Fiver on Vettel coming through Brooklands backwards on lap 1?

Bollocks! Club on lap 37!

*tears up betting slip, storms out of bookies*

Bez – if you’re still in the bookies it might be worth putting a fiver on Vettel leaving before the end of the season.

It’s tragic that Ocon isn’t driving this year but Grosjean and Kubica are.

Not sure I can see Vettel jumping mid-year, I dunno. Maybe it’s more interesting to ask how Ferrari’s brass see their line-up for next year.

It’s certainly tragic that Grosjean’s driving, but then Haas’s decision making process generally seems to come from another planet anyway. Kubica, hmm, certainly he’s well behind Russell, but to be fair there were probably so many unknowns that rolling the dice was understandable. It’s not as if he doesn’t have proven talent.

One of the more interesting questions, I think, is just how keen is Toto to get Ocon a seat? Will Bottas do enough to keep his? Will Mercedes want to risk derailing the Hamilton gravy train? If we get to the end of the year and Bottas is still strong, and he and Hamilton still get on, then is it worth risking a driver swap for the last year before the regulations change; and what will Ocon be doing in 2020 if he doesn’t have a race seat at Mercedes?

what will Ocon be doing in 2020 if he doesn’t have a race seat at Mercedes?

Merc (OK, Toto) have said they’d cut Ocon’s ties with Merc if it meant he got a race seat next year.  So various silly season thoghts are Ferrar (no, they wouldn’t have two young drivers at the same time), Renaul (to replace Hulk) or of course Williams as part of a deal for cheaper engine (and gearbox?)

Eddie Jordon was predicting Maclaren are shifting to Merc engines next year! Maybe Ocon is involved with that? I quite like both their drivers so would be mixed feelings from me if Ocon replaced one of them.

McLaren have recently signed Norris and Sainz for next year, both are better options than Ocon IMHO.

Interesting that Hamilton had to go off script to beat Bottas, pushing hard from the start, and not stopping for the planned 2nd stop. It’s hard to imagine that he’s not happy there, but clearly both drivers are getting equal treatment and the differences in driving ability seem to be getting smaller.

As above Hamilton knows he can beat Bottas, and Bottas is good enough to bring in the constructors championship. I don’t think he’s going anywhere! 🙂

How long is Raikkonen signed for?

Interesting that Hamilton had to go off script to beat Bottas

He didn’t have to. He felt his tyres were good at the end (and they clearly were, he took fastest lap even though Bottas went for it on fresh rubber) and didn’t feel the need to risk a stop (which, if it went to plan, would still have brought him out ahead of Bottas). Seems prudent to me.

Even without the free pit stop under the safety car he was at worst right in the hunt.

Regardless of the ‘free’ stop, if they all discussed and agreed strategy (i.e. 2 stops) and then Lewis went off script, you’d imagine Bottas would be less than impressed. What’s to stop them spoofing each other deliberately again in the future and therefore damaging whatever trust there is between them?

I’m pretty sure Hamilton was on a one stop from the start

Regardless of the ‘free’ stop, if they all discussed and agreed strategy (i.e. 2 stops) and then Lewis went off script, you’d imagine Bottas would be less than impressed.

But the safety car threw any original script out of the window. As soon as that was deployed, the script for Hamilton wrote itself: come in for a set of hards and then have the option of any compound at the second stop, or if the tyres held up, stay out.

Bottas simply didn’t have that option: he’d recently stopped for a second set of mediums so he was committed to a second stop.

The only “script” Hamilton deviated from was when the team thought he should pit at the end and he thought he shouldn’t. But at that point it was purely a matter of managing risk: a fault-free stop would still have brought him out in the lead.

I’m pretty sure Hamilton was on a one stop from the start

Reading around, it seems that in the post-race press conference Hamilton said “medium” when he meant “hard” for his second set, and it sounds like he’d chosen to deviate from the theoretically (and marginally) fastest medium-medium-hard to go medium-hard-maybe medium. So I think his intention was to have the option of a one-stop or a two stop by taking the hards at the first stop. Either way, it worked out.

Caught up with the highlights last night – what on earth was Vettel thinking there? Fair enough he admitted he was at fault, but that was a dreadful error. I can see him walking away from F1 if this continues as he is clearly not in a good place mentally.

Interesting how Coultard compared it to schumacher’s return when he kept running into people – he was the common denominator.

Just shows how skilled they are to not hit each other most of the time. Doesn’t take much de-focus for it all to go wrong. V needs to look at lec and ver to see how to race. Ham and bot were great too, despite the stupid director cutting to some people waving at the height of the action.

It would be amusing to have Rosberg around in this field as he would be outraced by most of them.

I can see Seb possibly walking before the end of the year, his head seems to have gone – he knows he can’t beat Hamilton (and so does Hamilton!). Ferrari won’t like it but I can’t see him carrying on next year. If the rumors regarding Max being available for next year are true Ferrari should snap him up – IMHO both Max and Lewis would be winning races in the Ferrari.

Ocon to Williams makes sense, the Kubica story isn’t going to have a happy ending.

I still think Lewis will be the one to go to Ferrari if a place becomes available. I can’t see him spending another 4 or 5 years in the same Merc environment.

Win this years title – head to Ferrari next year to settle in before new 2021 regs come into force.

Boom – 7th World Title with Ferrari and total legend status guaranteed! 🙂

(…and nice free company cars till the end of time!)

I still think Lewis will be the one to go to Ferrari if a place becomes available.

No driver on the grid would swap a seat at Merc for one at Ferrari right now. This year’s Ferrari has fundamental technical problems that the team don’t seem to fully understand. Next year’s car is unlikely to be a title contender unless they figure out the problems with this year’s car. No driver is going to walk away from the best car on the grid in the hope that Ferrari might get their shit together a couple of years down the track.

Nah, Lewis wants most wins and world titles so it makes sense to stick with Merc, then, if Ferrari have a seat available, he may jump, but not until he’s got the records.

Lewis walked away from McLaren when they were considered a top team and Merc were mid-fielders. Everyone said he was crazy.

Lewis, Max and Leclerc could all win in the current Ferrari. Leclerc could have had 2 wins already.

…he may jump, but not until he’s got the records.

If Max jumps first to Ferrari and Leclerc is there already there won’t be a place available for a good few years.

We don’t know how his minds works – maybe legacy is valued higher to Lewis than stats. Senna is still considered by many to the best of all time. But if stats were the guideline then Vettel is a better driver and I doubt many people would agree with that! 🙂

Lewis, Max and Leclerc could all win in the current Ferrari.

Win races, yes. Championships, no. Probably Ricciardo, Sainz, Perez, Hulkenberg, and others on the grid would be good enough to win races in this year’s Ferrari on the tracks where its weaknesses are masked. Vettel is a very fast driver when he has a car that suits him. He’s good enough to win races in this year’s Ferrari if the team can sort out their technical problems. He’s not good enough to win a championship with it because the car is fundamentally flawed. LH and MV know that. They want to win championships, not a few races here and there.

No driver is going to walk away from the best car on the grid in the hope that Ferrari might get their shit together a couple of years down the track.

A relatively successful driver on the past won back to back championships then did exactly that. If Ferrari could convince him that the support is there then being part of a rebuilding project would be a huge achievement (not that the current Ferrari situation is anywhere near as bad as the one referenced earlier in this post)

I seem to recall Hamilton mentioning a vague desire to drive for Ferrari at some point.

One interesting point is that, as far as I can recall, it’s only Fangio that’s won championships with more than two constructors, so to win with three would be almost unique. (Plus, anecdotally it seems that Fangio achieved it largely by being able to simply pick the best car every year, rather than helping to build a championship-winning outfit.)

Inevitably with Schumacher it wasn’t just him that created the dominance: Brawn, Byrne and Todt ended up with him. To create similar dominance would require a similar group of individuals, and it’s not obvious where Hamilton could pull them from. Allison’s unlikely to go back, Wolff has no reason to move… And even then teaming up with Leclerc, who is on the way up to his own championship titles, is a very different prospect to having Eddie Irvine as an (albeit highly capable) wingman.

I dunno, I think it just doesn’t add up for Hamilton to go there. Nor Verstappen, who’s now got a team revolving around him and is sitting on an ever-improving power unit.

Who knows, though? I mean, Eddie Jordan says it’ll happen 😀

Hamilton says it’s nonsense, he’s the guy that will decide.

https://formulaspy.com/formula-1/hamilton-on-ferrari-rumours-difficult-to-see-me-anywhere-else-61302

A relatively successful driver on the past won back to back championships then did exactly that.

Took him five years and the best team and technical directors on the planet – other notables have failed.

Hence going on to talk about support

Who’s he taking there to build the winning team?

Was the Rich Energy shenanigans covered by channel 4 at all? I didn’t see any. Quite a big story to miss out on!!

BBC and F1.com both seem to be ignoring it. Wonder who they’re frightened of pissing off?

Quite!

I said earlier that I took my 10yo son to Silverstone on Friday practice for his and my first experience there. I am now being sucked back into F1 due to him. I was previously of the opinion that a part of my love of F1 died at Imola in May 1994. It’s great seeing the passion in the young generation. I am not sure where it came from but my lad has become a fan of Charles Leclerc this year. It was nice supporting him on Friday and then watching with excitement on TV on Sunday. I hope his tussles with Verstappen can enthuse the kids of today.

Can’t see Hamilton going to ferrari personally, they have a reputation for underperforming in recent years. Even when Schumacher was winning consecutive championships they managed to bugger up pitstops for Irvine to lose the championship.

pondo

Member
Who’s he taking there to build the winning team?

I never said I was building the team for them

I never said I was building the team for them

I never said you did. But Michael had a ready-made squad that Ferrari poached at the same time they hired him, I just don’t see the same scenario happening for Lewis. I also don’t think he’d be prepared to wait five years for a title in a red car, at his age.

Simone Resta reported to be returning to Ferrari to work on 2021 car.
https://www.grandprix.com/news/designer-resta-returning-to-ferrari.html

I think that if Lewis did go to Ferrari it would be precisely because of the challenge of building the team on his own terms, without Toto and co. It would be one way of truly making his mark on the sport for a very long time. Depends upon whether his motivation is just setting records or creating a legacy that nobody can question.

Drivers don’t build teams, team managers do. IIRC, the Ferrari superteam was built up by Jean Todt. He convinced Schumacher to join along with Ross Brawn and Rory Byrne, all of whom had been together at Benneton. Schumacher was a key part of that, but it was Jean Todt who built the team. Ross Brawn went on to rebuild Honda into a championship winning team (as Brawn), and then rebuild that into Mercedes. Without Brawn, it’s difficult to imagine Ferrari and Mercedes dominating the way they did.

Totally agreed, but there would be some appeal for Lewis to move to Ferrari and be the catalyst to bring the right parts together. I would imagine that Alonso and Seb probably thought the same…

I imagine that Alonso and Vettel thought that Ferrari had massive financial and technical resources and would be able to provide them with cars that could win championships. I don’t think those guys give a rat’s arse about being The Guy Who Rebuilt Ferrari, they just want to win championships. Ferrari don’t look likely to do that, hence Hamilton’s public statement that he’s not interested and the speculation about it is just people making up stories.

Thought it was a great race on Sunday – possibly the best of the season so far. Assuming LH wins this year’s drivers championship then I can’t see him leaving. Merc will probably still be a string car next year (although RBR have made some significant improvements this year which is good to see) and in his mind probably the best environment with which to have a crack at Schumacher’s record. Agree that Vettel seems to have gone walkabout mentally although I don’t know that he has ever been a proper “racer” when it comes to competing against other “elite” drivers. Same as Nico Rosberg. Very capable drivers of going very fast bit somehow just too clumsy when it comes to hard, wheel to wheel racing. And Sunday’s incident with him was bizarre. There was never going to be any room up the inside so why he even thought about it I don’t know., Unless he was intending to dummy to the inside and then try and go around the outside but was too slow in changing back to the outside. His initial radio message was more ludicrous than the track incident but then I suppose that was him just trying to do the “get a message to the stewards quick to try and influence their thinking before they get down to looking at the incident properly”. Not sure I can see him staying beyond this year but I doubt he will quit mid season. I think he’s too professional for that but his general demeanour for the past few races indicates someone who knows any chance of winning the title this year has gone