What does he do if Lotus is definitely not an option? He left FI for Sauber for a better drive and may now go back to FI for a better drive, even though he has an option at Sauber which in reality turned out to be no better or worse than his drive at FI!? Would make your head explode!
It is from a few day's ago , but Sauber would have known about the option to go to FI . I find it hard to believe they would now withdraw that offer . If I was a betting man , I would say sauber are the better option , but perhaps they cannot afford him ?
I'm not certain that Lotus was necessarily the best option anyway. There has to be uncertainty due to their financial state and losing James Allison. All three teams have had money problems anyway. Personally, at this point I'll be happy as long as he has a drive although, as BLS says, the promise of Hulk and Pérez as team mates is an exciting one. Also, Gutiérrez never gets a mention but I hope Sauber keep him on because, IMO, he's done the most of the rookies to justify his seat.
Apart from Bianchi But I quite like Gutierrez, he's done more than I thought he would, he's obviously quick on his day and I think with a bit more experience he'll turn out to be a solid mid fielder at least.
I agree on Esteban. He seemed very poor in the first part of the season but in the 2nd half he really grown with the increased performance of the car. We made a few jokes about him in the rain too but he looked very good in all wet sessions.
Mercedes turbo engine is so powerful it sets fire to itself on the dyno (or could have been a small oil leak as said in the article). http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/111628 Ferrari have lodged a complaint to the FIA to say that only internal combustion is allowed and the Mercedes is thus illegal.
That's a fair point. It's hard to judge Bianchi in that car though and his team mate isn't much use as a yardstick.
In mid-October his race engineer Paul Davison described Bianchi's qualifying lap in Malaysia as "best qualifying lap I have ever seen in one of our cars." Some high praise considering that Glock had been with Marussia for 3 years. To put into perspective just how good this lap was, he was 0.2 behind Bottas and 0.3 behind Vergne. After that interview was the Indian GP, which Bianchi said was his best qualifying of the season. At this point in the season the midfield had pulled away from Marussia and even Caterham were quite far ahead. Yet he managed to beat the Caterhams and was only a tenth behind Maldonado. It's often difficult to judge his performances, but he's had those standout moments like Alonso in 2001, and he's thrashed his teammate all season. I can't see what more he could have done in a Marussia. Full interview with Davison:
It had an oil leak on the test bed. The only reason it's been publicised is because the fire dept tweeted about it. Am sure the others have had the odd setback as well. Does bode well for some good ole fashioned turbo fires in 2014! Here's my old friend Andrea de Cesaris to demonstrate [video=youtube;FqbQVBSkwjg]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqbQVBSkwjg[/video]
Brawn confirmed to leave Merc.... But you already knew that http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/25125831
Marussia to merge with sauber? If we end up with 10 teams, we are back where we started Well done Bernie
And Marussia's hard earned attempt for 10th in the WCC was all for nothing as they won't get any aditional cash this year either, but may get $30m next year if they repeat a top ten finish. Will they still be around?
Also all 3 teams (USF1, Campos Meta & Manor) that won entry will have disappeared due to the big F1 con they all sold up to. Will they open up entry to new teams? I doubt it. A couple of other teams are on the rocks too so maybe we will have Monty's crazy 3 car rule....yay.....lets have medals and sprinklers too while we are at it...
I seem to recall BE stating he wanted a 20 car grid quite a while ago, would it mean there's a slightly bigger piece of the pie for everyone else though?
Don't think it will, as I seem to remember the deal for the new teams was they would receive additional monies so the other teams did not lose out from having to spread the pot.
This is all well and good , but what happens when the Manufacturers have had enough and pull out ( which they will ) ? The little teams HAVE to be supported .
How much of the pie do they get between them anyway? It always seems to me that FOM need the teams far more than the teams need FOM. If the teams could speak as one (which Bernie does an excellent job of stopping), surely they'd be in a position to negotiate a greater share of the profits, which would stop the current financial problems of several teams. In turn, you'd expect that to allow drivers to be picked on talent not funding, increasing the skill in the sport, increasing the competition, and logically increasing the takings! I mean, if the average race fee is £20m, that's ~£400m a season, or the budgets of the bottom 5 teams. The money really should be in the sport to support a full grid.
