bit of a rambling rant with no structure - I'm still short on time. Anyway...
Williams have signed Bruno Senna. If you were on Twitter on Tuesday, you'd think that this was some kind of disaster. People appear to be under the impression that Senna is some kind of 'pay driver'. What a load of rubbish.
They're looking at his F1 record so far of just two points from 26 starts and jumping to the conclusion that he's no good, and that he doesn't deserve a seat on the F1 grid.
However, anyone judging him by his record so far is a fool. It's very difficult to gauge a driver's ability when they're driving a car as bad as the 2010 HRT. There is the argument that a good driver can drive around a good car. Hamilton and Alonso have both proven this in the past. I'm not trying to argue that Senna is on the same level as Hamilton or Alonso. Doesn't automatically make him a so-called 'pay driver' though.
People are judging him even more upon his half season with Renault in 2011. Despite the fact that it is widely acknowledged that in this day and age, where testing is so non-existant, that jumping into a car mid-season is very difficult. Considering this, I feel he did a very respectable job. He may have been outscored by Petrov in the races, but outqualified him five times out of the eight races. Whatever you think of Petrov, that's not too shabby at all.
So, we've clarified that Senna cannot be judged upon his F1 career to date. Now let's look at his pre-F1 career.
Bruno made his first steps in car racing with six races in Formula BMW UK in 2004. Despite little experience, he then jumped up to British F3 and finished a highly respectable tenth with three podiums and one pole position. He remained in the series in 2006, and finished third in the final standings with five wins.
2007 saw him make another big jump, this time to GP2. He finished a superb eighth overall, as the second best rookie. He remained in the category for a second season in 2008, and finished runner-up. He was just 12 points behind champion Giorgio Pantano, a former F1 driver and a veteran at that level of racing.
Senna's junior formula career stacks up very well, and demonstrates that he does have good potential. Potential that he has most certainly not had the chance to prove yet in F1. Bear in mind also, that after starting out in karting his career came to a halt after his uncle's death, and didn't resume again until he did Formula BMW. That's a significant chunk of his career that he simply missed, at a critical age.
I'm not suggesting that Bruno Senna is going to be anywhere near his uncle, or the top drivers of today. However, I do genuinely believe that he can be every bit the driver that Rubens Barrichello ever was - a driver who can win Grands Prix when they have the quickest car.
Now please, give him a chance.
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Now for some more overreacting by some. According to them, Williams' decision to take on 'pay-driver' Senna alongside 'pay-driver' Maldonado is the first step on the way to Williams just disappearing altogether. One blogger suggested Williams won't make it to 2013.
No idea where they get this from. If Senna turns out to be terrible, and Maldonado shows no improvement, this will have absolutely no impact on their finances in the immediate future. They will make it to 2013. However, I cannot see the Williams team completely ceasing to be.
Williams' problem is its ownership. I don't want to have a go at Sir Frank, or anyone else at the team. However, the ownership simply does not have the cash that the other privately-run teams do.
They've been spending a lot of time hunting around Qatar for some investment, and I think this is where the team's future lies. They need to completely sell out to someone from the Middle East. Simple as.
This isn't some far fetched dream. This can quite easily happen. Football has seen a number of wealthy Middle Eastern owners come in and turn team's around. F1 has had a Middle-Eastern influence for some years now with Grands Prix in Bahrain and Abu Dhabi, and although McLaren have shareholders from Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, and Mercedes' buyout of Brawn was done together with investment from the UAE, we are still yet to see an F1 team fully-owned by someone from the region.
Williams are bound to need a change of ownership in the near future. Sir Frank reaches 70 in April, and the time will come at some point where he will no longer be able to run the team. Selling out to a Middle Eastern investor makes so much sense, for the good of the team.
They won't need to change the team name. They can offer Adrian Newey twice as much money as any non-driving staff have ever been paid before to get him to return to the team. He'll be bored of winning all the time at Red Bull by then anyway and will want a new challenge - what better a challenge than to get Williams back to the front? He can be given whatever resources he needs to get the job done.
Similarly large sums of money can be thrown at an experienced driver from the top teams, a Button or a Webber, to lead their attack. They can also invest lots of money in a driver development program, to ensure they get the pick of the young talent coming up. Before you know it, Williams will be world champions again.
Perhaps.
Senna has thus far only had the chance to prove that he is capable - which he's done, to my mind. I think this is his chance to prove that he is consistently capable, but not much more - unless the 2012 Williams is a revelation.
ReplyDeleteI think a lot of the overreaction comes from people failing to appreciate - or admit - that Williams isn't a terribly attractive team at the moment. Senna and Williams seem like a sensible match, to me.
And at least Senna is a relatively unknown quantity: he might turn out to be a future champion; we know Barrichello isn't.