Chunky wrote:
Jenson is on his way out. I've been saying that ever since the Honda engine deal was announced. The one year contract pretty much confirmed it for me.
To my mind, it's madness. You need a mature, capable, analytical driver to help develop a new car, which is effectively what's going to happen next year at McLaren. The Jenson versus Kevin results illustrate that. Unfortunately, Daniel whupping Seb has pretty much contradicted that - people forget that Vettel wasn't, isn't and likely never will be, anything but a very capable point and squirt driver.
One of next year's Macca drivers will be either Japanese, or from a country where Honda has a big presence or marketing opportunity.
Remember that Jenson was brought in by Whitmarsh, so Ron has no great connection there. Ron's just getting his post-event justification in early.
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Let's look at the entire picture with Jenson the last couple of seasons…
Soon much going on in his life, likely more than any other driver in F1. Marriage, death of his father, now divorced. One cannot discount all those things weighing on a driver's mind, and the latter is a REALLY Big one for most people and drivers, for all their supreme ability behind the wheel of a race car, are int he end human. Having said that, I think Jenson did a marvelous job in not only hiding his personal woes, but also doing respectably well in the McLaren despite all that was going on.
Ron is one who has been in this sport longer than, well… most anyone currently and with all his decades of experience he knows when a driver isn't doing his very best consistently. He's praised Jenson several times in the past and he did have the option of dropping him for 2015 but elected to keep him which shows he believes in Jenson because he had a very capable guy in Magnussen who could've partnered Alonso easily. Jenson also knows some of the Honda staff and his experience is more valuable to both McLaren and Honda so it made sense to keep him over Magnussen. In the end I think both he and Alonso did an excellent job considering the machine they were trying to pilot.