2013 Silly Season Thread

Cynon · Post by **Cynon** » 04 Feb 2013, 21:39

Ataxia [BacLettNinj] wrote:
Cynon wrote:Vitaly Petrov's manager has some amusing words for F1 as a whole. Definitely three di Restas.

She's got a point though...I like Petrov, and think he deserves a go in at least a car like a Force India or a Williams. But...that's the way the cookie crumbles, I guess.

Oh, absolutely, she has a point, and IMO Petrov deserves the Force India seat more than Kobayashi and certainly moreso than Senna's surname/cash.

roblo97 · Post by **roblo97** » 04 Feb 2013, 21:55

Senna is only in f1 because of his surname whereas Petrov is making f1 popular in Russia

Post by **Ataxia** » 04 Feb 2013, 22:31

roblomas52 wrote:Senna is only in f1 because of his surname whereas Petrov is making f1 popular in Russia

Wouldn't agree with you there. A name doesn't get you 2nd place in GP2 and 3rd in British F3. The name has certainly helped, but he's not ONLY in there because of it.

Plus, it would seem apparent that Petrov hasn't made a massive dent in F1's popularity in Russia. I think the race in Sochi will actually make more of an impact. However, having a Russian driver wouldn't hurt...

AndreaModa · Post by **AndreaModa** » 04 Feb 2013, 22:40

Ataxia [BacLettNinj] wrote:
roblomas52 wrote:Senna is only in f1 because of his surname whereas Petrov is making f1 popular in Russia

Wouldn't agree with you there. A name doesn't get you 2nd place in GP2 and 3rd in British F3. The name has certainly helped, but he's not ONLY in there because of it.

Plus, it would seem apparent that Petrov hasn't made a massive dent in F1's popularity in Russia. I think the race in Sochi will actually make more of an impact. However, having a Russian driver wouldn't hurt...

I'd argue that the Senna name has hampered Bruno somewhat, especially in his early days, because his family banned him from motorsport for a while after Ayrton's death, so he was a bot of a late-starter in comparison to drivers around him. But equally the marketability of his name has obviously aided him in situations too. It wasn't enough to get him the Brawn seat in 2009 though remember.

Salamander · Post by **Salamander** » 04 Feb 2013, 22:48

Ataxia [BacLettNinj] wrote:
roblomas52 wrote:Senna is only in f1 because of his surname whereas Petrov is making f1 popular in Russia

Wouldn't agree with you there. A name doesn't get you 2nd place in GP2 and 3rd in British F3. The name has certainly helped, but he's not ONLY in there because of it.

No, I believe millions of sponsorship dollars also played a part.

CarlosFerreira · Post by **CarlosFerreira** » 05 Feb 2013, 08:17

Cynon wrote:Vitaly Petrov's manager has some amusing words for F1 as a whole. Definitely three di Restas.

And the Captain Obvious Award goes to...

CoopsII · Post by **CoopsII** » 05 Feb 2013, 08:38

Cynon wrote:Vitaly Petrov's manager has some amusing words for F1 as a whole. Definitely three di Restas.

Aah, she cant start kicking off with that line about F1, Fernando has known that for years http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRV1SQwzONM

girry · Post by **girry** » 05 Feb 2013, 12:57

I don't really see why it makes the driver worse for people that Senna has financial backing partly because of his name, compared to say Pérez or Maldonado or Petrov because of their nationalities, etc...

Salamander · Post by **Salamander** » 05 Feb 2013, 15:29

giraurd wrote:I don't really see why it makes the driver worse for people that Senna has financial backing partly because of his name, compared to say Pérez or Maldonado or Petrov because of their nationalities, etc...

I don't care that Senna has financial backing. That doesn't enter the equation for me at all. My singular problem with him is that on raw pace he was as far behind Maldonado as Massa was behind Alonso in the first half of the year. Perez deserves to be in F1 because he's had several strong showings - sure, I can understand why people think he's not top tier material, but he has certainly justified that he deserves a place on his talent alone. Maldonado is more of a sticking point for some, but I firmly believe he is fast enough to be in F1 - Monaco 2011, Barcelona and Singapore last year are evidence enough - and he was less crashtastic in the latter part of the year. Petrov again had some strong showings in his time with Renault - Turkey, Hungary and Abu Dhabi 2010, and Australia 2011. He might've been destroyed by Kubica in 2010, but frankly I think Kubica put on a world-champion level performance that year and most drivers would've been hard-pressed to come close to him.

Senna, on the other hand, despite scoring in twice as many races as Maldonado, scored less points than him. Despite all of the points Maldonado lost over 2012, he still had enough to beat Senna. And Senna never once looked like troubling the front-runners at any one point during the season. I don't see any reason why you would want to hire Senna other than his sponsorship.

GwilymJJames · Post by **GwilymJJames** » 05 Feb 2013, 19:56

Senna is out - he's taken a World Endurance Championship seat.

FullMetalJack · Post by **FullMetalJack** » 05 Feb 2013, 20:04

GwilymJJames wrote:Senna is out - he's taken a World Endurance Championship seat.

East Londoner is probably celebrating as we speak.

Post by **mario** » 05 Feb 2013, 20:33

redbulljack14 wrote:
GwilymJJames wrote:Senna is out - he's taken a World Endurance Championship seat.

East Londoner is probably celebrating as we speak.

He certainly is already celebrating in the thread about sportscar racing...

CarlosFerreira · Post by **CarlosFerreira** » 05 Feb 2013, 21:21

GwilymJJames wrote:Senna is out - he's taken a World Endurance Championship seat.

Damn.

Klon · Post by **Klon** » 05 Feb 2013, 22:58

redbulljack14 wrote:
GwilymJJames wrote:Senna is out - he's taken a World Endurance Championship seat.

East Londoner is probably celebrating as we speak.

So am I. No more Senna, it's the best thing to happen in motorsports this year so far.

Cynon · Post by **Cynon** » 06 Feb 2013, 01:20

giraurd wrote:I don't really see why it makes the driver worse for people that Senna has financial backing partly because of his name, compared to say Pérez or Maldonado or Petrov because of their nationalities, etc...

Perez, Maldolan, and Petrov have provided a lot more excitement as far as this forum is concerned. The only thing Senna has done for this forum is drive an HRT and earn a Reject of the Race while driving for HRT. After he left HRT I don't think anyone around here would care about Senna.

Speaking of Senna, something just occurred to me, if the pre-2003 points system was still used, would Senna be the driver with the most race starts without a point? If not, how close would he be from pinching that award from Luca Badoer?

FullMetalJack · Post by **FullMetalJack** » 06 Feb 2013, 01:29

Cynon wrote:
giraurd wrote:I don't really see why it makes the driver worse for people that Senna has financial backing partly because of his name, compared to say Pérez or Maldonado or Petrov because of their nationalities, etc...

Perez, Maldolan, and Petrov have provided a lot more excitement as far as this forum is concerned. The only thing Senna has done for this forum is drive an HRT and earn a Reject of the Race while driving for HRT. After he left HRT I don't think anyone around here would care about Senna.

Speaking of Senna, something just occurred to me, if the pre-2003 points system was still used, would Senna be the driver with the most race starts without a point? If not, how close would he be from pinching that award from Luca Badoer?

He'd have scored 1 point. He finished 6h in Malaysia.

Cynon · Post by **Cynon** » 06 Feb 2013, 01:42

redbulljack14 wrote:
Cynon wrote:
giraurd wrote:I don't really see why it makes the driver worse for people that Senna has financial backing partly because of his name, compared to say Pérez or Maldonado or Petrov because of their nationalities, etc...

Perez, Maldolan, and Petrov have provided a lot more excitement as far as this forum is concerned. The only thing Senna has done for this forum is drive an HRT and earn a Reject of the Race while driving for HRT. After he left HRT I don't think anyone around here would care about Senna.

Speaking of Senna, something just occurred to me, if the pre-2003 points system was still used, would Senna be the driver with the most race starts without a point? If not, how close would he be from pinching that award from Luca Badoer?

He'd have scored 1 point. He finished 6h in Malaysia.

Well then bathplug him, there goes what little caring I had left for him out the window.

...

Bad reason, I know, but he didn't fail enough for me to want him to stay in F1.

Aerospeed · Post by **Aerospeed** » 06 Feb 2013, 02:37

Cynon wrote:
redbulljack14 wrote:
Cynon wrote:
Perez, Maldolan, and Petrov have provided a lot more excitement as far as this forum is concerned. The only thing Senna has done for this forum is drive an HRT and earn a Reject of the Race while driving for HRT. After he left HRT I don't think anyone around here would care about Senna.

Speaking of Senna, something just occurred to me, if the pre-2003 points system was still used, would Senna be the driver with the most race starts without a point? If not, how close would he be from pinching that award from Luca Badoer?

He'd have scored 1 point. He finished 6h in Malaysia.

Well then bathplug him, there goes what little caring I had left for him out the window.

...

Bad reason, I know, but he didn't fail enough for me to want him to stay in F1.

He's still a classified F1 Reject, so I for one will look forward to his inevitable F1 Reject Profile!

In a decade... : /

Cynon · Post by **Cynon** » 06 Feb 2013, 05:00

Which is another reason I don't want him in a Force India. What if he unrejectifies himself? Then we can't have a Senna in reject status!

RonDenisDeletraz · Post by **RonDenisDeletraz** » 06 Feb 2013, 05:24

I desprately don't want Senna to ever be a profiled reject as is just wouldn't seem right to me. I also think he seems like a good person and the main reason behind the gap between him and Maldonado was his poor qualifying. Also he suffered from the fact that he was getting screwed over for and was eventually replaced by someone who I don't think is any better. So all the constant Senna hate is annoying and not all of it is justified.

the Masked Lapwing · Post by **the Masked Lapwing** » 06 Feb 2013, 07:00

eurobrun wrote:So all the constant Senna hate is annoying and not all of it is justified.

You do realise we can say the exact same thing about you and Bottas right?

Salamander · Post by **Salamander** » 06 Feb 2013, 07:09

eurobrun wrote:I desprately don't want Senna to ever be a profiled reject as is just wouldn't seem right to me. I also think he seems like a good person and the main reason behind the gap between him and Maldonado was his poor qualifying. Also he suffered from the fact that he was getting screwed over for and was eventually replaced by someone who I don't think is any better. So all the constant Senna hate is annoying and not all of it is justified.

Yeah, he is a nice guy. But I don't see how that should excuse him for being so far off of Maldonado's pace. Yeah, he's a terrible qualifier, but that doesn't excuse him never once mixing it right at the sharp end in the race like Maldonado did on multiple occasions. Or, as I have repeatedly stated, being as far off Maldonado's pace the whole year as Massa was off of Alonso's pace in the first half of the season. I don't see how any of this is unjustified. Yeah, it might be annoying. You know what else is annoying? People insisting that he has talent enough to remain in F1 when he was slower than Massa (remember, Massa did improve in the last few races, something Senna failed to do) who many people, including myself, have been calling Ferrari to drop, or even leave F1 altogether.

RonDenisDeletraz · Post by **RonDenisDeletraz** » 06 Feb 2013, 07:21

the Masked Lapwing wrote:
eurobrun wrote:So all the constant Senna hate is annoying and not all of it is justified.

You do realise we can say the exact same thing about you and Bottas right?

1. I have not given my opinion on him anywhere near as much recently
2. I am only one person, several people on this forum constantly hate on Senna
3. I will not say that I dislike anyone now without giving a solid reason

And I was worse about GRSJN at the start of 2012

BlindCaveSalamander wrote:Yeah, he is a nice guy. But I don't see how that should excuse him for being so far off of Maldonado's pace.

Someone is seemingly forgetting Maldonado's lack of consistency. Yes there were definitely races where he dominated over Senna but there were also a few races where he was matched or even beaten by Senna, such was the extent of Pastor's inconsistency. I will still think that if Senna qualified well then he would have unrejectified himself.

Post by **mario** » 06 Feb 2013, 08:12

BlindCaveSalamander wrote:
eurobrun wrote:I desprately don't want Senna to ever be a profiled reject as is just wouldn't seem right to me. I also think he seems like a good person and the main reason behind the gap between him and Maldonado was his poor qualifying. Also he suffered from the fact that he was getting screwed over for and was eventually replaced by someone who I don't think is any better. So all the constant Senna hate is annoying and not all of it is justified.

Yeah, he is a nice guy. But I don't see how that should excuse him for being so far off of Maldonado's pace. Yeah, he's a terrible qualifier, but that doesn't excuse him never once mixing it right at the sharp end in the race like Maldonado did on multiple occasions. Or, as I have repeatedly stated, being as far off Maldonado's pace the whole year as Massa was off of Alonso's pace in the first half of the season. I don't see how any of this is unjustified. Yeah, it might be annoying. You know what else is annoying? People insisting that he has talent enough to remain in F1 when he was slower than Massa (remember, Massa did improve in the last few races, something Senna failed to do) who many people, including myself, have been calling Ferrari to drop, or even leave F1 altogether.

Statistically, it is true that Bruno was a worse qualifier than Massa in terms of the average time difference between himself and Maldonado (the only driver who was worse in that respect was Karthikeyan).
Compounding that is the fact that, on average, he tended to lose slightly more positions on the opening lap than Maldonado would (he'd lose 3 positions on average to 2 for Maldonado), which, given that he would qualify around 14-15th on average, means that he'd often slip back behind the Caterham drivers on the opening lap and then get stuck behind them for about half a dozen laps.

Now, could Bruno have performed better if he could qualify well? I will grant you that, perhaps, he could have - one of his best performances came in the Hungarian GP, where he qualified 9th (the only time he started in the top 10 on merit) and finished 7th, and the fact that Williams did disrupt so many of his practise sessions would have hurt his chances of improving his performance (losing nearly a third of his practise time to Bottas), although that could also be viewed as a vote of no confidence in him by the team. Equally, it is true that Bruno was, on average, more consistent in terms of performance than Maldonado, but the problem is that Maldonado's peaks in performance were much, much higher than Bruno's peaks in performance.

Overall, though, you get the impression that Bruno was not a bad driver, but not an especially brilliant driver either - I can recall some bemusement amongst the motorsport press when Bruno's name was mentioned in connection with Honda in 2008 as a potential replacement for Rubens, since the reporters then seemed to think that Bruno was a competent but otherwise unremarkable driver based on his performances in GP2.

Svenko Wankerov · Post by **Svenko Wankerov** » 06 Feb 2013, 08:13

Klon wrote:So am I. No more Senna, it's the best thing to happen in motorsports this year so far.

Hello, what are you chaps talking about?

Meh I don't care enough either way about Bruno to get in a fit over whether he is in F1 or not. He is a nice guy that wasn't fast enough for F1 and I rather see what Bottas could do. There is a much bigger cancer at Force India that F1 needs to rid itself of.

Backmarker · Post by **Backmarker** » 06 Feb 2013, 08:21

So, Razia has been confirmed at Marussia (to no one's surprise). Thank you to Marussia for giving so many potential rejects their chance!

girry · Post by **girry** » 06 Feb 2013, 08:42

BlindCaveSalamander wrote:
giraurd wrote:I don't really see why it makes the driver worse for people that Senna has financial backing partly because of his name, compared to say Pérez or Maldonado or Petrov because of their nationalities, etc...

I don't care that Senna has financial backing. That doesn't enter the equation for me at all. My singular problem with him is that on raw pace he was as far behind Maldonado as Massa was behind Alonso in the first half of the year. Perez deserves to be in F1 because he's had several strong showings - sure, I can understand why people think he's not top tier material, but he has certainly justified that he deserves a place on his talent alone. Maldonado is more of a sticking point for some, but I firmly believe he is fast enough to be in F1 - Monaco 2011, Barcelona and Singapore last year are evidence enough - and he was less crashtastic in the latter part of the year. Petrov again had some strong showings in his time with Renault - Turkey, Hungary and Abu Dhabi 2010, and Australia 2011. He might've been destroyed by Kubica in 2010, but frankly I think Kubica put on a world-champion level performance that year and most drivers would've been hard-pressed to come close to him.

Senna, on the other hand, despite scoring in twice as many races as Maldonado, scored less points than him. Despite all of the points Maldonado lost over 2012, he still had enough to beat Senna. And Senna never once looked like troubling the front-runners at any one point during the season. I don't see any reason why you would want to hire Senna other than his sponsorship.

Yup, Senna was clumsy and slow-ish yeah, and he didn't seem as good as the other drivers mentioned either.

It just seems he gets way too much hate compared to any other regular sponsorship-bringing driver who is a bit slower and a bit clumsier than others, and that I suspect because of his name only...

CoopsII · Post by **CoopsII** » 06 Feb 2013, 10:40

Svenko Wankerov wrote:Meh I don't care enough either way about Bruno to get in a fit over whether he is in F1 or not. He is a nice guy that wasn't fast enough for F1 and I rather see what Bottas could do. There is a much bigger cancer at Force India that F1 needs to rid itself of.

Half sensible post and half brainless idiocy. I wanted Senna to do well but he theres only so much time a driver can have to prove himself and Lalli (as we should, perhaps, now start calling him) simply didnt.

As for the Di Resta/cancer reference; nice work :roll:

.

TomWazzleshaw · Post by **TomWazzleshaw** » 06 Feb 2013, 11:05

Vergne not worried about prospect of losing his seat at Toro Rosso.

Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't it usually when people start saying stuff like that their contract termination isn't too far away?

Phoenix · Post by **Phoenix** » 06 Feb 2013, 11:22

Wizzie wrote:Vergne not worried about prospect of losing his seat at Toro Rosso.

Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't it usually when people start saying stuff like that their contract termination isn't too far away?

Right now? Jesus, it's only preseason testing and the guy outscored Ricciardo last year.

Post by **mario** » 06 Feb 2013, 11:38

giraurd wrote:Yup, Senna was clumsy and slow-ish yeah, and he didn't seem as good as the other drivers mentioned either.

It just seems he gets way too much hate compared to any other regular sponsorship-bringing driver who is a bit slower and a bit clumsier than others, and that I suspect because of his name only...

The name, no doubt, creates a lot of animosity, but I guess that the other aspect was the brazenness with which some of Bruno's sponsors boasted about their influence (the head of OGX publicly boasted, via Twitter IIRC, about how he had bought Bruno's seat at Williams). Is it the case that Bottas may be a better replacement driver than Bruno? We can only wait and see what happens next.
Still, I do agree that, in some senses, the criticism of Bruno can be excessively harsh at times - I myself may not be a fan of his, and do agree that, on balance, his overall performance at Williams was a little underwhelming, but he wasn't exactly that bad and nothing that seems to deserve some of the harsher criticism directed his way (OK, I do think that he was nothing special, but that he was at least competent enough to keep up with the lower end of the midfield pack).

CoopsII wrote:
Svenko Wankerov wrote:Meh I don't care enough either way about Bruno to get in a fit over whether he is in F1 or not. He is a nice guy that wasn't fast enough for F1 and I rather see what Bottas could do. There is a much bigger cancer at Force India that F1 needs to rid itself of.

Half sensible post and half brainless idiocy. I wanted Senna to do well but he theres only so much time a driver can have to prove himself and Lalli (as we should, perhaps, now start calling him) simply didnt.

As for the Di Resta/cancer reference; nice work .

I have to agree there - Svenko, I know that you have made it clear that you do not like Di Resta at all, but I do have to agree that your comments are becoming increasingly vindictive now and that particular comment was unnecessary.

Benetton · Post by **Benetton** » 06 Feb 2013, 12:29

Am I the only one who feels the quality of this forum has gone down recently? :roll:

DanielPT · Post by **DanielPT** » 06 Feb 2013, 12:33

Phoenix wrote:
Wizzie wrote:Vergne not worried about prospect of losing his seat at Toro Rosso.

Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't it usually when people start saying stuff like that their contract termination isn't too far away?

Right now? Jesus, it's only preseason testing and the guy outscored Ricciardo last year.

I think that Franz Tost started the chair game a bit too early this time around. Either he is getting bored by now or he is nostalgic about how back in the days he used to write P45's every 6 months or so...

Klon · Post by **Klon** » 06 Feb 2013, 14:23

As far as my dislike of Senna goes: I do dislike people abusing their name whilst not showing a willingness to be more than just a name (which is why it is not hypocritical of me to be a Ralf fan whilst disliking Bruno Senna) but it would have been nowhere near as bad (since I probably would do the same if given the chance) if he hadn't chosen to go to Williams. Could have gone to Caterham, Marussia or some other team, but noooo, the twat had to go to Williams. :geek:

Post by **mario** » 06 Feb 2013, 15:07

Klon wrote:As far as my dislike of Senna goes: I do dislike people abusing their name whilst not showing a willingness to be more than just a name (which is why it is not hypocritical of me to be a Ralf fan whilst disliking Bruno Senna) but it would have been nowhere near as bad (since I probably would do the same if given the chance) if he hadn't chosen to go to Williams. Could have gone to Caterham, Marussia or some other team, but noooo, the twat had to go to Williams.

On the other hand, Williams were probably prepared to offer better terms as they would have been fairly desperate for his cash if you consider the context. Bear in mind that Williams haven't exactly been flush with cash in recent years, and Bruno's arrival coincided with the loss of one of their major sponsors (AT&T) - add to that their efforts to drum up sponsorship from the Middle East had failed to materialise, and that creates a situation where the team would probably have been more willing to compromise than they might have otherwise done in the past.
The fact that Williams now appear to have negotiated more favourable terms with FOM for TV revenues probably explains why Williams now feel secure enough to kick Bruno out, not to mention that the hybrid power division is now probably making a small profit thanks to their deal with Audi for the hybrid R18, but he probably helped keep the team alive last year when their finances were at their shakiest.

TomWazzleshaw · Post by **TomWazzleshaw** » 06 Feb 2013, 20:52

Phoenix wrote:
Wizzie wrote:Vergne not worried about prospect of losing his seat at Toro Rosso.

Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't it usually when people start saying stuff like that their contract termination isn't too far away?

Right now? Jesus, it's only preseason testing and the guy outscored Ricciardo last year.

Outscored yes, but Ricciardo generally had the upper hand in both qualifying and race trim after Monaco onwards last year. The latter of which should have set off an alarm bell in Vergne's head since he's supposed to be the better of the two over a race distance.

Svenko Wankerov · Post by **Svenko Wankerov** » 06 Feb 2013, 20:55

Klon wrote:As far as my dislike of Senna goes: I do dislike people abusing their name whilst not showing a willingness to be more than just a name (which is why it is not hypocritical of me to be a Ralf fan whilst disliking Bruno Senna) but it would have been nowhere near as bad (since I probably would do the same if given the chance) if he hadn't chosen to go to Williams. Could have gone to Caterham, Marussia or some other team, but noooo, the twat had to go to Williams.

Oh so this kind of hate directed towards Senna isn't vindictive or unnecessary?

Bruno accepted that he had to be a pay driver to stay in F1 and he did so without whining about being entitled to a top seat. He bought the best available seat which happened to be at Williams. It didn't work out for him and he left F1 without making a scene. How is using his family connection to raise money different than say Max Chilton buying into Marrussia with his family trust fund?

Post by **mario** » 06 Feb 2013, 21:19

Svenko Wankerov wrote:
Klon wrote:As far as my dislike of Senna goes: I do dislike people abusing their name whilst not showing a willingness to be more than just a name (which is why it is not hypocritical of me to be a Ralf fan whilst disliking Bruno Senna) but it would have been nowhere near as bad (since I probably would do the same if given the chance) if he hadn't chosen to go to Williams. Could have gone to Caterham, Marussia or some other team, but noooo, the twat had to go to Williams.

Oh so this kind of hate directed towards Senna isn't vindictive or unnecessary?

Bruno accepted that he had to be a pay driver to stay in F1 and he did so without whining about being entitled to a top seat. He bought the best available seat which happened to be at Williams. It didn't work out for him and he left F1 without making a scene. How is using his family connection to raise money different than say Max Chilton buying into Marrussia with his family trust fund?

As I've said before (only a few posts further up this page, in fact), I do think that Bruno has been subjected to some unfair criticism and do not think that he is as bad a driver as others try to paint him as. Although this particular post wasn't quite in as poor taste, I must admit that I am starting to tire of the complaints being thrown Bruno's way - he has left the sport, for now at least, and would prefer it if we didn't keep raking it up again.

RonDenisDeletraz · Post by **RonDenisDeletraz** » 06 Feb 2013, 21:20

Svenko, there is a clear double standard on this forum. The community here always hates on Senna (and in some cases Vettel) but as soon as you say something bad about somebody else people turn against you. It has happened to me with both Bottas and GRSJN.

Aside from that I agree 100% with Benetton

CarlosFerreira · Post by **CarlosFerreira** » 06 Feb 2013, 21:24

eurobrun wrote:The community here always hates on Senna (...)

Oi! I'm still getting over the fact Senna won't be on the grid next year. He'll be sadly missed.