I've obviously got nothing against a women being an F1 driver, as long as it's even vaguely on merit. People call (called?) Pastor a pay driver, but at least he'd shown what he could do in GP2. I think the latest woman to be announced as a F1 test driver was something like 35, had a pretty poor career in DTM, and was related to someone on the teams board, and no doubt came with considerable sponsorship, it's ridiculous.
The sport is male dominated... Fewer girls will be pushed in to the sport by their parents and even fewer sponsors would be willing to take a punt on them when it gets expensive. Assuming that women don't have the ability to compete in F1 is folly. Fewer try and fewer get the breaks.
To take this discussion way off topic there's currently only 3 women in gp3 (none in gp2) and at a quick glance Alice Powell seems the most deserving of her place (winning the Formula Renault BARC Championship). At this rate its going to be its going to be years before we get a female racing successfully in F1, even the Ginetta juniors only have one girl racing (I think, last time I saw it on ITV4 anyway) so theres just not the numbers or talent coming through. Amazingly its been 20 years since any female has attempted a F1 race, according to wikipedia
That would be Giovanni Armarti... who if memory serves me correct, never even made it out of pre-qualifying. The car was a dog though... Not sure that made a whole lot of difference.
She got replaced by Damon Hill. Reading up on her on wiki, It turns out she got the seat in F1 because her then boyfreind was Flavio Briatore <puke>! please log in to view this image
Not sure if this has been posted, but here is a link in relation to the "20 million" a year contract potentially making him the £100 million man! http://www1.skysports.com/formula-1/news/12479/7777299/-McLaren-to-offer-Hamilton-100m-deal- If as the report suggests that the Merc, Ferrari & Red Bull are unlikely to either offer him a seat or pay that type of money, why would Mclaren offer that type of contract? Interesting take in this link; http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/formula-1/lewis-hamilton-lands-95million-deal-846738 It appears that the contract would be weighted towards his final years, ramping up year on year meaning he would earn nearly 33% of the 100 million package should he see out the final year of the 5 year contract - puts a slightly different slant on things.
Hi Smithers ! I've edited this quote from your post because you may have inadvertently answered your own question. McLaren know that the further ahead one looks, the more the future becomes hazy. They also know that keeping Hamilton happy is a good idea if they really want to show they are committed to keeping him. "Ramping up" his earnings is a dangling carrot; and one which they will want to dangle for as long as possible.
Cheers Cosi, found the other link Re: ramping up his income after I had already posted. With hindsight probably should have posted them seperatley. For me, if Mclaren are confident that none of the other teams would either offer him a drive or pay the money he expects, then why do they feel the need to offer such a large package? I dont think Ferrari would have 2 x £20 million drivers, I cant see Redbull paying him that when they have a double world champion on circa 10-12 million and mercedes are showing an interest in PD, i would imagine at about 3 million a year - big difference. I cant see why there is such a delay, there is either a deal to be done or there isn't.
I'm not sure why anyone would want to sign for McLaren at the moment. Heiki would probably think twice if offered a chance these days and I bet that Button was wondering if he made a mistake signing for so long after Monaco too.
Mclaren probably want Lewis to help promote their new cars coming out. Americans love Lewis (I think) so he can help them sell a lot of cars making them all a bucket load.
I never thought of that - makes a little more sence. However, you have got to sell a lot of cars to make up the extra 5-10 million a year! Plus, if he doesn't win the championship this year and RB, Ferrari & Merc get their line ups right, he could be struggling for a while. He is after all only a single WDC like Kimi and Jenson and if Vettle or Alonso add to their tally making them a triple WDC, Lewis's advertising stock will fall even more! I think he would have more value to the Red Bull brand rather than a corporate car brand.
Yes yes, that exactly what I meant, obviously. The point I was making, for the hard of thinking, is that McLaren appear to be a team going backwards, floundering and lost not knowing what is happening etc, by their own admission which makes them a less and less attractive prospect for any driver. Yes, there may be some amazing mind games going on, but drivers, team principles and team "insiders" all saying that they don't know what's going on with their car and the new tyres is not a good sign, which makes for a less attractive team. I may have gone a little far, for effect, in hinting that someone might want to stay at a team like Caterham rather than moving to a bigger, more established team like McLaren, but I would have thought that the very absurdity of hinting that they'd rather stay at a smaller team than move to McLaren right now would have precluded this from being a serious suggestion. My bad.
lewis already makes mclaren big money,he has a HUGE following.and lewis stock wont drop,because ppl enjoy his style and the drama he brings,so its not really about the amount of wdcs he has.also i think most rational ppl can see his team has cost him ALOT of points this season.the underfuelling incident cost him the most points,especially when you consider how well he drove in that race,he could have easily won the race,but he's still only 13 points off the lead,and he's very strong in canada,he was super quick there last year before he was taken out.he'll do agood job in quali,then we'll see how his luck is during the race,and how he performs.
I don't think Lewis's potential value to the McLaren sports car brand should be measured in units sold but in establishing the brand in the public imagination for its long-term future.
I dont dispute that Lewis would potentially be leading this championship if things had gone his way, he has driven very well and deservesto be higher up. My point was, that whilst true F1 fans understand the strengths of the drivers and their true value, from a world wide advertising prospect, the most recent WDC will stand out and a multiple WDC will stand above a single WDC. My point being that regradless of how well Lewis drives and how entertaining his style is, his reputation as a WDC in 2008 is getting further and further away. My comments were in no way an attempt to put Lewis down.
drivers who can win a WDC in the best car are 2 a penny, drivers who can win a WDC without it aren't, and I can really only see 3 of the on the grid, Alonso, Vettel and Hamilton, that's why he'll get the big bucks.
In my opinion the only drivers on the grid that actually have won a WDC without the best car are Alonso, Button and Raikkonen.
