Richie Stanaway joins the criticism of Carmen Jordá

· by · in Daily F1 News and Comment. ·

sorenson

Ex-Lotus development driver, Marco Sørensen, this week launched a withering attack on Carmen Jordá claiming he was 12 seconds a lap quicker than her in the simulator. Sørensen also said he felt ‘exploited’ by Lotus and whilst Carmen Jordá was continually in the spotlight during F1 weekends, he was treated like a nobody.

Jordá has hit back at Sørensen telling Spanish publication AS, “I honestly don’t know who he is, I’ve never seen him at Enstone and he was not part of the team last year.” Jordá appears bemused by the ’12 seconds a lap claim’ and she reveals, “I was a second or less slower than Grosjean, so I think if someone was eleven seconds faster than Romain, every team on the grid would want him.”

Danish newspaper contacted Marco Sørensen asking him his thoughts on Carmen Jordá’s response:  “If Carmen Jordá feels that she is good enough to be in formula one, then long live the sport,” replied Sørensen dismissively. “You just need to look at her results, so it’s good that people can figure out who has talent and who does not.”

The war of words continued on twitter, with Jordá posting: “12 seconds faster? I’ve been laughing at that for 12 hours!”

Richie Stanaway, who raced against Jordá in GP3 in 2014, then joined in observing: “If you didn’t finish last in every GP3 race people would not make jokes. #simple“

Prior to joining Lotus, Carmen Jordá raced in GP3 between 2012 and 2014. She finished each respective season ranked 28th, 30th and 29th in the drivers’ championship.

17 responses to “Richie Stanaway joins the criticism of Carmen Jordá”

  2. The fact is that Lotus had form on screwing over development drivers – shuffling Valsecchi aside in favour of replacing Kimi with Kovalainen for a couple races a few years back. A winning move that was :/

    Then again, the role of development driver is rather like being an intern. The absolute point of the job is to shut up, do what you’re told, show enough talent to get things done AND do it all with a smile and no complaints. The chances of progressing are small but the whole thing is good for the CV.

    Jorda may well be a far better development driver than Sorenson, which isn’t to say that he’s not a far better race driver. For mine, Marco sounds like a pain in the posterior. Why would anyone want him around if he’s a d!ck?

    Being charitable, I’d like to think of Jorda as a Pedro de la Rosa who is far easier on the eye. I reckon she’s good at her job and smart enough to know this is the top of the tree for her. Kudos for getting that far.

  4. It honestly sounds like two people that are not “good enough” trying to justify their skills by comparing to each other rather than comparing to the professionals. It is interesting how both of them are very vague in their comments and how both mention that they have sometimes gone faster than the other, as opposed to consistently. Why don’t the both of them just have a race, and then throw in someone like Grosjean to show them how much faster they could both go?

    Second is just the first to lose.

  6. Jorda anywhere near F1 (except maybe as a grid girl) is an absolute joke, just like the rest of her racing career. But her being 12 seconds behind another development driver is a ridiculous claim that only makes Sørensen look like a bitter, whiny little twat. If she was 12 seconds off the pace, they wouldn’t even put her in the damn thing. What are they going to learn from someone that slow? If their simulator is any good, a 12 second lap time difference is going to make a huge difference to the simulated data they’re gathering.

    Besides, forget within 12 seconds of Sørensen, even I could get within that of Grosjean in a simulator. In the real thing probably I’d be too busy crapping myself to even finish a lap, but in a sim? Plenty of people could do that. F1 drivers might be great at what they do, but they’re not superhuman. What’s amazing is their ability a) a bust out those extra few seemingly-impossible tenths (that is TENTHS of a second, not 10s of seconds) on a quali lap or a crucial in or out lap or whatever, and b) to sustain their otherwise normally fast pace over a full race distance without mistakes, while looking after the tyres and the car and whatever else. You could pull any driver out of GP2/3 or F3 or whatever and they’d get well within 12 seconds over a lap.

    Could I get within 12 seconds of Grosjean in a sim for one lap? I’d probably put money on it. Could I maintain that consistently for 1.5 to 2 hours? Wouldn’t even put a 5er on it. I don’t have a hard time believing Jorda could clock in a lap a second slower than Grosjean. Again this is F1, and one second over just one lap is huge. If she’d been in Pastor’s car, being outqualified by Grosjean by a full second every race weekend, she’d have looked an utter fool (and the team for putting her on the grid).

  7. I feel sorry for Carmen. I think some people don’t realise that sometimes life isn’t fair.

  9. She may not be the fastest driver available out there but she is a gorgeous woman which brings attention to the team (which is what they want) and I see no reason to criticize neither her or the team, it´s just sour grapes imo. F1 needs more beautiful women – not less, they´re part of the show and its legacy.

  10. She may not be the fastest driver available out there but she is a gorgeous woman which brings attention to the team (which is what they want) and I see no reason to criticize neither her or the team, it´s just sour grapes imo. F1 needs more beautiful women – not less, they´re part of the show and its legacy too.

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