planetf1.com

http://www.pitpass.com/48394-berger-questions-driver-career-ladder
As metioned in the article the situation of pay to drive may not change as some teams may still opt to go for that route, so no point discussing that. But would a proper path to F1 for aspiring drivers bring up the cream? Does it make sense?

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A lot of the cream do make it, the fact that some have backers as well is a bonus for teams, lotus has just announced a junior drivers team where the selected drivers are funded, red bull have an academy as do Ferrari and McLaren did the same for Lewis so the talent that doesn't have huge backers still have a way into f1. If anything having one set path will just make it more expensive as pay drivers will buy all the seats in that feeder series and would make it even tougher to get in. Most pay drivers have proved successful in lower formula so most do deserve a chance in f1, if they prove successful enough in lower formulae

People are forgetting that drivers like Kobayashi, who didn't shine in GP2, made an instant impact in F1.

So you can't necessarily conclude that drivers will be slow in F1, just because they were slow in GP2, GP3 etc.

However you will get quick pay drivers (maldonado) and slow pay drivers.

We've yet to see a pay driver that is the complete package in F1. Petrov wasn't too shabby to be fair, he handled Heidfeld pretty well but Kubica hammered him (kubica was supreme it has to be said).

I think you should just leave the different feeder series as it is.

Vettel came from F3 I think,

I think the point is that some top up and coming drivers avoid racing against one another so its hard to know exactly which ones are the best, if you look directly below F1 its being fed by GP2 and FRenault 3.5, with F2 also trying to stick its nose in although i'm not sure how much credence that has with F1 teams.

There used to be a solid ladder with each country having its own junior categories, in Britain for instance it was FFord, FRenault then F3. The best drivers then progressing from F3 into Europe and F3000 to compete against the best F3 drivers from Germany, France and Italy, then hopefully whoever came out on top would get picked up by a F1 team.

So it was far better structured, having said that i believe far more young drivers are getting a chance in F1 than ever before, i believe there will be 5/6 rookies this season, there was a time when F1 was a bit of a closed shop with only 1/2 rookies getting in each season.

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Look at Raikkonen, he practically took place in no feeder series, but is regarded as one of the best of the last 10 years.

If bad drivers get into F1, they are usually out again if they are that bad. i say usually though...

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So Kamui has a contract for Ferrari in WEC? Kinda makes this bit a tad pointless..

A stat that I read recently surprised me: Hamilton is the first and only winner of the premier feeder series championship (F2, F3000 Or GP2) to win the F1 world championship. If all was well with feeder championships I would have thought this would have happened more than just once.

If you have good enough sponsorship/contacts you can bypass the feeder series, Vettel got beat by di Resta but he had the better sponsors and was fast tracked to F1 despite never winning a major series, di Resta who did win a major series got to F1 eventually.

I would say sponsors dictate who gets into F1 rather than results themselves, in Bergers scheme he would have to have a clause that says champions will get the backing to get to F1 then i could see some credence to it.

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Only 1 F3000 Champion even won a Formula One race. Montoya. None won the WDC though. Alonso did F3000 but didn't win the title, but he is the only F3000 driver who did a full season to go on and win the F1 WDC. Schumacher only did one F3000 race and that was in Japan. Only 3 GP2 drivers have won F1 races so far, Hamilton, Kovi and Rosberg. The latter two single time winners. Vettel did FR3.5 not GP2 of course. Button came straight from F3, Kimi from FRenault. Webber did F3000 as well but finished runner up in 2001 to future Jaguar team mate Justin Wilson.

Overall the odds of F3000/GP2 producing a WDC in F1 are slim looking at past history and it makes the fact F3 is in dire straights look even sadder considering the talent it has produced over the years.

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Whilst I do think Petrov wasn't that bad, Heidfeld was ahead 34-21 in points and 5-2 ahead when both finished in 2011, before being replaced by Bruno Senna. Amongst the drivers Senna, Petrov and Heidfeld, 5 of the teams best 7 finishes were recorded by Heidfeld.

Maldonado???

He joins Rosberg and Kovi!

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You're trying to make out Heidfeld was clearly better than Petrov which was clearly not the case, with some fudging of the stats to help, points was 34-32 in Heidfelds favour and he had best 5 out of 8 best results, these are the positives.

The negatives for Heidfeld was his qualifying where he was dominated 8-3 by Petrov, its safe to say that more often than not when Petrov retired he probably was running in front of Heidfeld, when Heidfeld retired he would have been running behind Petrov, so i'd go with the overall finishing position as being 6-5 in Heidfelds favour.

So overall it was quite even between the two, the problem for Heidfeld was he was the paid driver and expected to be that much better than Petrov who at that time wasn't that highly rated.

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The list of GP2 Champions is actually quite impressive:-

Rosberg - He's a F1 winner and got the better of Schumacher but he's never had a WDC capable car

Hamilton - WDC

Glock - Overall did pretty well, managed a podium, never got in a WDC capable car

Pantano - He didn't get promoted to F1

Hulkenburg - Managed a pole and should have won in what were midfield cars

Maldonado - GP winner

Grosjean - GP podiums and would have won if his car hadn't broke down

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GP2 has done better than F3000 although between both the only winners are Hamilton, Rosberg, Maldanado, Montoya, Alesi and Panis and only two of those achieved multiple wins in f1. The best drivers are often picked up well before that tier Button and Kimi being examples.

Let's look at the WDC since 1990...

Senna - Came straight from F3.
Mansell - Came straight from F3.
Prost - Came straight from F3.
Schumacher - Came straight from F3 with a dabble in Sportscars.
Hill - Did F3000 in a woeful team, didn't win a race. Took three poles though. (guess he slipped all our radars!)
Villenueve - IndyCar
Hakkinen - Came straight from F3.
Alonso - Came from F3000.
Raikkonen - Came from FRenault.
Hamilton - Came from GP2.
Button - Came straight from F3.
Vettel - Came from FR3.5.

So to me it seems like the cream of the talent do well in F3 rather than F3000/GP2. I don't know why but the stats are there. F3 is a better breeding ground for talent than F3000/GP2. Yet it is the one struggling these days. Shame.

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1994 1995 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004

Might be wrong but didn't Pantano drive for Jordan for a short period?

Yes he did when they were at the back of the grid just for one season i believe, but never got a second chance after winning the GP2 title, maybe his age had something to do with it, he was close to 30.

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I always thought it was nice to have some kind of promotion and relegation system. But I'm afraid that cannot work for drivers. It can work for teams however but I don't think such a thing would be easy to materialize. I really like having champs from GP2 or whatever provider series getting promoted to F1 but you cannot oblige any team to ditch one of their drivers if they are content with their current line-up.

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