funkymonkey wrote:
Frankly, their handling of Kvyat sucked. It sucked when he was sacked from Redbull and it sucked again this year. Nobody deserves that even after what happened in Sochi (and I am Ferrai fan, it sucked to see what happened but still...). Specially when you got the podium just 1 race before.
That is harsh no matter how you look at it. And what happened with Kvyat after that we all know. I hope he just breaks all ties with Redbull completely and makes his career somewhere else, be it in F1 or outside F1.
Sainz, I think they had to let him go as otherwise he would have walked away from RedBull. Personally, I am not sure about Sainz. I know lot of people regard him as future superstar, but I am not yet convinced. But he had been getting good results (though making stupid mistake at the same time) and it was getting hard for RedBull to keep him tied up in the junior team. I am sure he had promote or exit clause in his contract for certain performance.
With 2018 lineup at RedBull fixed, they had no way to promote Sainz, and this is the only way they could have kept him on their roster and contracted to them by allowing him to go to Renault. This way if Daniel decides he is leaving RedBull in 2019, they can have Sainz back in there. Otherwise they would have had to let him go and potentially tied down to some other team on multi year contract.
So I guess, TR were out of options and had no choice but to race these 2 in last few races.
I will reserve my judgement on both these drivers for now and lets see how they start 2018 with full pre season winter testing in F1 car behind them. Jumping in middle of season is never easy for anyone.
Yeah, their treatment of Kvyat was terrible. He is still only 23!!!
So I think in the right environment and with a bit of support, he could actually be half decent. I think if Williams took a chance on him, then he would easier show up Stroll.
imho, I think he is their best option. (out of Kubica, Di Resta etc)
Mark Webber was talking about Hartley saying his strength was in fuel conservation. He was apparently a master at it.
He is a 2 x WEC champion, so he must be both quick and reliable. Maybe he needs to adjust his style to get more out of F1 cars.
I think both new guys were probably more conservative than normal. What is worse, crashing the car constantly and being quick, or being slightly off the pace and bringing home the car?
They did their job and secured a contract for 2018. Next year is really when we can start judging them.
Even if Hartley isn't that quick, I think his experience in WEC will really help Honda with the engine development.
Re Gasly, I don't know much about him, and there aren't too many guys out there that qualify for a super license that also aren't contracted to Merc, Ferrari or McLaren.
edit: re the car.
It might be that the chassis needs to be redesigned around the honda engine, and they decided to stop all updates after they signed for Honda.
The Renault reliability certainly didn't help them...