Harshest Sackings

[rjbetty]

What's the story on Innes Ireland?

Oh yeah Prost is a very good one!

Here's a few recent ones I'd forgotten all about:

NICK HEIDFELD, RENAULT 2011
Made a scapegoat. Heidfeld's qualifying was extremely disappointing it had to be said, but his race performances were quite good. While I agree with Eric Bouiller that Heidfeld's driving and attitude were sadly not up to the level hoped for, Bouiller only seemed to make things worse by his treatment of Nick. The move to replace him with Bruno Senna almost cost the team 5th in the WCC.

JAIME ALGUERSUARI, TORO ROSSO 2011
This one is even worse, and I'd probably include Sebastien Buemi as a footnote here too. Jaime claimed to have been offered a drive elsewhere but wanted to stay with Toro Rosso (but then surely if that were really true, he'd have taken it?). He was told he would be staying on for 2012, only for Dr Marko to change his mind after the season had ended and seats elsewhere had been filled. In hindsight, Toro Rosso would surely have been much better off retaining Jaime to benefit from his experience and continuity and to be a known quantity for Ricciardo to be measured against. Vergne proved that he might have been better served continuing in a junior formula for at least 1 more year.

CHRISTIAN KLIEN, RED BULL 2006
Another one involving Dr Marko. David Coulthard spoke out against this one as even he felt Christian wasn't really given a fair chance/enough time. Having been running ahead of DC in Monaco until late on (he finished 3rd remember), Christian was really only a couple of tenths of Coulthard's level which wasn't bad. But then again Kimi had established himself ahead of a younger DC by that stage of his career. Even so, it seemed a bit harsh indeed to not even let Christian see out the season, especially when his replacement was only Robert Doornbos.

HEIKKI KOVALAINEN, RENAULT 2007
Now this is one I would like to hear more about as I fail to understand how this went. I don't really see how Kovalainen had a disappointing season considering he beat his experienced team-mate pretty convincingly in only his 1st season. I know he struggled at the start, but surely that can be forgiven since Renault had produced a very horrible car, which was reasonably unexpected to be that bad. Though his season was certainly overshadowed by Lewis Hamilton's, I can only reason that Heikki must have been shown the door because Flav and Alonso felt that competition from him would be too much to bear after 2007. 'Fernie' wanted it easy with Piquet while he tended to his wounds...

[Prisoner Monkeys]

HEIKKI KOVALAINEN - CATERHAM, 2013
Carried the Caterham team for 3 years, only to be basically told that HE should have been more grateful by Mike Gascoyne.

I totally disagree on this one. Kovalainen is not particularly fast, but I think he has earned a reputation as a nice guy, and that has been enough to overcome the shortcomings in his racecraft until now. When he was at Renault, he never looked particularly comfortable, but then he was only brought in at the last minute because Flavio Briatore needed to replace Alonso, and Briatore bet the farm on him. There was far too much pressure and expectation on him. He only landed the McLaren seat because Alonso left McLaren at the last minute, so the team were forced to pick the best of a bad bunch. He was really out of his depth there. And when he got to Caterham, he only beat Trulli in one of the two seasons they had together; Trulli came out on top in the other. Finally, when he was teamed up with Vitaly Petrov, Petrov was by far and away the stronger driver than Kovalainen by the end of 2012.

Kovalainen was asked to find sponsors by the team to keep his drive in 2013. He declined. I can understand his apprehension, because once he gets sponsors, he's always going to need them to stay in the sport. And on a certain level, it's an admission that you're not the greatest driver on the grid - especially when you have already been in the sport for six years. But looking at his results, I don't think Kovalainen really deserves a seat based on merit alone. He'd need to find some sponsors to make up the difference. He wouldn't need as much sponsorship as, say Bruno Senna (who has no business being in Formula 1), but he would need some. Since he refused, can anyont blame the team for dropping him?

NICK HEIDFELD, RENAULT 2011
Made a scapegoat. Heidfeld's qualifying was extremely disappointing it had to be said, but his race performances were quite good. While I agree with Eric Bouiller that Heidfeld's driving and attitude were sadly not up to the level hoped for, Bouiller only seemed to make things worse by his treatment of Nick. The move to replace him with Bruno Senna almost cost the team 5th in the WCC.

At the time, the team was in serious need of sponsors. Gerard Lopez had borrowed heavily from Bank SNORAS to fund his acquistion of the team, and the loans were coming due. With the Malaysian government refusing to make funds available if they were just going to be used to pay off a bank loan, the team needed to find someone with sponsors to keep themselves afloat until that money from Malaysia would become available. With vitaly Petrov bringing millions of dollars in sponsorship to the team, Renault could not drop him, and so Heidfeld got the axe.

It's worth mentioning that Lopez borrowed money from SNORAS - one of the two banks controlled by Vladimir Antonov. Anotnov held the promoter's rights to the World Rally Championship through Convers Sports Initiative, and it was his arrest for charges of fraud that set the dominos falling and threw the entire WRC into disarray at the start of last year.

HEIKKI KOVALAINEN, RENAULT 2007
Now this is one I would like to hear more about as I fail to understand how this went. I don't really see how Kovalainen had a disappointing season considering he beat his experienced team-mate pretty convincingly in only his 1st season. I know he struggled at the start, but surely that can be forgiven since Renault had produced a very horrible car, which was reasonably unexpected to be that bad. Though his season was certainly overshadowed by Lewis Hamilton's, I can only reason that Heikki must have been shown the door because Flav and Alonso felt that competition from him would be too much to bear after 2007. 'Fernie' wanted it easy with Piquet while he tended to his wounds...

Kovalainen's problem in 2007 was that Renault was structured around Fernando Alonso. Flavio Briatore only ran a second car because he had to; given the choice, he would only submit one entry. Under his rule, all resources were directed to Alonso from the outset, and in order to get a share of the pie, the second driver had to slog it out and start getting some results on his own. We saw it in particular with Nelson Piquet Jnr.; he was hopeless, but he might have been less hopeless if the team had actually supported him.

But then Briatore lost Alonso to McLaren, and he needed a new star driver. With Hamilton being scooped up by McLaren, Briatore was desperate to find someone who could carry the team. Kovalainen's results in the feeder series suggested that he would be strong enough, but Briatore threw him in the deep end, expecting him to pick up where Alonso left off. And when he didn't deliver, he got sacked.

[wedge]

rjbetty, Tom Walkinshaw's reign at Arrows wasn't pretty: F1 Rejects - Risky Business: The TWR Arrows Years 1996-2002

Kovalainen's problem in 2007 was that Renault was structured around Fernando Alonso. Flavio Briatore only ran a second car because he had to; given the choice, he would only submit one entry. Under his rule, all resources were directed to Alonso from the outset, and in order to get a share of the pie, the second driver had to slog it out and start getting some results on his own. We saw it in particular with Nelson Piquet Jnr.; he was hopeless, but he might have been less hopeless if the team had actually supported him.

But then Briatore lost Alonso to McLaren, and he needed a new star driver. With Hamilton being scooped up by McLaren, Briatore was desperate to find someone who could carry the team. Kovalainen's results in the feeder series suggested that he would be strong enough, but Briatore threw him in the deep end, expecting him to pick up where Alonso left off. And when he didn't deliver, he got sacked.

The obvious answer is that it was a straight swap after Alonso's scandal ridden time at Mclaren. Both Heikki & Alonso were managed by Briatore.

[IceWizard]

DAMON HILL, WILLIAMS 1996
Leading the championship by a large margin and on his way to victory. He was sacked 3/4 of the way through the season which left him with little option but to drive for Arrows the following year. Rather unusual in the least to fire the driver who is leading the WDC and went on to win it. Of course his replacement Heinz Harald Frentzen proved to be quite average.

I have seen it rumoured that the decision was actually made during the 1995 season. If so, then it doesn't seem nearly as harsh given the way Hill struggled for a large part of '95.

[Mark]

Yes that's the conventional story. But the fact is that Hill did very well in 1996. And despite what happened in 1995 he deserved to defend his championship.

[D-Type]

Could it be that Frank Williams finally decided that it maybe wasn't a good idea to have two No 1 drivers as they wasted so many opportunities competing against each other (Jones/Reutemann, Mansell/Piquet) and the team would do better with a clear cut No 1 and No 2. Villeneuve was proving as quick as Hill. He was 11 years younger. And he wanted less money!

[wedge]

HHF was signed on a pre-contract so whatever clauses there were DH was re-negotiating in the summer after Autosport famously broke the story at 1996 German GP.

In the end it came down to money because Hill was on contracted similarly as a number two driver as he was number two to Prost and Senna.

[BDunnell]

What's the story on Innes Ireland?

He was simply dumped by Colin Chapman at the end of 1961, despite taking Team Lotus' first ever GP victory at the US GP. Various theories as to why have been put forward; maybe Don Capps could return and offer the explanation he considers most likely.

[Prisoner Monkeys]

The obvious answer is that it was a straight swap after Alonso's scandal ridden time at Mclaren. Both Heikki & Alonso were managed by Briatore.

As far as I'm aware, Briatore never even offered Kovalainen a second season at Renault. As soon as it became apparent that the relationship between Alonso and McLaren was breaking down and that Alonso might leave the team, Briatore ignored Kovalainen and started coaxing Alonso back. In the end, Kovalainen got the McLaren drive, but I doubt Briatore would have given it a second thought if he was simply forced out of the sport. That was always Briatore's problem - he seemed to think that just as big a star (if not bigger than) as his drivers, as if people watched Formula 1 for the overweight Italian team principals cursed with a fashion sense that even Liberace wouldn't touch.

[D28]

He was simply dumped by Colin Chapman at the end of 1961, despite taking Team Lotus' first ever GP victory at the US GP. Various theories as to why have been put forward; maybe Don Capps could return and offer the explanation he considers most likely.

Right. I was shocked on looking up the 61 results that Ireland also outpointed Clark 12 to 11, had forgotten that.
Chapman can hardly be faulted for hitching Team Lotus to Clark's obvious talent, but he was less than straightforward in letting Ireland know.
One reason sometimes given is that Chapman simply objected to portions of Ireland's personality, but no doubt other factors were involved. With Clark and Trevor Taylor, Lotus obviously had a no 1 and backup combination, also cheaper than a Clark, Ireland duo.