Tuesday 8 June 2010

Has Liuzzi still got the force

Image courtesy of www.forceindiaf1.com

Vitantonio Liuzzi is at a critical stage of his F1 career. At the age of 28, his second F1 coming with Force India has been like his first, inconsistent and not living up to expectation. The Italian was a potential star from his karting days, winning the national and world championships. Like many other drivers in the past he won the F3000 title for Arden with backing from Red Bull. His opportunity in F1 came in 2005. He shared a Red Bull seat with Christian Klien and had an impressive start, scoring in his debut race at Imola. He got 4 races that season and then moved into the new Toro Rosso team, the Red Bull B team. This gave him the chance to get a full season under his belt and try to impress enough to have another go with the Red Bull team. He only managed 1 point in an uncompetitive car and was unable to make the leap up as Red Bull replaced Klien with Mark Webber. Another campaign in 2007 seen Liuzzi again struggle but also make several mistakes, overdriving the car as well as missing out on potential points in Canada with a visit to the wall of champions. By the end of the season Sebastian Vettel was on the scene and made a big impression. Liuzzi's stock was falling and he found himself out of a drive in 2008.

The 2008 season seen the emergence of Force India and Liuzzi was able to get the test driver role. It kept himself in the sport, albeit on the fringes. As the 2009 season unfolded, it was widely expected that the Italian would replace fellow countryman Giancarlo Fisichella in 2010. The opportunity would pop up for him though earlier than expected after Fisichella filled in for Felipe Massa after the Brazilian's accident in Hungary. He ran competitively at his home race before transmission failure. No points were to come but 2010 was the big test. Two solid races brought points in March but it's been a struggle since with a couple of shock Q1 exits whilst team mate Adrian Sutil has been a regular Q3 contender. Monaco was an impressive aside, outqualifying Sutil and scoring again but Turkey put the spotlight back on in a negative sense again, qualifying over a second slower than the German despite being the one running the F-Duct device which should have helped his straight line speed. The team believe a damaged chassis may have had an effect on his performance and like Vettel and Michael Schumacher this season, he will have a new one for the Canadian Grand Prix.

Image courtesy of www.forceindiaf1.com

The problem for Liuzzi is that there is a man waiting in the wings for a F1 chance. Paul Di Resta from Scotland is the Force India reserve driver and races for Mercedes-Benz in the DTM series. He has a few outings in free practice this season and shown good speed. With Mercedes backing, Vijay Mallya could be pushed to give Di Resta an opportunity should Liuzzi continue to underperform. I feel that he will continue to back Liuzzi for now, he has invested a lot of time in the Italian and has a good relationship with him, though this was slightly strained in Istanbul. Di Resta won't be doing any running this weekend (though he'll be on BBC Radio Five Live on Saturday and Sunday) but if he gets more Friday opportunities and makes a good impression then he could have a chance. The technical staff at Force India will be able to analyse his data and this will help aid any decisions. The last 3 races of the season are sandwiched between the last 2 rounds of the DTM season so if Liuzzi continues to struggle it could be a chance for Di Resta to get a few races. I think the Italian is safe for now and Canada could be a race where incidents and circumstances allow him to bag some points provided he can do a clean race. This should at least build his confidence. He's fell out of F1 once. Falling out again and it'll most likely be curtains for his F1 career.

22 comments:

  1. He needs a good race. Do you like watching the Classic F1 on Beeb?

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  2. Canada should be a good race.

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  3. Hi Matt. Yes, he could do with a good finish soon. Yeah the Classic series is very good, i've seen clips from the past on youtube but it's really good to see some of the highlights packages and some races that perhaps aren't as well remmebered but still are enertaining

    @Anonymous Yeah it usually produces plenty of action so hopefully it'll be a good one. Great that it's back on the calendar

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  4. I hear that it might be Gary Paffett who is waiting in the wings, not di Resta

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  5. Interesting, i suppose he is another with Mercedes backing and Di Resta perhaps has more time on his side but he does have the advantage of the Friday running

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  6. Liuzzi has had two chances, he blew it in Toro Rosso and now he could lose his drive for Force India. Sutil has been much quicker than him.

    What do you think Liuzzi's best drive was in a F1 Car?

    Schumacher looks much quicker

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  7. Hi Connor. What is ur favourite Canada race?

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  8. Remember the 1999 race? Why is it called the Wall of Champions? Connor. Please answer

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  9. HI Stevie, yes this really is an opportunity he can't let slip too soon. Liuzzi's best drive, tough one that, China 2007 was his best result when his one stop strategy fell in with the need for dry tyres as the rain eased. He usually goes well in Shanghai

    Schumacher's pace has been improving, the Mercedes has been solid but is still off the Red Bull/McLaren pace, perhaps Canada will be an opportunity in what could be a more abnormal race

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  10. Hi Ade, well there have been some brilliant races through the years. Being a Kubica fan, 2008 was great and of course Hamilton had his first win in an action packed race in 2007 though i would go for 1998, i remember watching that and still being fairly new to the sport and it was so crazy and chaotic with the Wurz crash, a safety car for grass on the track and great battles at the front of the field!

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  11. Hi Ollie, i do indeed, yet another manic race and the first race ever to finish under safety car conditions. The name 'wall of champions' came about after that race when Schumacher, Villeneuve, Hill all crashed into it on the exit of the final corner. Even Ricardo Zonta crashed there and he was a sportscar champion! We have 4 world champions in the field this season...

    Thanks folks for the comments, appreciate it

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  12. Maybe Hamilton and Button will join the 'wall of champions'

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  13. @Connor@ Remember Mansell's big mistake in Canada 1991. Was there a crash between Wurz and Coulthard in Canada 2000.

    What happened in Canada 2000?

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  14. Who you think will be the new F1 team in 2011? Connor

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  15. @Anonymous I'm sure Lewis will be running it close anyway

    Hi David, yeah handed the victory to his big rival as well. Yeah i think they had an incident, DC got a penalty which left him in the midfield and then there was rain late in the race, i think he had quite a messy race that day. Schumacher won that day with Rubens second i think

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  16. Hi Davis, very hard to tell on that one, I think the 3 main contenders are Epsilon Euskadi, ART and Stefan GP. The Serbian have ruffled a few feathers already in the FIA, Epsilon have racing experience but were turned down last year. ART could be the one, a successful GP2 team and i would not be surprised to see them come in almost like a Ferrari 'b' team with Nicholas Todts link with them. Maybe if Jules Bianchi has a good season in GP2 he will be in F1 next season. Interesting story though, one to keep track of

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  17. All right, Do you think it will rain.

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  18. Monitoring the weather Fred and certainly its a possibilty, i still think it's likely to be dry, there will probably be rain in the region but it's just whether it'll hit during the sessions. Keep an eye on my twitter updates though, will be tracking the updates as we move closer to Sunday

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  19. It is true that Badoer had to stop when there was a crowd invasion in Canada 1995? cos Alesi won it

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  20. Why did the Williams and Toyota cars get disqualifyed in Canada 2004, also what is the best crash you've seen but they walked away from it?

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  21. The track was invaded after Alesi won and that caused some problems so the results were taken from a lap earlier

    The Williams and Toyota's were disqualified due to illegal brake ducts, brakes will be under big strain around Montreal especially with the cars on full tanks now at the start

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  22. Sorry, forgot about the crash! Kubica at Canada 2007 was terrifying yet spectatular, especially as the race director caught a good part of it live.

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