Formula One 2018

[Werthead]

He's also been offered a chance to do some NASCAR at the Daytona Speedway, maybe as a one-off. Looks like the Americans are really keen on him.

Still no word on his replacement, as that will allow the grid to start shaking out into its 2019 configuration.

[red snow]

17 hours ago, Werthead said:

He's also been offered a chance to do some NASCAR at the Daytona Speedway, maybe as a one-off. Looks like the Americans are really keen on him.

Still no word on his replacement, as that will allow the grid to start shaking out into its 2019 configuration.

Carlos sainz appears to be favourite to move to McLaren. Question is whether vandoorne is staying as McLaren might want to try out lando Norris.

 

[Loge]

17 hours ago, Werthead said:

He's also been offered a chance to do some NASCAR at the Daytona Speedway, maybe as a one-off. Looks like the Americans are really keen on him.

Still no word on his replacement, as that will allow the grid to start shaking out into its 2019 configuration.

It's Sainz. Interesting. So who is going to replace Ricciardo at Red Bull? Gasly? There don't seem to be many options left.

[Werthead]

3 hours ago, Loge said:

It's Sainz. Interesting. So who is going to replace Ricciardo at Red Bull? Gasly? There don't seem to be many options left.

Yeah, I can't see it realistically it being anyone else.

That leaves the Force India situation to be clarified (which in turn impacts on Williams) and Raikkonen's fate to be decided. Early this season it looked like he was staying, then he was going to be replaced by Leclerc and then he was staying and now it sounds like he may have been - or might still be (if Vandoorne is going) - going to McLaren. Haas still has a big question mark over Grosjean. I think Ferrari would prefer to put Leclerc in the Haas and measure him one step up next year before moving him up to Ferrari, in which case they should keep Raikkonen. Promoting Leclerc straight into the Ferrari would be a very un-Ferrari thing to do, but who knows?

Red Bull has also literally run out of drivers, so they'll probably still need to keep Hartley (as much as they wish they could get rid of him) and still rent out Norris from McLaren. Fortunately McLaren are desperate for the Toro Rosso engineer they've hired, so they can do some kind of deal there.

I'd say at the moment the configuration is more likely to be:

McLaren: Sainz/Vandoorne (alternately: Sainz/Raikkonen)

Ferrari: Vettel/Raikkonen (alternately: Vettel/Leclerc)

Haas: Magnussen/Grosjean (alternately: Magnussen/Leclerc)

Force India: Perez/Stroll

Williams: Ocon/Sirotkin

Sauber: Leclerc/Ericsson

Red Bull: Gasly/Verstappen

Toro Rosso: Hartley/Norris

The only other outsider with a shot at F1 is George Russell, but he's a Mercedes guy so Red Bull and Ferrari won't want to do them too much of a favour, and Russell is unlikely to want to go from winning F2 to tootling around in a Williams. They'll probably want him in Force India - or, more likely - Force North America - ASAP and that seems unlikely next year.

[Werthead]

Confirmed, Pierre Gasly to Red Bull.

Starting to come together, but there's a lot still to confirm. Ferrari, Haas, McLaren, Force India, Williams, Sauber and Toro Rosso still have to finalise their lineup.

[Loge]

Latest rumour has Lance Stroll drive for Force India as soon as Monza: https://www.racefans.net/2018/08/25/stroll-force-india-f1-seat-fitting-monza-switch/

That would mean Ocon is out. Might be a chance for Red Bull to pick him up. Toro Rosso probably isn't what he was aspiring to, but at least he would stay in Formula 1. 

 

ETA: Force India is now Racing Point. They have lost all championship points but are allowed to compete. Not sure about their share of the TV revenue. I guess that's gone, too.

[Lord of Oop North]

On 8/26/2018 at 2:35 AM, Loge said:

Latest rumour has Lance Stroll drive for Force India as soon as Monza: https://www.racefans.net/2018/08/25/stroll-force-india-f1-seat-fitting-monza-switch/

That would mean Ocon is out. Might be a chance for Red Bull to pick him up. Toro Rosso probably isn't what he was aspiring to, but at least he would stay in Formula 1. 

 

ETA: Force India is now Racing Point. They have lost all championship points but are allowed to compete. Not sure about their share of the TV revenue. I guess that's gone, too.

Right now they are Racing Point Force India. The other nine teams signed an agreement that allowed them to retain their prize money from past seasons.

[Werthead]

Overtake of the season by Hamilton there. Very nice move, and won't do much for Seb's complex (resulting from the fact that in almost every wheel-to-wheel battle they've had, Hamilton has won, sometimes in an inferior car).

7 races left and over a race victory in hand. Vettel needs to win the majority of them and hope Hamilton has a DNF somewhere and hope he doesn't have a DNF or even another big shunt along the way.

Fantastic stuff from Force India 2.0. Second race in and they've already jumped from 10th to 7th in the Constructors and they have to be able to overhaul McLaren as well given current pace. Frustrating, though, as without the reboot they'd now be running 4th.

Also, congratulations to Sirotkin for finally getting a point! Even though he needed Grosjean to be disqualified to get it. Still, impressive form from Williams today (not in absolute terms, but certainly given their horrible season so far). 

Quote

 

The other nine teams signed an agreement that allowed them to retain their prize money from past seasons.

 

Negatory. Haas and McLaren are currently still blocking it. McLaren sound like they could be argued around, but Haas are really pissed off about it.

The issue is that a new entrant to the Constructors Championship has to wait until their 3rd season in the sport until they receive what's known as "Column A Payments". New teams only get a secondary and tertiary payment until their 3rd season. Haas's objection is that they've just waited out two seasons to get their full prize money allotment, so why should Force India II be able to jump straight in and claim it? They are technically a new team with a new name (which is going to change again by the sound of it) and new owners. Of course, Force India Beta have also been arguing if they are a new team they should be allow to have 4 engines for the season, which the FIA has shot down (otherwise they'd be able to change engines every 2 races for the rest of the season, which would put them at a massive advantage over everyone else).

Of course, when your new owner is a multi-billionaire it's not really a huge deal.

[red snow]

It was a good race. Verstappen still frustrated with his driving and I do worry he may never learn his lesson until he or someone else is hurt. Which is a shame as he is an otherwise great talent.

Bottas certainly took one for the team damaging his own race to help out Hamilton. Luckily verstappen ensured Bottas still got third.

What's happened to force India? It seems like the buy out has made them go faster. Genuinely the 4th strongest team at the moment irrespective of constructors points. Makes me wonder whether some form of engine upgrade in the mercedes engine has trickled into the other teams. Even Williams seem a bit more competitive.

[Werthead]

Norris to McLaren! Ocon's options closing down rapidly at the moment.

So now we only have Red Bull, McLaren, Mercedes and Renault confirmed. Haas also seem more likely to keep Grosjean after some good performances, which shuts down another possibility.

[williamjm]

53 minutes ago, red snow said:

It was a good race. Verstappen still frustrated with his driving and I do worry he may never learn his lesson until he or someone else is hurt. Which is a shame as he is an otherwise great talent.

Bottas certainly took one for the team damaging his own race to help out Hamilton. Luckily verstappen ensured Bottas still got third.

I know every driver thinks it's always the other driver's fault, but Verstappen does seem more prone to that sort of thinking than most.

It was a great race. It would have been a nice story for Kimi to be able to win, Vettel's collision gave him a great opportunity because it removed the possibility of him having to let his team-mate past. Kimi didn't really seem to do anything wrong, but Hamilton and the Mercedes were just too good on the day.

What's happened to force India? It seems like the buy out has made them go faster. Genuinely the 4th strongest team at the moment irrespective of constructors points. Makes me wonder whether some form of engine upgrade in the mercedes engine has trickled into the other teams. Even Williams seem a bit more competitive.

I think the high power circuits like Spa and Monza probably suit the Force India better than other circuits, but it was a good performance by them.

[red snow]

13 hours ago, Werthead said:

Norris to McLaren! Ocon's options closing down rapidly at the moment.

So now we only have Red Bull, McLaren, Mercedes and Renault confirmed. Haas also seem more likely to keep Grosjean after some good performances, which shuts down another possibility.

Given vandoorne's fate (as a former hot thing) I'm not sure this is a good thing for Norris long term. Unless McLaren sees a big improvement all he can do is try and outperform sainz an easier task than beating Alonso.

I feel as though Kimi has probably done enough to keep his seat another year.

[Werthead]

Some interesting shake-ups coming down the pipe.

First up, Ferrari are now leaning towards replacing Raikkonen with Leclerc again, having given up on that in the last few weeks. Apparently they want to honour Marchionne's last request before he passed away. I also suspect that with Haas looking like they're going to stick with the current line-up, that left the interim plan (Leclerc to Haas before Ferrari a year later) not looking viable so they decided to take a big punt.

Also, Kvyat is close to re-signing with Toro Rosso. Apparently they feel that the year off has been good for him. I'm reading that as Red Bull have scraped the bottom of the barrel right through and been left with no choice.

This isn't looking good for Ocon. His best hope might be that Force Canada decide to hold fire on swapping their drivers around (apparently there's rumblings that Mercedes, as their engine supplier, will be unhappy if they remove Ocon before the end of the season) and Ocon might get a switch to Williams for next year. Not a great reflection on his skills, but better than losing an F1 drive altogether. Sauber is also available, but they won't necessarily be wanting to do a Mercedes driver any favours, especially given their close alliance with Ferrari.

[williamjm]

1 hour ago, Werthead said:

Also, Kvyat is close to re-signing with Toro Rosso. Apparently they feel that the year off has been good for him. I'm reading that as Red Bull have scraped the bottom of the barrel right through and been left with no choice.

I think Kvyat would be an improvement on Hartley.

Sauber is also available, but

 they won't necessarily be wanting to do a Mercedes driver any favours, especially given their close alliance with Ferrari. 

I suppose it depends how much influence Ferrari have on their decisions, but from Sauber's perspective I'd think they should be happy to get a driver as talented as Ocon to replace Leclerc. Giving young drivers experience before they go on to bigger teams is pretty much what they've been doing for their entire existence.

[polishgenius]

Obviously not F1, but in the absence of a proper place for it, have we all seen the insane incident that happened in Moto-GP 2 today?

 

That's one Romano Fenati, reaching over to apply his opponent's brake at 130mph. He's got a two-race ban, which seems pathetically light- most fans of the sport seem to think it should be life and I can't say I disagree. Thankfully he mostly failed and nothing happened, but that was mindblowingly dangerous.

[Werthead]

1 hour ago, polishgenius said:

Obviously not F1, but in the absence of a proper place for it, have we all seen the insane incident that happened in Moto-GP 2 today?

 

That's one Romano Fenati, reaching over to apply his opponent's brake at 130mph. He's got a two-race ban, which seems pathetically light- most fans of the sport seem to think it should be life and I can't say I disagree. Thankfully he mostly failed and nothing happened, but that was mindblowingly dangerous.

That's pretty crazy.

Mick Schumacher showing the family class this weekend. Won all three Formula 3 races over the weekend at the Nurburgring, jumped from 4th to 2nd in the championship just 3 points behind Dan Ticktum (who is being played up for an F1 move in 2020). That's got to have caught the eyes of someone in F1 for a possible 2020 or 2021 drive (he's already committed to F2 next year).

[Loge]

That two race ban is a bit of a joke. At least he has been fired by his team and also lost his contract for next year (with the very team the other rider is with): https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2018/sep/10/romano-fenati-sacked-brake-lever

While we're at non-F1 motorsport, Robert Wickens, who used to drive for Mercedes in DTM, was severely injured in a scary accident in the IRL: 

 

Reminds me of the Zanardi accident back in 2001. At least Wickens wasn't hit by another car the way Zanardi was.

[Loge]

On 9/4/2018 at 10:37 PM, williamjm said:

I suppose it depends how much influence Ferrari have on their decisions, but from Sauber's perspective I'd think they should be happy to get a driver as talented as Ocon to replace Leclerc. Giving young drivers experience before they go on to bigger teams is pretty much what they've been doing for their entire existence.

Kimi will drive for Sauber next year as Leclerc moves to Ferrari. Looks like Ocon's affiliation with Mercedes really prevents him from getting a new drive. I don't have a link but McLaren have stated that they don't want a driver who is tied to another team.

[Antonius Pius]

5 hours ago, Loge said:

Kimi will drive for Sauber next year as Leclerc moves to Ferrari. Looks like Ocon's affiliation with Mercedes really prevents him from getting a new drive. I don't have a link but McLaren have stated that they don't want a driver who is tied to another team.

Maybe Williams? I assume Stroll is out next year - though Williams may need a pay-driver, Mercedes could also do something about the engine bill.

 

Big decision for Ferrari and Leclerc. I'd have expected Ferrari to want to field Leclerc at Haas for a year, but they've gone all out. Good for them. And why on earth would Kimi want to race for Sauber? Just to pick up a paycheck? Can't imagine what challenge he sees there. I expect he will do a lot of good for the team, but really?

 

Too bad if Vandoorne and Ocon don't get a drive. Ocon certainly deserves one, and I think Vandoorne deserves another chance outside the shitstrewn horrorshow of McLaren.

[red snow]

Sauber is still a sort of support team for ferarri. I imagine there's a possibility of Kimi going back to ferarri if clerc fails to step up to the challenge. A bit like red bull has done in past