Nobody mentioned Horner's comments on LH

Caporegime
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If Hamilton does do as you suggest, he will probably be one of the first (top) F1 drivers in the last few decades, to sit out their entire career in a lesser team, simply for the sake of loyalty..

Villeneuve blew his career for the sake of missplaced loyalty. I would hate to see Hamilton do anything like the same, but he won't be his management team is not pollock.
 

JRS

JRS

Soldato
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The kind of loyalty that Jackie Stewart and Ken Tyrrell had, or the kind that Jimmy Clark and Colin Chapman had before that, has always been pretty rare in F1. Right from the beginning of the World Championship in 1950, drivers have chopped and changed to get into the best seat.

If RBR continue to stay at the top and McLaren start backsliding down the order, Hamilton will certainly make himself available to RBR. And I for one would love to see Hamilton annihilate Vettel in equal machinery :D
 
Soldato
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You got to ask yourself if Mclaren is becoming the next williams. Great team but on the downward trend. It has had two years with a bad car and this year it doesn't look like its up there. We know they can develop a car during the season but will it be enough for lewis?
 
Soldato
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I don't think they are in danger of becoming the next Williams.

They have a bigger budget and have a very good business/commercial team filling their coffers. They are also happy to "sell out" and advertise themselves heavily. This is something I never once saw Williams do. I'm assuming that if sponsors such as Vodaphone are allowed to use a team's car/drivers in their adverts, that the sponsorship deal for the year, will be higher.

I think Williams are very proud of their purist/F1 engineering team status. Ultimately, this meant that their budget never climbed at the same rate as McLaren and they fell behind the leaders.

Furthermore, in Willams' case, they lost Mansell, Prost, Senna, Hill, JV, in (almost) successive years. All of them world champs. You can't lose top class drivers at that rate and expect to still be competitive. They do not appear to have the ability to hold on to their World Champions. McLaren on the other hand do not suffer from this problem.

McLaren's big problem seems to be their design team. In the last few years, they have had a poor Winter, but are very good during the season. Another problem is that RBR have been stellar.
 
Associate
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i agree with most of what you said but how many more bad winters can they have before the big sponsors shy away for the teams which are actualy wining things?

They have won races every year since 2006, and won races every year for a decade before that. Mclaren had a fairly bad start to the year in 2009, and by the end of the year they were one of the fastest cars. In 2010 they were the 2nd/3rd fastest car behind a surprisingly fast Red Bull, but still won races. This year hasn't even started yet, anything could happen. Sponsors aren't going to suddenly run away from Mclaren just because they haven't won a WC for a couple of years.
 
Soldato
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Well, if Hamilton (and perhaps Button) leave, my suspicion is that the wins will dry up. If this happens, then sponsors will either reduce the money they pay OR they will migrate to the winning teams. Remember, all companies want to be associated with winners and good things. Very few companies will pay top whack to have their names of losers and bad things.

A great example of this was when Renault were involved in the crash scandal. If memory serves me correct, many of their sponsors dissolved their deal with Renault.

Another point is that some sponsors like to follow drivers around. My suspicion is that Hamilton is a very big draw for sponsors. And when making a sponsorship deal, having him on your team will be factor during negotiations.

Williams' major problems is that as soon as they had a proven World Champ in their car, he would leave. This makes it mighty difficult to negotiate big sponsorship deals, even if the previous year, your team won the title. Any sponsor would be very sceptical of whether or not the team will continue winning, given that their No.1 driver has just left the team.

I still wonder in amazement at how high-tech Mclaren's HQ looks. It looks as if it belongs in the 22nd century. If only their car design team were as hot.
 
Soldato
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Well following LH's statement that DBR are 'just a drinks company' I dont think a move is that likely.

If a driver is fast and gets the job done, you'll by surprised how easily a team/management will forgive that driver for their mistakes. This sort of thing happens in pretty much every sport.

i think rather than the drivers move, mclaren will do some design team poaching.

This would be the logical way forward. Unfortunately, logic isn't always followed.

3 days till Friday practise.
 

alx

alx

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Don't Mclaren switch designers for each seasons new car? So one designer designs a car, then works with it through the season whilst another designer works on the car for the following season.

Think this has been pointed out before, and obviously isn't very helpful for continuity.
 
Soldato
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Don't Mclaren switch designers for each seasons new car? So one designer designs a car, then works with it through the season whilst another designer works on the car for the following season.

Think this has been pointed out before, and obviously isn't very helpful for continuity.

Maybe I read something wrongly in 2011 pre-seoson bumph - but I dont believe this happens anymore (as in 2011 is the first car that it hasnt happened)

After the recent defection of a lead McLaren designer to Ferrari I think they assimilated the teams more than they had previously

(please correct me if Im wrong, but I understand this to be the case)

edit - Im wondering whether LH's quote is sig worthy , I did find it highly amusing
 
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