The F1 thread

Cols

euan said:

Have you seen the thing about Ocon got the sack because they knew via his company car GPS tracking he’d spent the day at the Williams factory?

Stalker alert!

It’s a cool story, but in reality Alpine announced at the beginning of June that Ocon’s contract would not be renewed.  The not-so-clandestine visit to Williams was just before the British Grand Prix at the beginning of July.

stickyfiddle

Ocon clearly wanted out anyway so it’s no big deal. 

Antonelli will go to Merc unless Max decides to move (unlikely)

Bottas will stay at Sauber/Audi 

Alpine will probably chuck Doohan in because why would any current driver want to go there. 

TR will keep Yuki, DR goes up to RB and Lawson into TR. Now Ric seems to have got his mojo back this may happen before the next race 

Any other seats left?

Cols

That sounds about right to me.  Other possibilities for Audi/Alpine would be Mick Schumacher or Sergio Perez, who will apparently soon be looking for a new job.

Penn

Wow! Didn’t see Sainz Williams coming. That’s a big vote of confidence in them. Funny how the red bull cast offs have ended up there. I like Alex and Carlos. Good line up. Be great to see them and the team do well.  

Dontgiveupyourdayjob

I wonder whether Red Bull might drop Perez down to RB in place of Ricciardo? Might be easier/cheaper to do, depending on what clauses are in that 2 year contract?

Also wonder if KMag might fancy a go in that spare Alpine seat? Alpine could certainly do a lot worse.

Penn

Dontgiveupyourdayjob said:

I wonder whether Red Bull might drop Perez down to RB in place of Ricciardo? Might be easier/cheaper to do, depending on what clauses are in that 2 year contract?

Also wonder if KMag might fancy a go in that spare Alpine seat? Alpine could certainly do a lot worse.

Or Bottas? 

Hoof

Dontgiveupyourdayjob said:

I wonder whether Red Bull might drop Perez down to RB in place of Ricciardo? Might be easier/cheaper to do, depending on what clauses are in that 2 year contract?

Also wonder if KMag might fancy a go in that spare Alpine seat? Alpine could certainly do a lot worse

I doubt it. Red Bull bigwigs have asked questioned about Ricciardo's seat at RB, reminding the team that it's purpose is for developing young drivers who would then potentially step up to Red Bull. Not for failed no.2 drivers who couldn't even get consistent podium finishes when the car was clearly dominant and are now likely to cost them the constructors title now other teams are consistently quick.

stickyfiddle

Well RB have formally said Perez is staying put. 

So… out after Mexico??  

Boromedic

stickyfiddle said:

Well RB have formally said Perez is staying put. 

So… out after Mexico??  

There goes the constructors title, hahahaha

Cols

stickyfiddle said:

Well RB have formally said Perez is staying put. 

So… out after Mexico??  

Baffling.

And that puts a rather different spin on Wednesday’s Ricciardo/Lawson ‘filming day’.

Cols

Boromedic said:

stickyfiddle said:

Well RB have formally said Perez is staying put. 

So… out after Mexico??  

There goes the constructors title, hahahaha

I can’t imagine the Red Bull factory staff are very pleased.  

They get an annual bonus relative to the team’s position in the constructor’s championship, and at the current rate their points advantage is being eroded there’s a serious risk of not getting as much as they were expecting in their Christmas pay packet.

Boromedic

I was listening to The Race podcast earlier about the decision and they're just as baffled. The statements from inside the team suggest it's not that he's permanent for the rest of the season, more a confirmation that he will be participating in races he's generally done well at, after the summer break. Namely Singapore and Baku mostly, but Imola and another race. So it's all a little strange, they're not sure why there's all this procrastination and mess surrounding this since forever. 

My guess is the contract as not as Red Bull favouring as reports might have suggested previously, perhaps its not as easy to bin him off and they're hoping and praying he gets better, presumably seeing as he qualified well in Spa, which is ridiculous considering it was an outlier being wet, and he went back 6 places in the race. Very, very strange.

Cols

Of the races to come, it's only really Baku and Singapore where he's done reliably well in the past.  And if I'm being frank he's had quite a few circuits since his new contract was inked where he should have done respectably, but didn't.

Added to that, we're now getting into the run of races where Lawson deputised so admirably for Ricciardo last year.  So to keep him benched and to keep the fingers crossed that Perez will come back from his summer holidays a changed man is, well... baffling.

By any metric, Perez's current performance is an embarrassment.  Over the whole season - including the opening races where he was respectably close to Verstappen - he qualifies an average of 6.6 places behind Verstappen and finishes an average of 3.9 places behind him.  That's the worst differential between team mates on the whole grid.

So I reckon @boromedic is spot on, and that costly legal action has been threatened by Perez or his sponsors if he's dropped.

stickyfiddle

Ok so now it's Wheatley to Audi and Stella on a long-term contract extension with Mclaren. These both feel like big decisions. 

Horner is obviously talking up the potential internal replacements for Wheatley but it feels like the whole ship is creaking right now. 

And Mclaren extending Stella's contract is just obvious. I really hope this solidifies a long-term return to the front for the team. 

Cols

I suspect this is more a case of Audi going on a shopping spree than rats fleeing the sinking ship at Red Bull.  Wheatley most likely views a team principal role at Audi as career progression, much as James Vowles left his role as chief strategist at Mercedes to take up the lead at Williams.

fretmeister

Vowles is definitely being trained to take over from Toto when the time comes.

Dontgiveupyourdayjob

Cols said:

I suspect this is more a case of Audi going on a shopping spree than rats fleeing the sinking ship at Red Bull.  Wheatley most likely views a team principal role at Audi as career progression, much as James Vowles left his role as chief strategist at Mercedes to take up the lead at Williams.

Yeah, apparently Wheatley has been itching for a team principal role for a long time. Given that not even a sex scandal could dislodge Horner at Red Bull he'll have run out of patience.

Not ideal for Red Bull, but don't think you can read more into it than basic ambition/career progression.

fretmeister

Cols said:

So I reckon @boromedic is spot on, and that costly legal action has been threatened by Perez or his sponsors if he's dropped.

I'm not convinced.

I think it's far more likely to be pressure from Liberty about the Mexican GP ticket sales and with Checo currently being the only  driver from that part of the world etc. I reckon that if that race had happened already they would have dropped him.

I don't think the sponsors will have as much say simply because if RB don't get the constructors title the sponsors will be associated with the driver at fault. Some of his big sponsors would much prefer to be on a winning driver anyway. Nobody sees his personal sponsors as he's hardly ever on the podium.

There's $12Million difference between first and second in the constructors. Even if RB have to pay him $10m to sack him outright rather than demote him RB would still be up by $2m with the right person in that car.

stickyfiddle

fretmeister said:

Cols said:

So I reckon @boromedic is spot on, and that costly legal action has been threatened by Perez or his sponsors if he's dropped.

I'm not convinced.

I think it's far more likely to be pressure from Liberty about the Mexican GP ticket sales and with Checo currently being the only  driver from that part of the world etc. I reckon that if that race had happened already they would have dropped him.

I don't think the sponsors will have as much say simply because if RB don't get the constructors title the sponsors will be associated with the driver at fault. Some of his big sponsors would much prefer to be on a winning driver anyway. Nobody sees his personal sponsors as he's hardly ever on the podium.

There's $12Million difference between first and second in the constructors. Even if RB have to pay him $10m to sack him outright rather than demote him RB would still be up by $2m with the right person in that car.

Considering how many emails I keep getting about last minute GP tickets (certainly Silverstone, Zandvoort and Monza) I think they're struggling to sell at most circuits at the moment. Remembering Checo also brings a lot of people into Austin as well I can well imagine Liberty are bricking it. 

Ironically this is looking like the best season in quite a while but at least some portion of the normies who might have gone to races in the last couple of post-DTS years are probably getting bored. That won't be helped by tickets costing megabucks and a lot of races actually being quite dull in person where you can't work out what's going on and don't have decent commentary, replays etc. 

fretmeister

I haven't been to a race in person for years.

Before the new grandstands I used to sit on the grass at Copse and there was a big screen on the inside of the track so I could see what was happening.

I did get seats at Woodcote ones (previous layout) but that was boring even with a bit of a view of the complex. No overtaking there.

These days - a 3 day general pass is cheaper than just a race day ticket, but for a grandstand seat I think the cheapest race day was about £450. A seat at Beckets was nearly £700.

Add a bit of overpriced food and drink and that would be £2000 to 3000 for my family of 4. And I'm too old to sit on the grass all day now!

Not a chance in hell.