Looks like Daddy Stroll has bought somewhere between 16 and 20% of Aston Martin! Force India/Racing Point will become AM in 2021. So that sort of suggests he is not going to be buying Merc?
I think you could argue that it suggests he's very serious about F1, and is unlikely to stop spending money any time soon. Stroll has spoken before about wanting a closer relationship with a works outfit for FI, but that'll only make them more efficient, it won't make them title challengers. If he now buys Merc, he can establish the Senior/Junior team relationship much more strongly, and he's then got a pathway to get Lance into a top drive. If either Stroll wants success in F1, owning and developing Force India still isn't the solution.
The Facilities at the Silverstone base are simply not up to it . Personally I hope they both fail miserably , the Strolls that is .
I hope the team and AM don't fail, there are a lot of staff there. OK so I don't particularly like that Daddy Stroll has bought a team to give his son a drive, I just hope he stays (well his money) there once his son grows out of F1! Hopefully he doesn't buy Merc, if it's for sale as he would have way too much invested and could start throwing his weight around similarly to Red Bull!!! We really need 10 properly funded individual teams, not 5 A teams and 5 also ran. This budget cap could be a disaster if one person/organisation owns multiple teams they have a massive financial advantage. They can spend the same amount to say design a wishbone and use it on both cars, so saving half the cost. Saying nothing of the cfd and wind tunnel time that they will have double of and who says it will be 50/50!!! This budget cap, while a good idea in principal I can see it favoring teams owned by the same person/organisation. Thinking out loud does that explain McLaren becoming a Merc PU supplied team or maybe the lack of a Merc B team suggests they are out?
I hope the Strolls fail , but if that meant the loss of the team , keep them . Another link I found interesting , will post when I can( Marc Priestly ) . Dinner now .
I don't, he's saved a lot of people's livelihoods, so what if it's to give his son a drive, it's not like he's as bad as a lot of other pay drivers who have made it on to the grid.
Seems like Honda have had their revenge on Alonso for his GP2 engine comment by vetoing his Andretti Indy 500 drive
I think for all the grovelling he is doing at the moment, his F1 career is done and he will just make himself look foolish if he thinks he can come back, a bit like Mansell tried to once it was clear his time was over. I think he is surprised that he has burnt so many other bridges outside of F1 too with his behaviour at McLaren. Still, I'm sure there are probably one hundred million or so reasons why he may not be too bothered by it all..........
Of course after 500+ grid penalties, many retirements and being electrocuted. The man was not going to stay quiet and not criticise a bad job done by Honda. If he didnt say it then somebody else would.
While it would have been fine to criticise behind closed doors it is not professional to do it so publicly. Especially as the ones you are criticising are not only paying your wages but also investing millions in development of a new PU. They were trying their best with restricted rules, especially in the early days. OK so Honda underestimated the task in hand but surely Alonso understood a bit about the culture and had an idea how his words would be received. It's not like he was taking to a squaddie and humiliating him to make him work harder. Big corps especially Japanese ones don't take kindly to humiliation! I am not saying he wasn't frustrated but if it bothered him that much I am sure he could have found a 'get out' clause in his contract but that would have cost him a lot of money!!!! I do admire Alonso's skills behind the wheel to extract every last tenth out of what ever he is driving but from what I have seen personality wise I'm not so keen.
He was paid £20m+ a year to put a brave face on it . Look how much happier McLaren is as a team now. At least with RBR they were paying Renault for their poor engines, so they at least could speak up a bit more about not getting what they thought they should.
Quote from f1.com: The 2020 Chinese Grand Prix, which had been scheduled for April 17-19, has been postponed as a result of the novel coronavirus outbreak. The Chinese Grand Prix Promoter, Juss Sports Group, officially requested the postponement after ongoing discussions with the Federation of Automobile and Motorcycle Sports of People's Republic of China (CAMF) and Shanghai Administration of Sports. ---------- I wonder how Liberty will persuade the teams to participate when/if it gets rescheduled, money perhaps??????
I think the virus is really going to affect at least the start of the season , hope I’m wrong but ...
I hope you are wrong but fear you are right. By May Europe could be in the grip, in which case the whole first half could be impacted unless a vaccine is developed by then.