Alonso retiring in 2014?

He was also asked if he really wanted to be happy what would he wish for.
3 wishs.
His answer 3 more WDC's.

 

Are they still paying Kimi and Michael some sort of severance??

 

Fred, Kimi, and Vettle would make three. IMO Vettle has some kind of poison pill in his contract that precludes driving for another team till the contract is up. Pay or no pay. Hence the year.

 

Kimi was paid US$50M to stay away from F1 until he did. Once that contract was fulfilled, he returned. I don't know Michael's severance situation. Vettel has no manager and negotiates all contracts on his own.

 

Uh, oh.
Now there is a new argument I never heard of. That's a truly interesting point. No idea whether this is true, but if it were, it would explain the otherwise bizarre decision to keep him on.

Maybe I've got a severe case of the red mist, but as a F1 driver I would do exactly that: Pay me 5 million dollars and I'll get out of any mediocre car contract and drive for Ferrari for one year as Alonso's biatch. No problem.

Think about it: If you're stuck in a Caterham, there is nothing you can do. If you get an average Ferrari, you have a chance of getting an occasional podium and quite a few points. This will most likely boost your chances of getting a drive with Caterham & Co. for the following year.

BADoer and Fisi's careers ended because they were already over at that point.

 

Beg to differ; Most of 'em start out with one of the backmarkers. You then dominate your teammate, have some good drives and keep your nose clean and the big guys come knocking - Punching above your weight gets noticed, fast, in F1.

Returning to topic, Fred's not going anywhere until his contract is up - End of 2016 IIRC. If things are going well, I reckon he'll stay longer.

I'm a long way from sure that there's any "pre-contract" (whatever that may be) with Seb or anyone else for 2014. Although looking likely, Phil's contract hasn't been extended as yet either - I think it depends on these last few races.

I've said before, there's a lot to be said for the devil you know - I simply don't think there's anyone out there that would do a one year deal to get their doors blown off by Fred - "Well, at least Phil got close on occasion, and he sucks - You must *really* suck!"

Somewhat related, I stole the following from the F1 tech site (link below) - I hope the guy doesn't mind - He took the qualy times and compared teammates thru the season so far - If driver A beats his mate by a second in race 1 then gets beat by 0.5 in race 2 he's -0.5 quicker overall. Rinse & repeat and we see;

Williams; 12-2 in favor of the Rev; -12.248 to the Rev [~0.9 seconds per race! - *That's* domination!]

HRT; 12-2 for De La Pink; -9.250

Torro Rosso; 11-3 Danny Boy; -6.227

Mclaren; 12-2 Lulu; -5.170

Caterham; 11-3 Britney; -4.945

Ferrari; 13-1 Fred; -4.453

Marussia; 9-4 Timo; -3.484

Fauxtus; 8-5 Lettuce; -3.414

Merc; 8-6 The Schu; -1.812

FI; 6-7 Scottalian; -1.023 The Hulk (*)

Sauber; 8-6 Koby; -0.640 Checo (*)

RBR; 8-6 Seb; -0.124 Seb.

(*) - The only two where # of outquaifies doesn't translate to time.

So, using these statistics, the #2 drivers at Williams, HRT, TR, Mclaren & Caterham *all* suck more than Phil - and he's up against the quickest driver on the grid.

Again, there's no one out there who could do better right now.

Cheers,
Ian
http://www.f1technical.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=13477

 

I don't think MS, or KR are still collecting anything. I figured Ferrari cut those guys a check and let them walk.

 

Personally (which I think is what Andreas is intimating) I think Vettel will REPLACE Alonso, not drive alongside him. Neither driver will tolerate the other as the "#1 driver" and make no mistake that there is no such thing as "co-number 1 drivers"...

 

MS was not fired.

As for this scenario, doesn't Alonso have a contract through 2016 with Ferrari? I know "contracts mean nothing" blah blah, but why would he sign a deal that long if he wanted to retire in 2014.

I really think that Vettel is going to SF for 2014.

 

Thanks for making my own thoughts more clear to myself.

For the life of me I can't imagine Vettel AND Alonso in the same team.

So if they can't be together on the same team, then:

a) Vettel is not coming, at which point Ferrari should have picked a new and decent #2 or
b) Alonso is not staying beyond 2013 and wanted to have Massa as his sidekick

Scenario b) leads us to my opening question: Is Alonso done after 2013?

I realize we're going in circles here and only time will tell. Maybe I'm giving Ferrari/Alonso way too much thought and logic. Maybe they just never thought this through.

 

Perish the thought!!!

I think we'll have to wait to see this one out. It's about as clear as Hamilton's decision to go to Mercedes, right now.

 

I havent read or heard anything regarding Massa having a seat next season. Does anyone have a source?

 

Excellent Posts as Usual.

 

That is the problem, the "average" Ferrari you mention, and everyone knows that. Kind of explains why there has not been a rush of volunteers to join Ferrari. So unless you are Hamilton, Vettel, Kimi, Button, Webber, even Nico, you are not going to podium in that average Ferrari. You will fade away after that year, not even asked to be an announcer for the BBC.

I would rather stay at Caterham and be in F1.

 

Correct, MS was not fired. He was forced to make his decision by Monza, not at the end of the season as he wanted.

 

I think it's very possible to have two '#1' drivers AS LONG AS the team has the right approach. After all, that's the best scenario for both WDC and WCC. The problem IMO is that teams always want to have a #1, creating all kinds of conflicts.

I'm very curious how Mercedes's approach of both Hamilton and Rosberg being treated equally works out. If they really don't favor one over the other, a true PROFESSIONAL driver shouldn't have any issues. They all want to win, against their teammates and everybody else. And they need to be courteous on the track with ALL other drivers, teammates or not. Only instance where a driver might start having issues is if he's clearly the #1 driver and is not treated as such. But at that time, the #2 shouldn't have any issues if he's professional. And yes, I'd CLEARLY describe that scenario, so there aren't any surprises. When everything is spelled out in black and white, a driver would be very stupid to act like a diva when he clearly knew when he'd be considered #2. I'm not a race car driver, but if somebody puts a little bit of brains and time, and the team follows their own advice, I'm sure two top drivers should be able to coexist together on the same team, no?

 

I don't think it's possible to have (2) #1 drivers...essentially, somebody will become the lead driver by season's end, and the other guy will blame the team for lack of support. Can you name a time when this has worked? The bottom line is, if you employ someone who is accomplished as a WDC, don't expect him to accept equal treatment to someone who hasn't won the WDC. If you pair a WDC driver with another one, you're asking for fireworks.

A dog pack can only have one alpha...

Regarding Mercedes, the team will build around Hamilton. You don't pay that kind of money to create bad dynamics.

 

But wait, the fact that Perez is off the market, doesn't mean Massa is in the clear at Ferrari. Not at all. Ferrari have never hinted at Perez as a replacement for Massa. On the contrary even. And the option on renewing Massa's contract is expired and still no decision has been made. Ferrari doesn't seem to be that much in a hurry to announce anything about Massa's future within the team or lack there off.

If McLaren can snatch Perez away from under Ferrari's wings, perhaps Ferrari can snatch DiResta away from Mercedes' wings.

Also, Ferrari obviously has more data about Perez than McLaren does. Him being a part of their program. Allthough the guy is putting in some awesome drives this season, they apparently never even considered him for the replacement of Massa, whereas McLaren sees him fit to fill in the gap Hamilton left. Does Ferrari know something about Massa McLaren (and the rest of the world) doesn't?

 

I thought Ferrari extended Massa's contract to include next year. No?

 

this is from motorsport.com (27 july 2012)

 

well there you go...what was I thinking?

 

webber in 2014???

 

Maybe.....I just thought I heard Ferrari renewing Massa's contract for next year and people going WTF.

Oh well....the merry go round is still going, then.

 

The team let the option on Massa expire several months ago (and I happily reported about it on here).

But:
There are now several good sources reporting that Massa has been hired. Some folks with connections on here have reported this as well as Blick's Benoit.

 

coming back to this statement:

Funnily enough, I've heard the exact same thing from an industry source this very weekend!

Allegedly, Massa has spent a lot of this season testing experimental parts and tactics on behalf of Alonso's WDC effort.

(There was also a suggestion that Button's sudden, mysterious loss of form in the season was due to doing the same thing on Hamilton's behalf!)

If it is the case that Massa has been used for on-track testing duties for Alonso's WDC effort, then it would make some sense to keep him on for another year while the fundemental design of the car is the same.

Once the big changes arrive in 2014, then there's no real advantage in keeping Massa, even for testing duties because the whole car will be a blank canvas.

Two top rate drivers in the team however, could double your chances of getting to grips with the cars performance earlier!