We are dong something a bit different this month. Because of a busy Christmas period and plenty of predictions to look at later this month, we are going to look at headlines for the first half of December now and early in the New Year, we will have a part two that looks at headlines from the second half of the month.
Once again, this is just for fun. In case you are new, this is my gut reaction to headlines without reading the article. Of course, the gripes I have may be answered in the article.
Interview: Why NASCAR's Rookie of the Year still isn't satisfied
Because William Byron won Rookie of the Year and that doesn't mean crap in NASCAR, really any sport to be honest. Daniel Suárez lost his ride after two years. Suárez didn't win Rookie of the Year but he was respectable and he was kicked to the curb. Brett Moffitt won the 2015 Cup Series Rookie of the Year and he went backward. He won the Truck title this year but he still went backward.
Here is a list of other Rookie of the Year winners: Ricky Craven, Johnny Benson, Mike Skinner, Jamie McMurray, Kevin Conway, Stephan Leicht, Ricky Stenhouse, Jr.
Only six of the last 30 Rookie of the Year winners have won a championship.
Byron knows he hasn't done jack yet and he is miles off of where he needs to be.
Dovizioso hails best winter tests of Ducati career
Are championships won in November and December test sessions? What does this even mean?
Is it related to pace or does it come to the other things? Have there been tests where you were quicker but the coffee wasn't warm enough? Did you get more sleep each night and wake up feeling fresher than other years?
I am happy that Dovizioso is happy heading into the winter but will the best winter tests matter come summer?
Hamilton suffers small crash during Superbike test
So... these drivers have a problem with running an IndyCar on an oval and their teams wouldn't dare let them do it but jumping on a superbike is not a problem at all?
There is nothing wrong with feeling more comfortable on a superbike than driving an IndyCar on an oval but there is a bit of hypocrisy. You can still get hurt and seriously hurt on a superbike. How many riders have we seen get thrown from a bike and the injury derailed an entire season?
And Mercedes allowed this to happen? At least in another car, Hamilton would have something around him. When you crash on a motorcycle your body is going to make contact with something and Hamilton isn't Marc Márquez who trains his body to take a beating.
Hamilton is free to do whatever he wants but he and no one who things him testing a superbike isn't a big deal shouldn't come out and start decrying IndyCar for being too dangerous.
FIA: Aeroscreen only 10% as effective in Leclerc's Spa crash
I like how it was only last year the aeroscreen was in the catbird seat until Sebastian Vettel tested it for one out lap at Silverstone in FP1, complained, had Ferrari be the only team to vote against it while every other team voted for the aeroscreen over the halo and now we are picking out the flaws of the aeroscreen.
Guess what? If the aeroscreen had been chosen, don't you think modifications and improvements would have been made before hand? Don't you think more testing would have been done and they would have strengthened it?
The halo is here and it isn't going anywhere. IndyCar is the only series pursuing the aeroscreen but couldn't a hybrid work? In the case of the Leclerc accident with Fernando Alonso, why couldn't the next generation of the aeroscreen include the upper bar of the halo as a solid top with the aeroscreen surrounding the front of the drivers head and the middle bar could be removed?
The aeroscreen may have had its flaws but let's point out that they could have been corrected instead of saying it was garbage and would have not been able to protect Leclerc.
Button: "Diverse" Yamamoto worthy of F1 race seat
Yes and so is Scott Dixon, Lucas di Grassi, Alexander Rossi, Will Power, Sébastien Buemi, Felix Rosenqvist, Sam Bird, Filipe Albuquerque, Neel Jani, Jean-Éric Vergne, António Félix da Costa, Robin Frijns and Mitch Evans so Naoki Yamamoto is going to have to get in line.
What is in Yamamoto's favor is his nationality and he drives for Honda so if any driver can get shoehorned into Formula One it is him. Japan is a tough place to race. Both Super Formula and Super GT are high level series and we are seeing more Formula One teams direct their development drivers to Super Formula if they have proven to have Formula Two down pat or as an alternate to Formula Two. Honda right now is supplying the two Red Bull teams so it will be a bit tougher for Yamamoto because he has a dozen Red Bull drivers to contest with but if Honda expanded to a third team or started a factory team then the door would open for him and I would be interested in seeing how he does.
If Honda can't get Yamamoto into Formula One, there is always IndyCar.
Jacques Villeneuve says that Valtteri Bottas is not a lock to finish 2019 in Mercedes F1 seat
Oh good, Jacques Villeneuve chimed in. Who calls him? Who? Why? Why doesn't anyone call him? Is he calling people? How much free time does Jacques Villeneuve have on his hands that he can comment about every other story when it comes to Formula One? How is he not television with the amount of comments he makes?
He might be right but it is all about batting average and I feel like he is wrong more than he is right.
Max Verstappen sad he never got to 'race' with F1 great Fernando Alonso
This was a douchebag of a comment. Verstappen knew what he was saying. He knew it would be a burn. It was uncalled for. We get it. Alonso was in inferior equipment for three seasons. He was not close to his best but this was a potshot from Verstappen. He comes off like a punk more every day.
Has Johnson shown America's next F1 star could come from NASCAR?
No!
Is anyone going to use common sense and a critical lens when it comes to this ride swap?
First, it was a ride swap. Two, it was a five-year-old car. Three, his times were way off what were competitive five years ago. Four, we have no idea what kind of set up or tires were on the car.
Let's not think that just because Jimmie Johnson did a day in a Formula One car and didn't bin the car or break a gearbox means he or anyone else from NASCAR could just move over to Formula One. There is so much more he would have to learn. His braking points will be much later than he ever experienced and he would have to fight muscle memory of how he drives a Cup car now on a road course meanwhile he would be competing against drivers who are already accustomed to driving it that deep into a corner since the days of Formula Three.
Besides the difference of the car, the cultural differences is just as big of a hurdle and I do not mean life in the United States versus life with a European team. If Johnson or anyone from NASCAR was going to make a switch it would require a few seasons of junior formula racing and cost them millions of dollars. Do you really think Joey Logano is going to spend a year in Formula Three or Brad Keselowski? Kyle Busch isn't going to spend two years in Formula Two.
These drivers aren't going to sacrifice two or three years in junior series to make just as much running for a decent Formula One team that they already make in NASCAR. And none of them are going to move to Formula One and get the $20 million salary that Fernando Alonso got at McLaren and they definitely would be nowhere near Lewis Hamilton or Sebastian Vettel money. Running for Sergio Pérez money or Nico Hülkenberg money isn't worth it and it will keep them in NASCAR.
Mears: Johnson can make IndyCar switch "if the fire is lit"
Sure but it kind of falls into the same boat as Formula One. The difference is it wouldn't likely cost Johnson a small fortune to get to IndyCar. Johnson has enough connections that he could likely pull together a full IndyCar season without costing himself a penny but unless he has a change of heart and stops dismissing running ovals then it isn't going to happen.
Autosport Awards: Leclerc is Rookie of the Year
I got a bone to pick here.
Are people always going to vote down ticket for Formula One when it comes to the Autosport Awards? Will anyone look at it critically and actually do some research?
The International Racing Driver Award has gone to a Formula One driver 25 consecutive years and even worse it has been the World Drivers' Championship 11 consecutive years. The International Racing Driver Award has gone to a driver that has run predominantly Formula One for 35 of the 37 years. The Racing Car of the Year has been a Formula One car 15 consecutive years and a Formula One car has won the award 33 of 37 years.
In the 19 years Rookie of the Year has been awarded, a Formula One driver has won it 13 times and Charles Leclerc won it this year, one year after winning it for his Formula Two campaign.
For starters, I don't think you should be up for rookie of the year if you are in a development series. Most of the drivers you are against are also rookies or in their second year in that series. You aren't taking on experienced drivers who have been in that series for years.
Secondly, how the hell is what Leclerc done more impressive than Robert Wickens?
I am going to fight for Robert Wickens on this one.
First off, George Russell and Lando Norris are disqualified because of Formula Two. The other two nominees were Pierre Gasly, which is fine, and André Lotterer in Formula E, which is also fine, but Wickens has them beat.
Take into consideration that Wickens went from touring cars to single-seaters after being out of open-wheel cars for seven years and he moved to a series that was on another continent, with racetrack most of which he had never raced on and he had to run ovals, something he had never done before. Despite all those constraints, he won pole on debut, nearly won on debut, he finished second on his oval debut, he had four podium finishes, seven top five finishes and ten top ten finishes from 14 starts. He was sixth in the championship when he got hurt and he finished 11th, tied for tenth only to lose it on tiebreaker and he was still IndyCar Rookie of the Year.
Wickens had an average starting position of 6.4, behind only Will Power, Josef Newgarden, Alexander Rossi and Ryan Hunter-Reay. His average finish was 8.9, behind only Scott Dixon, Rossi, Newgarden, Simon Pagenaud and Hunter-Reay. He led the fifth most laps.
Leclerc had a good year and he was driving for Sauber. He scored 39 points on his own after Sauber as a team scored zero points, 36 points, two points and five points in the previous four seasons. His 39 points were the most scored by a Sauber driver since Nico Hülkenberg scored 51 points in 2013. He scored points in ten of 21 races with his best finish being sixth at Azerbaijan.
Leclerc did well but at no point did anyone think Leclerc had what it took to win a race and Wickens had that for pretty much every race from day one. Part of the reason we didn't feel that way for Leclerc is he was driving for Sauber but he was trained for Formula One. He has been on the ladder for quite sometime. He had been to most of the tracks. He had Ferrari backing, simulator opportunities and he had driven in eight Friday free practice sessions over the previous two years.
Wickens did a ride swap during the preseason in 2017 at Sebring, he ran on Friday at Road America last year when Mikhail Aleshin was struggling to get into the country due to visa issues and then he had 2018 preseason testing. That's it. He rolled the dice. He left a Mercedes-Benz factory drive in the DTM to run IndyCar and completely shed his comfort zone and from day one he was trading punches with the big boys and he did not flinch.
We know fans can be somewhat critical. Hell, somehow A.J. Allmendinger won Rookie of the Year in 2004 when he was in Champ Car. I don't know who he was up against but he won it. The year before that, Dan Wheldon won in the IRL but I have a feeling the British bias helped him in that one. At the same time, Tiago Monteiro, Jules Bianchi and Pascal Wehrlein all won Rookie of the Year. Monteiro finished third in the 2005 United States Grand Prix when all the Michelin teams withdrew and he scored one point with an eighth-place finish at Belgium. Bianchi did not score any points the year he won the award and while Bianchi was a great talent and was unfortunately killed in an accident before he got a proper shot in a proper car, we need to be more critical than saying someone scoring no points is the best rookie. The same goes with Wehrlein, who scored one point the year he won.
I feel like more should be done when it comes to these type of awards. One, I don't think they should be up to a fan poll. That may come off as unpopular but we have seen enough times that they don't do enough research. Two, if we are going to have fans vote, each nominee should have a thorough write up as to why he, she or the car is being nominated and the achievements of the season should be put into context.
Same goes for all the awards. The International Racing Driver Award can go to Scott Dixon or Jean-Éric Vergne or Sébastien Buemi. Racing Car of the Year can be something other than a Formula One car. The DW12 could have won. The Toyota TS050 Hybrid could have won. It could be given to a GT3 car or a Daytona Prototype international.
I think Autosport should do more when it looks at the results and sees how one-sided they have been for nearly four decades.
That was just one half of the month. What will the second have in store?
Covering All Motorsports. From Indianapolis to Le Mans, Daytona to Monaco.
