Team Lotus end Karun Chandhok's dream of racing in Indian Grand Prix

[CNR]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2011/oct/25/team-lotus-indian-grand-prix?newsfeed=true

[CaptainRaiden]

As gutted as Karun must be feeling right now, I have to say I agree with Tony Fernandes' decision, as being a small team the most important thing for them is to accumulate points, and so going with experience is the best and most pragmatic approach.

[Dave B]

I agree with both of the above. Lotus have a genuine chance of 10th place, and an outside shot at scoring a point or two if luck falls their way, so much as I like Karun I think that leaving Trulli in the car is the best plan.

Of course, if Trulli wipes himself out on lap one then we'll all jump in our "what might have been" time machine....

[ioan]

They will get no points anyway, so what would they lose?

[DexDexter]

Great news from Lotus. If the team wants to be taken seriously, they cannot change drivers based on anything else than speed.


They will get no points anyway, so what would they lose?

As I've explained you before, it's about the 10th position in the constructors championship, you don't have to finish in the points for that.

[AndyL]

As I've explained you before, it's about the 10th position in the constructors championship, you don't have to finish in the points for that.

And it's a particularly precarious position, because with the 3 newest teams rarely beating any of the established teams, it's likely to be decided by the one race of the season that happens to have the most retirements further up the field.

[Dave B]

The exact payments for constructors is shrouded in secrecy - as are most F1 financial matters - but Joe Saward has some likely estimates.


Thus 10th place in worth in the region of $33 million, while 11th is worth just $10 million.

The full explanation is here: http://joesaward.wordpress.com/2011/10/25/a-pragmatic-decision-from-team-lotus/

I feel for Chandok, he's a really good guy, but the simple fact is that Trulli is a more realistic bet for bringing the car home safely.

[Nikki Katz]

Not that I really like the idea of pay drivers, nor do I think Chandhok would be better than Trulli (especially after that last performance), but for the sake of one race I would've taken the money and entered him.

[Koz]

but for the sake of one race I would've taken the money and entered him.

Why? What is the logic behind that???

Should we go out and find a Hungarian driver for the Hungarian GP?
A Korean driver for the Korean GP?
A Chinese driver?

This is F1, not A1GP.
There is an Indian team on the grid, is that not enough?

[Koz]

Hell, RedBull have already won both championships... Maybe they should put KC or NK in for Webber or Vettel...

[CaptainRaiden]

Why? What is the logic behind that???

Should we go out and find a Hungarian driver for the Hungarian GP?
A Korean driver for the Korean GP?
A Chinese driver?

This is F1, not A1GP.
There is an Indian team on the grid, is that not enough?

But there are no Hungarian, Korean or Chinese drivers signed as test or reserve drivers for any F1 teams, are there? NK and KC had long wanted to drive in front of their home crowds at their home GP, and probably passed on the chance of driving at other races, just so that they get a shot here. Besides KC's sponsors would be paying good money to Lotus for this drive. Bottom line, it's a national pride thing, what's so hard to understand? It's like letting a British or American pay driver race at their home GP, what's wrong with that? What Nikki is saying that for the sake of one race, it doesn't matter.

And I sort of agree with ioan here. They won't be scoring any points anyway, and as far as track knowledge goes, I'm guessing KC has a slightly better idea. But I understand Tony's decision as well, as much passion KC would have put into this race, in the end experience would have proven to be much better.

[jens]

Chandhok was so much out of his depth in the German Grand Prix that I quite understand, why Lotus doesn't risk putting him into the race seat again. I can also remember Chandhok crashing a car or two in free practices. I don't know, how much money could Chandhok have brought to the team (obviously the amount was insignificant compared to what Karthikeyan can bring to HRT), but there is not much to gain from having one of your cars coming home last.

I have to agree with those, who say that people have gone a bit overboard about Indian drivers for the Indian Grand Prix. Why not enter drivers based on that criteria in every GP then? :crazy: There is Brazilian Grand Prix coming up, maybe Luiz Razia should race for Lotus (he is a reserve driver, isn't he). Maybe with Valsecchi they should have entered two Italians for the Monza GP. Perhaps Ferrari should have entered Badoer for the Italian GP too. Doesn't matter that he would finish last, home Grand Prix after all... etc.

You know, F1 is not WRC, when in the past factory teams used to hire local specialists for certain events in order to maximize points total in the manufacturers championship. And even in WRC this strategy has pretty much died out by now. The best approach for getting results in F1 is consistency, constant swapping of drivers only disturbs the progress. In F1 feeling comfortable in a particular car counts more than knowledge of a particular circuit.


But there are no Hungarian, Korean or Chinese drivers signed as test or reserve drivers for any F1 teams, are there?

Ho-Pin Tung is Renault's "test" driver, isn't he? ;) What do you think, should he have entered the Shanghai race instead of Heidfeld?

[CaptainRaiden]

Chandhok was so much out of his depth in the German Grand Prix that I quite understand, why Lotus doesn't risk putting him into the race seat again. I can also remember Chandhok crashing a car or two in free practices. I don't know, how much money could Chandhok have brought to the team (obviously the amount was insignificant compared to what Karthikeyan can bring to HRT), but there is not much to gain from having one of your cars coming home last.

Well, with such minimal time spent in the car, I don't expect him to do much better, much like how Fisichella and Badoer did when they jumped straight into the Ferrari in Felipe's absence in 2009.


I have to agree with those, who say that people have gone a bit overboard about Indian drivers for the Indian Grand Prix. Why not enter drivers based on that criteria in every GP then? :crazy: There is Brazilian Grand Prix coming up, maybe Luiz Razia should race for Lotus (he is a reserve driver, isn't he). Maybe with Valsecchi they should have entered two Italians for the Monza GP. Perhaps Ferrari should have entered Badoer for the Italian GP too. Doesn't matter that he would finish last, home Grand Prix after all... etc.

You know, F1 is not WRC, when in the past factory teams used to hire local specialists for certain events in order to maximize points total in the manufacturers championship. And even in WRC this strategy has pretty much died out by now. The best approach for getting results in F1 is consistency, constant swapping of drivers only disturbs the progress. In F1 feeling comfortable in a particular car counts more than knowledge of a particular circuit.

While I agree with most of what you say, but this isn't the first ever Brazilian or Italian GP, is it? Most probably this would be NK and KC's last ever chance to drive in front of their home crowds, because I don't see them having permanent drives in the future, nobody does, so they just wanted to grab this opportunity going with the momentum, and they have many sponsors backing them up for it, the reason HRT let NK in. But as I have said before in this thread, I agree with Tony's decision, as it would be quite futile to waste one race over national pride. Also, you're comparing top teams like Ferrari and midfielders like Renault with a backmarker team like Lotus. Having a sponsor paying huge money for national pride is a good way for one of the minnows to fuel the development of their next year's car.


Ho-Pin Tung is Renault's "test" driver, isn't he? ;) What do you think, should he have entered the Shanghai race instead of Heidfeld?

Has Tung ever raced in F1, completed a full season? Besides, you can't compare the factory Renault team with Lotus IMO. With Renault, there are points at stake, where Lotus is really fighting to be the best of the backmarkers. All the last 3 backmarker teams i.e. Lotus, Virgin and HRT are at 0 points, and they would still be at 0 points at the end of the season, barring a race of attrition where they capitalize over some midfielders' misfortune. They're fighting for the 10th place solely based on race position alone. It's not like they'll be getting revenues based on the points they scored. But they're preparing for such a scenario, and I don't blame Tony for that.

Also, in F1 these days, it's all about who brings in the most dough. Didn't Renault replace Heidfeld with Bruno Senna mid-season too, even though Heidfeld was doing quite good? Haven't they taken a huge risk in lieu of sponsorship money?

[steveaki13]

Agree with most here.

Karun although would bring publicity to himself, he would not offer much to the team.

Also if 11 odd cars did drop out the Lotus team need a driver 10th ahead of Virgins and HRT's not a driver who in his last race finished behind all said cars.

[Koz]

2 seconds off Trulli's pace in FP1.

Nearly took out a Williams in the pit lane... Good job bro.

[CaptainRaiden]

2 seconds off Trulli's pace in FP1.

Nearly took out a Williams in the pit lane... Good job bro.

Sliding on dirt with the Williams easily 10 feet away is the same as "nearly took out". :rolleyes:

Time difference to Trulli was expected with such little running in that Lotus. It's a reserve driver with limited running this year going against a regular, experienced veteran. He's definitely crap if he doesn't go faster than Trulli. Remember how Liuzzi trounced Ricciardo in the first few of the Australian's races?

Anyway, having said all that, I don't expect him to pull any miracles either with full experience. He's just not a high caliber driver.

[Koz]

10 feet is seemingly too close.

Raiden, do you know who exactly is his father and what the nature of his relationship with the FIA is?
By something he said while commentating (I didn't hear all of it) his father and FIA have some sort of connection?

He also said he designed turn 5 on the track?

[CaptainRaiden]

10 feet is seemingly too close.

Talk about exaggeration. :laugh:


Raiden, do you know who exactly is his father and what the nature of his relationship with the FIA is?
By something he said while commentating (I didn't hear all of it) his father and FIA have some sort of connection?

He also said he designed turn 5 on the track?

Vicky Chandhok is a pretty influential figure in Indian motorsport. He's the current president of the FMSCI, the FIA of Indian motorsport, so he obviously has good connections, and probably the reason why Karun has gotten as far as he has. Also he's been involved with the design of this track from day 1, so yeah, he probably did help in designing corners. The guy knows about racing. He's been running teams in the domestic championship on tracks in Chennai in Coimbatore. During my karting career, when I was seriously considering a career in motorsport, I talked with him on phone regarding cost and rules & reg. Seemed like a nice chap then.

[jens]

During my karting career, when I was seriously considering a career in motorsport, I talked with him on phone regarding cost and rules & reg. Seemed like a nice chap then.

Sounds intriguing! Why did your career stop then and what kind of a challenge is it to build a motorsport career in India - any chance of getting anywhere? :)

[CaptainRaiden]

Sounds intriguing! Why did your career stop then and what kind of a challenge is it to build a motorsport career in India - any chance of getting anywhere? :)

Not enough money. :D Only the rich have a snowball's chance in hell to get anywhere near F1 or even lower formulaes. You have to be either very influential or very filthy rich. Both Karun and Narain have really, really wealthy fathers. Narain's father is some industrialist I guess, who funded his son's motorsport career right from the very beginning, getting him to UK and rest of Europe etc. Narain even had a go-kart track in his backyard as a kid growing up. :crazy:

I don't belong to a very rich family, and so had to give up, because the cost was a tad too much to bear. There are no real significant driver scholarships in India like there are in Europe and America. No sponsors interested in anything else than Cricket. So, a driver has to pretty much pay his way through everything, and it can be a very daunting task for someone even from a moderately rich family, forget about middle class. Besides, I don't think I was that good anyway. :p

[Garry Walker]

And I sort of agree with ioan here. They won't be scoring any points anyway, .
But the place where they finish at still counts in the run for the tenth place in WCC, even if they dont score points. So they did the right thing in not putting an incompetent fool in the car and instead preferred the obviously much better driver in Trulli.

[CaptainRaiden]

But the place where they finish at still counts in the run for the tenth place in WCC, even if they dont score points. So they did the right thing in not putting an incompetent fool in the car and instead preferred the obviously much better driver in Trulli.

I already said twice in this thread that I agree with Tony's decision on this. Apparently the TV revenue money that Lotus will be getting with the 10th place would be much more than whatever the group of sponsors would have paid for to get KC a drive for the weekend.

[ioan]

Funny how Chandhok couldn't have done much worse than finishing last as Trulli did.

[Dave B]

In fairness Trulli did appear to get hit from behind on the first corner. He lost a bucketload of time recovering to the pits, then some more time having a wing change.

[jens]

Well, that's the unpredictability racing. You can hire Alex Yoong over Sebastian Vettel for one race weekend and Yoong could get a superior result if Vettel happens to get punted out immediately. But proven drivers are hired in order to have a higher general possibility of finishing upwards.

[Koz]

In fairness Trulli did appear to get hit from behind on the first corner. He lost a bucketload of time recovering to the pits, then some more time having a wing change.

Did anyone see who hit Trulli?

[Dave B]

Did anyone see who hit Trulli?

One of the HRTs but I didn't see which one.