Silly Season 2011 Thread

[ESPImperium]

Fauzy is new T&RD at Lotus sponsored Renault.

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/88972

[cbbcisace]

There are rumours that Mikel Aleshin is in the lead for the 2nd Hispania seat

[mith]

For sure he has a lot of sponsor backup. I wonder who's faster - he or Petrov.

[ESPImperium]

Strong internet chatter from many reputiple sources have Force India to confirm Paul Di Resta for the second seat at an announcement at Force India sponsor White & McKay's HQ in his (and my home town) of Glasgow this Wednesday.

Just a f-ing pitty that he couldnt do a Pastor Maldanado and do a short demo in the city centre for say 30 mins.

[andrew]

Good news if di Resta does get a seat. I think he deserves it and Luizzi hardly set the track alight.



An F1 car in Glasgow?! I give it a generous 10 minutes before it's up on bricks. Still got the wheels but the local youths didn't think to swipe an air gun! Could be worse, could be in Aberdeen - it isn't possible to get a high enough ride height to get through the potholes.

[ESPImperium]

Verrrry true!!! Means i don't have to support them Woking based drivers anymore, support the local guy first.

The only problem is the car wouldn't be up on bricks anymore, the local Neds would rather be off with the laptops of the engineers first before they nick the wheels, lets face it, who would want to see a Vauxhall Nova with a set of BBS, OZ Racing or whatever wheels FI use???

Id be really happy with Force India putting a VJM/02 around George Square, but the potholes would do the chassis no good at all. Probably need a set of Dakar wheels and tires for that.

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

You two best get your Mercedes gear out then, this kids going to race a Benz when Schumi calls it a day.

[ESPImperium]

Already, sorta kinda have...

[raymondu999]

I heard FIndia are organising a press conf in Scotland. Hinting at a di Resta racing drive maybe?

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

Already, sorta kinda have...

AMG-Mercedes kit? Wondered where you can get that from!

And Raymondu, it pretty much a given now that Di resta is in, and Liuzzi out. Autosport covered it yesterday I think.

[ESPImperium]

Nope, just a Minichamps model so far

Im thinking that Liuzzi will now race for Hispania, whitch will cost ¢10m, whitch i think has been paid for by Malya and Mercedes.

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

I have serious doubts as to why Mercedes would fork that kind of cash out.

Liuzzi's contract will have been "terminatable" in view of his less than stellar 2010. Paying up the remainder, will have cost far less than buying him an HRT seat, which leads me to believe the figure of 10 million to be exorbitant.

[ESPImperium]

Kolles said the seat at Hispania was gonna cost €10m. Id recon that Force India will be paying Liuzzi €8m of that and Mercedes will pay the remainder. Although, the Liuzzi contract will have been considreably less, and this is where i think Liuzzi has had the upper hand, he would have put in a termination clause in the contract somewhere that would have said that he would be entitled to the whold value of the contract plus full bomus as damages. Id recon that his FI contract would have been for €3m a year with €2m bonus, but to make sure he is long gone i think FO will have bought him the seat at HRT so he cant say he has been unlawfully dismissed and such.

F1 contracts are a f-ing nightmare... The only simple ones are the Red Bull ones, seemingly, 30% retainer with 70% bonus in season and a set figure to each driver if they get WDC and Constructors Titles as well. No realease clauses and such are there (at least for the STR guys, whitch makes them fight their corner harder), only win bonus.

[ESPImperium]

Force India announcement due tomorrow 8:30pm IST, 3PM GMT.

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

Espi

If it costs you 2 million to sack someone, would you rather sack them or would you pay for his seat at HRT which would cost 10 million.
Liuzzi I understand brought some cash to the team too, so I think the costing for FI is not paying a settlement, but in fact losing some cash through sponsors.

Also consider that no team will sign a B-class driver into a cast iron contract without some escape clause. Liuzzi is way better than I'll ever be but he aint gravy on the F1 circuit.

Mercedes will probably be the sugar daddy for Di resta, Just as Liuzzi had his backers(unsourced...but im going by memory, feel free to pull me up here).

The HRT seat will be on a cost per race basis that will see Liuzzi miss races out, as he cannot afford to race over the whole season. Business as usual at HRT then!

The real crux of the matter here is wether Force India feel that Di resta is £10 million better than Liuzzi. And knowing Vijay Mallaya's reputation regards budgets, there is no way you can say that he would accept this.
If Di resta was a full second faster than Liuzzi, fair enough. But hes not, mere tenths seperated their times last season.

Also, where is force India going to find 8 million from? Thats about 15% percent blown for the season.

For me it just doesnt add up.