Mercedes deny Horner’s claim Renault could quit

F1 Fanatic Round-up

Posted on

| Written by

In the round-up: Mercedes refute Red Bull team principal Christian Horner’s claim Renault could quit F1 over engine rules

Links

Your daily digest of F1 news, views, features and more.

Mercedes: Manufacturers won’t exit F1 (Autosport)

“Wolff says that every indication he has from Red Bull’s engine supplier Renault is that the French company is happy with the current engine format – even though it would like freeze restrictions relaxed.”

Kate Walker: Dog eat dog eat F1 (Crash)

“Whatever Bernie Ecclestone may have told the media about putting on a free charter flight to Abu Dhabi for the beleaguered Caterham, the truth is that the 40 members of staff and administrators who flew to Yas Marina for the season finale took standard passenger flights.”

2014 Formula One Abu Dhabi Grand Prix (F1)

Video highlights of the last race, including previous-unheard audio of Jean-Eric Vergne exclaiming “That was a [censored by FOM] good move!” after re-passing Daniel Ricciardo.

Don’t underestimate Honda – Arai (ESPN)

Honda ‘s head of motorsport Yasuhisa Arai: “We always wanted to return to Formula One,” he said. “We learned a lot in the underground and this regulation is much more suitable for our job. Honda has already developed a lot of hybrid systems and we have many, many experiences in that.”

Action of the Year (FIA)

Daniel Ricciardo’s pass on Fernando Alonso to win the Hungarian Grand Prix is the only F1 entry among the 11 videos listed in the FIA’s ‘Action of the year’ poll.

Riccardo Patrese (YouTube)

Tweets

Comment of the day

Carlos Sainz Jnr’s means an all-rookie squad at Toro Rosso next year – but is F1 a place for ‘kindergarten’ teams?

It just goes back to the problem I’ve always had with the way Toro Rosso is run, Everything is done for the young driver program and the main team rather than for the benefit of Toro Rosso as a team and I don’t feel that’s how an F1 team should be run.
RogerA

From the forum

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday to Alex White, Crispin, Djdaveyp85, Prisoner Monkeys, Wes, Villalon and Putti Spiii!

If you want a birthday shout-out tell us when yours is via the contact form or adding to the list here.

On this day in F1

Felipe Massa’s annual kart race was won on this day five years ago by one of his old team mates – Michael Schumacher:

Author information

Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

Got a potential story, tip or enquiry? Find out more about RaceFans and contact us here.

75 comments on “Mercedes deny Horner’s claim Renault could quit”

  1. Chris (@tophercheese21)
    29th November 2014, 0:05

    So let them quit.
    What a bunch of children. They did a bad job, so why should a Mercedes be forced to compromise their position just because they did a better job than everyone else?

    1. Think this is more a case of horner whining again, rather than Renault actually thinking about quitting.
      The man seems to have forgotten about the fact that Renaults excellent engine powered his team to 4 consecutive championships. Ungrateful!

      1. It appears that I can’t remember anything about Horner this year except his whining every time I heard him speak or read about something he said. I am really bored of that after a long year and I am no longer interested in what he says or does because I can’t expect but to hear him talking a lot of “non sense” in my opinion.

        1. “Red Whine” – you heard it here first :)

        2. Let’s not forget that’s what they did when they weren’t winning even back in the last few years ago when they were, generally winning. See Spa 2011

      2. I hardly doubt Horner and renault their opinions will differ. Horner his opinions are those of Renault and the other way around. In fact the thing he proposed, if you’d read the article, wasn’t that bad at all. But I also agree Mercedes did a good job and should not be obliged to change everything all of a sudden.

    2. Maybe Horner thinks we’ve all forgotten that a couple years ago, Renault were the ones who were threatening to quit if the sport didn’t adopt small displacement turbocharged engines… they were the only team threatening to quit over the V8s. & if they’d had their way, it would have been 1.6 liter four cylinders. In the end they is settled on the sixes because Ferrari wouldn’t agree to the fours. Both Ferrari & Merc preferred V8s, but were willing to settle on V6s… Cosworth didn’t care much about the architecture & just wanted a resolution. Here’s a quote from Boulier back in his Renault days:

      “Renault is pushing to supply maybe four teams. We’ve told the FIA that is our goal. Renault has decided to focus on being an engine supplier and as such we are pushing to bring new technology to F1. This is the only way for Renault to communicate their know-how and make sure they can use the opportunity of being in F1 to promote road car sales.
      The tendency of the road car market, especially for Renault, is to go to smaller engines with more hybrid technology to make fuel savings. F1 has to move forward. We need new regulations and new technical challenges for our engineers.
      Formula 1 can’t become just a show. We have to be seen as motor sport pioneers and technology is part of that. But we need to please our fans as well.”

      1. I think I remember Merc saying they would have exited without new engines.

    3. It’s called F1 politics. No one’s going to quit anything

    4. In the grand scheme of things there is a point to all this whining from horner. With the way 2014 seasen went there is no reason to assume 2015 won’t be more of the same. Maybe even 2016 and 17 as well. That being that mercedes will be almost unbeatable. It is imho understandable that horner doesn’t like that highest position his team can win is 2nd simply because rules are preventing them. Sure, horner would be happy as merc if the roles were reversed.

      Imho the sport needs little rebalance. Even if it is essentially penalizing merc for doing a good job. But at the same time can the sport even pay for that rebalansing when teams on the near end of the pack are already dying. Even though the loss of caterham and marussia in the grand scheme of things is good for the sport. Also in the grand scheme of things I think the new engine formula has been a clear failure. Not only was it stupidly expensive, unexciting and boring but it also destroyed the competition. To the point we are losing 2 teams and the championships are basically decided for the 2014 and 2015 seasons already. Of course it wasn’t all just bad things but overall the engine rule change made almost everything worse.

    5. No one is going to quit. That also should be clear to Horner. The constant whining has only one purpose: To put pressure on Mercedes regarding the engine unfreeze. It may be unsporting to rob Mercedes` advantage they worked for, but I also understand the other two manufacturers. But it´s also right that the entire Red Bulls squad`2014 whining was wrecking ones nervous system, with Vettel on top. Never in F1 history an outgoing World Champion has dragged down his sport so much than he did this year.

  2. GREAT! Official F1 on youtube, unfortunately I blinked and missed it.

  3. I really wish FOM would allow footage to be uploaded on youtube. It’s so hard to get decent videos of great moments from the seasons. If they won’t make them available by uploading them themselves, let regular joe’s do it.

    Sixtyfour(five/six/seven)bucks has had to reupload and play ‘catch me if you can’ with copyright holders to upload interviews, press conferences ect. It’s vital stuff the F1 community needs. Bernie needs to get with the times and embrace social media, it would propel the sport so well; if there’s one thing this sport needs it’s a younger viewership, people don’t live forever

    1. Its not always FOM who act to have video’s removed from places like YouTube, The various broadcasters around the world also act to get F1 related content removed as lets not forget that they are actually paying for the rights.
      They often buy exclusive rights for F1 content distribution in there region which also plays a role with how much content FOM can put online themselfs in many regions.

      I’ve been let to believe that FOM are working on something which will include more online video on the website (Along the lines of what was on the official F1 mobile app this year), But it will not include live video or anything along the lines of full race content may well be subject to Geo-blocking in some places depending on the various contracts they have with each of the broadcasters.

      The people working at F1 Communications (The TV side of FOM) do want to do a lot more than there doing & they do have some good ideas which I know many fans would love if they did them. Its the broadcast contracts & in many cases Bernie (Although despite what he says publicly, He is now starting to give them more freedom with online content) who’s been holding them back.

      1. @gt-racer, One never sees re-runs or highlights from these broadcasters so I can’t think of any reason they would actively prevent youtube uploads of highlights of races they have already broadcast, in fact you would think they would be glad to reach potential new viewers this way.

        1. @hohum There are a couple broadcasters who do show archive races & who do re-show races they covered live.
          Sky in the UK regularly show not just classic races but also re-showing there own broadcast’s, Sky Germany have been doing the same since the late 90s as has Sky Italy. Scandinavian broadcaster Viasat Motors made use of the archive as did the Finnish broadcaster mtv3 & Speed channel in the US when they held the rights.

          But even those who don’t make use of the archives largely hold the view that they paid for the F1 rights & they don’t want anybody distributing for free what they paid a large amount of money for.

          There’s also the element that those who hold the rights, Both FOM & broadcasters see the value in them & know they can charge for access & that people making it available for free online takes away the possibility for profit.

          Should also be noted than its not just F1, Sports rights in general are for the most part handled the same way, Especially when you have the big money broadcast contracts which most sports have nowadays.

          1. @gt-racer Unfortunately the biggest losers here are the fans who don’t live in any of the countries/regions you mentioned, we are at the mercy of the local broadcaster and no matter how much money you pay there’s no way to watch all the content like onboard cameras, all practice sessions, radio channel and even the podium interviews get cut out!

            But you’re right there’s no easy fix for this problem, I just hope the F1 website will have more content next year like you said.

    2. Haha, I love Sixty ‘x’ bucks, I recommend it to everyone here. The person collates all of the BBC and Sky F1 coverage and puts it in one place on YT. https://www.youtube.com/user/SixtyFourBucks Although, by the time you click the link he may have changed channel. It would probably be Sixty Five Bucks.

  4. Christian Horner needs to shut up. Most of the stuff that has come out of his mouth this year is absolute crap! Mercedes worked the hardest and did the best job on their engine. Why do they need to ”slow down” to let their rivals stay in F1? Sore losers!

    1. Maybe we should freeze RBRs aero package until all the teams catch-up, I hear a couple of teams are leaving F1 because they were unable to compete with RBRs superior aero.

      1. Or better still, freeze Red Bull’s wings so they don’t flex anymore..

      2. Well said.

        I’m almost embarrased to call myself an F1 fan when i keep seeing these “…could quit F1 over…[insert unfavourable rule]”

    2. I sincerely hope Renault will unleash their engineering skill end freeze Christian’s mouth for a while, at least…

  5. I agree with Tiff Needell tweet.

    1. @rally-man I don’t think being a test driver is really a meaningful place to be these days… they just do simulator work. They can very well have more than one driver filling that place.

      So, yeah, it’s a good PR move but I don’t see why it’s a move that closes the door for others… Nasr convived well with Wolff this year, so why should it change?

      I’m in for teams having a woman showing up on races and occasionally driving the car on fridays. It brings promotion and might influence other girls to try it out themselves. So good for them.

    2. same here. I’d like Susie to be placed in a GP3/GP2 team next year, see how fast she is, then reward her with an F1 test drive.
      And this should apply to all drivers, not just her.

      1. Well, I don’t agree. Claire Williams stated Susie was very good at her job, and why would we doubt her word? I don’t think Williams would put an unsuitable driver in such an important development role just for some PR benefits. If Wolff had been promoted to a race seat, then yes I would agree that there are better drivers out there, but for the test driver role it’s different.

        1. @sato113, this was meant to be a reply to @rally-man.

        2. Has Wolff ever won a race in DTM?

        3. I hope we will see women drivers some day but they should be awarded their seats on merit of their ability not just because they have breasts and their deputy team principal also happens to have them.

          She has not done anything to deserve that role over the many many excellent, accomplished, in some cases championship winning drivers trying to find a place in F1 except be born with an extra X chromosome

    3. I don’t think it’s just a PR move to make Williams look better, at worst I genuinely think it encourages the participation of women in the sport, even if it takes some positive discrimination – which I sincerely doubt this was, at least for the larger part.

      Being a test driver doesn’t require you to be the fastest available non-competitive driver, but a largely different skill set. You have to be meticulous, consistent and intelligent above just quick – and she’s certainly quick enough to be called that. Test drivers rarely are among the best racers of those available – something which became all too obvious when Luca Badoer stepped into an actual F1 car after Massa’s accident. He was test driver for ten years prior to that, and I doubt he was useless at that job. He was at racing an F1 car though.

      I hope she does well. I’m not cynical enough to believe she’s being kept in that position just because she’s a woman and even if it contributes a little to Williams’ decision, I’d welcome that too – certainly more than I welcome drivers being there to please a sponsor.

      1. @BS – Exactly. I think Tiff’s comment was boorish and backwards, especially since he has worked with Vicki for so long and should know better.

        Test drivers are not the same as race drivers anymore and I put that down to the dearth of in-season testing. Regardless of whether you’re for or against that change, what it means is that test drivers are doing development, setup, and coordination work with simulators and minimal car time. F1 had to create a young-driver test because if it were an open test, the teams would just use race drivers and test new parts for easy comparison.

        And given how many drivers have been on the grid lately who do not belong there, in my opinion, Tiff should be going after them if anyone. So even if this were a PR move, and I don’t think it is, who cares about a test driver when there are multiple race seats being wasted?

  6. Kate Walker fast becoming my fav F1 Journo, of course it is not just the ineptness of Bernie and his promotional miserlyness. It really all comes from the vast amounts of money being siphoned out of the sport, ( OK business ). I read elsewhere that big Ron is trying to raise $300m to buy back control of McL and it is pretty obvious that had the teams been sharing 90% of revenue rather than the 50% Bernie conned them into accepting Ron would not have had to sell a controlling interest in the 1st. place, and would not now need to dump a still highly competitive former WDC to make way for a newby with financial connections.

    1. I think that you are conflating McLaren Racing, which operates the McLaren F1 team and produces GT racing cars, with the overarching McLaren Group, which owns the racing division, the automotive division and the electronics production, along with other ancillary services (e.g. marketing).

      It is McLaren Group which Ron Dennis is attempting to increase his stake in, not McLaren Racing (which is a wholly owned subsidiary of the McLaren Group). It would be akin to, for example, the Agnelli family choosing to increase their stake in the Fiat Group, the parent company of Scuderia Ferrari – and in both instances, it is the automotive division, rather than the racing division, that has been driving sales of stakes in the companies involved (Ron Dennis selling off a stake to Mumtalakat to finance expansion of McLaren Automotive and Fiat-Chrysler selling off a stake in Ferrari to finance expansion of Fiat).

      1. Anon, you may well be right, in fact you most probably are right but money is money whether you have reserves from income or you have to borrow it.

  7. “Continually shocked today by how bad @InterlagosTrack is. Not just the media facilities but the safety of drivers. #WeWontBeBack”

    What is James Moy talking about? Interlagos is perfectly fine and is actually one of the track on the calendar with some character.

    1. I always laugh when journos, photographers, etc complain or praise the facilities where they work, who cares if you have a fast internet connection or if the commentary booth is falling apart, it makes zero difference to the action on track just get on with your job!

      1. yeah, but here he mentions driver safety, not sure what that is about, but it surely does deserve some attention @mantresx

      2. @mantresx I do not think it is that simple. I like Interlagos as a circuit, the races are mostly enjoyable there but if the old circuits want to keep the spectators and get positive media coverage, they have to refurbish their facilities. Safety is an even more important issue.

        Abu Dhabi and Sochi might be dull and the hardcore fans like me still prefer to go to a battered Hockenheimring over a dull Tilkedrome but it’s more than just about the likes of me. F1 also needs to attract casual fans, keep the media happy and comply with the modern safety standards to keep going and get full grandstands. If Interlagos, Hockenheim, Spa, Monza etc. pretend that nostalgia and good racing are enough, they will sooner or later inevitably lose out to the modern circuits in the global competition.

    2. The general complaints have been that the whole supporting infrastructure of the track has been crumbling away for years, which has been compromising the safety of the track.

      There was a notorious incident in the mid 2000’s when an overhead gantry collapsed onto the track, only moments after the first practise session had finished. In more recent times, there has been increasingly angry complaints that the circuit owners have not upgraded barriers in parts of the track where there have been fatal accidents in national racing series, perimeter roads being blocked with equipment that has blocked access for emergency vehicles and questions over whether the overcrowded paddock area breaches national fire safety regulations.

      Now, the owners of the track have been addressing some of the worst issues there, but the overall safety of Interlagos has been questioned for a number of years (there were rumours a few years ago that the FIA was considering downgrading Interlagos’s licence due to concerns over the safety of the venue).

    3. “What is James Moy talking about?”

      Facilities and driver safety, not track characteristics. It couldn’t really be any more clearly said, unless you just read two words from of the tweet, Interlagos and bad.

      1. Ask Mark Webber…

  8. Can someone explain the engine freeze rules? I was under the impression that the freeze was for the season, not forever. So other engine suppliers can not use a split turbo for the entire duration of this formula?

    1. If I recall correctly, the development is allowed to resume during the off-season for certain parts of the power unit. Progressively, what parts are allowed to be developed become more and more restricted, until we get to a point where development is essentially frozen.

      There was an article on F1F last year on the subject:
      https://www.racefans.net/2013/09/16/fia-to-guard-against-extreme-engines-in-2014/

      That said, I don’t know if the restrictions have changed since that article was posted; perhaps someone can shed more light on the situation.

      1. There’s also a bit more on the engine freeze rules (and how the likes of Red Bull and Ferrari are trying to pull the wool over everyone’s eyes when they talk about engines being “frozen”) in this article from a few weeks ago.

    2. @ArtVandalay
      For 2015, in theory yes 95% of the power unit can be develop (the other parts consisting of ~5% is permanently frozen). However, that doesn’t mean they can change 95% of the power unit. There is a limit to the number of parts you can actually change. The power unit is divided into “tokens”, and for 2015, 61 tokens are available for changes. However, teams are given the credit of 32 tokens only. That means, of the 61 token worth of parts that you are allowed to change, you can only choose 32 of them to be changed. And these changes must be done before February. After that, engine development is not allowed for the rest of 2015.

      What Renault and Ferrari want for 2015, is to change the rules so that if you do not spend all 32 token before February, you are allowed a second window to use up to 13 token and make changes to the PU in July. But to change the rules in 2015, everyone must agree to the changes. If someone is against it, then the rules cannot be changed.

      Mercedes is against this. They then offered a compromise which is they will agree to the changes if the tokens allow in July is much lesser than what Ferrari and Renault are asking for. Ferrari and Renault then rejected that offer, and threaten that if Mercedes do not accept their proposal for 2015, then in 2016 they will blow open all development restriction. In 2016, somehow the agreement is that only a majority of the teams need to agree on rule changes. That means for 2016, they no longer need Merc agreement to change the rules.

      That’s probably where you hear about engine unfreeze in 2016. At the moment, it is just a threat against Mercedes if they do not agree to 2015 proposal.

      1. I understood that not only do they want 13 tokens to be used later, they also tried to get up to 13 EXTRA tokens @harsha, but overall a good summary of what the rules mean, thanks

        1. I never knew that @bascb
          So that means say they used 30 tokens out of 32 and can take another 26 (13+13) by sacrificing. But i don’t liked all this token system at first place its all like Un formula 1 for me

  9. Re- FiA best action video vote
    Although all the action featured is top draw all the way, there have been some epic battles on track in F1 this year. Alonso/Vettle at Silverstone for example and Jenson has had some good tangles for position at more than 1 event. I would have thought that the FIA would have chosen at least 2 more from F1, considering its their top flight, duel in the crown, pinnacle of motorsport series that nobody except individual race promoters seems to advertise in any way shape or form.

    I would not be surprised that the reason there is only 1 F1 clip, is because FOM wouldn’t allow any further footage to be freely available. They have at least authorised the Ricciardo clip on YouTube. FOM have an amazing tool at their disposal, but don’t seem to recognise the opportunity to not only increase exposure for sponsors, but of getting fresh eyes to become interested in F1. If they have fresh clips after every race of the best bits (not highlights, but individual mini clips), I’m sure they would be shocked at the number of hits they get and the opportunity to monetize the minimum 5 seconds of direct advertising prior to viewing the clips. If someone could explain this to Bernie I think he would pay it more attention, besides he would be surprised if he knew how many over 70’s with plenty of money (just the way he likes them) use YouTube and Facebook. It may even satisfy the Free-To-Air part of their agreement with the FiA so they only have to deal with pay-TV and YouTube, instead of all the individual national broadcasters. Just a thought.

    Just thinking out loud:- Imagine if YouTube bought a global TV deal with FOM, can you imagine how much money YouTube would make from it if they became sole provider of content, you could pay for individual sessions with an F1 app that you would buy access through your ‘Google Play’ or ‘iTunes’ account, with say a discount the more races you buy in advance. For example 10 races for the price of 8 or a full season for the price of 17 races flat or full unlimited access for a set price, always getting a better deal the more access you buy in 1 go in advance. Also you could still buy practice sessions individually and Qally. That would be very cool.
    Shame it will never happen, it’s too sensible for F1.

  10. RE COTD
    STR have scored more points, podiums & victories during the decade they’ve been a driver development team than Minardi managed in two decades as an independent team.
    Unless we can find enough manufacturers willing to join F1 to make every team a works team there will always be teams with very little chance of developing into championship contenders. Given the choice I’d rather see such teams acting as an F1 nursery so that young drivers & team members have a place to learn their trade, it’s certainly more interesting seeing a load of rookies racing for their shot at the big time than seeing half a grid’s worth of seats filled with journeymen.

    1. Red Bull also have an almost unlimited budget compared to Minardi. Not only that, Minardi did just about the same thing in terms of finding young talents, they just weren’t a B-team in the process.

      1. Furthermore, at least a smaller team has the opportunity to develop and grow – for example, Force India has been able to progress from being a backmarker to a solid midfield team and, at times, even threatening some of the manufacturers.

        A team like STR, on the other hand, is forced to permanently remain where it is – the team no longer exists to fulfil its own potential and to exist for its own success, but to merely prop up the parent team by providing it with increased voting rights.

        The team is locked into being a permanent lackey for the parent team, unable to grow or develop because that might threaten the success of Red Bull – not just in terms of drivers, but also in terms of designers. There was a complaint that, as soon as Toro Rosso started to be more successful than the parent team in 2008, the engineering team of Toro Rosso was intentionally gutted to bolster Red Bull’s own engineering team and to ensure that Toro Rosso could never again embarrass the parent team.

    2. Well, if we lost STR, we would have 16 cars. From some of Horner’s speeches, it seems in that situation, Red Bull would run a third car. So, overall, Red Bull would only be losing 1 car.

  11. That Ricciardo pass wasn’t even the best one he did in that race… weird, FIA. Very weird.

    1. It was probably the best “edited” video, with the pit crew, team radio and vision of an overtake… Probably was the only one for the year, hence why its the only one on youtube.

  12. Although it wasn’t an overtake as such, the best action of the year has to be Bahrain – all of it.

    1. @fluxsource I agree, the FIA have actually included not only overtakes in the shortlist so one has to wonder why a pretty boring and predictable DRS pass is considered to be the best F1 action of the year. It is as if they were trying to prove the world that F1 is really dull, compared to the other FIA series. Maybe there has been more action in the WEC or even the WTCC, I cannot comment on that, but that does not mean they should not pick the best moments of the F1 season, too.

    2. I don’t agree. I alwasy record every race/highlights and rewatch them in bits during the off-season. I started out with Bahrein because it was one of the best but recently rewatched Hungary. Hungary, for me, is twice the race Bahrein was.

      1. OmarR-Pepper (@)
        29th November 2014, 14:19

        @xtwl can you torrent it?

        1. @omarr-pepper I record them on the TV.

    3. At least the ric pass on vet in monza

  13. I thought the 2014 Turbos would be the only thing that whines this season, but no. Chirstian Horner does too, and he does a louder job than the Turbos. Who says F1 has become too quiet these days?

  14. That overtake is symbolic, I wouldn’t want that to be F1’s beacon. Interlagos is still far behind in terms of safety indeed. I can’t see how the new entry is any safer than the late 1990’s early 2000’s version, not to mention other bits of the track, that said I want to be back at Interlagos, just stop ignoring reality and avoid silly situations.

  15. I know what horner says about quitting is complete crap but engine freeze cant work if you dont have similar performing engines and it seems that other manufacturers are worried that they would never be able to catch up until the next regulation change i think the best would be for mercedes to allow some relaxation but i can also understand why they arent

  16. Trenthamfolk (@)
    29th November 2014, 8:28

    I disagree with the Tiff Needell tweet… I’m sure there’s a load of talented drivers out there who feel they ‘deserve’ a set in F1 somewhere, but for whatever reason, they haven’t been in the right place at the right time, such is life. Wolff’s circumstances no doubt played a part, and if F1 was all about what people ‘deserve’ it would be a charity. Pastor Maldanado would be no where near the paddock for that matter!

  17. Something interesting: Vergne says he would have joined Red Bull if Vettel’s announcement had happened before Toro Rosso signed Verstappen. Because they already announced that Vergne won’t drive for them in 2015 after signing Verstappen, it was a bit difficult for RB to reverse their decision.

  18. While I’m tempted to agree with Tiff, it’s pretty hard to judge her talent in an F1 car. We’ve only seen her in action a handful of times and most of her work is (seemingly) done in simulators these days anyway. There have been plenty of drivers that absolutely shattered the competition in lower formulae (looking at you, Liuzzi) but didn’t make a lasting impression in F1. Even in that category there are the drivers who went on to greener pastures in other series (Liuzzi does pretty well in Italian touring cars) or became test drivers (Badoer contributed immensely to the successes of Ferrari last decade).

    Let’s not forget some drivers who have done well in DTM never really impressed in F1 (multiple champion Bernd Schneider isn’t remembered for his F1 outings) and the other way around (Ralf Schumacher and DC).

    For some reason, people seem to be able to recognize greatness beyond the category a driver excels in, but one a driver does poorly in a premier series, they’re branded for life. Case in point: Jean Denis Deletraz has two class wins at the 24h of Le Mans, yet people remember him for parking his car during an F1 race for being tired.

  19. Does anybody like Christian Horner?

    He probably thinks he’s all media-friendly, accessible and humorous, but he comes across as disloyal and unsporting. Even when they were winning everything he never stopped bitching about Renault, and he was the first to sell out FOTA. Now it’s non-stop and not entirely truthful.

    It’s a bit weird when the idea is to make viewers like your brand.

    1. To answer your question, neither me, my mum, my dad, my sister, my brother-in-law, my best friend, his wife or my F1 fan colleague like Christian Horner. He’s just a bit dull and moany. Oh, and that picture of him in the nude posing with an F3 car (I think) has scarred me for life.

  20. Mr. Halliwell needs to stop talking. He’s embarrassing. Instead of whining, he could be putting his energy into ensuring that his team and engine supplier are well placed for 2015.

  21. Strange choice Ricciardo’s open-and-shut pass on Alonso. He had better ones this year and, for me personally, Hamilton’s pass in Suzuka for the lead is a better candidate on any measure. Oh, and the ding-dong between the two Mercs in Bahrain is the moment of the season, surely?

  22. Right now, Renault has two teams, both of them owned by Red Bull. No new teams are coming to Renault. So Renault may quit and Red Bull joins hands with Audi.

    Audi vs Merc- Now that’s something interesting.

  23. Pretty much if anyone disbelieves whatever Ecclestone and Horner says, they will be better off.

Comments are closed.