The Official F1 2020 silly season *contains speculation*
Discussion
I'm assuming Grosjean has taken a pay cut to keep his seat? Or has more of a performance related contract? He's quick enough, but his race craft is awful!
Lebo44 said:
I think you can exclude Ocon (Renault) and DeVries (joined Merc in Formula E).
Latifi seems to be perfect fit for Williams.
As in not that good a driver but absolutely loaded? He'll be another Palmer if he gets into F1.Latifi seems to be perfect fit for Williams.
Allyc85 said:
I'm assuming Grosjean has taken a pay cut to keep his seat? Or has more of a performance related contract? He's quick enough, but his race craft is awful!
There's no doubt his Father is quite well off and there will likely be a fairly substantial Sponsorship package coming along side him. He's currently second in F2 but it's also his third season in F2 as well. He won three of the first five races this season but a 13th and a 10th in Monza has pushed him further behind.Lebo44 said:
I think you can exclude Ocon (Renault) and DeVries (joined Merc in Formula E).
Latifi seems to be perfect fit for Williams.
As in not that good a driver but absolutely loaded? He'll be another Palmer if he gets into F1.Latifi seems to be perfect fit for Williams.
feel sorry for Hulkenberg, he deserves an F1 seat more than at least a handful of other drivers on the grid.
Historically, he's been very good and consistent. Not the best qualifier, but more often than not performs well on race day and he racks up the championship points.
2010: Barrichello 47pts, Hulkenberg 22pts
2012: Hulkenberg 63pts, Di Resta 46pts
2013: Hulkenberg 51pts, Gutierrez 6pts
2014: Hulkenberg 96pts, Perez 59pts
2015: Perez 78pts, Hulkenberg 58pts
2016: Perez 101pts, Hulkenberg 72pts
2017: Hulkenberg 43pts, Palmer 8pts
2018: Hulkenberg 69pts, Sainz Jr 53pts
2019 (so far): Ricciardo 34pts, Hulkenberg 31pts
He would make a very solid number two in the Ferrari or Mercedes, would probably do a better job than Bottas.
alas, some consider the above "not spectacular and not achieving much".... you're only as good as the machinery you're in with F1. Three points adrift of Ricciardo with 3/4 season gone is good in my book
Historically, he's been very good and consistent. Not the best qualifier, but more often than not performs well on race day and he racks up the championship points.
2010: Barrichello 47pts, Hulkenberg 22pts
2012: Hulkenberg 63pts, Di Resta 46pts
2013: Hulkenberg 51pts, Gutierrez 6pts
2014: Hulkenberg 96pts, Perez 59pts
2015: Perez 78pts, Hulkenberg 58pts
2016: Perez 101pts, Hulkenberg 72pts
2017: Hulkenberg 43pts, Palmer 8pts
2018: Hulkenberg 69pts, Sainz Jr 53pts
2019 (so far): Ricciardo 34pts, Hulkenberg 31pts
He would make a very solid number two in the Ferrari or Mercedes, would probably do a better job than Bottas.
alas, some consider the above "not spectacular and not achieving much".... you're only as good as the machinery you're in with F1. Three points adrift of Ricciardo with 3/4 season gone is good in my book
Edited by TobyTR on Friday 20th September 02:56
shirt said:
Better than Perez one year. Wow sign him now, :hehe
Slow and steady, dependable, as good or a little better than the rest of the midfield. Sure I hear the pros, especially the engineering input, but its hardly exciting and hardly the kind of marketing that ferrari would want. I bet their excitement at such a prospect is even less palpable than mine.
5yrs in the midfield and no podium. Even stroll managed that in a Williams ffs. Being a top bloke doesn’t mean he deserves a go in a front line team, there’s literally nothing in the way of past or current results performance to warrant it.
Those performances across entire seasons have already been pointed out. I'd rather outscore my teammates at the end of the season than have one or two podiums in my career but with inconsistent poor showings ala Stroll and Grosjean.Slow and steady, dependable, as good or a little better than the rest of the midfield. Sure I hear the pros, especially the engineering input, but its hardly exciting and hardly the kind of marketing that ferrari would want. I bet their excitement at such a prospect is even less palpable than mine.
5yrs in the midfield and no podium. Even stroll managed that in a Williams ffs. Being a top bloke doesn’t mean he deserves a go in a front line team, there’s literally nothing in the way of past or current results performance to warrant it.
Ahonen said:
I'll chip in, if I may. I worked with him for two years, quite recently.
Two of the drivers I have been fortunate enough to work with have been head and shoulders above the rest in terms of their understanding of the car beneath them and their ability to feed that information back to the engineers: Pedro de la Rosa and Nico Hulkenberg. I've never written so much feedback down as I did with Hulk - you pretty much downloaded him after a run. He's astonishing.
As a driver I rated him very highly. All the engineers I know who raced against him in the junior formulae were convinced they had seen the Second Coming - they pretty much knew they couldn't beat him anywhere because he had no weaknesses. His record before F1 was brilliant. Then, when he arrived in F1, his performances in the Williams, the first time around with Force India and the awful Sauber were amazing. Quite why he was never picked up by a big team in those days baffles me.
He seems to have dropped off the boil a bit recently though. I don't watch F1 these days but I keep roughly in touch with what happened in each race and I wonder what his relationship with his race engineer is like at Renault. He spent many years working with the brilliant Tom McCullough at several teams, firstly as a tester and then driver at Williams, plus Sauber and Force India and I know they had a great relationship (of course in his last stint at FI Tom was Chief Race, but they still spent a lot of time together and discussed everything). If a driver and team aren't on the same wavelength then things can turn quite sour as they don't maximise the whole package but, to the outside world, it just appears that the driver is being beaten by his team mate and that's the worst possible outcome. I don't know much about Renault's trackside engineering department these days but I remember that at the start of 2016 the Haas team took many engineers and staff from Lotus/Renault who were looking for a more, um, stable future than Lotus appeared to have during the latter stages of 2015...
Hulk is a genuine class act in my opinion - and a really nice bloke to boot. It wouldn't surprise me if the reality is more that he's been let down by his current team. As for the choice of Grosjean or Hulk, well you'd have to be absolutely certifiably insane to select the stroppy, sulky, erratic child Big Toilet over a bloke who could have helped give them a bit of direction.
(There, I didn't mention his brilliant performance in the night at Le Mans, where he passed all the other factory cars and drove off into the distance in his first ever night race, once. Oh bugger...)
Fascinating insight Two of the drivers I have been fortunate enough to work with have been head and shoulders above the rest in terms of their understanding of the car beneath them and their ability to feed that information back to the engineers: Pedro de la Rosa and Nico Hulkenberg. I've never written so much feedback down as I did with Hulk - you pretty much downloaded him after a run. He's astonishing.
As a driver I rated him very highly. All the engineers I know who raced against him in the junior formulae were convinced they had seen the Second Coming - they pretty much knew they couldn't beat him anywhere because he had no weaknesses. His record before F1 was brilliant. Then, when he arrived in F1, his performances in the Williams, the first time around with Force India and the awful Sauber were amazing. Quite why he was never picked up by a big team in those days baffles me.
He seems to have dropped off the boil a bit recently though. I don't watch F1 these days but I keep roughly in touch with what happened in each race and I wonder what his relationship with his race engineer is like at Renault. He spent many years working with the brilliant Tom McCullough at several teams, firstly as a tester and then driver at Williams, plus Sauber and Force India and I know they had a great relationship (of course in his last stint at FI Tom was Chief Race, but they still spent a lot of time together and discussed everything). If a driver and team aren't on the same wavelength then things can turn quite sour as they don't maximise the whole package but, to the outside world, it just appears that the driver is being beaten by his team mate and that's the worst possible outcome. I don't know much about Renault's trackside engineering department these days but I remember that at the start of 2016 the Haas team took many engineers and staff from Lotus/Renault who were looking for a more, um, stable future than Lotus appeared to have during the latter stages of 2015...
Hulk is a genuine class act in my opinion - and a really nice bloke to boot. It wouldn't surprise me if the reality is more that he's been let down by his current team. As for the choice of Grosjean or Hulk, well you'd have to be absolutely certifiably insane to select the stroppy, sulky, erratic child Big Toilet over a bloke who could have helped give them a bit of direction.
(There, I didn't mention his brilliant performance in the night at Le Mans, where he passed all the other factory cars and drove off into the distance in his first ever night race, once. Oh bugger...)
Edited by Ahonen on Thursday 19th September 10:55
thanks and keep them coming please
Looking at seats available, how about Nico Hulkenberg to Alfa to replace Antonio Giovinazzi, who has not exactly set the world on fire? My thinking being that it gives Ferrari a solid option second driver readily available if, unlikely in my opinion, Sebastian Vettel decides to jack it in at short notice? They also get to measure Nico against and known and trusted quantity in Kimi? Just a thought...
TheDeuce said:
Also doesn't leave a 'free' seat at Williams. It's a seat they'll give to whoever can pay the most for it 
They’ve got George for two more years? And Mercedes power for five? Good position for them, it’d be absolutely consistent for them to put the highest bidder in the other seat- Lafiti, Mazepin, Markelov... (superlicence permitting)ETA: yes, I realise that Russell won’t necessarily see our his contract, but there’ll always be a displaced half decent driver around who’ll be willing to drive on a relatively financially neutral basis...
HustleRussell said:
They’ve got George for two more years? And Mercedes power for five? Good position for them, it’d be absolutely consistent for them to put the highest bidder in the other seat- Lafiti, Mazepin, Markelov... (superlicence permitting)
ETA: yes, I realise that Russell won’t necessarily see our his contract, but there’ll always be a displaced half decent driver around who’ll be willing to drive on a relatively financially neutral basis...
Yes, they're in a fairly good shape (other than having no pace..) for the next couple of years at least. Great driver, great PU. Their biggest problem is finding a way to survive financially for those years. The budget caps are no use to them at all, the cap will almost certainly be higher than the revenue they can generate in any case.ETA: yes, I realise that Russell won’t necessarily see our his contract, but there’ll always be a displaced half decent driver around who’ll be willing to drive on a relatively financially neutral basis...
No question about it, any seat they have to spare will go to the highest bidder one way or another. They can't afford not to go that route. In fairness, Claire was very transparent about that fact when Stroll bought his son the seat. Kubica effectively was a bought seat too, by way of his fairly momentous F1 return garnering high levels of sponsorship, I think around £13m going to Williams and the remainder to him as 'salary'. I forget the details, but he was a PR and monetary boost for Williams.
Edited by TheDeuce on Friday 20th September 11:30
Some rumours on Twitter, although I know not where, that Haas were advised off Hulk by Ferrari. Rumour is Ferrari have a performance clause in Vettel’s contract that they can exercise at the end of the season and they may actually do so, although Vettel may make it easy for them. Ricciardo is Ferrari’s preferred option (if his ‘big team’ clause is real, which really means Ferrari or Mercedes) but if they can’t get him they’ll go for Hulk.
MissChief said:
Some rumours on Twitter, although I know not where, that Haas were advised off Hulk by Ferrari. Rumour is Ferrari have a performance clause in Vettel’s contract that they can exercise at the end of the season and they may actually do so, although Vettel may make it easy for them. Ricciardo is Ferrari’s preferred option (if his ‘big team’ clause is real, which really means Ferrari or Mercedes) but if they can’t get him they’ll go for Hulk.
I saw that, think it was 'spanners', ill find a link..interestingly, Zac Brown approached Nico to race in the McLaren Indi team, was met with a no thanks..
Link.
https://twitter.com/spannersready/status/117496480...
MissChief said:
Some rumours on Twitter, although I know not where, that Haas were advised off Hulk by Ferrari. Rumour is Ferrari have a performance clause in Vettel’s contract that they can exercise at the end of the season and they may actually do so, although Vettel may make it easy for them. Ricciardo is Ferrari’s preferred option (if his ‘big team’ clause is real, which really means Ferrari or Mercedes) but if they can’t get him they’ll go for Hulk.
sounds like the usual twitter blurb.there will be numerous performance clauses, if they were going to act on them they'd simply do it. They wouldn't tell another team not to take a driver because they're considering them.
If i were in Ferrari I'd not prefer DR to Hulk, its clear that CLC is capable of driving the wheels of the car and delivering the results so i'd want someone whos going to accept coming second.
TobyTR said:
Those performances across entire seasons have already been pointed out. I'd rather outscore my teammates at the end of the season than have one or two podiums in my career but with inconsistent poor showings ala Stroll and Grosjean.
He's only really beaten team mates who were even more average than he is. In some cases, they were pretty useless.I find it hard to believe that they would settle for Hulk if they really wanted DR. To an extent it hardly matters what clause DR may have, no driver is impossible to buy out from their existing contract if they're willing and wanted badly enough. Although in any case, for obvious reasons it's likely he does have the Ferrari/Merc option written in.
TheDeuce said:
I find it hard to believe that they would settle for Hulk if they really wanted DR. To an extent it hardly matters what clause DR may have, no driver is impossible to buy out from their existing contract if they're willing and wanted badly enough. Although in any case, for obvious reasons it's likely he does have the Ferrari/Merc option written in.
I could think of about $25m reasons PAGassing Station | Formula 1 | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff