Capharol wrote: ↑13 Aug 2019, 19:44as far as i know he has some points already (2017 F2 finished 6th, 10 points) and if he finishes 4th this year, which is almost undoable he would have enough points.... but due to the gap (50 points) between him and 4th placed driver (Ghiotto) it will be hard to get those last 30 points so he has to drive in the winter to get the neccesarry points
Didn't he get some test days in F1 and everyone said he was basically unimpressive and disappointed Honda who were keen to get a Japanese driver into F1 but his test pretty much made them write him off? He'd be turning 26 before next year, he had two years in GP2 and achieved nothing basically. Vandoorne did GP2 for two years and came 2nd then 1st, both with Art and the first year he was beaten only by Palmer who ended up in F1 as well.
Matsushita came 9th and 11th, both with Art, in the same team as Vandoorne who won in 2015 when he came 9th and in the same team as Sirotkin who came third in 2016. Sirotkin got to F1 and was okay but not great, he was beaten by Gio and Gasly in 2016, neither who seem particularly strong and between them and Matsushita came a whole bunch of drivers most of whom don't appear to be F1 quality at all.
This year he's still only 7th, is one of the oldest in the field, is being beaten by a rookie and just doesn't in any way by results or considering his age/experience, nothing implies he's remotely close to F1 quality. I mean Gasly went to get points with Super Formula and came 2nd, Matsushita did the same last year and came 11th.
Having a decent Japanese driver in F1 would be valuable to Honda, pushing anyone available in and having a really bad Japanese driver completely out of his depth will hurt them rather than help.