Wirdheim is done!

[enemy-ace]

Sad to see this, but it looks like Wirdheim's time in Champ Car is over for now.
Too bad as I think he would have had a promising future in the series. Hopefully he'll land on his feet with another Champ Car team.

http://speedtv.com/articles/champcar/auto/19830/

[BSchneiderFan]

Sad, but Wirdheim really has failed to shine since his F3000 title year.

[rustyfan]

Originally Posted by BSchneiderFan

Sad, but Wirdheim really has failed to shine since his F3000 title year.

It's not easy to shine when driving for a team like HMV.

[enemy-ace]

I think the team is good, it's just the lack of resources which let THEM down. Unfortunately Wirdheim's departure is the result.

[Hazard]

Originally Posted by rustyfan

It's not easy to shine when driving for a team like HMV.

But their sales are good!

[Jordi]

Originally Posted by Hazard

But their sales are good!

Knew someone would pick on that. Maybe Björn should try Virgin Megastores...

Now seriously, it's a loss. Now I wonder whether Fabrizio del Monte will be good. It should be a better showing than the Jensen one...

[BootsOntheSide]

Does pineapple go with Mexican food?

Rotten luck for Bjorn, under the circumstances he's done really well in an underfunded team. I hope he will be back for 2006.

[rustyfan]

Originally Posted by enemy-ace

I think the team is good, it's just the lack of resources which let THEM down. Unfortunately Wirdheim's departure is the result.

So the lack resources made them call Bjorn in a lap too soon at San José, as well as made them forget to adjust his rear wing during on of the pitstops at Las Vegas forcing him to stop just as he was on his way out (losing a lot of precious seconds as a result)?

And those are just two examples that I wouldn't exactly call related to the "lack of resources".

Nah, I'm not exactly happy with HMV at the moment, but then again I'm also extremely biased.

Situations like the one with that track marshal getting Bjorn wrongfully blackflagged, again when having a good run, hasn't exactly made things easier either.

[enemy-ace]

Lack of resources usually is cause for a team (or any organization) to stretch their people too thin. Which results in said team making mistakes. Having said that even the best teams make mistakes.
The fact of the matter is that they are a team with race wins under their belt. Sure they have made errors, but the real problem is they don't have the resources to maximize their and Wirdheim's abilities to their utmost over the length of the season.

[macdaddy]

A day after Speed reported it, HVM has confirmed it.

Keith Wiggins:

We have worked hard with Bjorn to make him comfortable in the car and this showed in his strong performance in Las Vegas. He is a talented driver but there was not the budget to retain him. I am sure his future will include continued success in Champ Cars – perhaps with HVM.

[rustyfan]

lol, just realized I've had the letters in HVM wrong for a while, oh well..

Anyhow, in an interview with a Swedish motorsports website, Bjorn said the following to round things off (freely translated to English by myself):

"I would love to stay in the US and it's my intention to keep racing here during next season as well. I have really enjoyed it here and see some good opportunities for the future. I am currently talking to several teams in Champ Car as well as in other championships for next season."

Should be interesting - well for us Swedes anyway - to see how it pans out for next season.

[BootsOntheSide]

Does ChampCar have a good TV presence in Sweden? If so, it might be worth OWRS backing Bjorn to help him into a drive for 2006. That said, any team who can hire a driver purely on talent would be well-advised to consider him.

[rustyfan]

Originally Posted by BootsOntheSide

Does ChampCar have a good TV presence in Sweden? If so, it might be worth OWRS backing Bjorn to help him into a drive for 2006. That said, any team who can hire a driver purely on talent would be well-advised to consider him.

We get all Champ Car races live via Eurosport1 and Eurosport2. While Eurosport2 still has a rather limited availability, Eurosport1 is easily available at a cheap cost if one doesn't have it already as it's part of even the most basic cable-, digital- or satellite-tv packages. So this year has been a HUGE improvement compared to when the races were on MotorsTV, which is more or less nonexistent in Sweden (unless you have a dish and are able to tune into it manually).

The lack of results this year has lessened the media-interest as of late (compared to when he had his testing-gig with Jaguar, which brought a lot more attention), however, so I'm not sure how many people actually bother to tune in to the races.

[Öbus]

Originally Posted by rustyfan

The lack of results this year has lessened the media-interest as of late (compared to when he had his testing-gig with Jaguar, which brought a lot more attention), however, so I'm not sure how many people actually bother to tune in to the races.

The rating (Nielsen) is very high compared to Europe overall. Up to 4.2 as best and normally around 2.8. The figurers for Europe overall is normally around 0.6.

[Öbus]

Bjorns comments to his sponsors after Vegas:• The weekend went well right up until it was time for the race. After running fourth comfortably throughout the first stint we lost nearly 10 seconds during the first pit stop due to a problem with the air jack. It seemed to me as if someone had forgotten to switch the jack on as they managed to get it working again but by the time we rejoined the track we had dropped to 10th position. Half way through the second stint I started suffering from a very bad push understeer similar to what I experienced in the warm up when a piece of the front wing came loose and we lost front downforce. The crew had fixed a new piece to the wing in time for the race but as I found out after the finish it had come loose once again. Therefore, for the last pitstop I was asking the crew for a front wing adjustment that would make up for the lost downforce due to the missing piece, but as I came in for the pit stop the crew member in charge of the adjustment had forgotten to make the change, only remembered as I was about to pull out on to the track again and had to stop me again meaning we lost even more time. Because of these mistakes I ended up having to use all of my push to pass in order to make it to the front again with a couple of laps remaining and wasn’t able to save any for the last crucial laps.

[Snrub]

Obus, can you give us any more perspective on exactly what happened with Bjorn and the finances, etc?

[Tenoch]

well if korea gets cancelled then del monte will only be running one race cause it was just announced that homero Richards will be running the Mexico City GP in an HVm machine, wasnt specified in which car but it seems that the italian is gonna get the boot instead of a mexican.

[Tenoch]

http://www.esmas.com/deportes/otrosdeportes/478289.html

here's the article its in espanol though.

[N I Tram]

Seeing HVM's decline this year has been quite distressing. They've been looking for sponsors in one of the championship's growth markets, and none have comeforward,evne thoguh they now have a Mexican driver. When will people learn that the US in the big market for ChampCars, and the rest of the world will only care if it has a driver in contention? OWRS have themselves to blame for losing Adrian and Michel anyway.

[Öbus]

It seems that Bjorn Wirdheim is in the frame for a ride in Formula Nippon and GT 500 (Nissan or Honda?) for next season. According to sources in Japan Bjorn impressed the top team DoComo Dandelion during a private test at Mine last week. Bjorn showed already in his second outing on a completely new track for him, that he will be a contender for the championship by putting times 1.2 second lower than this year’s pole. It’s a shame for CCWS if Bjorn will be forced to leave US for Formula Nippon 2006 and I can’t understand why obviously nobody is aware (and taking care) of Bjorn’s potential in Champ Car today.

[Roninho]

Originally Posted by rustyfan

We get all Champ Car races live via Eurosport1 and Eurosport2. While Eurosport2 still has a rather limited availability, Eurosport1 is easily available at a cheap cost if one doesn't have it already as it's part of even the most basic cable-, digital- or satellite-tv packages. So this year has been a HUGE improvement compared to when the races were on MotorsTV, which is more or less nonexistent in Sweden (unless you have a dish and are able to tune into it manually).

Eurosport ratings are nothing to cheer about. Eurosport very rarely gets ratings above 1 million viewers in europe. World Superbike (which is quite popular in europe) had only 2 races over 1 million viewers on Eurosport in 2004-2005. The maximum viewers for superbike in sweden were less then 50.000. (according to www.superbike.it).

CC's ratings are not even close to the 1 million viewers, more like a few 100k's. So i can understand why wirdheim cannot find enough $ to fund a ride.

[karting legend]

Obus does this mean Lyons could be out of a drive, as the Japanese likes one European driver and one Japanese?

[Mystery]

I think Lyons is looking further afield anyway. Not sure what he has got to gain from another year in Nippon so I can see why he would

[Bluewolf]

This is really too bad -- I was rooting for him in the CART series -- He was so impressive in F3000 -- So many great drivers from Europe have had great success both in F1 and in the American series' -- I wish he could get another chance in Champ car -- Look at Justin Wilson - he will probably be theeeee driver to beat next year.

[Fiorentina 1]

Rides in Champcars are all dependent on sponsorship money. If Bjorn doesn't have any, then he is indeed done. Go to Japan and make a good living!