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Sakae

Silly Season

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3 hours ago, Publius Cornelius Scipio said:

I guess that Massa will be made redundant, I still think that Bottas is there only because he's managed by Toto Wolff. Regarding Palmer and Magnussen: everyone believes that Palmer is bund to go and that Magnussen is better than him but frankly looking at them on track it doesn't look as if Magnussen is much better, yesterday for example Palmer was ahead. I presume that Renault might well change both drivers

We may see two seats open at Williams and two seats open at Renault and a open seat at Force India. Could be a dramatic end to an otherwise boring silly season. This could be the end of the line for Button, Massa, Magnussen and Palmer. We shall see.

 

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I have my doubts. If Renault could bag Perez and Bottas, I think they would be better served. Right now, I think that is a scenario with a good chance of occurring.

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That came as a it of a shock, best wishes Felipe and now he will become the best driver in whatever other series he will drive as it's never his fault lol.

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Button on sabbatical next year. Vroom Vroom is in for 2017.

 

I think Button is kidding himself if he thinks that he will ever again race in this series 2018 onwards, considering his age; at least not with any top five teams.

 

Sounds like Perez is staying where he is.

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Pérez says his announcement will be "what he always wanted."  But what I don't know is if he used "always" as in, his whole dang life (that'd sound more like Williams, as he grew up when they were a very good team), or as in, "throughout this entire silly season ordeal," which could mean Force India (e.g., "I always wanted to stay at Force India, but my sponsors and I wanted to work out some changes in the contract.")

If not Pérez at Williams, though, and as it will not be Button, I'm not sure who partners Bottas.

Still hearing Nasr linked to Haas.  Worth noting, as his name's come up a few times this summer, Alexander Rossi will be staying in IndyCar in 2017.  Expect confirmation soon.

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Not sure about Perez to Williams.

He said, that his announcement is due before Singapore, whereas Williams said, they will announce their drivers only end of the season. All on the record past week.

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Interesting week. Massa and Button both gone (sort of...in the case of Button). Vandoorne in at McLaren. I gather Bottas and a new rich kid in at Williams. So Williams has gone back to rental drivers. Wonder if he will be as good as Maldonado? Sad state of affairs for what is the third winning-est team in F1.

So, where does Perez go and who is taking the two Renault seats? I am guessing at this point that Magnussen stays there.

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Apparently young Canadian Lance Stroll has massa's seat next season.

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12 minutes ago, Emmcee said:

Apparently young Canadian Lance Stroll has massa's seat next season.

Yea, I couldn't bring myself to bother to look up his name.....hard to forget a name like "Lance Stroll." These are the type of names you only find in bad detective novels.

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Or another new character on law and order. Detective Lance Stroll.

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On 9/4/2016 at 2:24 PM, Sakae said:

Not sure about Perez to Williams.

He said, that his announcement is due before Singapore, whereas Williams said, they will announce their drivers only end of the season. All on the record past week.

Interesting, thanks.  Missed the Williams info.

RE: Lance Stroll...as a driver, he's bad!

And he's the first consequence of Max Verstappen.

Here I go again, talking about NASCAR, but...in the late 80s and early 90s, this guy named Jeff Gordon was making a huge name for himself in USAC racing—midgets and sprint cars, these 900 hp/1,100 lb rockets that only run ovals, and are too fast for any track bigger than a mile (arguably, too fast for any bigger than a half-mile, but they do run mile ovals—flat ones, though, no banking.  They also run dirt tracks).  He bursts into NASCAR and immediately makes an impact.  Totally dominates 1995–99, and is a media darling to boot.  (And the IRL/CART envy NASCAR like hell that a guy who grew up partly in Indiana chose stock cars, and even Sir Jackie Stewart offered Jeff Gordon a Formula 3 ride in Europe at one point.  And then when British American Tobacco decided to start an F1 team, the original vision they had was to have Gordon run their KOOL-sponsored CART cars for two years, then have him partner Villeneuve at BAR in 1999.  But Gordon had no interest).

So, where did teams look for all their development drivers?  USAC.  The problem was that not every young driver from USAC was Jeff Gordon.  Jeff Gordon was great because he was (1) Jeff Gordon and (2) partnered in perfect harmony with Ray Evernham, his crew chief.  So, there is now a laundry list of USAC graduates who were rushed to NASCAR and out of the sport, or just riding around in the thrown-together teams that fill the field, by age 28.

Back to F1...Verstappen has made it "okay" to hire a teenager right out of F3.

The problem?  Not only is Verstappen a unique talent, despite my biases against him for the dumb things he says and occasionally does, as well as for my biases against him for being his vile father's son, Verstappen's F3 successes came in 2014.

That's big for two reasons.  (1) 2014 had the deepest F3 field in nearly a decade.  There were 30-car races, and some highly-regarded prospects (Ocon being one).  (2) Verstappen was a rookie, right out of karts, racing a field that included lots of guys who had done F3 before (including the European series, so they knew the tracks; but if not, at least some branch of F3 to learn the car), and guys who had done some other type of formula car racing.

Stroll is not that.  Stroll faced a tough field in 2015 (e.g., Charles Leclerc, the Ferrari prospect who has driven the Haas car this year) as a rookie, but he had driven cars before (Formula 4, mainly), unlike Verstappen.  And Stroll only won a single race, coming fifth in the championship.  He was very crash prone.  A bit out of control.

Now, in 2016, the field is depleted.  Literally cut in half.  And the names on the grid are much, much smaller than the ones we had in 2014 and 2015.  Stroll, against a weak, small field, and with a year in the championship to know all the tracks and the cars, and being in the absolute best team in F3, is now leading the points.  But his seven wins are met with four retirements.

I realize money is part of this for Williams, but I also fear an over-eagerness to find the next Verstappen sending some drivers to F1 too early.  Verstappen will prove an exception, not a rule.

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One wonders about noise Williams made "how it would be wonderful" if Button would accept a drive with them next year, only within several hours later we moved from paying big buck (what, 15 MM?) to a seasoned driver, to exactly opposite, namely, giving a job to greenhorn, and getting (allegedly) 30 MM. I would rather suspect later was the aim all along, and all those other headlines were just free (and somewhat deceiving) publicity. 

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Why would've button gone to Williams anyway? If he wanted to win more races like any driver does, his best bet was to stay where he is. Mclaren pulled a master stroke IMO. Vandoorne threatening to leave by saying he won't spend another season as a test driver and any team would take him. So they've managed to keep Vandoorne and button and alonso, button has a contract to comeback in 2018 usually a driver has to find a contract when they want to come back. Button and Mclaren are both winners out of this.

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As a side note, my post was not who is the "winner" at McLaren in some questionable smoke and mirrors deal, but colorful noise at Williams camp. 

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I know but doesn't it say something of button most likely turned down a race seat at Williams to remain at Mclaren as a third driver? 

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Noted. Life afer Kimi? Esteban Ocon (hopeful) is already on the record that he would love to drive for Ferrari one day. We should watch him how he builts his career, or let others destroy it. It would be probably first time if Ferrari would take on a junior driver in his second year.

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Perez again postponed confirmation announcement that he will drive for FI next year, despite that he was committed to this weekend. What's up man?

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42 minutes ago, Sakae said:

Perez again postponed confirmation announcement that he will drive for FI next year, despite that he was committed to this weekend. What's up man?

He's a too timer. Something's appeared in the pipeline, like a team enquiring about his services and he's stalling. Since he's got such a wealthy backer, at the end of the day, I gather he can probably break any contract as his sugar dady will pay the contract penalty.

I must admit he's a better driver than I've given him credit for, but he's also not been involved in stupid accidents of late too. Much like GRO, I guess unless you're Maldanado, you can get better.

One thing I find hilarious, is that any driver who says he wants to drive for Ferrari, that's it's a dream etc., the press then take that to mean the guy automatically has a shot. It's like a soccer player saying he wants to play for Man U, Real, or Barca. So what, most people want to be associated with the best in their field. It doesn't mean they have any real shot of achieving it.

 

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51 minutes ago, KoolMonkey said:

He's a too timer. Something's appeared in the pipeline, like a team enquiring about his services and he's stalling. Since he's got such a wealthy backer, at the end of the day, I gather he can probably break any contract as his sugar dady will pay the contract penalty.

 

 

I get the impression that it's his wealthy backer who calls all the shots, and Perez does as he's told to do

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Yeap, I think so too, yet reasons for the delay remain unexplained, unless someone will spring a big surprise in the last minute. (Not that I think so). Could be, that they want to use Mexican stage for the announcement.

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It's Renault!! That's where the delay is focused on. Renault have delayed their 2017 driver announcements... So can one put 2 + 2 together and surmise Perez and his backers are making a play for a seat at Renault? Do Renault have any aspirations to break into the Mexican market?

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Could be Renault, but I doubt it. I read already couple of weeks ago that Perez actually already signed with FI, and the announcement is only formality. Then add change of his rhetoric, that FI is actually not a bad place to be, and you get the picture. My bet is still on announcement before the race in Mexico. 

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