Grand Prix Rejects

mario wrote:

Shadaza wrote:I hope Vandoorne defeats da Costa in FR 3.5

I am getting really tired of Autosports continued hyping of AF da C.

The last qualifying report for example had a paragraph and a half talking about da Costa taking P4 whilst, Sirtokin and Zanella in 2nd and 3rd were covered with a tag on sentence.

The problem is, da Costa has the might of the Red Bull Racing Young Driver PR machine behind him for several years whereas drivers like Zanella don't (and Vandoorne only won support from McLaren's Young Driver program barely a month ago), so automatically he has the advantage that there are other parties that can hype him up on his behalf.
Equally, there is another odd quirk about FR 3.5 - before Bianchi was hired by Marussia this year, the last non Red Bull backed driver to graduate directly from FR 3.5 to Formula 1 was Robert Kubica, who went from there to his role as a BMW-Sauber test driver. FR 3.5 has become Red Bull's preferred driver training scheme for F1, so a promising talent associated with them is more likely to attract speculation about a potential move to F1 - particularly given that Red Bull expects a lot from its current drivers at Toro Rosso and has shown a willingness to hire and fire drivers at that team pretty rapidly.

Until Giedo van der Garde, the last Formula Renault 3.5 champion to graduate to F1 was Robert Kubica. Even counting since vdG, that's 4 champions who haven't made it to F1 - there's a far better recent record of runners-up graduating to F1: Ricciardo, Vergne, Bianchi. Of course, for Ricciardo and Vergne there was a clear reason they got to F1 over the champions. So AFDC can continue this fine tradition, whereas if Vandoorne wins it's harder to see where he fits in - no seat at McLaren (presumably), so Marussia or Force India? Or getting passed-over by F1, and ending up in DTM, LMP, GT1 etc.

Backmarker wrote:

mario wrote:

Shadaza wrote:I hope Vandoorne defeats da Costa in FR 3.5

I am getting really tired of Autosports continued hyping of AF da C.

The last qualifying report for example had a paragraph and a half talking about da Costa taking P4 whilst, Sirtokin and Zanella in 2nd and 3rd were covered with a tag on sentence.

The problem is, da Costa has the might of the Red Bull Racing Young Driver PR machine behind him for several years whereas drivers like Zanella don't (and Vandoorne only won support from McLaren's Young Driver program barely a month ago), so automatically he has the advantage that there are other parties that can hype him up on his behalf.
Equally, there is another odd quirk about FR 3.5 - before Bianchi was hired by Marussia this year, the last non Red Bull backed driver to graduate directly from FR 3.5 to Formula 1 was Robert Kubica, who went from there to his role as a BMW-Sauber test driver. FR 3.5 has become Red Bull's preferred driver training scheme for F1, so a promising talent associated with them is more likely to attract speculation about a potential move to F1 - particularly given that Red Bull expects a lot from its current drivers at Toro Rosso and has shown a willingness to hire and fire drivers at that team pretty rapidly.

Until Giedo van der Garde, the last Formula Renault 3.5 champion to graduate to F1 was Robert Kubica. Even counting since vdG, that's 4 champions who haven't made it to F1 - there's a far better recent record of runners-up graduating to F1: Ricciardo, Vergne, Bianchi. Of course, for Ricciardo and Vergne there was a clear reason they got to F1 over the champions. So AFDC can continue this fine tradition, whereas if Vandoorne wins it's harder to see where he fits in - no seat at McLaren (presumably), so Marussia or Force India? Or getting passed-over by F1, and ending up in DTM, LMP, GT1 etc.

It's not just that the champions themselves, but in fact pretty much the entire FR 3.5 grid, have been passed over. Right up until Bianchi (and, I suppose, Frijns), Kubica was the only non Red Bull driver to go from Formula Renault 3.5 to Formula 1 full stop - all the other drivers that raced in FR 3.5 that moved up to F1 had to go through GP2 in between (e.g. Chandhok - who was himself formerly backed by Red Bull - went from FR 3.5 to GP2, as did Pic, Maldonado and van der Garde), because GP2 was intended to be the "accepted" way into F1.
Even most of the young test drivers, like Turvey or Bird, have had to go through GP2 before getting a test driver contract with a major team, whilst Bianchi's move into F1 as a test driver was only because Ferrari were pushing incredibly hard to find him a seat (and even then, Bianchi's seat at Marussia was because Razia's sponsors defaulted on their commitments).

As an aside, though, I wonder if Bianchi's promotion to F1 might actually be beneficial for the FR 3.5 field in the longer term? The fact that Bianchi has astounded most of the grid with his raw speed in the car (to the extent that it is beginning to worry Williams), might wake a few teams up to the fact that there does seem to be a lot of potential talent in the FR 3.5 series that they can tap into. The fact that McLaren now seem to be giving that series patronage too, through drivers like Vandoorne and Kevin Magnussen, might also help raise FR 3.5's stock - the fact that it is also substantially cheaper than GP2 might also make it a lot more attractive for teams to put their drivers through that series instead (I believe that the cost of a car is about a tenth of that of GP2, since FR 3.5 permits third party suppliers to supply standardised parts whereas the GP2 series doesn't, and is therefore notorious for price gouging for spare parts).

As to where Vandoorne could fit in, well, it's true that McLaren are unlikely to have a seat in their team available any time soon - Button's current contract expires at the end of 2014, I believe (I think that the contract he signed in 2011 was for three years), although it may be that he has an option in that contract to extend it further. As for Perez, whilst I don't recall the exact length of his contract being announced, it was said to be a multi year contract - he may be struggling a little at the moment, but I expect him to improve and can't see his performance being bad enough for him to be fired on those grounds either.
As you say, it is possible that he might end up at either Marussia or Force India in the future given that both teams have links to McLaren, although that would probably be as a reserve driver, perhaps with FP1 practise sessions, rather than as a front line driver. Equally, it is possible that McLaren might keep him in house as their own reserve driver rather than farm him out to another team - failing that, though, I think that a career in GT racing is possible, again through McLaren, or possible sports cars - DTM is perhaps a little less likely given that McLaren's relationship with Mercedes is no longer as cordial as it once was.

mario wrote:It's not just that the champions themselves, but in fact pretty much the entire FR 3.5 grid, have been passed over. Right up until Bianchi (and, I suppose, Frijns), Kubica was the only non Red Bull driver to go from Formula Renault 3.5 to Formula 1 full stop - all the other drivers that raced in FR 3.5 that moved up to F1 had to go through GP2 in between (e.g. Chandhok - who was himself formerly backed by Red Bull - went from FR 3.5 to GP2, as did Pic, Maldonado and van der Garde), because GP2 was intended to be the "accepted" way into F1.
Even most of the young test drivers, like Turvey or Bird, have had to go through GP2 before getting a test driver contract with a major team, whilst Bianchi's move into F1 as a test driver was only because Ferrari were pushing incredibly hard to find him a seat (and even then, Bianchi's seat at Marussia was because Razia's sponsors defaulted on their commitments).

I had to look up Alonso's career history, and I didn't realise that even he went from the Nissan-sponsored predecessor to the Renault series to F1 via F3000. So Mario was right, even with FR3.5 and GP2's predecessor series...

The big problem with junior categories is always money, and often talented drivers with little or no backing can loose out in GP2 or even GP3 because they can't match someone with less talent but more money for the seat. So having a cheaper series like FR3.5 allows for a much truer picture of talent amongst the drivers, regardless of their budget, and therefore must be far more attractive to teams who are looking for the next big thing.

AndreaModa wrote:The big problem with junior categories is always money, and often talented drivers with little or no backing can loose out in GP2 or even GP3 because they can't match someone with less talent but more money for the seat. So having a cheaper series like FR3.5 allows for a much truer picture of talent amongst the drivers, regardless of their budget, and therefore must be far more attractive to teams who are looking for the next big thing.

But as Mario pointed out, the best that a driver can hope from FR3.5 is that they get picked up by someone with big pockets to either take them to F1 (if Mr Moneybags is Red Bull) or to GP2...

I also think that the FR3.5 field is not very much balanced this year. You have Vandoorne, Da Costa, Magnussen and probably Pic that will fight for the 4 first places. Then, you have absolutely no one else.

Obviously, I would prefer that it is Da Costa who wins it. But I would very much like to see the current top 3 joining F1 somewhere in the next few years.

DanielPT wrote:I also think that the FR3.5 field is not very much balanced this year. You have Vandoorne, Da Costa, Magnussen and probably Pic that will fight for the 4 first places. Then, you have absolutely no one else.

Obviously, I would prefer that it is Da Costa who wins it. But I would very much like to see the current top 3 joining F1 somewhere in the next few years.

I'm not so sure. It depends on how fast Sergey Sirotkin can develop (he's still only 17!!). What is certain however, is that Daniil Move will continue to be rubbish yet still be driving next season...

dr-baker wrote:

AndreaModa wrote:The big problem with junior categories is always money, and often talented drivers with little or no backing can loose out in GP2 or even GP3 because they can't match someone with less talent but more money for the seat. So having a cheaper series like FR3.5 allows for a much truer picture of talent amongst the drivers, regardless of their budget, and therefore must be far more attractive to teams who are looking for the next big thing.

But as Mario pointed out, the best that a driver can hope from FR3.5 is that they get picked up by someone with big pockets to either take them to F1 (if Mr Moneybags is Red Bull) or to GP2...

Well, the wealthy backer could also be another team (Ferrari had Bianchi and McLaren have just picked up Vandoorne), but either way the current mindset does seem to be for drivers to go through GP2 rather than FR3.5 - no doubt influenced by Bernie's involvement with GP2. Asides from that, GP2 has the advantage of piggybacking off F1, given that GP2 is an official support series, and uses both the same tyres and circuits as F1 does, whereas FR 3.5 has a shorter season that uses fewer tracks from the F1 calendar and doesn't have the tyre links either (since they use Michelin tyres instead). Being able to be in the same paddock as the people in F1 goes a long way towards helping to cultivate the necessary commercial and political links that can help a driver move up into F1 in the future, whereas drivers in FR 3.5, having more of an arms length relationship with those in F1, probably find it harder to cultivate those links.

It is a little disappointing in a way - perhaps the perception was that, since the initial graduates from GP2 to F1 were generally quite good drivers, that the general quality of drivers from GP2 was superior to FR 3.5; a view that may be beginning to shift now that rising costs in GP2 have seen a rise in the number of pay drivers. Mind you, as DanielPT, there is the question over how talented the majority of the FR 3.5 grid is too, so both series have a slight issue in terms of the relative breadth of talent in them.
Still, seeing more independent drivers able to go from FR 3.5 to F1 would be good for both series - it is not exactly healthy for GP2 to be the sole source of rookie drivers and it would give the FR 3.5 series a good boost in terms of prestige if it was seen as a more viable route into F1 too.

My brother, who isn't even a big Formula 1 fan, will walk into the room during an F1 race waving his finger in the air and chant "FOUR-PEAT, FOUR-PEAT, FOUR-PEAT". Oh it makes me rage so hard. At least his New York Jets are a consistent pile of shite.

F1000X wrote:My brother, who isn't even a big Formula 1 fan, will walk into the room during an F1 race waving his finger in the air and chant "FOUR-PEAT, FOUR-PEAT, FOUR-PEAT". Oh it makes me rage so hard. At least his New York Jets are a consistent pile of shite.

You are living in the age of Vettel now. There's nothing that can be done about it. Quoth the raven, "deal with it".

The BBC is getting really annoying talking about Susie Wolff so often, now I know how IndyCar fans felt when Danicamania was happening.

darkapprentice77 wrote:The BBC is getting really annoying talking about Susie Wolff so often, now I know how IndyCar fans felt when Danicamania was happening.

It helps when she has her brother making documentaries on her behalf to promote her...

Well for once, Susie Wolff has got it spot on. I too cringed when I saw Stirling Moss's comments:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/22083547

Just go and retire mate, no-one cares what you think anymore.

LellaLombardi wrote:Well for once, Susie Wolff has got it spot on. I too cringed when I saw Stirling Moss's comments:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/22083547

Just go and retire mate, no-one cares what you think anymore.

Well, people must have in mind that Sir Stirling Moss comes from another era where it was probably pretty common to think like that and obviously, like most elderly people, he hasn't moved with time. I also see it in my grand mother who still thinks that women are naturally not fit to do certain jobs or activities that are perceived closer to man. I think that here, the fault lies with the 'journalists' who are always looking forward to create controversy. They knew that Sir Stirling Moss would probably have a view from 50's years ago and still listened to what he had to say and published in the best way for the intended goal. Also, can't blame Sir Stirling Moss for not minding to such opinion to be aired.

DanielPT wrote:Well, people must have in mind that Sir Stirling Moss comes from another era where it was probably pretty common to think like that and obviously, like most elderly people, he hasn't moved with time.

I agree with what you're saying and if he was related to me Id just lock him in his cupboard for an hour (joke!) but these comments along with previous ones he made regarding racial issues really tell me that perhaps someone, somewhere should prevent these opinions being voiced, he should keep them to himself. I know in his era racism and sexism was OK but, you know what, nowadays they arent.

CoopsII wrote:

DanielPT wrote:Well, people must have in mind that Sir Stirling Moss comes from another era where it was probably pretty common to think like that and obviously, like most elderly people, he hasn't moved with time.

I agree with what you're saying and if he was related to me Id just lock him in his cupboard for an hour (joke!) but these comments along with previous ones he made regarding racial issues really tell me that perhaps someone, somewhere should prevent these opinions being voiced, he should keep them to himself. I know in his era racism and sexism was OK but, you know what, nowadays they arent.

It is in the interest of the family and close acquaintances for Sir Stirling not to inadvertently offend those who decide to read some of his opinions. Not everyone will have in mind the fact that he is from other era and probably unwilling to change his views in order to adapt.

I know that from reading my posts, one can think that I am implying for people to shrug off elder people opinions, but it is scientifically known that it is hard for an older human brain to adapt, specially if it comes from a time where accepted political positions barely changed in a generation. Criticising someone for it is not right either, IHMO.

LellaLombardi wrote:Well for once, Susie Wolff has got it spot on. I too cringed when I saw Stirling Moss's comments:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/22083547

Just go and retire mate, no-one cares what you think anymore.

I cringed at this:

Arguably the most successful woman currently competing in motorsport is American Danica Patrick.

Well the Slate haven't dealt with this yet, but the Daily Mash have brilliantly:

The Daily Mash: WOMEN are not sufficiently manly to be racing drivers, according to Stirling Moss.

The racing legend believes women lack the craggy good looks, devil-may-care attitude and appreciation of fine whiskey that are essential to racing prowess.

Moss said: “Your average female doesn’t even like big shiny watches will loads of little dials all over them.

“Their idea of a post-match celebration is to make a sponge cake then sit around talking about emotions.

“Imagine the film Le Mans with Audrey Hepburn playing Steve McQueen’s role.

“It would basically be about hats.”

Woman Emma Bradford said: “He’s quite right, I’m unable to do racing car-pointing because I can’t stop making mental to-do lists.

“For example I’d be going round a hairpin bend and ‘Buy Dettol and bananas’ would pop into my mind, causing me to crash.

“So instead I’ve bought the film rights to Stirling’s life and cast Graham Norton in the lead role. The movie will be called Shiny Helmets Racing Up My Behind.”

Even though of course his comment is rather simple-minded, the question regarding the capability of women for motorsport is, with an eye thrown on the facts that female drivers only scored 0.5 F1 world championship points, Danica Patrick is utterly overhyped despite having as much success as Olivier Panis because of her triumphs being quite unique to the American motorsport scene and no female driver has ever impressed in DTM, both unanswered and legitimate. Michèle Mouton is of course exempted from that discussion, but one woman doesn't speak for her whole gender, now does she?

I think it's a stupid argument. Not even from a gender equality let's all be bathplugging happy and make flower chains to put round each others necks like a bunch of hippies point of view.

The problem is simple; the sample size is too small. How can anyone accurately formulate an answer as to whether women in general do or do not have the mental capacity to race in Formula One when the sample size is absolutely tiny? The standard deviation is way way way too high to come to an accurate conclusion. In this discussion there is maybe a total of 10 to 15 cases. Almost nothing, a number far too low to create a solid conclusion with.

I am not going to say "Yes, women definitely have the mental capacity to race in Formula One," because, frankly, I don't know. And neither does anyone else. Especially not Stirling Moss. Just because he is a racing driver himself does not make him qualified to speak on the subject. There is not enough data to make such a conclusion yet. Susie Wolff might say that, yes, they do, but frankly by doing that she is devaluaing her own argument. Her performances in top line motorsport would drag down any kind of average figure looking in to the competence of women in racing.

Until we see a large influx of women entering some of the top racing series around the world, rather than just one or two scattered around, there is no way of knowing the answer to the question. Perhaps Beitske Visser will have enough talent to make Formula One, do well, and erase the idea of Michele Mouton being by far the best female driver ever, a sort of anomaly in a gender full of inept drivers. That actually, there are lots of women out there who could potentially be at Mouton's level and just didn't think to try, because it isn't considered a normal gender role for them.

Anyone who answers with an absolute yes or no answer to this questions has their head up their ass. I don't know, you don't know, current and former professional racing drivers do not know (they might be qualified to talk about how difficult it is to drive a racing car, but they are not neuroscientists, they don't know the function and capacity of a human brain in inate detail based on gender). The discussion is over. There is no answer yet. Any more debate will not lead to a sensible answer. Forget it, no-one has the knowledge to answer this properly.

Klon wrote:Even though of course his comment is rather simple-minded, the question regarding the capability of women for motorsport is, with an eye thrown on the facts that female drivers only scored 0.5 F1 world championship points, Danica Patrick is utterly overhyped despite having as much success as Olivier Panis because of her triumphs being quite unique to the American motorsport scene and no female driver has ever impressed in DTM, both unanswered and legitimate. Michèle Mouton is of course exempted from that discussion, but one woman doesn't speak for her whole gender, now does she?

Talking about women and DTM, they don't have much success but mostly they have been driving old cars haven't they. In some cases two-year-old cars, at least in earliest years with Mercedes and Audi specifically choosing to have one female driver in.

In the old DTM Ellen Lohr actually won one race at short Hockenheim circuit.

Bleu wrote:

Klon wrote:Even though of course his comment is rather simple-minded, the question regarding the capability of women for motorsport is, with an eye thrown on the facts that female drivers only scored 0.5 F1 world championship points, Danica Patrick is utterly overhyped despite having as much success as Olivier Panis because of her triumphs being quite unique to the American motorsport scene and no female driver has ever impressed in DTM, both unanswered and legitimate. Michèle Mouton is of course exempted from that discussion, but one woman doesn't speak for her whole gender, now does she?

Talking about women and DTM, they don't have much success but mostly they have been driving old cars haven't they. In some cases two-year-old cars, at least in earliest years with Mercedes and Audi specifically choosing to have one female driver in.

In the old DTM Ellen Lohr actually won one race at short Hockenheim circuit.

She was actually reasonably competitive, by the looks of things, towards the end of the 1992 season, picking up several top six finishes and finishing 11th overall in the standings. In fact, you could say that she put in a respectable enough performance from 1992 to 1994 given that, more often than not, she'd finish in the top 8 in the races and about the middle of the rankings at the end of the season.
Looking at the records, there is another female driver that you could point to who also had a reasonable amount of success, which is Claudia Hürtgen - she raced LMP and GT cars in the ALMS and Le Mans for a number of years, has a class win at the 1997 Daytona 24 Hours to her name and was pretty successful within the GT2 class at Le Mans too.

Bleu wrote:
Talking about women and DTM, they don't have much success but mostly they have been driving old cars haven't they. In some cases two-year-old cars, at least in earliest years with Mercedes and Audi specifically choosing to have one female driver in.

In the old DTM Ellen Lohr actually won one race at short Hockenheim circuit.

In 2012, both Wolff and Rahel Frey had new cars...and they were still found in the back of the pack. That is, until Frey somehow started to move up the grid, including a points-scoring finish in Valencia (Thanks to Mercedes having a collective BSOD there).

I also find Wolff to be highly arrogant. Arrogance is annoying, but only if have something to back up your arrogance. But can Mrs. Wolff really call herself "the fastest female racing driver in the world"? She also seems to be pretty oblivious to the fact that she was handed drives on the silver plate since 2006, as she's always been acting naive in interviews. No, I can't really wish her success.

Actually, thinking about a broader point about female participation in motorsport, in general it has to be said that the overall participation rate is quite low. Kaltenborn and Claire Williams, as CEO's of Sauber and Williams respectively, are certainly doing their bit, but what about on the design side?
About the only major female engineer I can recall from recent years is Dr. Antonia Terzi, who was at Ferrari and later at Williams - unfortunately, whilst the FW25 might have been reasonably successful, the car she is most remembered for is the FW26, a car that might have been aerodynamically interesting but a flop overall. Then again, I suppose that it is a reflection on the engineering sector in general where, a bit like the issue that Stramala points out with the driver talent pool, the issue of getting a large enough body of talented female designers that could then become self-sustaining is difficult.

The reason women haven't been succesful this far is similar to the reason why Indian or Chinese drivers haven't been succesful this far: there aren't enough of them, and those who do don't have got enough chances. Also their image is ruined by rubbish drivers. Guess this just takes some time, or perhaps thes talented girls simply aren't interested.
And now for a sexist remakr: the only real problems with women drivers is parking their car

On the subject of Sir Stirling's comments, his sister, Pat Moss, happens to be one of the most successful rally drivers of all time so is he speaking from experience?

AndreaModa wrote:The big problem with junior categories is always money, and often talented drivers with little or no backing can loose out in GP2 or even GP3 because they can't match someone with less talent but more money for the seat. So having a cheaper series like FR3.5 allows for a much truer picture of talent amongst the drivers, regardless of their budget, and therefore must be far more attractive to teams who are looking for the next big thing.

Are there any drivers which bring money and talent? I can't think of any.

Another thing: greed comes with money. One reason why the drivers that get to F1 are often shite pay drivers.

This wrote:And now for a sexist remakr: the only real problems with women drivers is parking their car

People may frown on you for sexist remarks, I am not one of those people. I make far too many sexist jokes/remarks, although when I'm around women, I do refrain from doing so.

redbulljack14 wrote:

This wrote:And now for a sexist remakr: the only real problems with women drivers is parking their car

People may frown on you for sexist remarks, I am not one of those people. I make far too many sexist jokes/remarks, although when I'm around women, I do refrain from doing so.

It's not sexist because it might be offensive, it's sexist because i'm worse at parking a car than the average woman.
Though one thing might actually be true: women tend to be more prone to panic when making mistakes. I don't know if this is really true, or if these women just need attention

I really hope Raikkonen gets the second Red Bull seat.

CarlosFerreira wrote:I really hope Raikkonen gets the second Red Bull seat.

I thought you hated Raikkonen. I think he would give Vettel a good run for his money but would not get along with the team and their Vettel favouritism. He doesn't seem like the sort of person who would like being #2.

eurobrun wrote:

CarlosFerreira wrote:I really hope Raikkonen gets the second Red Bull seat.

I thought you hated Raikkonen. I think he would give Vettel a good run for his money but would not get along with the team and their Vettel favouritism. He doesn't seem like the sort of person who would like being #2.

My point exactly. The potential for entertainment is endless.

Let me just rephrase one thing. I don't "hate" Raikkonen, I'm just not a fan.

This is the internet, you either 'fan' or you 'hate' [/sarcasm]

Warren Hughes wrote:This is the internet, you either 'fan' or you 'hate' [/sarcasm]

Unlike several other people I don't consider hate to be that strong of a word and it annoys me to no end when people say it is as bad as swearing. [/pointlessofftopicrant]

eurobrun wrote:

Warren Hughes wrote:This is the internet, you either 'fan' or you 'hate' [/sarcasm]

Unlike several other people I don't consider hate to be that strong of a word and it annoys me to no end when people say it is as bad as swearing. [/pointlessofftopicrant]

This is what happens: I am not from the Internet, so for me "hate" is too strong a word*. eurobrun here is probably younger than me, a more digital-culture sort of chap, so he's OK when people go digital, 1-or-0, love-or-hate.

Two different approaches, that's all. No offence meant.

___
*Except maybe when applied to boiled codfish. The smell makes me sick.

eurobrun wrote:I think he would give Vettel a good run for his money but would not get along with the team and their Vettel favouritism.

I doubt he would notice any favourtism even if someone pointed it out to him.

Regardless, I don't think Raikkonen would be willing to put up with all of Red Bull's PR crap.

BlindCaveSalamander wrote:Regardless, I don't think Raikkonen would be willing to put up with all of Red Bull's PR crap.

That is something that I would be inclined to agree with - given that Kimi is not keen on doing that much publicity work, the very thing that the Red Bull team was set up to do and thrives on, he would strike me as a poor fit for them.
As for the comment about favouritism, well, it has to be said that Kimi is probably the favoured driver at Lotus, or at the very least is given preference on upgrades and strategy choices, so it wouldn't necessarily be to his advantage to move to Red Bull in that respect either.

Räikkönen at Red Bull would be hilarious. He'd probably just ignore any team orders, either by pretending languagebarrier or by telling them he knows what hes doing