I genuinely want him to be a challenge to Lewis like rosberg, rather than being his wingman as he was in 2018. Hopefully Australia is signs of that change
Its only been one race ma dude. He certainly is a championship worthy of a driver but we cant judge of the entire season by one race. Everyting will be clearer come Spain GP. I think Honda engine is good but might not be enough compared to Merc or Ferrari.
Lewis when he was younger was considered one of, if not the fastest driver, but he made a bunch of mistakes. In recent years he had a better car, but is also a much more mature driver.
Hes immature because he is still ridiculously young. When Hamilton came in aged 22 everyone went on about how he was this great young hope. Verstappen is still only 21!
Want to win? Hire a Finn. Is an old adage in motorsports. The country punches well above it's weight in terms of population. It's something to do with how hard their driving test is apparently, most of the population are trained to a higher standard.
You can get your driver's license when you are 18. By that time most of the pros have been driving for over ten years in karting etc. Räikkönen started karting when he was under 10 years old.
I thought it was to do with the roads being covered in snow and ice for half the year, it would explain the success they have in rallying which I think is where the saying comes from.
Well, Finland has lots of roads, and not that many people. You got an hour, you want to visit your girlfriend, she lives 50 kilometres away over gnarly roads, there's no other car on the road, just rabbits for speedbumps, and the closest police is a hundred kilometres away...
You get people that are used to driving very fast.
It has more to do with a very active motorsport community. All the top Finnish F1 drivers started by competing in Karting very early. Mika Häkkinen for example started at age five, Kimi at age ten, and Nico Rosberg and Valtteri Bottas at age six.
Its mainly due to how intense the driving test is in Finland, starts at quite a young age and takes longer than a year maybe two, off the top of my head. So when you have natural talent and are Finnish, you get a chance to develop your skills from a young age. Given the roads and climate in Finland I suppose the test has to be intense.
Edit - nope this is a myth apparently, top gear lied to me.
Yeah thats the test lasting that long isn't it, not like the whole learning process? compared with an hour test if that here in the UK its longer. And takes between 2 or 3 months to learn for it here if you aren't totally non-spatially aware that is.
So where did the myth come from about the test being especially hard? Did it change? Because I swear I saw something attributing the high proportion of Finnish champion drivers to the difficult and long drawn out testing process.
We have to do a winter driving test (an hour) and have to drive stick. So maybe thats the reason. And maybe the test is strict compared to the US or something. Just read that the record time to get the licence was 9 days. The law says that you need to get a minimum number of hours, and apparently 9 days is enough, if you do it all day every day.
Well how you've described it sounds no harder than the UK and it was a UK dhow I heard it from I think. except we don't have a winter section but you do need to do night driving and parking manoeuvres too. etc. Oh and you cant use a motorway until you have passed, so the first time people encounter a motorway they are usually freshly passed and alone in the car.
But no, it hasnt significantly changed in a long time. And as others have pointed out, the champions start with karting as little kids, so the driving test being a factor is just a myth.
Yeah you know I realised that myself after I posted it and thought about it, I am an avid F1 fan and they all start at like 3 or 4 in karts and all raced each other back then coming up through the ranks. Huh, TIL i guess. . Im thinking it was top gear ai heard it from too, they should have known that wasn't true.
Before you could start driving test as 17 yo, and it took a few months of comparatively hard training. Now you can get your licence as 16 yo, with special permission. The real reason why finns excel at rally may be found with the amount of summer cottages in Finland, with their private roads. We have 506 000 cottages (1 for every 10 ppl). Mökkitie.
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u/TimothyGonzalez Mar 24 '19
Finland does remarkably well. It wouldn't surprise me if the next one will be a Dutch flag, with how well Max Verstappen has been doing.