TBK-Light.com

Well, time to swallow that pride then. It's not like there is an overload of top notch drivers available at the moment.

Remember that Ron tried to get Prost back for 1994 and 1995, and we all know how that relationship ended.

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BTCC Pick Em's Champion 2010
Formula Fun Cup Champion 2013
http://www.the-fastlane.co.uk

Wouldn't mind seeing Hamilton back at Mclaren with Ron back behind the wheel. Whitmarsh was the reason he left, since that problem is 'solved' I can see him coming home.

is Raikkonen at McLaren a possibility?

Everything is possible but I don't see that happening. If Raikonen is in F1 next season it will be with Ferrari. If Ferrari ditches him I don't see any team picking him up or be able to pick him up nor can't I see him running for anyone except a top drive with money.

Is it possible that you don't turn every conversation into something about Raikkonen or Russia?

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BTCC Pick Em's Champion 2010
Formula Fun Cup Champion 2013
http://www.the-fastlane.co.uk

and Raikkonen would be helpful in car development? I thought he just wants to drive

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Motorsports trend for 2024: everything is a bad taste joke now

If he'll do it for free.

Ron and Alonso have had at least one face-to-face conversation this year, and neither of them needed to go to hospital afterward, so my assumption is that they've made up.

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Dan Wheldon ¦ 1978-2011
Marco Simoncelli ¦ 1987-2011
Jules Bianchi ¦ 1989-2015
Justin Wilson ¦ 1978-2015

Yeah, I know he's mad and I don't care. I do not care. I did not care then. I do not care now. I'm here to race him.

Button bookending his career at Williams has a nice poetry to it, considering he started there on a 2 year deal and was farmed out to Benetton with the intention of seeing out the second year of his contract afterwards.

Ignore that whole court case that happened in between when his management fought like hell to stop him doing just that

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RIP Birmingham Wheels: here's some of the crash videos I recorded when it was there:

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With all the big names being called, things aren't looking too good for a seat for Vandoorne.
Bouillier allready said he might have to do a 2nd year of GP2. But what drivers had 3 years in high-end feeder series and after that got into a big team? He's gonna feel sorry he rejected the STR drive.

I can't really see Vettel leaving Red Bull, but you never know. It would be a nice challenge for him.

Vettel made no secret of it that he wants to race for Ferrari one day. If Alonso leaves Ferrari I can see him go there and doing a Schumacher. He won everything at Red Bull. Bringing Ferrari back to the top would a new challenge.

He'll have to bring Newey with him or it will never happen.

I love this term "doing a Schumacher" as not only does it suggest he was the reason for Ferrari's success but it also completely ignores what was happening behind the scenes at Maranello. While Michael was a huge part of the success that Ferrari achieved, he wouldn't have achieved any of it without Todt, Brawn, Byrne, Stepney, plus a fair few others...

Schumacher was part of a team, not an individual.

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BTCC Pick Em's Champion 2010
Formula Fun Cup Champion 2013
http://www.the-fastlane.co.uk

But wasn't he the reason most of those guys went from Benetton to Ferrari in 1996? Todt made it possible that the whole team responsible for Benetton's success was transferred to Maranello.

Schumacher didn't build the team, it was Todt. Schumacher didn't develop the car, he was fast enough to drive around the problems. The big leap in performance was found when Barrichello joined, a driver known for his technical input.

All according to Eddie Irvine (whose Legends of F1 episode was very entertaining).

Whoops, edited Todt's role in my message before i saw your reply.

It's the same when people just praise Newey for turning around Red Bull, for example.

You have Newey, then you have Horner running the ship, Vettel/Webber (until '13) as a top driver combination, then you have the other guys on the pit wall such as Rob Marshall and Jonathan Wheatley. The relationships between drivers and their race engineer, too. Not to mention the guys back at the factory. Stability is key a lot of the time, because one loose cog and the whole thing usually falls apart. A top driver can make the difference on-track, but a weak team behind him will mean he can't make the difference regularly.

Drivers don't turn around a team, you need the whole structure. It takes time to put that into place as well. Red Bull started getting that ready in early 2006, Mercedes started getting serious in 2011. You can pin Ferrari maybe back to 1993 when Todt arrived. Mattiacci is trying to start something similar now with Ferrari; McLaren has been starting their revival since the start of this year. Pat Symonds and a few others reorganised Williams mid-2013 and they're beginning to get better team-wise.

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Dan Wheldon | 1978 - 2011

This.

Todt was in charge of orchestrating the turnaround of Ferrari's performance. By doing so he was given a blank chequebook and he basically went a bought the best "team" he could. Incidentally most of those people worked together at Benetton, but it took Todt a couple of years to get them all across.

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BTCC Pick Em's Champion 2010
Formula Fun Cup Champion 2013
http://www.the-fastlane.co.uk

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/28983758

Not much here but apparently Mercedes have punished Rosberg.

To me, it's one of those things where one person probably isn't entirely responsible for the success, but if you take that one person out they probably would've had less of it. Take Newey out of Red Bull, for instance, and I doubt they'd have ever dominated to the extent that they did - Newey is someone with a track record of designing brilliant cars. At Williams the drop-off after he left was pretty noticeable, although there were additional factors. McLaren managed to build a structure that limited the damage of his departure. It'll be interesting to see where Red Bull go from here

Similarly, you'd be hard-pushed to find any drivers who would be able to dominate to the extent of Michael, but then we have the Vettel example which perhaps brings that into question to an extent, judging by this year. It's a confluence of so many things - Michael was helped by limited opposition (both in terms of drivers and teams at various points), Vettel was helped by a particular car design suiting his driving style more than his team mate. But they are still the nuts holding the steering wheel and that has to count for something, especially when Michael's driving off into the distance on a wet track in a shit car