Enge

[brihev]

USA Today (2-2-05) is reporting that Tomas Enge will be driving an Aston-Martin DBR9 in the ALMS.

[BSchneiderFan]

Aston Martin are only entered for Sebring. Enge will also drive a Ferrari 550 for MenX Racing in four rounds of the LMES (except when there is a clash with his IRL commitments), and will race for Aston Martin at Le Mans too. So he's going to be a busy boy.

[Kicking-back]

Indeed.

As BSchneiderFan explains, the USA Today report is slightly incorrect.

[N I Tram]

I guess Tomas wants to keep his sports car options open. Hoepfully he won't need to, and it'll be a case of 'Don't Look Back In, Enge'.

[Kicking-back]

I don't think its a case of keeping options open so much as he loves racing and wants to do lots of it.

[GP Racer]

In most cases, I love to see drivers cross over once in awhile. But not in Enges case. He's hardly even put any time into IndyCars, and he's already going back to Europe to do some sports car stuff? That shows me little commitment to the IRL on his part. It probably figures though, because I don't think the IRL was ever a career choice or a goal for Enge. Its just an opportunity that came along and he took it.

He won't be here long...

[Kicking-back]

I fundamentally disagree, GP Racer.

Tomas Enge has committed himself to a full season of IndyCar racing.

Very little in-season testing is allowed in that series, so doing 4 or 5 sportscar outings during the year is to his credit.

We hear so much about F1 drivers only doing F1 or IndyCar drivers only doing IndyCar I wouldn't criticise Enge for this.

He's a very good driver and motorsport is a short career, so you may as well race as much as you can.

[GP Racer]

Enge may have committed himself to a full season of IRL racing, but has he committed himself to the IRL?

I think he needs to put in a full season here, learning all he can, and committing himself to fans, sponsors and the IRL. In other words, build up your reputation here, and show us that this is where you want to be, like a Dan Wheldon, or a Tony Kannan, who never miss a chance to say how much they love it here. Once you have that, then go off and do something different. Remember, Enge is not a household name here, he came out of nowhere to get this drive.

Right now, I'm not seeing committment. I'm seeing a guy keeping his options open to go elsewhere. The IRL needs committed drivers, not mercenaries...

[Kicking-back]

I don't think Enge is a mercenary - you do seem to have some sort of mental block towards him.

He had opportunities to do the full season in sportscars - and knocked them back because he wanted the IndyCar drive.

Wheldon was an unknown to IRL fans before he got into the series, and I believe in time Enge will win support from them too.

[Tim Northcutt]

Before I comment on this thread, I'd like to take a look at exactly which weekends will be a "Conflict" for Mr. Enge.

I'll ge tback to you on this one...


and it will be tonight...

[Tim Northcutt]

Four events have direct conflicts:

Sebring & Phoenix

LMES Test Days & St. Pete

Silverstone & Kentucky

Fontana & Turkey...

The LMES event at Spa falls in mid-April

Le Mans is one week after Texas & one before Richmond

Monza is the week after Kansas and the week before Nashville

Nurburgring is Labor Day weekend in the US....Sept. 3-4...after Infineon & before Chicagoland....


He's gonna be one tired boy...and he'll have some choices to make....

[Kicking-back]

He's not doing Sebring, he's not doing Silverstone and he's not doing Turkey.

He's doing Le Mans, Spa, Monza and the Nurburgring.

No clashes there.

[BootsOntheSide]

Enge's wise to keep his options open - there's no guarantee that Panther will be competitive, he may not get equal support to Scheckter, and he may not fully adapt to oval racing. He clearly loves racing and wants to do as much as posisble - perhaps as a consequence of the ban he served for maruijana usage (maybe this is why GP Racer appears to dislike him?).

As KB says, we bemoan the fact that F1 guys can't cross voer and do other races, so we should applaud someone for doing so. Lots of IRl guys are doing Daytona during the pre-season testing time, so should we criticise them? Or is that okay because it's an American race?

[mcurtis26]

Mario Andretti is always praised by Indy fans, yet he tried to run F1 and CART in the same season...so i don't really see the issue with Enge doing some extra races...several drives try to run Indy and Charlotte on the same day.

[GP Racer]

Originally Posted by GP Racer

Enge may have committed himself to a full season of IRL racing, but has he committed himself to the IRL?

I think he needs to put in a full season here, learning all he can, and committing himself to fans, sponsors and the IRL. In other words, build up your reputation here, and show us that this is where you want to be, like a Dan Wheldon, or a Tony Kannan, who never miss a chance to say how much they love it here. Once you have that, then go off and do something different. Remember, Enge is not a household name here, he came out of nowhere to get this drive.

Right now, I'm not seeing committment. I'm seeing a guy keeping his options open to go elsewhere. The IRL needs committed drivers, not mercenaries...

That post pretty much says it all Boots.

I don't want this series to become a series for transients just passing through to bigger and better things. Last season he took a ride from a driver that had dedicated his whole career to IndyCars because of money. I'm not sure that Enge ever heard of the IRL before he went shopping for opportunities. CC fans seem very happy to have transients in their series, but I don't think its the same here.

There are alot of drivers working their way through the system that deserve a look, and their not getting one anymore. Eventually, that will be the downfall of open wheel here.

[Tim Northcutt]

I don't either....

I just wanted to point out wherethe schedules clashed.....

But I also can't figure out why Aston Martin would hire Enge knowing that he would not be available for the 2nd biggest international sportscar event on the calendar....

Sebring is the big coming out party where that car will make its debut, and it is a great prep/data race to prepare for Le Mans...and teams try to have their same lineup in place at Sebring that will run at Le Mans...

[Kicking-back]

Tomas Enge has done a lot of driving in Ferraris for Prodrive, who rate him very highly.

He's done a lot of the testing of the DBR9 so far and Prodrive wanted him on board as a known, reliable, trustable quantity for the Le Mans 24 hours.