Stoddart/Courtney/Minardi!?

[The Arbitrator]

Wow!!!! The great white knight and champion to the little Aussie battler Paul Stoddart has created some wonderful warm and squishy PR for the (struggling cash strapped ya da ya da ya da) Minardi F1 Team with the announcement that he is going to give the two Aussie Will’s, Power and Davidson a steer in one of his cars. Nearly makes me cry when I see those wide eyed corporately cleansed young men with their gelled hair parroting the text from the press release. If only they knew what lies ahead????

Then again, on the other hand, it makes me laugh when I read, see and hear all this corporate/media hyperbole. I mean, on face value, to all the Grandmas that read New Idea and all you blokes that should, it’s laudable to see Mr. Stoddart offering to give a couple of our rising stars a teasing taste of F1. Truth is though it’s more about leverage and talking up any financial backers they may have than any thing virtuous..

Really, does anyone actually believe that to run the collective Will’s around for twenty odd laps each in a cobbled together Minardi with second hand tyres and used engines will see good old “Stoddy” (who is surely shaping up as F1’s answer to “Break Even Bill Mordey”) out of pocket to the tune of five hundred grand!!!!! Please……….

More to the point however, it’s time we Aussies gave ourselves a collective slap in the face and looked at a few facts. If darling Stoddy was really serious about assisting and developing talented Australian drivers then why is James Courtney being sentenced to life in the Japanese jail that Formula Nippon and the Japanese GT series can be. If Courtney is not the best credentialed young driver hanging around the planet Earth at the moment, then please, someone tell me who is?? I dare anyone to compare Courtney’s CV with Webbers or Briscoe’s for that matter prior to their elevation to F1, go on I dare you!!.

Ok, I’m not suggesting for a moment that Paul Stoddart spends every day of his life waiting for the moment when he has some quiet time and he can fire up the old 286 and log on to the 10 tenths web site and that he may actually read this. Thing is, you just never know, “things get back.”

I hereby issue this challenge to Mt Stoddart. Prove me wrong Paul, show me that you are genuinely interested in assisting and developing Aussie excellence. If you are and not as I suspect, more interested in lightening the pockets of some naïve dreamers, get on the phone and arrange a serious test and evaluation for Courtney. If he doesn’t measure up it’s only cost you a lazy 500, however on the other hand you may have just discovered the next Senna. Just imagine how that would make you feel?

Talk about naïve dreamers!!!

“things get back.”

[high contrast]

I think you mean Will 'Davison' don't ya mate!

[alonso11]

Sure, DaviDson is an Anthony

[alonso11]

Perhaps one of these Aussie talents will get that test driving the 3rd car friday morning in Albert Park, it would be coool actually but of course it would take a handsome amount of money too since Mateo Bobbi belived to pay 250k euro for that 10laps around Imola before his engine blew...say Assies can get it for 100k perhaps.Even Webber didn't make it to Minardi nationality-wise rather Biatore-wise.

[The Arbitrator]

Aaaahhh!! The black and white of it all, such a stark contrast. Bereft of objective (or subjective for that matter) comment some of us revert to the highlighting of spelling errors.

Now I know I have to be really careful what and how I say things here but I will end this brief post with the suggestion that unlike some I’m a better judge of talent than I am a speller.

[alonso11]

Oops I misunderstood your post I affraid ... now I read that the two guys will definitely test the Minardi and I guessed it right,it's going to be in Albert Park ... it's cool then isn't it

[alonso11]

Plus Davison is rumoured with an Renault Driver Development contract for a while now so perhaps he will be able someday to do exactly what Webber did and debut in a Minardi thanks to RDD/Biatore backing.

[jetsetter]

Unfortunately F1's all about money & large quantities of it & while i'd love to see a few Aussies on the F1 grid it will never happen until corporate Australia start getting behind our emerging sportsmen, as much as we'd love to see Stoddard paint the Minardi's green & gold & put young Aussie drivers in the cars we must remember that he is running a business & can't afford to let nationalism get in the way of making ends meet.

[Kicking-back]

Courtney's another one of those over-rated guys.

He'll do his year or two in Nippon then a career in Australian V8s beckons....

[The Arbitrator]

Hi all, I’m just here kicking back thinking about how often we closet experts fire of with the well worn clichés without ever really considering what we’re saying. One of my pet hates is that old tried and abused “They” as in “they ought to do something about that”. Just who the hell is “they”??

Anyway I digress, now someone has charged in to this thread and made the wildest “clichéd” judgment. “Courtney's another one of those over-rated guys”. I see, Over – Rated? Against who and by what standard? I may be standing out in the cold with certain parts of my anatomy that I would normally keep covered flapping in the breeze but I was under the obviously naïve perception that all the Junior Formulae such as International Karting, British Formula Ford, British and Euro F3 series were conducted precisely to achieve such a rating.

If, as the poster suggests, Courtney is indeed over rated I think you owe it to we obviously uninformed masses who read and contribute to forums such as these to explain just how you arrived at such a judgment.

I'm now going to “Kick Back “and await with interest to see just how you back it up. Or may be as I suspect you’ll back away??

[Wrex]

....or maybe I'll just close the thread.