F1 driver lineup more stagnant than ever

[SpudLink]

Has there ever been a time when the top teams have remained this stable for this long?
Now that Hamilton has re-signed for Mercedes, the top teams are keeping the same driver’s for yet another season.
I know that the sport is safer, so fatalities and serious injuries do not create opportunities the way it did in the 60s and 70s. (Sorry if that sounds callous.). But that’s been true for a couple of decades at least.

So why are things so stable at the top?

[Jimbo.]

Drivers being locked in to ever more lucrative contracts (them not wanting to move), pay drivers (the teams not wanting them to move) and there being only one or two leading teams (nowhere to move to).

[CocoUK]

I honestly feel it's the same as ever, rare for more than one driver change in a top team every 2-3 seasons.

The 'silly season' thread is aptly named, utter fantasy with talk of multiples driver swaps & moves.

[rdjohn]

Only the 3-top teams can pay top money, and stand any chance of a win.

There are probably 4-teams available to buy. The other 3 need to spend cash to improve their cars. The driver only adds the extra 1/10 second.

[wolfie1978]

The sad fact is the top 3 teams have pushed the spending so far out of reach of the others they just can't compete any more either in respect to salaries or spending on the car. The rules are stable too so they know where each team is in the pecking order and lets face it, baring Alonso the very best drivers are in the best cars.

[slipstream 1985]

Better the devil you know. Also apart from hamilton vettel and alonso (imo) any of the second drivers could be replaced with anyone from any other team, so why have to deal with that bedding in period when a driver changes teams just to get roughly the same result.

[Vaud]

CocoUK said:

I honestly feel it's the same as ever, rare for more than one driver change in a top team every 2-3 seasons.

The 'silly season' thread is aptly named, utter fantasy with talk of multiples driver swaps & moves.

Well it is a bit of fun. We have rarely had so many contracts coming to an end in the same year, so the opportunity for more driver changes was definitely a hope/option.

[Steamer]

SpudLink said:

So why are things so stable at the top?

Because the big egos dictate who they have in the second car and harmony within a team brings more points than having an inter-team battle. Maybe part of it.

[Vaud]

Steamer said:

Because the big egos dictate who they have in the second car and harmony within a team brings more points than having an inter-team battle. Maybe part of it.

It might be that, but also the team bosses don't want to manage the battles, it saps management time, puts you in the headlines for the wrong reason, etc. It worked (just about) for Mercedes while they were dominant (though they said never again) but imagine that kind of rivalry today - it would put a championship at risk once team mates start taking points off each other.

[Steamer]

Vaud said:

Steamer said:

Because the big egos dictate who they have in the second car and harmony within a team brings more points than having an inter-team battle. Maybe part of it.

It might be that, but also the team bosses don't want to manage the battles, it saps management time, puts you in the headlines for the wrong reason, etc. It worked (just about) for Mercedes while they were dominant (though they said never again) but imagine that kind of rivalry today - it would put a championship at risk once team mates start taking points off each other.

Yes - I was thinking that today when Nico was talking about how good Toto was in remaining impartial during the Lewis / Nico battles - its okay when you are leading the field, but on a day like today when Ferrari and all over you, its the last thing you need in a team.

[Vaud]

Steamer said:

Yes - I was thinking that today when Nico was talking about how good Toto was in remaining impartial during the Lewis / Nico battles - its okay when you are leading the field, but on a day like today when Ferrari and all over you, its the last thing you need in a team.

I spent some time with one of the Mercedes F1 directors and he said "never again". Not only did it cause tensions between the drivers, it created negative tensions across the team.

[Vaud]

ash73 said:

JV made an interesting suggestion, if the two cars in each team had different sponsors there would be a lot of commercial pressure to prevent team orders.

Personally I think they should be more radical and rotate drivers between the teams during the season, give all of them an equal chance to show what they can do.

But I don't think it is about team orders, it's about having two drivers too close in performance.

Differing sponsors wouldn't have resolved Vettel-Webber or Hamilton-Rosberg. If anything it would have been worse as you would have had sponsor pressure adding to the mix.

As for driver rotation - it is, with all respect, rubbish. It MIGHT work with a spec sport, but F1 is driver and car - and an innate understanding by the driver of the car and incredible complexity - and the engineers understanding of the drivers.

Plus it would dampen any new engineering initiatives that were visible to the driver - why show them it when they will just show it to the next team next week?

[MartG]

Drivers are also now entering F1 at an earlier age, so have consequently longer careers, blocking advancement from below.

[tigerkoi]

ash73 said:

Vaud said:

It might be that, but also the team bosses don't want to manage the battles, it saps management time, puts you in the headlines for the wrong reason, etc. It worked (just about) for Mercedes while they were dominant (though they said never again) but imagine that kind of rivalry today - it would put a championship at risk once team mates start taking points off each other.

JV made an interesting suggestion, if the two cars in each team had different sponsors there would be a lot of commercial pressure to prevent team orders.

Personally I think they should be more radical and rotate drivers between the teams during the season, give all of them an equal chance to show what they can do.

Hold on, two cars, one team...but different sponsorships setups? JV is a funny guy, but either he’s bunging around something designed for a laugh, or he literally doesn’t know how seriously, seriously daft that sounds. I like to think the former.

Vaud is right. Equality in the car is a lovely ideal. It might work with the right mix who do just enough to keep smiling (like at Red Bull) with suitable man management, but overall a ballache when at the very sharp end with a rival. The current situation is nothing new, just a logical conclusion of what happens when rational decision making people at Merc & Ferrari recognise that two out and out alpha drivers in the same car is a too big risk too much of the time than the harsh reality that “he’s the A player and you’re the B player, and deal with it”. It happens in the real world. You’ve got to bell curve everyone..

But two sets of competing sponsors...in the history of bad ideas...

Tell me he said that back in April?

[MartG]

tigerkoi said:

Hold on, two cars, one team...but different sponsorships setups? JV is a funny guy, but either he’s bunging around something designed for a laugh, or he literally doesn’t know how seriously, seriously daft that sounds.

Used to be quite common in F1 e.g. the Yardley sponsored McLaren M23s run alongside the Marlboro ones. Seems to work OK in Indycar too, where cars within a team rarely have the same livery, and even change livery/sponsors completely between races to maximise sponsorship opportunities for the sponsor's local race.

[MartG]

ash73 said:

MartG said:

tigerkoi said:

Hold on, two cars, one team...but different sponsorships setups? JV is a funny guy, but either he’s bunging around something designed for a laugh, or he literally doesn’t know how seriously, seriously daft that sounds.

Used to be quite common in F1 e.g. the Yardley sponsored McLaren M23s run alongside the Marlboro ones. Seems to work OK in Indycar too, where cars within a team rarely have the same livery, and even change livery/sponsors completely between races to maximise sponsorship opportunities for the sponsor's local race.

Anyone remember this?

I think that is the livery which annoyed Bernie so much they made the rules about team liveries, including the one requiring them to be identical

[MartG]

I think the way Schmidt Peterson Motorsport have done it is very tasteful - same basic colour scheme but with different colours and sponsors. Recognisably all from the same team...

James Hinchcliffe's gold one


Robert Wickens red one


And for the occasional race where the team fields a 3rd car, Jack Harvey's pink one

[tigerkoi]

MartG said:

tigerkoi said:

Hold on, two cars, one team...but different sponsorships setups? JV is a funny guy, but either he’s bunging around something designed for a laugh, or he literally doesn’t know how seriously, seriously daft that sounds.

Used to be quite common in F1 e.g. the Yardley sponsored McLaren M23s run alongside the Marlboro ones. Seems to work OK in Indycar too, where cars within a team rarely have the same livery, and even change livery/sponsors completely between races to maximise sponsorship opportunities for the sponsor's local race.

Yeah! I’ve seen Yardley vs Marlboro McLarens pix in things like Motorsport magazine. It’s a fair call. But, that was another era, less corporate times. Better in a way as the % of sport to dealmaking and working with presidents of old CIS States etc was more in balance. Nowadays no sponsor would ever look normally again at the boss of a Grand Prix team if she/he said, “look, next year we want to do this, what do you think?”. It won’t fly in these times. Even Liberty F1 couldn’t propose that to hundreds of corporate sponsors. Aside from all the actual contract positions. In this age it’s the sort of talk that impairs the S/P as people seriously question what the managers are doing there.

WRT Indy or even NASCAR, the racing teams are simply vessels to compete for the services of what the fan really wants - the showbiz driver. I love the Rowdy Burns chat to lil Tom Cruise from his hospital bed But it completely goes against what the F1 teams believe they are putting on show for, the engineering and clear differentiation of their cars. The driver is just but a part.

Full disclosure: I enjoy...F1, Indy if it’s on, the rawness of NASCAR (previous decades looked more madness) and JV is a, well, a Montreal boy.

[tigerkoi]

MartG said:

I think the way Schmidt Peterson Motorsport have done it is very tasteful - same basic colour scheme but with different colours and sponsors. Recognisably all from the same team...

James Hinchcliffe's gold one


Robert Wickens red one


And for the occasional race where the team fields a 3rd car, Jack Harvey's pink one

They do look really well thought out and nailed it, you’re right. Sadly, the strategy of F1 is so at odds with this thinking.

But, maybe Haas is the only one who could try it out, hmmm....

[tigerkoi]

ash73 said:

I do like those. BAR wanted to run different liveries on their '99 cars (JV Lucky Strike and Ricardo Zonta 555) but they weren't allowed, the zip livery on both was a last minute compromise.

And of course that’s why he (JV) has re-mentioned it. He was trying to get his racing franchise off the ground, and BAT belatedly stated, “it’s our corporate strategy to go racing with different brands”. Broughton and co must have been laughing when they said that. You don’t have a strategy if from the beginning you know your aims are completely opposite to the (at time weakly composed) FIA rulebook.