Captain Hammer wrote:Pastor Malonado's seat might be in danger:
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/96333A venezuelan congressman has asked for an investigation into the arrangement with Williams, because PDVSA is a public company, and under Venezuelan law, no public money can be spent without the government's approval - and congress cannot find a copy of the contract.
It'll be interesting to see how their investors react to that; I'd imagine that a few investors will be unsettled by the prospect of a public investigation into the finances of the team. I'd have to say, though, that if the PDVSA deal is found to have been completed illegally then Williams are in deep trouble - if Maldonado's sponsorship really is worth £21 - £29 million a year, and from Williams's financial reports - available here
http://www.attwilliams.com/investors/fi ... ual-report - their turnover is likely to be in the order of £100 million (OK, the figures are up until the end of 2010, but their turnover is likely to be around that figure), then any disruption to that funding will hurt the team very badly, and potentially terminally.
It's not the first time that Renault have indicated that they've made a mistake with their exhaust configuration, albeit not quite that explicitly or damningly. I guess that they'll be pretty relieved that the 2012 regulations will get rid of the blown diffuser, and give them the chance to start afresh, but it also makes you wonder whether their decision to push ahead with their current design package when they had a rearward exiting exhaust package available to them (don't forget that Heidfeld tested the rearward exhausts in the first practise at Hungary, and seemed to think that Renault's quick conversion had potential, but they decided that it'd be too expensive to change the car mid season and stuck with their original design).
Myrvold wrote:Yeah, well, Petrov is Russian. Glock supposedly has a contract that says that if a better team approaches him, he can swap.
I think that it's unlikely Renault will approach Glock now - he might have an outside chance in 2009 and 2010, but at the moment Renault have more drivers than seats (there's Grosjean, who I suspect may drive for Renault in 2012 thanks to Boullier's support, Bruno Senna is still in the running thanks to his sponsorship (even if his results have been up and down so far), and Kubica may yet return to the cockpit if he recovers in time (although Ferrari are still very interested in Kubica as a replacement for Massa, and they have tried at least once in the past to sign Kubica)).
Against that, it's hard to see how Glock could compete against those drivers - he's unlikely to bring in more sponsors than Bruno Senna can, he'll have to overcome Boullier's bias towards one of his drivers and Kubica, at least before his accident, was rated as a far better driver.
, Daniel Ricciardo - although he missed 2 rounds- and Kevin Korjus, who WILL be the first Estonian in F1) and had a good GP3 season in 2010.
