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Wow... That sucks. Come on Force India. Have been waiting for the announcement for 24 hours now.
The 2012 Driver transfer discussion/speculation thread
- Thread starter F1 fan
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Wow... That sucks. Come on Force India. Have been waiting for the announcement for 24 hours now.
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- Arizona
- HamiltonMP427
No one is extending it beyond that, no one ever said Christian Horner and those accused are the same people you've named, also Red Bull Racing does extend beyond the F1 outfit. So not sure where you're going with the first part cause no one is blaming them. Yet I agree with what you agree with (sounds silly how I put it) I think when a guy is running laps in an RBR sim with thoughts of next year and the other was told only days before how to get to RBR you have to wonder. I never thought an energy drink company could be so cut throat, then again I never thought it'd take over the racing world either.
Now I must await for the next RB step...taking over Le Mans!!!
Well it's seems I may not be wrong about next week.
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The reason why I said "ninety days" is because the Australian Grand Prix is in ninety-two, and Force India will obviously want to have their drivers in place before then. According to Hulkenberg's PR person, an announcement is probably going to happen today. But it's only 10:47am in England right now, so there is plenty of time for an announcement to be made. Look at Toro Rosso - when they announced Vergne and Ricciardo, they did it at 4:30pm.
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- HamiltonMP427
...I know that, I'm talking about you're earlier comments how I'd be late to the party on the FI announcment. Why can't you try to lighten up? You know people what you mean you're not the only one in the loop.
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- fps_nilsen
I was surprised about STR booting both their drivers. Imo, Seb and Jaime haven't done a bad job, they have just had some bad luck. I am sure if they were given more time, they could become even better drivers, I mean..they are both still very young, so I hope some other teams see their potential and pick them up.
There are other drivers too who I feel haven't really been shining in any light, but neither made drastic mistakes and so on. d'Ambrosio comes to my mind, so does Senna (a season with HTR which wasn't very interesting and not really enough time with Renault). However, F1 is a brutal sport and there are plenty of young talents knocking on the door and sadly, some of this bring money to the team which make them more lucrative.
And STR as a team, I don't think a team with their purpose belongs on the grid. They are the equivalent to the Porsche Cayman, their intention was never to be the best.
There are other drivers too who I feel haven't really been shining in any light, but neither made drastic mistakes and so on. d'Ambrosio comes to my mind, so does Senna (a season with HTR which wasn't very interesting and not really enough time with Renault). However, F1 is a brutal sport and there are plenty of young talents knocking on the door and sadly, some of this bring money to the team which make them more lucrative.
And STR as a team, I don't think a team with their purpose belongs on the grid. They are the equivalent to the Porsche Cayman, their intention was never to be the best.
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I was taking your comments as a response to F1 fan's post, since you quoted me replying to it.
Timo Gans (Hulkenberg's press officer) on Twitter five minutes ago:
So. No annoucement tonight, then.
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- HamiltonMP427
I thought you'd remember a post from yesterday that you made this is why I quoted your nearest comment.
@FPS_Christian
I agree with you, and I think Virgin/Marussia switching out a driver every season so far is a bit annoying, but I'm not a fan of Marussia so I've never expressed any care on that.
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- F1fan1
Thanks for the heads up.
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- Ardius_
Well at least its better than Bourdais being fired by text message or Speed having a punch-up with Franz Tost.
But its still pretty disgusting. Why are they screwing over both drivers by leaving their decision and announcement this late? If they had announced this a month or so earlier, maybe Buemi and Alguesuari would have had a chance to talk to other teams.
Now they are back of the queue for the other race seats.
RTSolvalou
(Banned)
- 1,188
More or less, it was 'oh by the way, this is a training team, didn't you know!!?'. Although everyone kind of knew it wasn't a team looking to win races, the way this was handled, and the PR crap that was put out, was dire.
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- mr_geez
@Scuderia Toro Rosso drivers policy.
I'll play a devil's advocate role here because I can't understand reasoning by some posters here with all the "Scuderia Toro Rosso is a shame to the sport because they are in F1 for wrong reasons, ie - their goal is not to win the championship".
I mean , really? So you are all saying that Marussia, Caterham , HRT or even Sauber are competing in F1 with realistic goal of F1 crown? I don't think so. They are multi-million business ventures in world of sports entertainment with goal of being profitable OR to fulfill vanity of their owners. Of course being competitive is a goal of any team (or at least should be) because being dead last/slowest on the grid won't bring you any glamour/ sponsorship money/ TV time/ facebook likes/ twitter followers. Rather (in general) scrutiny and backlash from community that follows F1 altogether. Oh, and by the way, when Red Bull bought Minardi there wasn't exactly a long line of other wealthy investors in front of Faenza offices interested in buying the team, quite contrary.
That said, I am one of the harshest critics of Red Bull young drivers development program (so many promising racing drivers careers stalled or even were completely destroyed by Red Bull -> Friesacher, Bernoldi, Klien, Jaani, Doornbos, Liuzzi to name a few), but maybe there is a method in this madness going by the example of that one driver you maybe heard of. His name is Sebastian Vettel.
I think the goal of RB jr. team is now clear. They are looking for championship material drivers (let's be clear: Jaime or Buemi are not WC candidates in future. Are they serviceable drivers capable of scoring points? Yes. Like many others put into competitive cars. Are they championship material? No. Are Vegne And Ricciardo the right people? I don't think so but we will find out very soon.) OR drivers that will be able to bring boost in RB brand recognition in the part of the world that the given driver came from (like Speed or Aleshin in the past for example).
It is maybe not very romantic or even fair, but world of professional sports with budgets of millions of dollars is a cruel place. Anybody that enters it must know it. You have a one in a million chance (pun intended) and if you don't achieve goals that are presented to you by your bosses you have to move over and make room for "next best thing". C'est la vie.
I'll play a devil's advocate role here because I can't understand reasoning by some posters here with all the "Scuderia Toro Rosso is a shame to the sport because they are in F1 for wrong reasons, ie - their goal is not to win the championship".
I mean , really? So you are all saying that Marussia, Caterham , HRT or even Sauber are competing in F1 with realistic goal of F1 crown? I don't think so. They are multi-million business ventures in world of sports entertainment with goal of being profitable OR to fulfill vanity of their owners. Of course being competitive is a goal of any team (or at least should be) because being dead last/slowest on the grid won't bring you any glamour/ sponsorship money/ TV time/ facebook likes/ twitter followers. Rather (in general) scrutiny and backlash from community that follows F1 altogether. Oh, and by the way, when Red Bull bought Minardi there wasn't exactly a long line of other wealthy investors in front of Faenza offices interested in buying the team, quite contrary.
That said, I am one of the harshest critics of Red Bull young drivers development program (so many promising racing drivers careers stalled or even were completely destroyed by Red Bull -> Friesacher, Bernoldi, Klien, Jaani, Doornbos, Liuzzi to name a few), but maybe there is a method in this madness going by the example of that one driver you maybe heard of. His name is Sebastian Vettel.
I think the goal of RB jr. team is now clear. They are looking for championship material drivers (let's be clear: Jaime or Buemi are not WC candidates in future. Are they serviceable drivers capable of scoring points? Yes. Like many others put into competitive cars. Are they championship material? No. Are Vegne And Ricciardo the right people? I don't think so but we will find out very soon.) OR drivers that will be able to bring boost in RB brand recognition in the part of the world that the given driver came from (like Speed or Aleshin in the past for example).
It is maybe not very romantic or even fair, but world of professional sports with budgets of millions of dollars is a cruel place. Anybody that enters it must know it. You have a one in a million chance (pun intended) and if you don't achieve goals that are presented to you by your bosses you have to move over and make room for "next best thing". C'est la vie.
- 7,177
- Lisboa
- FLAT_TWELVE
Look who came back from the dead 
Maciek, I don't care if Caterham fights for wins or for that elusive championship point. They fight for their own interests, they bow to no one and that's more than enough for me.
STR is not that. But ok, I guess you'll find it perfectly normal the day Ferrari buys out a second F1 team to do their bidding and be their talent seekers. You know what, I think they might be considering doing precisely that. No 3rd car? Ok, We'll get a B-Team. 3rd AND 4th car, yay !
And I use Ferrari here because that's a team with many lovers&haters, no matter what they do there's a guaranteed heated discussion over it by all F1 fans.
But you could say the same for Mclaren, or Mercedes.
What I think is this: Young driver programs have their place in feeder series and should remain there. And I agree with you, it's a cruel world out there and if what they are looking for is the next Vettel, they're totally entitled to do as they please with their money to find it.
But DO THAT in GP2, will you?
(And increase testing oportunities in F1 cars, of course, but that's another part of this problem)
PS - Nice to "meet" you btw, Kubica's helmet is alwyas a nice sight over here
Maciek, I don't care if Caterham fights for wins or for that elusive championship point. They fight for their own interests, they bow to no one and that's more than enough for me.
STR is not that. But ok, I guess you'll find it perfectly normal the day Ferrari buys out a second F1 team to do their bidding and be their talent seekers. You know what, I think they might be considering doing precisely that. No 3rd car? Ok, We'll get a B-Team. 3rd AND 4th car, yay !
And I use Ferrari here because that's a team with many lovers&haters, no matter what they do there's a guaranteed heated discussion over it by all F1 fans.
But you could say the same for Mclaren, or Mercedes.
What I think is this: Young driver programs have their place in feeder series and should remain there. And I agree with you, it's a cruel world out there and if what they are looking for is the next Vettel, they're totally entitled to do as they please with their money to find it.
But DO THAT in GP2, will you?
(And increase testing oportunities in F1 cars, of course, but that's another part of this problem)
PS - Nice to "meet" you btw, Kubica's helmet is alwyas a nice sight over here
RTSolvalou
(Banned)
- 1,188
What Red Bull are doing is clever, they're just growing and harvesting drivers to ensure that when the time comes, they have the best driver they can get to fill the #1 team seat, and that driver will have a competitive and experienced edge over drivers who just joined F1 and went straight into McLaren/Ferrari/Renault/Lotus/Williams etc. It's all about maintaining their position as a top team comprised of winners.
If the FIA decide to leave this as is, then a couple more teams will follow suit. This will likely take F1 back to a time where drivers only change teams once in their career, if at all.
Aspiring drivers will just have to make a choice of which driver program to join. Ferrari might aswell buy Sauber, but Ferrari are a very coy team, they won't do something like that until they need to.
News just in @ Autosport - Hulkenberg replaces Sutil.
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/96780
If the FIA decide to leave this as is, then a couple more teams will follow suit. This will likely take F1 back to a time where drivers only change teams once in their career, if at all.
Aspiring drivers will just have to make a choice of which driver program to join. Ferrari might aswell buy Sauber, but Ferrari are a very coy team, they won't do something like that until they need to.
News just in @ Autosport - Hulkenberg replaces Sutil.
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/96780
- 19,699
- Alabamamania
Face it, not every driver is going to be world champ, and the circumstances vary for each one. There's only 12 teams, and many of them held their breath until the off-season to make their lineup announcements, which is unusual...wasn't it only December of 2005 when Alonso signed for McLaren for 2007?
So with all the top teams having solid driver lineups, the midpackers played the waiting game so other drivers won't have much to choose from but to re-sign or find something less desirable. The best teams kept this practice until the 1980s, but things have changed a little recently.
During the late-80s through the '90s, basically every team had their lineups ready for the following season by the last race, the only questions being the new teams and perhaps Minardi and Osella (et al).
So with all the top teams having solid driver lineups, the midpackers played the waiting game so other drivers won't have much to choose from but to re-sign or find something less desirable. The best teams kept this practice until the 1980s, but things have changed a little recently.
During the late-80s through the '90s, basically every team had their lineups ready for the following season by the last race, the only questions being the new teams and perhaps Minardi and Osella (et al).
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- pj-gm
- PJwasHere876
More driver injustice being done today. Sutil getting the boot. Great driver, to be honest, who deserves a race winning seat.
Back to Torro Rosso, Jamie and Sebastian don't have the chance to prove themselves championship worthy. For them to be promoted, Red Bull would want what Vettel did with the car in 2008. A pole and a win. But that will probably never happen, because that pole and win was a fluke to begin with. Red Bull, as well as most of the fans, have set a standard which they will never be able to reach.
That is also not helped by the fact that Torro Rosso is nothing more than a Driving Academy for Red Bull now. They will never be given the money or resources to ever challenge for the championship, they are only given enough to be a midfielder and nothing more. Why? Because that's all Red Bull wants out of them. If Torro Rosso were t ever beat Red Bull again, then Red Bull would take away from Torro Rosso what is why they were able to beat them. 2008, they took away Sebastian Vettel, as well as a relatively slow car development during the 2009 season, meaning parts that were on the RB5 from races like Silverstone, wouldn't be on the STR4 until Hungary the earliest.
Times like this make me wish that Giancarlo Minardi or Paul Stoddart would return to reclaim what was once theirs.
Back to Torro Rosso, Jamie and Sebastian don't have the chance to prove themselves championship worthy. For them to be promoted, Red Bull would want what Vettel did with the car in 2008. A pole and a win. But that will probably never happen, because that pole and win was a fluke to begin with. Red Bull, as well as most of the fans, have set a standard which they will never be able to reach.
That is also not helped by the fact that Torro Rosso is nothing more than a Driving Academy for Red Bull now. They will never be given the money or resources to ever challenge for the championship, they are only given enough to be a midfielder and nothing more. Why? Because that's all Red Bull wants out of them. If Torro Rosso were t ever beat Red Bull again, then Red Bull would take away from Torro Rosso what is why they were able to beat them. 2008, they took away Sebastian Vettel, as well as a relatively slow car development during the 2009 season, meaning parts that were on the RB5 from races like Silverstone, wouldn't be on the STR4 until Hungary the earliest.
Times like this make me wish that Giancarlo Minardi or Paul Stoddart would return to reclaim what was once theirs.
You are basically suggesting that the aforementioned teams wouldn't challenge for the championship were they given the opportunity? Why is the championship not their goal?
And from a fan's perspective, we are getting shortchanged. The difference here with STR is the way that they are trying to cherry-pick WDC drivers for the RBR team. I'd personally rather see any other team out there trying to improve their position in the championship than to see one team existing solely to promote the team already at the top. Sporting is never fair due to a number of factors, but the way that RBR have their hand in the system is different. Formula 1 is the only sport where I've seen something like this happen within the same league/division. Basically there are 11 teams competing.
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- V16T91
- E0nLeader
I wouldn't bet on it after he got 4 other (ie not including Monza) top five finishes that year.
Either way Alguersuari deserved to stay. Toro Rosso had previously said Vergne was gonna replace the lower finishing driver of the year, in this case Buemi. So then replacing Alguersuari unannounced prior is rather an act of treason if you ask me.
I'm sure Sutil would have been better off staying at Force India to be honest. Then again, Hulkenberg needed a drive back so it's a 50/50 win/lose situation.
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- astrosdude91
I honestly didn't even think anyone cared enough about STR to even give a hoot. All this uproar is a surprise to me.
RTSolvalou
(Banned)
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Does Sutil have any sponsorship?
Maldonado's PDVSA sponsorship isn't rock solid yet.
Maldonado's PDVSA sponsorship isn't rock solid yet.
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- F1fan1
Sutil has sponsorship from medion. But it's not really substantial in F1 terms. I'm sure they would be happy to take him and his sponsorship alongside Maldonado, but it doesn't really compare with the money Maldonado brings.
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Dropping Sutil for Hulkenberg was a mistake. Sutil is a proven quantity. The only thing Nico Hulkenberg has demonstrated is the ability to finish the race in a lower position than he started.
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