Grosjean has yet to sign a contract with Lotus. What are the chances of Michael replacing him. I know this sounds crazy. But it'll be interesting. Maybe another WDC.
Kimi and Shuey in a team would be great but the chances of this happening are about 0. Grosjean has cost Lotus 3rd in the championship easily, costing the team a good 10m+ from the pot. Money this team needs much more than a Mclaren/Ferrari/Red Bull. He's pretty quick but his race craft plainly sucks. Unforced errors, very accident prone. He's done a few races this year where he's kept his nose clean but not enough to satisfy IMO. I do think he'll be signed for another year but under a VERY strict contract. I believe Kovalainen hasn't been signed yet either. Could do for a swap there as he's been doing well this season. Or if Renault wants another frenchie in there, look for Vergne or Pic.
Bas, I know most people found this difficult to believe, and that I have already written this before: Renault has exactly Zero interest, and Zero influence in its former works team, and believe me they do everything they can to cut any smallest thread it might remain. Zero, nada, zilch, niekagda It so happens that Eric Boullier is french, but it is a coincidence; that Grosjean had a former stay in that team when Renault still had some influence, but that's all. The only french company that might help Grosjean is Total, which is still a sponsor of the ex- Renault works team. Besides, do not forget that Grosjean holds a double nationality, French and Swiss, and that we French would consider him as fully french only after his first win... So there is absolutely no implication of Renault in their former works team, today's Lotus; they provide the engine and that's all, and believe me, the Renault Company takes the utmost care to say it time and again. We have read here that, a few months ago, Genii capital wanted Renault to take back some participation into the team, and that the decision of the board of Renault was: don't even begin to think about it. Is it a good or a bad thing I don't know, but i know that they exert no influence at all. Regards,
Lotus would be retarded to swap Grosjean for Kovalainen. Yeah Grosjean has made a lot of mistakes but he's young and has been faster than Kimi lots of races this year.
in quali, yes. Actual race pace pretty much no on every single one of them, except austin he seemed to have better pace but that might have been because of the tires, I don't know.
He was much faster than Kimi at Montreal and Valencia in the race and yes has been faster in qualifying regularly so to me that shows he has potential as Kimi is no slouch (not what he used to be raw pace wise, but no slouch).
Grosjean is a quicker driver while Kimi is a quick but much smarter racing driver, which I believe is why Kimi has handily out-performed Grosjean this year. Kimi was really given a dream teammate who completely buried most of his opportunities. I'm not so sure about Lotus next year, Bell sniped a number of their guys to Mercedes this year. We'll have to see.
Grosjean is very quick, it would be stupid to let him go.....give him another year and he will learn.....you can learn how to avoid accidents but it´s a lot more difficult to learn speed!!!
Being faster only matters if you finish the damn race and score points. You don't pay a driver to sit in the garage or at home like they have with the Frenchy. Replace him with Heikki. He's not as fast as Kimi but he knows what the finish line looks like.
+1 on Grosjean being quick. Learning to avoid accidents may (hopefully) happen but not always. De Cesaris comes to mind.
As much as I love to see Michael in Lotus, between Grosjean and Hekki I'll still go with Grosjean. I agree with the rest that he got talent, just lacking the bit of 'excitement' when watching him race.
"Excitement!" How much excitement can one man impart! He's crashed into just about everyone at one time or another! Cheers, Ian
