Pedro Diniz: F1's best pay driver?

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Londoner
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Pedro Diniz: F1's best pay driver?

Post by Londoner »

Good morning all.

The 1990s were the heyday of pay drivers in Formula One - indeed it's one of the main reasons why F1 Rejects came into being. But there was one man who started out as just another pay driver for a backmarker, and six seasons later was still in the sport, comfortably in the midfield. His name was Pedro Diniz.

I had a tremendous amount of fun researching and producing this piece, and I hope I've managed to do Diniz's story justice. Read it here.
Fetzie on Ferrari wrote:How does a driver hurtling around a race track while they're sous-viding in their overalls have a better understanding of the race than a team of strategy engineers in an air-conditioned room?l
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dinizintheoven
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Re: Pedro Diniz: F1's best pay driver?

Post by dinizintheoven »

Top banana! (Which the FG01 wasn't, despite sharing the colour.) And the toppest banana of them all is that you've got the correct source of the famous headline that I've been using as a username for my entire stint here, and also on Minecraft for the last five and a half years. The number of people who still believe Murray Walker said it are too numerous to count, believable though that myth might be, it is still a myth.

Incidentally, I remember watching Pedro in F3 in 1991, when he was driving car #2 that was given a very Marlboro-esque livery (not that I remember who the team was). Jordi "I nearly made it to F1" Gené drive the #1 car, and I found myself wondering what he'd won to deserve it...
James Allen, on his favourite F1 engine of all time:
"...the Life W12, I can't describe the noise to you, but imagine filling your dustbin with nuts and bolts, and then throwing it down the stairs, it was something akin to that!"
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Yannick
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Re: Pedro Diniz: F1's best pay driver?

Post by Yannick »

Thank you for this great article. I remember back in the day, I could not believe Peter Sauber had signed him, but over the season, Pedro Diniz convinced me of his ability. That was sweet, as sweet a read as this article.
"I don't think we should be used to finance (the manufacturers') R&D because they will produce that engine anyway" said Monisha Kaltenborn.
"You will never see a Mercedes using a Ferrari engine or the other way round."
sswishbone
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Re: Pedro Diniz: F1's best pay driver?

Post by sswishbone »

Best F1 pay driver is Fernando Alonso. Pay driver to double world champion is never likely to be beaten (as the article suggests open to everyone else if he counts!) really good article with some stuff I wasn't aware of. I remember before Damon Hill got his point at Silverstone in 1997 Walkinshaw was quoted in the Daily Mirror saying Diniz was faster coupled with Hill's soundbyte 'it's tough to be a has been' (the source of which I don't recall!)

Nice trip down memory lane for one of the more respectable wadded pilots.
"Hispania are a waste of talent and petrol!" Martin Brundle, Australia Qualifying 2011

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