Silly Season

[Sakae 0]

Which drivers would be on Ferrari long list?

Hamilton (difficult), Rosberg, Alonso (difficult), Perez, Grosjean, Bottas, Sainz, Verstappen,...

If Ferrari signs Raikonnen for one more year, who is available end of 2017? Hamilton? Kimi might not want to drive in 2018.

Looking towards future, realistically I think they might have to move on the selection ASAP, and like it or not, Perez and Bottas might lead the pack. I would probably add Sainz onto a short list of 3 names. I am not sure what Gro is planning to do, nor I think Ferrari will choose non-active drivers like Vergne is. Rosberg might not be available, as it looks today.

[Emmcee 0]

I know Ricciardo and verstappen are available in 2018. I don't expect much to change really and unless Ferrari can nail a top driver like max or dan or even rosberg, kimi will stay another year which Iam expecting him to do but this Perez rumour won't go away either. Redbull will be a lot more competitive next season, in fact I expect them to be the team to beat and will be shocked if there not as Adrian Newey has proven time and time again in the past, he is the best when it comes to interpreting new rules.

[Sakae 0]

This doesn't sounds like ringing endorsement of Button, unless Dennis wants to milk cheap headlines for a while.

Quote

Dennis: McLaren in no rush to name 2017 line up

 

[Emmcee 0]

well Jenson says he has a few options open besides mclaren.

[Sakae 0]

Button is also being quoted that it will be his and only his decision what he will do in 2017, and where he will drive. To me it doesn't make much sense, because first he needs several lucrative offers to be able to choose, and I am not convinced that he has so many. There could be a TV deal (maybe), and there could be Williams (maybe), and that's probably it, but I do not envision him being invited for another year with McLaren. (On the other hand, who can read properly what Dennis will do)?

[Emmcee 0]

Do you think Ron would be that stupid to hold onto button for one more and to risk loosing Vandoorne? I don't think so, button to Williams or TV deal and Sainz to Renault and Vandoorne will partner Alonso, but sounds like alonso likes Vandoorne but is giving extra praise to Jenson so I think trying to hint on resigning him.

[Sakae 0]

31 minutes ago, Emmcee said:

Do you think Ron would be that stupid to hold onto button for one more and to risk loosing Vandoorne?

Yes, I think he is capable of it.

[Emmcee 0]

Yea lol, I didnt realise that comment could answer itself. He has done some stupid things over the years.

[Emmcee 0]

Here's a good read, puts the 2017 season into abit better perspective for us.

http://m.gpupdate.net/en/f1-news/341066/feature-who-should-partner-vettel-in-2017/

[Sakae 0]

Two more years for Rosberg.

[Sakae 0]

Here we go...

Quote

Red Bull junior Sergio Sette Camara will get his first official Formula 1 test with Toro Rosso at Silverstone next month.

Bye bye... who? Sainz or Kvyat?

[Emmcee 0]

Well there you go

[Sakae 0]

Why is this guy getting so heated up that Ferrari is ignoring him (so he implies)? I thought he has a job. Could be that slightly bloated head of his is a problem.

[Emmcee 0]

I couldn't find anything in that story that suggested he was getting "heated up". Let's look at this picture with common sense, we just heard nico has resigned with Mercedes, bottas seems to have fallen of there wish list so it basically just leaves Ricciardo,Perez and kimi. Now both redbull and force India have stated both drivers are still under contract, so why would they buy one of them out when Ferrari only has to wait another 12 months and both will be on the market. Might aswell keep kimi another year until better options or options they want become available. I find he is getting a lot more confident now and you would to if you could had two wins and a pole in a row and do that in a car that everyone knows is down on power. Weather people like it or not, dan is the man ATM if all it takes is a small comment or reaction from him to call him "big headed" then I wonder how they have drivers they support themselves, as from what I can remember, dan never flipped the bird at his team and went ahead and done his own thing using there equipment.

[Sakae 0]

...following footstep of one Sebastian Vettel, and also lately a few others.

[Sakae 0]

Sainz is not available to Ferrari.

[Emmcee 0]

13 hours ago, Sakae said:

...following footstep of one Sebastian Vettel, and also lately a few others.

I find button more honest than most, in fact I feel he's the most honest of the lot.

[Emmcee 0]

8 hours ago, Sakae said:

Sainz is not available to Ferrari.

That squashes the Renault rumour aswell then. Could TR be keeping Kvyat to? If they do, it would be the longest driver pairing the team has had correct me if Iam wrong.

[Massa 0]

I couldn't post for a while during the forum software update.  Looks like I'm back.

RE: Sérgio Sette Câmara . . . no chance he's racing for Toro Rosso next year, in my view.  In his fifteen European Formula 3 races this year, he has just two podium finishes (one second and one third).  No wins, three retirements, seventh in the standings out of fifteen drivers who have started every single race.  It was one thing to promote Max Verstappen, who had won ten races in his rookie European F3 year.  It is quite another to ask a driver to make the huge jump from an F3 car to an F1 car when that driver hasn't even won an F1 race.  More than anything, I think the test is to send a message to Pierre Gasly that his Red Bull career is beyond over after scoring zero wins in seventeen Formula V8 3.5 races and thirty-three (and counting) GP2 races.

RE: Kvyat . . . if he doesn't start scoring points for STR, he won't be on the grid next year.  And any Russian funding out there could instead back Artem Markelov, leading the GP2 points, or Sergey Sirotkin, who is currently a Renault test driver but has floated around the paddock for three years (first with Sauber in 2014).  I think Kvyat is better than his performance in Sochi, and I think he is better than his performance this year with STR.  But a lot of drivers were better than they showed (including a few from Red Bull's program), and at the end of the day, no one really cared.  On the Markelov note, I wouldn't be shocked if he ended up at Toro Rosso.  As I've pointed out here, perhaps in this thread, Red Bull's young driver signings following a pattern of nationality.  There are certain markets Red Bull cares about and certain regions Red Bull wants drivers from.  Russia has always been one of them, and with Kvyat not very well-loved by Red Bull right now, that's open.

RE: Sainz . . . not available to Ferrari, but then Ferrari was never available to him for 2017, because Räikkönen isn't leaving.  Now, if the Ferrari interest in him is true, that one-year deal for Sainz makes his STR exit coincide with Räikkönen's, and we could see him there in 2018.  I like Sainz as a personality, or at least from what we get to see of these guys' personalities, but I'm not sold just yet on him being an elite prospect.  He struck me as a bit of a Bruno Senna in the 2012 Williams in the really fast 2015 Toro Rosso, and that's no compliment.  His maximum potential might be a Felipe Massa-level driver (different style, absolutely, but just in terms of achievements)—which is probably not a bad thing if you're looking to partner Vettel at Ferrari.

RE: Renault . . . Magnussen and Ocon, maybe?  Though Ocon's done horribly in DTM for Mercedes this year, so any seat time he gets testing an F1 car will be pressure-packed.  If they need money, there's Sirotkin, and that might get an assist not only from his SMP backers, but also from Ecclestone et al., only because they won't be keen to run a Russian Grand Prix without a Russian driver in the field.

RE: Haas . . . burning to the ground.  Ruth Buscombe hasn't been with the team for months.  Haas has not scored one single point without her.  It sounds like Buscombe's strategies with Haas were so impressive Ferrari paid her to take a year off and come back to the Scuderia properly in 2017, having regretted letting her go to the junior team for 2016.  But there are also some allegations of a few men at Haas F1 being very, very angry about a woman getting all the credit for their success, and that she was run off by misogyny.  I'd love to tell you I don't believe those kinds of rumblings, but when an Indy 500 effort in recent years was thwarted because a female driver refused the sexual advances of a team owner, I can't say that.  Whatever the case, expect Buscombe, who was a big part of Vettel's 2015 Malaysian GP win and the sole reason Haas scored any points, back at Ferrari in 2017.  As for Haas, there's still a bunch of infighting going on there now, from what my sources say.  Some huge egos that got even bigger by the early success, and now everything's a mess of no one wanting to be accountable for the fact the team sucks.  I doubt any driver will be eager to go here.

RE: the calendar . . . down to eighteen races, says Ecclestone.  Canada, Germany, Italy, Britain under threat?  Potentially COTA, too, but I think COTA will just be replaced in 2018 by Las Vegas (sadly—COTA is a wonderful circuit, and Austin's a great city.  Replacing it for some horrid street track in a city that will stop caring the minute it starts just drives me crazy).  Calendar matters for silly season, though, because it's cheaper to fund eighteen races than twenty-one, giving some borderline budgets an opening, and because the nations hosting races seems to correspond to the nationalities of drivers getting rides . . .

[Emmcee 0]

Good post massa like always but what's your take on Perez? I think they would be more interested in Perez as he is basically a Ferrari driver already. I know Force India have said he's not available but I think he's only on a one year deal to. A lot to think about as nico has apparently signed for two years bringing his new expiry to the same time as Verstappens and Ricciardos. Will Ferrari sign kimi to a two year deal aswell? Much better options available at the end if you do. That's my thinking.

[Sakae 0]

Sainz, by some, is on the same level as Verstappen in terms of skills. Main difference is, his father is not as pushy, thus light is not shining on him as much. He had terrible luck in reliability column, but otherwise nothing much wrong with him. Someone said the other day which resonates well, if Verstappen is future Senna, Sainz is like (professorial) Prost. I cannot help not recalling Vettel's early days, how often he was dismissed as "slow", and look at him today.  

I doubt that Kimi will get two years extension; one year maybe for now, and later we see, that sort of thing. 

Perez is actually available, but there is price to pay. That was a quote.

 

[Sakae 0]

6 hours ago, Sakae said:

Sainz, by some, is on the same level as Verstappen in terms of skills. Main difference is, his father is not as pushy, thus light is not shining on him as much. He had terrible luck in reliability column, but otherwise nothing much wrong with him. Someone said the other day which resonates well, if Verstappen is future Senna, Sainz is like (professorial) Prost. I cannot help not recalling Vettel's early days, how often he was dismissed as "slow", and look at him today.  

I doubt that Kimi will get two years extension; one year maybe for now, and later we see, that sort of thing. 

Perez is actually available, but there is price to pay. That was a quote.

 

Hmm, regarding Perez, it was Fernley who suggested exchange their driver for substantial sum of cash, but now we have a new quote:

Quote

Force India supremo Vijay Mallya has told The Times this week that Mexican Perez is under contract for 2017.

Source: GM247

 

 

 

There is a famous dictum by Thomas Jefferson - ignore any quotes found on the internet. 

[Emmcee 0]

Nah I saw that aswell Sakae that Perez was under contract but if Ferrari were interested then talks could be arranged. But now, seems like FI want to hang onto him and why not?

[Sakae 0]

Does anyone actually asked Perez what HE wants, or it is something similar to DR? Ricciardo publicly speculated that he cannot eliminate moving to Ferrari, even if - said he - doesn't know whether Vettel would like it and might even block it, but he has understood that he is high on Ferrari list. Maybe I am even No. 1 on that list, DR is being quoted.

Now we are learning from him directly, that Ferrari actually hasn't placed any calls to him (nor to Sainz), or to his entourage about any jobs now, or later, and all what he was talking about Is based on collection of specualtions gathered from pages published on various web sites on the internet. In conclusion, we do not really know whether Ferrari wants Perez either. Suspence is killing me.

[Emmcee 0]

Makes me think this is all a big breath of "nothing". Ferrari knew, that's why nothing has been said about kimi or whatever, with nico signing for two years, nothing big will happen driver wise until the end of 2018 IMO.