GB_Simo wrote:Appreciative though I am of the pounds, shillings and pence heading The Hulk's way (though I'd be asking for it in USD if I was him - Brexit and all that...), it is necessary for me to believe that at 29 years old, with a good 6 or 7 years left in F1 should he perform, the LM24 win and a championship success at every level of his junior career, Nico would give at least a little thought to which team gave him the best chance of winning. There's definitely a certain naïveté to that but it must be a sport at least some of the time, right, otherwise what's the bloody point? I mean...right?
The point is that if you're not in a Mercedes, Red Bull or possibly a McLaren for the near future, you're not going to win. Merc isn't going to drop off any time soon. Red Bull looks revived. McLaren is showing glimmers of progress.
Ferrari is a bureaucratic mess, Williams lacks money, and every other team is a pretender. So yes, Hulk will go to where the pay packet is the biggest, which is a manufacturer team. There's also the hope a manufacturer's monetary commitment could lead to the recruitment of better staff, which could increase the chances of winning.
But money is the No. 1 priority for any driver, especially those outside of Mercedes and Red Bull. Hell, McLaren was at nearly the bottom of the heap last season. But Alonso and Button both stayed. Why? Because McLaren paid both more than any potential suitor could.
Pro racing careers are so short and ephemeral. Drivers/riders must cash in at every opportunity. It's why we saw so many riders (Rossi, Crutchlow, Hayden, Dovizioso) go to Ducati between 2009-15 and fail miserably on the most diabolical MotoGP factory bike of this generation. The riders knew the bike was sh*t, but the House of Bologna paid them a ton of euros. Plus their egos all said they could equal the genius of Casey Stoner, the only rider during that period to corral that bike and ride it to the top of the box.
GB_Simo wrote:PK, is the rumoured Audi withdrawal from LMP1 about Volkswagen seeing no logic in racing against themselves or should we be bracing ourselves for more of the "VAG to F1" rumours? Further, why is it that those rumours always surround the Audi brand rather than the Porsche name, particularly given Porsche having been in F1 3 times previously? I've often wondered but haven't followed the respective companies closely enough to know.
Sports car racing always has been seen as part of the Porsche DNA for more than 40 years. When you think Porsche racing since the early 70s, you think Le Mans. The 917, 935, 936, 956, 962, 919, etc., etc. What's the first Audi you remember as a Le Mans icon? The R8, which debuted in 2000.
Plus Audi has dominated in other forms of racing. Touring cars, rally. Porsche has staked its successful claim in sports car racing almost from the get-go and always will.
As for Audi withdrawing from Le Mans, I'll believe it when I see it.
"You know why I love boxers? I love them because they face fear. And they face it alone." - Nick Charles
"First on the throttle, last on the brakes." - @MotoGP Twitter signature
XBL Gamertag: pk4425
