XPost: rec.autos.sport.f1

On 9/30/2019 10:21 AM, Sir Tim wrote:

Bigbird <bigbird.nospam.usenet@gmail.com> wrote:

Sir Tim wrote:

I don’t think many people would dispute that Ricciardo is better than
Hulkenberg but, fact is, Dan is paid almost four times as much as the
Hulk yet they are tied on 34 points each. Just saying.

On Sky this weekend:

Interviewer: So Danny why are you leaving Renault?"

Ricciardo: "They decided they couldn't afford my win bonus... ha, ha,
ha :D"

Hulkenberg: "What's a win bonus?"

Ricciardo: "It's what you get if you are on the top step of the podium"

Hulkenberg: "What's a podium?"

Ricciardo:":D"

:-)

Ricciardo is a proven race winner, but at the end of the day a driver is
only worth what a team is prepared to pay for him.

Obviously. Or at least that point used to be more clear
and obvious.
I'm reminded of the issue that Frank Williams frequently
made clear, if he had a source of money, he could either
put it towards making a faster car, or towards paying
a 'better' driver to drive it better.
For years he felt that if he had the best car, that
plenty of top quality drivers would come to him wanting
to drive it to win races and championships.
Worked well enough for a long time, he had many WDC's
leave to get better pay after winning the WDC.

Then, somewhat suddenly, after he squeezed out Prost,
and killed Senna, and lost Damon Hill and Jacques Villeneuve,
and the year turned to 1998,,,, and the magic seemed gone.

What Renault need just
now is a race winning *car* and unless Ricciardo’s development skills are quite outstanding I don’t think the team really need him.

I do not totally agree.
Remember that, it is only rare that a team makes a huge
improvement in any year. Generally it is small steps
showing improvement.
In mid 2018, when they made the decision, IMHO it made
perfect sense. They had improved, and were now the
#4 best team, and wanted to get better.
They had gotten NO PODIUMS and NO WINS.

Ricardo has at least gotten them a 4th place.
But McLaren has done a leap frog improvement over them.
I'd rate that as due to the car, not the drivers.

For any mid level team, winning a F1 race is dependent
on luck and on skill (and in recent years, a huge budget
is more and more a factor in "skill").
It is not a chess match. It is not long distance sniper
skill. It is more like shooting pachinko balls **
Ricardo has shown he has it.

** PACHINKO - STEEL BALL GAME - COLOUR https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0nIx9Gnb6I
The year I was in Vietnam, I also got to spend
some time in Japan. Playing Pachinko is indeed a
skill, but it has to do with aiming a mass of balls
as an area to sweeten your odds.
The launcher / spring is good for hitting in an area.
Shooting steel balls into a board with many pegs,
hoping to bounce into the targets, is not for
precision, it is putting yourself in position to be 'lucky'.

Actually Danny could be in a bit of a pickle. He left RBR because Max was obviously teacher’s pet

Danny had no chances for a WDC by staying at RBR.
He is not so young anymore, and Renault was certainly worth a try.

but the Renault gig isn’t really working out for
him and he still has a year to go. With his great talent and his Italian parentage he should be a natural shoo-in at Ferrari but there is going to
be a lot of competition for that seat in 2021, especially if the Scuderia carry on as they are at present.

Sometimes the cards just don’t fall right

Yes. Absolutely.
They fell correctly for Button.
They did not for Coulthard, Webber, Watson, Massa or Barrachello.

and I can see Dan being sidelined, which would be a shame as he’s one of the most exciting drivers on the grid.

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