The Formula One Thread

McLaren announced today that they will be running a full season of IndyCar next year with 2 cars. No word on drivers yet but guaranteed that Alonso is one of them. Should give them enough time to get the proper color of orange painted on their cars

 

With Chevy engines........and Gil de Ferran team manager.

 

James Hinchcliffe has the first seat allegedly.
As for Alonso, https://racer.com/2019/08/09/mclaren-open-to-adding-third-2020-indycar-for-alonso/

 

Certainly not Daniel Ricciardo.

 

Gasly has been demoted to the junior Red Bull team with Albon promoted to the varsity squad. Hope he’s prepared to play second fiddle to Max and can handle the pressure.

 

Hope they're not rushing him like they have everyone else

 

Red Bull literally said last week that they will not make any in-season changes. Last week. I can see if its three months removed from the comment, but come on, credibility should factor into it at some point. It just makes Marko and Horner look like scummy low life politicians.

Other than Seb (who was kind of a known talent and find) and Max (the second coming of the Red Bull Golden Child) has any good come out of the churn and burn concept of the Red Bull Drivers Program? Does Helmut think chewing up and spitting out young drivers without much of a chance is the way to go? Seriously, if all teams in the past thought like Red Bull, you wouldn't have a Prost, you wouldn't have a Mansell. You would have a Senna and a Schumacher and a Hamilton, but so many other greats had a mediocre start to their career which would not have passed the Marko test.

 

I am going to say Alonso does not want to do a full season. All he needs is the 500. Nasr is the one with they're looking at full time. He's been shopping a lot of teams and already tested with them a week or so ago. Good to have a big sponsor with a check to play with.

 

He has a huge amount of talent but I don’t see him being able to win the 500 just by doing that race. There’s too many talented drivers racing those cars to come in and only do that race. Oval racing is too different from road racing.

 

? Admittedly I am the biggest Alo fangirl ever, but I did not hallucinate him leading the 500 before his car (engine?) crapped out couple years ago. Other people with more technical expertise can chime in. In any case, more Alo, more better for me!

 

That’s true but wasn’t he running one is the Andretti cars that day?

 

After Gasly made contact and retired from the last race, I told my friend here that Marko would be waiting for him at the garage with his suitcase packed. I didn't miss by much.

 

Think so, but I thought your premise was that he wouldn't be up to snuff, not the car. He clearly was capable, memory serves, led the race, and was in like third? when he retired? Or did you mean a new team? That was a debacle this year, facepalms all around for McClaren.

 

Did you watch the 2 years ago when he was walking away with the race until the Honduh blew up? McLaren last year was such a piss poor operation and self admitted as much. With as much sincerity as possible, you are way off.

 

Well the last time they did a swap it was Verstappen for Kvyat so I'd say that worked out well for everyone except Kvyat

 

Alonso won't do the full IndyCar season, just Indy. McLaren and SPM are still figuring out it's drivers. Hinch has been the face of Honda, not sure he will stay. Ericsson might stay with the team, and rumors of 3-4 other drivers also. They want Herta, but probably won't be able to get him. Hinch would be a good driver to hang on to, he has a lot of setup experience, and has done well at Indy.

 

Toro Rosso should change their name to Il Retrocesso

 

Yes and again he had a high level car from one of the top teams that year. His talent didn’t even get him into the show this year when he was in a shitty car. He has a ton of talent but that alone won’t win you a race at Indy.