[quote:ebabb08386="bull705"][quote:ebabb08386="f1racefan1966"]Briscoe is no slouch. He more than proved that in ALMS this past season and did rather well in the satellite Penske entry at Indy too.

Question is, who gets their first Indycar win in '08, Ryan or Danica?

After all the grief I've seen the Danica fanboys give Briscoe the last couple of years, how ironic it would be if Ryan got on the scoreboard first.[/quote:ebabb08386]I'm no Danica fanboy.I'm just sick of everybody treating this guy like the second coming when his results don't merit it.So he's fast...THAT'S ONLY ONE ELEMENT OF BEING A RACER!This guy lacks the patience and smarts that seperate a good driver from a great one.His ALMS race in ST. Petersburg had yet another display of immaturityby playing bumper cars with his Porsche.This guy doesn't fit the mold of intelligent Team Penske drivers like Rick Mears,Emerson Fittipaldi,Gil De Ferran, and Mark Donohue(RIP).He seems like one second away from a Kevin Cogan incident.[/quote:ebabb08386]

Now, I'm not one of those who is claiming he is the second coming of Rick Mears but his results with the Penske organization, this past season, does indeed merit a chance with their Indycar operation in '08 like it or not. Your St. Pete example, though perhaps true at the time (early in the season), is a somewhat poor excuse to diss the guy and should not be used soley to overshadow his accomplishments the rest of the season. He did indeed mature as the season went on and this is backed by his wins in ALMS and a very polished and clean run to 5th at Indy back in May. It may not seem as obvious to you but it was quite obvious to me, the transformation of Briscoe from a very fast albeit go for broke and, hence, mistake prone driver to a more polished and patient racer in '07. And the results showed in case you weren't paying attention.

Penske is indeed molding him into their kind of racer. We will just have to see how well he completes his training with them in '08.

[quote:dd22617e13]Your St. Pete example, though perhaps true at the time (early in the season), is a somewhat poor excuse to diss the guy and should not be used soley to overshadow his accomplishments the rest of the season.[/quote:dd22617e13]

A drowning man will grab at a straw.

Not just because i'm a Penske fan but i have every confidence in him & that Roger & Tim made the right choice. The fact that they didn't serenade someone elses driver or one that is laden with cobwebs tells me something. I'm certain with the help of Helio & Rick & even Sam, they'll take that "loose canon" out of his driving.

Ryan you're the man :!:

Briscoe is an interesting choice for Penske to replace Hornish. Theres no doubt Briscoe has improved greatly since his 2005 year with Ganassi and he did do well at Indy this year. However, Penske has usually always had the best of the best drivers on his team. Losing Hornish is going to be a big loss, he was without doubt the best oval Indy Car driver on the grid the last x number of years. Briscoe is talented yes, but he's not ready to jump in the car and start challenging for the title.

[quote:9625f7098a]Losing Hornish is going to be a big loss, he was without doubt the best oval Indy Car driver on the grid the last x number of years.[/quote:9625f7098a]

I totally agree with that. Sam was a natural oval racer. I disagree with Ryan NOT being ready. I think he has matured in the last 3-4 yrs. We'll find out in 08.

[quote:c2f72b83ad="Bourne"]Briscoe is an interesting choice for Penske to replace Hornish. Theres no doubt Briscoe has improved greatly since his 2005 year with Ganassi and he did do well at Indy this year. However, Penske has usually always had the best of the best drivers on his team. Losing Hornish is going to be a big loss, he was without doubt the best oval Indy Car driver on the grid the last x number of years. Briscoe is talented yes, but he's not ready to jump in the car and start challenging for the title.[/quote:c2f72b83ad]Ryan reminds me a lot of PT, wicked fast but inconsistent.

Broadly I agree with that assessment, although so far I've seen a little less speed and a lot less common sense from Ryan compared to PT at this point.

Steve

[quote:62e47861b2="f1racefan1966"]After all the grief I've seen the Danica fanboys give Briscoe the last couple of years, how ironic it would be if Ryan got on the scoreboard first.[/quote:62e47861b2]

I don't think its fair to suggest only Danica fans have given Ryan grief, back in 2005 a lot of people gave Ryan grief including some of the other drivers. My critisism of Ryan came from the fact he kept pulling off stupid moves which caused him to hit wall's/other cars a lot.

I've watched Ryan since he competed in Euro F3 in 2003 & there's no doubting his speed/talent, problem is that he's always had a reputation as someone that crashes a lot. When he was testing for the Toyota F1 team in 2004 he went off track quite a lot & as has been well documented in 2005 while in the IRL he had a lot of accidents.

Having said that since the crash which nearly killed him at Chicargo in 2005 he seems to have calmed down. Last year he raced just about everything frop IRL/ChampCar's to Sportscar's & Aussie V8 Supercars & did a pretty good job in all of them. This year I've been impressed with the way he's improved while racing in the ALMS, he definately seems better than he was.

Here's something to consider. At Penske he'll have a competitive team mate That has a fair ammount of experience in Helio, Roger Penske to call strategy but perhaps most importantly he'll have Rick Mears who i suspect will help tutor ryan like he did with Paul Tracy back in 1993.

If Ryan doesn't win a race next year I will be extremely surprised.

[quote:47613aec03]If Ryan doesn't win a race next year I will be extremely surprised.[/quote:47613aec03]

I echo that. I would think RP knows Ryan's history, wouldn't you think. I doubt Roger thought "i can't put him in #6, he crashes too often". There will be plenty of dialog between all the afformentioned parties.