Silly Season 2011/2012

[ringo]

He'll get a seat. Maldonado is necessarilly a pr darling either.

What is funny though, is that Maldonado has more credability than Hulkenberg. Hulk had the easier to understand bridgestones, while pastor has the enigmatic pirellis and a dog of a car. Pastor has shown to be faster than rubens, and has shown he would have finished ahead on points as well bar some bad luck.
Pastor is a more legitimate candidate for any seat over Hulkenberg, so it's only funny that Williams can end up benefiting from Force India's dellusions with Hulk and his brazil qualifying.

Better yet, the car may be really good this year. You don't have to take my word for it, but i think they'll be back in 2009 levels, where had it not been for Nakajima's performances the car would have been top 4.
I really think they can get the car back to a respectable level like their 2009 car.
Which would be poetic justice for Sutil; ie if he's selected.

[Donuts]

Let's not get ahead of things. There's a Finn and third driver by the name of Valtteri Bottas, which I think impressed more than anyone else on the young guns testing days. I think Adrian Sutil is history, not having a convincing margin in qualifying against a rookie means you're just not good enough to be in F1! Word around the paddock is that he is no benefit to car development, so there really is no reason left to keep him.

[godlameroso]

Kind of like Raikkonen and Grosjean over at LRGP. It's good to have a driver that can give good feedback to the engineers. That being said, it's not a driver's job to develop the car, that's what the other hundreds of engineers, designers, etc, are for. Williams botched the design of their 2010 car, the low gearbox gave them decent aero in the rear but it made the rear suspension twitchy.

I've said it before, drivers that spend time driving the crappiest of cars, are actually conditioning their abilities, and will have an easier time when they climb into something with more performance. I think Riccardo's time at HRT will only help him go faster, as you have to push harder to get the same result as a faster car, it only pushes you to raise the bar. The same can be said of drivers in the bottom tier of the grid. If Glock were to step into something a bit faster I can almost guarantee that he'd rip his team mate like wet tissue paper. Especially after putting around in that virgin(as in it was a virgin at receiving points) car he has had.

[Tyler]

How things have changed for Sutil!
I remember in 2010 when Schumacher was struggling in the W01, there were rumours of Sutil replacing him at Mercedes GP.

Liuzzi was making him look very good and he was Mallaya's golden boy.
Fast forward a year and things turned out very differently - now di Resta is the one touted to replace Schumi when he finally retires.

This is going to be a very important year for Nico Hulkenburg.
If he can outperform di Resta, then he'll surely take over the candidacy for future Mercedes driver.
The fact that he's also German can't hurt.

If Schumacher does retire at the end of 2012, and he has been the better performing driver at FI, then it's possible he may find himself in a Mercedes seat for 2013.
Mercedes seem to be grooming Rosberg to be their no.1 driver when Michael goes and by that stage Hulkenburg, although still a bit inexperienced will have had 2 years of racing in an F1 car and 1 year of testing under his belt and would be the perfect no. 2 to Rosberg (2 Nico's at Mercedes ).

Would it be a bit far fetched to think that Mercedes could have possibly influenced FI's choice of Hulkenburg over Sutil?
I can't see a company like Mercedes backing someone like Sutil after he damaged his reputation and perhaps with FI being a testing bed for Mercedes' future drivers, perhaps they somehow pressurised FI into giving Sutil's seat to the Hulk?

How quickly things can change in FI!
Just a little over a year ago it was Sutil who's future was looking bright while Hulkenburg was facing uncertainty over his, now the roles have been reversed!

[godlameroso]

Maybe it's just a personnel shuffle, with Sutil back at FI for 2014, while Rosberg and DiResta take the Mercedes

[raymondu999]

Does anyone know who's "next" in the rbr hierarchy? Ie who're the frontrunners for the RBR & STR TD/RD role?

[FrukostScones]

Rumor: Sutil to Ferrari 2012. source sport1.de

I call it a rumor-rumor!

[ESPImperium]

Sutil is fast, but dosnt know why, thats the reason that people may not and probably wont touch him in F1 again, if they do it will be a risk. Engineers want a driver that gives them good feedback, Alguersauri is probably the best in the mid pack drivers at present for tech feedback with Buemi and Barichello just behind. Those guys know they are fast and where.

As for RBR/STR TD duties, David Coulthard is still avalable to jump in if needed, but probably wont, that next year will probably fall to one of the STR drivers to step up if theres a RBR emergency and for a driver like Checcon or Coletti to step up from GP2 as both impressed in the Young Driver Test. However, i think there will be an aggreement with Caterham to use their TD for STR as the next Red Bull Young Team is Daniil Kvyat (a 17 Year old Russian) and Carlos Sainz, Jr.(a 17 year old Spanyard who is the son of former Rally Driver Carlos Sainz) but id recon that as they dont have their IA FIA licence, STR would probably have to go with a driver like Karun Chandhok or Robert Wickens who were RBJT drivers at one point and are known qualities to Red Bull, id recon that Chandhok would probably get the nod.

This is the precise reason that i tghink that each team has to have at minimum of one, but maximum of 3 TDs and have completed at least a days pre season testing with the team and also completed at least 150km in the previous 5 events for that team in FP1 under current rules. It would mean that you wouldnt get drivers jumping into cars cold and creating a posible saftey concern, it allows young tallent a seat in a F1 car to get used to it and also be able to race it if needed. Id also make it the rule that each team has to put a TD in for FP1 in one car for a mimimum of 15 events each year. And for the carrot and stick, at each FP1 session the team gets Young Driver Points awarded to them to the old points system, and at the end of the season theese points are converted into the new points system for constructors points. It would mean that smaller teams would be able to have this as an income stream from TDs and also be able to try and get into the column 1 teams on the FOM chart, and for mid feild teams, Force India could have more points than Renault and leap frog them for P5 in the constructors table.

However this suggestion is too sensible for F1 that its silly for the guys tghat manage the sport.

[ringo]

Sutil is fast, but dosnt know why, thats the reason that people may not and probably wont touch him in F1 again, if they do it will be a risk. Engineers want a driver that gives them good feedback, Alguersauri is probably the best in the mid pack drivers at present for tech feedback with Buemi and Barichello just behind. Those guys know they are fast and where.

I have heard otherwise. He is one of the worst for feed back and that contributed to him losing his seat. Even over the radio in the practice sessions you can hear how vague he is describing the setup. His radio is one of the most broadcasted to viewers, maybe for the sheer vagueness of his feedback.
There is an article out there somewhere commenting on Jaime's lack of technicality but i'll have to look back for it.

[fritticaldi]

The third driver at Force India could well be Jules Bianchi. An announcement could be made shortly. The Frenchman will not return in GP2 and would get track time on Fridays with Force India. I personally feel he is more than ready to be in F1. Such a pity Bianchi won't make his GP debut with Ferrari. Perhaps he will take Massa's place in 2013? In the mean time, it remains to be seen who will be the third driver at Ferrari.

[raymondu999]

Rumors say that Alguersuari will be taking de la Rosa's old job at Woking

[Ray]

I have heard otherwise. He is one of the worst for feed back and that contributed to him losing his seat. Even over the radio in the practice sessions you can hear how vague he is describing the setup. His radio is one of the most broadcasted to viewers, maybe for the sheer vagueness of his feedback.
There is an article out there somewhere commenting on Jaime's lack of technicality but i'll have to look back for it.

Strange. Here in the US I've never heard him on Speed. Buemi is the only radio transmissions I've ever heard from Torro Rosso. Matter of fact all I've ever seen on tv is Buemi, never Jaime.

[Ray]

I've said it before, drivers that spend time driving the crappiest of cars, are actually conditioning their abilities, and will have an easier time when they climb into something with more performance. I think Riccardo's time at HRT will only help him go faster, as you have to push harder to get the same result as a faster car, it only pushes you to raise the bar.

I believe this is why Kimi, Fernando, and Seb are so good. They drove crap cars in the beginning and they are leaps and bounds ahead of those who haven't or got fast tracked to a higher team. Unfortunately that isn't universal. Guys like Lewis are the exception, but it never ceases to amaze me seeing the guys in the bottom teams sawing on the wheel like they do and still getting a decent lap time. Watching someone like Di Resta drive a FI against the same onboard of Lewis like the BBC showed in Abu Dhabi amazed me in that Di Resta wasn't all that far behind what Lewis had on lap time, but he was working the wheel much much harder. Driving in the crappy cars most definitely helps later in their careers. I'd love to see the drivers do an inverse grid and see what they times are and see/hear their reactions to driving faster/slower cars. It'll never happen, but that would be really cool to see.

[scuderiafan]

Does anyone know who's "next" in the rbr hierarchy? Ie who're the frontrunners for the RBR & STR TD/RD role?

Carlos Sainz Jr. and Daniil Kyvat.

[timbo]

I believe this is why Kimi, Fernando, and Seb are so good. They drove crap cars in the beginning and they are leaps and bounds ahead of those who haven't or got fast tracked to a higher team.

That 2001 Sauber wasn't exactly a crap car for Kimi. It was actually one of the best cars in Sauber history. Was it #4 or #5 in WCC?
And Seb drove only BMW (far from being crap), a Toro Rosso (which was RedBull repackaged for Ferrari and often beat RedBull that season) and finally a RedBull.