The Marussia F1 Team has announced that Max Chilton will make his Formula 1 racing debut with the team in 2013. The 21 year old Briton is the team’s reserve driver, a role he was appointed to with effect from the 2012 Japanese Grand Prix, following an impressive season with the Marussia Carlin GP2 team. He has tested for the team in the 2012 Young Driver Test at Silverstone in July, and the Free Practice 1 session at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
“We are delighted to welcome Max to the role of race driver with the Marussia F1 Team for the 2013 season,” said team principal John Booth. “We have spent a significant amount of time evaluating his performances during 2012, both in our own car in a testing situation and also from the pitwall as we monitored his progress alongside the other members of our junior talent pool during Grand Prix support races. We felt confident enough in his ability and potential to appoint him to the role of Reserve Driver in September and since that time his development has been rapid in all aspects. First and foremost, he has shown himself to be extremely capable in the car. Most recently, in Abu Dhabi, he was put to the test in a competitive environment which included providing him with an opportunity to demonstrate his outright pace and consistency over a single lap. We saw just how much he has progressed even since the Silverstone test in the summer and through the succession of GP2 races thereafter, when he achieved two pole positions and two race wins. Not only that, Max very quickly embedded himself within the team, thanks in no small part to the fact that he is a lively and affable character who we’ve enjoyed having around. Having been integral to our race weekend engineering environment for the past three months already – as well as having undertaken a significant part of our simulator programme – Max has already found his feet.”
Good news, but I wonder how many posters will incorrectly be claiming his Dad paid for it ? he did not, they stopped paying for his drives and concentrated on getting him large sponsors.
Aon = his Dad. Or thereabouts. Technically speaking you’re right, but reading between the lines, you aren’t.
Aon does not equal his Dad. Aon is a vast multinational company.
Of which his dad is Vice-Chairman. As coincidences go, its pretty strong…
The music’s nearly stopped…. Judging by Kamui “focusing on 2014″ it’s fairly obvious the seats are nailed down, not sure how I feel about Sutil coming back. He had some good runs at the back end of 2011 but fresh blood is always good to see, especially in the midfield.
I assume he’s in, anyway.
Max is an excellent driver. But is this habit of bringing qualified drivers as pay drivers ever going to end?
“Pay drivers” with talent and commercial backing is better than the old days in many ways. Motorsport has always been the sport of the aristocracy, right back to the Bentley Boys and Joe’s saboteurs.
Life is all about circumstance. Nobody should begrudge the talent you need to put in a single lap in an F1 car, let alone be part of a team.
Not until the costs come down…which is unlikely anytime soon. But so what? If a driver can make the 107%, he is qualified to compete. Don’t berate him/her just because they have the resources to support the team.
I wouldn’t exactly say Max is an ‘excellent driver’. If you can say that after three years in GP2 and only two wins and three years in F3 and only one win that he is excellent then you have an interesting view on what makes up an ‘excellent’ driver. I think the €15m daddy is paying / paid has rather more to do with his signing…
I’m sure the dollars he’ll bring helped. But pay-drivers nowadays are generally a lot more talented than those we saw in the mid-90s for example. Jean-Denis Delatraz? Giovanni Lavaggi? Phillipe Adams? Look at Max Chilton’s record, consistent improvement in each category he’s raced in. Also people talk about Kamui Kobayashi being left on the sidelines and how a guy who’s quite talented may be without a drive next year. Look at his GP2 record, it wasn’t nothing to write home about. Let’s judge Max Chilton after a season in F1…
Absolutely. That is the intelligent way of doing things.
So, two poles and two wins in three GP2 seasons are now more than enough to be F1 driver… My ‘wild’ guess is that it was his sponsors who got him a drive. I know GP2 grid haven’t been top notch for a few years now (I think FR3.5 have stronger drivers) because only those who can afford it go there, which is doesn’t necessarily has to involve talent, but I still think Chilton is not the best they could have got from there. Take James Calado, for instance…
Max Chilton is very much in the Charles Pic mould really – reasonably talented in lower formulae, if not stand out, rich family with rich connections.
With respect to Pic though, he ran Glock far closer than should of been the case for a “pay driver”.
So from Marussia’s viewpoint there’s minimal risk to taking on Chilton.