Should Montoya rejoin Williams for 2005?

[Wrex]

I dont know why we cant limit every contract to one year. And both driver and team are stuck with it for that year. Imagine every driver becoming a free agent every year?

[Don K]

Originally posted by Wrex
I dont know why we cant limit every contract to one year. And both driver and team are stuck with it for that year. Imagine every driver becoming a free agent every year?

It might lead to the best dirvers being snatched up each year by the teams that want to spend most money to the driver salary.
So driver salaries will start growing.

It will lead to the richest teams wanting to have the best cars (cars that are good enough for the best drivers.
So it will lead to the teams paying very higs salaries to the best designers, and high salaries to the best engineers and technicians.
Maybe the rich teams would start to buy complete car designs.

The teams probably won't have much money left for other things, like making the cars safer; Why spend money on that, if that car might be bought by another team next year, and if any casualties can be sold by buying the next best driver (and possibly the next best car)?

The teams that don't have a lot of money, will not let talented young drivers drive for them.
If they prove to be any good, they will get snatched by a richer team. And as the drivers are free agents, the team that discovered the driver doesn't get any money.
If they don't prove themselves, it also doesn't help the team.
So these teams will start giving their seats to the richest pay drivers. (For instance, this year we would have no Heidfeld, no Pantano, no Klien, no Bruni, ... Two years ago Webber would not have made it onto the grid. etc.)

---

If the teams aren't allowed to replace their drivers if they don't perform, each of the rich teams will probably buy another team to try their inexperienced young drivers.

So we would probably end up with 6 rich teams buying the best each year, and 6 junior teams for the third and fouth drivers of each of the 6 rich teams.
Or maybe the richest teams would have 2 junior teams each? In that case F1 might end up as a race between 4 teams of 6 drivers (each team being disguised as 3 teams).

[FerrariKiller]

Just because Mclaren has had a bad start to this season doesn't mean we should right them off. I think JPM is a good enough driver that he can carry the whole team with him. I don't think Mclaren will be struggling like it has for much longer.

[Teretonga]

i wouldn't be surprised to see Mercedes walk away from mclaren in the not to distant future (not 2005). Not because of McLarens failings but because of their own. It must be galling for them to face the engine debacle they have had over the last three years and be consistently beaten for the last two by Williams. they are not in F1 to come second to anyone let alone another german manufacturer.

[Spudgun]

Originally posted by Teretonga
i wouldn't be surprised to see Mercedes walk away from mclaren in the not to distant future (not 2005). Not because of McLarens failings but because of their own. It must be galling for them to face the engine debacle they have had over the last three years and be consistently beaten for the last two by Williams. they are not in F1 to come second to anyone let alone another german manufacturer.

I can't see that happening. Mercedes have alot of shares in McLaren. If anything is going to happen I would imagine Mercedes taking the engine development off Ilmor and taking it elsewhere or in-house.

[Wrex]

Don K, That has to be one of the more bizzar tangents I've someone go off on :confused:


How did my comment have anything to do with the purchase of car designs???

[SandeepBanerjee]

Well, its related though isn't it? If Mercedes leave McLaren, it'll definitely affect JPM.

[Don K]

Originally posted by Wrex
Don K, That has to be one of the more bizzar tangents I've someone go off on :confused:


How did my comment have anything to do with the purchase of car designs???

Not quite sure how I got there ...

I think I was thinking about reduced consistancy.
If the teams aren't allowed to contract their drivers for more than one season, drivers will start swapping teams more often.
So the teams themselves will change more rapidly.
So probably the other people involved will also change team more rapidly.
And somehow I was thinking that (with designers jumping ship from one team to another), car designs would start spreading also. (If teams start bidding more money to try to get the best car designers, the car designers will try to get better contracts; So they after a while, will be allowed to take more of their ideas with them to their next team.)

But I can't remember exactly what I was thinking yesterday...