I’m almost convinced this is not about a championship. I think this is about intangibles and dreams come true for Lewis personally as a driver and for post F1 fan base breadth. It’s a long after F1 business decision as much as it is a boyhood fantasy decision. Take the championship out of it and it makes complete sense. The bomb drop on Toto. The sudden announcement an entire year in advance. This is simply Lewis wanting to wear red to end his career. If he captures a real hope for a title, that’s just bonus round. But honestly, I don’t think a 41 year old Lewis is going to beat a 30 year old Shal. But maybe Lewis proves me wrong.
Sharing lead driver position will compromise Ferrari to RB in 2026 and like we saw at Macca in 2007, we will see at Ferrari 2026 IF they can beat RB. That’s a HUUUUGE if. I’m not sure it’s realistic to think that. If you take a moment to read the RB pages you will see they basically are going to bring what they brought this last year in competitiveness by how they are creatively structuring payments to engineers and setting up for the regs change. It’s pretty amazing what teams can do to pay engineers within loop holes of the budget limits.
Something tells me maybe Liberty Media may have had a hand in this? It certainly throws off the Andretti hounds and offers a non stop talking point the entire 2024 season. I mean they are going to bring this up NON STOP at every friggin race.
They will exploit this story for every ounce it is worth and they have an entire year to milk it till dry and crusty.
Watching F1 since 1986.