Silly Season speculation

[Roamy]

kimi can still win a race and he does not crash a lot - also he keeps vettel on his best.

[rjbetty]

A quick round up of recent news: All these are either confirmed as happening or are expected to be announced as happening shortly!

Button to retire from F1 at the end of the season!

Grosjean to Haas! To be joined by almost certainly Esteban Gutierrez. If not him, then Jean-Eric Vergne.

Lotus F1 will become the Renault works F1 team, using Renault engines and retaining Pastor Maldonado.

Red Bull Racing will be sold to Volkswagen, who will enter F1 under the Audi name apparently. Seems they will develop their own engines for 2018, and will use Ferrari engines (most likely 1yr old) for 2016-2017.



Exciting times folks!

[Tazio]

Grosjean to Haas! To be joined by almost certainly Esteban Gutierrez. If not him, then Jean-Eric Vergne.




Exciting times folks!

Is Ferrari west aka Haas really going to get these guys? I can't wait to see how this plays out

[rjbetty]

Is Ferrari west aka Haas really going to get these guys? I can't wait to see how this plays out

Hmmm I dunno, I could have jumped the gun. I've done that before (remember Bruno Senna to Force India for 2013?).

[steveaki13]

Some surprising news for me.

Interesting to see if Haas get these decent drivers and how fast the car can be.

[Rollo]

Red Bull Racing will be sold to Volkswagen, who will enter F1 under the Audi name apparently. Seems they will develop their own engines for 2018, and will use Ferrari engines (most likely 1yr old) for 2016-2017.

Der Sport Bild in their magazine seems to think that Audi is more likely to use the name Auto Union than to pollute the name of Audi, in case it fails.

[I am evil Homer]

That would make a lot of sense with Audi in WEC, VW in WRC and of course the historical connection to F1 with Auto Union.

[zako85]

VW Fraud Could Kill Their Buyout of Red Bull Racing

and

Volkswagen Sheds Over $15 Billion in Market Cap as Shares Crash 20%

and

Volkswagen CEO Martin Winterkorn to 'resign by end of the week' over emissions scandal - LIVE

[rjbetty]

So what do we think the driver line up for next year might look like now, after some recent revelations?

How about this: bold = confirmed or essentially confirmed, I've added likely drivers for the open seats.

Mercedes: Lewis Hamilton, Nico Rosberg
Ferrari: Sebastian Vettel, Kimi Raikkonen
Williams-Mercedes: Valtteri Bottas, Felipe Massa
Red Bull-Ferrari (1yr old engines): Daniel Ricciardo, Daniil Kvyat

Force India-Mercedes: Nico Hulkenberg, Sergio Perez, Pascal Wehrlein, Jean-Eric Vergne, Stoffel Vandoorne, Kevin Magnussen

Renault F1: Pastor Maldonado, Jean-Eric Vergne, Sergio Perez, Kevin Magnussen

Toro Rosso-Ferrari (1yr old engines): Max Verstappen, Carlos Sainz
Sauber-Ferrari: Felipe Nasr, Marcus Ericsson

McLaren-Honda: Fernando Alonso, Stoffel Vandoorne, Kevin Magnussen, Jenson Button

Manor-Mercedes (probably 1yr old engines): Pascal Wehrlein, Stoffel Vandoorne, Will Stevens, could be anyone really.

Haas-Ferrari: Probably Romain Grosjean and Esteban Gutierrez, but could also be Jean-Eric Vergne or Kevin Magnussen.




Unfortunately, the FIA's massive screw-up over engine tokens etc apparently means teams can now dump old engines on other teams rather than have to give the same specification to all customers. This looks likely to affect Red Bull and Toro Rosso, but could also hamper, aside from Manor, Force India, Williams and Sauber too. This could mean Ron Dennis could end up having a point about a works engine being the only way to go.


And how do we think the competitive order might shake up? In 2015 so far, average qualifying has gone something like this (to nearest 0.05sec):

1.Hamilton
2.Rosberg +0.25
3.Vettel +0.70
4.Raikkonen +1.15
5.Bottas +1.15
6.Massa +1.20
7.Ricciardo +1.35
8.Grosjean +1.60
9.Kvyat +1.65
10.Sainz +1.70
11.Verstappen +1.85
12.Hulkenberg +1.90
13.Maldonado +1.90
14.Perez +2.20
15.Nasr +2.30
16.Ericsson +2.45
17.Alonso +2.85
18.Button +3.05
19.Stevens +5.70
20.Merhi +6.10

Assuming Red Bull, Toro Rosso, Force India and Sauber get year old engines, I will hazard a guess of this qualifying after 2016 is done and dusted:

1.Hamilton (Mercedes)
2.Rosberg (Mercedes) +0.12
3.Vettel (Ferrari) +0.38
4.Ricciardo (Red Bull) +0.72
5.Kvyat (Red Bull) +0.80
6.Bottas (Williams) +0.81
7.Raikkonen (Ferrari) +0.84
8.Sainz (Toro Rosso) +0.89
9.Massa (Williams) +0.90
10.Verstappen (Toro Rosso) +0.95

11.Hulkenberg (Force India) +1.60
12.Alonso (McLaren) +1.73
13.Magnussen (Force India) +1.75
14.Nasr (Sauber) +2.01
15.Vandoorne (McLaren) +2.25
16.Ericsson (Sauber) +2.33

17.Maldonado (Renault) +2.48
18.Perez (Renault) +2.56
19.Grosjean (Haas) +3.12
20.Gutierrez (Haas) +3.69
21.Wehrlein (Manor) +3.74
22.MANOR 2 (or Stevens) +4.07


This wouldn't be the case in race trim though, especially for Ferrari and Toro Rosso.

[CNR]

I can see a court case with Red Bull if Renault use any of the tokens left for next years engine
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2...-for-formula-1
"Renault (via Red Bull) and Ferrari, aware they would not be able to do all they wanted to during the winter, demanded some tokens be made available for changes during the season."
honda redbull in motogp so could we see them in f1?