Silly Season 2016/2017

[Facts Only]

Well that's why the phone calls would be frantic wouldn't they.

[edu2703]

Nasr to replace Hulkenberg at Force India?

http://readmotorsport.com/2016/10/14/na ... rce-india/

Look! Exactly what I wrote yesterday!

[Racer X]

Hulk urged Perez to stay at Force India and not go to Renault.....

Troll of the Year Award goes to Hulk.

[Racer X]

I guess that's a done deal, Hulk to Renault, Ocon probably his teammate.

Who does FI goes to Werlein? Nasr? Any others?

I hope Werlein goes to Force India.

[Manoah2u]

Well his dad and other backers I assume. People don't put all of this effort in over a 15 year career to get to let it end after one season.

Every guy who doesn't have a contract is on this same boat, i don't think Jonathan Palmer swings that much power to influence a team.

Exactly. Neither does he show such superdriving skills that people are jumping in to save him. I like reading another poster about wanting to see Kobayashi, i agree that sentiment
completely, as Kobayashi was a damn good driver, he however lacked the amount and 'power' of sponsors carrying a 'weight' to arrange a fix for his unfortunate loss of seat due to
the financial and contractual mess that was Sauber. Nobody will lose a night sleep over Palmer, and the same is reasonably to say for Ericsson, Magnussen, Haryanto, Mehri, to name
a few.

I still dont see how Stroll-Bottas can be confirmed, as there are clear indications Bottas is in talks with Renault due to him not wanting to commit to a 2-year deal with Williams whilst he only wants a 1-year deal. this is a more significant issue to be honest than it seems to be on the surface. Though it's been said he's trying to up his salary with this tactic and that could be a very good explenation, there's something to say for the desire of williams to keep him another 2 years.
Williams in all fairness is known for ditching and doing away with their drivers for whatever reason pops up from them. They are by definition not loyal to their drivers, no matter the performance; think about Hill for example. Bottas is in his what, 3rd year already, perhaps even 4th? so them extending it with 2 years while he essentially hasn't really shown anything
worthwile - he's no schumacher, verstappen, senna, hamilton, etc - makes one wonder why on earth they'd want to make a 2-year deal with somebody that isnt carrying major sponsor pay either.

Personally, i'm reading it as that there is a reason for them that they don't want Bottas to leave. Knowing they're in a situation where they're competing against Force India, and next year potentially against Renault, i can imagine the last thing they want is to lose Bottas to Renault as he brings in Williams intel too. Also, they might already sense and suspect that Bottas is going to leave to perhaps Renault in all intent, perhaps Mclaren, and want to lessen the impact by making him wait a year longer.
All this might come back biting them in the *ss when thanks to that, he actually goes to Renault in '17 intead of '18.

who knows.

Williams desire to contract Bottas for 2 years instead of 1 to me is 'suspicious' and that's not a tin foil hat argument.

[Manoah2u]

Hulk urged Perez to stay at Force India and not go to Renault.....

Troll of the Year Award goes to Hulk.

Interesting, isn't it?

[Manoah2u]

Nasr to replace Hulkenberg at Force India?

http://readmotorsport.com/2016/10/14/na ... rce-india/

Look! Exactly what I wrote yesterday!

wow are you a wizard?

sorry for that remark. either way, it's rather a logic possibility. the same can be written for virtually any unsigned driver
at this point, and any forum member will have written something similar here as it is the logical fashion and result of a silly season thread.

[edu2703]

sorry for that remark. either way, it's rather a logic possibility. the same can be written for virtually any unsigned driver
at this point, and any forum member will have written something similar here as it is the logical fashion and result of a silly season thread.

Yes,yes! In fact, when an F1 journalist uses your arguments, it's a proof the arguments has logic.

[Sevach]

it's rather a logic possibility. the same can be written for virtually any unsigned driver
at this point, and any forum member will have written something similar here as it is the logical fashion and result of a silly season thread.

Yeah, everyone is talking to everyone right now (it's a shame that is mostly about sponsors).

As for the Bottas situation, Williams has been trying to leverage Bottas contract into something for a while now, coupled with the lack of progress(regress rather) i can see why the guy would be pissed.

I think put themselves in a tough spot, if Bottas signs with Renault who can they pick? Can they atract Grosjean? After that who's next? Kvyat? Werhlein? Nasr back in the fold?

[RedNEO]

I'm happy for Nico as I think he is an exellent driver and most of all a nice guy. Hoping this gives him his chance to glory.

[edu2703]

I think put themselves in a tough spot, if Bottas signs with Renault who can they pick? Can they atract Grosjean? After that who's next? Kvyat? Werhlein? Nasr back in the fold?

I seriously doubt Bottas will go to Renault. As the Autosport already mentioned, he was Renault Plan B if they could not hire Hulkenberg.

But if he goes, Nasr is at the top of the list to get a seat on the team. He has been Williams test driver, the team is already aware of his performance and he has money. Perfect driver for Williams.

[PlatinumZealot]

But Nasr has been slower than ericson recently and ericson is not anyone special. I am not sure why people rate Nasr still.

[efuloni]

But Nasr has been slower than ericson recently and ericson is not anyone special. I am not sure why people rate Nasr still.

For me, I think we should give the data/statistics/numbers the value they deserve. We cant look at the WDC table or the team-mates competitions and assume that everything we need to know is in there. For instance, Nasr had the chassis issues in the first races and suffers with brakes since last year. Not to mention the fight with his race engineer last year.

And that's not all. Ericsson has one (or two?) more seasons. This is no small thing. But do you know what is big? The margin Nasr did last year. We can not forget everything he did in 2015 because of a mediocre season in the worst car of the grid.

If we look well, plenty of good drivers didnt show it in the points or the quali in the first seasons, being beated by the team-mates. Look at Ricciardo. Of course Nasr isnt that good. All I mean is that is really unfair to judge him by this season. Probably no one could do something remarkable in this Sauber and a lot of things, even motivation, can cause a decrease in his performance.

And for last (and this goes for Magnussen and Palmer) I imagine the accuracy of our observation about how good is a driver is directly proportional to how good is his car. I explain: the better the car, the greater the challenge. You fight for points (podiuns, victories), you have pressure (from the press, the media, the fans), you adjust strategy a lot more, you overtake, defend positions, you make a lot more laps in quali... Sauber drivers did all of this last year. This year, their races is mainly about starting, boxing and being overtaked (mainly with blue flags). And the quali lasts two laps.

So, IMHO, 2015 is probably a far better picture of Nasr V.S Ericson competition than 2016.

[ME4ME]

But Nasr has been slower than ericson recently and ericson is not anyone special. I am not sure why people rate Nasr still.

Completely agree. Actually I put Nasr, Palmer, Ericsson and Guttierez al in the same "box". They are all decent on their day, yet not consistent or talented enough for the upper midfield teams.

[edu2703]

But Nasr has been slower than ericson recently and ericson is not anyone special. I am not sure why people rate Nasr still.

Well, Nasr outperformed Ericsson last season. He scored 27 points against 9 of Ericsson.

He's really facing a bad year, struggling with problems of his car and not having many opportunities to show his talent as he had last year.

Any driver can face a bad year, for example Hamilton (2011 season). But when the driver has only two seasons in F1 like Nasr, even if he has driven like a champion last year, people will forget and will say he is a mediocre because he's facing a bad year now. In fact, he did an excellent season last year, had very good battles with Max Verstappen, was able to outperform Carlos Sainz Jr. with a worse car than him. But it seems Nasr efforts last season were in vain. People consider Sainz Jr. a very good driver and Nasr just another average/mediocre driver on the grid.

After the 2011 season, I saw people calling Hamilton 'mediocre', 'average', etc. The Italian press did the same thing with Vettel after his crash in Malaysia this year.

It's good to remember in the first seven races of this season, Nasr had a troublesome chassis that was 0.3s slower than the chassis used by Ericsson.

The team changed the chassis. From the European GOP to the Italian Grand Prix (7 races), Nasr outperformed Ericsson in qualifying and race in almost all of them, and was still able to achieve very good results in at least 4 of these races.

In the last three races, Ericsson returned to ouperform Nasr in qualifying. In the Singapore GP, he was able to outperform Ericsson in the race. In the Malaysian GP, ​​he retire and in the Japan GP, he was outpoformed by Ericsson in the race.

So if you want to say Nasr is worse than Ericsson you must take into account these details. I always warn of the risk of evaluating a driver taking into account only the results of his last races.