F1 silly season

[EauRouge]

It's getting very silly now with these rumours of Alonso going to Red Bull- can't see it happening. I hope it won't be Kimi either. Seb needs a good number 2 behind him, someone that won't challenge him for the championship. I reckon Ricciardo is Red Bull's best bet.

No Spa announcement for the vacant seat at red bull Ooh for me this just adds to the conspiracy theory that Alonso is going to Red Bull and Vettel/Kimi is going to Ferrari ... Although i know this is going to be highly untrue its fun to speculate

Noooo, not Crashtor Maldonado! I don't want him at Ferrari until he learns to drive. Wasn't there speculation about his sponsorship money drying up?

I don't think Vettel will go to Ferrari unless he takes Adrian Newey with him, and that won't happen with the recent reshuffle. Although, I did read somewhere that Ferrari have still got an announcement to make about staff. It'd be a helluva shock though

I love silly season too; the closer Spa gets, the more bizarre the rumours. You can tell everyone's missing the excitement of racing.

There was rumours about his money but then it was there was a statement about it all being set still if I remember right but Ferrari have put up with Massa and he has done nothing but crash this year so maybe they don't care ??

They have James Alison now so I don't know him and newsy would make a pretty fantastic car I mean I would t bet against them together and there was rumours Adrian want happy and Vettel did have that weird per contract thing with Ferrari which I never quite understood and he does need to move teams to prove to everyone he can race with other teams so who knows

Martin Brundle thinks that this whole Kimi denial of Red Bull could be just to get more money out of them and they have pushed back the announcement so who knows

This whole weekend is going to be about that spare seat and where Kimi is going I think its going to be hilarious watching reporters trying to talk to Kimi I'm looking forward to it

At least he only crashes into the tyre wall and not other people though! Mind you, I think Maldonado might be pretty good if he learns to calm down a bit.

I thought that Vettel/Ferrari contract had been denied by both sides? Which obviously means nothing in F1 anyway, it could still exist.

Is there some kind of Kimi being interviewed bingo card? I can't wait

You have a good point i mean Maldonado crashed into barriers gets the race red flagged at least Massa is only taking himself out the race

It was a weird pre-contract contract but i think he may of just pushed it for a year because he did only sign a one year extension with Red Bull which is a bit weird so whoever gets the Ferrari seat may just be keeping it warm until he gets there

Kimi ... i mean what can you say about him except he makes me laugh and im sure the interviewers draw straws to see who has to do it because they and he never seem happy to be there ... im sure its like the engineers who have to speak to him over radio with my recent favourite being the dave radio message

My favourite ever was when Martin Brundle interviewed him on the grid at Interlagos when MS retired the first time. Classic

The only interview i have ever seen him enjoy himself is the one with Natalie Pinkham doing ice racing usually you can tell he would rather be sticking pins in his eyes and i love he doesn't even try to hide how much he hates being interviewed

I think the drivers are suffering from silly season too baby practising from the drivers press conference

Plus what is with Vettels hair it does not look good !!

Not to mention the journalists, you could tell the drivers were thinking 'what a crap question'.

I haven't seen Vettel's hair yet, he's always wearing a cap or a helmet.

here he is its um defiantly not an improvement

The big story well not a story but gossip is that Kimi has cancelled his Thursday engagements due to "illness" and Christian Horner was cancelling his too but then he was just very delayed however I think it's just smoke and mirrors and they are going to sign Riccardo but people talking about them is better than no one talking about them and we'll Perelli just want someone to talk about something other than the tyres

The lotus Pr team makes me laugh

Ha, Lotus are ace

Rumour round-up: Some are saying Kimi will just quit at the end of the season. His pay package was bonus-based and he won more than Lotus expected which is why there were money problems.

Ferrari will decide their line-up after Monza so Massa has 2 more races to impress them.

Mclaren have yet to exercise there option to keep Jenson next year so while everyone has been talking about Kimi it seems like Jenson could be on the move too

Really? I thought he was pretty happy at McLaren.

Have you seen this from the beeb? Bless him.

Poor naive Daniel he has as much chance of being of equal status at Red Bull as I do and I can't drive poor bloke

Jenson is happy at Mclaren and I thought he was one who wouldn't move especially with them teaming with Honda in 2015 but he reported as saying he hasn't been picked up yet for next year and he is waiting on Martin Whitmarsh imagine if he makes the moves to Ferrari or Red Bull

McLaren are idiots for not snapping him up already.

Can't believe I've missed this thread.
Going back to reread now I've found you

I don't know if they have maybe they have been too worried about the fact the Mclaren has been so rubbish this year that they haven't thought about next year but i can't imagine Jenson leaving

Hi SuperiorCat :)

It must be that, they wouldn't be deluded enough to think they could get someone better, surely? I think he will stay, they're having a shit time at the moment but they've got the money and the resources to win the championship- all they have to do is put the right team together.

Hello Superior

First practice is on right now.

I am enjoying watching free practice but do not watch it on the bbc because i really dislike Suzi Perry (btw your link opens to Daniel Ricardo)so i'm watching mine online on the Sky F1 feed but i watch the actual race on the BBC because i prefer the commentary of DC and so hopefully the BBC keep showing the F1 races

There isn't really anyone else who would go to Mclaren though if Jenson left is there? i mean Sergio is not a big enough name to carry the team unless Jenson ends up at Ferrari and Kimi goes to Mclaren that could work

I prefer the BBC coverage, I tried watching the Sky one but found it was just pundit overkill. DC is a great commentator now, he's really grown into it. I'm glad he decided to go down the TV route instead of NASCAR as he was rumoured to do.

I don't see who else would go to McLaren either, can't see Kimi going back there. It's got to be Jenson, unless they take a massive gamble and have two relatively inexperienced drivers- Di Resta maybe? That would be silly though. I need to watch some racing to distract me from this ridiculous speculation

Dc is my favourite commentator i would really love to see him team up with Anthony Davidson who is a really good commentator during the free practice sessions on Sky

They can't take a gamble with two small named drivers because they need a big name because they are losing Vodafone as their sponsor at the end of this year so its going to need someone with a big name to help with that as well especially with this rubbish season

The teams know the summer is way to long and i am sure delay naming drivers for next year to drive all the supporters insane

Oh lawks, Jenson at Ferrari would be great for JB, but really bad for McLaren. They desperately need to get past these performance problems they've been having. I do wonder whether McLaren are being late in signing JB up, or whether Red Bull just started their driver talks early because Mark went public with his plans to leave...

Looks like JB's intending to stay at McLaren though.

I think if he did move away from Mclaren it would be a bigger change than if Kimi went to Red Bull well at least for me

I was thinking about that Frettcehn the news broke about Hamilton in September and Massa had his seat confirmed in October so maybe we are just thinking about it all too early

Apparently there are other drivers in the running for the spare RB seat. I think they're just teasing us now.

Can't wait for quali tomorrow, DH is taking the DDs out so I can watch in peace. Does anyone else follow twitter during the race? I love Pitflaps' commentary.