DeFerran IndyCar Announcement

[Jimmy Magnusson]

de Ferran's got the connections to pull an operation togeather, that's for sure. Dixon actually seems kind of likely if he gets replaced by Danica at Ganassi (don't know why they'd do that but hey ho). Second car, Pagenaud would probably be first choice but he doesn't have any money... Sato would be a fantastic driver to have, severely underrated and tremendeously entertaining. Don't know why Piquet would want to go to IRL - and kill his F1 ambitions - but Junqueira would be a neat choice.

[MDS]

Common wisdom is that PKJR's career appears to be done if Senior doesn't buy into Sauber when BMW pulls out at the end of the year. His Formula 1 ambitions, like Mike Conway, Sebastien Bourdais and others will more than likely go unfulfilled.

[Jimmy Magnusson]

Common wisdom is that PKJR's career appears to be done if Senior doesn't buy into Sauber when BMW pulls out at the end of the year. His Formula 1 ambitions, like Mike Conway, Sebastien Bourdais and others will more than likely go unfulfilled.

Nelson has a budget unmatched by Conway or Bourdais, though. There's a bunch of seats he could end up in for next year except for Sauber if he's willing to pay (likely). The thing is, IndyCar doesn't really seem to be the clear second choice for F1 refugees any more, but rather an equal or behind NASCAR, DTM and sports cars.

[DanicaFan]

Dixon is under contract thru 2010 with Ganassi.

[dataman1]

Can't say for sure what this means but the ICS qualifications were just prior to the ALMS race. As I walked to pit lane and past the DeFerran timing stand I saw Tony Kanaan talking with Robert Clark while Dario talked to John Anderson and Dixon was talking with DeFerran. Could they all be looking??

[ClarkFan]

Ouch! Actually, Sato wasn't a bad F1 driver at all. Quick but reckless early in his career, by the time he matured he was in bad machines. Still, it was fun watching him race the gawd-awful Super Aguri cars sometimes on-par with the factory Hondas.

Sort of a smaller, Japanese version of Paul Tracy, but with more reckless abandon. His last year at Honda was hair-raising - once he knew the seat was in play, he just flogged the car trying to get some kind of results. Early in his career, he nearly outstripped Eddie Jordan's ability to write bad checks with the cars he tore up.

He did well at Super Aguri in 2007, but at that point he probably had a better car than the factory team. SA was running the Honda RA106, a regular podium car and race-winner at the end of 2006. Honda F1 had the Green Whale, the runinous design that started the chain that led to Honda pulling out of F1 at the end of 2008.

ClarkFan

[speeddurango]

announced. And mentions of Sato and DIxon. Could a DIxon move make way for Danica at Ganassi?

Can't say that's good, Ganassi should have 2 top lines drivers to keep the team competitive to prevent it from going down the same toilet as AGR. I mean, AGR was rather competitive until they decided to go with DP, Honda money and their own prince with only 1 competitive driver left on the team, and look how far they slipped since then.

[Lennat]

I can't see Ganassi dropping the championship leader for Danica.

I always assumed that she was going into a third car if she was going there.

[Toymaker]

After deFerran/Pagenaud won the ALMS race, both Castro-Neves and Matos were in the pits to congratulate him.

[wedge]

Sort of a smaller, Japanese version of Paul Tracy, but with more reckless abandon. His last year at Honda was hair-raising - once he knew the seat was in play, he just flogged the car trying to get some kind of results. Early in his career, he nearly outstripped Eddie Jordan's ability to write bad checks with the cars he tore up.

He did well at Super Aguri in 2007, but at that point he probably had a better car than the factory team. SA was running the Honda RA106, a regular podium car and race-winner at the end of 2006. Honda F1 had the Green Whale, the runinous design that started the chain that led to Honda pulling out of F1 at the end of 2008.

ClarkFan

The problem with PT was his red mist which cannot be said of Sato. Sato made a howler of 2005 because he was being beat by Button and tried to address the problem by over driving the car with silly banzai moves.

And even with a B-spec/C-spec RA106 Sato pulled some fantastic starts, held up a train of cars, some superb overtaking moves - most memorably against Alonso on the outside into the final chicane at Montreal 2007.