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

[dren]

Yeah, looks like Nick has good input, just isn't pushing and leading the team. He is a very technical minded driver as I've noticed from reading interviews and quotes from him last year.

[marcush.]

I think Boulier is talking BS here and making politics.
The car has not fulfilled its early promise and Allisons boys were unable to improve the car.Is this Nicks responsibility ? not really.
Nick has surely not imprtessed with his qualy performances ,but we realistically this ha been an issue for some years now for him.

[HampusA]

Can´t say i´ve been impressed with him this season to be honest.

[marcush.]

Can´t say i´ve been impressed with him this season to be honest.

Still Petrov has 2 points less to his name- so everything is relative -

in reality the R31 is what is not impressive .they had a decent car at the start of the season but soon we realised that R31 has lost everything good from the R30 and failed to impress especially on those tracks where renault really showed speed...like Monaco and Canada.

The test with the new Exhaust shows the FEE development is a dead end when heidfeld is matching the times of petrov with a quick and dirty conversion and a aero flaw in that configuration leading to separation..We don´t know who triggered this all ,maybe Heidfeld was supporting to stay with the FEE development ? or he was not pushing hard enough to abandon it? Whatever ..he did not please Mr Boullier..

[dren]

I think Boulier is talking BS here and making politics.
The car has not fulfilled its early promise and Allisons boys were unable to improve the car.Is this Nicks responsibility ? not really.
Nick has surely not imprtessed with his qualy performances ,but we realistically this ha been an issue for some years now for him.

Renault seems to jump into politics with drivers around this time of year, probably for driver contracts and such. Remember the Raikkonen deal last year?

[timbo]

I think Boulier is talking BS here and making politics.
The car has not fulfilled its early promise and Allisons boys were unable to improve the car.Is this Nicks responsibility ? not really.
Nick has surely not imprtessed with his qualy performances ,but we realistically this ha been an issue for some years now for him.

Renault seems to jump into politics with drivers around this time of year, probably for driver contracts and such. Remember the Raikkonen deal last year?

What would be a point? Heidfeld is definitely on the way one after this year.

[Mr Alcatraz]

Nick pretty much picked up where he left off in my way of thinking; never one to have good luck. Almost always drives car close to the limit never really finding the Promised Land. I think he is doing about what I expected of him. I think that coming in late and matching Petrov is not so bad. He has a nice little job that he got quite unexpectedly, and I think he is sufficient but not formidable

[PlatinumZealot]

Heidfeld is a RACE car DRIVER above all else. He has to make things happen, he can't just drive the car to the finish line (or can he?) A real driver does things to put the car in front of it's rivals and right now Heifeld is not doing much in this respect... not aggressive, not cautious, not clever, not opportunistic, not fast... he is too slightly above average at everything, he is just not what Renault needs right now.

I think Kobayashi or Heiki Kovaleinen would have done a better job. Kamui in race craft and Kova in speed.

[scuderiafan]

No. Unfortunately, his chances of winning a championship have passed, but I can see him stick around like Barichello has done, and be a leader at different teams in the future. In order to do this, he needs to take control of LRGP. Right now--and even Boullier has said this--LRGP is relying more and more on Petrov bringing home the bacon. If it comes to the point where Quick Nick gets kicked from Renault, he may not be able to come back to F1, if other teams don't think he'll be a leader at their team.

[Fil]

Scuderia, what you've just written is what was expected of him as soon as he stepped into Kubica's R31 in preseason testing.
He was hired to lead the team, direct development & bring consistently good results. All this to take the pressure off Petrov & let him learn.


We're over the halfway mark of this season now. He hasn't done any of that. The only thing he's done is make Petrov look good.

Other teams already know he isn't a leader. He'll be back testing for Pirelli soon enough..

[marcush.]

Well ,that´s not true.
Petrov has improved big time partnering Heidfeld and has raised his game bringing the car home more often and scoring already more points than he did in the whole season of 2010.
Renault is close to where they were a year back even though they lost their lead driver wich is surely a bad knock in preseason preparation.
You think Grosjean or Senna had bagged 30+ points at this point of the championship ,or liuzzi?
These were the alternatives. not kobayashi or Kovalainen .

Nick has failed in my book as well ,but I´m more disappointed with R31 and the development progress by Renault tbh.
they clearly got stuck somewhere ..possibly at that pont when they discovered that RedBulls solution has more potential and they stopped everything and redirected towards their solution?

[Richard]

Surely he was hired as a temp driver to fill in for some who was injured? Whoever Renault could only ever be a mercenary keeping the seat warm.

[PlatinumZealot]

They hired him as a leader and Someone for Petrov to learn from, but instead Petrov is the one giving the lessons!

[marcush.]

they are equal on points ...that´s equal not giving lessons?

I see petrov as the better qualifier ..and if I rmemeber correctly petrov was not far behind if at all to kubica last year already only made more mistakes crashing in crucial situations ,eg Qauly.

Bring on Senna or Grosjean and look what they can do with that moron of a car...

Petrov on his day could beaat Kubica in Qaly already last year -Hungary and Manama (where he demoted Kubica from taking part in Q3 for the firsst time in that season in a direct fight petrov taking p10 in Q2,Kubica p11 ).

I see this as the hinge point for Petrov who was matching kubica really in that race ..So what Kubica held in terms of advantage is he could somehow wring something from the car when it was not at its best ,but maybe the car suited him better.

Interestingly , Heidfeld is quite happy with his season so far and says: considering the circumstances my season is good , not outstanding but good. And he is not afraid at all to lose his seat...so as i said ..Renault silly season bs talk to increase pressure on the drivers.

[Pierce89]

they are equal on points ...that´s equal not giving lessons?

I see petrov as the better qualifier ..and if I rmemeber correctly petrov was not far behind if at all to kubica last year already only made more mistakes crashing in crucial situations ,eg Qauly.

Bring on Senna or Grosjean and look what they can do with that moron of a car...

Petrov on his day could beaat Kubica in Qaly already last year -Hungary and Manama (where he demoted Kubica from taking part in Q3 for the firsst time in that season in a direct fight petrov taking p10 in Q2,Kubica p11 ).

I see this as the hinge point for Petrov who was matching kubica really in that race ..So what Kubica held in terms of advantage is he could somehow wring something from the car when it was not at its best ,but maybe the car suited him better.

Interestingly , Heidfeld is quite happy with his season so far and says: considering the circumstances my season is good , not outstanding but good. And he is not afraid at all to lose his seat...so as i said ..Renault silly season bs talk to increase pressure on the drivers.

I agree from start to finish