Adrian Valles - USF1 Rumors? From the Original Source

http://www.marca.com/2010/02/03/motor/formula1/1265186365.html

 
Spanish

Adrían Vallés será el cuarto piloto español en la Fórmula 1. Según publica este miércoles el diario MARCA, el alicantino correrá para el equipo estadounidense con base española US F1. Vallés, que fue probador de Spyker en 2007, cerrará el acuerdo en las próximas horas. De esta forma, el español acompañará en la parrilla a Fernando Alonso, Pedro de la Rosa y Jaime Alguersuari.

Las negociaciones están muy avanzadas y sólo falta ultimar los detalles de un contrato que apunta a un año de duración. De esta forma, se puede decir que España ya tiene cuatro pilotos en la parrilla, con lo que se convierte en la segunda potencia en la Fórmula 1 tras Alemania, con seis representantes. Brasil, también con cuatro, iguala a la española.

Vallés, con sólo 23 años, ha sido en 2009 el brillante vencedor de la SuperLeague Fórmula con el monoplaza del Liverpool, un triunfo que ha provocado que la escudería dirigida por Peter Windsor se fije en sus cualidades.

English

 

Adrian Vallés  will be the fourth Spanish driver in Formula 1, according to a report published Wednesday in sports daily Marca, the Alicante will race for the U.S. team  who has bases in the US and Spain. Valles, who was a Spyker test driver in 2007, will close the deal in the coming hours. Thus, the Spanish join Fernando Alonso, Pedro de la Rosa and Jaime Alguersuari on the F1 grid.

Negotiations are well advanced and they just need to finalize the details of a one year contract. Thus, one can say that Spain already has four drivers on the grid, thus becomes the second power in F1 after Germany, with six representatives. Brazil also has four, equal to the Spanish.

Vallés, 23, was the brilliant winner of the 2009 Superleague Formula car with Liverpool, a win that has prompted the attention of team led by Peter Windsor.

.

Comments

[Large Eddie]

It looks like there's something behind this one. There seem to be multiple independent sources, including some contact with Vallés himself who said something like, "I can't say anything. I don't want to spoil it." Which isn't exactly a denial. That's unlike other rumors such as the one about James Rossiter, which was repeated and retweeted to infinity but was never anything more than a fart in a windstorm as far as I could tell.

And I think that's a really good pair of drivers for the team if it works out that way. They aren't names that even avid F1 fans would have come up with, but that's Peter Windsor's job--and I suppose his role in life as the consummate F1 insider--to know more than fans would. Yeah, they're both rookies but if I'm reckoning right, either one has more F1 seat time than any of last season's débutantes (Alguersuari, Grosjean, Kobayashi) and both seem to have plenty of natural speed.

Contrary to the claims of a lot of online commenters, the team really doesn't need an experienced F1 pilot to set up the car. The drivers just need to drive fast and not crash and the data acquisition files will tell the engineers what's going on with the car. Sure, you hear of someone like Michael Schumacher who can say exactly what the car needs setup-wise. But that's the kind of thing that makes him a legend, and he was never in the team's sights. (If they couldn't even get Kyle Busch or Danica Patrick...) The USF1 engineers have plenty of experience in NASCAR, IRL, and prototypes working with sub-Schumi drivers. They'll figure it out.

[Mike Cannon]

In my opinion , It's dangerous for usf1 to take driver without big experience in F1 , an experimented talent as Bourdais would be a better choice.

[Philippe]

To Large Eddie. What you said is not really a clever think. The engineers are not in the the car and they need to have feed back and a young driver without experience never can give it. You are wrong and the only man in the word who says that is no useful to have an experiment driver to develop a car. The datas are not all and if a driver can't explain what's arrived during he drives and witch kind of solution it's possible or in witch way they have to search the work of the engineers will be impossible to join the best.

[Large Eddie]

Actually I'm not "the only man in the world" to say that. Peter Windsor said pretty much the same thing on Speed TV last year when discussing driver options for USF1.

And it isn't as though Lopez and Vallés drove their first kart races last season. Both have many years of experience racing and setting up single-seater cars, including a year or more each of test-driving for F1 teams.

[Philippe]

so you are in contradiction what you said, because now you say that they have experience. Windsor said at the first time that USF1 will have only drivers from USA, in second time he said that the never will have drivers who have to pay their place, in 3rd time he said he needs a young driver and a driver with great experience. So what says Windsor is like the wind : it turns.

If you look at TR With 2 young drivers you see that TR cannot advance.

So I repeat you're the only one man in the word who says in conscience that the engineers don't need a driver with with great experience to advance.

[Paul Murtagh]

Valles was a very solid and fast driver in Superleague over the last 2 years and would be a good driver for USF1. However, I agree that an experienced driver might be the best option for USF1 at the minute to help them with their first season in the sport, but with very little experienced drivers left maybe it could be worth a try with two rookies

[Large Eddie]

They are experienced enough to be able to say, "the car understeers in low-speed corners," "the rear end hops when I brake at the end of the back straight," or "I don't trust it to go flat out through turn 9." A random 19-year-old kid off the street won't know that, but any driver who has won a championship in an international open-wheel series (Pechito and Adrian both have) will.

They probably aren't experienced enough to say, "the steering needs more Ackerman," "the rear jounce spring is too stiff," or "we should lower the front ride height by 1 mm and add a half degree of rear wing." That's what race engineers do. You don't pay drivers for that, especially when there are promising and talented young drivers who will pay the team for the drive.

If they wanted Villeneuve, Bourdais, or Heidfeld (names seem to come up often when people talk about needing an experienced driver) the team could have signed them a long time ago. Wouldn't they have signed one of them as the first driver?

Again, Windsor said last summer that they would be working differently from how most F1 teams do things, and that they *didn't* want drivers with a lot of Formula 1 experience.

[Large Eddie]

Oh, also: I agree that what Peter Windsor says seems to change a lot. Still, if he said that he didn't want drivers with a lot of F1 experience, I wouldn't be quick to conclude from that they he really does want drivers with a lot of F1 experience.