Silly Season 2016/2017

[Vasconia]

I'm sure they will hit his pocket only, as a yellow card. Next time it something like this happens it might be suspension from one race or something like that but to fire your best driver? NO way

If Vestappen can ignore team orders, why not Lewis? even we can agree or disagree with him, he had a good reason(WC) to do it, at least something more important that to gain a single position.

[Manoah2u]

I wouldn't expect that either, but we musn't forget the comments of Mercedes that they'd take disciplinary actions too if they had another come together before, i recall it was Spain that ignited and another incident where nico steered into Lewis through the curbs, iirc Nico got a penalty later on either for that or more probable it was radio comms in the same race that got him handed a penalty. Either way, Mercedes was clear that they could concider 'replacing' the driver for one race, and that they aren't 'scared' to do so.
Something tells me that it's always been aimed at Lewis somehow.
Which again points in the direction that something might really happen. Firing the driver probably will not happen - probably. But yes, Ferrari did so. It's not impossible.

But again, i can see them rather take disciplinary actions through a penalty or a race-ban for 1 race.
Knowing what Lewis said in Spain, and his words on the book, i am 100% confident that IF Mercedes were to do such a thing to Lewis, especially keeping in mind the Mercedes-induced
team personel betrayal last year after the season was over, that Lewis himself will up and leave right there.
I am still weary in regards to Wehrlein. there's more behind the curtains.

[bauc]

I'm sure they will hit his pocket only, as a yellow card. Next time it something like this happens it might be suspension from one race or something like that but to fire your best driver? NO way

If Vestappen can ignore team orders, why not Lewis? even we can agree or disagree with him, he had a good reason(WC) to do it, at least something more important that to gain a single position.

Those are two different situations were the ''weight'' is not the same, plus Mercedes looks to me like control freaks when it comes to the racing

[Vasconia]

I'm sure they will hit his pocket only, as a yellow card. Next time it something like this happens it might be suspension from one race or something like that but to fire your best driver? NO way

If Vestappen can ignore team orders, why not Lewis? even we can agree or disagree with him, he had a good reason(WC) to do it, at least something more important that to gain a single position.

Those are two different situations were the ''weight'' is not the same, plus Mercedes looks to me like control freaks when it comes to the racing

A German team trying to keep everything under control doesnt sound surprising to me.

Seriously. No team likes a battle between teammates and at least we can say that Mercedes has let them fight almost always, sometimes with pretty bad consequences for the team.

[Manoah2u]

Toto Wolff himsaid said he is a "control freak", indeed.

I find the comments that supposedly 'twice' they could have lost the race absolutely unbelievable, and to me only adds to the BS.
Lewis was holding back giganticly, pushing Nico into an error. I applaud Lewis for trying instead of just cruising and relying on luck. Senna, Schumacher, all would have done the same.

Mercedes has the WCC in the bag, so they dont have to comment on anything. Sure they want to win in a 1-2. Still, there's the driver WDC also.

Lewis hoped Vettel and another driver would pass Nico through the train he created. It was his only option and he took it.
Mercedes was never in danger of losing the win. If Lewis lost the win, he would have lost the WDC period, so there is no way he would risk that.
Vettel's claim that if he done a 'kamikaza' were rediculous imho, claiming he had the risk of hitting Lewis. He was never even close.

If Vettel would have taken over Nico, then Lewis would decide to leave it at that and HOPE that he caused enough traffic to endanger Nico's race from the rest.
If Vettel would have been behind him instead of Nico, there would have been little chance he could keep influencing the pack behind that.
Theoretically, he would have to be so confident of himself, that he'd try and back up Vettel and hope Nico gets 'hurt' by the wake and give a RedBull the chance
to overtake, and then blast away in the distance.
The danger there would have been that A) Vettel overtakes Lewis and Lewis can't take it back. B) Rosberg takes back P2 from Vettel and all the hard work before
it goes down the drain.
The only slim chance Lewis had is that he might 'cause' the danger of Nico and Seb coming together.

All in all, If Vettel overtook Rosberg, Lewis would have called it quits on 'backing up' and just blasted away, and hope that what happens behind turns in his favor.
Nico in P3 gives him possibility, Nico in P2 not, so it was key for Lewis to 'help' Nico atleast getting into P3 with the Ferrari and RedBulls sharking up for that very P3.

So , the idea that the win was in danger for Mercedes is the most laughable comment and perhaps even a bold lie.

I can't help but find it atleast typical to say the least that Lewis has had all these events and Nico is scot-free whilst nobody is able to deny that Nico pulled some very dirty
moves on Lewis throughout the year. The Spain incident is another example of that. A German team, with germans at the helm, an austrian at the talking chair, and a german
driver that wants to get a WDC. Lewis' own hard working 'team' simply given to his rival german teammate, and lewis essentially left in the cold. Lewis got no answer in any
circumstances on radio calls (remember baku) and had lots of issues and Nico just calls and gets an answer and oh miracle, is able to 'solve' similar issues Lewis had despite him
having been on radio before that he doesnt understand ANYTHING in the car when nobody is holding his hand.

call me a conspiracist all you want, but to me, the signals are there for the taking. the mere fact that the team is putting up discussions like this publically right after the race and still,
despite it being just 'racing', and them having what they want anyway, to me is an even bigger signal that there's stuff going on behind the curtains that doesnt do well in daylight.

it probably will just blow over and fade away. still, something tells me this is also part of a bigger deal AND could be 'just the thing' they were looking for to 'take control' and put
Lewis in a position where they are able to 'act' like they want. And perhaps, deep down it all, they really dont want lewis anymore, but just know they need his skills.

Vettel > Mercedes ?
Lewis > Ferrari ?

[alexx_88]

Dude, what are you on about?

If Nico would've been helped beyond what the rules allow, they would've been penalized by the stewards. Also, from a business point of view, it makes no sense to pay someone 30 million per year only to mess with his head, AFTER you've helped him win 2 WDCs. Not to mention that all this talk about German team - German Driver is utter nonsense. Mercedes sell cars all around the world, so they need as much diversity in the team as they can get away with.

Hamilton's plan was flawed from the start. If he was planning to up the pace after Vettel would've overtaken Nico, the German would've just followed them. The pace on that Mercedes was much beyond what RB could do on old tires. Also, there was a real risk of a corner calamity happening, taking both Mercedes drivers out. A risk that was higher with the kind of race that Lewis was doing, compared to what was in the team's interest, which is to win comfortably if possible.

PS: I bet that the team's ratio of British/German employees is overwhelmingly high. So if anyone where to sabotage Lewis, staying in line with this talk about nationality, it would've been a British person, not a German.

PPS: Lewis and Nico are just the end links of a 1500-people chain. If any of those 1500 people would put their interests first, I'm sure they would be disciplined by their bosses and everyone would be ok with that. However, when it comes to global superstars, a lot of you are ok with there being absolutely no rules, with total disregard for the whole team effort that goes on behind the scenes. That's hypocrisy right there.

[superdowg316]

Mercedes maybe will take a few million out of his salary, maybe give him a few duff engines next year, but they wont fire him right away. It's just too easy to fire Lewis. Toto hasn't had his pound of flesh yet.

In which universe is easy to fire a 3 times world champion? 99% of the people how follow F1 wouldnt understand it.

I have only once seen this, and if I am not wrong it happened with Prost and Ferrari.

Well, depending on who you believe, Montezemolo "fired" Michael Schumacher, a 7 times World Champion who was still winning and in the middle of fighting for his 8th, in 2006 and forced what many believed was an early retirement.

[Vasconia]

Well, depending on who you believe, Montezemolo "fired" Michael Schumacher, a 7 times World Champion who was still winning and in the middle of fighting for his 8th, in 2006 and forced what many believed was an early retirement.

I have said "easy" hehe.

Well, Its hard to believe this though it was wellknown that Montezemolo´s ego didnt like the absolute influence that Michael had on the team.

I also know that back in 2004/2005 Michael was thinking to retair but the bad season in 2005 "forced" him to continue another year in order to have a good farewell from Ferrari.

But who knows?

[Manoah2u]

I must say , i've always been rather confused and suspicious on the 'leaving so Massa can stay' (because Kimi was coming) story about 'retire-ing', coming from a 'piranha' like Schumacher.
Don't get me wrong, i think he's a great guy and absolute stellar driver. He is amazing in every sense of it. We also know he was 'dirty', and always wanted a Nr2 lapdog driver. Its plagued my mind always.

[Vasconia]

I must say , i've always been rather confused and suspicious on the 'leaving so Massa can stay' (because Kimi was coming) story about 'retire-ing', coming from a 'piranha' like Schumacher.
Don't get me wrong, i think he's a great guy and absolute stellar driver. He is amazing in every sense of it. We also know he was 'dirty', and always wanted a Nr2 lapdog driver. Its plagued my mind always.

Yeah, you are right. There was something strange because there was no need to justify himself saying that. If according to him he had planed to retire in 2015 but didnt do it because of the bad season, why to say that he retires just to leave a seat for Massa?

Perhaps he didnt like when Montezemolo decided(if he decided that) to bring Kimi to Ferrari, who knows.

The only truth is that when he and others like Brawn left Ferrari the Golden era came to its end, and Ferrari is still suffering because of this.

[Manoah2u]

I wonder whether Schumacher might have had a fallout with Luca, or with/over Dominicali. Knowing Schumacher essentially 'built' that winning formula @ Ferrari with Brawn and Todt,
I can imagine he felt he had something to say in regards to the work ethics of Stefano, which might have not went well with Luca. or perhaps the surviving mr. Ferrari himself, and they
suggested he keeps honor on his side and 'retires'. Something in the likes of what happened with Alonso, perhaps. It might even go as far as 'Ferrari' claiming the bad 2005 form was due
to Micheal getting 'too old'.

I have a feeling Ferrari wanted to 'prove' they don't need 'der Michael' to win, and somewhere high up they decided Michael needed to go.

I also really do believe that Schumacher contributed a lot to have a championship-winning car for Raikkonen [& Massa] past-2006 [e.g. 2007,2008].
The new 'formula' as of 2009 saw Ferrari fall down hard like a concrete brick wrapped in solid lead in the middle of the ocean.

Similarly I do believe Schumacher and Brawn had a huge influence @ the successes of Mercedes as of 2014. It's eerily reminiscent of the way Brawn and Schumacher
'built' Ferrari to the winning team it was since 1996. It's sad he had that motorcycling accident which left him 'handicapped' into his '2nd' F1 career, and then retireing
again only to have that horrible ski-ing accident.
Honestly, i would have loved to see Schumacher @ Mercedes winning and batteling against Hamilton, though I think the intent always has been to have 2 germans there
and Rosberg would be Schumi's 'b*tch' ala Barrichello / Massa for Alonso.

We will see soon enough in 2017 what will happen to Mercedes.

[Vasconia]

Absolutely agree.

I blame Montezemelo and Ferrari for their big egos. But Karma is dong its job with this team.

Yest, both cars(2007/2008) where a continuation of that excellent 2006 car so the lack of Michael and Brawn wasnt felt until the great change of 2009.

Michael did a great job during those 3 years helping Mercedes to evolve as a team. Its a pity that he was not the same driver and that he was too old to see the pay-back of his job. 2013s car was not the best that the following cars were but I would have loved to see him driving that car.

Anyway that Monaco pole is something I won´t never forget.

[Manoah2u]

2017 Champions

Nico Rosberg (1x)
Lewis Hamilton (3x)
Sebastian Vettel (4x)
Kimi Raikkonen (1x)
Fernando Alonso (2x)

out: Jenson Button (1x)

if Jenson would still be in, we'd have 6 WDC in the 2017 season.

[FW17]

Michael retired so that Massa could race on

2007 would have been a whole lot different with Micheal Vs Alonso Vs Hamilton. Kimi would have struggled in 2007 against Michael Bridgestone combo

I guess Mclaren would have thrown the weight behind Alonso making it a 2 horse race

[Manoah2u]

Michael retired so that Massa could race on

yeah, that's the 'official' statement, as mentioned above.
if you 100% believe that, then i wonder whether you really know that very same Schumacher,
unless he has suddenly be replaced by a doppelganger lol.