Yamamoto to finish the season for Spyker

[ioan]

Sakon Yamamoto will be Spyker's 2nd driver for the rest of the season:

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/61134

[Giuseppe F1]

You beat me to it, Ioan!


Must admit this is a surprising assignment when considering all the political rucks Super Aguri and Spyker have been in this year.

I thought Aguri owned Sakons contract which is how they came to place him in GP2 with BCN, right or not??

Also, with GP2 becoming ever more a sought after series for those aspiring to join the F1 ranks, will be intereseting to see who takes the vacated berth at BCN too

[VkmSpouge]

Shame for Marcus Winkelhock but hopefully Sakon Yamamoto will do a decent job.

[Sleeper]

Well, thats a surprise, I would have expected Klien to be honest.

[ArrowsFA1]

Must admit this is a surprising assignment when considering all the political rucks Super Aguri and Spyker have been in this year.

Perhaps they have "reached an understanding" and allowing Yamamoto to race for Spyker is part of the deal

[jens]

The news are surprising and I do think that Yamamoto isn't the best choice either, because he has been truly unspectacular this year in GP2 as you would expect a lot more from a driver with F1 experience in lower series.

Although, to be honest, Spyker didn't have a very good option either. Klien, Karthikeyan, Winkelhock (lost 1 sec to Sutil in dry) + Yamamoto now - a choice between half-decent drivers.

[markabilly]

That says it all:

In the lower class---He remains scoreless in ’07 so far, and sits 27th in the standings.

Was he not the driver that nearly got hisself banned and superlicnsnce lifted for being such a danger...

[gjalie]

That says it all:

In the lower class---He remains scoreless in ’07 so far, and sits 27th in the standings.

Was he not the driver that nearly got hisself banned and superlicnsnce lifted for being such a danger...

double post

[gjalie]

That says it all:

In the lower class---He remains scoreless in ’07 so far, and sits 27th in the standings.

Was he not the driver that nearly got hisself banned and superlicnsnce lifted for being such a danger...

i think you are thinking of yuji Ide, the one who launched Albers in a race.

[Mickey T]

Given that there are 22 blokes already in F1, he's obviously been chosen because he's the 23rd best open-wheeler driver in the world...

On one hand, it has been ever thus in F1. On the other, it is promoted as the premier racing category in the world and it's a shame.

there are three or four special blokes and another six or seven fairly good or developing blokes who can match them on the four or five days a season when the moon's right.

After that, you could easily replace the rest of them from a lottery of the next 50 (hell, the next 100) best open-wheeler drivers (or recent former open-wheeler drivers who've moved to other categories), and you wouldn't do a lot worse.

In a lot of cases, you'd probably do a lot better.

short list:

James Courtney
Ryan Briscoe
Marcos Ambrose
Will Power
Gary Paffet
robert doorknob
SeaBass
Paul Tracy (back in the day)
Montoya
Justin Wilson
Ralph Firman
Andy Priaulx
the front half of the DTM field
the front fifth of the AMLS series

I'm pretty certain every country with more than 10 million people and a mature junior motorsport ladder would have three blokes right now who would not embarrass themselves in F1 - and who would be better bets than this bloke.