planetf1.com

I would like to hear what other people think of him. I believe he has great potential and in a couple of years he will be one of the top drivers.

Hopefully will replace that turtle called Bruno Senna.

Yeah, I do believe there is a chance that he will be driving races already this season.

Hard to say really. He hasn't been spectacular like Hamilton or Hulkenberg etc. in the minor series, but was impressive last year kind of pulling his head back to the surface. Winning a GP3 championship alone is nothing to write home about but he showed good pace in Macau F3 GP even when missing practice sessions and has been rather handy in the F1 tests so far.

If Senna keeps sucking he might very well have a shot.

What I think was really impressive about the GP3 win, was the fact that they had a very bad start of the season and still managed to win in the end. It seems that Williams values him highly and their test drivers usually end up in a race seat (Rosberg, Hulkenberg).

I've never really been that impressed to be honest. He didn't look particularly special in a dwindling F3 Euroseries field and he was one of the most experienced drivers in GP3 - a lot of the field were teenagers who hadn't raced anything at that sort of level before. That said, Williams must see something to have kept him on for so long, so who knows. He might get an F1 shot at some point but I don't see him building a lasting career there beyond a few years.

On paper I suppose Senna might be looking under threat, but does Bottas have the sponsorship that Williams would need to consider replacing him?

Maybe in a situation where both drivers are clearly underperforming the car and Willliams feels that they are falling behind other teams with a lot slower cars. But I'm finnish and I like dreaming about the situation where we would have three drivers on the grid again

I know it was only practice 1 and he might have run a dfferent programme to Maldonaldo but he finished P1 ahead of Pastor on the time sheets and yet in P2 Maldonaldo was quicker than Senna. It would be a bit weird if Williams give Bottas a race during the year, they have two drivers bringing in the budget. Then again it's F1, I still think that Bruno Senna needs to deliver...

When did we ever have three Finns on the grid?

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keeps sucking?? ITS BEEN ONE RACE!!!!

After some wiki research I found in the final two rounds of the 1994 season Mika Hakkinen, Mika Salo, and JJ Lehto were all on the grid together. It may have happened another time as well but I'm not sure. Anyways, I hope Bottas gets a seat. He's proven he has pace in testing compared to the cash crashers.

Yep, that was the only time Finland had three drivers at the same time in F1. It could have happened again in 2001, but Salo had one year off developing Toyota and when he returned Hakkinen retired. I'm hoping that it could happen again next year, if not at some point this season.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994_Formu ... on#Drivers

/\ This, espically as his car was hit in the air on lap 1.

Bottas will have a race seat next year

I have followed his progress last couple of years.
He has showed he is a racer so he should be up for a seat. It is also good that Williams lets him test on fridays all 2012.

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Minds are like parachutes, they work best when they are open

Valtteris pace looking very promising in China

At the moment we have three drivers with Finnish nationality though

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Räikkönen - Vettel - Rosberg - Bottas

But Nico is missing the on-and-off-track flamboyancy of his father.

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Isn't Nico officially German? lived there most of his life or something.

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[[[[Mark Webber for the win in 2013 and beyond]]]
[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[http://www.octanic.com]]]]]]]]]]]]

Nico has a dual citizenship of Finland and Germany, but he's racing under German license in F1. I've heard he raced under Finnish license in lower formula series. I think he eventually chose the German license over Finnish for a number of reasons: despite having a Finnish father he's never lived in Finland nor does he speak Finnish, and also for sponsorship purposes because it's easier to get sponsorship backing and make your way to Formula 1 as a German driver than as a Finnish driver.

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Yup, nothing in his character that appeals to me sadly.

BTW, before the forum renewal I had my location written in the same way as you do now, did you borrow my idea or is it just a coincidence? I don't recognize your nick though!

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Räikkönen - Vettel - Rosberg - Bottas

He is quick, he will race next year, for sure...

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Minds are like parachutes, they work best when they are open

He's quicker than Maldonaldo but thats not too hard is it? I've heard mixed things about Bottas, I feel that Bruno is only there because of that famous surname, Nichols Prost never made it to F1 (results paid to that, maybe) Bruno did score good points last time out so he deserves credit. I reckon Bottas might get two races then for next year be palmed off some where else, this is until Williams get back on their feet. So we're see......

I can understand that Bottas would (could) have been on a different programme to Maldonaldo but he's done well.

It's a coincidence but I didn't even think I was the only one to have discovered that little wordplay.

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Coulthard..

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HAMMY AND ALONSO AND BIANCHI WHAT YA GOT?

and Montoya.

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As a Williams fan, Valtteri should replace Maldonado. Pastor is quick but makes oo many mistakes, Bruno is a better driver which was proved in Malaysia.

Maldonado brings around £45 million to the team, tbh they would be stupid to give that up. Personally, I don't like Maldonado and don't rate him; but he was good enough to win GP2 championship and brings the team good money. Also, he outperformed Barichello on a number of occasions last year!

I know it won't happen and Maldonado will stay. But if Williams impress this year and lots of new sponsors are found, we can get rid of Maldonado and bring in Bottas. Or someone else, maybe Kovalinen perhaps. Pastor beat Rubens SOMETIMES but that was when Rubens was getting old, not in his hayday. No one would e stupid enough to say Pastor is better than him.

As a Finn, I'd love to see Bottas/Kovalainen at Williams in 2013. But is that going to happen? Probably not.

I'd think Bottas is very likely to get a driver's spot at Williams next year unless some other driver brings in lots of sponsor money and/or the current drivers perform well enough and bring in enough money. His pace in Friday's FP has been good, so he's got things looking good for him.

I just hope Kovalainen would find a team in 2013, we'd have three Finns and four drivers with Finnish nationality on the grid.

He will have to keep impressing through the year. F1 has a short memory. Cataham drive perhaps?

Can we say now B.Senna and Maldonado are doing better than we could expect?

I think it's a bit unfair to Senna that Bottas will always get his car during the year...
Bruno always has to play catch up because he loses 1 session, and he and Bottas are completely opposite
on their setup preferences.

Could be why Bruno hasn't outqualified his teammate yet.

Gives me the image Bruno's only there this year and they are preparing Vallteri for the seat next year..

I think Bruno needs all the time he can get. He's the one that has to learn the team, the car...

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-Ayrton Senna fan-

2013 follower of :

Fernando Alonso

Depends how could you think the car is. For all we know it could be as good as the Mclaren or Red Bull and the drivers are letting it down. Alternatively it could be as good as the Force India or Toro Rosso and the drivers are making the difference. Kind of hard to judge really with Senna and Maldanado. My guess would be that in race trim the car is similar in performance to the Lotus. In which case the drivers are doing a decent job and don't deserve to be replaced.

http://www.mtv3.fi/urheilu/f1/uutiset.s ... ylennyksen It's in finnish, but I quess that's why we have google translate.

Big fan. Been one for a few years. Emailed him a couple of times and is a lovely chap, if not a little rusty with the ol' English

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I also have one of these.

Now let's put Bottas in the other Williams car and let's see what happens!!!

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Räikkönen - Vettel - Rosberg - Bottas

Well maybe Williams should start replacing Maldonado rather than Senna every week as obviously Maldonado doesn't need the track time as much atm.

The problem for Senna at Barcelona was allot to do with missing the first practice session. This track required the car to have a good setup suited to each driver to enable the best possible results, especially getting the car to work for each driver regarding how the tyres behaved and worn at this track.

Senna missing this practice session surely had a massive effect on his weekend as you could see how much he was struggling with the balance of the car, especially massive amounts of understeer, even the top teams struggled to get the balance right and drivers suffered as a result during the race.

Missing this practice session is just not benefiting Williams at all unless Bottas was giving the race seat to drive in all the sessions. As it is them putting Bottas in place of their full seat driver for the first session is costing them potentially even better results from Senna.

With Pastor now getting the win it's vital Williams get as many posts as possible to help them in the constructers table, they have to fully support Senna and let him race in the first practice session or drop him and put Bottas in as the situation is not helping them or Senna at all (And at a track like Monaco more track time is vital, again like at Barcelona)

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RSR Racing