Good and Bad Driver Contract Decisions

[TrapezeArtist]

Good:
Hamilton going from McLaren to Mercedes (2013?)
Vettel going from Red Bull to Ferrari (2015)

Bad:
Maldonado going from Williams to Renault (2014)
Alonso going from Ferrari to McLaren (2015)

Any others?

[S griffin]

Dan Gurney setting up his own team instead of staying with Brabham, thus missing out on the chance to be double world champion

[wolfhound]

Alonso from McLaren to Ferrari. Not such a good idea in hindsight.

Driver moves canonly really be judged well after the move was initally made. Some seem to get wrong a more often than others.

Button to McLaren was also a good move at the time.

[Paradise City]

Bad

Nigel Mansell to Mclaren
Villeneuve to BAR
Fittipaldi to, um, Fittipaldi.
Henton to Toleman
Schneider to Arrows
Amon to Amon
Hunt to Wolf


Probably millions more.

[Born Racer]

Bad:

Chris Amon from Ferrari to March in 1970.

Alonso from McLaren to Renault in 2008?

[S griffin]

Chris Amon staying with his team, instead of taking up an offer from Bernie to replace von Opel

[Born Racer]

Bad:

Hill to Arrows.

He had to leave Williams, but had a few other choices, among them McLaren.

Good:

Webber to Renault

For those that remember on the forum, it's a pity that didn't happen.

[p-matt]

Originally Posted by Born Racer

Bad:
Good:

Webber to Renault

For those that remember on the forum, it's a pity that didn't happen.

Ha! In all fairness, not going to Renault was the best thing that ever happened to him. If he had he would have been destroyed by Alonso and probably wouldn't have lucked his way into a winning Red Bull team in '09.

[TrapezeArtist]

So far, the most consistent name on here has been Alonso.

Seeing Born Racer's avatar though, reminded me that Ronnie Peterson made some pretty appalling decisions in his time. About the only good car he had was the Lotus in 1978 and even then he was officially contracted as a Number 2 and had to defer to Mario Andretti (how things change!).

[steve_r]

I can only echo some already mentioned.

Jacques Villeneuve to BAR. He was WDC and surely many more race wins and probably more championships could / should have gone his way, and then he goes to sign for a team that did nothing for years and years...

Damon Hill to Arrows. Williams baffling treatment of their WDC yet again, meant Hill had to find somewhere else to race. Frankly, if this was the best offer available, he might have been better copying Mansell and doing Indycars for a season or two, whilst awaiting a better drive. Nearly made it all worthwhile with that race in Hungary though.

What about Emerson Fittipaldi and Graham Hill setting up their own teams? Both worked out very badly.


All the above with the benefit of hindsight of course.


The most obvious good ever: Senna to McLaren

[Bob Baldwin]

Sadly today the PAID drivers are DWINDLING so limited oppurtunities for them .

The chances of a PAY Driver getting a GOOD seat are SLIM to NONE

[wolfhound]

I don't think Senna ever made what you would describe as a bad move in his time in F1, Prost much the same except maybe Ferrari but that move came because of other reasons.

[Jimmy Magnusson]

I don't think you can just say moves like Alonso back to McLaren are automatically bad moves. Sometimes pairings just doesn't work out. Maybe Alonso would have been a race winner today if he stayed. Maybe he wouldn't be. People are quick to judge. Will Alonso be champion again? I don't know, but at least all of the people involved are real serious about it.

[JacobP]

Don't forget Alesi to Benetton.

[Beryl]

Originally Posted by JacobP

Don't forget Alesi to Benetton.

Is that a good move or bad move? The Benetton and Ferrari were evenly matched from 94-96, maybe even 97. By the time Ferrari was fast enough for Alesi to be able to compete for championships, the Frenchman's best years were behind him.

[Paradise City]

Alesi to Benetton was Alesi landing on his feet. It wasn't on the cards for him to get a superior seat. He did OK with it but he was never gonna be Schumacher in that car.

Alesi going to Ferrari rather than Williams was far more questionable.

[Born Racer]

I don't think Alesi's move to Benetton was bad, just that he perhaps expected more after Schumacher's success there.

[Armco Bender]

Graham Hill setting up their own teams? Both worked out very badly.

But harsh for Graham Hill,the Embassy Team was looking quite good when it was all cut short sadly,Tony Brice was a very promising driver and they had a new car ready for the next season.Sad we never got to see how it would have turned out.

[wnut]

Originally Posted by Armco Bender

But harsh for Graham Hill,the Embassy Team was looking quite good when it was all cut short sadly,Tony Brice was a very promising driver and they had a new car ready for the next season.Sad we never got to see how it would have turned out.

That was really sad!

Really sad for Brise too! Hill being an idiot cost both of them their lives!

[wnut]

This thread could also have been great manager decisions to sign drivers:

Vettel 4 Coulthard
Ricciardo 4 Webber
Hamilton 4 Schu
Vettel 4 Alonso
Verstappen / Sainz 4 Vergne

[mountainstar]

Probably one of the more perplexing in the past 20 years in regards to driver performance was Villeneuve signing for BAR. Here was a guy who won the 1995 CART championship and indy 500, then went on to be a race winner in F1 in 96 and 97 with the WDC in 1997 and then after that never got close to winning again. Villeneuve was never a guy to be able to develop a team so the only thing about BAR was the money. He essentially ensured his financial stability and as long as he manages his money well he is wealthy to the end of his days. Very strange case, he had a great energy for a few years and kinda closed the loop on his fathers career and then that was it. He's never done well in any other series he has tried either.

[Paradise City]

Reynard and Gorne were involved in it and they were winners. BAT had the big money. The ingredients seemed to be there and JV presumably thought he was getting in on the ground floor of something big that is old buddy old pal was running.

But it was dumb to plunge straight into a first year start-up and Pollock bulling about winning the first race just set it up to be a fiasco. JV wasted some good years there and was never really able to stage a Fittipaldiesque ressurection.

[Mike Harte]

Originally Posted by Paradise City

Reynard and Gorne were involved in it and they were winners. BAT had the big money. The ingredients seemed to be there and JV presumably thought he was getting in on the ground floor of something big that is old buddy old pal was running.

But it was dumb to plunge straight into a first year start-up and Pollock bulling about winning the first race just set it up to be a fiasco. JV wasted some good years there and was never really able to stage a Fittipaldiesque ressurection.

This is looking at something that happened, and then using hindsight to say it was not the correct move. What you are not taking into consideration is that, apart from Craig Pollock being one of his best friends, he was also his manager and mentor, and as such, their moves would have been en-twinned to a certain degree. There was potential for the team to be hugely successful with the sort of money, certainly at that time, that only a company with the financial resources of the big tobacco firms such as BAT could bring. However, it wasn't until long after BAT had gone that success eventually arrived.

The name of Schumacher has been mentioned as a comparator a few times on this thread, but nobody has included him as one of the good/bad contracts. Was it a stroke of genius for Eddie Jordan to sign him up to race for his Silverstone team, and then sell the contract to Benetton for a fortune after just one race?

As far as Michael is concerned, we only know now that he made the right decision to leave Jordan and go to Benetton, and then to leave them after a few WDCs to go to an uncompetitive, at the time, Ferrari. With hindsight, because there were huge doubts about both moves at their respective times, they turned out to be quite inspired choices. Or would his overall package as a driver and as a team motivator, etc. have found him success no matter at which team he had landed in?

[Paradise City]

Originally Posted by Mike Harte

This is looking at something that happened, and then using hindsight to say it was not the correct move. What you are not taking into consideration is that, apart from Craig Pollock being one of his best friends, he was also his manager and mentor, and as such, their moves would have been en-twinned to a certain degree. There was potential for the team to be hugely successful with the sort of money, certainly at that time, that only a company with the financial resources of the big tobacco firms such as BAT could bring. However, it wasn't until long after BAT had gone that success eventually arrived.

Hindsight isn't at play here. Pundits and opinion-makers of that era made foreboding predictions about this move, and they were vindicated in those predictions. Villeneuve got roughly as much out of his mentors team in terms of results as Fittipaldi did, in his brother's team.

A start-up was never gonna work off the bat, even with the right resources and the right people making the right decisions, it was always going to take a few years for it to assert itself in an era of costly development. It was a big gamble with high odds and it didn't pay off for him and Villeneuve lost a good chunk of his peak years because of it.

[mountainstar]

Originally Posted by Paradise City

Reynard and Gorne were involved in it and they were winners. BAT had the big money. The ingredients seemed to be there and JV presumably thought he was getting in on the ground floor of something big that is old buddy old pal was running.

But it was dumb to plunge straight into a first year start-up and Pollock bulling about winning the first race just set it up to be a fiasco. JV wasted some good years there and was never really able to stage a Fittipaldiesque ressurection.

In fact I don't think Villeneuve ever won a race again in any other series and shocking to say this but his title was 18 years ago(seems like yesterday).