Nasr, Sainz, Verstappen, Stevens and Merhi under the spotlight
Thursday 4 June 2015 12:55, UK
Every now and then a clutch of rookie drivers come along who really catch the imagination and so far this year the majority of F1's class of 2015 have done just that.
With an average age of just 21, five drivers are making their full-season debuts and three of them have already achieved top-six qualifying or race results. So, with a third of the season nearly complete, just how are they faring? And, more contentiously, who is doing the best?
Championship position – 9th, 16 points.
Points finishes – 3 (Australia, China & Monaco).
Best grid slot – 9th (China); Best race result – 5th (Australia).
Versus team-mate – 5-1 in qualifying & 6-0 in races.
There was plenty of surprise – and scepticism – when Sauber announced last November that Felipe Nasr would be one of their drivers for 2015. The reasons for such sneering were not hard to establish: Nasr had been beaten by both Jolyon Palmer and series rookie Stoffel Vandoorne in GP2 while his arrival at Sauber was going to swell the cash-strapped team’s coffers by around £15m thanks to his personal sponsorship from Banco do Brasil.
Six months on, however, and any harsh assessments on his F1 credentials have already been rewritten. Nasr, still just 22, announced his arrival at the top level in style by finishing a fighting fifth on his debut in Australia – the best ever debut result for a Brazilian, quite an achievement when you consider the motorsport hotbed of South America has given birth to the likes of Senna, Fittipaldi and Piquet. Given that Marcus Ericsson has an extra year's worth of experience over his Sauber team-mate, it’s also no mean feat that Nasr has only once been outqualified by the Swede so far and is yet to finish behind the sister C34 in a race. Underlining how strongly he has been performing on F1 Sundays, the Brazilian has also not yet finished a race lower than where he qualified.
What they say – "I’m very impressed by his performance. You always have the fear with a rookie in certain situations because he actually lacks the experience - you can’t even blame him for that - and mistakes will be made. But he didn’t do that. He just managed it all so well, he remained so calm, so focused about it, very rational and that’s the most impressive part for me.” Sauber team principal Monisha Kaltenborn after Nasr’s fifth-place finish in Melbourne.
Championship position – 12th, 9 points.
Points finishes – 4 (Australia, Malaysia, Spain & Monaco).
Best grid slot – 5th (Spain); Best race result – 8th (Malaysia).
Versus team-mate – 4-2 in qualifying & 4-2 in races.
The other Carlos Sainz has hardly put a foot wrong since winning the battle to partner Max Verstappen in 2015. While pre-season testing wasn’t without its incidents, and missing the weighbridge in Monaco qualifying was the epitome of a ‘rookie error’, the pace and, perhaps most impressively of all, poise Sainz has shown since his points-winning debut in Melbourne has belied his 20 years.
Curious as it might seem that the son of one of world motorsport’s most famous names has been overshadowed by the son of a less illustrious ex-driver, Sainz has nonetheless quietly got on with putting a steady stream of early points on the board. While fifth place on the grid at his home race is his standout result so far, ‘Chilli’ has shown impressive tyre-management skills in races and rebounded from disappointing starting positions in both Malaysia and, thanks to that pitlane demotion, Monaco with some mammoth stints. Better than anyone could have expected?
What they say – "I wouldn’t underestimate Carlos’s performances. It shows that if you have team-mates you compete on a similar level and push each other the rivalry is very good." Mercedes motorsport boss Toto Wolff.
Championship position – 14th, 6 points.
Points finishes – 1 (Malaysia).
Best grid slot – 6th (Malaysia & Spain); Best race result – 7th (Malaysia).
Versus team-mate – 2-4 in qualifying & 2-4 in races.
His scorecard may not yet reflect it, but Max Verstappen has certainly justified the hype which surrounded his stratospheric promotion to F1 as the sport’s first 17-year-old race driver. Three technical failures and one rather dramatic braking misjudgement have limited the Dutchman to just two Sunday finishes so far, although that didn’t stop him predictably becoming F1’s youngest-ever points scorer at just the second attempt in Malaysia.
Hailed as “extraordinary” by team boss Franz Tost after finishing second fastest on his Monaco practice debut, Verstappen has also caught the eye in wheel-to-wheel combat and starred in China before his engine blew. He then provided most of the limited fireworks in the narrow confines of Monaco before steaming into the Ste Devote tyre barrier after tagging Romain Grosjean’s Lotus. While Sainz is winning the intra-Toro Rosso qualifying duel at the moment, the score is actually 1-1 on race day when Verstappen’s DNFs are taken out of the equation. Their duel is proving to be one of the most fascinating on the grid - to the credit of both.
What they say – "We’ve got a megastar on our hands in the making here. What confidence in the car. Verstappen will be a world championship-winning team before he is 20. He is showing all the hallmarks of a Senna, of a Schumacher in my view." Sky Sports F1’s Martin Brundle
Championship position – 18th, 0 points.
Points finishes – 0.
Best grid slot – 19th (Malaysia, Bahrain & Monaco); Best race result – 15th (Malaysia).
Versus team-mate – 0-4 in qualifying & 1-3 in races.
Roberto Merhi has certainly made the smallest impact of 2015’s rookie class in the opening third of the season, although he does sit one place higher in the standings than Manor team-mate Will Stevens after twice finishing 16th (although both drivers have recorded season highs of 15th, Merhi is listed ahead of his team-mate because Stevens has only finished 16th once).
However, Merhi has inevitably been the slowest car in the field in qualifying, although his single-lap deficit to Stevens in Monaco came down to just 0.2 seconds after hovering around the 0.8s mark at previous events.
Some – although not all - of Merhi’s pace deficit can be attributed to the simple fact that the Spaniard is taller, and therefore heavier, than Stevens - 179 cm plays 171cm – and he did finally beat the sister car for the first time on race day in Monaco. That’s certainly closer to the kind of form which took the 24-year-old to third behind Carlos Sainz and Pierre Gasly in last year’s Formula Renault 3.5 title race.
What they say –"We ran Roberto in 2009 in European F3 and we were really impressed with him. He did a great job and we have always had an eye on him." Manor president Graeme Lowdon.
Championship position – 19th, 0 points.
Points finishes – 0.
Best grid slot – 18th (Bahrain & Monaco);Best race result – 15th (China).
Versus team-mate – 4-0 in qualifying & 3-1 in races.
Although the third Briton on the grid actually made his F1 race debut right at the end of last season with Caterham, Will Stevens is to all intents and purposes a 2015 rookie. Given his Manor career didn’t really get properly underway until the third round of the year in China, Stevens has seamlessly slotted into the unofficial team leader role with Monaco, when he sustained front-wing damage on the first lap, the only time Merhi has got the better of him so far.
Like his team-mate, Stevens boasts a 100% finishing record in F1 so far and has, in the words of Manor chief Graeme Lowdon, “hardly put a foot wrong”. One area of improvement, however, could be his race starts given he has only once ended an opening lap ahead of Merhi.
What they say – "Will is doing a really good job - and I am not just saying that because he is in our team. You can’t see it on the timesheets because we are limited by how fast we can go at the moment, but he has hardly put a foot wrong.” Manor president Graeme Lowdon
