Nick Heidfeld

[KC]

After a very dismal year with Prost, the young German has moved to Swiss-based Sauber. He has also set some impressive testing times. These mean very little in the grand scheme of F1, but nonetheless, he is running better than he ever did at Prost. My question is, is he that good or is it just a matter of being the fastest of the group present? Only Trulli in the Jordan outran him after three days testing.

His career to date is noteworthy. He has won the German F3 Championship and F3000 Championships as well as competed with Mercedes at LeMans.

Last year he retired from 12 GPs for various reasons, some were from contact, most by failures and one disqualification for an underweight car. Six times he qualified poorly but came on to finish in the top 10. It is easy to see how poorly the Prost ran and I think that his performance there cannot all be pinned on his shoulders. His change to Suaber may be a chance to prove to his detractors that he is better than his results to date show.

[Minardi fan]

Agreed.

I believe Nick is an extremely talented driver who stood no chance in the Prost. Moving to Sauber is a big step forward, and I sincerely hope he gets the chance to show everyone what he knows he can do.

[Martin de Miguel]

As I stated before he will be an exciting driver in the future, this year he will show a big improvement over last years performance. What would have happened if he would have got the Williams instead of Jenson?

[EERO]

Heidfeld is supremely talented-this turn of speed is no fluke.

What is surprising is the Sauber: why weren't they so quick last season?

I think that as a rule they are fast out of the box but that they lag in developing the car and slide back as the season progresses. To be this quick with last seasons' car seems odd.

Recall though that the boy did prove himself pretty competetant when measured against Alesi.