Silly Season 2011 Thread

[ESPImperium]

Latest Hispania rumor in is that they have indeed found a Chassis builder that can build a car in under 100 days, as we are at 89 days to go now. The partner is rumored to be Formtech. They have experience in this with Super Aguri, they hold the IP for all Arrows chassis and the SA05 and SA06 Super Aguris. They even took a SA06 and modified it to run with a Cosworth CA2006 engine and MES ECU for Anthony Hamiltons F1 DFriving School, that chassis seemingly complies with the 2010 specs sa well.

Formtech already supplies Renault, Toro Rosso and also supplied Lotus Racing with parts this year as well.

Formtech already have the staff and tools ready to supply any team with a Chassis. And i think they could be a good base to go with if they can build the Geoff Willis HRT001 chassis. Even a Super Aguri SA06/Arrows A23 chassis modified to the 2011 rules with the CA2011 power block and Williams rear end would be better than the 2010 car in my opinion. Yes they may be off the pace in terms of what may be acceptable, but it would mean they could be within 107% and also have a better car than the F110, and a car that they could develop as well.

[marcush.]

Mark Prestons crew is indeed the right outfit to come up with something suitable for HRT.
I´d guess the car is determined to a high degree by the rearend already and these were the guys who were participating in the conceptwork of the BGP01 as well.
I always thought that this would be a smart move for any of the new teams.

Interestingly Geoff Willis is an Aero guy by trade and maybe that was one of the reasons why he was released from RedBull ...when Newey reduced him to a managing role there...

[ESPImperium]

If HRT did get a Formtech designed car that was designed like the BGP001, albeit witout the refinement that the BGP001 had, they would take a massive step forward from this years car.

Toyota were charging $30m for 3 chassis and a first update package, where as Formtech id recon would charge somewhere in the region of $12m for the same deal, minus the update, whitch could then be introduced for a few million at a later date. Without knowing the commercial side of things, the Formtech way i think could be much better for the team.

I can see light at the end of the tunnel for the HRT team, but im not sure what light it is yet as there are a couple of diffrent lights there for the way this team will end up looking for 2011 and beyond.

[marcush.]

what was the pricetag for a Wirth produced Virgin? Wasn´t it 14mill$ including development?
30 mill could have been a good deal for the Toyota considering it would have been near or better than Sauber ,possibly beating force india.

[Roland Ehnström]

Maldonado looks like he is on a mission; you can see the fire in his eyes. I never saw that with Hulkenberg. Pastor has a whole country depending on him, while the Hulk seemed too complacent this year, as if he was the shiznit.
His temper tantrums never helped either.

Mark this post. Maldonado will do a better job than the Hulk.
Hulk is overated, not one moment last year was he spectacular bar the brasil pole.

Sorry, but Maldonado just doesn't have the talent. It took him ages to get towards the top in GP2, and he made many silly mistakes on the way. Hülkenberg on the other hand totally dominated the GP2 series in his rookie season. I've seen absolutely nothing from Pastor to justify your claim that he will do a better job thank Nico, it all sounds like wishful thinking to me.

[Donuts]

Maldonado looks like he is on a mission; you can see the fire in his eyes. I never saw that with Hulkenberg. Pastor has a whole country depending on him, while the Hulk seemed too complacent this year, as if he was the shiznit.
His temper tantrums never helped either.

Mark this post. Maldonado will do a better job than the Hulk.
Hulk is overated, not one moment last year was he spectacular bar the brasil pole.

Sorry, but Maldonado just doesn't have the talent. It took him ages to get towards the top in GP2, and he made many silly mistakes on the way. Hülkenberg on the other hand totally dominated the GP2 series in his rookie season. I've seen absolutely nothing from Pastor to justify your claim that he will do a better job thank Nico, it all sounds like wishful thinking to me.

Hulkenberg had the upper hand on Maldonado racing for the same team: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_GP2_Series_season

[Giblet]

Kobyashi has shown that you can't always go on previous series results. There is still room to surprise in f1.

[mith]

We'll see, but somehow I don't believe in Maldonado as well.

[ringo]

Maldonado looks like he is on a mission; you can see the fire in his eyes. I never saw that with Hulkenberg. Pastor has a whole country depending on him, while the Hulk seemed too complacent this year, as if he was the shiznit.
His temper tantrums never helped either.

Mark this post. Maldonado will do a better job than the Hulk.
Hulk is overated, not one moment last year was he spectacular bar the brasil pole.

Sorry, but Maldonado just doesn't have the talent. It took him ages to get towards the top in GP2, and he made many silly mistakes on the way. Hülkenberg on the other hand totally dominated the GP2 series in his rookie season. I've seen absolutely nothing from Pastor to justify your claim that he will do a better job thank Nico, it all sounds like wishful thinking to me.

That's a bold statement. I don't know how anyone can come to that conclusion.
He deserves a chance, it's not fair to judge him before he gets into an F1 car.
Hulk was supposed to be the next hamilton base on his resume; he fell short by a lot.
I am enthusiastic because of his demeanor. Pastor looks like a man on a mission for his country. Hulk seemed too comfortable, only there for himself, no pressure, almost pompous, and he never looked like equaling his teammate much less beating him.

This guy is serious and focused. Eye of the tiger!!
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYgck78jwLE[/youtube]
Never saw that with Hulk.

So long Hulk!!

[vall]

Kobyashi has shown that you can't always go on previous series results. There is still room to surprise in f1.

+1 I said that many times: you need to put the guy in an F1 car and then judge. I think Pastor deserves his chance.

[Intego]

I too can look evil, but am I?
The fact is that we can't judge drivers, because we don't know the circumstances. We cannot say whether Hülkenberg didn't cope with the car while Barrichello did. We cannot say Rosberg is faster than Schumacher (yes, in the W01, but generally?). We can say that Alonso often beat his team mates in various cars, but we also haven't seen Hamilton race in other cars, so again no comparison. And that's only looking to the F1.
It's the human factor. That's why we do not have a "Formular One Drivers" section.
The only thing we can say is that a driver was successful or not. So every driver should get his chance. At least from a fan's point of view.

[ESPImperium]

what was the pricetag for a Wirth produced Virgin? Wasn´t it 14mill$ including development?
30 mill could have been a good deal for the Toyota considering it would have been near or better than Sauber ,possibly beating force india.

You are not far off i belive, i think it was $15m development and a build cost of $1.01m per chassis, of whitch 6 were produced, 3 A spec ones with the fuel tank cock up and there was 3 more made with the 15KG larger fuel tank. The chassis build excludes engine, gearbox and a couple other things as well.

Id recon that the $12m for a Formtech would be their best opion now that they dont have access to the Cosworth powered TF110, i aggree that would have been up to mid feild pace, maybes even a little futher on. Id recon that they would have been up to where Williams were this year with that package, constant Q2 pace, maybes even Q3 pace with one driver.

Dallara have said that they developed a upgrade package for the F110, but wasnt used. Seemingly they took a step forward with it. One of the lesser decisions for this team as it could have ment that they could have been up there with Lotus Racing for the end of the season. Only reason i think that it wasnt used was that it wasnt useable with what Hispania did with the F110.

[Blackout]

Hulk was supposed to be the next hamilton base on his resume; he fell short by a lot.

The Williams FW33 is not the MP4-23... and Barichello did more than 50000 laps in his carrer, in very different cars...

[Giblet]

Even if it wasn't the MP4-23, it was the same car as his teammate, and Hulk and Rubens were in the exact same car as well.

Regardless of his reasons, you need to beat your teammate before you can beat anyone else. Hamilton, a rookie, was able to give a 2x WDC a run for his money. Vettel has the measure of Webber (speed wise) and his wealth of experience. These guys had no excuses, they didn't need them.

Hulkenberg needed to at least match Barichello but didn't for whatever reason, or excuse, he might have.

So, either Hulk was under performing, or Rubens over-performing, or a combination of both. Either way, he didn't do enough.

Kimi has shown that out and out talent (read:raw speed) is not all you need to stick around a team as long as you want. They have to like you as well. Frank Williams couldn't close the door fast enough on Hulk as soon as the season was over.

[Blackout]

I think every driver is very dependant on his car, especially when he is a rookie and especially when his car is difficult to drive... That's why I said that the FW33 did not help him, and that Barichello was 'better' due to his huge experience with 'difficult' cars.