Hello readers of Formula1blog.com and welcome to my first article in place of Frantic! Let me explain. I am Enzo, his Hamster, and I have had to fill in for him because, well, not only can he not bring himself to writing anything positive about Massa’s replacement, but the poor guy is also in the corner, in a box, refusing to come out of it until Badoer is replaced.
So it is up to me to write something and after all the negativity it’s up to me to look on the brighter side. As Bill Bailey once said:
“-Are you an optimist?
-I hope so…” Well, that’s me. Thanks to Frantic and his mutterings I know a decent deal about this F1 lark. My favourite driver is Montoya not because of his skills but because he can store food as well as I can. Not bad, for a human. Now as I’m the glass-half-full kinda animal, it’s time to look at the good things about Luca Badoer’s debut.
Keeping Luca could reduce drivers super Licence fee.
Think about it, with all the speeding fines he clocks up the extra money the FIA is getting means they really don’t have a reason to bump up the super licence fee with all this extra cash coming in! Ok, so maybe Luca’s bank will take a kicking, but I’m sure that Schumi guy that would help out. After all, it’s his neck that put Luca where he is now.
Luca will help ease up Sutil’s paranoia.
Its not just Kimi who will smash into him now, both Ferraris will hit him! For those who are confused, what you didn’t see on TV at the end of Valencia was Luca gently going into the back of Sutil’s Force India in parc ferme. Enough to damage the rear crash structure on the Force India, at any rate. Now Sutil knows it’s not just Kimi that will crash into him – both Ferrari’s will. At least now Sutil knows it’s a Ferrari thing not a Kimi thing…
Luca made the other drivers look good, and friendly.
Whilst the rest of the world was screaming “get him out the car now”, even after the Friday sessions, the other F1 drivers actually came out in support of Luca, saying he needed time, and it was a tough deal he had what with the lack of testing and all. Of course, they were also saying this thinking “thank God Schumi isn’t in that car”, but they are not going to tell you that bit. On a driver theme he has managed to try and kick start F1’s 2009 driver casualties with the sacked Le Seb and even some people saying that Piquet Jr should get a chance at the drive, as they would be better having 2009 race experience. As a Hamster, this seems like daft logic to me. Get sacked for failing to perform and land a Ferrari drive instead does not seem to promote the idea that F1 is a hard environment and drives are tough to get. Still, next thing you know Villeneuve will be hanging around the paddock trying to get a drive. Oh, wait…
Massa does not have to worry about his drive one bit.
As far as the driver market goes, Massa does not have to loose sleep at night thinking about “what if they want to replace me next year with Luca?” In fact, I bet Ferrari are wanting Felipe back more than when Schumi took on the barriers at Silverstone in 99. And lost. Other bonus includes the fact that if Massa makes a comeback this season he wont have to worry about his engines being over stretched. The v8 will have been so not pushed to its limits that it might last the next 6 races. Something that Vettel guy could do with, I hear.
Michael Jackson’s debt collectors can make a bit of extra cash.
These days royalties are everything, so it would be really fitting if Luca could come into the next race with Michael’s “Bad” blasting over the tannoy. After all, its not as if every tabloid out there has used the headline “BADoer” every chance they can, it makes a nice change from “LEWser” headlines we see every time Hamilton has a bad race. But this way the F1 world can pay homage to the king of pop. It could be worse though, as many mistakes as Luca made at Valencia, at least he kept it off the wall…
Kimi is No.1
After a tough two and a half seasons where Massa just didn’t play the roll of a Barrichello and kept winning and outscoring him, Kimi is now numero uno in the team. Ok, so the team have slowed development of the F60 down so much that Luca might just keep up with the car, at least, but now Kimi can pull the card of “if you want points you’re gonna have to get behind me”.
So there you have it. Thats really all I can think of now. I’ve looked at the bright side of it and we will just have to see if Luca can perform better like he says he will. Some say that its Ferrari’s way of paying him back for his loyalty to the team. I myself, however, would argue that Ferrari have been loyal to him keeping him on the pay sheet when his services have not been needed for 10 months anyway. It has not helped the poor guy with the testing ban but that’s an argument for another time and, to be honest, I need to do a few miles in my wheel now to keep fit – just in case I get the call-up from the Ferrari guys. After all, people say F1 is just cars going in circles, so come to me, I do miles in the same spot! I will finish on this though: whilst it is argued that this drive was given to Luca out of loyalty, maybe it would be better to show some of that loyalty to the Ferrari fans who have had to put up with so much rubbish this season including a worse start to a season since the 80’s and more embarrassing decisions leaving a driver in the pits to tumble down the order in Q1. Maybe it’s time to stick someone in the car that can deliver. There are plenty of drivers out there, after all. But then what would I know? I’m just a hamster…
