Is Nick Heidfeld making the best out of his third chance?

[marcush.]

now lopez also blaming the drivers for lack of results...In the same moment he speaks about the impact of having to close down the tunnel in an important time of the year and this was compounded by the rule changes that went on a few weeks ago and hurt the team doubly when no tunnel was available.
Lopez lamenting a drop of driver performance when the car was starting to show weakness ...what a clever guy to ask your driver to compensate for loss of competitiveness of your equipment..
Sure Robert would have been able to drive around these troubles the one thing thaat would not have happened:closing the windtunnel at a crucial time...what the hell did they think ? I understand the need to switch before the new car for 2012 is going into the tunnel ..but not even this.You will not be able to avoid building an extra windtunnel model anyways.As you have to calibrate .So either you do two R31 s or two R32s ...but i don´t understand why they opted to take down the tunnel so early instead of starting the base development on R32 with the 50% model and upgrade the tunnel when all effort is switched to r32.That way around you could revisit the development steps made in 2011 in the new environment and look for correlations or answers for the lack of it .Now the tunnel is changed and all development is in the new facility .If they happen to not find a direction ...what does this for their confidence in their 2012 development?

[Donuts]

now lopez also blaming the drivers for lack of results...In the same moment he speaks about the impact of having to close down the tunnel in an important time of the year and this was compounded by the rule changes that went on a few weeks ago and hurt the team doubly when no tunnel was available.
Lopez lamenting a drop of driver performance when the car was starting to show weakness ...what a clever guy to ask your driver to compensate for loss of competitiveness of your equipment..
Sure Robert would have been able to drive around these troubles the one thing thaat would not have happened:closing the windtunnel at a crucial time...what the hell did they think ? I understand the need to switch before the new car for 2012 is going into the tunnel ..but not even this.You will not be able to avoid building an extra windtunnel model anyways.As you have to calibrate .So either you do two R31 s or two R32s ...but i don´t understand why they opted to take down the tunnel so early instead of starting the base development on R32 with the 50% model and upgrade the tunnel when all effort is switched to r32.That way around you could revisit the development steps made in 2011 in the new environment and look for correlations or answers for the lack of it .Now the tunnel is changed and all development is in the new facility .If they happen to not find a direction ...what does this for their confidence in their 2012 development?

We can "yap" about politics(Gerard Lopez should shut his pie hole) and development, but the fact is, Vitaly Petrov is outqualifying Nick Heidfeld. That's that.

[marcush.]

no points awarded for grid position this year.
In fact some drivers made good use of new tyres after not making it into Q2 or Q3...
The end result is what counts .And if Nick does indeed manage to keep his head in front of Petrov after these lowest level showings of his bosses than hats off for his morale.

[PlatinumZealot]

Enlightening Words From E.Boullier over the past weeks.

It seemsHeidfeld is.... the weakest link! at Renault.

3rd chance and 3 strikes. just like Baseball.

[HampusA]

I love myself sometimes,

Nick has always been a little so-so. Nothing is ever good with him, and when it is perfect it´s usually a podium finish max.

I think they should scrap him to be honest, let Bruno get on with it despite the lack of knowledge. He seems like a very good person mind-wise and very focused. Obciously he´s not Ayrton but still, i think he´s a solid driver nevertheless.

[marcush.]

well ,we will see how many points will be scored by Senna ,how many by Petrov.The maths
are easy to understand ..the car is not quick enough to challenge for 4th in constructors in the hands of petrov ,Heidfeld or Senna,so it does not really hurt that much right now.
It will only get bad when petrov would lose his focus .The team just has too many dnf PLUS too many finishes out of the points and is living on early achievements in the season .the Monza race will show if Senna is as erratic as it looks ..maybe he is a second de Cesaris of sorts....who was quick but unable to complete a faultless race before late in his career.

[HampusA]

Yea it should be interesting to see how he will do.
I wonder if his Qualifying was just a fluke or just pure luck due to the conditions.

He was faster then Petrov in Q1 and Q3 for what it´s worth.

[PlatinumZealot]

well ,we will see how many points will be scored by Senna ,how many by Petrov.The maths
are easy to understand ..the car is not quick enough to challenge for 4th in constructors in the hands of petrov ,Heidfeld or Senna,so it does not really hurt that much right now.
It will only get bad when petrov would lose his focus .The team just has too many dnf PLUS too many finishes out of the points and is living on early achievements in the season .the Monza race will show if Senna is as erratic as it looks ..maybe he is a second de Cesaris of sorts....who was quick but unable to complete a faultless race before late in his career.

Mr. Cush... you know as well as anybody that being an F1 driver or any other top level athlete, is not just about "doing the job."
You got to go the extra mile, and as a leader you have to "ride or die." Get the team motivated, let the people know what you feel out of the car and not just in it, speak with some hubris, you know, add some spice, kick some ass. This is what I learned when I was in a fraternity at University, you only ever really feel like getting behind somebody if they let you feel their emotions and see their grand (Though possibly deluded) visions...

This is what has has evaded Heidfeld.

The bearded one, very comfortable in himself, thought he was safe when in fact he had the sword of Damocles looming for some time. He just did not come to that enlightenment, he was seeing his life as an F1 driver though secretariat's blinker looking out but never looking in, looking at a mirror but not seeing himself. A very "immature" and dare I say, selfish view of life. It's not all about you, it's about the team!

This is not just a problem with Heidfeld but quite a few sportsmen.

[marcush.]

reality is waiting for him already this weekend..
How can you say how he is based on some haircut and facehair...I don´t buy this.It´s the same haircut and the same beard nothing changed till winter testing.
If that was a criteria take liuzzi(maybe he looks as wild) or de la rosa.If he lacks personality ..forget that ....
the remaining races will decide if he was just not delivering .
Don´t get me wrong I don´t think he did too well .But so did Renault.Let´s see how long the new broom is good enough for lopez.

[timbo]

Senna brings the money.
Lets look at the situation -- Petrov keeps scoring as before, Senna scores nothing.
Do they save 5th place? Very likely.
Petrov and Nick keep score as before, are they in the fight for 4th? Not very likely.
So, would you want to pay Nick if Senna brings money?
Yes, Nick felt victim of Renault's slump mid-season, as if they were still in the fight for 4th, they'd need 2 scoring drivers. However, prior to Belgium, the difference between Renault and Merc was 14 points. I think that was close to a target for Nick before the season (to bring somewhere between 1.5-2 times Petrov's points) and he missed it.

[HampusA]

To me it feels Nick don´t have a passion anymore like the other guys.
He´s just in F1 for the sake of it.

Atleast that´s my feeling i get from listening to him.

[Mr Alcatraz]

To me it feels Nick don´t have a passion anymore like the other guys.
He´s just in F1 for the sake of it.

Atleast that´s my feeling i get from listening to him.

Nick has never struck me as being effusive by nature in his entire career.

[wesley123]

To me it feels Nick don´t have a passion anymore like the other guys.
He´s just in F1 for the sake of it.

Atleast that´s my feeling i get from listening to him.

imo he shows to be a bit lazy, he is there in terms of pace but does not seem to really go for it.

[marcush.]

He outscored petrov ,lazy as he was or is...
Everything is relative .
Hamilton came in F1 and matched Alonso from the outset -he never had driven a formula 1 race before...would you say Alonso is lazy ???

If Nick was not quicker than Petrov ,maybe it´s simply Petrov is better than we thought ?

Look ,Fisichella almost scored a victory with FI in SPA in 2009 and switched to Ferrari ...and never matched Raikkonen ..not even scored a single point..
If things can be judged by a haircut and a beard ...so be it.

Fisichella was matching or beating Sutil easily in 2009 btw....

[Jeffsvilleusa]

One thing you can say about Heidfeld is that he always seemed to have Alonso's number.