2012 Formula 1 Season Thread

The rear wing of the williams has a Venezuela advertisement... unless there's a huge company called Venezuela, it's pretty clear it comes from the government... There were other drivers sponsored in such a way, like an argentine driver who was supposed to drive for US F1 team.

mald_will_vene_2011-11.jpg


Venezuela, to know it is your destiny (dunno why they wouldn't write this in english, they're neglecting non spanish speaking tourists)
 
MacGuffin said:
... it won't change back to the way it was...
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...when it was largely funded by Alcohol and Tobacco companies? Same stuff, different decade, different substances, but same idea still. I do agree that I dislike mediocre pay drivers in classic F1 teams.
 
The Hungarian race was incredible! A world record for pit stops? :p


All they needed was for it to snow or something....
 
Good.. Trulli was always 'meh' for me.. Not to mention we can see Petrovair take flight again!
 
zephyrus17 said:
Good.. Trulli was always 'meh' for me.. Not to mention we can see Petrovair take flight again!
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i'm not a great fan of trulli, but definately not a fan of petrov. if it wasn't for his russian oil-roubels, he wouldn't be anywhere near F1...
 
bone said:
i'm not a great fan of trulli, but definately not a fan of petrov. if it wasn't for his russian oil-roubels, he wouldn't be anywhere near F1...
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Said Russian came 3rd in Australia last year. What was the best result of your fellow countryman?
 
:lol:

schumachers best result was 4th...

and if d'Ambrosio hadn't managed to fork ?5 milion together, he wouldn't have driven an F1 car either...
 
Can't say I didn't see that coming, Trulli's time was done years ago, as was Barichello's. Mind you, the grid will look pretty weird without their names there this year. I'm not generally a fan of pay-drivers but I must say I like VP's style. I do agree that he wouldn't be there under any other circumstances, however.
 
Zesty said:
Can't say I didn't see that coming, Trulli's time was done years ago, as was Barichello's. Mind you, the grid will look pretty weird without their names there this year. I'm not generally a fan of pay-drivers but I must say I like VP's style. I do agree that he wouldn't be there under any other circumstances, however.
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he's also lucky to be russian. Tony Fernandes would love to sell loads of caterhams in russia, no better way than employing one of them...
i read speculation even ferrari is interested in him to replace massa next year, just for this reason...
 
According to russian sources Petrov's deal appears to be a 1-year with an option, ~$10m/year. Less than a half was paid by his (new) Russian sponsors, the rest by Renault (Lotus) out of the $14.4m they were paid for his 2-year deal. Also rumored is the clause that his results must be somewhat close to Heikki's.

Personally i don't think he deserved a seat over Rubens or Jarno, however I doubt they could come up with that kind of money.

Catheram will never sell anything in Russia, not even to the super-rich, it would make more sense to seat him in Ferrari or Mercedez.
 
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ViperVX said:
Catheram will never sell anything in Russia, not even to the super-rich, it would make more sense to seat him in Ferrari or Mercedez.
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And you have how much experience with life in Russia? If you had any, you'd know that your statement is BS. Ferraris are not exactly top-sellers in Russia and Mercs wouldn't need the advertising of Petrov as their driver. Nail a BMW or Merc badge to a turd and the Russians will jump on it like a pack of dogs on a three-legged cat. On the other end it is no surprize that TVR was taken over by a Russian. They love this sort of cars and Caterham wants a part of that market, so Petrov at Caterham makes perfect sense.

It should be noted, however, that when you speak of Russians, it usually means those in the european part of the country (everything west of Ekaterinburg and Perm), since everything behind the Ural mountains has been neatly carved up by the Chinese and Japanese market-wise.
 
lukenwolf said:
And you have how much experience with life in Russia? If you had any, you'd know that your statement is BS. Ferraris are not exactly top-sellers in Russia and Mercs wouldn't need the advertising of Petrov as their driver. Nail a BMW or Merc badge to a turd and the Russians will jump on it like a pack of dogs on a three-legged cat. On the other end it is no surprize that TVR was taken over by a Russian. They love this sort of cars and Caterham wants a part of that market, so Petrov at Caterham makes perfect sense.

It should be noted, however, that when you speak of Russians, it usually means those in the european part of the country (everything west of Ekaterinburg and Perm), since everything behind the Ural mountains has been neatly carved up by the Chinese and Japanese market-wise.
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Not too much experience, just over 26 years.

They won't sell any Catherams, because there are no decent tracks, no decent roads, and, since it's a track-day car, - not much prestige in it. There aren't any TVRs here either, all those football clubs, newspapers, whole brands purchased by russians were a moneysink.

Ferrari could use a sales boost, since they are outsold by Porsche by a huge margin. Mercedes could use Petrov to get a leg up on BMW.

Also I wouldn't label the east as asiantown just yet, ever since custom duties for pre-owned cars went up, Fords have become the 3rd best seller in the eastern Russia, beaten only by Toyota and Nissan.
 
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ViperVX said:
Ferrari could use a sales boost, since they are outsold by Porsche by a huge margin.
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Ferrari is outsold by Porsche by a huge margin everywhere, even in Italy. In 2010 Porsche produced nearly a hundred thousand cars and in 2011 they had a huge increase.

Ferrari, on the other hand, has recently set their target to selling 8000 cars per year.
 
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MacGuffin said:
Ferrari is outsold by Porsche by a huge margin everywhere, even in Italy. In 2010 Porsche produced nearly a hundred thousand cars and in 2011 they had a huge increase.

Ferrari, on the other hand, has recently set their target to selling 8000 cars per year.
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Definitely could use a boost then.
 
ViperVX said:
Definitely could use a boost then.
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Nope. One of the things you pay for when buying a Ferrari is exclusivity. But let's not drag this farther OT.
 
The main goal of ferrari road cars was always to finance the racing activities, especially F1. Not to sell a lot of cars.
 
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