Baguette to Conquest

[Nikki Katz]

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/82291

Thoughts anyone? Personally, I think that he's a great up and coming driver, but I'm a little surprised that he's jumped straight into IndyCar. I would have preferred him to have a stab at the GP2 main season or something first.

All the same, there's a number of rubbish driver on the grid and he'll be miles better than them, and it's an additional car for seemingly the whole season.

If only us Brits could get to watch it without forking out hundreds for Sky Sports!

[inimitablestoo]

I'd seen on Wikipedia that he'd signed to do the Indy 500 with Conquest, but I assumed he was still hoping for an F1 break or, indeed, something GP2ish for the rest of the year. At this point I should make some sort of comment about him needing to earn his crust... ;)

[DanicaFan]

Just another backmarker for awhile. Have to see what he can do. Im not over excited about it though. ;)

[Anubis]

I'd seen on Wikipedia that he'd signed to do the Indy 500 with Conquest, but I assumed he was still hoping for an F1 break or, indeed, something GP2ish for the rest of the year. At this point I should make some sort of comment about him needing to earn his crust... ;)

Maybe he's looking to sandwich the Indy 500 between his other ambitions? Hopefully his career won't be toast...

[Alfa Fan]

Just another backmarker for awhile. Have to see what he can do. Im not over excited about it though. ;)

Another car to race with Danica then.

[SUBARUTEAM]

he's doing 15 races this year. i think you will find that he is no back marker on the road courses. he may surprise you all.
this field is getting pretty deep which can't be a bad thing. & good to see conquest back in the game in a bog way.

[NickFalzone]

I know nothing about him, and I don't expect him to be running near the front, but he sounds like he has some talent and I welcome him to the series. I haven't done the numbers, but Curt Cavin says there are now 23 full-time drivers for the season, with quite a few part-timers. 23 confirmed is certainly on the upside of what I expected going into the season.

[SUBARUTEAM]

with this bloke, that makes 24 full timers plus additional limited schedules.
I hope there are enough cars and engines to supply the 40 odd cars that will turn up at indy!!!

got to be happy!!!

[Mark in Oshawa]

I know very little about this guy, but hey, if he has personality and races well, he may find the US based IRL to his liking....

I know someone who will be madder than hell about this, but alas Scott don't like anyone from anywhere but America most of the time..

[SoCalPVguy]

who ? daddy must have a very big bank account.

[Scotty G.]

I know very little about this guy...


Sounds like a perfect fit for the series. :p

More "nobody's from nowhere" with no fanbase, for a sport in desperate need for one.

If he is good, he'll be gone the first chance he gets back to whereever he came from. If he sucks, then he is just this year's Conquest version of Enrique Bernoldi, Laurent Redon or Jaime Camera.

Either way, the sport loses.

[Dr. Krogshöj]

who ? daddy must have a very big bank account.

I don't know if this is true but he is backed by the Royal Automobile Club of Belgium. What I know is that he's got talent in driving open-wheel race cars and I know that because he's proven that by winning the championship in one of Europe's most prestigious junior formulae. Not bad for a nobody. A good choice for a midfield team, especially when he is the compatriot of the team owner.

[Chamoo]

I don't know if this is true but he is backed by the Royal Automobile Club of Belgium. What I know is that he's got talent in driving open-wheel race cars and I know that because he's proven that by winning the championship in one of Europe's most prestigious junior formulae. Not bad for a nobody. A good choice for a midfield team, especially when he is the compatriot of the team owner.

Everything you said was spot on.

[ykiki]

In a way, this is a situation Scotty should embrace. Why? Simple. Here's Belgian owner providing an opportunity to a talented young Belgian driver. If I were Scotty, I'd commend Eric Bachelart, while asking the question, "If the Belgians can do it, why can't the Americans?"

My gut feeling? The talented young Belgian driver has a Belgian sponsor. Why can't the talented young Americans get American sponsors?

[Copse]

he's proven that by winning the championship in one of Europe's most prestigious junior formulae.

He's won one of Europe's least prestigious junior formulae, which happens to have the same name as one of the most prestigious formulae in European motor racing history. Hardly the same thing.

[V12]

He's won one of Europe's least prestigious junior formulae, which happens to have the same name as one of the most prestigious formulae in European motor racing history. Hardly the same thing.

I think you're getting him confused with Andy Soucek.

[Copse]

I think you're getting him confused with Andy Soucek.

Thank you! You're absolutely right. (Though obviously I didn't confuse the actual drivers, just the series.) Winning Formula Renault is worth a lot of respect, and I hope he does well in Indycar!

[elis]

He's won one of Europe's least prestigious junior formulae, which happens to have the same name as one of the most prestigious formulae in European motor racing history. Hardly the same thing.

WSBR/FR is one of the most popular, competitive & respected series, the quality of the teams involved are testement to that. Over the years it's provided some quality drivers who've advanced up the ladder to F1, for example.. latterly Vettel, Kubica & Alguersuari. Indy car drivers Justin Wilson & Tomas Scheckter also competed well. Tip-top series :)

Good luck to Bertrand & Conquest, & thanks for adding another car to the grid!

[Copse]

WSBR/FR is one of the most popular, competitive & respected series, the quality of the teams involved are testement to that. Over the years it's provided some quality drivers who've advanced up the ladder to F1, for example.. latterly Vettel, Kubica & Alguersuari. Indy car drivers Justin Wilson & Tomas Scheckter also competed well. Tip-top series :)

Good luck to Bertrand & Conquest, & thanks for adding another car to the grid!

Yeah, I agree! I would have struck out my earlier comments, which were referring to Formula2, if the forum allowed it.

[Mark in Oshawa]

In a way, this is a situation Scotty should embrace. Why? Simple. Here's Belgian owner providing an opportunity to a talented young Belgian driver. If I were Scotty, I'd commend Eric Bachelart, while asking the question, "If the Belgians can do it, why can't the Americans?"

My gut feeling? The talented young Belgian driver has a Belgian sponsor. Why can't the talented young Americans get American sponsors?

Don't be letting reality get involved here now Ykiki. Scott only wants Americans. Period. NEver mind a Belgian is always going to bend over backward to put a countryman in the car. I guess Eric didn't have the sense enough to leave for Europe and leave the IRL with ONE less team on the track eh? Now he has 2 cars on the track, and somehow this is BAD when we are hoping like hell to keep 20 plus cars on the track all year long.

Scott will never grasp that the simple reality of it is that team owners look at money because without, they cant race. If Roger Penske hired an American driver to drive, that would be great, but Roger hires people who can win regardless of where they come from. Someone going to tell me Helio or Will Power are NOT popular with race fans in America?

[V12]

Glad to have another Farce-ula 2 hater on board :)

Anyway getting back on topic - the lack of Americans thing has been going on since the mid-90s, even when there were plenty of paid rides, because teams wanted the best drivers available, and with F1 going through a HUGE contraction in that decade (from 39 cars in 1989 to 20 by just after the turn of the millennium), and the implosion of the World Sportscar Championship in the early 90s there was a huge surplus of drivers from Europe and South America very adept at driving open wheel racing cars, but with literally nowhere to go. IndyCar/CART owners took advantage of this, Mansell was an exceptional case but the likes of Zanardi, de Ferran, C.Fittipaldi, Gugelmin, Blundell were people who were left on the F1/European scrapheap through lack of available rides rather than lack of talent, so they took the natural path.

Maybe now there's a different reason (economical) but the end result is the same, short of affirmative-action quotas, or a combination of better corporate support for US drivers, and dare I say a greater depth of talent coming through, then nothing will change.

As an Englishman that's no skin off my nose, and I'm grateful to have had plenty of drivers from Mansell through Blundell to Franchitti (OK he's Scottish but this isn't football) and Wilson and many more to root for. But from an outside(-ish) perspective that's my take on the situation.

And even more on topic - good luck to Baguette and Conquest, an extra car is nothing to be sniffed at, nobody is getting kicked out here.

[SUBARUTEAM]

one more thought - i imagine that the cost of running UK forumlar 3 or GP2 would be similar or even more expensive then bringing your money over to the usa and running indy car (particularly when you are getting good exchange rates between the UK/Euro and the USD).

the US racing is getting very competitive and of course there's the 500.

so i would expect the trend to continue.

[Mark in Oshawa]

As an Englishman that's no skin off my nose, and I'm grateful to have had plenty of drivers from Mansell through Blundell to Franchitti (OK he's Scottish but this isn't football) and Wilson and many more to root for. But from an outside(-ish) perspective that's my take on the situation.



There is the nub of the problem tho. You don't see it as a problem, but the American race fans DO need someone to identify with. The UK, like Canada, Australia and Brazil is USED to foreigners coming to the home soil and competing and being heroes in the native sports. WE are accustomed to it, but even with that, we resent if the foreign presence is too big. IN hockey, half the NHL is still Canadian, but I think there is a growing resentment when teams like the Maple Leafs had more foreign born players than native Canadians on it. I can imagine there is a sizable group that DOES feel there isn't enough American drivers in the IRL but unlike Scott's assertions that this is on purpose, you eloquently explained WHY there was a flood of foreign drivers. I do think though where Scott's point is on mark is that there is a need to have more native sons in the IRL but I can't ever defend a quota or some concerted effort to discriminate against foreign drivers.

[NickFalzone]

There is the nub of the problem tho. You don't see it as a problem, but the American race fans DO need someone to identify with. The UK, like Canada, Australia and Brazil is USED to foreigners coming to the home soil and competing and being heroes in the native sports. WE are accustomed to it, but even with that, we resent if the foreign presence is too big. IN hockey, half the NHL is still Canadian, but I think there is a growing resentment when teams like the Maple Leafs had more foreign born players than native Canadians on it. I can imagine there is a sizable group that DOES feel there isn't enough American drivers in the IRL but unlike Scott's assertions that this is on purpose, you eloquently explained WHY there was a flood of foreign drivers. I do think though where Scott's point is on mark is that there is a need to have more native sons in the IRL but I can't ever defend a quota or some concerted effort to discriminate against foreign drivers.

Mark, I think part of the problem is that the NAME-BRAND American drivers we have/had are a pale reflection of their predecessors. Foyt IV? Nothing against him, but he's no AJ. Marco? Certainly not quite the next Michael. Rahal? Good, but still to-be proven as a solid talent. Then there's the new breed. RHR - good, also not quite proven. Danica? She gets all the headlines, and yet... she's no Michael Andretti, AJ Foyt, or Al Unser Jr. Really that's the comparison - today the big IRL American name is Danica. In yesteryear the big IndyCar American name was Andretti, Foyt, Unser, etc. Which to you as an IndyCar fan has more appeal? I think of Foyt, I think of a great American racecar driver. I think of Danica, I think of magazine covers. Yes, she has shown some talent, but IndyCar is a side-product of her image & girl brand. We need to find the next Foyt, Andretti, and Unser, and simply stated, that is not happening and in fact seems a long way off. I still will watch IndyCar, I respect the current field and like the cars and the racing, but it is really 2nd-rate these days.

[Mark in Oshawa]

Mark, I think part of the problem is that the NAME-BRAND American drivers we have/had are a pale reflection of their predecessors. Foyt IV? Nothing against him, but he's no AJ. Marco? Certainly not quite the next Michael. Rahal? Good, but still to-be proven as a solid talent. Then there's the new breed. RHR - good, also not quite proven. Danica? She gets all the headlines, and yet... she's no Michael Andretti, AJ Foyt, or Al Unser Jr. Really that's the comparison - today the big IRL American name is Danica. In yesteryear the big IndyCar American name was Andretti, Foyt, Unser, etc. Which to you as an IndyCar fan has more appeal? I think of Foyt, I think of a great American racecar driver. I think of Danica, I think of magazine covers. Yes, she has shown some talent, but IndyCar is a side-product of her image & girl brand. We need to find the next Foyt, Andretti, and Unser, and simply stated, that is not happening and in fact seems a long way off. I still will watch IndyCar, I respect the current field and like the cars and the racing, but it is really 2nd-rate these days.

NO, I cant disagree with you really. I just know that many American racing fans had no issue when CART in the early 90's had Zanardi and Mansell winning races. Both were popular, was Emmo Fittapaldi. Helio is now....

Yes, we have no Mario Andretti's or AJ Foyts, but back when they were the kings of the sport, no one was coming from Europe and the USAC series was 10 races, some poorly run and attendended with indifferent TV coverage for the most part. The Indy 500 was the story, and anything else was local. It is a radically different world and the IRL is attracting people from other parts of the world to race in it.

I fail to see how this is a bad thing, and the only downside is American drivers have to be that little bit better and WANT to compete there. The problem really is NASCAR pays better.....and most of the top USAC sprint car and WoO guys can adapt to a stock car A LOT quicker than trying to run open wheel. Indycar evolved into a race car that is more in tune with road racers than sprint car drivers. Once the old guard has retired, most of the top Road racing talent is in Europe. YES, some guys have been screwed...but a lot of top American hopes for this series were given decent rides and did nothing with them as well. Bryan Herta, Buddy Lazier, Buddy Rice.....all were up and down, sometimes good, sometimes GREAT (in theory, the latter two won at Indy) yet overall were not fast enough or good enough at the sponsor game to keep rides.

The problem is with the economics of the sport, and the route required to get there. IT isn't anti-Americanism...it just is the way it is...

[V12]

There is the nub of the problem tho. You don't see it as a problem, but the American race fans DO need someone to identify with. The UK, like Canada, Australia and Brazil is USED to foreigners coming to the home soil and competing and being heroes in the native sports. WE are accustomed to it, but even with that, we resent if the foreign presence is too big. IN hockey, half the NHL is still Canadian, but I think there is a growing resentment when teams like the Maple Leafs had more foreign born players than native Canadians on it. I can imagine there is a sizable group that DOES feel there isn't enough American drivers in the IRL but unlike Scott's assertions that this is on purpose, you eloquently explained WHY there was a flood of foreign drivers. I do think though where Scott's point is on mark is that there is a need to have more native sons in the IRL but I can't ever defend a quota or some concerted effort to discriminate against foreign drivers.

The closest analogy here from our perspective would be that of the English Premier League. There is a significant proportion of English football fans that bemoan the fact that the league as a whole is less than 50% English and some top teams (Arsenal being the most (in)famous) will sometimes take to the field with NO English players. But I would say the majority do accept that as a top league right now it will attract the best talent from around the world regardless of nationality and the league is all the better for it. Still not a fair comparison I guess as football support is based around teams rather than individuals, so most fans won't give a toss where a player comes from if he's doing the business for their team, but the "foreigner" thing still is an issue with a large minority of fans.

It's not just about the best quality from around the world though, often lesser-funded teams will look to pick up a foreigner on cheaper wages/transfer fees rather than commit to nurturing home grown talent, which is probably the closest analogy to the "foreign ride buyer" thing in US open wheel.

Another parallel is those looking at the underlying causes - here it is too many kids on their Playstations and lack of quality football coaching at schoolboy level combined with the EPL becoming fiscally attractive to top world-class talent since the injection of Sky TV money, in US open wheel it's the fact that the majority young US racing drivers will now dream of being the next Dale Earnhardt or Jeff Gordon or whoever, rather than the next Mario Andretti or AJ Foyt combined with the European-based pull factors in my last post.

[garyshell]

All this balderdash about "American" drivers makes me have to ask, when WAS the last time we had a NATIVE AMERICAN driver in any series? And remind me again where Mario Andretti was actually born.

Look to NASCAR and explain to me how well Marcus Ambrose, Max Papis and Juan Pablo Montoya are received there, if Americans only care about American drivers. I say that is all a lot of BS. And a specious argument, ignoring the real issues being faced.

Gary

[V12]

All this balderdash about "American" drivers makes me have to ask, when WAS the last time we had a NATIVE AMERICAN driver in any series? And remind me again where Mario Andretti was actually born.

Look to NASCAR and explain to me how well Marcus Ambrose, Max Papis and Juan Pablo Montoya are received there, if Americans only care about American drivers. I say that is all a lot of BS. And a specious argument, ignoring the real issues being faced.

Gary

I would guess the mentality of many people, not just in sports but in life in general, that one or two foreigners around are "exotic", but when they form a majority they are "taking over". That's not a solely American trait but one I would argue could be found in every single country in the world.

And of course no-one would dispute that the nationality of the drivers is far from being IndyCar's biggest problem right now. One of my reasons for the EPL analogy, apart from being the only way I can relate to the situation as an Englishman, is that a nationally-based sporting entity can actually increase in popularity in a climate of international participation.