Whoever is hiring Soucek will also make whoever thought the FIA F2 Championship was a good idea happy... not being at odds with the FIA is always nice.

Soucek has already said he's approached Campos and they turned him away. He didn't have as much as they were after. He's only got five million; Maldonado and Petrov both have twenty. And I wouldn't trust the Spanish press on the subject of Spanish drivers. They've already got three and will probably see no problem in making things up if they think there's a chance there could be four.

Good news if that is true, Soucek deserves a chance before Maldonado.

yes but with an investor on board, Campos might feel that he doesnt need driver money so much and Soucek might open up sponsorship in spain through next year. Id still like Petrov in Campos if hes not in the Renault but Soucek would be a good driver.

thanks man, good to see.

It depends on how much an investor invests. If that investor put fifteen million into the team and Soucek brought five, then they'd get him for the same amount as Maldonado/Petrov with their twenty million. But it still doesn't change the fact that an investor putting fifteen million in and Maldonado/Petrov bringing twenty gives them thirty-five million. And I doubt fifteen million would be enough to give an investor a voice as to who is chosen. Now, if he could out-do (or at least match) Petrov and Maldonado, then he could have his say.

And I think Soucek would be a mistake. I see a repeat of Nelson Piquet in him: an arrogant driver who assumes a double World Championship is due. Although Soucek would expect it because he's Spanish and Alonso is Spanish, not because of a famous father.

Frankly I am very doubtful.

Soucek and his father have created several economic and legal troubles to more than one team in recent years. I don't think that is the best choice for a team that already seems to have difficulty on his own.

Although Maldanado may not be the best driver to go for, he did give Senna a run for his money in the 2008 Monaco Feature Race. Maldanado set the fastest lap of that race.

That's why I think Soucek is trouble. He might have been well within his rights to launch legal action against Coloni ... but the problem was that his issue was with Fisichella Motorsport, the previous owners. Who had left the team before Soucek's injunction.

And his results in Formula 2 are skewed. He was the oldest driver on the grid by a long shot, and therefore the most experienced. The opposition wouldn't have provided much resistance. I think he was really only there to give Formula 2 a bit of extra credibility.

Someone mentioned that F1 should be much more positive and I know for certain that negativism does no good for any business.
Recently I learnt, that Manor have hired almost 200 people, we already know about USF1 having their factory sorted out, Dallara have finished their car before NY and Lotus have quite a solid backing. So I wonder, what is Bernie's agenda? I mean, he can't stop repeating his "expectations" for the new teams.
As it was mentioned in Racecar Engineering, the teams are now investing in equipment for the "resource restriction" era, so why do you think these new teams won't do the same? Throw lots of money while it's allowed! Of course then they will need pay drivers with 20 mln...

No, Bruno did it. 1'21"338

I also believe that Zuber and Razia (and their respective sponsors) have not been happy for the fact that they were forced to abandon the race at Spa.

Well I'd be forced to agree after this season, but the thing is, when Soucek and Maldonado raced together in the World Series and GP2 there seemed to be very little between them and you could easily make a case that Maldonado was the stronger driver. Andy's theoretical and doubtful extra talent, even with the spanish nationality bonus, certainly can't be of more value to the team than an extra 15 millions. Now, does Maldonado really have all that cash...?

That is the most inane reading-between-lines-that-aren't-actually-there thing I've seen in a while. I'm not any particular supporter of Soucek, but I don't think anything he has said in any way indicates he thinks like that at all. Touchy much?

Tightpants suffers from Russophilia.. he admitted as much.

A. Soucek, extremely close to Campos Meta

If Teixeira buy a part of Campos i think Andy is the second driver for Adrian Campos.

Yeah, but I try and be realistic about it. I'm not like, say Nick Heideld fans who believe that Renault putting an indefinite date on their final driver decision is the team playing hardball with Heidfeld.

I thought I read somewhere that Bernie said that Texeira needs to sort out his A1GP finances before thinking about Campos. Anyone know what article I'm talking about?

Only if Teixeira buys enough of the team to have a say in driver decisions. Tony Teixeira is not Spanish. He was born in Portugal, but emigrated to South Africa and is a naturalised citizen. So he has no reason to support a Soucek drive on the basis of nationality, fi that's what you're implying.

A1 probably have lots of debt to Ferrari, so Teixeira is not really welcomed in the Paddock.

Campos considers two options. Teixeira could be out of the equation. The announcement is extremely close.

I think Soucek would be an excellent choice for Campos and I don't agree with some of the negative comments written here about him. And it's not because he was the oldest driver in F2 that we should receive less credit for that. The level of the F2 field was far from bad either with drivers like Eng, Wickens, Bortolotti, Aleshin, Jousse, Piscoppo, Hohental,... not GP2 level but still a very competitive field. I always rated Soucek as a driver with potential and since he was very quick right away during his Williams F1 test I think he proved that he is ready to step up to F1.

But on the other hand I would love to see Maldonado in F1 too since he is a very spectacular driver and he is always awesome at Monaco.

Ah, my mistake, it was Maldanado who got Pole Position.

Exactly.

Pastor managed to take pole position at the end of the session.
Bruno did score the fastest lap in the feature race when Maldonado was trying to catch him.

Still, his track record at Monaco is impressive. If we get a wet Monaco in 2010, I expect Campos to do well.

I think what he means is, with a new investor, the second driver won´t need to bring so much money, them Andy Soucek would have his chance there, not because of Teixeira but for the arrival of that new investor.

Two years ago a friend who is home on a boat in Monaco told me that if Bruno won he would have thrown me in the murky waters of the harbor.
I hope you're right.

P.S. However, he did not throw me.

And that will depend on how much money the investor puts into the team. Maldonado and Petrov are said to have twenty million each. Pedro de la Rosa was believed to have five million. Apparently Andy Soucek couldn't even match de la Rosa. And so an investor would have to our a hell of a lot of money into the team in order for Soucek to become a viable prospect - and even then, it doesn't guarantee him a seat.

CadenaSER (spanish radio station) says that Andy Soucek will be 2nd driver in Campos team. As a fact, not guessing.

Spanish news sources have proven to be consistently unreliable when reporting on Spanish drivers. They tend to make crap up. If there's a chance for four Spanish drvers on the grid, they'll take it ... as if they could ever influence anything.

Hopefully you're right Tightpants... haven't they got finances to sort out in the first place anyway?

I belive pikamou's train of thought is that Campos have their funding, and haven't said anything about it. Because of that, they're now free to take whoever they want.

I know that Campos wanted to be a Spanish team with a Spaish driver, but Soucek couldn't even match de la Rosa for funding. Even if this investor has poured a hell of a lot of fuding into the team, it doesn't change the fact that Campos don't have a sponsor. Soucek doesn't have one, so unless Campos are willing to go bare-bones for 2010 like Brawn very nearly did, I doubt he's going to be able to make as strong a case as, say Petrov or Maldonado (I for one cannot believe that Petrov would be stupid enough to commit to one team without leaving his options open with the other; nor can I believe that Campos would be dumb enough to ignore a fifteen million Euro carrot for the sake of nationalism).

If Soucek gets into the sport in 2010, I hope he's craptastically useless. It should serve him right for some of the crap he's pulled, like the stunt with Coloni.

I'm spanish and you could apply your statement to sports tabloids (AS, Marca, ....) , but CadenaSER is usually a reliable news source.

I dont want to defend spanish tabloids, I dont care them, but they are not the only one unreliable source in F1 news world


IMO Soucek is not ready for a F1 role, as Alguersuari was not last year, but this no-testing era has this consecuences. Shame.

I'm with you on that one.. though if he does get a drive, it will be despite those antics... 'cause everyone knows.
You know the tune; at a higher level they believe they're in control and can prevent that kind of stuff.. actually, no. They believe they have complete control, period.

The kid sounds pretty ruthless though, lol.. not necessarily a bad thing...

I still think that was an immense no-no overall though

I'm pretty sure it would have black-listed him with each and every single Formula 1 team at the time. They would have seen him as a liability; if he's shown a willingness to do it once, then he won't hesitate to do it again.

Normally, I would actually support Soucek on this. I would say he was totally within his rights to launch legal action against the team. However, his case is an exception. When he signed to the team and was subsequently dropped by them, they were Fisichella Motorsport International. But FMS management wanted out, and they gradually sold the team off to Scuderia Coloni. By the time Soucek launched his action, FMS had departed and Coloni was in control. Even if the team was populated by the same people, his issue was with FMS management. And that's why I reckon Soucek is a bad choice. He's the poor-man's Nelson Piquet.

And as Aguri Suzki proved, running the Home Team All-Stars in your lineup is not a wise move.

YES!!!!!!!!! Great news, hopefully it will turn out to be correct, it sounds like it will happen.

Rumour from another board: a forum member has a friend that works at Campos or is connected to the team in some way, and he says the team has a "10% chance of existing".

That sounds like unreliable bullshit but that forum member isn't the kind that makes things up. Could still not be true, hopefully.

Most of the rumours say that Campos won´t be in Bahrein. As a spaniard i will be very dissapointed if this proyect fails to secure enough money. Two times (Bravo and Campos) that we have an oportunity and the guys who manage the teams blow it.

You are wrong, De La Rosa has no funding at all, Soucek has a 5 million € package, not as much as Petrov or Maldonado, but if Campos gets some financial support from somewhere else they surely will sign Soucek as 2nd driver.

motorsport-total.de reports that Campos "lost" Dallara as their supplier last monday because of unpaid bills of around 3mio. euro, whatever that means

So they don't have a chassis? That's bad.

Someone posted on the USF1 thread that Autosport had an article this week which said that De la Rosa had more funding than Fisischella (and was probably the reason Sauber chose De la Rosa over Fisischella?).

James Allen also wrote in his blog that De la Rosa came with sponsorship money (Repsol).

Is this latest linked story about problems paying Dallara new or a rehash of the similar one, from the same site, linked here a few pages back? It certainly doesn't sound good, if it's true that bills are going unpaid.

If this is true then I'd expect a flood of 'breaking news' stories throughout the F1 media regardless of this being the weekend... that'd be the end of Campos Meta.

On January 12th BBC ran this story:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/motorsport...one/8453054.stm



So unless Campos should have paid the 3mill between Jan 12th and now and haven't done so the story goes against what Dallara said 11 days ago... So, unless Dallara was not telling the truth back on the 12th, it seems like Campos have been paying their bills to Dallara.

That´s not true. Repsol left Pedro 8 years ago. Repsol is withdrawing from almost motor sponsorship. Only Repsol Honda and Trial keeps an strong sponsorship.

Sorry, my mistake. I didn't re-read the blog until now. James Allen writes that his money comes from: "Universia, which is a foundation set up by Banco Santander"

It was an Autosport article that mentioned he had more funding than Fisichella (which apparently would come with a reduction in the engine lease fee from Ferrari).

What makes you think that? Even if they get financial support from "somewhere", that won' change the fact that Maldonado and Petrov still have money to bring. And it certainly doesn't rule them out entirely.

James Allen is wrong on that, Repsol has nothing to do with Pedro, they ended their relation many years ago.

Repsol in fact has a deal with Alguersari, but they were reluctant to put money for him to continue in Toro Rosso, that´s the reason why the official announcement came so late, i guess they finally throwed some euros in there, but not sure about it, we´ll see it when the season begins.

Pedro used to be as a guest in some Universia acts (Universia is one of Alonso´s personal sponsors) and it was rumoured they will put some money for Pedro by making a deal with Sauber but they confirmed they wouldn´t, although they will support him as a personal sponsor.

There might be some sponsors going to Sauber due to Pedro´s signing, but sure they won´t be Universia or Repsol.

About the Fisichella thing, i guess the part of Ferrari wanting Fisichella to remain as its 3rd driver played a big part on the negotiations, i don´t see Peter Sauber enjoying the possibility of losing his veteran and experienced driver in the middle of the season.

I don´t think money is the reason Pedro is in Sauber, the only reason for some people in fact, anyway, once the preseason starts to roll we´ll be able to find out.