Ralf leaves Toyota

[ArrowsFA1]

Ralf wird ab der kommenden Saison nicht mehr für Toyota fahren. "Ich habe mich entschieden, nach drei Jahren Toyota eine neue Herausforderung zu suchen", erklärt Ralf am Montag in Shanghai
Rough translation:

Ralf will not drive no more starting from the coming season for Toyota. "I decided to look for after three years Toyota a new challenge", explain Ralf on Monday in Shanghai
http://www.ralf-schumacher.de/en/news/365.html

[Mark]

Sounds like a new challenge will not involve driving in F1. I expect to see him in touring cars.

So now that leaves the question of who will drive for Toyota. Alonso almost certainly not, although stranger things have happened.

[ShiftingGears]

Woah! :eek:
There goes another grand prix winner...
Best of luck to him in whatever he plans to do.

[Ranger]

Any Germans on the forum? :p : I wasn't expecting that...

He's said he'll be on the grid in 2008... but where? Will he be there?

[Ian McC]

Finally, as predicted years ago DTM will gain another ex F1 star! :D

[Flat.tyres]

Finally, as predicted years ago DTM will gain another ex F1 star! :D

Well, it could hardly be a surprise.

[Ranger]

Poor translation of the lot of that release:


Ralf will go from the coming season no longer for Toyota.

"I have me decided, after three years Toyota a new challenge to seek", will explain Ralf in Shanghai on Monday where he prepares himself for its next to the last race for the Japanese race stable. "I came with large expectations to Toyota. On the one hand, because I had set large hope into the development of a new race car. Because I had acquired a taste in my long stay in Japan before the formula 1 for the Japanese custom very. With the Japanese mentality, I come as always well right, but on a competitive car, I had to wait unfortunately for years!" Ralf retrospectively: "Toyota was also a beautiful and interesting experience - above all the collaboration with the team, the engineers and the mechanics. But now it is time, something new auszuprobieren!" In spite of the decision to go in the coming year no longer for Toyota, will try Ralf in the last two races everything in order to get points for Toyota: "Naturally am I as always for the races in Shanghai and São Paulo highly motivates and would become my best try, after the verpatzten season at least a good termination with and for Toyota to reach!", means Ralf. The team and all colleagues of Toyota, that it in the last three years with energy, enthusiasm and sympathy supported have, wishes Ralf also for the coming seasons much good fortune and success. To the question, for whom it will go 2008 races in the season, it says: "I will lead some conversations in the next weeks and will announce my decision after end of the season. Important so very the financial aspect is not for me, but rather the possibility to co-develop a race car and therewith also successfully to its."

[schmenke]

As rough as that translation is, it sounds like he may be willing to take a pay-cut :mark:

[FIA]

Please say Liuzzi to Toyota and Glock to Williams, Ralf to DTM with Fisi.

[trumperZ06]

:dozey: Not surprising news... Many thought he should have retired a couple of years ago !!!

:s mokin:

[Hondo]

I gotta work on my German. I thought it said "Toyota finally figured out I suck and tossed me..."

Maybe I can get some of those language cds, Berlitz or something...

[ArrowsFA1]

:dozey: Not surprising news... Many thought he should have retired a couple of years ago !!!

:s mokin:

Some thought he had :D :p

[Buzz Lightyear]

As rough as that translation is, it sounds like he may be willing to take a pay-cut :mark:

Willing? €25m a year? He will be lucky to get a 1/10th of that.

Classic case of being... 'Jumped before being Pushed'.

[Buzz Lightyear]

Glock wins GP2, Ralf leaves. Sounds like Glock then...

[Tomski]

"He's said he'll be on the grid in 2008... but where?"

Working for German TV if he's lucky!

[dwboogityfan]

Best option for Toyota is probably Sutil who has shown a great deal of promise this season. That's unless Renault don't re-sign Kovalainen (which they surely will) in which case he should be Toyota's first choice.
I can imagine them going for someone like Fisichella though...

[Ian McC]

Here it is on Crash

http://www.crash.net/news_view~cid~1~id~155223.htm

[Crank]

It was not a surprise to me. I always thought he was a bit overrated, specially because of his last name. At least now Toyota can put more money in the development of the car.

[schmenke]

... bit overrated...

That's an understatement... :s

[Trqster]

It was about time!

[CarlMetro]

Perhaps he's going to be Fernando's replacement at McLaren?





















...................OK, perhaps not then :p :

[Crank]

Perhaps he's going to be Fernando's replacement at McLaren?





















...................OK, perhaps not then :p :


You got me there for a second ;)

[coldawg]

I gotta work on my German. I thought it said "Toyota finally figured out I suck and tossed me..."

Maybe I can get some of those language cds, Berlitz or something...

Now that's funny!!!!

[ioan]

Did RedBull already announce their line up for next season?

[keysersoze]

"Even though I've yet to secure a job for next year, I better announce that I'm leaving before they announce I've been chucked."

[CarlMetro]

Did RedBull already announce their line up for next season?

Yes

[ioan]

Yes

Than it might be Williams where he is headed, or in the worst case Spyker (he started his racing career with them).

[jens]

It was not a surprise to me. I always thought he was a bit overrated, specially because of his last name.

How can he be overrated, when the majority of people rate him very lowly? :p :

The news are now at all kinds of F1 sites and what I can understand, then it looks like that both sides (RS and Yota) seem satisfied with the fact that their cooperation is ending this year. Some say that Ralf is unmotivated, but driving such a crap car it's no surprise and you'd like to find a drive elsewhere. The funniest thing would be if Alonso and Ralf switched seats. It would be fun to see the reaction of the folks here. :laugh: And it would be even funnier if Trulli starts matching his old team-mate Alonso again! :D

Btw. Besides DTM, Williams, Spyker, etc already mentioned options there is one more at least a bit realistic variant for Ralf - ProDrive.

[BDunnell]

How can he be overrated, when the majority of people rate him very lowly? :p :

The news are now at all kinds of F1 sites and what I can understand, then it looks like that both sides (RS and Yota) seem satisfied with the fact that their cooperation is ending this year. Some say that Ralf is unmotivated, but driving such a crap car it's no surprise and you'd like to find a drive elsewhere. The funniest thing would be if Alonso and Ralf switched seats. It would be fun to see the reaction of the folks here. :laugh: And it would be even funnier if Trulli starts matching his old team-mate Alonso again! :D

Btw. Besides DTM, Williams, Spyker, etc already mentioned options there is one more at least a bit realistic variant for Ralf - ProDrive.

I agree with all of that. In fact, I feel a little sorry for RS, no matter how arrogant he is, because being Michael's brother, he's always been on something of a hiding to nothing in F1.

[RaikkonenRules]

This dosen't surprise me one bit. Ralf has been past it for a while now. I would like to see him in DTM with the Hakk to see how they compare. :D

[msaxman]

Please say Liuzzi to Toyota and Glock to Williams, Ralf to DTM with Fisi.

it's looking like glock will take ralf's spot. i think your scenario is a bit too happy a fantasy, as i'd like to see liuzzi stay in f1.

i am happy ralf's leaving, though. he's too much show and not enough go. he's been talking up how the car isn't what he wants it to be. well, toyota is rumored to be the most heavily funded team in f1, so some of their lack of performance must be down to the drivers. they've had the same two drivers for the last 3 years, while every other team has changed at least one within the past two years. something had to be done. i think this was the right choice.

[jens]

This year we have five experienced drivers, whose contact was going to end at the end of this year and they needed a contract renewal.
For some reason people welcomed Coulthard's new contract quite warmly, about Barrichello there were both pro and against comments. Don't know about Wurz - probably it would be something similar. Fisichella... umm, probably people would be more negative than positive about his continuing. But of course Ralf's appearance in F1 has been mostly questioned, which is an interesting case. I don't think that Ralf has in any way less potential than the previously mentioned four drivers, although he may have been the most disappointing driver this year. If Ralf sucks and should certainly retire, then... sorry, the other four should do the same (RB, GF and DC - and definetely AW - have been quite comfortably outpaced by their team-mates recently). I think Ralf has been clearly closer to his team-mate than any other of the four.

IMO Coulthard's and Wurz's qualifying performances in 2007 have been at least as poor as Ralf's, but they have not been bashed for that. Instead of that they have got a lot of defense (a'la problems, tyres not suited to driving style etc). In Ralf's case people do not care about putative problems, they just see the result and that's the ultimate conclusion for them. In some strange way it shows that although Ralf is very lowly rated, people have very high expectations on him (like I mentioned, no-one else's poor performances are so strongly highlighted. DC's or Wurz's poor quali is like a "normal achievement") - it means that people expect a lot better from him. How do people actually rate Ralf then? Highly (unconsciously then) or lowly? Have to say that RS has been a bit unlucky this year too - I mean qualifyings. He is not quite as good qualifier as Jarno and has on several occasions been only 2-3 tenths slower, but... in tight competition he fails to make it into Q2, while Jarno ends up in Q3. In the previous years the competition in the midfield wasn't that close and there were less cars between JT and RS on the starting grid.

Having said all that, I think it's positive that he has left Toyota. But I'm not against to see him in another team. I'd like to see him and Jarno driving against a new strong and highly rated team-mate as it's their only way to amend their reputation. As long as they continue driving against each other, then even that one, who wins, doesn't get praise (attitude a'la loser is 'crap' and winner is 'a bit less crap'). And Toyota is a well-known career-killer... Everyone's reputation there has fallen to chasm except probably Salo's as he didn't spend there much time and at that time Toyota still had quite a good reputation. And even if we look at Fuji wet race, then even Spykers (oh yeah, even Yamamoto included!) were faster than Toyotas - no surprise that with events like that the drivers are easy targets to get the blame as "overwhelmingly the worst drivers on the grid". Toyota, stop destroying the careers of your drivers!!!! :(

[CarlMetro]

In Ralfs defence, I never expected him to return to racing after his first Indy crash, let alone the second one. I don't care who you are, two big smacks like that must do something to unsettle the race driver in anyone, even if only slightly.

However both he and Jarno have had the benefit of the best funded and, by far the biggest, team currently in F1 for the last three seasons and yet have produced very little from it. Comparing him to Coultard this year is a bit silly, less than half the budget, much smaller team too who stated at the beginning of the season that 2007 was mainly a developement year for them, added to the fact that the seamless gearbox and various other hydraulic components have failed on the REdbull with rather alarming frequency.

If ralf was finishing poorly because of mechanical failure then I'm sure that he'd have a little more support but all we see is him consistantly getting beaten by by the one person whom you can draw a direct comparison with, his teammate.

[jens]

However both he and Jarno have had the benefit of the best funded and, by far the biggest, team currently in F1 for the last three seasons and yet have produced very little from it. Comparing him to Coultard this year is a bit silly, less than half the budget, much smaller team too who stated at the beginning of the season that 2007 was mainly a developement year for them, added to the fact that the seamless gearbox and various other hydraulic components have failed on the REdbull with rather alarming frequency.

If ralf was finishing poorly because of mechanical failure then I'm sure that he'd have a little more support but all we see is him consistantly getting beaten by by the one person whom you can draw a direct comparison with, his teammate.

It still amazes me, how highly rated DC is no matter what he does and despite the fact that he has comprehensively been beaten by Webber. :p : At the start of the season he had a few moments of shine, when the Australian was still adapting to the new team, but in the second half of the season Mark has had the upper hand - as much as it has been possible to compare them in their unreliable cars.

According to your budget-logic Jenson and Rubens must be truly crap drivers. Honda's budget is almost as big as Toyota's, but have failed to match even the redwhites this year. :p :

[VkmSpouge]

I'm not surprised Ralf Schumacher is leaving Toyota. He and the team simply haven't produced the results over the past few years.

[ShiftingGears]

For some reason people welcomed Coulthard's new contract quite warmly


I noticed that...although I think thats because the announcement came off the back of Bahrain and Spain where he had some great drives.

[veeten]

NASCAR is calling, Ralf... ;)

[rohanweb]

hmm.. time to leave for Ralfy.
good memories of winning races in his williams days..

[stevie_gerrard]

Not surprised one bit. Hes really underacheived for me recently, and hasnt shown any capability to be a consistent challenge for points. He needs a new direction thats for sure, where he will be going i have no idea.

[trumperZ06]

NASCAR is calling, Ralf... ;)

;) Nana... neither Schumacher wants to drive on Ovals !!!

[Garry Walker]

so some of their lack of performance must be down to the drivers
Drivers are the only good thing about Toyota.


but all we see is him consistantly getting beaten by by the one person whom you can draw a direct comparison with, his teammate.
Do we really? Lets take a closer look at the stuff you came up with. This year in races where both Ralf and Trulli have finished, it is 4:4. So you still think he is getting beaten all the time or will you be man enough to say you were talking out of your arse?
Ralf has also retired due to a car problem 3 times and was once rammed out by Heidfeld. But I guess that is nothing to you.

[Tazio]

As indifferent as I am to ralf I would like to see what happens when he floats himself out there. I think alot of people on this forum may be surprised when he lands another f1 seat