F1 2019 - Teams and Drivers - Who goes where?!

So Sauber is now pretty much (aside from the name) the Ferrari B Team. No real surprise there. Raikkonen apparently still being paid by Ferrari and Giovanazzi who is a Ferrari junior driver.
Will be interesting to see how Vettel reacts to having basically the next generation of Ferrari drivers now fighting for his seat.

Mercedes needs to do something to get their junior drivers in a team. Force India may have been the best bet for a while, but they lost that opportunity with Daddy Stroll buying the team and holding a seat for Ikkle Stroll.
 
Flibster said:
So Sauber is now pretty much (aside from the name) the Ferrari B Team. No real surprise there. Raikkonen apparently still being paid by Ferrari and Giovanazzi who is a Ferrari junior driver.
Will be interesting to see how Vettel reacts to having basically the next generation of Ferrari drivers now fighting for his seat.
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Again.

From what we've seen so far I'm not expecting great things from Giovanazzi. Obviously Ferrari still see some potential to fund Giovanazzi to the tune of Ericsson's millions, but I can't immediately think of any decent F1 driver (let alone top or great) who crashed heavily in 2 of his opening 4 official sessions. Clearly that's a very limited pool of data and would be extremely quick to write anyone off (unless you're Helmut Marko), and Ferrari obviously have far more data than we do, and must rate him if they're willing to bankroll both Giovanazzi and Raikkonen.

Sounds more of a shoot-off between Raikkonen (only reason he's been kept) and Giovanazzi to see who's best equipped to replace Vettel if Leclerc embarrasses him. My guess is that neither will ever race a works Ferrari (again), but whether Vettel stays is down to whether Leclerc is world class or not. Ultimately if Vettel does leave I expect a more established driver to replace him (as I've said perhaps Hamilton as a final hurrah, who must have been tempted by the crowd at Monza).


Flibster said:
Mercedes needs to do something to get their junior drivers in a team. Force India may have been the best bet for a while, but they lost that opportunity with Daddy Stroll buying the team and holding a seat for Ikkle Stroll.
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Mercedes could have quite easily kept Force India as a works team (or half of it) if they'd matched or bettered Perez's sponsors. Clearly they weren't prepared to do that. I still wonder if Mercedes are on the fence about committing after 2021. It's not an idle threat either, they're spending several hundreds of millions a year on the works team, but aren't willing to put up £20m (a measly sum for them) or so to secure some insurance by getting Ocon a F1 drive. Either they don't rate Ocon that much or they aren't (yet) committing long term. Do they rate Russell (apparently not an expensive deal with Williams) more than Ocon?
 
Flibster said:
So Sauber is now pretty much (aside from the name) the Ferrari B Team. No real surprise there. Raikkonen apparently still being paid by Ferrari and Giovanazzi who is a Ferrari junior driver.
Will be interesting to see how Vettel reacts to having basically the next generation of Ferrari drivers now fighting for his seat.

Mercedes needs to do something to get their junior drivers in a team. Force India may have been the best bet for a while, but they lost that opportunity with Daddy Stroll buying the team and holding a seat for Ikkle Stroll.
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I thought that any B teams was being stopped by charlie whiting?
 
The_Abyss said:
You know what he means by B team, and everyone knows what the rules are. Toro Rosso and Haas have, at times, pushed the boundaries of them.
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I think as long as they can demonstrate independent finance and decision processes Charlie is OK. There are also rules on who supplies the bits they use, I think Haas are really close to the limits on this.
Andi.
 
They pretty much started this year with a clone of last year's Ferrari. They have gone down their own aero development path with updates through the season, though. It'll be interesting to see how Haas do next year if Ferrari are giving more support to Sauber instead.
 
Spunkey said:
They pretty much started this year with a clone of last year's Ferrari. They have gone down their own aero development path with updates through the season, though. It'll be interesting to see how Haas do next year if Ferrari are giving more support to Sauber instead.
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It might have looked like a clone, but it handled nothing like one. It was apparently extremely nervous during testing and not much better at the start of the season.
 
Armageus said:
Was hoping they'd dump Grosjean as he's been pretty embarrassing this year.
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I fail to see what Gosjean's appeal is as a driver - he's had a decent run in F1 and not really done anything with it - apart from be clumsy and moan half the time. If he was less accident-prone I think I could understand from a consistency standpoint, but...he's not.
 
Sure - there are other drivers I'd kick out of seats before Magnussen, but then again Haas are not a bottom team and you'd think that they should be able to put someone in the car with some real potential. I find Haas a little frustrating, in that there isn't an ambition to win but instead they just want to do well. There doesn't seem to be a plan over 5 years to say break into the top three teams or plot a course to the constructor's championship. It seems more a case of borrowing as much of Ferrari as they can to keep costs down, get some sponsorship, put two ordinary equally unambitious drivers in the car and hey presto, the Haas dream of having an F1 team is complete and it didn't cost too much. It might not actually win anything, but it is there.

Just how they come across to me, anyway. I don't really understand what the point of Haas is, what is their purpose other than just being in F1.
 
The_Abyss said:
Sure - there are other drivers I'd kick out of seats before Magnussen, but then again Haas are not a bottom team and you'd think that they should be able to put someone in the car with some real potential. I find Haas a little frustrating, in that there isn't an ambition to win but instead they just want to do well. There doesn't seem to be a plan over 5 years to say break into the top three teams or plot a course to the constructor's championship. It seems more a case of borrowing as much of Ferrari as they can to keep costs down, get some sponsorship, put two ordinary equally unambitious drivers in the car and hey presto, the Haas dream of having an F1 team is complete and it didn't cost too much. It might not actually win anything, but it is there.

Just how they come across to me, anyway. I don't really understand what the point of Haas is, what is their purpose other than just being in F1.
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Haas are in F1 to promote the Haas business. That's it.
 
The issue with taking on Ocon or Russell is that it would be short term for the drivers and that would leave haas high and dry in a year or 2’s time. It would also benefit Mercedes and I can’t see Ferrari I mean haas going down that path.
 
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