Three things I'd like to contribute: 1. I agree with the notion that Alonso is fundamentally quicker than Räikkönen. 2. Ricciardo is very quick. However, in Vettel's back yard, he will be confined to gardening duty and not given keys to the gates. Unfortunately, he'll be expected to keep quiet for a long time, just pulling up the weeds Marko's single eye can pick out… 3. Prediction: Next year's provisional announcement of 21 races will not materialise. With a realistic ceiling of 20, at least one of that list will not happen.
I agree cosicave funnily enough, Sebs role has become more senior with regads to his role within the team now Webber has been given the heave-ho by the Malaysia incident. I'm starting to believe the reason for Vettel's short extension until 2015 and Ricciardo's signing is because it's now a certainty that Seb will not be in Red Bull for much longer and the real reason why they avoided Kimi as he is really 2-4 years away from retiring IMO and not because of the rubbish that comes out from Benson that Kimi isn't fast enough. It seems Helmut and RBR are desperate the find his replacement before he leaves after 2014-2015 seasons so they have taken to long term route, focus on vettel and keep winning, get a new young driver who is drilled into the system of Sebs way of thinking from 2016+. Daniel seems to be that man to make the grade of possible future world champion material, but only until Seb is out of the way. I always believed that Webber's experience played against Seb in the team as it was clear to see in 2012 that Red Bull were clearly looking for silverhaired wisdom over a young double world champion. I doubt Vettel will be given complete "defacto no 1" over Daniel BUT! it would be nieve to overlook the fact that Vettel would be the more experienced of the 2 and that his direction of development would be more suited to his needs than Daniel and that Infiniti are making a killing off Vettel's reputation in the middle east (Sales up 58%) and getting stronger in America and Europe. Red Bull helps Seb win more races + WDC's Vettel helps develop their new talent, to a degree of course!
Not really contributing much to the debate here, but I have no clue why anybody would want to buy an Infiniti car... they're bloody ugly. I think they must be styled by morris dancing, herbal tea drinking, caravaning, rambling, carpet slipper wearering naturists.... Had to get that off my chest.
Yesterday's Autosport magazine said that Calado's deal with Force India will make him reserve driver for 2014 as well. Also if this wasn't already obvious, Domenicali ruled out Bianchi for the Ferrari seat: Something a little more surprising is the rumour that Sainz could replace Ricciardo at Red Bull, not da Costa:
YES SAINZ JR! <3 He stormed the young drivers test! Sainz just seems designed for F1 with that kind of raw speed he showed.
Sainz is too young. Plus he hasn't exactly set the world alight in his series this year. He did well at the young drivers test but Da Costa has shown good pace as well.
There have been plenty of talents who have done very well in junior series but fail even better at F1 when entering it. So Sainz's future won't be decided because of that, Alonso and Vettel in particular didn't have a junior success rate as good as Hamilton and Hulk for example, but they're the the ones with the lions share of world titles not the junior pros. Di Grassi is another drive who I felt was a strong junior driver, but failed to perform in F1 he seemed to have peaked in Euro F3. Teams don't really care how many trophies you had won before F1, "the clock doesn't lie" as they say and Red Bull will very curious to try and tap into that speed as much as possible. In all honesty I was gobsmacked how fast Sainz was that day against a guy like Ricciardo who is very strong in qualifying, this his first time in an F1 car... 19 is young, but get that kid into an F1 car next year and spend 2-3 years seeing how he develops and so smoothing out the edges and you might just find Sebs replacement for 2016+ and still only aged 22-23. Seb and Alonso were 19ish when they started F1 and it worked to get them in earlier!
Silver and I met some Tifosi in Spa. They'd love Kimi back and seemed to not care if Fernando was there or not.
That would be interesting. Expensive, but interesting. Hope that one comes off, Williams don't deserve to be so far back. As for Raikkonen, it surprises me that Ferrari didn't get a deal done by Monza... suspect that one will run and run and run and run now.
Sauber team principal Monisha Kaltenborn confirmed the team will race Sergey Sirotkin in F1 next year providing he completes enough mileage to gain his superlicence. "We know that we would like to have Sergey next year as our driver but he still needs a super-licence and that’s something which he should take serious!. So we shouldn't think that he’s just going to get it like that. We are convinced he can do it, we will do our best to prepare him, but it still is a big step. If that all works out we will see what options we have and announce that in due course.” Source
Massa said: "This race was important, not just for my contract but also to show the other teams what I'm able to do." Interesting.
Sehr interessant. Where would Massa go though? Could Sauber be looking for an experienced driver to replace an outgoing Hulkenberg perhaps?
AMuS reporting that Raikkonen to Ferrari is a done deal. http://www.auto-motor-und-sport.de/...kkoenen-wechselt-2014-zu-ferrari-7693815.html
Interesting to see how the dynamic at Ferrari shifts now. I doubt Kimi is going to Ferrari as a number 2, last time Alonso had a teammate who could match him, things got ugly. Plus i highly doubt Kimi would go if he thought he was going to be Alonso's lackey.
I love Kimi... but I can't help but think Hulk woukd have been the wiser choice for the future. Will be interesting to see how two Alpha drivers work out for them too.
Hearing rumours that Kimi's definitely going to Ferrari.....but also that Fernando's heading back to Lotus with Santander!