[Driver] 2018 F1 silly season.

[chillibowl]

Originally Posted by Richard Casto

Another thought is that... maybe "Williams F1" needed someone like Frank with his laser focus to get to this point in the early days. But today, maybe not so much? Not to say they can relax, but my point is that the "optimal" leadership style may change over time given various factors.

the risks SFW took in the past were warranted in that they could and did lead to titles...im not sure any risk that Williams takes these days (with respect to a driver choice, design philosophy, spending choice) will lead to a title now days.

too much of a money gap and the last major risk they took (the 2004? walrus nose) did not work out at all. not sure the team has ever really recovered from that attempt to reshuffle the deck....in hindsight it was a brilliant and admirable thing to try though!

so yeah i agree that leadership styles have to change over time.

the size of the company is so much larger, cost of running facilities higher, number of staff, pension and benefit obligations etc make it a requirement of responsible (and/or conservative) managers and owners to act accordingly...more so for publicly traded companies like Williams.

add to that, Liberty has told the teams they will all be seeing less in the way of prize money for the next couple of years so i suspect we will be seeing more money being required of pay drivers.

anyways, looking past silly season 2018...if RB move to Honda for 2019 and there is an extra Renault power supply available could a potential Sirotkin signing be seen as a possible re-connection of Williams and Renault?

[djinvicta]

I think all of us look at names that may.........or may not join Teams and have sod all knowledge of the politics/reasons why Teams choose drivers, money or no money. Some...are obvious..Stroll. Some....seem damn silly. Outside of the sport, we, actually know nothing of the long term reasoning. Enjoy..tomorrows plonkers will give us everything to talk about on here..

[Graz]

Originally Posted by djinvicta

I think all of us look at names that may.........or may not join Teams and have sod all knowledge of the politics/reasons why Teams choose drivers, money or no money. Some...are obvious..Stroll. Some....seem damn silly. Outside of the sport, we, actually know nothing of the long term reasoning. Enjoy..tomorrows plonkers will give us everything to talk about on here..

We know more than you think in fairness. It's pretty obvious when money is chosen over talent.

If money didn't matter and it was on pure talent/achievement, we'd have a slightly different grid. The likes of Stroll may get there but in a couple of years time. Ericsson wouldn't be there. Sirotkin wouldn't be in the frame.

Wehrlein, Giovannazi (sp...I'm typing from a phone) would be there. Maybe someone would give Rosenqvist a shot. Someone would at least look at Newgarden or even Dixon even though he's getting on. Friiijns is another...he was sht hot, right there with Stoffell VD.

We're talking the drives on the margins though. All the right guys are in the top cars for now with LeClerc primed to replace Kimi in time.

[S griffin]

We'll have to wait till January for an announcement from Williams. So at least we got a time

[F1Guy]

No really F1 related, but.. Massa was appointed President of the CIK/International Karting Commission last week.

A week or so later, under his leadership as Karting President, and as the team leader, this happens!

http://www.racer.com/international/i...on-track-fight

https://youtu.be/AA8lh4SO4ZY?t=1m22s



Useless as a driver, and useless as a leader!

[RWill2073]

That's ridiculous. I mean, he had a whole week to get everything sorted out. How could he not have had everything perfected in one whole week? Useless indeed...

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by F1Guy

Useless as a driver, and useless as a leader!

Seriously? Can you just give it up, or maybe just start your own Massa #1 anti-fan thread that we can all ignore?

Richard

[F1Guy]

Originally Posted by RWill2073

That's ridiculous. I mean, he had a whole week to get everything sorted out. How could he not have had everything perfected in one whole week? Useless indeed...

He didn't need a "whole week" did he?

As a leader, one would think you would only need just 5 minutes before the race, to talk to your team mates about what was going to happen, any tactical decisions, and how to behave on and off the track as part of your team. That wouldn't take much effort - and something a team "leader" would be able to accomplish quite easily. Maybe Massa did have that talk. Maybe he didn't. But a good leader would have avoided that situation from ever accruing.

You're correct. Useless indeed.

[F1Guy]

Originally Posted by Richard Casto

Seriously? Can you just give it up, or maybe just start your own Massa #1 anti-fan thread that we can all ignore?

Richard

Seriously? I'm entitled to my opinion, and my opinion is Massa is a useless driver, and a useless leader.

Maybe just start your own 'I am Massa's #1 fan' thread that we can all ignore??

[wnut]

Originally Posted by F1Guy

Seriously? I'm entitled to my opinion, and my opinion is Massa is a useless driver, and a useless leader.

Maybe just start your own 'I am Massa's #1 fan' thread that we can all ignore??

You are indeed entitled to your opinion, but you are coming over as an unbalanced crank regarding Massa.

If you wish to continue your campaign, follow Richard's excellent suggestion.

[Skam85]

This troll is an unbalanced crank regarding most things F1.
It must be school holidays.

[bella]

Originally Posted by F1Guy

Seriously? I'm entitled to my opinion, and my opinion is Massa is a useless driver, and a useless leader.

Maybe just start your own 'I am Massa's #1 fan' thread that we can all ignore??

hows about elaborating a bit, it might help people understand where you're coming from.

for example, casting aside opinions about driving ability (only people who have worked directly with him can really say much about that one), i can imagine people follow him because he is a Nice Guy, and Nice Guys always have loyal followers. arguably that'd make him a good leader because he'd have few opponents. course that's all very well, but does he know his subject, the politics, and the best way to handle that?

[crmalcolm]

Originally Posted by Richard Casto

Seriously? Can you just give it up, or maybe just start your own Massa #1 anti-fan thread that we can all ignore?

Richard

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by crmalcolm

Good advice. I shouldn’t have even responded.

Richard

[Moneyseeker]

A few thoughts on the Williams position - all IMO of course..

Stroll - Stroll snr has been/is rumoured to be intersted in buying Force India, which would see the Stroll cash exit from Williams if that were the case - not immediately though

Martini - Are rumoured to be coming to the end of their initial term with Williams, just as Williams are in one of their downward dips and you would imagine that Liberty with their more commercial approach to F1, would be an option for Martini to switch to being an F1 partner instead - who knows if both parties have spoken but I am sure all options are explored. If Williams chose Sirotkin, they would be going into 20187 with a driver line up of only a year of F1 between them, which a title partner may view as risky - and both are under the supposed 25 years old that Martini were alleged to have stipulated.

Sirotkin -Williams may be cautious as he was linked with both a Sauber take over and Force India deal, the money for which allegedly never materialised.

Rumoured elsewhere it that Rosberg has put another deal to Williams to run Kubica for the first 7 races at $1M per race budget from his backers, after which if certain criteria has been met he keeps the seat for the remainder of the year. If not Sirotkin gets the driver from them on. This provides an interesting gamble for Williams because if it worked out as above, they would allegedly get more for the drive than Sirotkin is offering and if the criteria is met by Kubica, it is likely that this may out them in a better position in the points table for Williams to reasonably believe that the 'difference' may be made up in FOM income.

The cash cow of moneyed drivers coming up the ranks and buying seats in F1 is going to be impacted by the tighter Superlicence rules introduced in 2016 by the FIA. Notalways the case - but it is often that the drivers with funds are not those that win titles or series and may not be front runners enought to accumulate the points required to get an automatic superlicence.

[wnut]

$80 million a year for 2 engines. $2M per engine per race.

Is $1M per race even significant?

[Moneyseeker]

Originally Posted by wnut

$80 million a year for 2 engines. $2M per engine per race.

Is $1M per race even significant?

Sirotkin is rumoured to have a $15m budget, so less than $1m per race.

[wnut]

Originally Posted by Moneyseeker

Sirotkin is rumoured to have a $15m budget, so less than $1m per race.

Do we have any current figures on what a championship point is worth this year?
Clearly they are indulged in a competency vs money trade off.
Guess you can get the driver's fees upfront and independent of results though.

Maybe we should chuck this in the F1 finance thread.

[wnut]

What is a pay driver worth?
http://classic.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/129388
Number of championship points on offer in 20 x 101 total points per race therefore total season points are 2020
Current year performance bonuses $325M (Based on 2016)
Championship point is worth $ 160 000
Point allocations 25, 18, 15, 12, 10, 8, 6, 4, 2, 1
Assume driver will finish between 4th and 9th, and a good driver will finish 1 place ahead of a pay driver.
20 races (2 points each x $ 160 000) = $ 6.4M.

[Adam43]

The thing is the performance part of the payout isn’t based on points, it’s based on position in the championship, and then some more if your in the top 10 position “over over two of the past three years“. The exact nature of this isn’t clear to me from that article, other than it isn’t directly points based.

You could score 40 more points and not gain anything extra. Or you could score a handful extra and move up three places.

A $/point number isn’t possible. I suppose you can get an indication with the total number of points and total prize, as wnut has done, but it will depend where you are and how close you are in the championship. So basically it is then a risk rather than a direct measurement.

And how good you are as a pay driver. Obviously. Which is the other risk.

And a final risk, how many times someone damagaes the car.

[Moneyseeker]

According to Joe Saward, Kubica's backing is apparently coming from CVC Partners (remember them!) via some Polish companies they have purchased. It seems that Sirotkin's backing may not be that straightforward, as SMP Bank is allegedly subject to certain Russian sanctions (as are its owners) and Williams being a listed company and thereby more accountable on it's funding and subject to certain corporate governance, may wish to avoid that complication...

Hence apparently the pause in announcement is believed for Kubica to go back to CVC for a bigger budget.....

https://joesaward.wordpress.com/2017...ams-situation/

[chunterer]

Being reported that Sirotkin has penned a 2 year deal.

[F1Guy]

Originally Posted by chunterer

Being reported that Sirotkin has penned a 2 year deal.

The deal was done just before Christmas, apparently. Williams waiting for the cheque to clear before making an official announcement, which is expected to be in the coming days.


Flavio Briatore, a close friend to Kubica and Rosberg, said the following on Speed Week a few days ago.

Briatore: "I am very sorry that Kubica did not manage to convince Williams. I have talked to Nico Rosberg several times. I know that everything has been tried, but the Russian has an enormous budget. We’re talking about twenty million here. Kubica could muster between seven and ten million."

"I’m very sorry about that. I do not even know who that Russian is. If Robert had returned to Grand Prix racing, it would have been a success for Formula 1. I find it very strange of the Formula 1 leadership that they have not given Robert a helping hand."


R.I.P. Williams F1 Team.

[BertMk2]

Originally Posted by F1Guy

R.I.P. Williams F1 Team.

Pretty much. Is the Williams lineup now the worst in F1? A sad decline for the team.

[wnut]

Originally Posted by BertMk2

Pretty much. Is the Williams lineup now the worst in F1? A sad decline for the team.

Are Williams even bothering with a new car, or are they banking the money and just running the old one?