F1 2022 thread - see post 1 for rules

$$$$$$$$$$

AM finished right behind Alpine yesterday. I wonder if Alonso figures that maybe Apline have maxed out their potential

Stroll junior must be 💩ing himself

Alonso might still be driving well, but he's already past his prime. Both Strolls are probably hoping that his pace will have deteriorated enough that Lance can almost match him, so they can once again say that he's roughly on the same level as a multiple world champion, as they did last year.

Oscar Piastri seems to be the hot favourite. Renault have no association with any other F1 team so Alpine is the only target for their young driver programme.

Alonso has been past it since his final year at McLaren. His driving is now ragged and error prone like the typical fortysomething. I wonder did Vettel leave of his own volition or was he pushed? It's not a very progressive appointment by Aston Martin. Stroll acts like some Premier League club owner who believes marquee signings will guarantee success on the field.

Given how close it is to the Vettel retirement call I'd imagine Alonso knew he was leaving Alpine for a while now. Whether it's a move made by Alonso or not we'll not know for a while, but I'd suspect Alpine may have an eye on the future and told him they weren't renewing his contract next season.

Alonso’s career is just a litany of bad signing decisions, what difference will one more make.

It is one of the great tragedies of the last decade of F1 that we never again got to see the most talented driver of his generation and one of the greatest of all time fight for race wins, championships or even podiums most of the time. It’ll be sad to see him see out his career in another piece of crap as bad as the McLaren Honda. He’s not going to be able to work any more miracles than Vettel has.

Piastri to Alpine is a done deal I presume.

Alpine offered a 1 year deal. Alonso wanted 2 going by SM reports.

Piastri to Alpine and that leaves the 2nd Williams seat as the only one available for 2023 AFAIK

The rest seem to be done deals

All the talk has been Alonso wanting 2 seasons and Alpine only offering 1. So that's a simple move for Alonso. Assume Piastri goes to Alpine, Ricciardo stays put, as you were for everyone else except Latifi gone and replaced by somebody new.

Mad to think Stroll was in the Ferrari driver academy. And that the Ferrari driver academy couldn't afford decent t-shirts...

Alpine losing their better driver in my opinion. Get a bit of a surprise whenever I look at the standings and see Ocon ahead of him. Even if the Alpine improves next season, don’t see Ocon/Piastri competing with the drivers above them.

Alpine feels geared towards Ocon at this stage which probably didn’t help. Presume the money and security was better.

Let's take a look at Ricciardo. He could have stayed at Renault/Alpine and have been number one there. Look where he is now in the sport.

As for Alonso, well he's taken a step backwards by joining Aston.

That aged well

No. Why would Red Bull want Mick Schumacher? Yes he is younger than Sergio but that's about it. He is not much better and Sergio is doing good as a no 2 driver.

I think Alonso has done a Ricciardio aka an Alonso. I hope I am wrong and that Aston Martin come good in the next couple of years but I just do not see it.

As long as Mercedes, Red Bull and Ferrari are still in F1 I do not see Aston Martin winning much.

They are not a Factory works team as yet anyway and Mercedes will not allow them to win.

I don't fully get the comparisons between Alonso and Ricciardo. McLaren completely destroyed Alpine in the championship last year and Daniel even won a race which he'd have had zero chance of doing had he stayed at the Enstone team, so from that point of view he made the perfect move. He's simply underperformed relative to his teammate, which is down to his own performance rather than making a bad career choice.

Alonso always performs 100% and gets the most out of any car he's given, but he's simply made multiple bad moves in his career. Not all of them his fault - joining McLaren in 2007 seemed a good idea and indeed they were far better than the Renault team he just left, but he never could have predicted spy gate and the fall out from that and the fact Ron Dennis would favour his teammate so dramatically after Alonso did the morally correct thing and cooperated with the FIA about the corruption within the team. Alonso only lost that title by 1 point remember, if the team had given him the slightest bit of support instead of working against him at every turn it would have been his third WDC in a row.

He ended up back at Renault for a bit before joining Ferrari which was the correct decision given the bridges were burnt at McLaren and Red Bull were dedicated to their own young drivers. His performances at Ferrari really cemented him as an all time great but the team let him down, just like they did with Prost and Vettel and now Leclerc.

Joining McLaren Honda after that was a huge risk, but nobody knew how bad the Honda engine was going to be and due to the rules it was absolutely guaranteed that no other team had any remote hope of challenging Mercedes at that time so it was probably a worthwhile roll of the dice if he ever wanted another championship.

Joining Alpine has gone about how you'd expect, but it was the only seat he was going to get in F1 at that time so he'd no real choice if he wanted to race. Jumping from them to Aston though, that's just totally inexplicable to me. At some point age is going to catch up with him, he's already clearly not the driver he once was but still better than 80% of the grid, but it's hard to see it staying that way for multiple more years, especially at a team that by most first hand accounts is getting run into the ground by Stroll regardless of the money he's pumped in.