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I have never been a fan of the mantra "better a mediocre experienced driver than a rookie". For what it's worth, I don't think Wehrlein has set himself apart enough from Ericsson, a driver I don't rate at all.
It is telling that Mercedes are not walking their talk when it comes to Wehrlein: sure they say he should be in F1 next year, but then again they wouldn't give him a seat last year, and they're not making sure he has one next year. It would be very easy for them to give Williams a good deal on the engines in exchange for giving Wehrlein a seat, but they don't. That does tell me they do not value him as much as they say they do.

As for Sirotkin, his junior resume is OK and he did well in GP2 (as was indicated somewhere above here). It's hard to compare his with Wehrlein, but Wehrlein wasn't the immediate standout either. And I refuse to consider DTM results as, in my view, they're not relevant towards an F1 seat.

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Agreed. People put far too much weight on the points Wehrlein has won. In the right circumstances, and If enough cars fall out of the race then points are very possible in a Sauber.

He was beating Torro Rosso's by the end of the season, but that is as much down to their inexperienced drover lineup. He is better than Ericcson no doubt. But there hasn't been the 0.4 seconds faster quali laps you would expect from a good driver vs an adequate/poor driver.

He came 8th out of 16 finishers in Spain. He actually finished 7th on the road but copped a 5 sec penalty for missing a bollard. Clearly the Sauber was handling well that weekend but it most certainly wasn't down to attrition

In my view that race was every bit as impressive as the best that Bianchi achieved

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FA#14

I reckon Williams clearly had the 4th best package at the start of the season. But they couldn't maximise their potential and were trailing a slower Force India team in the standings. Then FI outdeveloped them as the season progressed

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FA#14

Switch the drivers around though and I reckon that would swing the performance by 4-5 tenths to Williams.

Obviously that's just a guess.

i would not say it is that bad of a lineup with Stroll and Sirotkin.

It's certainly a young team, but it's quite decent.

Still, I would have loved to see Kubica back. I wonder what happened there....

I was reading that Sirotkin was more impressive than Kubica?

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Sorry but I justcant ignore the experience factor like you are doing. Experience counts and sirotkin has no f1 experience. Hes a complete unknown as far as i am concerned.

Sure, but if you take that argument to the logical extreme, Sauber should have appointed Max Chilton instead of Leclerk.

I would love to see long term duds like Ericcson and those living off their reputation like Raikkonen make way for fresh talent.

As it happens, it seems Wehrlein will be the one to miss out. That is harsh on him but if he's good enough, he'll be back.

Sirotkin may well turn out to be the better driver but Wehrlein would almost certainly score points for Williams next season.

Bottas is the only driver on the grid to outscore an experienced team mate in their debut season.

Thing is, he's been tested now by Williams, so to them he isn't a complete unknown anymore and they've been able to size him up as compared to both Stroll and Kubica.

Experience counts but only for promising drivers imo. I haven't seen enough in Wehrlein - and again, Mercedes apparently haven't either. So why should Williams?

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Sirotkin? Well, "uninspiring" seems to be a bit euphemistic then ...

Wehrlein, Kvyat are clearly better than Sirotkin; heck, even Ericsson is. But, of course, Sirotkin brings tons of money and is no threat for Stroll, so, hey, Williams, here we go.

Williams for 10th wcc place in 2018?

I wouldn't say that. Sirotkin is decent. He will probably beat Stroll.

And I would be very surprised if that happens.

So, one of us is up for a surprise - let's wait and see.

Yeah sure, Sirotkin who came third in both of his GP2 seasons is worse than Ericsson who, in his four seasons in GP2, came 17th, 10th, 8th and 6th.

Makes sense.

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Well, a lot of factors matter in GP2: competitiveness of the field, competitiveness of the team, testing miles, how the race results were achieved, the 'be mediocre on Saturday and earn on Sunday'-principle, luck, etc. pp. Result statistics are not everything.
Plus, in Sirotkin's career the modest success in GP2 is actually the outlier.

But of course, maybe he will prove me wrong. Maybe. I doubt it, though. Still and notwithstanding, Ericsson is the most likely of the ones I mentioned to be not so clearly better than Sirotkin, I admit that.

Stroll and Sirotkin - what a lineup, come on! Was there ever a worse Williams driver pairing in history? Was Nevé that bad?

f1 today was saying that Kubica is still the prefered choice and Sirotkin a 3rd driver. Apparently they said if Kubica fails to deliver.

Who knows what will happen. I guess it all depends if the backers pay the installment fee.

No they aren't, but those account for smaller differences. Not the HUGE difference between what we saw from Ericsson in GP2 and what we saw from Sirotkin.
Sirotkin beat all of his teammates in GP2 by a big margin, team competitiveness - well, his teammates didn't even reach top 10 so scrap that, he reached his results by doing well. Moreover he was only beaten by drivers that have or are racing in F1 by now.
Take a long look at the (long!) list of drivers that beat Ericsson in GP2. There's no comparison, you can objectively say that Ericsson did a lot worse in GP2 than Sirotkin.




It actually isn't. In six full racing seasons he's not been able to come third (or better) in a championship in only 2 seasons, coincidentally both in FR3.5. His results in GP2 are in line with the rest.

Moreover, GP2 is more relevant to F1 than the lower feeder series. Even if it is an outlier (which it isn't), it holds more weight than, say, the Formula BMW or Japan F3 wins Ericsson managed.



Based just on junior resume, Wehrlein is not clearly better either.



Time will tell how good or bad they are. Stroll has decent potential, just got promoted too soon. As for Sirotkin, there have probably been other drivers that had the kind of resume Sirotkin had and went on to become good F1 drivers.


I just don't see the use of judging before we've seen it play out.

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Mcdo you think that williams had the 4th best chassis? Maybe you should talk to paddy and ask him why he gave up on it after the four race of the season and decided to make major changes for next year. I'm sure he would love to hear your input.

Mike your idea that putting the force india drivers in the williams car and gaining 5 tenths gave me a good laugh. Your telling me that perez (an average driver) is going to be a half second quicker than massa (a guy who almost won a F1 title). Sorry, can't buy that daydream.

1. Mcdo said package and not chassis.

2. If you switch Massa and Perez around Perez only has to be 0.25 seconds faster than Massa to create a 0.5 second swing. 0.25 away from FI and 0.25 to Williams.

As I said that is just a guess from me.

Talking about living in the past. Massa almost won an F1 title almost ten years ago, then had a serious accident and recovery, and since has been defeated by every team mate he had bar Stroll.

The guy had a good run, sympathetic driver and had his place in F1, but let's not act as if he was somehow one of the very best still. Yeah, I'm pretty sure Perez would have a good leg up on him in the same car.

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Well mike we seem to have a disagreement about massa's ability. I happen to think he did a pretty good job in a not very good car. A car that paddy thinks was not very good considering he's basically redoing the car for next year. Massa may not be once he once was but my guess would be he would match perez in the force india. If perez was as you think he is how come he's stuck at F1 with no other team fighting to sign him? Just my guess.

MDS massa gave bottas a pretty good run.

Bottas was at least 2.5 tenths faster than Massa, so all that would take is assuming Perez is as quick as Bottas. I have no trouble believing that, so I think it could well happen that way.

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Not really. They were close in 2014, but after that Bottas began to pull away in terms of pace. By 2016, he outqualified Massa 17-4.

And Bottas himself is a solid chunk of time off the top tier in terms of pace, if 2017 is anything to go by.

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I think Perez is as good as Bottas. That would put him a few tenths of Massa.

And let's not forget you'd also swap Stroll and Ocon.

That's a huge swing from FI to Williams.

So yeah, swap the drivers around and I think it's more than likely that Williams moves up a place in the WCC.

People wildly underestimate the difference drivers can make especially in the midfield. Look at Renault with two Hulks they would also have been in that fight with Williams. With two Palmers they would have been competing with Sauber. Or look at the fortunes of STR without Sains.

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stroll and sirotkin. RIP williams f1.

It really is sad. They are delaying choosing a driver because the choices available all suck.

Why didn't they just keep Massa on for another year? He may be over the hill, but Sirotkin and Stroll? Or Kubicza and Stroll?

Heaven help Williams.

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Delaying the decision is a no brainer for achieving what they want. A bidding war. It's pretty clear that as long as the driver is reasonable the seat will go to however comes up with the most cash.

Well word on the street is that Kubica is definitely out of the running because he is 4 tenths slower than Stroll, that puts him close to a second slower than Massa.

Basically all the drivers they have tested are slower than Massa, be it Kubica, Sirotkin or di Resta, so do they cast their net out further towards a Wehrlein or even a Kvyat?

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Depends if they can drum up any money. If they can out bid Sirotkin's $15 million then they will be in.

do you know which street this is?

4th best overall package. I guess that means a better chassis than Force India. The proof is in the qualy results

Australia

China

Bahrain

Russia

Spain

What's this? We're back from the flyaway races and a Force India has finally outqualified Felipe Massa?!

And so began Williams' slippery slope backwards

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FA#14

It wasn't the 4th best package and the rest of the years results proved it. They couldn't develop out the flaws according to paddy. There is the anomaly of why the chassis was better in the rain in the hands of all people lance stroll at monza where he out qualified ocon by 7 tenths and his teammate by over a second. So the theory that the f1 drivers would be faster than the williams drivers in the williams took a knock that day. Especially since rain is supposed to be the great equalizer.

... so you agree?

The rest of the year's results mean nothing to mcdo's assertion that it was the 4th best package at the start of the season. Force India's out-developing them doesn't change that either, in fact it reinforces it.

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They can't drum up that kind of money but the thing is that if it's just about the money why hasn't Sirotkin already be signed, I think that they have some concerns about the drivers being to weak?

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Jo Saward.

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I guess it's a combination of both; money and speed. Kubica doesn't have quite enough money and not enough speed. Sirotkin may have money but not enough speed. Wherlein will probably have some speed but definitely has no money. Massa has speed but wanted too much money. I guess they have a real dilemma.

They are waiting for someone to come in with a higher offer. Or perhaps Sirotkin needs time to get his $15 mill together. I think it's clear they won't take someone without talent but neither are they interested in anyone without significant funding.