Moxie wrote:Manoah2u wrote:
I'm glad Nasr showed what he's worth and Sauber's potential. Unsurprisingly but quite disappointing to see Ericsson's performance. That Sauber had a lot more potential than what he got out of it. Shame. Apart from that, GvdG would not have done any better, despite what the fanboys are wetdreaming about. A Sainz or Verstappen would have gotten that car to a much better spot though.
Could care much less about vdG. Yes, Sauber made a mess, but Kolles back in a responsive role is a pure nightmare. Boekhoorn imho isn't a positive assett either for F1. Again, I have zero interest in any form of fanboyism and have zero room for a nationalistic handicap. Only have to go back a couple of years with the Spyker failure.
I was shocked about the way Sauber handled or dealt with the GvdG gate, but i'm back to my respect and happyness for the Sauber team. Nasr was a damn good choice and the team looks way different.
Definately my favourite team in the way it transformed, and that livery is killer. Both the car, aswell as the outfits. Those overalls are just stunning.
All shows Sauber actually have done a stellar job. It's a shame this vdgarde-gate has made people totally dispise and barf out Kaltenborn, whilst the truth of the matter is, on a motorsport level, she actually has a points scoring team that is in an unexpected position in the championship. Imagine that.
Just think about if for a second if bigmouth VdG did not shout to all the media about their issues and kept it respectfully within the team and outside of media attention. All that would have been read about would be a newsline saying after a contract breach between former Sauber test driver Guido van der Garde and Sauber Motorsport AG an agreement was met and both parties have resolved their issues. Nothing more, nothing less and people would be absolutely praising and hailing the reborn Sauber team.
Instead, the VdG party made a clown circus out of it all and made a media mess of everything sauber.
I hope this double-points finish will grant Sauber a good amount of $$ where they can simply slam the money back to the vdG camp and wave them goodbye.
Glad to see Sauber in the position they are in now, and it deserves extra respect on their achievements achieving this with so much stress and stuff going on and the missing of crucial free practice sessions. kudos to Sauber and kudos also to Kaltenborn having Sauber back to solid ground.
I too am happy to see that this struggling team had a good result, but in all fairness to VDG, he paid 8M euros for that seat. Kaltenborn kept the money but then sold the seat to another driver. Do you really think VDG should just STFU and walk away? If he ever wants to see his 8M euros again, or receive the asset for which he paid he needs to pressure the Kaltenborn to pay up before Sauber Motorsport becomes insolvent. It is perfectly reasonable that he use the media to his advantage, after all Sauber Motorsport took 8M euros from him.
I do hope that Sauber has a good year, but we should also be realistic about the possibility of bankruptcy. A good year is no guarantee of greater fortunes. VDG needs to keep the pressure on, and if Kaltenborn continues her M.O. of foot dragging and negotiating in bad faith, VDG will be justified, and strategically correct in creating a spectacle.
I've never stated GvdG does not deserve to get his money back or some form of compensation. He was ditched quite coldly by Sauber, that was never the question. The court issue only proved that GvdG indeed has been 'mistreated'. However, GvdG then took this opportunity to make him into poor conned innocent versus evil devil sauber, which is simply not true nor reasonable. VdG taking the court to underlay his right on compensation is indeed his fullest right. The handling of the persona vs team sauber on the other hand is graceless and not fitting for million-dollar man and million dollar management/backing.
Meanwhile, nobody generally knows whether Sauber really did 'took 8 m' from him. All we know is GvdG had a valid race contract and his company paid huge sums of money to become eligable for a race seat in '15. Whatever more, is pure speculation. GvdG state he did not want compensation but he wanted to race. So the question remains, was he conned from money or is it a pure case of ditching him?
Strategically creating a spectacle in the end has only hurt GvdG and his business and associates imho. Bernie had to intervene and bernie is generally not a happy man when he needs to do these things. In other words; you don't make friends with Bernie like that, and what you want is Bernie as your best friend. Meanwhile no team has any interest in his services ever again. And, he now gave up his racing seat for the melbourne weekend, so all that brawl and brag ended up in absolutely nothing.
People have as good as forgotten about GvdG after he gave up on his seat and Nasr and ericsson brought Sauber to 3rd place in the WCC. I would think GvdG is a tad better than Ericsson, but lacks experience compared to Ericsson on this particular vehicle, which makes me assume he wouldn't have been able to do as 'good' as a job as Ericsson did on sunday.
Sauber has a huge benefit from the Ferrari engine and they could even find themselves batteling for 4th or 5th WCC for the remainder of the season. If they do, they'll have fixed their money issues quite well. Nasr brings a big bag of money and a big bag of talent alongside it. Nasr will be their star driver, ericsson the 2nd one which brings the rest of usefull money. They are in a far better position anybody is willing to give them.
