2014 / 2015 Silly Season. Drivers Market.

[Chad Stewarthill]

How about, for 2016:
Alonso to Mercedes (all part of Fernando's Grand Plan?)
Bottas to Mclaren (we know they like Finnish drivers)
HAMILTON TO WILLIAMS! (you know it makes sense)

 

[cider_and_toast]

And Bottas world champion, Hamilton runner up and Mercedes left stuggling to get to grips with the new engine regs.

 

[gethinceri]

When Bottas replaces Alonso at Mclaren Jenson will win his third WDC title.

 

[RasputinLives]

Wolff will never say it because he is his driver and he doesn't want t seem to obvious but Bottas is first in line for the Merc drive. I suspect another good year from him and Mr Rosberg will have to look elsewhere.

 

[cider_and_toast]

Now that makes more sense.

 

[Incubus]

It is a bit odd for Toto to play mind games before the 2015 season is underway.

-----------------------------------------

I think the main mind game he's playing is to try and keep a limitation on Hamilton's wage demands during negotiations. Even if he did have designs on FA, what other reason would he have for publicising it?

It's a fairly usual negotiating tool for a team principal during negotiations.

 

[Mephistopheles]

Why don't they just pay him a billion quid and have done with it...

 

[Il_leone]

cider_and_toast Incubus

Toto has been largely straight and honest when asked questions but this is the last thing you need to do is destabilise the team current driver line up after the intense battle last season. Conspiracy theory about favouring Rosberg can start now

Also naming targets will also play on the minds of both Mclaren and Williams just how committed their drivers are.

Looks like Silly season 2015/16 has already started

 

[RasputinLives]

Conspiracy theory about favouring Rosberg can start now

Since Spa I think many have had the complete opposite theory.

 

[Il_leone]

RasputinLives Toto's comment could not be more appropriately timed

 

[siffert_fan]

Most successful teams in F1 have cars all built in Britain except Ferrari even the Mighty Mercedes team are based in the UK not Germany

So the best engineers come from the UK

Most of the worst teams have also had their cars built in Britain. Does that mean that the worst engineers also come from the UK?

 

[Dartman]

No, it just means those couldn't afford the best, or the team principal thought he knew better than the designers

 

[Lewywo4]

Wolff will never say it because he is his driver and he doesn't want t seem to obvious but Bottas is first in line for the Merc drive..

 

[The Artist.....]

Most of the worst teams have also had their cars built in Britain. Does that mean that the worst engineers also come from the UK?

Is that true though:

Let's look at the last 30 years...., off the top of my head...

Bad teams:

Caterham (Norfolk, then Leafield)
Marussia (Yorkshire)
HRT (Spain)
Super Aguri (Leafield)
Lola (UK)
Forti Corse (Italy)
Pacific (UK)
Simtek (Banbury)
Larrousse (Antony, France)
Andrea Moda (Italy)
Coloni (Italy)
Scuderia Italia (Italy)
Life Racing Engines (Modena, Italy)

 

[FB]

Interesting

http://www.racecar-engineering.com/news/two-new-constructors-developing-2016-f1-cars/

 

[siffert_fan]

How about these UK-based "giants," The Artist...:

Spirit, RAM, Theodore, Ensign, Onyx, Arrows (and these just cover from 1984 to 1990). Not exactly a group that covered themselves in glory, is it? And that is just TEAMS that were abject failures. The number of deplorable individual models of even successful teams would fill entire books, as they would undoubtedly outnuber the successful models by a rather huge margin.

 

[gethinceri]

Arrows had far more glory than many many others siffert_fan

 

[Mephistopheles]

Damn near got a win in Hungry 1997...

 

[The Artist.....]

I was deliberately omitting Arrows; they had a pole position early on in their career as well!

What I'm amazed at is the proportion of italian based teams that were abject failures!

 

[Mephistopheles]

!....Including Ferrari of late...