F3000 Barcelona - race

[Uncle_HB]

After reading all the stuff about Nguyen in this forum, I had to watch the Barcelona race myself. The race was very entertaining and Nguyen’s performance was excellent. This man deserves some credit. He showed maturity as a race driver, the ability to overtake and defend his position. He did extremely well from 15th to 5th given he had a slower car (BCN’s 2nd race ever in f3000 international). Nguyen’s fastest lap time was slower then all the drivers behind him! Except for his teammate. This demonstrates the man is a very talented driver. I wish him well in his career.

[Uncle_HB]

Originally posted by Russfeld
There's too many holes in Nguyen's career. There's something else behind the scenes imo.

Russfeld, what are you implying by saying there are too many holes in nguyens career. Are you implying that he has more racing experience than what is stated. I challenge you to prove that he has had more than 3 years of professional racing experience (including this season).

Originally posted by Russfeld
He's displaying incredible talent for his experience in F3000, in which case why didnt he absolutely lap the field when he was in the easier Formula VW series? It seems strange that he'd be more competitive in a more difficult and more experienced series.

Like everything else in life you get better with experience.

[stevean]

Russfeld,

One Jacques Villeneuve got better as the competition got better, too. If you go back to his Italian F3 day, he didn't exactly shine, either.

Formula VW was the first time ever that the guy ever sat in any motoring competition, he did rather well, IMHO.

Last year I thought he was fast but his race craft needed some honing. So far, he joined a new team, late, score points in both races, more importantly moved up the fields about 10 places each time and outpaced his teamates.

Comparing that to what a lot of other drivers such as Bell, Hill etc.. who consistently move backward through the field. I say he's learning fast. Too bad he is from Oz, where they seem to crank out drivers by the bus load, if he were american, Danny Sullivan would be all over him by now.

I, too am concerned that he moved through the rank too fast, but considering the current youth movement, would you turn down an opportunity? For every Ruben, Pizzonia who got to F1 too early,there is an Alonso, Button and Kimi.

I hope he comes to Cart, develop his race craft and car set-up skill, obliterate the competition then go to F1 better prepared. But then again, how much experience did Kimi et all have before F1?

You raised the same point last year, sorry, but so far, the only hole I see is in your theory :-}

[Russfeld]

Kimi had a ton of experience, so did Button. they were in about their 12th or 13th seasons of racing each when they went into F1.

[Öbus]

He hasn't done more or better so far than for example Wirdheim or Alonso (in that order) did during their first year as rookies. He is not bad and I agree he has some good instinct but is really over hyped by some visitors in this forum.
That's it!

[jondownunder]

Originally posted by Öbus
He hasn't done more or better so far than for example Wirdheim or Alonso (in that order) did during their first year as rookies. He is not bad and I agree he has some good instinct but is really over hyped by some visitors in this forum.
That's it!

I personally think "hype" in this forum just reflects the fact that Nguyen has impressed a lot of fans, myself included, though I haven't commented until now. Had he come from a traditional route into F3000 then maybe no-one would really care, but the fact is that he came from virtually nowhere and though far from a complete driver he undoubtedly has a good deal of natural talent.

Though I agree he has yet to match Wirdheim or Alonso in F3000, clearly those two had the advantage of considerably more racing experience in relatively high-level racing series (FPA/German F3 and Formula Nissan respectively) before they made it to F3000. In many ways Nguyen reminded me last year of the aggressive performances of Alonso early in 2000, before he honed his racecraft and took a 2nd and a win at the end of the year. But only time will tell as to whether Nguyen can now step up to the same level...

[Uncle_HB]

Originally posted by jondownunder
I personally think "hype" in this forum just reflects the fact that Nguyen has impressed a lot of fans, myself included, though I haven't commented until now. Had he come from a traditional route into F3000 then maybe no-one would really care, but the fact is that he came from virtually nowhere and though far from a complete driver he undoubtedly has a good deal of natural talent.

Though I agree he has yet to match Wirdheim or Alonso in F3000, clearly those two had the advantage of considerably more racing experience in relatively high-level racing series (FPA/German F3 and Formula Nissan respectively) before they made it to F3000. In many ways Nguyen reminded me last year of the aggressive performances of Alonso early in 2000, before he honed his racecraft and took a 2nd and a win at the end of the year. But only time will tell as to whether Nguyen can now step up to the same level...

I totally agree with you. Lets hope he got enough sponsors to keep him going. Would be interesting to see how how good he is.

[Spiddy-Spid]

Nguyen actually got on with the job and overtook some people out there, which is more than most of the drivers in that race can say. Overtaking in an F3000 car is a pretty tough feat in itself, but being at Barcelona makes it even harder. Full credit to the guy.

[CorollaTSport]

Just let me say I first found the story of Takuma Sato, and He got to be like my hero because of all he has done in so little time, but then 2 months later (last year) I read the story of Rob Nguyen and I Immidiatetly started following both Sato and Nguyen very closely...

The Story of Rob it's like Sato's but better...

Regarding to the barcelona Race, I think Nguyen did fantastic job!

[maxipapis]

Yes guys,unfortunately Patrick Friesacher did broke his left hand in Barcelona.Rob Nguyen hit him from the back so Patrick loosed the control over his car and hit Bell from the right and Hill from the left almost in the same second.They diagnosed that the hand is broken after the race in Austria and the final decision about skipping the race on A1-ring came on thursday.
Wether Patrick can race at Monaco or not it depends on the agility of his recovery but he definitely has the skip his home race on A1-ring. About his replacement i would have a forecast but nothing is official yet

[Alx]

Nguyen is a decent driver.

Although regarding his performance in Barcelona, how many of the drivers behind him had no problems? He beat Zsolt and Tony Schmidt on merit, but I think the rest either had problems or had been involved in collisions. Nguyen was also involved in the collision at the first corner but somehow appeared unscathed.

He did well, but I still think a better driver than Baumgartner would have overtaken him...

Btw, does anyone have a reason why Kiesa's car was handling so badly? Did he get caught in the collision at the start? He was all over the place and was struggling to get the car slowed down into the first corner. Cheers

[corkholio]

Originally posted by Alx
He did well, but I still think a better driver than Baumgartner would have overtaken him...

A better driver than Zslow Baumgartner would have qualified that car waaaaaaaaaaaay ahead of the BCN slugs.

[Alx]

Originally posted by corkholio
A better driver than Zslow Baumgartner would have qualified that car waaaaaaaaaaaay ahead of the BCN slugs.

[maxipapis]

LOL cockholio you call Baumgartner Zslow? Thats awesome joke,like usually every joke with the names,the only problem that it makes you super lame,as there is no
american formula driver who is any faster than Zsolt,and also because it makes obvious that you followed the Teletubbies and not formula racing in '99 when Zsolt had big
fights with Pizzonia for the Eurocup title and won everything in Germany...that earned him a super reputation among the team-members of CRAM.

Nguyen is a talented driver,but what some of you outsiders are talking about him is extreme.He is driving exactly the same car that was driven by Zslow and Briscoe last year.The only thing changed that Nguyen is not a rookie anymore and unlike Nordic last year BCN is not for sale,their motivation is not to sale the team and take out the every possible cent of it,but rather to work hard for the results....You obviously dont know too much but the fact is that BCN is a STRONGER team than Nordic was last year.Like i said Nguyen is a talented driver but he should get banned from the next race because he and ONLY HE caused the accident to Friesacher,the video clearly proves it.Rob was
a mega dangerous driver last year and he is still no way a mature driver so he needs some serious penalty to put him in line and makes him understand that he cant break arms and cock up the races of three other drivers because
he wants to earn 10 positions in the very first corner.Also during the race he changed his line 2 times in the main straight in Barcelona and be sure that many of the drivers would crashed with Nguyen there,fortunetly he found his man,becuase ZSlow has never been a disaster and he rather braked to avoid the collision.Rob's race may have been the race of the century for cokholio and for i dont know who,but in reality many teambosses are angry on Nguyen and they dont really care his lack of karting background.On the contrary,a few years of karting would educate that talented but very dangerous fella.

[Öbus]

At the moment Nguyen doesnt have a seat for next race. He is on a race by race deal due to buget problems. Lets hope he races he is exciting driver. 3 races in a row now he came from the back of the grid. Remember monza last year he qualified 4th got hit by his team mate in the first corner,spun back to last place and raced back up to 7th until another brazilian crashed in to him. Monza last to 7, imola 17 to 8, Barcelona 15 to 5

[maxipapis]

And what is your point Obus? Last time Zsolt made a mistake during a race was in Monaco last year and actually by that mistake he didnt caused hard times for other drivers.
By the way if thats what you like,ZSolt started 20th on the grid and finished 9th in Imola,18th to 8th on the new Hockenheimring,14th to 7th on the Hungaroring,and 17th to 6th at Monza.Even the car was absolutely the same,the only difference that Nordic was for sale after a regrettable heart attack of Derek Mower (It wasnt by chance that Toyota pulled out Briscoe exactly at that time).BCN is a working and alive team at least.

[corkholio]

In case you haven't noticed by now, I don't cheer for drivers just because of their nationality. I don't care that Derek Hill is American but the bottom line is that he sucks. Try again goober.

Zslow has never even qualified in the top 10. Not even in a Coloni.

[R]

Originally posted by mellowyellowcj7
Yeah Townsend Bell was poor!
He had a bent car. He did well to stay in 7th as long as he did. I'm going to go back and watch the tape, but there was a clip of his car 6" in the air.

Sorry about that, mellowyellowcj7. I had only watched the race, and didn't notice Townsend Bell in the air. But as maxipapis since has pointed out:

Originally posted by maxipapis
Yes guys,unfortunately Patrick Friesacher did broke his left hand in Barcelona.Rob Nguyen hit him from the back so Patrick loosed the control over his car and hit Bell from the right and Hill from the left almost in the same second.

... the entire situation was triggered by Rob Nguyen hitting Friesacher, making Patrick lose control so that he hit both Townsend Bell and Derek Hill. So my apologies for not getting that right and jumping to conclusions. I hereby retract what I said concerning Townsend Bell.

Originally posted by mellowyellowcj7
I don't quite understand these standing starts. Why wasn't the guy in the blue car, not penalized for a rolling start? Did the officials miss that?

It looked like he moved too early. I really don't know.

Maxipapis, you make very good points. You're quite right about Nguyen changing his line twice when he was defending against a faster Baumgartner behind. And thank you for enlightening us with regards to what happened to Friesacher (and Bell for that matter).

[razo]

Maxpapis, I looked at ur points. Zolt moving up all those positions were a result of people having problems or crashing.. whereas Rob passed them on track.. If u look at all the lap charts this will confirm the difference.

[corkholio]

They showed the incident here a whole bunch of times during the prerace for the F3000 Austria race today on SPEED Channel.

Contrary to what the Nguyen bashers wants you to see, Nguyen did not cause the first lap incident at Barcelona. The whole situation was actually triggered by Friesacher himself who got into Schroeder. Schroeder was spinning before Nguyen got into Friesacher, who had checked up leaving Nguyen with nowhere to go. Nguyen had no choice but to hit Friesacher, who ended up getting into Bell. But hey, maxipapis and R never let facts get in the way of Nguyen bashing.

BTW Nguyen did quite a bit of blocking today.

[CorollaTSport]

Hey racing is racing, and bad things can happen so get over it...



Hey Why Nguyen was so slow in Austria??? was it because of the his set up???

I mean, why aubinger's red bull car was soo damn quick???? aren't they all supposed to have the same engine??? or is it a set up thing??? maybe in carrying less down force???