Things ... 2015 - 2016 Silly Season. The Drivers Market.

[Il_leone]

Bushi

Vandoorne will probably be in F1 either through Mclaren replacing Button or being loaned out to either Force India or Manor. However Ron Dennis desperately wants Magnussen to be in F1 next season and not ruin his career development as he is not racing at all this season whilst Vandoorne is grabbing the headlines

As for Gutierrez- as ridiculous as it maybe being Mexican in an American team will attract a lot of potential sponsorship. JEV's I think will miss out unless he brings the team more sponsorship

If I was Haas I would pick Hulkenberg because he is actively competing in F1 whilst the other two are not and a proven runner ( a little note he beat Gutierrez whilst they were teammates at Sauber). The plan supposedly for him is to prove himself at Haas to line up a potential Ferrari drive in future

As for A Rossi to help make US take F1 seriously again then having him on board the Haas team would help hugely

 

[Il_leone]

Williams Shouldn't Hit The Button

I guess the key player to the driver market is Kimi Raikkonen / Valteri Bottas. If Bottas replaces Raikkonen then the Williams seat becomes the next coveted seat . The editor suggests Button should not be signed by Williams over Hulkenberg or Lynn due to no future to build on. It did not stop Frank signing Mansell or Prost in the past who were both over 35 years old because they could bring the team success almost immediately it wants to justify their top team status

Williams have a top 3 car and haven't really maximised their opportunities so going for Button is not a bad option seeing he's raced against the best and been a world champion

Massa’s Williams F1 contract renewal approaches cut-off date

Less noises made about Massa's position given he is well liked by the Williams team and will probably enter the 3rd year of his contract due to Brazilian backers of the Williams team

 

[Il_leone]

How could the 2016 F1 line-up look as drivers look for new homes? | GiveMeSport

The author of this article thinks Button will retire as well as Raikkonen

 

[soccerman17]

If I was Haas I would pick Hulkenberg because he is actively competing in F1 whilst the other two are not and a proven runner ( a little note he beat Gutierrez whilst they were teammates at Sauber). The plan supposedly for him is to prove himself at Haas to line up a potential Ferrari drive in future\

If what he has done at Force India and Sauber hasn't proved enough for Ferrari, I don't know what he could do at Haas to get Ferrari to sign him.

 

[Il_leone]

soccerman17

It is strange why Hulkenberg has not been given a top drive given he's beaten every teammate except Barrichello in his rookie year

The list of reasons include

- he does not bring enough money - drives at Williams, Mclaren and Lotus did not materialize and they went to Maldanado and Perez

- he is too tall - one of the tallest and heaviest drivers on the grid and he was one of the victims of the powertrain and driver weight rules being combined up to 690Kg

- he would pose a serious threat to the incumbent he's been on Ferrari's list for a while and being ignored because he would upset the No 1 driver then it was Alonso and now it is Vettel

- he would add further pressure on Vettel given Seb is not completely loved by the Germany media because he lacks the ruthless and arrogant posture that Schumacher exemplified

 

[Spinodontosaurus]

I was one of the many people upset that Hulkenberg's seat at Williams was taken by Maldonado, but was left confused when Maldonado actually got closer to Barrichello than Hulkenberg did.

When McLaren took Perez over Hulkenberg, Hulk was being beaten quite badly by di Resta whilst Perez had strung together several impressively strong drives. In hindsight it was a poor choice by McLaren, but at the time it wasn't that bad of an idea. Hulkenberg did end up narrowly beating di Resta, but how good is di Resta really? He only just beat Sutil overall.

 

[erinha]

Di Resta is Vettel beater. Like Ricciardo. So, they are special people.

he would add further pressure on Vettel given Seb is not completely loved by the Germany media because he lacks the ruthless and arrogant posture that Schumacher exemplified

Is that really true btw? I didn't get the impression German people/media were completely comfortable with some of the Schumacher antics. So they don't really love Seb but would love Hulk, because Schumi was loved for being ruthless and arrogant? Not sure.
I never saw Hulk go as ruthless as Seb Vet did though. I'd say Vettel is pretty ruthless. Don't people dislike him because "finger" gives them the impression Vettel is arrogant?

 

[Bushi]

Hulk did had a year of absence when he joined up with Di Resta Spinodontosaurus.
Maybe Maldonado got closer to Barri because of his 4 years of experience in gp2? Hulk did only have 1 year in that series.

 

[Spinodontosaurus]

^Hulkenberg's results since his rookie season have been better than Maldonado's, so yeah maybe.

Junior career results are a great baseline for F1 performance, but there are exceptions. Vettel arguably being one of said exceptions, as his junior career was not that great by the standards of F1 champions.

In the case of di Resta his F1 results are not that great. He narrowly beat Sutil (losing badly in his rookie season 2011 but winning comfortably in 2013 after Sutil was back from a year out of the sport), and was narrowly beaten by Hulkenberg. Sutil is not a good benchmark even excluding his ridiculously high crash rate (higher than Maldonado even).

 

[Il_leone]

erinha Vettel does not show the typical German swagger of confidence and ruthlessness like Schumacher did

To some he still looks like an adolescent boy and he did not pummel Webber into submission like Schumacher did with his teammates psychologically

 

[erinha]

He might not be "typical", but I still wouldn't say he lacks confidence or ruthlessness. He's not overconfident or cruel either. Actually, I would say he looks pretty balanced as an individual and driver. I think he's a surprisingly light-hearted German. But I wouldn't have a problem with him not playing mind games with other drivers and just doing his job in general. I don't think he needed to do anything extra against Webber. By the time he was finished with him, Webber wasn't doing better than Raikkonen is doing at the moment.

 

[RasputinLives]

Vettel arguably being one of said exceptions, as his junior career was not that great by the standards of F1 champions.

Vettel wasn't in junior stuff long enough to get a record. He was the first ever driver to win a debut race in the WSR 3.5 series and would have won the title but ended up.in F1 before the year was out.

 

[RasputinLives]

and actually if you want to talk about an F1 champon with an average junior record then its Fernando Alonso.

 

[erinha]

Vettel arguably being one of said exceptions, as his junior career was not that great by the standards of F1 champions.

Vettel lacks a F3 championship, other than that there's no difference really between him and others. He doesn't have a GP2 or WSR 3.5 championship, because while he was leading the WSR championship he was called in to race for F1. It was a funny situation. Imagine the leader just up and left the championship in the middle of it. He didn't race in half the races but still finished 5th that season. I guess people expected him to dominate in his 2nd year at F3 since his first year was very good. Instead he had a title fight with his teammate and lost in the last races. Though he was also doing friday practices for BMW and occasionally racing in WSR at the time. He won his first ever WSR races, but in 2nd race he almost sliced off his finger. Yeah, THAT finger. I always wonder if the finger has anything to do with that incident.

This also reminded me of Alonso, but I didn't want to say anything as I'm not trying to start a Vettel vs Alonso debate. Also, when we say junior career it generally excludes karting for some reason. No one knows much about their karting careers. I think Alonso had a very good karting career? I've heard that Vettel dominated the junior championship but didn't have the physical strength for KF1 as he was 14 or something at the time?

 

[Dash Racing]

Also, when we say junior career it generally excludes karting for some reason. No one knows much about their karting careers.

Your karting career is really only a place to start honing your driving skills. The unpredictability of the other drivers around you means that even if you personally race well, their mistakes can mean your record doesn't really show what you can do. Your records there really don't represent much beyond raw talent, so for the most part, your karting record is irrelevant once you make the move to cars.

 

[RasputinLives]

Although in the case of Jenson Button it counted for a lot. His karting record was redonkulously good which is why after only a couple of years in cars he was jumped straight up to F1.

There are always exceptions to every rule though.

 

[erinha]

Raikkonen and Verstappen had little experience in cars too.

 

[teabagyokel]

Raikkonen had only raced 23 single seater races before he was called up by Sauber - iirc there were serious doubts about the decision to award him a superlicence.

 

[Il_leone]

Nigel Mansell has no junior category title if I remember and just had the balls to go to Colin Chapman and tell him he was worth an F1 drive

 

[rufus_mcdufus]

Kimi confirmed for Ferrari for 2016 apparently.
F1 news: Ferrari re-signs Kimi Raikkonen for 2016 Formula 1 season
He must really know where the bodies are buried.