Soldato
- Joined
- 18 Oct 2002
- Posts
- 16,124
- Location
- The land of milk & beans
I'm not so sure on that one. I don't think Renaults problems are the drivers.
Vettel leaving Ferrari
- Thread starter Aspecto
- Start date
It's a spec series...
Indeed, more than obvious what the problem is.
Cars are identical. Teams are not.
Flavio is still Alonso's manager isn't he?
In a spec series you can't win by buying "a good seat". Sure, the team makes a difference but it's a limited difference and it certainly doesn't account for the massive margin Stroll won by.
Soldato
- Joined
- 17 Oct 2005
- Posts
- 6,243
- Location
- North of Watford Gap
Stroll is fine. Frankly he helped save one team through his dad and then helped save another through his dad. Ensuring hundreds of jobs are safe and keeping four more cars on the grid, it's hard to have any complaints. Same with Latifi, who's had a heck of baptism, but ought to end up being a solid pay driver.
We've had far, far worse pay drivers over the years. Inoue, Deletraz and Lavaggi to name a few in the pay driver merry-go-round that was the mid 90s.
We've had far, far worse pay drivers over the years. Inoue, Deletraz and Lavaggi to name a few in the pay driver merry-go-round that was the mid 90s.
Permabanned
- Joined
- 15 May 2006
- Posts
- 4,107
- Location
- London
Vettel is currently the best driver in F1 by light years.....
Might not be so next year though, and if he signed for more than a year, which is very likely, AM will need to design a brand new car from scratch for the new regulations.
He has reasonable race pace but is a terrible qualifier. Overall not the worst pay driver we've see in F1 over the last decade or so.
That said even in a spec series all cars are not equal. For example a rich team can afford to replace parts more often. In some series (unsure about F3) they can also buy the 'better' parts such as engines that produce marginally more HP. Add this to having the cash to employ better engineers and it adds up to quite a large advantage. There's a reason why certain teams dominate year in year out. Allegedly that year in particular Prema had more people working F3 than F2 and had Strolls car in the Williams wind tunnel etc. If he hadn't comfortably won that year it would have been embarrassing.
Soldato
- Joined
- 15 Feb 2003
- Posts
- 10,175
- Location
- Europe
Despite Vettel's issues, I woudl say he is still a faster and better driver than Perez.
Perez has become like Hulk and Button a bit of a 'journeyman' to use a phrase I haven't heard in a while. He needs the next step in his career. Lance has actually gotten much better than his days of hacksawing away at the wheel of Williams. He's still not in the top class or even near the top of the second class of F1 drivers though.
Perez has become like Hulk and Button a bit of a 'journeyman' to use a phrase I haven't heard in a while. He needs the next step in his career. Lance has actually gotten much better than his days of hacksawing away at the wheel of Williams. He's still not in the top class or even near the top of the second class of F1 drivers though.
I am not convinced on either count. Pérez has really impressed me in the last few years. I would say that on his day Vettel is the faster driver, but across a season I think Perez would out-perform him. Maybe it's just Ferrari but Vettel also seems to be declining in quality at quite the pace, whereas Pérez seems to be getting better. And while I doubt Vettel will command a salary equal to his current at Aston Martin I'd still expect him to be substantially more costly than Pérez.
I find it strange to see you put Button and Hülkenberg in the same bracket; I would consider Button to be an altogether better driver. Button is a World Champion, and even once bested Hamilton over a season and wasn't thrashed by him in any of their seasons together. Hülk never even managed a podium - something Pérez managed in all three seasons they were together at Force India.
Yeah, he does. After a mediocre 2013 alongside Button in a mediocre McLaren he has never really threatened to get a top seat again.
Yeah, I agree. I stand up for him a lot because I think he gets a lot of undue flack on account of his dad's cash, but I don't imagine him to be a front-running driver.
To Alpha Tauri? Or Alfa Romeo to replace Kimi?
Would make sense, previous Sauber driver and Ferrari academy. Car currently has Kubica's sponsors on it so there are opportunities. Thought HAAS would have been first choice but I suppose Alfa would get first dibs on the 2019 Ferrari to repaint Racing Point style.
I figured, but wanted the point made because people writing/typing Alpha Romeo is a pet peeve
