Anybody speak Swiss German and looking for a new job? 😂
https://www.jobs.ch/de/stellenangebote/detail/10517904/
Kimi has been odd, he shows flashes of brilliance and then does something really dumb, he has had a good run I guess it's time. I could see Bottas going to Alfa if it looks like the car is bit more competitive under the new regs. Any chance of him going back to Williams I wonder?
Williams is probably his only other option apart from Haas so from that point of view, its certainly possible.
He has limited options it seems. I would favour Williams over Alfa but you never know when it comes to money and so forth.
I am not his biggest fan at all, but it would be a shame for him to not have a seat next year.
I wouldn't be suprised if Bottas went into Rallying and left F1.
Hes done a few Arctic Rallys each year afaik and has hinted at wanting to do rallying before retiring.
Would love to see a Journo raise this with Lord Lewis this weekend
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Lewis Hamilton has described Sebastian Vettel's five-second penalty for crashing into Valtteri Bottas as a "tap on the hand" and believes his title rival deserved a harsher punishment at the French GP.
Vettel collided with Bottas at the first corner and, though he was penalised by race stewards as both cars suffered damage, he recovered to finish fifth while Hamilton's Mercedes team-mate could only salvage seventh.
Hamilton avoided the chaos from pole, comfortably won the race and now leads Vettel by 14 points in the championship standings, but was still unhappy with the penalty the Ferrari driver received.
"Ultimately, when someone destroys your race through an error and it's kind of a tap on the hand really - they're allowed to come back and still finish ahead of that person he took out - it doesn't weigh up," said Hamilton.
"You shouldn't really be able to finish ahead of him if you took him out of the race."
Most drivers or teams have done this throughout the history of F1,outrageous stuff altogether!!
Firstly, having taken a couple of days away from this forum to cool down I want to apologize for my recent postings.
I still stirve to treat Lewis Hamilton just like any other driver on the grid, that is to praise him when he drives well and criticise him when he blatantly does not, at all times though, treat him with respect for his achievements to date.
Moving on. How water tight are Vandorne and DeVris's contracts at the Formula E team? Would Toto put some consideration into putting Bottas over there?
He could always join DTM
I think if Bottas plays out the rest of the season in a support role and makes peace with that role he will still be there next year
Not good news for the Dutch GP
Netherlands banning festivals in August. While the GP is in September, these restrictions have a tendency of sprawling. But at the same time, I wouldn't be surprised if the Dutch make an exception for the Max Verstappen GP
https://joesaward.wordpress.com/2021/07/26/dutch-doubts/
Surprised that they would cancel altogether if the fans can’t go, surely other events would have faced the same difficulty?
Although I do remember the Dutch pretty quickly binning off the rest of the 19-20 Eredivisie when COVID came in, so maybe it’s just how they handle things.
It would be a real shame, not only for Max, but for the F1 season - I think everyone had this race in mind after what happened at Silverstone.
I would think so, and the most recent races suggest as much. Hasn’t been too outspoken about team strategy, and Hamilton has been singing his praises as a teammate. His best option in the sport is definitely to try and keep his Mercedes seat.
I think a big problem for him, if he is let go, is convincing another team that he’s their man. He’s not managed to set the world on fire at Mercedes-9 race wins in 4 and a half seasons in the dominant car is ok, but it’s fairly up and down, he hasn’t been consistently improving. And if he can’t be consistent in the Mercedes, how will he do in a lesser performing car?
Add to that his likely high wage demands and it’s basically only Alfa if Kimi leaves that would be an option, but by no means an obvious one. Alfa could easily decide to try and get a younger driver and save some money.
The more I think about it, the likeliest scenario for me now is that he either keeps his Merc seat or isn’t on the grid next season.
I'd say fans are essential to make it work financially. The circuit is on the edge of the city of Amsterdam so the city was in line for a huge boost in activity if it went ahead. No fans means no money so there's a great chance the government will bin it if the restrictions still apply.
They might decide to absorb the cost, but it would be expensive.
It's interesting that nobody is pulling out the excuses from the vettel excuse list. It was used pretty reflexively last year for vettel but nobody has even thought about using it this year for Bottas. Some highlights include:
Treated terribly by the team, can't be expected to perform well.
Car doesn't suit him (no evidence needed)
Car is built and designed for his teammate (no evidence needed).
He's much faster than this, he's just not trying because he was treated badly.
I think the reason he's so comprehensively beaten by Hamilton is that he just isn't as fast as Hamilton, who is a tip top driver and extremely consistent. Bottas is decent but not top tier or even second tier and so is consistently outshaddowed by his teammate. But isn't is interesting that nobody has thought to rehash the Vettel excuse checklist for Bottas? Even the obvious ones like the car being built for Hamilton's preferences.
I think he's driving really well this year, the only poor races he's had were in Baku when he was the sacrificial lamb, and France when he called the correct strategy on the radio but the team stuck with a one stop. In my opinion his key battle this season is to beat Perez consistently, which he has been doing. He's never been spectacular but he's been remarkably consistent throughout his career and I think he's ideal for a midfield team who want someone who is reliable and solid.
I think its unlikely he will end up back with Williams, primarily because of the money. Its hard to argue that he wouldn't be a massive upgrade on Kimi or Giovanazzi at this point in their respective careers.
Its not that interesting really.
I get that its raceweek though so time for you to start this stuff up again.
Not even the "car is designed for his teammate" shtick. That was a big one last year when vettel needed a dig-out.
Suppose it depends on the popularity the driver. More popular drivers get more excuses. The usual story.
Vettel is a 4 time WDC, so I think it's natural for some people to look at other factors because they've seen how good he's capable of being. Bottas has never had a period in his career of sustained top performance or dominance where you could think "we've seen how good he was, there must be something else wrong".
The car being developed to suit Hamilton is a complete non-runner, we've seen Russell race in it after a couple of days of driving it and he was a puncture away(after a botched pitstop) from at least a podium. If someones doing that well in a short space of time you would expect more from Bottas.
The team preference is fairly obviously Hamilton, but even still, he's never really put Mercedes in a position where they'd really have to think about that.
Simple fact is he's an ok driver in a great car. He's never been consistent enough to be considered anything more than that.
I'd agree with that assessment re the car design. But I think the fact that it suited Russell doesn't meannit suits Bottas. Last year we got entirely bais based assertions that the Ferrari was built for Leclerc (even before he drove for the team. Not joking, some posters went as far as saying that).
I think bottas is just good and not great, so he's outshone his top tier teammate. But like you said, people found it hard to accept the same reasoning when Vettel was beaten by a faster teammate.
Leclerc has gone on to prove pretty conclusively, over the last 3 years since he joined Ferrari, that he's just better than Vettel is. And instead of applying the same logic to both, the excuses are roled out for one and not even considered for the other. Likeability is a big difference in the calculation.
Toto on Bottas this morning saying "If we come to the situation that we wanted to give somebody else a go, then it's not only my relationship with him but also the responsibility that he has a great future, because he deserves that" - sounds like he will be leaving based off this.
Red Bull have lodged a petition to review the penalty given to Hamilton. As required for the petition, it is based off new evidence that wasn't available to the stewards at the time. After the flexing wings, pit stops and now this, I personally hope both teams are given a firm shoe up the arse and told to grow up.
Sounds like a load of virtu signaling pisshh from Mercedes and Hamilton.
Is there any topic you can't shoehorn a bit of Vettel hate into?
As for Bottas, he's doing everything Mercedes ask of him so I would be very surprised if they replaced him.
They're not even pretending that he's there to do anything other than support Hamilton these days. He spends qualifying acting as a tow truck rather than optimising his own performance, his race strategy is always built entirely around disrupting Red Bull rather than maximising his own result, and in the event he overcomes those hurdles and ends up ahead of Hamilton without other cars between them then they just tell him to invert the cars anyway.
He's had this role since he joined Mercedes, he's one of the slower drivers on the grid but also the most compliant. Toto Wolff has never hidden the fact he doesn't want a repeat of Rosberg, he's stated as much publicly. Put an above average driver in the second Mercedes and if and when they beat Hamilton regularly, Lewis will start throwing toys out of the pram, putting conspiracy theories against his own team out into the media, making private telemetry available to competitors, and all the other things he's done in the past when he's had to race another driver on fair terms.
Yeah pretty cynical throwing a few quid at a charity to try and distract from the fact that their dirty tactics are being further investigated. The charity doesn't come from their budget cap of course, unlike Red Bull's repairs.
Hamilton donated 20m of his own money to it, hardly a few quid nor a 'virtue signal'
I would say this is a standard process for them to ensure they have all their ducks in a row regarding the potential overspend they have now because of a wrecked engine - as far as I understand it, they can go over budget, but need to evidence why that is at the end of the season to the FIA(could be wrong there!)
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Don't even bother with that here. Lewis could donate both his kidneys to dying kids and posters would call it virtue signalling.
I know, doesn't mean they shouldn't be called out on their idiotic stance, and one can just look at their post history to see the foundations of their objections
