Silly Season 2011 Thread

[donskar]

Hopefully they can put a last 2 GP as Mexico and Brazil if a Mexican GP is on its way.

Since the loss of the Argentinian GP, i have missed a second Latin American race.

Places that have a heritage and passion for motorsport should get a GP before who can pay the most in the short term.

I agree completely. Noble sentiment, but totally out of place in the prostituted F1 world of Bernie.

[Giblet]

So where in the heck is Heidfeld going to end up?

I don't want to see him languishing in a car as a tester in a series with virtually no testing.

I must be missing something about Heidfeld (I am NOT being sarcastic). I've always thought of him as just another professional F1 driver. I can't think of him ever turning in a real "oh wow!" drive. I certainly cannot imagine him driving for one of the top teams. Have I overlooked something?

He matched for the most part and beat Kubica who is rated very high by everyone in F1, drivers and teams alike. Forum members opinions not withstanding, but armchair opinions don't really count

He was also F1's iron-man, going a record or near record number (I can't remember) of races without a DNF. In his final season he pulled off some amazing passes, twice he passed two cars at once that weren't back markers.

That being said, there is something about him that keeps him from getting the right drive at the right time, or being retained by teams for a decent amount of time to grow properly with them. He always seems to get shuffled off to the side when things are looking good.

Not sure but he is one of the bigger enigmas in F1.

[andartop]

I don't know if Heidfeld is WDC material as he's never really had a real chance of having a go at it..

But I can think of quite a few drivers which Nick would probably (based on previous performances) easily embarrass with the same equipment (Klien, Yamamoto, Senna, Glock, Trulli, Chandhok, DiGrassi, Kovalainen, Alguersuari, de la Rosa, Buemi, Liuzzi, Hulkenberg, Petrov) and a few others which he would perhaps beat or match (Kobayashi, Barrichello, Sutil, Massa, Button...and dare I say Schumi?).

That automatically makes him top-10 material. He is also a good qualifier I think, and would not be the one to engage in silly crashes (safety car incident aside!).

Then again, I also used to like Fisichella, Verstappen and Irvine a lot!

[Morteza]

Lotus to use Red Bull gearbox from 2011 :
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/87198

[WhiteBlue]

I am very disappointed with the way they have used my name for their marketing. I have never seriously considered driving for Renault, and I can assure you 100 per cent that I will not be driving for them next year.

Good news for Nick.

[raymondu999]

Well now we know Reikkonen won't drive for them. Time to hear what Raikkonen says

[Giblet]

I am very disappointed with the way they have used my name for their marketing. I have never seriously considered driving for Renault, and I can assure you 100 per cent that I will not be driving for them next year.

Good news for Nick.

With kubica being so loved at Renault I have to wonder if

A - he doesn't like nick and might try to kibosh the move
B - doesn't care who his partner is and will challenge anyone

I go with B buy I fear Petrov will get the nod and Nick willbe scrambling.

[Donuts]

I am very disappointed with the way they have used my name for their marketing. I have never seriously considered driving for Renault, and I can assure you 100 per cent that I will not be driving for them next year.

Good news for Nick.

With kubica being so loved at Renault I have to wonder if

A - he doesn't like nick and might try to kibosh the move
B - doesn't care who his partner is and will challenge anyone

I go with B buy I fear Petrov will get the nod and Nick willbe scrambling.

I would also go for option B, but I don't know if Nick Heidfeldt has any financial backing? Adrian Sutil has financial backing(Medion), which makes him a candidiate for the second seat at Renault F1. Perhaps Renault F1 have secured a sponsor(Mastercard?) for 2011, then they'll have more options...

[vall]

http://totalf1.com/full_story/view/3547 ... available/

[donskar]

Giblet, I appreciate your input on Hiedfeld

[donskar]

Are there any rumors yet about Bob Bell's destination? He would make a solid contribution to nearly any team out there.

[ringo]

About the kimi situation, i think the guy is afraid of losing to Kubica, since he lost to heidfeld.
I also think Kubica is afraid of losing to Raikonen. Any which way they both have equal chances to end up looking less special.
I personally would love to see kimi wipe the floor with bob. If it was the other way round, the kube fans are going to be too much if bob does the whooping.
"he beat the stuffing out of WDC kimi he's the greatest!!!"

Kimi was wrong in how he turned down renault, but he knew what he was doing.

[aral]

About the kimi situation, i think the guy is afraid of losing to Kubica, since he lost to heidfeld.
I also think Kubica is afraid of losing to Raikonen. Any which way they both have equal chances to end up looking less special.
I personally would love to see kimi wipe the floor with bob. If it was the other way round, the kube fans are going to be too much if bob does the whooping.
"he beat the stuffing out of WDC kimi he's the greatest!!!"

Kimi was wrong in how he turned down renault, but he knew what he was doing.

Kimi didn't turn down Renault. There is no mention of any offer from them, and Kimi says that his manager made ONE phone call to Renault, the topic of which we don't know, but was probably on the lines of..."if Kimi was looking for a drive, would you be interested?" and then Renault blew up the story, to put pressure on Kubicas and Petrovs sponsors.

Yeah, it's the SILLY SEASON, all right.

[ringo]

Yeah, true, but why did kimi have to go and flop Renault.
Any driver should be glad to be part of a marketing ploy, as fake as it may be.
Kimi is a little full of himself, he had to be interested for his manager to make that 1 call. He's pretending not to care, but i think he still thinks about returning.
The man could have been in a mclaren this year, but after Felipe whooped his but, he developed a fear of really fast drivers.
If kubica went to ferrari leaving petrov, kimi would be all over that renault seat.

Kimi needs to get over the dislike of being used for marketing and PR. Bernie and team principals are pimps, and you gotta be a PR and marketing whore if you want a seat.

Don't go around calling teams if you don't want the seat. It's disrespectful to the teams and the young drivers like Petrov.

[Donuts]

Hmm... Kimi Raikkonen, this smells like the deal has gone sour! Did he want to much money? Why even contact a team if you are not interested? Why come with this statement now? Has'nt Eric Bouiller been talking about Kimi Raikkoen for a month? Of course Renault F1 have been "clever" and now they have another sponsor, Vyborg Shipyard JSC. But this goes both ways, there's suddently a hype around Kimi Raikkonen again, maybe he's not happy, but his manager has to be(Not much of a hype about his performance in WRC!). Kimi Raikkonen is not someone you should have talking to the media, his manager must be pleased. Robert Kubica has on numerous occasions said that he's welcoming any driver into the team. I would have been interesting to have Kimi Raikkonen there, but if Robert Kubica but there would be so much fuss from the Kimi Raikkonen fans about not being equally threated and not having a car that was developed for him, if he would'nt acctually be beating Robert Kubica. Maybe it's best this way...