2011 Driver Transfer Market

[prisonermonkeys]

And Karun turns down HRT as well. That means that either Klien or Sakon will get the other seat, unless they get someone out of the team. Maybe that's why they were waiting until FI made an announcement so HRT could get whoever they dumped.

Speculation is that rather than buy Liuzzi out of his contract, Force India will ship him off to Hispania instead. Kolles has said that Senna will not be driving for them this year, and that their second driver could be "a surprise". I'm not sure how you get any more surprising than Narain Karthikeyan, but apparently you can.

 

[Ardius]

Red Bull, McLaren, Mercedes, Renault, Force India, Lotus, HRT and Virgin all still have vacancies for a reserve driver. So all is not lost for people like Senna who don't have a race seat.

Not that it means much anymore. Its only worth being a test/reserve if you manage to get a contract like Di Resta's or D'Ambrosio's where you get some running on Fridays at the "unimportant" race weekends.
Even when it did mean carrying out meaningful work for the team, there have been many test drivers in the past who never got a decent race seat. Nowadays teams prefer to hire from rookies or proven veterans than anyone in their reserve roles.
You have to get really lucky to be there when you are actually called up to replace someone, Kobayashi could so easily be back at his father's sushi restaurant right now if it wasn't for Glock's accident. Fisichella wouldn't have such cosy job at Ferrari and GT race drives either.

Hopefully though, the teams follow Force India's form and start letting 3rd drivers have a go on Fridays just like a few years ago. Then the chances increase for rookies to gain valuable experience and again prove themselves.

Speculation is that rather than buy Liuzzi out of his contract, Force India will ship him off to Hispania instead. Kolles has said that Senna will not be driving for them this year, and that their second driver could be "a surprise". I'm not sure how you get any more surprising than Narain Karthikeyan, but apparently you can.

Surely Liuzzi would be a sufficient surprise considering people are now just assuming HRT will hire pay drivers?
I would love it if it was Jacques Villeneuve!

 

[prisonermonkeys]

Surely Liuzzi would be a sufficient surprise considering people are now just assuming HRT will hire pay drivers?

The irony of this is that Force India would have to buy the seat at Hispania for Liuzzi.

 

[Ardius]

That doesn't make sense..why would Force India pay for him to run at HRT? They may have to buy out his contract, but this isn't the kind of sponsorship money that HRT is looking for. Liuzzi's contract certainly isn't anywhere near Yamamoto's supposed $20 million.

 

[prisonermonkeys]

Because buying the Hispania seat would be cheaper than buying his contract out completely.

And I doubt Yamamoto has $20 million. It's known that Karthikeyan has between $8 and $10 million from Tata, but I find $20 million hard to believe.

 

[Ardius]

Ah sorry, I did some searching and it was actually believed to be around $5 million that Yamamoto brought.
I could have sworn there was talk of a $1 million per race contract for him though, but that still wouldn't have been 20.

In any case, I don't see why Force India would feel the need to go that far to help Liuzzi. Liuzzi's estimated salary is €200,000, which is a pretty paltry price compared to buying a HRT seat.

 

[prisonermonkeys]

In any case, I don't see why Force India would feel the need to go that far to help Liuzzi. Liuzzi's estimated salary is €200,000, which is a pretty paltry price compared to buying a HRT seat.

I believe his contract is unique among Formula 1 drivers. He signed on as test driver in 2008 and 2009 with a promise of a full-time race seat in 2010 and 2011. As it happened, he got called up to the race seat early when Fisichella went to Ferrari. Because the contract guaranteed him a race seat in the future when it was signed, it may be much harder for Force India to get out of it than a standard contract. It may require a massive pay-out - not Raikkonen-sized, but still substantial - if it is terminated early. As such, it may be cheaper or less time-consuming to move him across to Hispania because it's likely Liuzzi's contract would have to go before the Contract Review Board, and that's not a quick process.

That said, I still have my money on Davide Valsecchi for the second Hispania seat.

 

[Ardius]

Well, that is entirely speculation, we cannot know what clauses Liuzzi's contract has.
It would be fairly stupid of Mallya to give Liuzzi such a lucrative contract...Raikkonen's contract was entirely salary based - i.e. Ferrari were simply paying him what he should have earnt if he had stayed in 2010. I doubt Liuzzi's contract has some crazy-high money obligation for early termination, certainly not to the point where Force India feel it would be cheaper to pay for him to go to HRT.

I don't really have any idea who will be the other HRT driver, its going to be someone bringing cash or a very cheap asking price. I don't see Valsecchi being any more likely than anyone else. It seemed to me that Lotus, Virgin and HRT were taking cash for the Abu Dhabi young driver tests rather than seriously considering any of them.

 

[prisonermonkeys]

Well, I suspect the Liuzzi-to-Hispania talk is being fuelled by none other than one Mr. Saward. I've looked at some of his stuff at late, and maybe it's just my dislike of him showing through, but some of his stuff does seem to be clutching at straws of late, particularly with regards to Liuzzi.

 

[Ardius]

Well, other than Lotus vs Lotus, there hasn't been much to talk about, so can't really blame him.
Don't think we will beat the USF1 and Stefan joke stories for a while .

 

[prisonermonkeys]

Well, there are shots of a Stefan-liveried TF110 that have come to light this week. So they were at least a little serious, even if they were mostly the punchline. And there's also this article that claims Hispania have left FOTA (I think ... the auto-translate is particularly bad this time around), but the tone of the article seems to be trying to paint Red Bull as season-long villains and justify Ferrari's antics in Germany as a legitimate tactic to keep themselves in the title hunt so that someone other than the brazen cheaters at Red Bull could win the title.

And there's still the rumour that Toro Rosso will be bought out. I know Franz Tost keeps shooting them down, but his denials are beginning to sound like a party line more than anything else.

 

[Raagentreg]

This may be old, but as it hasn't been updated on the first post, I thought it hadn't been said.

Earlier today on BBC World News there was a program on racing drivers/simulators and all that, but they went to the williams garage to try out their simulator, and then said someone (who's name I forget, sorry) who was a GP2 driver and won something recently (maybe a championship), who was also a Venezuelan, was taking the other seat at Williams this year.

Now I'm no good at GP2 drivers, but can you guys figure out who he is? And if he was given a race seat or a tester's seat?

 

[Ardius]

Toyota painted their car red meant that Stefan were serious?

This may be old, but as it hasn't been updated on the first post, I thought it hadn't been said.

Earlier today on BBC World News there was a program on racing drivers/simulators and all that, but they went to the williams garage to try out their simulator, and then said someone (who's name I forget, sorry) who was a GP2 driver and won something recently (maybe a championship), who was also a Venezuelan, was taking the other seat at Williams this year.

Now I'm no good at GP2 drivers, but can you guys figure out who he is? And if he was given a race seat or a tester's seat?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pastor_Maldonado
The race seat.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport/formula_one/9247885.stm

 

[prisonermonkeys]

Toyota painted their car red meant that Stefan were serious?

I said "a little serious", not "deadly serious" or "the genuine article". It proves they had - at the very least - access to the car.

 

[Ardius]

How? We already know that Toyota did have contact with Stefan and were prepared to sell their techincal support. Problem is, they quickly found out Stefan had no money. I don't see how this makes Stefan more serious than we thought before.
Also, the car was painted red ages ago. I'm not even sure its anything to do with Stefan, considering Toyota painted a lot of their race cars red...even if Toyota did paint the car red at Stefan's request, it really only shows how naive Toyota were. I'm also fairly certain Stefan didn't have any red paint to paint the TF110, I'm fairly certain Toyota did have some red paint.

I thought the fact Stefan never showed anything and Toyota realised he had no money made it pretty clear that "team" was even less real than USF1. Especially after all the photoshopped pictures and amusing cons he had performed before.
I'm amazed people still want to buy into his cons, isn't it more obvious than ever now?

 

[prisonermonkeys]

The Hack reckons there is a “whisper out of Japan” that Red Bull will have their Renault engines re-badged as Infiniti for 2011. Infiniti is to Nissan what Lexus is to Toyota – the luxury cars division – and Nissan is Renault’s sister company.

Personally, I’ll believe it when I see it.

 

[RTSolvalou]

Does this mean that the test/race track Stefan said they were making/had at their HQ does not exist/never existed?

 

[prisonermonkeys]

No, it doesn't exist. It was planned, but - ignoring for the moment the question of how serious Stefan were - it was most likely dependent upon Stefan getting a grid entry. After all, why would an organisation sink millions into a test circuit (though Stefanvic talked up the prospect of a Serbian Grand Prix) if it was never going to be used? Hell, Hispania were planning one to be built at their base in Murcia, and there's been no sign of it - in fact, I think they've admitted it's not going to happen - even after a year of racing.

 

[F1 fan]

Hell, Hispania were planning one to be built at their base in Murcia, and there's been no sign of it - in fact, I think they've admitted it's not going to happen - even after a year of racing.

I would like to see that. It'll be a serious of traffic cones setup in their car park. The wind tunnel will be the hand dryers in the Gent's toilet's.

 

[prisonermonkeys]

Fairuz Fauzy has joined Lotus Renault GP as a test and reserve driver. It's a bit of a stupid move, since he was eight second slower than the likes of Vettel during Friday Practice in Abu Dhabi while driving for Lotus Racing, and he was five seconds slower than the other Lotus. There's also talk that Romain Grosjean could return to Formula 1 as the designated test and reserve driver, meaning he'll be the one to drive should something happen to Kubica or Petrov.

Meanwhile, Virgin offered Nico Hulkenberg a drive, which he turned down. Hulkenberg might be talented, but he's making a damn fool of himself. He wants to race, but he keeps turning down offers.

 

[RTSolvalou]

http://www.motorsport.com/news/article.asp?ID=398094&FS=F1

Fairuz Fauzy apparently has a chance of a start in one of the later races of the 2011 season, if his results in GP2 are good.

I hope things don't become 'awkward' at Lotus-Renault. Naturally the driver with fewer points will probably be the one stepping out to let Fauzy have a drive, but then what?
I've been following Renault's developments as close as I can, and while I'm sure Petrov will have a great year, in the result he doesn't, I hope that Boullier doesn't think he can bump Petrov off for 2012 and keep the sponsors that he brought in.

 

[Ardius]

Wow, Renault is fast declining in respectability, seems Group Lotus are calling the shots for a cool $20 million. Replace Petrov with Fauzy? Fauzy doesn't seem anything special, he doesn't bin the car, but he doesn't appear to push it very hard either.
Fortunately, Fauzy is unlikely to have such an impressive GP2 season compared to how Petrov should do in F1 this year.

Maybe this is why Group Lotus was (originally) unhappy with Fernandes - he was unwilling to drop Trulli or Kovalainen just to give a slow Fauzy a race drive?

I don't think we should blame Boullier if anything happens, he has the same strings attached as Horner does with Red Bull.

 

[Lee]

Di Resta race deal pretty much done.

👍

 

[prisonermonkeys]

Yeah, Autosport's digital edition states that di Resta is in.

 

[prisonermonkeys]

And now they have an article stating that the team will make their plans known on Wednesday, and that di Resta will be announced as their driver there.

 

[daan]

And confirmed. Good to see yet another Scot make it into F1.

 

[Furinkazen]

Good luck to him. I'll be cheering him on.

 

[Wiegert]

I'll be hoping that Di Resta's first season goes well. Also, Nico Hulkenberg is hoping to get a racing seat in 2012 after becoming Force India's reserve driver for 2011.

 

[Lee]

He should aim to beat Sutil in his first year, I think it's a very reasonable target. 👍

 

[astrosdude91]

It was pretty obvious when they announced that Force India would make the announcement in Glasgow.

Nice to see Di Resta joining the squad. And Hulkenberg has a job too! Maybe Force India will finally get a win this year.

Now all eyes are on HRT. Is that where Liuzzi is going?