Porkchop II?Originally Posted by aaron5572
Porkchop II?
"It is marvelous to go very fast!" Lisa, portrayed by Françoise Hardy, in the film [B]Grand Prix
"A big, fat, piddling weasel, yes. But not truly evil." JB
Agreed. It's something to have the worst engine but still qualify well among the same teams with the same engine manufacturers but even when compared to the other Lotus cars she's wwwwaaaayyyyy behind. In fact in the final practice she was 3 seconds off the pace to the next driver (Legge was last).
I want to support Legge but if she doesn't improve soon it's going to be a long season for her and her fans.
"The only good horsepower is usable horsepower.."
She is also the primary reason Bourdais got his ride and that Dragon Racing has a team at all. I'd say that about cancels out any stigma of ride "buying." This season is going to be much more interesting (already is) with Bourdais in it.
When (and if) Lotus gets their engine issues sorted somewhat AND Kat gets more significant time on the track, then you can judge her performance. After fours seasons outside open-wheel racing, she had only 1/2-day of testing at Sebring before the first race (with an engine that was practically being bolted on as she was putting her helmet on), much of practice washed out at Barber, NO testing at Indy due to Lotus engine shortage, much of practice washed out at Long Beach), a faulty ECU for both St. Pete and Barber, and a brand new engine with no testing at Long Beach (which turns out to have the same problem). You could hardly give her more of a handicap in getting up to speed.
Regarding the other post, WITHIN two seconds of pole and within two seconds of fastest lap of the race (both were true at St. Pete) is not slow. At Barber, with exactly the same car, no testing, faulty ECU, she had in fact passed Carpenter (it showed on the crawl at the top of the screen and I saw it on the track before first pit stops) before her engine went sour again for a lap or two (witnesses at the track heard it) and she lost touch with the field. The engine continued to sputter off and on the rest of the race. At that point, she was, in fact, just testing, moving over for anyone who came up on her (which is what got her into the marbles and caused her late spin). The lack of caution flags meant the field strung out and she was pretty much constantly moving over most of the race. That would affect your laps times, don't you think?
At Long Beach she ran over debris from the Marco/Graham incident, and it caused her to nose into the tire barrier in the very next turn, lost her front wing and 3 laps. This engine was as bad as the first one, and she had to be push started out of the pits after the wing replacement. Said Legge, “We had a good car on the red Firestone tires; we struggled a bit on the blacks but the reason we were losing so much time more than anything, was just the drivability of the engine. It was sporadic. Sometimes it would be clear and sometimes it would be coughing and spluttering. Lotus and Judd are aware of this – I think we weren’t the only car with this problem – and they are very focused on working hard to get it fixed. I have every faith that they will get this resolved soon.” So she has had a squirrely, nonperforming engine for all three races so far. You seem to think this is her fault.
You can criticize and judge, but it is clearly unfair to draw any conclusions yet. It would be as silly and invalid as judging her 2007 ChampCar season based on points and finishing position (hint: a few posts above, someone quotes an old post where I completely destroy that argument, for anyone not too stubborn to admit it). She has had terrible luck at every turn and hasn't had a competitive car in any one of the three races. Wait until she does, and then judge.
I fail to understand why anyone is surprised at Katherine's results this year, or continue to argue her talent. I like Katherine as a person, but her results in Champcar speak for themselves. She finished dead last amongst full time drivers in her two seasons (5 positions behind teammate Oriol Servia in 2006 and 8 behind teammate Bruno Junqueira in 2007).
Her DTM results were just as bad, where she finished dead last in the standings (amongst full time drivers) in her three seasons in that series. In case anyone tries to blame the equipment for her lack of success, one of her teammates won the series championship in 2009, while the other drivers on her team finished 5th, 6th and 8th compared to her 18th place overall.
As much as I would like to see her succeed in the series, the truth and the matter is that she is by far the worst driver in the IICS and is only a slight improvement on Milka Dunno talent-wise. Her results on ovals will be even worst and I predict she may even get pulled from a few races for mysterious "handling issues" like Milka was a few years ago.
It pains me to be so blunt because I actually like her, but Katherine Legge has no business being in Indycar and I doubt she will be back next year.
Another "results" guy. Read my post above carefully. She has not had a decent engine yet this season. This is a fact, not an excuse. People at Barber could hear her engine popping and sputtering.
Her results in ChampCar most certainly do not speak for themselves. Look just a few posts up for a recap of her snake-bitten 2007 CCWS season. Nine of 14 races DNF, only ONE of which could possibly be considered her fault (she assumed Jani would give up the position, him having just pitted so with cold tires and full load of fuel, but he didn't seem to have even checked his mirror; I say it is at least 50/50 on that one). With only five finishes, what do you expect her points to be? And again, the 9 DNFs in 14 races were not her fault. Of the five races she finished, two were solid top tens (Long Beach 10th but solid because she passed half a dozen cars in the early laps to get there, and stayed there despite at least one spin), and ALL were on the lead lap and not the last car running. How is that the worst?
Her 2006 had a lot of rookie problems, but also had three top tens and included very strong showings at Milwaukee and Road America (which would have made four top tens if her wing had not failed with 5 laps to go and nearly killed her; she was running 6th ahead of 11 cars at RA, by the way).
She usually qualified poorly but she was actually only last either to start or (more importantly) to finish on a very, very few occasions. She qualified 8th twice. She made some mistakes and she had a lot of bad luck. Her results quite simply do not speak for themselves. If Champ Car had not folded after 2007, you might very well have seen her driving for Team Australia 2008: It was widely reported at the time that Derrick Walker was considering her for a third car, such as: 'Walker said the team is seriously considering a third car next season. Australian Will Power and Simon Pagenaud of France are the other team drivers. ``I think she deserves to be here and I don't think we have seen by any means what she can do,'' said Walker. ``Give her another year and we will see some good things.''' Many in the ChampCar world did not share your opinion of abilities and potential.
DTM is apples and oranges; yes, she never got the hang of it, but here is a decent-sized list of hot dog drivers from F1 and other series who have had real trouble getting in the points there, too (for instance, David Coulthard finished in the points only twice in two seasons, and Ralf Schumacher finished in the poinst only 6 times in his first three seasons, 32 races). Did you expect her to do better or even as well as them?
If results matter so much to you guys, why do you ignore her Atlantics season? Sure, it wasn't the strongest field, but several of those guy graduated to ChampCar as well, so they weren't complete stiffs she was racing against. Her first full season driving ANY car above karts, and she wins three races and is third in points.
What about her Oulton Park pole in Formula Renault that broke Kimi Räikönen's track record and out qualified a huge field (which included Lewis Hamilton) that in the preseason had been called one of FR's most competitive ever? She also won a pole in Formula Ford Zetec, in a large field that included former and future champions in that and higher forms of racing. Why do these things count for so much less than hardtop DTM or CCWS DNFs that weren't her fault? Her results so far this year reflect the relative weakness of the Lotus and her extreme bad luck in getting bum engines twice.
If you expect her to be so slow she could get pulled like Milka did, you are imagining things or seriously on drugs. That has never even come close to happening to her in her entire career, including ChampCar and DTM. There's no reason to expect her to falter on ovals. In her first first-ever oval race at Milwaukee 2006 (not a simple "floor it" track), she qualified 8th, ran 8th or higher all day, was in the top five most the race and led 10 green laps with Justin Wilson breathing down her neck, and held onto second for another 20 laps or so until she had to pit. Milka's moment of glory leading at Chicago was yellow flag laps and she was swallowed by he field after 1 green lap and shuffled back out of the top ten within a few more. Milka got the daily double of qualifying last and finishing last about half a dozen times (even with Marty Roth around). This never once happened to Kat. At St. Pete, with a sick engine Kat was less than two seconds off pole and fastest race lap. Milka at St. Pete was nearly 8 seconds of pole and was yanked after only a handful of laps for "handling." There is simply no comparison whatsoever, and to say so makes you look silly.
It may turn out that she never delivers, but so far she hasn't gotten a decent chance. That's a fact.
Results are sort of the basic thing in sports, that's why it matters to quite a few people watching it.
Not really, Last place is last place.There is simply no comparison whatsoever, and to say so makes you look silly.
It is is funny you compare her with Ralf in DTM.
Kat has the worst results ever of any driver in DTM history.
Is that a good enough fact for you?
She really not that good looking
"I wasn't going to finish 2nd today...2nd was not in the cards...I was either going to win or i was not going to finish at all..." Eddie Cheever-Victory Lane,Indianapolis Motor Speedway 1998
Dude, that was uncalled for.
Post a pic of yourself.
It's mostly the engine that needs to improve, not her. Even for a Lotus engine, she has gotten two rotten apples so far. Her car dying twice at St. Pete is ample proof of a sick engine, the popping and sputtering people heard off and on at Barber is proof, and she said the new engine at Long Beach had exactly the same problem and that Lotus and Judd are aware of it (so unless you are calling her both a liar and stupid enough to think she can publicly throw Lotus and Judd under a bus for her own shortcomings, that 3 out of 3 races). As far as her driving goes, she has gotten very little testing or practice time (between Lotus engine supply problems and rain at Barber and Long Beach) to sort it out and to get her own skills sharp after four seasons away. At Sebring -- the only time the engine seemed to be running right, and the only time she ran in the identical equipment as Bourdais -- she was less than half a second slower than Seabass, and less than a second slower than the fastest Lotus.
Wait until she gets a decently-running engine, and then compare her to the other Lotus cars and the rest of the field. She hasn't had one yet.
Oh, for Pete's sake, that's just plain silly. Read to the end of the sentence, sunshine. The point was, Why do her good results not matter but bad results that demonstrably weren't her fault matter?
Example: Road America '06 Qualified 8th, bad start but climbed back to 6th, ahead of 11 cars running behind her, with 5 laps to go, her wing fails and she goes flying into the embankment.
Are you making the argument that the only thing that matters that we should take from that race is that she finished 16th? Really?
Example 2: At San Jose 2007 Dan Clarke punted Kat early in the race and cut her tire, but it was a slow leak that was not apparent at first, and it wasn't until several laps later that the tire went flat and put her into the wall, ending her day. This was one of two incidents specifically cited by CCWS for putting Clarke on probation after the race.
Are you making the argument that her 16th place finish at San Jose is the only thing we should look at? Really?
About half of Legge's 24 races in Champ Car have circumstances something like this which were not in any way her fault that caused a poor finish (I have already amply explained most of them elsewhere). Those circumstances simply don't matter? The handful of good results she did get in the remaining races don't matter, either? Really?
EDIT: For anyone who is having trouble getting past their low opinion of Legge to see the fallacy of the argument, I'll use a sports analogy most anyone should be able to appreciate. If I tell you the champioship soccer match or baseball game had a final score of 4-1, does that tell you whether or not it was a good game, a close game, whether either or both teams played well? Say, on the one hand, the game were tied at 1-1 until the final minutes when the keeper got injured and the floodgates opened or a relief pitcher had a disastrous final inning, or on the other hand, one team led 4-0 most of the game and conceded a late goal/run that was meaningless. Would a knowledgeable fan of the sport say, "It's really not important what happened during the game, you can tell how good each team is and how well they played by the final score. 4-1 is 4-1" That's a preposterous statement, wouldn't you agree? If results were the only thing that mattered, we'd all just look up the results the next day and not bother watching, and sports talk radio and forums like this would be out of business.
Last edited by JimmyB10; 04-18-2012 at 05:47 AM.
The examples you are giving were 5 and 6 years ago. What has she done lately?
Lately? Tested within half a second of her superstar, four-time ChampCar champion teammate and kept a dog of a car with two sour engines within a reasonable race pace in three races. What do you want her to do? (by reasonable race pace, I mean that, even with a squirrely engine, she lost laps mostly all at once with the stall at St. Pete, the spin at Barber, and the debris-caused shunt at LB, not on the track. Milka would have often lost that total number of laps down that Kat has lost, on the track, all in one race, if she had been allowed to continue at her dangerously slow pace in a perfectly good car with a perfectly good engine).
And, anyway, who cares if it's 5 and 6 years ago? People are saying she has no talent, not that she's rusty or washed up. Her engine problems in all three races are beyond dispute. If you knew anything about her, you'd also know she doesn't make excuses like some other drivers. She admits her mistakes and shortcomings (such as not knowing how to set up a car, and never figuring out why she couldn't go any faster on reds than blacks in CCWS). Anyone who paid attention knows she knows how to drive and drive fast. She struggled at DTM, yes, but I'd take her ChampCar and Atlantics performance as a much better predictor of her IndyCar abilities than DTM, any day of the week. And, as I have amply demonstrated ad nauseum so that anyone who is not so blindly stubborn they ignore the facts (and which you seem to be conceding), her ChampCar performance was not half bad at all.
I don't get it. Why do you critics in TF think you know better than the rest of the ChampCar and IndyCar insider community, who have no such concerns whatsoever and have never once voiced a single complaint or criticism (notwithstanding Neel Jani, who forgot what his mirrors were for, and Jan Heylen, whom she purposefully punted into the tire barrier on a low-speed hairpin in retaliation for an earlier shunt, and she humbly accepted her probation)?
JimmyB10, early on in this thread, before the season began, I said if driver choice was made based on talent and past results, Legge would be low on the list and not be in an available Indy Cars. In racing (and sports in general) results is all that matters, excuses are cheap and plentaful.If results matter so much to you guys
I have seen very talented drivers take a piece of $hit car and drive its wheels off. They don't win, but you are ammazed at their performance. Seabass is a prime example of driving an uncompetative Lotus at its limit. We do not see that from Legg. In fact Legge is at the back of the Lotus group. There have not been any "wow did you see what she did" moments, this year or in ChampCar or in DTM. You have to go back 7 years to a deflated Atlantic series, before you really have anything to write about.
The truth is Katherine Legge is in an Indycar for one reason and that reason is not that she is one of the most talented drivers available. The reason Legge is in an Indycar in 2012 is sponsor Truecar and their "Women Empowered campaign".
Her results
2005 3rd
2006 16th
2007 15th
2008 19th
2009 18th
2010 18th
You sort of remind me of a press release I saw about Salt Walther. It said something like "Salt finish 18th in ______ race and his father knew it was time for Salt to race the Indy 500".
Nobody is saying you shouldn't like or root for Legge. Its nice having a favorite driver, even if they aren't at the front.
Tara was the name of our cat.
Read my posts, from beginning to end. Because if you had done that, you wouldn't be making this exact same, results-only based argument. Her results (outside DTM) are quite respectable, when examined, and she has had a seriously malfunctioning engine in all three races this year, which cannot be disputed. Come back when you have read through and reply to what you have learned, and then we'll talk.
EDIT: She is not my favorite driver, and I defend any driver who is unfairly slandered (I have even defended Paul Tracy from overboard criticism, whom I personally dislike and have little respect for his win-or-hook style). She happens to be the favorite target lately, and being familiar with her background, I am offended by the simple-minded ignorance of most of the criticism, and don't like being told I am full of beans.
I don't think Katherine Legge is a bad driver, I just don't think she's good enough to be at this level of motorsport. I base that on results and I base that on seeing her race in several different categories over the years. She's been quick on occasion, but mostly not. Coming third in Atlantics in 2005 isn't as big as an achievment as it would have been in 2006 or 2007 when there were twice as many full time entries and a way deeper talent pool. Is she driving a crap car this year? Yes. Would Giorgio Pantano drive that car faster? Yes. Would Luca Filippi? Yes. Would Danny Watts? Yes. Would Alx Danielsson? Yes. Would Tonis Kasemets? Perhaps.
Oh, and my name's not sunshine.
If every team had unlimited funds to pay a driver (and only for driver salary, not for anything else) there is not a team in IndyCar that would hire her. Not one.
There are a dozen unemployed drivers RIGHT NOW that would put her to shame on both road courses and ovals. Townsend Bell to name but one. Vitor Meira to name another.
All drivers pay for their ride. Sometimes they buy their ride with talent.
Will Power is 100% talent.
E.J. Viso is 50% talent and 50% Hugo bucks.
Legge is 100% dollars...
Ain't engine competition grand?
Jimmy Id be surprised if I heard we found aliens on neptune and we're bringing them over, but i think id be even more surprised if you didnt make excuses for every race Kat has ever been in.
And itd be nice if you stopped telling people with an argument"you didnt read my posts, go back and read them". i think they know its a 6 page thread, not a brand new one.
We will miss you Dan
You base your determination of how fast other drivers would driver that car on....what? She's been handed a piece of crap so far this year. Does the fact that four-time champion Bourdais might be able to drive that car a couple tenths faster (that's all he had over her at Sebring) mean she doesn't belong or is in over her head? Of course not, that's absurd on its face. A crap car is a crap car, no matter who is driving it.
Keep reading. The truth will set you free.
Based on their ability to drive cars fast as they have proven on racetracks during their career.
Oh, you mean like breaking Kimi Räikönen's Formula Renaut track record at Oulton Park, or aZetec pole against a field of many more experienced drivers, or settng temporary fastest race lap two thirds of the way in, as she did in at least one ChampCar race. Like passing half a dozen cars to win her first-ever Atlantics race. Like staying so close to the front that she was running third with less than 10 laps to go before a late splash and go dropped her to 6th at Vegas. That kind of stuff. Now I get it.
Yes, like that but with consistency. Drivers in IndyCar shouldn't be able to count their career wins on one or two hands. Drivers in IndyCar should be there because of their achievements, not theoretical achievments with the right circumstances and the planets aligned.
I don't like the idea that more talented drivers who are looking for a ride cannot enter this series.
I understand ride buying, I just don't like it.
I compare it to paying the New York Yankees 50 mil to dress, put on a glove and stand between the right & center fielder making sure you never get near the ball. You get put in the final spot of the batting order & are pinch hit for when you get up.
Good for Katherine, maybe if she had a better engine & was on a better team she'd look better, but those teams are not going to touch her
Well said. She is brutal and should not be out there. She is no better than Milka or Marty. I am sure she is a great person but this is car racing and she can't race. It does not matter what engine she has. She will still be a back marker.
Oh she's way better looking than me
Beauty is truly in the eye of the beholder. I think she is very beautiful. Much prettier than the young lady that ran in the series last year, can't think of her name for the life of me.
I would say that Kat is certainly no Milka. I was at the race this last weekend. She was certainly not real fast, but she was never a moving chicane like Milka was on a road course. She was about 1 second off the other Lotus runners and I think she has potential.
Racing Heroes - Swede Savage, Mark Donohue, Teo Fabi, Dan Wheldon, Jeep Van Wormer, Don O'Neal,
When's the last time you had the crowd up on their feet?
The Indianapolis 500. Where Milk doesn't just taste like Milk. It tastes like Immortality.
A disingenuous argument...Legge raced three of those four seasons in a top tier motorsports series. It's not like she was sitting on the couch.
It's not 'apples and oranges'...if she is as talented as you claim, there should have been better results. Period.
Accusing other posters of "simple minded ignorance" and of being "on drugs" certainly adds to your argument though...
Like I said a long time ago.... She is the new Milka Duno of the series....lol
Danica Patrick -2012 Nationwide Series Champion
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