New regulations new season....
Can redbull keep up the pace
Happy for gasley is this is true. He showed great development since the red bull disaster. This season hasn't been brilliant but I think he has great potential.
Hope the deal goes through
Looks like Gasly is off
I said if he's without a seat - I didn't say he would be without a seat. But if he is without a seat, it will be entirely his own fault, and by definition it will be because he tried to break his contract.
Yea I'm going to call bullsh1t and say you havent seen and don't know the terms of Piastri's Alpine contract to back up that statement... we have no way of knowing who was in the wrong until the ruling from the CRB comes out.
With Hamilton destroying his engine by crashing into Fernando last weekend does that mean he will take grid penalties this weekend??
FYP
Yes I would say it is possible.
With Hamiltons engine deciding to eat itself does that mean he will take grid penalties this weekend??
There as a rumour doing the rounds too that one or both of the RB’s were running with the new floor for the two races before the summer break! It doesn’t seem to have impacted performance in anyway from what we’ve seen
Horner was adamant all along that this TD didn't impact RB.
I wonder how much the recent rule change with the floors has to do with Max's outlandish pace, if there is a link?
Yeah if he ends up missing an F1 seat next year it's hard to have any sympathy for him and he has only himself to blame. If he does end up at McLaren he better perform because no team is going to want to touch him when they can't trust him to honour his contract or to act professionally, unless his speed is just too good to ignore.
Think Piastri’s F3 and F2 performances eclipsed both of them in fairness but seats are not always performance alone.
It makes you think how many drivers in the past were protected from silly impulse due to lack of social media.
Recent examples include Tsnouda and Schumacher
I'm not saying he will, but many drivers have worked themselves up the lower leagues with equally impressive records as Piastri has yet withered when it comes to getting their seat in formula 1. Again it might not happen, but there's an element that he might not be the F1 driver that is hoped for due to the pressure
Yeah, Alpine didn’t handle it well at all - trying to have their cake and eat it too. Piastri is recognised as a special talent so you can’t keep him on the sidelines forever.
Still think the tweet was an awful idea, just because it shows teams that he’s prepared to publicly throw them under the bus if things aren’t going his way. A statement should have come from his representation saying that Alpines statement is not true and discussions are ongoing, or something to that effect.
I am looking forward to seeing how he does in the McLaren, though, him v Norris could be very interesting.
He was about to sign for mclaren. Mclaren needed to know he wasn't looking to string them along. He had to publicly say he wasn't driving for Alpine. I doubt he primarily intended to humiliate Alpine, it was mostly about stating his position and committing to mclaren.
Not to mention that, as far as Piastri was concerned, Alpine announced him as thier driver outside the terms of the contract. So he was well within his rights to make his position clear. Well find out who was right when the ruling is made.
Yeah the only thing Piastri did wrong was that stupid tweet - heaping unnecessary pressure on himself doing that. But what a fascinating mess it is, I can't wait to see him in a McLaren next year - Norris will be a great test.
In other news, the Porsche / Red Bull partnership not a done deal at all it seems?
The way I see it, Alpine were stringing Alonso on and would only give him a 1 year contract when he wanted two. They did this to give themselves the option of Alonso or Piastri for 2024. They were stringing Piastri along with a chance of a drive in 2024 too, but he could have ended up at Williams for 2023 and 2024. In the end they have looked to pissed off both drivers and lost both.
A quiet word behind closed doors wouldn’t work. It was surreptitious for a reason. He must have started the mclaren talks well in advance of Alonso's leaving announcement. So he needed to stretch it out until after the supposed contract deadline.
What was he supposed to tell Alpine? Tell them he's running down the clock so he doesn't have to drive a Williams (which turned out to be an alpine)? What exactly should he have said behind closed doors to Alpine?
There having no loyalty and there is making a right prick out of your employer.
There can be no argument here. Piastri handled it wrong.
He could have spoken behind closed doors to Alpine and even if it still went to the CRB, at least he wouldn't have publicly embarrassed his boss and employer. That won't be forgotten and to be honest I think he deserves abit of a lesson in the form of another year on the sidelines.
And there is a huge difference between those two cars.
Ye the Williams is quicker lol at least one was in Spa and got into Q3.
Side note, I miss the Setanta/Eir Sport days
I miss the season long live Channel 4 F1 coverage. Stupid Sky and Bernie Ecclestone's greed.
I can see many more of you missing it soon too. We will all have to start tightening our belts soon and start making cuts you do not want to make if you have not already made them.
We are in for some tuff times ahead :(
Well, that's how it turned out but Alpine weren't trying to get him into the Alpine for next year. They were trying to get him into the williams and Piastri was trying to get himself into the Mclaren. And there is a huge difference between those two cars.
Alpine offered him the Alpine seat after Alonso announced he was leaving and he believed he was out of contract. But that's the part which is in dispute so we'll have to wait and see what the ruling is.
It's not just about the Willians/Alpine vs Mclaren. It's also about the ability negotiate his pay working conditions which probably really only exists with mclaren and not if he just extends the Alpine contract.
There was a lot at stake and it was a gamble.
Agree that expecting loyalty is nonsense, I don’t think he owes them anymore than what’s in his contract. And if Alpine asked him to drive in the Williams in 2023 when he knew McLaren is interested, then yeah, absolutely he should fight to be in the best car possible.
But that’s not what happened. They gave him the Alpine seat, which is very close generally to the McLaren. And it’s looking like they had every right to do that because he’s still under contract.
So instead of just looking forward to his first year in f1, he publicly embarrassed his current employer-and I can only assume Webber encouraged it to pressure Alpine which is just awful advice.
All of this will of course be forgotten if he drives the wheels off the McLaren but the pressure will be on from the start.
Ah, it was a gamble to have autonomy in his career moves for the next few years. Not to mention the money and work conditions he could negotiate outside the Alpine contract.
His options were to muck about at Williams for a year or 2 depending on how long Alonso stayed on. Low wages and probably second dibbs on everything's from strategy to mechanic team when he gets to Alpine in 2024 or 2025. Or negotiate a move to jump straight into a mclaren next year, on more money and with potentially equal status to Norris.
He had to take the gamble. It might pay off yet and he might get everything he wanted. I don't begrudge him the ambition to avoid tooling around in a heap of scrap for a year or 2. The talk of loyalty is total fairytale stuff. Its not real life, it's sport and business and loyalty doesn't really exist (or certainly isn’t mandatory) in either. He was right to look out for number 1.
Lee McKenzie, who was anchoring Channel 4s coverage of the Belgian Grand Prix, did seem to suggest that Mark Webber (Piastri's manager) was supposed to be part of the C4 team that weekend but decided to keep his head low.
Whoever was advising Piastri has done a terrible job. The tweet is only acceptable if you’re 100% sure that you’re out of contract and have another preferred option.
Now it looks like he’s publicly turned down a seat in a mid tier F1 team because he’s had his head turned, and it’s not a great look. If he does go to McLaren he’ll be under immense pressure right from the off, too. They’ve just let go a proven driver because he couldn’t perform, and presumably will have to pay through the nose to get him too.
Dutch Grand Prix this weekend 😎
Not really all that often. He usually beat bottas fair and square. And he usually beat the opposition too so they only occasionally had to put bottas on a slower strategy to interfere with the opposition.
I think Mercedes were always prepared with lots of parts so I never heard about them giving Hamilton the new front wing, or whatever new part, and leaving bottas with the older part. That kind of thing happens with less well resourced teams. Hamilton was clearly the priority driver but it rarely actually manifested because it wasn't needed.
They will need this type of luck and more for a win. At least then they had a legit fast car, not like this year.
Odd, Are you saying Hamilton was not prioritised over Bottas
