Wow. SuperAguri's Yuji Ide wasn't just demoted to 3rd driver, he had his SuperLicense yanked by the FIA!

Which means that he's completely barred from driving in a race, and he can't be a test driver during race weekend (I think; I'm unsure about that). He had qualified for his SuperLicense by dint of his top-three finish in Formula Nippon, but because he had zero F1 experience previous to this year (having never been invited to drive a F1 car, unlike, say, current driver Nico Rosberg, who did some laps at Spa last year), his license was probationary.

The SuperLicense requires 300 miles of F1 experience before the season, but since SuperAguri was slapped together at such short notice, Fast Yuji couldn't get something like 200 laps at Silverstone (SA's closest track, more or less) run... I think SA had a total of 30 laps pre-season TOTAL.

So what does this mean for SuperAguri? Well, for probably the next two races Franck Montagny had a drive with them; there's just no time for them to stick someone else in the car. Longterm, SuperAguri wants to be an all-Japanese team, but other than Takuma Sato, there's no other Japanese drivers with F1 experience. That'd put SA in the unenviable position of having a second rookie driver with even LESS experience than Fast Yuji... and if that doesn't put the fear of God into someone, nothing will.

If Honda and SuperAguri really ARE as close as the claims go, Ant Davidson could be a possibility. Problem is, Honda desperately needs Ant to rip off those test laps for the main team.

So... I'm guessing we'll have to come up with a nickname for Franck.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 12:32 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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