No F1 thread?

[Jobbo]

Source?

The horse's mouth - he posted this yesterday on Twitter:

[duncs500]

Source?

The horse's mouth - he posted this yesterday on Twitter:

I presume he's asking the source for DR not being able to drive next season, rather than that he's leaving McLaren at the end of the season.

[Jobbo]

Ah fair enough. If he's dumped by McLaren and that's not a breach of contract, his negotiation was pretty bloody poor to be bound by a restrictive covenant from driving for another team the following year

ETA: the long article about what McLaren and Ricciardo will do next implies that he isn't restricted from driving in F1 next year, but McLaren's statement that they would not want to prevent a racing driver from driving in other forms of motorsport

[duncs500]

Ah fair enough. If he's dumped by McLaren and that's not a breach of contract, his negotiation was pretty bloody poor to be bound by a restrictive covenant from driving for another team the following year

Indeed. Would be pretty shitty of McLaren to dump him and then stop him racing, but I suppose if they still think he's a good driver and know they are effectively forcing him to race for a rival team it may make sense. I would guess seeing as I believe he was in contact for next year there would be a chunk of money attached if that was part of the break agreement.

[mr_jon]

Yeah I was dubious on that as Windsor (who generally gets things spot-on) talked about the compo pay-out likely being 2023 salary minus any salary he would receive from an alternative drive. Makes sense really. Even if he ended up at Haas then it would be a few mil off McLaren's bill.

[jamcg]

As you’ll probably seen by now Piastri has been announced by mclaren now all the legal shit is done with.

https://racingnews365.com/crb-ruling-de ... i-contract

Reading this he’s been strung along something rotten by alpine who only have themselves to blame for pushing him away and not having an actual contract to tie him to the team

They’ve also been ordered to pay everyone’s costs, £1000 per hour!!!



Mclaren will be happy alpine are paying as they’ve had to pay Ricciardo between $8 and $20 million to release him from his contract, most places reporting €15m

[integrale_evo]

If I was him I would have made the same choice too. Definite drive for mclaren, no immediate signs of nor a promise of ever having an actual drive at alpine.

Remember the mclaren deal was signed before vettel announced his retirement, before alonso announced his move, and apparently alpine knew he had signed elsewhere before they decided to tweet that he would be driving or them in 2023.

[Rich B]

Yep, F1 isn’t the sort of sport that rewards “waiting a few years and maybe it’ll happen”. If Alpine wanted to play games, then sometime they'll lose those games.

[jamcg]

They sound like they need to sort out their legal department, the lack of actual contracts is what’s cost them big time by the sounds of it

[duncs500]

When you read the summary it makes you wonder why Alpine even challenged it! Looks pretty clear cut to me, they must be getting terrible legal advice.

In general it seems like Alpine didn't really treat him like a valuable commodity relative to the value of a seat with them. Mclaren obviously see a bit more in him.

[Marv]

All this fuss, Piastri better be pretty fucking amazing!

[jamcg]

Oh to be a fly on the wall of the Mercedes’ debrief

[Mito Man]

Yep wtf was that all about. I thought Russell’s choice was correct rather than the silly pundits viewpoint that he hadn’t done the best thing for the team, if he was just left out to protect Hamilton then Max would have immediately got past him on the restart and then some the same to Hamilton a lap or two later.

[duncs500]

They made a mistake going for the win TBH, once the SC was called it wasn't really on anymore*. They'd have been better to double stack, put soft on both and bring home the 2-3. If they left both out then MV (and maybe CL) would have driven around them anyway.

* - I actually think that MV would have taken the win without any SC or VSC.

[John]

[Mito Man]

* - I actually think that MV would have taken the win without any SC or VSC.

This too, the Red Bull with DRS open on newer tyres would have blasted past Hamilton anyway. Or maybe they'd both be in the gravel

[jamcg]

No red bull porsche after all

[Mito Man]

Was it ever more than a rebadged Audi though? Being a sole engine manufacturer in F1 isn't worth it.

[duncs500]

In my head it would have made more sense to have a Porsche works team and Audi branded engines TBH based on the brands.

[DeskJockey]

I can't see Porsche accepting anything but their own engines. Moot point now anyway.