2018 Force India F1 Team - Mercedes

[Big Tea]

Let's see, next year, whether Perez will be brave enough to hit to the car driven by the owner's son

If he can be bothered to wait for him

But I have a real concern there. Seems safe to say that Perez would be consistently quicker than Stroll in equal equipment. But will that happen?

I think Stroll will get Force India's A-team of Engineers/mechanics/support people. He'll get lots of simulator time. He'll get on-track practice time in 2 year-old cars. There are many ways a team can favor a driver if they want to.

When Stroll won the F3 title he had unprecedented Williams support to Engineer his car, and he got lots of F3-car simulation time in the Williams F1 simulator. Probably lots of private F3 test time (track time) that we never heard about. So it wasn't cheating, but it also wasn't an equal playing field with the F3 drivers he was competing against.

And your first competitor is always your teammate. Think Lawrence Stroll doesn't know that?

Despite my quip above, I do not think Stroll is that bad a driver, he may surprise us.
I am also not Perez biggest fan, but but recognise he is a good driver. They may well be a good team together, as long as they can avoid eachother.

[marmer]

If he can be bothered to wait for him

But I have a real concern there. Seems safe to say that Perez would be consistently quicker than Stroll in equal equipment. But will that happen?

I think Stroll will get Force India's A-team of Engineers/mechanics/support people. He'll get lots of simulator time. He'll get on-track practice time in 2 year-old cars. There are many ways a team can favor a driver if they want to.

When Stroll won the F3 title he had unprecedented Williams support to Engineer his car, and he got lots of F3-car simulation time in the Williams F1 simulator. Probably lots of private F3 test time (track time) that we never heard about. So it wasn't cheating, but it also wasn't an equal playing field with the F3 drivers he was competing against.

And your first competitor is always your teammate. Think Lawrence Stroll doesn't know that?

Despite my quip above, I do not think Stroll is that bad a driver, he may surprise us.
I am also not Perez biggest fan, but but recognise he is a good driver. They may well be a good team together, as long as they can avoid eachother.

I don't see Perez bullpoop sliding with new owners he has been a stubborn mule all his life it cost him his McLaren drive and he has only got away with it at force India due to his money. They don't need that now and he would be hitting the bosses son

[senja]

Why this would be a problem? The crash guy is leaving the team. Perez had no incidents with Hulk...

[marmer]

Why this would be a problem? The crash guy is leaving the team. Perez had no incidents with Hulk...

He was generally faster than hulk so they didn't meet on track often

[Raleigh]

Why this would be a problem? The crash guy is leaving the team. Perez had no incidents with Hulk...

He was generally faster than hulk so they didn't meet on track often

Perez and Hulkenberg were very close in performance, 238pts vs 226pts across their 3 seasons together and they frequently finished one behind the other in varying order.

The difference now is that stakes are much higher for Perez, he absolutely cannot afford to be beaten by a younger and less experienced team mate or any last chance of him getting a top drive is gone.

Plus, Ocon is a bit hot-headed too and out to prove himself, neither of them are going to back down.

[foxmulder_ms]

Why this would be a problem? The crash guy is leaving the team. Perez had no incidents with Hulk...

He was generally faster than hulk so they didn't meet on track often

Perez and Hulkenberg were very close in performance, 238pts vs 226pts across their 3 seasons together and they frequently finished one behind the other in varying order.

The difference now is that stakes are much higher for Perez, he absolutely cannot afford to be beaten by a younger and less experienced team mate or any last chance of him getting a top drive is gone.

Plus, Ocon is a bit hot-headed too and out to prove himself, neither of them are going to back down.

That is not the complete picture. Hulk beat Perez 3 to 2 when it comes to qualifying.

[M840TR]

Team is expanding already. Vacancies for R&D and Test Engineers, Performance Engineers, Aerodynamicists and tens of other fields.

http://www.forceindiaf1.com/careers

[bill shoe]

Ocon not having a drive next year--

Ocon is a Mercedes young driver, so the only thing that matters is whether he is fast/good enough to take a seat in the Merc F1 team, full stop. Realistically, if he was fast enough for Mercedes then he would consistently beat Perez over the course of a season. Instead, they are about equal (Ocon has slight qualy advantage, Perez has slight race advantage).

Ocon is very worthy of a midfield seat but that ain't the way F1 works. Merc doesn't have a Toro Rosso team to place him in if he falls short of the A-team standard. Merc knows Ocon is not fast enough so why would they buy him another season with some other team? Ocon's job was to prove himself worthy of a front-runner seat, and with all respect to Ocon he failed.

Given the fail there, he can either bring $20-30 million of sponsorship money, or compete with many really good drivers for the few midfield seats that don't require money.

Perez has the same speed as Ocon plus Perez has sponsorship. I bet Perez has worked pretty damn hard to keep and build that sponsorship over the course of his career. I bet that when the commentators say Perez clumsily drove Ocon into the wall in Singapore, Perez's sponsors actually see a Mexican who will stand up and refuse to get his butt kicked on the world stage. I think Ocon failed to realize this bigger-picture subtlety when he tried to ease by Perez. Perez has a combination of Ocon-level talent and better-than-Ocon-level political skills. Perez has earned the drive next year.

[iotar__]

Ocon not having a drive next year--

Ocon is a Mercedes young driver, so the only thing that matters is whether he is fast/good enough to take a seat in the Merc F1 team, full stop. Realistically, if he was fast enough for Mercedes then he would consistently beat Perez over the course of a season. Instead, they are about equal (Ocon has slight qualy advantage, Perez has slight race advantage).

Ocon is very worthy of a midfield seat but that ain't the way F1 works. Merc doesn't have a Toro Rosso team to place him in if he falls short of the A-team standard. Merc knows Ocon is not fast enough so why would they buy him another season with some other team? Ocon's job was to prove himself worthy of a front-runner seat, and with all respect to Ocon he failed.

Given the fail there, he can either bring $20-30 million of sponsorship money, or compete with many really good drivers for the few midfield seats that don't require money.

Perez has the same speed as Ocon plus Perez has sponsorship. I bet Perez has worked pretty damn hard to keep and build that sponsorship over the course of his career. I bet that when the commentators say Perez clumsily drove Ocon into the wall in Singapore, Perez's sponsors actually see a Mexican who will stand up and refuse to get his butt kicked on the world stage. I think Ocon failed to realize this bigger-picture subtlety when he tried to ease by Perez. Perez has a combination of Ocon-level talent and better-than-Ocon-level political skills. Perez has earned the drive next year.

Patently not true. Ocon improved, may improve more, his qualifying this season was solid and means something but:

- he has zero (0) career highlights and accomplishments that Perez had, podiums, qualifying highlights, full races, overtakes, defending against quicker cars, car control, long stints etc. Different cars, tyres, aero rules, teams, team-mates: Koba, Hulk, Button etc. From memory Bahrain podium, Monaco - couple years ago, Spa qualifying 201x, Baku etc.. If I dig enough I can find 20 highest quality driving examples. Provide yours for Ocon or a least smaller examples of top potential since amount of races is incomparable.

- I will risk that out of ~30 GPS together Ocon was slower in the race in 25 of them. That's not good at all. This is midfield driver talent at best.

- As crafty as Perez is he's not the ultimate benchmark for one lap speed - Button, Hulk, Koba and so on. I mean avarage, highlights were there ofc. Monaco, Spa - those tricky tracks. Massa and Maldo for Bottas were better (car matters ofc).

- Ocon's craft, overtaking, defending, top speed when you need it are unproven. Especially craft as Singapore, Spa, Baku copy and paste approach to wheel to wheel showed. Mistakes, collisions are fine as long as they are countered by super difficult moves drivers pull off, I don't recall any highlights from Ocon in this department.

[Morteza]

https://twitter.com/ForceIndiaF1/status ... 0597959680

[bill shoe]

Patently not true... (plus 1000 other words)

So if Perez was clearly better than Ocon, then Perez could out-qualy him, yes?

[Racer X]

Patently not true... (plus 1000 other words)

So if Perez was clearly better than Ocon, then Perez could out-qualy him, yes?

What matters to a Sponsor is the Race result on Sunday. Also the results at the end of the season. This happens to be the same thing Teams care about. Because teams care about what sponsors care about.


But yeah Perez often doesn't do as good in Qualy like he does in Race. His Racing speed is more consistent so overall he can deliver you a better race performance then a qualy performance.

Beating Perez in Qualy means nothing if he still ends up in front of you come Sunday.

[iotar__]

Patently not true... (plus 1000 other words)

So if Perez was clearly better than Ocon, then Perez could out-qualy him, yes?

- I didn't say that, I disagreed about the conclusion that talent and speed wise Perez and Ocon are on the same level. I gave examples of performance and accomplishments (podiums, laps, races, seasons against different team-mates etc.) that Perez had and Ocon didn't. Performance that Ocon wasn't even close to, including this season, Baku podium, Singapore one lap etc.

- I also acknowledged this year's qualifying but one lap is not everything because for example: "if Perez was clearly better than Ocon, then..." "...he would be quicker in 21 out of 25 races" , which he was. Number is made up - meaning big difference.

[godlameroso]

Stroll is going to have a mental breakdown next year, racing alongside Perez. He outscored Ocon and Hulkenberg, both of whom I rate higher than Stroll, Stroll got handled by Massa in his rookie year, and Perez will do the same.

[M840TR]

Stroll is going to have a mental breakdown next year, racing alongside Perez. He outscored Ocon and Hulkenberg, both of whom I rate higher than Stroll, Stroll got handled by Massa in his rookie year, and Perez will do the same.

He's being destroyed by a rookie in qualifying, so...