Johnny Cecotto Junior: Real talent or real liability?

[chunterer]

Time for a little open discussion about Cecotto who doesn't seem to be much like his father who was skillful yet clever.

He seemingly has some mad speed but can be wildly (literally) inconsistent.

Has he really earned the right to be driving GP2 cars and will he change, as we don't want any more OTT driving in F1 anytime soon surely?

[cds_uk]

Well, I have to say I am a fan, I agree he can have the odd brain fade but has he earned the right to be driving a GP2 car.......... Pole positions and feature race wins would say yes.

[ivanalesi]

He's very fast, but I have never seen his father on his side during races. May be he should step in and calm him down.

[TimRTC]

Series like GP2 are fiendishly expensive and with sponsorship incredibly fickle in this day and age, drivers never know how long they are going to get to prove themselves before the money runs out.

Unfortunately, some drivers like Cecotto let this get to them and seem determined to win at any cost to get noticed - afterall if Maldonado can get a drive and super-licence after his Monaco shenanigans, then surely anyone can?

I think a penalty points system, like F1 has discussed introducing, could help with this as it would essentially form a permanent record of a driver's indiscretions.

[Thaw Daggerslash]

First of all, GP2 is currently a joke and a shadow of its former self. Costs are ridiculous, so it is no surprise pay drivers like Cecotto are on the grid.

I should say that I don't follow GP2 closely and haven't for several years, but it has been impossible for me to not hear and see of his antics recently.

How many years has he been on the grid now? Got to be at least three, hasn't it? His career has stalled - I honestly don't know what the point is in him wasting his money by being on the grid, because he has blotted his copybook far too often to make it obvious that he is never going to be on the Formula One grid.

Also think he should have been banned from racing a lot sooner than Monaco...

But the penalty system in GP2 is the biggest joke of all. Why they didn't penalise him more heavily after what he did at Malaysia, or at all after Barcelona, but then ban him after what could be argued as an honest mistake at Monaco...well, there's no hope.

It's no surprise that people like Grosjean and Maldonado start causing chaos in F1 given the state GP2 is in at the moment with youngsters who have more sense than cash thinking they are invincible, and having no respect for their rivals.

If only they'd been alive when motorsport was a lot more dangerous than it is today, and perhaps we wouldn't see this kind of stupidity. Then again...

Cecotto may be fast, but as David Coulthard has rightly pointed out, there's a difference between simply being fast and being an all round good racing driver. Cecotto, and many of the other clowns currently on the GP2 grid, are not good racing drivers.

Good to get that rant out my system.

[cds_uk]

Originally Posted by Thaw Daggerslash

How many years has he been on the grid now? Got to be at least three, hasn't it? His career has stalled - I honestly don't know what the point is in him wasting his money by being on the grid, because he has blotted his copybook far too often to make it obvious that he is never going to be on the Formula One grid.

Ok, I take your point to a certain extent, but you could say the same of Coletti, Leal, Palmer and Richelmi to name but a few regarding stalled careers, Coletti first raced a GP2 car back in 2009 for heavens sake, how long was Valsecchi in GP2 before he won the title? he could be racing a Lotus before the year is out.

[bella]

Originally Posted by Thaw Daggerslash

How many years has he been on the grid now? Got to be at least three, hasn't it? His career has stalled - I honestly don't know what the point is in him wasting his money by being on the grid, because he has blotted his copybook far too often to make it obvious that he is never going to be on the Formula One grid.

i'm not excusing cecotto for anything, but you'd have said exactly the same about maldonado the year before he won the title. still can't understand how that came together. i don't know what point i'm making with that statement, but... there you go

my argument was always going to be that it's no surprise that his actual racing abilities are strangely developed because he arrived in gp2 so young, and has spent every season since there. it's not true though - yes, he was young, but not excessively so and he already had something like 4 seasons of racing behind him in other series. whoever was managing his career seems to have fallen for the marketing from the team after his first initial appearances at the end of a season, and just... left him there. it's increasingly clear this season that he should have spent more time in a series where racing was the only part of the game.

i feel really sorry for him because social media has turned his poor reputation in his own paddock into some kind of a witch-hunt amongst spectators and followers of the series. and the lack of decisive action from the stewards has meant that other drivers have taken their rightful disgust and concern to social media, in some cases in ways which made them look pretty childish. so *everyone* has come out of this looking bad, which is ridiculous because it could have all been dealt with in a far more decisive and timely manner.

it's almost as if they think that serious driver discipline will make the series look bad for potential future drivers and in the press or something.

overall i want to see some sort of compulsory driver coaching if you get a ban too - if we have to do an extended driving test to get our licences back after accumulating stupid on the road then it seems insane that it's not a similar situation for competitive driving. not everyone is able to sit down, rationalise their own actions and tackle what was wrong in the same way that grosjean looked like he had been able to.

woah essay sorry.

[ivanalesi]

But you don't learn much about race craft in F3, you only learn to hold patience. He should have learnt the race craft in karting and FR2.0/FBMW. That's the problem with F3 and I was very happy to see how Bryant-Meisner showcased the German F3 concept with the boost @ Silverstone. Most people talk about tire saving skills and so on, but in F1 you equally need great overtaking skills, you should overtake with minimal effort.
Cecotto is trying to learn something in the wrong environment and it will always be dangerous and expensive!

[bella]

Originally Posted by ivanalesi

But you don't learn much about race craft in F3, you only learn to hold patience.

isn't that in itself a very important part of racecraft and exactly what guys like him need though?

[ivanalesi]

That's a very expensive way and time consuming way to learn to be patient

[cds_uk]

For what it's worth he was in F3 as far back as 2006!! As I said earlier I am a fan of his and I do hope he takes a step back and tries to calm it down a little, you do get the impression that one more brain fade and he will really get it from all angles, probably a full page "mad GP2 driver causes chaos!!!" spread in the Daily Mail as well.