Albers out for next race?

Posted on

| Written by

Speculation is rife that Spyker are to drop Christijan Albers before the next race.

Test drivers Christian Klien (Honda), Marc Gene (Ferrari) and Narain Karthikeyan (Williams) have been linked with Albers’ seat at the N??rburgring in two weeks’ time.

All of them have at least one Grand Prix season to their names. But an outside bet could be Jos Verstappen whom team boss Colin Kolles originally planned to test at Spa-Francorchamps this week.

Albers has not compared favourably to rookie team mate Adrian Sutil and has blamed an inability to extract the most from the 2007 specification tyres. Sutil has out-qualified Albers 7-2 this year.

Last week Albers caused a potentially dangerous incident at the French Grand Prix when he left the pits before he was instructed to and tore the fuel hose out of the refuelling rig, dragging it out of the pits.

Related links

Tags: f1 / formula one / formula 1 / grand prix / motor sport

Author information

Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

Got a potential story, tip or enquiry? Find out more about RaceFans and contact us here.

8 comments on “Albers out for next race?”

  1. Journeyer
    9th July 2007, 4:24

    What’s your source for the replacement list? Based on what I read, the candidates were Verstappen, Marcus Winkelhock, and Giedo van der Garde. :o

  2. milos
    9th July 2007, 5:04

    Christian Klien (Honda), Marc Gene (Ferrari) and Narain Karthikeyan (Williams) – these look unlikely to me … Albers brings money to the team and he is Dutch. Klien and Gene are on Honda and Ferrari payroll, they are not pay drivers, they would not bring any cash to Spyker. Karthikeyan has some TATA money behind him and not much chance ever getting race seat in Williams, so he may have some very remote chance. But if Albers gets the sack I would be surprised if the seat does not go to van der Garde … He is Dutch, he has backers, and some girlfriend connection to the team bosses :-)

  3. Ankit
    9th July 2007, 6:05

    Karthikeyan has a LOT of money behind him, you wont believe how much Indian companies like TATA,JK Tyres,Amaron are willing to spend on him. These are HUGE companies.

    But you are right, the TATA group(96 companies) will be the biggest contributor, it has a presence in 140 countries and had revenues of USD 21.9 billion FY 2005, lets hope they pay a part of it to Spyker for Narain’s seat. But it might be unlikely also, Narain’s relationship was pretty rocky with the Midland team.

  4. Clive
    9th July 2007, 14:18

    Does anyone really care? Apart from Albers and the desperate drivers, I mean.

  5. Robert McKay
    9th July 2007, 15:08

    Surely van der Garde is a stick-on for the drive. Even if Albers was doing better I’d still expect him to be dropped eventually. The fuel-rig thing is just a good excuse to put someone with more money and more connections in the same seat.

  6. Alianora La Canta
    9th July 2007, 15:55

    Actually, the “good excuse” most likely to be employed by Spyker is that Albers’ sponsors apparently owe money. According to F1-Live, the figure in question is above $1m. That is quite a serious problem for any pay-driver. In fact, the driving probably has nothing to do with the proposed urgency of the substitution – though note that Albers was supposedly losing his drive after the US GP and didn’t. He’s a pretty tenacious guy.

    It would surprise me if anyone outside Spyker’s test team got the drive in the first instance, if only because of the amount of negotiation that would be necessary. Which Spyker driver gets the nod will most likely depend on what Spyker want from their replacement – Winklehock if they want speed and van der Garde if they want money.

    And Clive, I really do care what happens with regard to Spyker’s drive, because I am a Spyker supporter – have been since it was called Jordan and was running Damon Hill and Ralf Schumacher.

  7. Clive
    9th July 2007, 19:40

    Times change and matters move on, Alianora. Could you call the Toro Rosso team really Minardi in disguise?

    Actually, don’t look now but I’m beginning to see them in just that light. Hmmm, you may have a point… ;)

  8. Number 38
    10th July 2007, 7:02

    Excepting Massa’s drive through traffic the British Gp was a bore. Did anyone watch the NASCAR race at Daytona:
    400 miles and the race was decided by ONE FOOT !!!!! No “turning down the power” here, NO “saving the engine” (McLaren’s Ron Dennis quotes)
    in NASCAR! Not a single fan leaves the circuit until the checkered flag is thrown, and the last car finishes.
    400 miles ……. decided by ONE FOOT !!! 18 races run so far and four of them won by LESS than a car length.

Comments are closed.