Faustus wrote:I heard a really silly rumour at the weekend that must be just a rumour and nothing else, because it's too far-fetched. Mercedes to invest in a 2nd team, probably Force India, and use it as a junior team.
Can't disagree with the farfetched part. For a team that is apparently looking for any excuse to pack up and leave F1, investing in a second team seems like the last thing they'd be interested in.
I sometimes feel like F1 is turning into Serie A. No trust in young up-and-comers. I remember rumours that Hamilton wouldn't be promoted directly to McLaren after his GP2 title win, and that De La Rosa would get the drive instead as he was vastly more experienced. And look what happened there!
When is the last time a top team plucked a young driver straight out of the junior categories? Looking at the recent champions, we can see that Vettel went via Scuderia Toro Rosso and BMW, Button had already been around for a long time having previously driven for Williams and Benetton before moving to BAR which eventually morphed into Honda and then Brawn, Raikkonen had been around for a long time after being at McLaren and Sauber, Alonso spent time at Minardi before getting a race seat at Renault. And then looking at the nearly men of the past - Massa was loaned out to Sauber by Ferrari, and most other nearly men recently are experienced guys who made their debuts a long long time ago.
The only exceptions I can think of at all in the last 20 years are Lewis Hamilton at McLaren and David Coultahrd at Williams (which came under tragic cirumstances and may not have unfolded that way otherwise). Jacques Villeneuve kind of comes under that too, but he was CART champion, which isn't exactly a "junior" category - he was 25 when he switched to F1, which I guess is reasonably young. Meanwhile Montoya was 26 when he copied JV's switch.
Williams gave Rosberg his shot, but by then, they were not a top team. The same has to go for Glock and Hülkenberg. And perhaps Glock shouldn't even be considered, given his spell at Jordan years before. The same goes for Grosjean, who came back to a competitive Lotus team after a torrid time at Renault a few years before.
The very few drivers who land top seats at the start of their careers rarely seem to squander them. If Mercedes spent less time wasting money on massive contracts for big name drivers and big name technical staff, and more time on the finer details, perhaps they would improve. IIRC Vettel earns less money per season than all the other world champions in F1 at the moment, even though he has more titles to his name than the rest.
Perhaps its time teams stopped wasting their time shoving young guns into B-teams and start having some faith. It may well pay off.
