Yes! I saw that too. But I also read alpine sources that said he was effectively a benchmarker :lol:

 

 

Gonna be funny if they just sign the moneybadger

who's the moneybadger?

Dani Ric.

Am I right in thinking that the following contenders below are for the second Alpine seat:

 

Pierre Gasly

Nyck De Vries

Jack Doohan

Antonio Giovinazzi

Nico Hulkenberg

Mick Schumacher

Daniel Ricciardo

 

Wasn’t there supposed to be some re-ordering of the races in the calendar to reduce the travel miles?

Am I right in thinking that the following contenders below are for the second Alpine seat:

 

Pierre Gasly

Nyck De Vries

Jack Doohan

Antonio Giovinazzi

Nico Hulkenberg

Mick Schumacher

Daniel Ricciardo

Not sure how many are in active consideration tho and how many are just names without a seat.

 

Nyck I think was only added after Monza and is now in the sights of every team with an open seat. I’d quite like Gasly tho for some eye candy. Plus he is a race winner. And French. Nothing quite like an all French line up at a team racing under the French flag with a French engine to give the corporate paymasters at Groupe Renault a raging hard on

 

Wasn’t there supposed to be some re-ordering of the races in the calendar to reduce the travel miles?

Allegedly. I think money counts more tho

It's interesting that no-one in F1 seems to have a problem with Azerbaijan sitting quietly on the calendar for next year. Or do we think that anyone like Lewis or Seb might raise the subject in Singapore?

 

Russia got cancelled and voices have been raised about Saudi, Bahrain and Qatar but so far nothing I'm aware of on the attacks and occupying of Armenian territory

Tsunoda now confirmed at Alpha Tauri for next year

The Azeris have been quietly getting away with being no better than the middle east. It’s an oil dictatorship with an atrocious record on human rights

 

One assumes that it has fallen under the global radar because the border between the two is disputed although my understanding is that the recent attacks fell on undisputed land. Although I also understand that a ceasefire was agreed fairly quickly between the two - tho I dunno if that is still in place.

 

 

Think the saving of Tsunoda is a sign that AT will allow Alpine to buy Gasly out of the remainder of his contract

Tsunoda is super lucky, previous Red Bull B-team drivers have been dropped despite performing far better than he has.

The Azeris have been quietly getting away with being no better than the middle east. It’s an oil dictatorship with an atrocious record on human rights

 

One assumes that it has fallen under the global radar because the border between the two is disputed although my understanding is that the recent attacks fell on undisputed land. Although I also understand that a ceasefire was agreed fairly quickly between the two - tho I dunno if that is still in place.

 

The Russian brokered ceasefire lasted a few hours apparently, and yeah it's essentially a minor invasion

Nicholas Latifi will lose his seat at Williams at the end of the year.

 

The 27-year-old Canadian has raced with the team since the start of 2020, and struggled to compete with team-mates George Russell and Alex Albon.

 

Latifi said: "Although we have not achieved the results we hoped we would, it's still been a fantastic journey."

 

Williams, who announced last month that Albon will stay with the team for 2023, said they would name the British-born Thai's 2023 team-mate "in due course".

It's been on the cards since Williams became financially stable. Whilst he wasn't that bad last year, being not that far off from Russell at times, this season has seen him become exposed as he's lagged noticeably behind Albon, with De Vries highlighting his deficiencies. It didn't matter that much when the car was solidly last whatever the circuit but now Williams have a car capable of challenging for points on occasion and Latifi seems unable to contribute.

 

He's a nice guy and not the worst F1 driver ever but not deserving of a seat either.

 

His major contributions will be remembered as keeping Williams on the grid and inadvertently giving Verstappen a chance to win his first title.

Edited September 23, 20222 yr by Severin

Ultimately he’s a mediocre pay driver. Without money to keep Williams afloat, he would never have gotten onto the grid. I hope that we will now see the end of pay drivers with the cost cap and so on which means that the Mazepin’s, Strolls and Latifis of the world won’t take a place in the top tier from someone who actually has the talent

finally! was the worst of the year by miles

Pay drivers aren't going anywhere I suspect, and let's face it we still have Stroll, Tsunoda and Zhou on the grid and all are bringing in funding. You could arguably add Perez to that list too, at least prior to his Red Bull move.

 

Certainly there have been pay drivers who've proved their worth - neither Niki Lauda or Michael Schumacher would have been on the grid without bringing their teams a stack of cash to buy them in.

So Logan Sargeant is leading the way for the vacant Williams seat?

So Logan Sargeant is leading the way for the vacant Williams seat?

I'm not convinced by that. He'll need to finish the season in 5th or above first as he hasn't got enough points for a superlicence and his results in F2 are arguably worse than Latifi's were.

 

I'd say De Vries is the most likely right now

I'd say Doohan or Devries

Cancel all the Middle East/Russian ones and add more U.S. sites since the popularity of it is growing over here. Watkins Glen, Laguna Seca, or Road America are sitting right there and are amazing circuits.