(Racing Point) Force India 2018

I'm not sure if they were all, sacked....Jones certainly wasn't, he left because he wanted...Piquet also wasn't sacked, he was tired of Williams because he knew they favoured Mansell, and so he left with Honda, Mansell story was another travesty....after all those years racing with them, it was completly stupid to let him go, the most ridiculous was that at the press conference where he was anouncing he was leaving, Williams sudenly decided to agree with his demands and tried to make him change his mind!!...but still he left....Damon was the one who really got fired....and somehow i can understand why, even if he had just won the title, there were a bunch of many better drivers on the grid. To me, lousy behaviour was what they tried to do with Alesi, holding him hostage so Ferrari could not sign him, when in reality they were negotiating on his back with Senna and Mansell....

 

Post 106 and 107 have the FIA statements - Sahara Force India forfeits all points accumulated to date in 2018 season and is excluded from the 2018 F1 Championship.

 

Mansell, Hill and Prost received a shoddy treatment at Williams.

For Mansell, it was a trivial issue of accommodation for his family that tipped the balance.
Mansell refused some unreasonable clauses in the new contract, Williams had introduced to provoke a divorce.
Mansell couldn't suffer the humiliation, and left.

Hill was battling for the championship when Patrick Head told him they were looking for a replacement!
That spurred the Englishman who took the title, but his contract wasn't renewed.
All season, Patrick Head had bad-mouthed Hill to the press and anyone listening, saying he was really a test driver, and too weak to fight Schumacher.

Prost joined Williams after a sabatical year.
When Williams asked him about a second driver, Prost said "Anyone but not Senna" in view of the years of rivalry with the Brazilian at McLaren.
The Frenchman didn't want to go through that again and Williams agreed.
Prost was about to clinch the title when mid-season Williams announced publicly they had signed ... Senna.
Prost felt betrayed and decided to leave. That was Williams ' way to get rid of Prost.

 

Frank may not have directly fired them, but he often pulled tricks that pushed out WDC's for new shiny toys. I wasn't referring to Jones or Piquet. Jones was at Williams for one more year after winning the 80 WDC. He then retired of his own accord before returning after a sabbatical where he ran a few one off races in 83 and 85 before coming back for a full year in 86. Piquet left of his own accord taking the Honda engines with him to a rapidly ailing Lotus. The three I was referring too were the ones gone in the year following due to the team.
Mansell was effectively forced out when they hired Prost, not his choice. Remember after they effed him over he came to the States.
Prost was screwed when they promised no Senna than hired him.
Hill is one of the more underrated WDC's. He (in my book) has two championships as he really won in 94. Schumacher had an illegal car and still had to take him out in the last race to steal 1994. Still he was summarily sacked by Frank at the end of 96 after a hard faught win.


While I love what Williams have done, I have a hard time mustering up much sympathy based on how they've treated their drivers over the years.

 

Sorry to desagree about damon, to me he was barely a to 10 driver in the gris when he won the title, in 94 the FIa managed to remove 4 races from Michael to try and give Damon a chance...yet he missed, had he won it would have been a complete travesty!!

 

Sorry to disagree about you about Damon Hill.
He was well and truly among the top 5.
In his 4 years with Williams, he was 3rd the first year, then twice runner-up, and finally champion, the year Franck William sacked him..
Damon Hill at least lost a title when Schumacher rammed his car after coming off himself.
The camera did show Schumacher jublating when he heard his rival has been eliminated by his scandalous manœuvre. I hated Schumacher from that day.
The other year, the Benetton team was found running banned software on their car.
Damon Hill saved Williams when he took over as leader after the death of Senna in 1994.
Damon Hill was a very good tester, and chassis tuner, and courted by several teams at one point for that reason.
His weakness was his lack of enthusiasm for Wheel-to-Wheel fight; he would yield too easily to avoid contact.
But he was very good at setting lap time, developing the car, etc...
I compare him to Nico Rosberg in that respect: a fast but decent driver, a true gentleman
Initially, Damon Hill was hired at Williams as a tester not as a racer, and that label stuck with him
It was a shame Franck Williams and Patrick Head treated him so bady.

 

I agree damon was fast over one lap, e remenber him driving in f3000 with barclays colours...he was very fast, but no so much in f.1
In 94 he had the fastest car, shumacher was disqualified with no fault of his in 2 races and banned for anothetr 2...in total he did 4 or 5 races less than damon and still came on top, the diference as drivers between he and damon was abyssal! 95 damon had a yet better car compared to Michael or alesi and still he got beaten...many times also by alesi....finaly in 96 williams gave him a car 1,5 sec faster than anyone else....and he managed to almost lose against a rookie!!

 

In 1994, D.Hiil became team leader after Senna's death. Until then, he was Number 2 in the team, taking orders and not aiming at the title.
He missed the championship by 1 point in very controversial circumstances involving Schumacher ramming his car in Australia.
Schumacher was suspended for 2 races for rules infringements, and disqualified on 2 other races for technical infringements.
At the time, Benetton was constantly cheating with the aeros, the electronics, the launch control, etc...
I never said that Damon Hill was better then Schumacher.

In 95, Coulthards came on board at Williams, and D.Hill didn't benefit from team orders like Schumacher did at Benetton.
The 2 Williams drivers shared the points and victories. Johnny Herbert was Under orders not to challenge Schumacher.
Funny you mention Alesi. How many GPs has Alesi won in his career? He is overrated, IMO.

In 1996, Damon Hill was now partnered with Jacques Villeneuve, still with no team orders.
He won 7 GPs to Villeneuve 4, but got the sack anyway.
He finally got the championship he deserved, IMO. Probably not the best driver of his era, but among the first 5.
The twist in the tail is that Williams ditched Damon Hill to replace him with Hans-Harald Frentzen, who, they thought, was better.
In fact, Frentzen turned out to be disapointing and only won one GP in his career, I believe.

 

The Williams was by far the best car at that time (I know how hard to believe it is now that Williams was ever able to have the best car ), they allowed two "average" F1 drivers (all things are relative of course, they were certainly not bad), Damon Hill and Jacques Villeneuve, to bag F1 titles.
It's likely that a number of other drivers would have achieved the same result, being given the same opportunity.

 

Williams was on top of the game at the time, and several drivers queued up to join them, like Prost and Senna leaving Ferrari and McLaren to join the team.

Williams lost their way since ...

 

Racing Point meet Legal Point LOL -
Formula 1: Losing Force India bidder threatens legal action

A Russian company whose bid to buy Force India failed has threatened legal action if it doesn't get satisfactory answers about how the administration process was conducted.

Earlier this week, chemical company Uralkali, which is closely associated with Dmitry Mazepin, insisted that it had made a viable bid to bring the Formula 1 team out of administration, and questioned the way that a consortium led by Lawrence Stroll was able to buy the assets.

Since then the FIA has accepted the renamed Racing Point Force India as a new entry at the Belgian GP, and more information has emerged about the restructured organisation.


On Friday, Uralkali wrote to the administrator, FRP Advisory, asking for answers - and it says that if it doesn't get them by September 10, it will take court action.

A statement attributed to Uralkali independent director Paul Ostling, who led the bid, said: "Uralkali has serious concerns about the conduct of the bid process for the acquisition of Force India.

"Debevoise & Plimpton LLP, Uralkali's lawyers have accordingly this evening written to the administrators, FRP Advisory LLP, informing them that unless satisfactory explanations are forthcoming by 10 a.m. British Summer Time on 10 September 2018, court proceedings will be brought against them."

Last week the administrators - Geoff Rowley and Jason Baker of FRP - responded to Uralkali's original statement by insisting that all bidders for the team were treated equally.

"All bidders were given equal opportunity to submit the best deal for Force India," they said in a statement.

"Throughout, we (the Joint Administrators) have closely followed our statutory duties and objectives as administrators and had the advice of experienced legal counsel."
https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/138246/losing-force-india-bidder-threatens-legal-action

 

Joe,
Any pics yet of the car?
Will there be new livery on the cars this weekend?

 

So, the transition from Force India to Racing Point went smoothly it seems.
They keep the money and the power units allocation, just loose the points, if I read that right.

Not let's see what happens about the litigation initiated by the Russians.

 

Maybe Hill was underrated, but the comparison with Frentzen is unfortunate. Frentzen (who won 3 races, BTW) did not replace Hill, they raced together at Jordan in 1999, and Frentzen destroyed him so badly that sent poor old Damon to retirement.

 

The Forces looking great to outscore Williams this weekend and their plot to secure 9th in the championship will fail miserably. LOL

 

On the whole, I agree with you.

Frentzen was recruited by Williams to replace Damon Hill judged "too weak", but only won just ONE GP with them.

After a year with Arrows, Damon Hill was recruited by Jordan to race alongside
Frentzen. Hill won one GP for Jordan.
You are right to say that Frentzen got the better of Hill during the second year.
By mid-season Hill had lost all interest and wanted to pack up.
Eddie Jordan refused and forced him to stay to the end.
Hill explained later that the clauses of his contract were very punitive in case of departure before term.
Damon Hill was clearly pathetic during the second half of the season; his heart wasn't in it anymore.
It has happened to other drivers too.

 

Your memory is terrible. Don´t worry, that´s what Google is for.

I don´t need to check it out: I´m sure that Hill was already at Jordan in 1998, before Frentzen. The German came later in 1999, to replace Ralf Schumacher (leaving to Williams). BTW, the little Schumacher outpaced Hill for most of the season too, an only finished behind him in the championship because he was ordered to let Hill win at Belgium. In 1999 Frentzen won, IIRC, two races and managed to finish 3rd in the championship, best ever result for Jordan. Hill was outpaced all the season. Egg or chicken? Loss of motivation or being outpaced again by his younger team mate?

At Williams, Sir Frank and Patrick Head had reasons to get rid of Hill. Hill asked for a big pay rise, but they already had the younger, hungrier and at that time promising Villeneuve. Frentzen was well considered too and was available: why should they bother about Hill? Frentzen didn´t set the world on fire at Williams, right, but he didn´t have the absolutely dominant car that Hill enjoyed in 1996, and when they both drove the same car, the comparison is hateful for Hill.

 

I'm pulling for "The Force" to quickly jump past McLaren and Williams in the constructor's championship.

 

Specially because they do not have yet their new driver

 

Well, yes and no.

I agree with the facts, of course, but not all the opinions.

The issue was that Williams treated badly its world champions. Damon Hill asking for more money couldn't come as a surprise.
In any case, Williams had already planned to get rid of him mid-season, probably thinking he wouldn't be WDC.
They gambled on Villeneuve who finally let them down after he became WDC, lured by the BAT money, and Frentzen didn't prove to be Superior to Hill.
Regarding the "absolutely dominant car Hill had enjoyed" , it was in great part due to Hill's ability to develop a chassis: that's why Williams recruited him in the first place.

Re the Jordan years, I am sure Hill regretted to have signed a long contract, he couldn't get off easily.
His second year in the team was terrible: he had lost all interest.

 

Very happy for Ocon today. And Perez. And to see the team surviving. Q3 rain conditions scrambled everything. I think the race will be more like FP3 and Q2. Glad to see Haas doing well, disappointed in Sauber. I think any team that gets Ocon will benefit from him...especially Sauber. Ocon and Leclerc would be good combination.

 

I think Frank Williams proved to be right: they didn´t need Damon Hill at all. They won the next season without him and they were already on the rise before Hill came in. Hill´s testing abilities didn´t hep them in 1994 neither in 1995 against Benetton, and finally he won in 1996 because the competitors were rebuilding.

Williams never has refused to hire big names and pay accordingly when they needed them. They also get rid of them when they become expendable: if you can have Alain Prost you don´t need Nigel Mansell and if you can have Ayrton Senna you don´t need Alain Prost. They know that there are more good drivers than good cars so it´s up to the drivers to look for the cars, not the other way around. Their problem was that the same does not apply to engines.