I don’t think the teams usually are assholes and I don’t even think this is particularly malicious. This is just politics. Remember these teams are all multi-million dollar businesses and these situations can have huge repercussions for thousands of employees in the factories etc.
The drivers are just a cog in the machine.
Yes. At least they are paid well in F1. It’s just distasteful to me, I guess. As a driver it bugs me.
Now…imagine being a team owner who invests a lot in a driver giving them test days etc… and having them on contract etc…
I have no idea what’s going on between these two parties, but it’s obviously something contractual.
I just hope Daniel Ricciardo gets booted out of F1. Dude got massive paychecks to do nothing decent either at Renault or Mclaren.
Williams : Albon & De Vries
Alpine : Ocon & Pourchaire
Mclaren : Norris & Piastri
Haas : KMag & Sargeant
AT : Gasly & Schumacher
Tsunoda, Latifi and Ricciardo out
I feel like the harshness on Ricciardo is a little unjustified, he didn’t just forget how to drive since his Red Bull days. Both the Renault and Mclaren deals were known to have been in rebuilding phases and have not lived up to the expectations. Given a car capable and suiting to his driving style I think he could easily be at the pointy end again, however this could be said about several in F1 in my opinion.
Better drivers know how to adapt, especially somebody with as many years of exp as Ricciardo. Even when going to Renault he was not a rookie.
I’d say that’s a pretty bold statement. Realistically a driver can adapt some, but a driving style developed over years and years is hard to shake. The same could be questioned of some of the top level kart racers who struggled when it came to cars, are they poor drivers? Not at all. Also when a driver switches car disciplines and never quite comes to terms with how the car drives and reacts. Is Norris outperforming him? For sure, but Norris is likely still developing a style plus is also willing to hang it out a bit more. We saw this earlier this year with Ham and Rus, in an underwhelming (for Merc) car Rus was getting more out of it. Now that the car performance is better they are much closer. Vettel and Leclerc at Ferrari are another example, I could go on.
Or they are great kart drivers. We have many examples of drivers being able to adapt. Alonso is the best example in F1. But Kimi too. And outside F1, we have Loeb who adapted to everything he could drive.
So yeah I don’t think it is that bold
Wait, why? Isn’t that the end goal? Be popular enough that results don’t matter that much? It’s never been my feeling that being try hard is celebrated in f1 (unless you in the running for titles).
Maybe his cars have been like your time in CRG with that team. Just not a good fit. Bad equipment, bad environment.
Yeah the hallmark of a great driver is their ability to hoof anything well and adapt to what’s under their butt. I think you are a great example of that, Tanguy, and can understand why you’d say that about Daniel. But I also know that even you have had some issues with chassis/car that you couldn’t adapt to either. Maybe Daniel is in the equivalent of your CRG (or my ignite).
Interesting point you bring up Alonso because he also got bested by Ham in the same car at Mclaren. And if I recall the last couple years Kimi was in F1 he was held back by a shit car, obviously still a great driver but a driver can only do so much. Much of this also depends on how willing the team is to try and change a setup to suit a driver or not. Really Ricciardo was on an upswing and figuring out the Renault in his second year but he had already signed for Mclaren.
The chassis was known to be shit (Nobody was close to win with it, top team or not. It was so bad that Dino Chiesa has to do his own specs with Zanardi) and the engine was poorly tuned.
Well technically … Nope. Same number of points, better avg finish for Alonso though Hamilton was the better qualifier
Fair point on Alonso v Ham, but Ham was still getting a little more out of the car in qualifying most likely because he was willing to hang it out that little bit more. Anyhow I feel like the situation with Ricciardo and Mclaren is more complex than just his driving, the team has let him down on numerous occasions also which leads to poor results. Can’t recall how many times Lando would have a nice fast pit stop and they’d botch Ricciardo’s ruining anything he had done, or they’d make a terrible strategy call. Like I said before he’s not performing as well as Lando also, but combine that with the teams shortcomings and it makes it look worse. Then you start to get a bit of a self fulfilling prophecy, team develops car towards Lando and less for Danny because of their results and then it just keeps going.
Side note, I draw some similar comparisons to how a couple of the manufacturers in MotoGP are sitting right now with their bikes. It’s a bit different because you have a handful of riders on the same machine, but a couple (Honda, Yamaha) have gotten themselves into a pickle by developing a machine that only one of their riders can get near the front consistently. Then in the case of Honda when that guy is injured they’re nowhere. By not making a versatile bike they leave themselves exposed. I feel like the same can be said in F1 about how the team will lean towards one driver instead of making a more neutral car that can be tailored slightly to each driver more easily. Probably an oversimplification, but you get the idea.
My thought is that Piastri should be keeping quiet, no need to try and clarify anything at the moment. Depending on all the specifics he could be shooting himself in the foot!
Yeah completely agree, his manager should be doing a better job guiding him what to say (or not) though also. To say categorically ‘I will not be with Alpine next year’ is pretty antagonistic. All he had to say was nothing is confirmed with any team for 23. I feel he’s kinda burning bridges which is never the best strategy.
I dunno about Sargeant, he’s good but I don’t think he’s ready, he’s still making some school boy errors. ‘24 seat quite possibly.
I’d be surprised if these tweets are written by anyone other than lawyers.
His manager is Mark Webber and he should know better.
Unless its youthful exuberance from Piastri, he and his team must be very confident they have an ironclad race seat next year, which must be Ricciardo’s seat.
But this has happened before, most recently with Button trying to leave BAR/Honda to go to Williams.
Its all in the minutiae of contract lingo.
To be fair to Sargeant, he’s in his first full year of F2, the two ahead of him have had 3 years (Drugovich) and 2 years (Pouchaire) and he’s beating a bunch of Red Bull Jnr drivers. He’ll do his FP1 outing at Austin. I think finishing 3rd gives him enough superlicense points, he’s already a Williams driver and its accepted that Latifi won’t be racing.
Seem like a good option for Williams to me.
The strange thing about that story is it claims the FIA contractual recognition board presided over this and decided in Oscar’s favour. One has to assume this process takes time to go through and thus highly unlikely to have happened in the last few days.
This makes the whole Alpine announcement even weirder… if true.