2013 Silly Season Thread

[Wallio]

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/104664

Make what you can out of this

If thats true, theres no way Senna is gonna be signed.....

[roblo97]

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/104673


Nuff said

[Nuppiz]

The name sounds Swedish

Hmm, I disagree. I don't think there's even one Bottas in the entire country.

'as' is indeed carcass, but 'bott' is not Swedish for bottom.

In a present tense, 'bor' is used as "I live over there".
And the perfect tense for 'bor' is 'bott', which is "I have lived over there".

Takes me back to school, this

Hmm, I guess my Finnish-to-Swedish dictionary could use a bit of an update - it's from 1996... According to that, "bott" is the basic form of "bottom", but on the other hand I've mostly forgotten whatever Swedish I learned in school (despite getting an E, which in our grading system is the second-highest grade, in the high school finals...).

[Jocke1]

I've mostly forgotten whatever Swedish I learned in school

Kommer du inte ihåg någonting alls?

[razta]

Dunno if this is the right place to put this but..
Looking ahead to 2013.. and looking back on Schumi's 2 retirements.. some uncanny parallels can be seen..

In BOTH his retirements he was replaced by a Mclaren driver, who went on to win the WDC the following year, AND more importantly Aldo Costa headed up the F2007 project as well as now, where he's heading up the w04 project!
Aldo's known for producing cars which are kind on their tyres. Also one more point. Schumi had a BIG influence on the F2007 during the development phases - and for the W04 - rings any bells????

[UncreativeUsername37]

Dunno if this is the right place to put this but..
Looking ahead to 2013.. and looking back on Schumi's 2 retirements.. some uncanny parallels can be seen..

(pictures)

In BOTH his retirements he was replaced by a Mclaren driver, who went on to win the WDC the following year, AND more importantly Aldo Costa headed up the F2007 project as well as now, where he's heading up the w04 project!
Aldo's known for producing cars which are kind on their tyres. Also one more point. Schumi had a BIG influence on the F2007 during the development phases - and for the W04 - rings any bells????

This reminds me of the Alex Wurz conspiracy thread.

[James1978]

If it all means Hamilton wins next year's championship, I'm all for it!

[Aerospeed]

If it all means Hamilton wins next year's championship, I'm all for it!

I still wouldn't bet any money on it, though

[Ferrim]

It looks like the Save Our Lord Kobayashi campaign has already gone over $2 million, after just a week. Pretty impresive!

[Cynon]

It looks like the Save Our Lord Kobayashi campaign has already gone over $2 million, after just a week. Pretty impresive!

Hasn't there been a heroic effort to keep a Japanese hero in F1 every time Schumi has retired as well?

[razta]

If it all means Hamilton wins next year's championship, I'm all for it!

Quite simply YES.. it does mean just that

[Ed24]

If it all means Hamilton wins next year's championship, I'm all for it!

Well Kimi works too and personally I'd prefer that option

[razta]

It looks like the Save Our Lord Kobayashi campaign has already gone over $2 million, after just a week. Pretty impresive!

Hasn't there been a heroic effort to keep a Japanese hero in F1 every time Schumi has retired as well?

damn! this is now really freaky

[Zetec]

I'm asking myself: Will Pedro de la Rosa return to McLaren for another stint as their testdriver???

[Faustus]

I'm asking myself: Will Pedro de la Rosa return to McLaren for another stint as their testdriver???

I'd say it is unlikely, as between Gary Paffett and Oliver Turvey plus the development drivers like Kevin Magnussen, the few actual test driving opportunities are probably covered. Probably the same for the work in the simulator.

[Jocke1]

[macherone]

Considering the meeting's place, I think we'll be seeing again the Turkish GP...

[Jocke1]

I'm asking myself: Will Pedro de la Rosa return to McLaren for another stint as their testdriver???

Yes. Yes he will.

Apparently Pdlr stood at this very spot for 5 hours during the Brazilian Grand Prix weekend,
waiting for Whitmarsh to walk by. And when he did turn up, Pdlr pleaded to him:
¡Hola Martin, excusar please. Por favor please take me back. I want out from this team pronto,
it feels like I'm going backwards ¿me entiendes? Backwards in time even, just last night I thought
I was at an Elvis Costello concert, turns out I was only bored and kept hallucinating while going
through the HRT telemetry. ¿Puedes ayudarme?

[Aerospeed]

Well then...

[Jocke1]

http://youtu.be/DkutKpfmn-c
Pastor Maldonado and Valtteri Bottas get to know each other ahead of 2013

Quite funny video where Bottas and Maldonado play 'rock, paper, scissors' and the 'yes,no' game.
watch it

[nome66]

I'm asking myself: Will Pedro de la Rosa return to McLaren for another stint as their testdriver???

Yes. Yes he will.

problem, HRT?

could not resist that one.

[Backmarker]

I don't really see Anderstorp making a return any time soon.

[roblo97]

I don't really see Anderstorp making a return any time soon.

I think the gotland ring would be a better choice than turkey because the Turkish government don't want to pay for the race

[Backmarker]

I don't really see Anderstorp making a return any time soon.

I think the gotland ring would be a better choice than turkey because the Turkish government don't want to pay for the race

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the Gotland Ring is incomplete, with only the northern loop (which is the smaller of the two loops) complete, and construction has stalled on completing the southern loop. There's also the fact that Gotland is a bugger to get to, being an island in the middle of the Baltic.

[DonTirri]

I don't really see Anderstorp making a return any time soon.

I think the gotland ring would be a better choice than turkey because the Turkish government don't want to pay for the race

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the Gotland Ring is incomplete, with only the northern loop (which is the smaller of the two loops) complete, and construction has stalled on completing the southern loop. There's also the fact that Gotland is a bugger to get to, being an island in the middle of the Baltic.

I'm hoping that the resident money-bag madman Hjallis Harkimo would lose his last inch of sense at the mere prospect of 3 Finns in F1 and renovate Keimola, Alastaro or Ahvenisto for F1-usage. Or re-enter Helsinki Thunder...
He's crazy enough atleast

[shinji]

http://youtu.be/DkutKpfmn-c
Pastor Maldonado and Valtteri Bottas get to know each other ahead of 2013

Quite funny video where Bottas and Maldonado play 'rock, paper, scissors' and the 'yes,no' game.
watch it

"I have no fear"
Pastor Maldonado, December 2012

[Aerond]

Dunno if this is the right place to put this but..
Looking ahead to 2013.. and looking back on Schumi's 2 retirements.. some uncanny parallels can be seen..

(pictures)

In BOTH his retirements he was replaced by a Mclaren driver, who went on to win the WDC the following year, AND more importantly Aldo Costa headed up the F2007 project as well as now, where he's heading up the w04 project!
Aldo's known for producing cars which are kind on their tyres. Also one more point. Schumi had a BIG influence on the F2007 during the development phases - and for the W04 - rings any bells????

This reminds me of the Alex Wurz conspiracy thread.

At the Brazilian 2006 GP Takuma Sato finished 10th; roughly 49 months before, he had scored his first ever points in the Jordan at the 2002 Japanese GP , that day, Sato was running with NUMBER 10, and in his 49th Start (Brazil 2005), SATO FINISHED 10th. In his 49th entry (Italy 2005), Sato SCORED 10th FASTEST LAP OF THE RACE.

[tristan1117]

Ambrosia is still not giving up on an F1 drive for 2013. All I can say is I BELIEVE IN JEROME d'AMBROSIO!


As a sidenote, Jerome in DTM would be interesting.

[pasta_maldonado]

Believe it or not, Jerome had agreed a sponsorship deal with Amborsia Custard during his time with Virgin! However, the deal fell through before it could be announced, leaving a significant gap in his sponsor budget. I 've managed to obtain a trial version of a poster that would have been released across the UK had the deal gone ahead...

[Benetton]

According to the ever so reliable Finnish media (this time MTV3), Force India's 2nd seat is going to Sutil. MTV3 in turn quotes the rumour to be from inside the team.

http://www.mtv3.fi/urheilu/f1/uutiset.shtml/2012/12/1671383/sutil-vahvin-vaihtoehto-force-indialle

I for one would welcome Sutil back, although I do not support his bar fight (but we all eff up once or twice in life), but it is a shame that Sutil would get a seat and Kobayashi would not. Sutil is clearly Vijay's boy I guess.

If Sutil gets the seat, then 2013 will be make or break for PdR, most likely break. di Resta not only has to beat Sutil, he has to do it comfortably IMO, no more execuses Paul. di Resta needs a quali record of something like 15-5 against Sutil to be taken seriously again by the top tier teams. However, I see Sutil being the one who will win the intra team battle after he gets back into the speed of things.

[mario]

According to the ever so reliable Finnish media (this time MTV3), Force India's 2nd seat is going to Sutil. MTV3 in turn quotes the rumour to be from inside the team.

http://www.mtv3.fi/urheilu/f1/uutiset.shtml/2012/12/1671383/sutil-vahvin-vaihtoehto-force-indialle

I for one would welcome Sutil back, although I do not support his bar fight (but we all eff up once or twice in life), but it is a shame that Sutil would get a seat and Kobayashi would not. Sutil is clearly Vijay's boy I guess.

If Sutil gets the seat, then 2013 will be make or break for PdR, most likely break. di Resta not only has to beat Sutil, he has to do it comfortably IMO, no more execuses Paul. di Resta needs a quali record of something like 15-5 against Sutil to be taken seriously again by the top tier teams. However, I see Sutil being the one who will win the intra team battle after he gets back into the speed of things.

It does seem to be the case that Sutil is held in high regard by the senior management of the team, even though there are some questions over whether he would be able to get a visa for certain races due to his conviction. I agree, though, that bringing Sutil back into the team would put Di Resta under more pressure (which might be the intention of the team).
I don't necessarily know about needing to smash Sutil in qualifying, since Perez was picked up by McLaren despite having no real advantage over Kobayashi in qualifying (he beat Kobayashi 11 times in qualifying this year, but his average starting position was actually slightly lower than Kobayashi's), but he'd definitely need to outscore Sutil by a fairly respectable margin (say, having a 15% margin over Sutil). Whether he can do that is open to question - the slump in form he had in the latter part of this year doesn't bode well, although he is at least managing to stay out of trouble better than he did in the past.

[CarlosFerreira]

According to the ever so reliable Finnish media (this time MTV3), Force India's 2nd seat is going to Sutil. MTV3 in turn quotes the rumour to be from inside the team.

http://www.mtv3.fi/urheilu/f1/uutiset.shtml/2012/12/1671383/sutil-vahvin-vaihtoehto-force-indialle

I for one would welcome Sutil back, although I do not support his bar fight (but we all eff up once or twice in life), but it is a shame that Sutil would get a seat and Kobayashi would not. Sutil is clearly Vijay's boy I guess.

If Sutil gets the seat, then 2013 will be make or break for PdR, most likely break. di Resta not only has to beat Sutil, he has to do it comfortably IMO, no more execuses Paul. di Resta needs a quali record of something like 15-5 against Sutil to be taken seriously again by the top tier teams. However, I see Sutil being the one who will win the intra team battle after he gets back into the speed of things.

It does seem to be the case that Sutil is held in high regard by the senior management of the team, even though there are some questions over whether he would be able to get a visa for certain races due to his conviction. I agree, though, that bringing Sutil back into the team would put Di Resta under more pressure (which might be the intention of the team).
I don't necessarily know about needing to smash Sutil in qualifying, since Perez was picked up by McLaren despite having no real advantage over Kobayashi in qualifying (he beat Kobayashi 11 times in qualifying this year, but his average starting position was actually slightly lower than Kobayashi's), but he'd definitely need to outscore Sutil by a fairly respectable margin (say, having a 15% margin over Sutil). Whether he can do that is open to question - the slump in form he had in the latter part of this year doesn't bode well, although he is at least managing to stay out of trouble better than he did in the past.

This would be a happy situation, but I still can't understand F1 teams' apparent allergy towards Kobayashi. Surely the fund raiser, while not producing significant money, hints to a true following among people who are ready to put their money where their mouths are? Surely Bernie at least can see this, as can commercial departments within the teams?

[mario]

According to the ever so reliable Finnish media (this time MTV3), Force India's 2nd seat is going to Sutil. MTV3 in turn quotes the rumour to be from inside the team.

http://www.mtv3.fi/urheilu/f1/uutiset.shtml/2012/12/1671383/sutil-vahvin-vaihtoehto-force-indialle

I for one would welcome Sutil back, although I do not support his bar fight (but we all eff up once or twice in life), but it is a shame that Sutil would get a seat and Kobayashi would not. Sutil is clearly Vijay's boy I guess.

If Sutil gets the seat, then 2013 will be make or break for PdR, most likely break. di Resta not only has to beat Sutil, he has to do it comfortably IMO, no more execuses Paul. di Resta needs a quali record of something like 15-5 against Sutil to be taken seriously again by the top tier teams. However, I see Sutil being the one who will win the intra team battle after he gets back into the speed of things.

It does seem to be the case that Sutil is held in high regard by the senior management of the team, even though there are some questions over whether he would be able to get a visa for certain races due to his conviction. I agree, though, that bringing Sutil back into the team would put Di Resta under more pressure (which might be the intention of the team).
I don't necessarily know about needing to smash Sutil in qualifying, since Perez was picked up by McLaren despite having no real advantage over Kobayashi in qualifying (he beat Kobayashi 11 times in qualifying this year, but his average starting position was actually slightly lower than Kobayashi's), but he'd definitely need to outscore Sutil by a fairly respectable margin (say, having a 15% margin over Sutil). Whether he can do that is open to question - the slump in form he had in the latter part of this year doesn't bode well, although he is at least managing to stay out of trouble better than he did in the past.

This would be a happy situation, but I still can't understand F1 teams' apparent allergy towards Kobayashi. Surely the fund raiser, while not producing significant money, hints to a true following among people who are ready to put their money where their mouths are? Surely Bernie at least can see this, as can commercial departments within the teams?

I do have to agree that, from the point of view of a team, that the relative success of Kobayashi's fundraising scheme would be a sign of his marketing potential and popularity with the fans (if you wish to be cynical and look at the cashflow picture), whilst his coverage in the press has been pretty positive too.

I would have thought that Kobayashi was a fairly decent proposition, all in all - he has a fair amount of experience, has generally performed quite sensibly on track (whereas Perez's performances since the deal with McLaren was announced were increasingly erratic) and can bring in points at a steady rate, just what a midfield team would want given the current state of affairs. In that sense, therefore, he would probably be as much of a safe bet as Sutil or Alguersuari when it comes down to it - if anything, his more recent experience within the sport should help smooth out a transfer more easily.
Either the teams want the certainty of guaranteed sponsorship, or there is something else about Kobayashi that is not immediately obvious but it proving to be enough of a hindrance to prevent him getting a seat (perhaps his feedback is considered to be relatively weak, for example). After all, to a certain extent it was Hulkenberg, rather than Gutierrez, that displaced Kobayashi at Sauber - whilst Gutierrez has the support of the Slim family, much as Perez did, Hulkenberg, like Kobayashi, isn't really bringing in any major sponsors himself.

[AdrianSutil]

I'm pretty certain that Force India would've spoken to certain people about his racing visa in the Asian races before making inroads into re-signing him. You wouldn't sign a driver for the year only to find out he's banned for 3-4 races due to his conviction. Anyway, if Sutil does resign, I'm obviously delighted about it. He knows the team very well (from Midland days!), brings a little bit of money (although not as much as maybe Kobayashi and Alguersuari) and is a cleaner driver these days.

[Benetton]

I'm pretty certain that Force India would've spoken to certain people about his racing visa in the Asian races before making inroads into re-signing him. You wouldn't sign a driver for the year only to find out he's banned for 3-4 races due to his conviction. Anyway, if Sutil does resign, I'm obviously delighted about it. He knows the team very well (from Midland days!), brings a little bit of money (although not as much as maybe Kobayashi and Alguersuari) and is a cleaner driver these days.

If Sutil has visa problems to certain races, which I doubt, then they can just put Bianchi in for those races.

[Dj_bereta]

http://www.autosport.com/news/grapevine.php/id/104779

I was wondering, Ducati will signs with Schumacher in the future?

[DemocalypseNow]

Romain Grosjean had a seat fitting at Enstone today. He didn't say anything about having a confirmed contract for next year, but why would they bother giving him a seat fitting if he isn't going to be part of the team next season? Could mean he's being demoted to test-driver but I don't really see that happening.

[Faustus]

Romain Grosjean had a seat fitting at Enstone today. He didn't say anything about having a confirmed contract for next year, but why would they bother giving him a seat fitting if he isn't going to be part of the team next season? Could mean he's being demoted to test-driver but I don't really see that happening.

In itself, it doesn't necessarily mean anything but you're right, he's probably staying.
By the way, Bruno Senna had a seat fitting at Force India last wednesday.

[Aerospeed]

http://www.autosport.com/news/grapevine.php/id/104779

I was wondering, Ducati will signs with Schumacher in the future?

Didn't know he could ride bikes like that... I know he did get involved in a motorcycle crash in 2009 but I assumed it was one of those road bikes (Harley-Davidson, etc.)

Bruno Senna had a seat fitting at Force India last wednesday.

Oh dear, oh dear me.

[James1978]

If the Force sign Senna then they're resigned to 8th at best in the constructors. Maybe even 9th as Toro Rosso might beat them!

Why have Senna when you can have Kobayashi FFS!!!!