Rumour: Villeneuve to be replaced by Davidson?

From BBC Sport


Former World Champion Jacques Villeneuve has dismissed rumours that he may be replaced at Sauber.
The Canadian's debut for the team in Australia was disappointing, and there have been reports he is to be replaced by BAR test driver Anthony Davidson.

"I haven't read it, haven't seen it, I don't care," said Villeneuve in Malaysia on Thursday.

He added: "After a bad race everyone is disappointed, we sat down to figure it out and see if we can get better."

"If I do this job, if I race, it's because I love racing, I love the competition.

"I don't want to be racing at the back so I'll be working as hard as I can to get closer to the front."

After nearly a whole season out of F1, Villeneuve drove in the last three races of last season for Renault.

His lack of speed in Melbourne was questioned by team owner Peter Sauber, but that, according to Villeneuve, was because of a lack of track time in the winter.

"We got to Melbourne not prepared because our winter testing didn't go very well and the last test session when we were planning on doing our race simulations, we got snowed in," said Villeneuve.

He finished 13th in Australia, and admitted he had found it difficult to adjust to life in F1 after nearly a year out.

"Formula One has evolved a lot over the last few years and mainly on the electronics side and it takes a long time to get used to everything.

"You don't feel everything that is happening. You become a bit of a passenger in the race car and that is very different to what I'm used to," he said.


Most likely nothing at all, but worrying nonetheless that the rumours about JV have started so early!



RedSam
Winner: Not the Nickv Comment of the Year 2009
Due to the voting system in Germany, Governments are always made up of coalitions of different parties. At the last election, an almost unprecidented result saw the CDU/CSU (rough equivilant of the Conservatives) go into Government with the SPD (rough equivilant of Labour)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/17/2005 01:21PM by Red Sam.

thing is its not just 1 race it was 3 last year 1 this year and in testing he has been off the pace as well.

I wanna see JV do well but i think he should face that maybe his days in f1 are best left behind him.

I do think hes gonna have to pick up the pace soon though!

The fact is, Davidson most likely could do no worse than JV right now, so its up to JV to up his game.



RedSam
Winner: Not the Nickv Comment of the Year 2009
Due to the voting system in Germany, Governments are always made up of coalitions of different parties. At the last election, an almost unprecidented result saw the CDU/CSU (rough equivilant of the Conservatives) go into Government with the SPD (rough equivilant of Labour)

Hopefully Davidson will replace villeneuve.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________



AMD Athlon 64 3200+, 1024mb PC3200 GeIL Goldern Dragon RAM, ATi Sapphire X800 256mb, Windows XP

i read sauber arent too rich (no friday car, no ferrari gearbox, no redbull etc) so dumping JV might be a bit out of budget.
he probably wont go too well here or sakhir, but once he gets back to familiar ground in europe the heat will be on him to show somehitng

____
Tony

Is he not contracted until the end of 2007? So dropping him would be very costly, since they'd need to honour their contract or pay it all off to him in bulk.

Most likely, these stories are merely scare-mongering by Sauber to force JV to up his game.

---

K*bots UK, specialist providers of 'fun science' Curriculum Enhancement days for Primary and Secondary schools in Britain.
Please find us on [en.wikipedia.org] for more information.

from what i read there are performances clauses in JV's contract that let Sauber drop him if he doesnt acheive them

dont know how true it is, but would make sense

Sim

---

All Hail The New York Giants - Winners of Superbowl XXI, XXV and XLII!

"I'd love to know what goes on in that crazy head of yours sometimes, Sim..." - Locke Cole

i personally think Villeneuves past, since winning the championship in 97 and he seems to have gone down from there, leaving williams to join bar where he got booted out from in 03 and the last 3 races in the renault he didnt do much in a pretty quick car

i'd like to see AD in the sauber, i think he deserves a drive but i would say that being a AD fan

---

I'm not much of an AD fan, but if it means booting Villeneuve out, then I'm all for it.

Um, JV's contract is a performance one isn't it? he only gets paid on what he finishes, etc, he gets certain amount of money for a certain amount of points and so on, so dropping him wouldnt leave them too much out of pocket, maybe just a small fee of a couple hundred thousand or something as insurance, but nothing like millions of dollars.

In all fairness JV's performance in winter testing was disapointing as was his result in aussie gp, but he was on the "wrong tyres".
in brazil 04 JV actually matched Alonsos best lap of the race and it being the 4th odd time he'd driven the car that isnt too bad for raw speed.

i think that if JV doesnt show any pace in the next few races then he's deffinatly missing something that he had when he outqualified Hill on his debut.

I'd hate to say it but i think hes just lost the edge, it could be that simple, some drivers just lose it at a certain stage, Hakkinen proved that in 2001 and it could have happened to JV in 2003.

i think we should give JV a chance, it was one race, he could improve, but from the practice sessions he 3 seconds down on massa, and hes done the same amount of laps, doesn't look to promising, but fingers crossed, i like him.

Hakkinen proved that in 2001

So, that's why he won the 2001 British GP....

and Indy GP.

but generally Mika lost his passion for driving in 2001.

JV might still have the passion, but has simply gone crap, or maybe was never as good as he's made out to be.

---

RIP Jules, never to be forgotten. #KeepFightingMichael

mika later admitted the aussie shunt made him think, and made up his mind to retire very early in the season.


____
Tony

Echo1 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hakkinen proved that in 2001
>
> So, that's why he won the 2001 British GP....

thats true, but 10 races into the 2001 season he only had 9 points, compared to Coulthard's 47.

To be honest, I've never really rated Villeneuve that highly. I wouldn't miss him if he was gone.

[Website]

Hmmmm....



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/19/2005 05:39PM by The _F1_Lunatic.

Redbull-Racing Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> thats true, but 10 races into the 2001 season he
> only had 9 points, compared to Coulthard's 47.
>

No wonder since his car let him down 6 times out of ten (Australia, Brazil, Spain, Austria, Monaco and France). He would have definitely won Spain, had his engine not decided to fry itself on the last metres.

All in all he had to retire 8/17 and you can't hardly say it was all his fault.

---

REHAB IS FOR QUITTERS



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/19/2005 11:10PM by Vader.