End othe road

December 15 2011 autosport.com 2726 autosport.com December 15 2011

FEATURE

YOUNG DRIVERS

n a sport where moneytalks loudly, some youngdrivers aspiring to reach

Formula 1 get further up therungs of the motorsport ladderthan others. A few go on to

have very successful careers inother formulae, while others

run out of options the moment they run

out of money. Somewhere in the middleof those outcomes lies Alexander Sims.

A former McLaren Autosport BRDC

Young Driver of The Year, Sims isassessing his options for 2012 afteradmitting his career in single-seaters

looks to be over.

Former YoungDriver of the YearAlexander Sims’single-seater careeris over as the cut-throat, financially-dependent world of motorsport takesanother victim.By SCOTT MITCHELL

“It looks like my time in s ingle seatersis inished,” he relects. “I’ll probablystep aside and do sportscars and try

and make a career elsewhere. I can’t justify the cost of another season in GP3when I know GP2 and F1 are completely

[inancially] unviable.”Winner of the Autosport award

in 2008, the 23-year-old endured a

frustrating 2011 after making what he calls “a sideways move” fromthe Formula 3 Euroseries to GP3.

Despite winning the second race of the championship in Turkey, doubleretirements in Spain and Belgium

coupled with a disqualiication inHungary saw him ultimately inish 6th,behind fellow Brits James Calado and

Adrian Quaife-Hobbs.The latter was one of the British

drivers who took part in the Young

Driver Test in Abu Dhabi. Though heearned his spot in the test by virtue of inishing 5th in GP3 – the top placed

Marrussia-backed driver – he is onedriver who has beneited from a s tronginancial footing, which in modern-day

motorsport is just as important as talent.“At the end of the day, now you’ve

got to be bloody fast and have millions

of pounds,” says Sims. “They are thetwo biggest factors and the irst andforemost one is now funding. That’s just 

the way the industry’s changed.”Many would have expected the

Briton, lauded throughout the yearby commentators and pundits for his

attacking style and raw pace, to move upto GP2, as Calado has done, or perhapseven Formula Renault 3.5 in the same

way as another former Autosport awardwinner Lewis Williamson. The dierencebetween the latter’s career and Sims’

is opportunity – while Sims faces anuncertain future, Williamson recentlybecame part of the Red Bull Junior Team

Programme and the 2012 FIA InstituteYoung Driver Excellence Academy.

Sims laments the fact that 

opportunities in the sport are rarelyavailable if you do not have the money tofund them. Pastor Maldonado, Romain

Grosjean, and now Charles Pic havemade the step up from GP2 to F1. Theappointments of Maldonado at Williams

at the expense of Nico Hulkenburg, andGrosjean in favour of Vitaly Petrov at Renault, are eyebrow-raising decisions

that give more evidence of the pay driverphilosophy amongst F1’s lower teams.

The Young Driver Tests are atestimony to this. It presents an

opportunity for teams without theinancial might of the likes of Red Bull orMcLaren to cash in on drivers with more

budget than talent. Last week, Robert Wickens told Autosport that the testswere symbolic of F1 becoming more

about the money than it was about thedriver, and Sims was also critical of the

I

 

he balance between talent andfunding is a big question and has

been a tension in motorsport for a verylong time. Generally, I do feel that most of the people that get to F1 deserveto be there. Drivers like Vettel andHamilton aren’t chosen by the likes of Red Bull and McLaren by chance. Theygot that funding because they werespecial and, perhaps more importantly,they held onto it because theydelivered as they came up the ranks.

But I do think we have a potentialproblem at the moment. We have lessmanufacturer interest in F1, whichmeans two things. Firstly, it meansteams have to look for funding fromelsewhere and if you can ind a decent driver with money that is ideal. Forme, Maldonado replacing Hulkenbergat Williamswas a veryworryingsign.Maldonadois obviouslynot a baddriver – hisGP2 recordshows that – but whenhe replacesa driver likeHulkenberg,who has astellar CVand did agood job in his rookie year, you dostart to question the motivationsbehind team decisions.

Secondly, there is less moneyaround at the lower levels. Chilton isOK because of his dad’s money, but what about Sims? If it weren’t forRSF, where would James Calado andRowland be? Dean Smith beat Caladoto the Autosport award because of hispace on-track and yet what’s happenedto him? The high cost of the lowercategories and lack of money aroundis making it difcult for the real talentto reach the top, and I do think that is aworrying problem at the moment.

28 autosport.com December 15 2011 December 15 2011 autosport.com 29

“You’ve got to be bloodyast and have millionso pounds. They are thetwo biggest actors andthe frst and oremost isunding”

...But looks to be returning

to sportscars in 2012

standard of some of the drivers in AbuDhabi.

But does this mean then that the Britswho took part in the tests – Sam Bird,Oliver Turvey, Max Chilton, Gary Paett 

and Adrian Quaife-Hobbs – were thereon merit or on money?

James Olivier, Director at Bird’s

consultant company CJ Motorsport,labelled him “the best British single-seater driver outside of Formula One”

and “one of the very best drivers around,period”.

Certainly, the 24-year-old is the best placed of the ive to race in Formula 1 in

the future; and that is as much down tohis raw talent as it is his more matureage of 24. Olivier also points out that 

it was his second appearance at thetest for Mercedes and was their onlyrepresentative this year. “It would seem

that Ross Brawn and colleagues think highly of him too,” Olivier says. “He isone of the guys to beat [in GP2] and

deserves his shot in F1.”Meanwhile, Max Chilton - the younger

brother of BTCC racer Tom - hardly set 

the GP2 world alight in his two seasonsin F1’s feeder series, but does comewith strong inancial backing. And he

did validate his selection by Force India

by setting the 5th fastest time overall.Then there is Quaife-Hobbs, who took his irst pole position in GP3 in front of 

his home fans at Silverstone and went on to win at Valencia – his sole successof the campaign – en route to ifth in the

championship. Despite propping up thetimesheets on the opening day, he waspleased with his days work and said the

team were happy with the test.So are these Brits the real deal; drivers

who can realistically aim for the top?

Autosport’s Kevin Turner, part of thejudging panel that decides the eventualwinner of the Young Driver Award,

questions whether Chilton or Quaife-Hobbs can make it to Formula 1.

“I’m not sure how good he [Chilton] is

at just jumping in a car and being quick straight away,” he says. “We’ve seen thisyear with Jenson Button, for example,

how much of a dierence a driver canmake in the wet by being able to indthe grip levels very quickly. I’ve never

seen Chilton demonstrate that ability.”Of Quaife-Hobbs, Turner’s “feeling isthat he isn’t F1 material in terms of rawtalent”.

In search of a British driver with theability to reach the top, Turner castshis mind back to 2007 and Nick Tandy

– now competing at the front end of thePorsche Supercup championship – whohe rates as “the best Briton I’ve seen

since Hamilton and Di Resta”. ThoughTandy had to give up single-seater

racing, in much the same vein as Simsnow, Turner says that “if a sponsor hadasked me which Brit should be backed

for GP2, I would have said Tandy, andI haven’t seen a better Brit come alongsince.”

So what does Turner make of thedriver who, three years ago, won theaward which the likes of Calado and Bird

missed out on?“None of the above [the drivers that 

took part in the Young Driver Test] are

as good as Alexander Sims. Sims is a veryintelligent guy who was unlucky in GP3this year, and can jump into a car and be

quick straight away.“He is deinitely good enough for GP2

and it is a real shame budget issues look likely to stop him getting there.”

For Sims, the aim is now to builda career outside of single seaters,following somewhat in the footsteps of 

the likes of Tandy and Paett, who wonthe award nearly a decade before Simsin 1999. But it was only a few months

ago the Status GP driver was talkingwith conidence about securing a drivein GP2.

Now, he remains conident that, unlikesome drivers who bought their seatsat the Abu Dhabi test, he would be a

success if he were to graduate to F1’sfeeder series.

“At the end of the last year I fel t I was

deinitely ready for GP2,” he says. “If I was in GP2 the aim would be to winthe championship if not top three, top

ive, I think I would deinitely be able tocompete.”

 

...and raced at the end-of-

season F3 event at Macau

T

FEATURE

YOUNG DRIVERSFEATURE

YOUNG DRIVERS

Looking to the uture

As one F1 journalist commented, “I don’t remember atime when there were so many British talents on thehorizon”. But who are making waves at the moment,and what can we expect of them next season?

James CaladoThough he was not the complete package during histime in Formula 3, Calado showed strong pace in GP3and inished runner-up to Valterri Bottas in the inalstandings. The spotlight will be on him next season ashe moves into GP2.

Lewis WilliamsonWilliamson only inished 8th in GP3, behind Calado,Sims and Quaife-Hobbs, but is another former Aut-osport winner. He’s also one of 18 drivers in the FIA’snew young driver programme. Williamson makesthe jump to Formula Renault 3.5 next year and thepressure is on for him to deliver now he has Red Bullbacking.

Oliver Rowland.Though not as far along the motorsport path as theothers, Rowland is the newest winner of the Autosport award, despite losing his father, mentor and McLarenbacking in recent years. Described by one of thejudges as “clearly a special talent”, the 19-year-old has

real potential. Success in the Formula Renault Eurocup

is expected next season.

Wayne Boyd and Oli Webb 

These two drivers have taken an interesting career

path, compared to their competitors. Following in the

footsteps of the late Dan Wheldon, Boyd and Webb

have already made the decision to switch to American

single-seater racing because of the cost in Europe.

Rowland, like Sims

will test a McLaren

“I elt I was defnitelyready or GP2. The aimwould be to win. I I wasthere I would defnitely be able to compete.”

Oliver Rowland is

Britain’s newest starlet

The Brit enjoyed podium

success at his home GP3 race...

Sims impressed in GP3

at Status GP...

...but may end up back

in sportscars next year