BBC-based Red Bull cheerleader David Coulthard has become the latest name vaguely connected with the sport to express his concerns over the viability of Formula One's new-for-2010 crop of teams, which the Scot described as potentially dangerous.
The trio of new squads, Virgin Racing, Lotus and the Hispania Racing Team, have come under mounting criticism in recent weeks over their ability to compete in Bahrain. Both Virgin and Lotus were well off the pace of the established teams throughout their testing programmes, and HRT are yet to turn a wheel with their new car.
And Coulthard, who knows a thing or two about driving too slowly on an F1 track, has suggested that he understands Ferrari's recent vicious attack on the newbies, where the Italian team claimed the weak squads were a legacy of former FIA president Max Mosley's "holy war" against the manufacturers.
The Scot suggested in his latest column for the Daily Telegraph newspaper that the weak pace of the new team "degrades the sport", and that Formula One was "not a finishing school".
"I have to admit, I have some sympathy with Ferrari's point of view," Coulthard wrote in the paper, "Formula one is not a finishing school. Either you come prepared, or prepare to fail. This is the pinnacle of world motor sport.
"It's no use them bleating about the fact that the goalposts moved after they joined under a budget cap. The Formula One Teams Association never signed up to that cap."
He added that although it was important to get new teams into the sport, the "carry-on" over the winter, including the protracted and eventual failed efforts by the USF1 team to make the grid were making F1 look bad, and that having HRT turn up in Bahrain without a single test session under their belts was "plain irresponsible".
"Fresh blood is all well and good," he went on, "But I would argue that the carry-on we have seen over the past few months has been a poor advertisement for F1.
"First it was going to be four new teams, then Bernie Ecclestone admitted he thought only two of them would make it. Then USF1 collapsed and died, along with the reputations of Ken Anderson and Peter Windsor, who cried wolf so many times.
"Has the world gone mad? F1 is a dangerous sport at the best of times but asking teams to just turn up at practice on a Friday before a race is plain irresponsible."
He added that the likes of HRT drivers Bruno Senna and Karun Chandhok faced huge pressure to perform from the start, and he called to mind such hapless early 1990's efforts as Perry McCarthy's stint at the useless Andrea Moda team when he said that the prospect of a long season at the back of the grid was no fun.
"Even if the new teams negotiate Bahrain without a hitch – and I hope they do – they will be miles off the pace," Coulthard ranted.
"Again, I feel this degrades the sport and is unfair on the drivers in question. Just ask Perry McCarthy, who failed to qualify for a single grand prix in 11 attempts for Andrea Moda in 1992, how much fun it is scrabbling around at the back of a grid.
"Bruno Senna and Karun Chandhok, the drivers for Hispania Racing, are both talented young men under huge pressure. I just hope it doesn't all descend into McCarthy-esque farce."
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