Bottas to Red Bull anyone? https://www.essentiallysports.com/f...h-red-bull-opening-a-seat-at-mercedes-f1/amp/ Supposedly his manager was talking to Honer. If anyjing I guess its to try and find plan B or some leverage when Merc decide to negoiate. After all there wont be a race in Hungary this year when he gets his usual extension. TBH it would be disappointing for Albon, who has been impressive as a support driver. At that point Kyvatt and Gasley are just making up numbers.
Russell came through the Merc development pathway where as Ocon was managed by wolff. I reckon Russell might be favourite over Ocon for that reason. In other news AMG chief executive Tobias Moers is to take over as head of Aston Martin. https://www.essentiallysports.com/f1-news-AMG-boss-to-take-over-as-the-head-of-aston-martin/amp/ Ive seen quite a few articles about Merc and Renault pulling out of F1 in the last 24hours. I particular Giancarlo Minardi also stated he thought Merc would pull out by the end of 2021 citing Laurance stroll tapping wolff to be incharge when he buys the team and rebrands it Aston Martin, rather than Force India. I kinda dismissed them as just a sound bite and taking small parts of truth, squinting really hard until you see something in the tea leaves but that headline has me wondering
Sounds to me like an AMG boss moving to Aston Martin road division rather than motor sport? (I mean the old Aston Martin boss has been fired at the start of the year because of the company drowning in debt and the stock market debacle, so they needed a replacement any way, the F1 section will probably get its own boss)
Even so Aston Martin is a sports car brand and as Stefano Domenicali has shown with the VW group, the road division can hold sway over if a brand looks to enter a formula or not.
https://www.planetf1.com/news/f1-rules-for-2020-2021-2022/ It's officially official, for the first time in it's history Formula 1 has a budget cap. I reckon that's going to be the thing that keeps Renault and Haas in F1, Renault can lower it's investment without walking away, Haas will be hoping to build a more competitive car.
Audi has a number of very fast DTM and GT3/WEC drivers on retainer and Mr Abt hasn't exactly set Formula E on fire. I doubt they were actively looking to remove until his contract expired, but he gave them the perfect excuse to YOLO him out the door. If he had at least run it by his bosses and the FE Challenge guys ahead of time they would probably have told him no, but they might have been on board. If they had been on board and it had played out as part of the post race show it could have been quite funny. But since he didn't tell anyone ahead of time they had no choice to but to kick his arse. Basically he's an idiot who needs to learn to plan ahead better.* *Taking his assertion that it was intended as a prank at face value, which follows since he did talk about doing it on stream beforehand.
I think the biggest issue is the sponsors. Regardless of intent it reflects badly on the team and sponsors who encouraged participation and expected a certain standard of conduct when the audi, Schaefer brand was front and centre. Take the push to legitimise virtual racing, potential gambling getting involved and the lack of respect shown it doesnt seem too harsh to show him the door in my eyes.
Wolff stepping down as team principal rumour https://www.essentiallysports.com/f...as-team-principal-of-mercedes-f1-reports/amp/ And Williams considering a partial or full sale of its F1 team https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/williams-considering-selling-team/4798066/amp/
https://www.planetf1.com/news/williams-formal-sale-process/ The plug hole is gurgling. To think just five years ago Williams was third team overall, had Massa and Bottas driving, Martini and GSK sponsorship and everything was on a steady rise.
There's been a lot of talk of Hamilton's future being very dependent on Wolff's, but with Ferrari now sealed up and Red Bulls insistence on only having 1 top driver, I don't see Hamilton going anywhere. Certainly not till after he's sealed up his 7th WDC. If Red Bull change their mind and open the door, I could see Hamilton move there thougb, or if Totto moves to Aston Martin and they start to pick up, maybe he'll get the band back together after title no7 (and 8?). With Wolff's resignation/ousting, is it about getting Vettel into a Mercedes? Wolff didn't like the idea, but I'm sure the Mercedes board did. Maybe that's why this has happened? As far as I (Eddie Jordan) know, Williams have been considering selling the F1 team to save the engineering company for at least a year or 2. The pandemic has likely twisted their arm a bit.
I can see it being Vettel Hamilton at Merc now. Williams bought over by papa Stroll and renamed Aston Martin with maybe with Wolff at the helm? Bottas and Ocon driving during the rebuilding phase unless Hamilton is somehow tempted to go which i doubt Russell replaces Hamilton at Merc who retires after winning WDC 7 but fails at winning 8 making way for the above pairing
I see no reason why Stroll or Wolff would have anything to do with Williams. Stroll is already part owner of Racing Point who have shown they can do better than Williams with less money, already have strong ties to Merc and will Aston Martin from 2021 anyway. I think Stroll is doing with RP what he had hoped to do with Williams but couldn't.
Toto could buy Williams? He may be leaving merc but could in theory buy Williams and keep his ties to Merc for the PU deal and maybe some tech sharing. Also I'm sure I read about with him leaving Merc could tap up Vettel as Lewis would likely bail. We need an Eddie prediction, he's usually not far off the mark
So reading somewhat between the lines, it looks like Williams/RoKit went the same way as HAAS/Rich... where the sponsor didn't pay up.
Vettel Vs Hamilton with both in mercs would be AWESOME. Would settle the argument of the best driver of their generation, hopefully give us some spice like the Lewis Vs Nico days. Plus the added threat of Redbull with a quickly improving Honda engine, Leclerc unleashed at Ferrari, how good will Sainz be too? Please god let it happen. And I hope vettel gets his pants pulled down by lewis. lol
I reckon Sainz could be very interesting, he's proven he is quick, smooth driving style and isn't afraid to fight. Vet an Ham together they would have to put a proper divider up in that garage, things could get as you said rather spicey.
It sounds more like contractual chicanery than Rich Energy's antics. Rokit is owned by John Paul deJoria of Paul Mitchell and Patron Spirits, however much money the deal was for he's good for it (unlike Rich Energy and the totally huge piles of money we've got in the cupboard yo). It appears the deal was based on Rokit paying each chunk of money at sets points in the season, with those points being defined by the numbers of races as well as dates. So Williams want paying for their first third of the season, but Rokit are saying that they'll be paying for the first seven races once there have been seven races. Williams can truthfully say they have been at 100% of F1 events this year, Rockit can truthfully say they followed the terms of the deal, nobody wins. Williams being put up for sale seems to have triggered a break up clause too, nobody wants to be subsidising a buyout.
