Like every series, even a good driver has to have a top car to do well in any series. There are no ex-F1 drivers of note in Indycar, so their results aren't surprising. They didn't do squat in F1, either.

Alonso's first race showed what was possible, his second race showed how much the the car is worth. The Indy 500 is a bit of a crap shoot, anyway.

Vettel is supposed to be worth 120 million. I don't think he has much interest in any form of American racing. If there was anything happening in the WEC, I could see him trying that, but the big bucks have left that sport.

In other news Haas and their sponsor Rich Energy officially parts ways today . Not sure how much further they can fall before a major driver/team shake up . I hope they will stay in F1 and turn things around . They need a sponsor like Google or Microsoft and a US driver like Colton Herta to learn the ropes . Bring in Hulkenberg as a seasoned driver he can provide valuable chassis feedback .

Erm, the last thing F1 is about is running at full chat every lap.

Drivers suffer in traffic because the aero wash from the preceeding car causes the front to loose grip which wears on the tires. Future F1 specs seem to be creating a design that will minimize that effect which theoretically, will promote closer racing and more passing.

Haas was doing fine before Rich Energy.

Of course not. The current situation with their contrived tire wear does not allow for that. That wasn't my point. My point was that they have grown accustomed to pretty much driving alone, with no cars around them, in the manner in which they drive while qualifying. No fighting for position.

Of course. It's really a "chicken or the egg" sort of a question, though. The last couple of decades worth of F1 and junior formula cars have had these aero difficulties, designed in by very clever aerodynamicists to keep their opponents off of their tails and to disallow overtaking. As a result, generations of drivers have not been able to drive in that manner due to these aero difficulties, and have therefor not been made to learn to do so.

It is interesting to see what others, outside of the sport, have to say about all of this. Moto GP is currently embroiled in a good deal of controversy regarding aero. Some want to develop it, others want that they "do not want to become like F1". A lot of talk in that camp about how aero has ruined the racing in F1, and has likewise ruined the drivers' ability to race, skill wise. Others at that level of racing see it. The cars won't allow for it, so the drivers have not had to learn it.

Key word in your reply is " was " that was last year this year they stink . While Haas has $$$ not sure how long he's willing to foot the bills . They need a solid financial partner to help bring stability to the team . Then an evaluation of the entire team top to bottom . Make any needed changes and make another run at a successful season .

other than Juan Pablo Montoya, Nigel Mansell, Fernando Alonso, Mario Andretti and Dan Gurney you mean? ;)

j/k

Ferrari has had really good straight-line speed for a while now, but merc was beating them with downforce.

Spa and monza are both high-speed low-downforce tracks that play into ferrari's advantages and downplay their deficiencies.
It should be different in singapore where merc and red bull should re-gain the upper hand.

This seems to be a theme with all the drivers who come up in the RedBull program. They are blisteringly fast and very hard charging when the team is actively managing and building their confidence (both emotional and tactical), but as soon as they're alienated because Helmut Marko prefers someone else or they leave the team, they fall apart.

It is very easy to drive with panache when one is driving a dominating car. It's easy, likewise, to "fall apart" when one is driving lesser car. Driving a car that you know to be superior adds a level of confidence lacking in one's opponents in lesser cars. Success breeds success.

I will forever wonder how things would have shaped up had Vettel left Red Bull for Mercedes. Mercedes were less than competitive then, and everyone was shocked to see Hamilton leave the very successful, competitive McLaren for the also-ran Mercedes. He saw something (someone) there that enticed him to move. Had he waited, had he decided to stick it out at McLaren, his career would have taken a far different path.

I said earlier that the F1 pyramid has become too steep and pointy. The car makes far, far too much of a difference in the championship we all care about - the drivers' championship. It remains, however, first and foremost a constructors' championship, which will always be its clearest delineation from all of the spec racing seen elsewhere. As such, the car and the team will continue to decide the drivers' champion. Hamilton is just lucky, or was foresightful enough, to have landed in the right seat. It could have been Vettel, it could have been Alonso, it could have been Raikonen - any of them would have dominated in a similar fashion.

We're talking about current drivers in current cars.

JPM was successful here, not so much in F1. 10 wins here, 7 in F1. 8 seasons.
Nigel had one good year here. 5 wins in 1993, followed by 1994 which was a disaster.
Alonso hasn't finished an Indycar race, of the (one) he started.
Mario did great here, had some success in F1, but nothing like Vettel.
Gurney won four F1 races, did much better here.

If you look at each of those drivers, they should have had much more success but they were all saddled with driving a turd or two in their careers.

In case anyone missed the epic F3 crash @ Monza (Alex Peroni). I'd say chock up another save for the halo:

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Today I was on one of the Euro F1 websites and read a recent interview Gunther Steiner gave regarding the decision of Hulkenberg or Grosean . He stated he and Gene Haas are really struggling with the decision . To me this year specifically Grosean has made too many dumb errors you don't expect from a veteran .

So why do you think they are struggling with the decision ? Are they being loyal ? Does Grosean bring money to the team ? Do they think the two are equal ? Or do they know the car is the main issue to correct ? Just curious what others think about this ?

Reading other drivers' quotes over the years, it seems like Hulkenberg has the respect of a lot of the other drivers. As in, if he drove for a front running team instead of mid-packers all the time, he'd have won some races. Grosjean, not so much. So for me (plus the fact that Nico won Le Mans for Porsche), I would pick Hulkenberg over Grosjean.

Not in my mind. I always look at the other car and see where it finishes.

Go look at the Mercedes years, Mercedes 1-2 all season long = its the car.

Go look at the RBR seasons, where was the other car? Not 2nd, it was the driver.

I have a text file somewhere that shows all the years from RBR vs. Mercedes and Mercedes has a extremely dominant car. RBR did not.

While I’m no expert, I do love F1. I watch every race. I get very excited and happy.

Odd thing to me is, I don’t know why. I don’t like watching in the morning. I hate the tracks. The cars are ugly. The races are too short. There is very little passing. The same handful of drivers win every time.

I don’t get why I have the obsession to watch and learn more about F1. I’ve watched everything I could about it on Netflix and Amazon prime and YouTube and can’t get enough

When I watch Indycar, I know exactly why I love it. Especially on a fast speedway, it gives me the same sorta feeling I get when I see the Thunderbirds or Blue Angels.

The latest CarCast podcast featured Mario Andretti. He commented that he thought Indycar made the best overall champions because of the variety of tracks. I think there’s a lot to that theory.

Oh please. RBR had a totally dominant car for four seasons- in one of them I think they took pole at every (or almost every) opportunity. It can't be the driver in one case and the car in the other. Mercedes struggled under Brawn when RBR and Adrian Newey were kicking *ss.

Hamilton is immensely talented. Vettel is talented but no where near a Hamilton or Alonso or even a Riccardo. He has a penchant for choking under pressure and he's amazingly immature. He will never, ever win a world championship again and he was, IMO, lucky to win the ones he did.

Hamilton dominated no matter who his teammate was. He served Alonso notice the moment he stepped into a McLaren.

Vettel dominated Webber- most of the time. Riccardo kicked his a*s to the curb. Charles is doing the same thing. When faced with a superior car or driver Vettel does only one thing- he chokes. And he's done that in Monza for two years in a row.

My apologies for upsetting the Sir Lewis fans.

I was merely pointing out Mercedes have been finishing 1-2 for years RBR was not.

So car? or Driver?

I thought it was a simple analogy. It seems to me the Mercedes is so dominant a Russian mediocre pay to drive rich boy can get in it and set front row qualifying times in it. It is so dominant that they finish 1-2 every race and up until a few races ago were destroying the entire field.

But I am sure that is all driver and not the car. Whereas 1 driver at Red Bull was winning while the other was floundering around mid field and THAT was all car and not driver.

Again my apologies. Sir Lewis is the king of all drivers and the best driver to let us have the honor of watching.

/green text

You’re assuming that the cars are prepped and setup exactly the same at RBR and MercedesGP.

It may be possible that the in-team hardware performance is closer at Mercedes than RBR.

Oh geez.

With all due respect I doubt if I like Lewis as much as you do Vettel. But it's pretty clear who the better driver is. Vettel has thrown away sure podiums at Monza for two years in a row.

You don't do that and expect Ferrari fans to like you. And you don't throw away as many podiums and wins as he has and expect to be a world champion. Now even Leclerc is ahead of him on points. He was supposedly the #2 at Ferrari, remember?

I bet Verstappen will top him before long.