The Formula One Thread

I don't get it either. He could have retired the brand spokesperson, the goat for Mercedes. He would have been favorite for ever. I see a lot of butt hurt in the near future.

 

New season of Drive to Survive is supposed to come out on 23FEB2024. Not sure if it was mentioned or not; just letting y’all know.

 

Hamilton will still be tied to Mercedes after his Ferrari stint. No one thinks of Schumi as a Mercedes man even though he drove for them and was still semi-involved after his 2nd retirement.

Also, so obvious why this story had to drop this week, specifically yesterday, and specifically in the hours just after the Andretti announcement lol.

 

Hamilton has all of the money he could ever need. Red Bull has Verstappen as long as he wants to race in F1. They would never hire Hamilton as long as Verstappen continues to win races and championships. That being said, I don't see Verstappen racing for a long time like Alonso and Hamilton have done but Hamilton will be done racing in 3-4 years. Hamilton wants that 8th championship and it appears that if he jumps to Ferrari that he feels like he can get that championship at Ferrari and not Mercedes.

 

Vale is still going to be the goat at Yamaha and a brand ambassador for them even though he left to race a ducati and currently runs ducati's for his team. Hamilton will always be tied to Mercedes when he's done racing, even if he does go to ferrrari for a couple of years. 6 championships for mercedes will always trump 1 championship at ferrari if he were to get it.

 

Vale also raced for Yamaha the longest, retired from them and stayed in the Piano colors for a long time after his brief dalliance with Ducati.

I also have way more faith that Mercedes will find the way back before Ferrari. Maybe he just wants the Red to match his Hilfiger colours

 

Ferrari is still Ferrari at the end of the day, every driver would want to race for them given the chance. Plus, if he wins at Ferrari, he solidifies his status as goat.

 

If Lewis goes to Ferrari, will he be the 2nd driver, behind Charles?

 

nope

 

Charles signed a deal with Ferrari last week to last until 2029, it will be interesting to see who they place in the #1 seat.

 

They called him before his latest renewal with Mercedes, though…

 

I bet this is part of it. And probably he doesn't think Mercedes can give him a championship car by the time he retires.

 

Maybe it's as simple as, well, Ferrari.

 

Overall the Ferrari has been a better car the last couple seasons, they just need some help in the strategy/pit side of things. They are more willing to make technical changes than Mercedes. For instance, sticking to their stupid no side pod for FAR too long.

 

It's being reported that Ferrari's stock value jumped 7 billion dollars today at the speculation that Hamilton was joining them next year!

 

This article outlines the 'why' pretty clearly:

https://racingnews365.com/key-facto...tm_medium=social_organic&utm_content=12513405

tldr - Ferrari poached an engineer that Hamilton likes.

 

Yeah their strategy has been very, very bad on race day and no doubt has cost them several wins.

 

Most interesting coincidence of the day is Ferrari stock up 9%.

 

12% now! Which I'm loving. I bought 10 shares back at $133 just cause I thought it'd be cool to own some of Ferrari. Clearly I shoulda bought more as its up 190% since then.

 

It's official!