Mogo si i fotku stavit kad vec spominjes

Stoffel Vandoorne potvrđen kao Mercedesov razvojni vozač u 2019. godini:

https://www.gpblog.com/en/news/26496/va ... -2019.html

Vettel-Ferrari je napisao/la: 22.11.2018., 21:00 Stoffel Vandoorne potvrđen kao Mercedesov razvojni vozač u 2019. godini:

https://www.gpblog.com/en/news/26496/va ... -2019.html

Pa dobro je i prosa. Najbolje od ovih sto su ostali bez trkaceg mista. Dogodit ce se da ce profitirat vise nego Ocon na kraju

Kako ? Pa i jedan i drugi su potvrđeni kao mercedesovi vozači u simulatoru.

Pa, ako bude bolji od Ocona u simulatoru, na primjer.

Dani je napisao/la: 24.11.2018., 12:31 Kako ? Pa i jedan i drugi su potvrđeni kao mercedesovi vozači u simulatoru.

Nisam ima pojma da je i Ocon potvrdjen. Kako bilo,mislim da Stoffel uopce nije los. Imao je kriminalnu sezonu u kriminalnom bolidu.
Mislim da ovo sta smo vidili ove godine nije njegova prava vrijednost,bolji je od ovoga

I see you’re not wearing that eye catching Richard Mille watch anymore?

(grins) The first thing I had to give back after my last Grand Prix was that watch. In the meantime my 570GT is also back at the dealer in Monaco. I currently drive a Mercedes-AMG. Not that bad.

No extensive farewell at McLaren I take it?

After the last race I haven’t set a foot inside. I didn’t have a flat in Woking so moving wasn’t necessary. I also haven’t heard anything from the team since.

And still you look rather relieved. No resentful feelings?

Not really. Without McLaren I would have never reached the position I’m at today. Don’t forget that they paid for a big part of my career. A season in Formula Renault 3.5, two in GP2, a year in Japanese Superformula… In the meantime I was being prepped for F1, where I also drove for two years in their service. It’s actually half a miracle that I even reached F1, because for someone from a normal family that wouldn’t have been possible without their help. And certainly not now. Look at karting: even that has become unaffordable nowadays. Up to €200.000 for a single season at a decent level, who can pay for that? Sons with rich fathers, they can. But for a young man from a normal family it’s become unreachable without outside help.

But still. You can hardly say that these past two years were a success?

No. I was therefore quite relieved when the final chequered flag fell in Abu Dhabi. I was finally finished and could start a new challenge. I’m glad that I got rid of it, yes. If I’ll miss F1? I probably will. Driving with an F1 car for sure, because even my McLaren delivered some incredible driving sensations. And maybe at the start of the new F1 season in Australia I’ll get a mental tick, who knows. “I should have been there”, something like that. But at the moment that’s not the case yet.

Wouldn’t you want to return to F1 then?

Honestly, I’m not really thinking about that. There are those that see my role as simulator driver for Mercedes F1 as an opportunity to reopen that door, but at the moment that’s not my intention. I want to fully commit myself to Formula E now. Sure, you can never say never. Definitely not in F1, where the transfer market is completely turned upside down from one day to the other. And drivers like Esteban Ocon and myself can’t find a seat. I can tell you one thing though: going back to F1 in the same circumstances as with McLaren? No thanks.

When did you start noticing that your relationship with McLaren started to go south?

Start of July, at the British Grand Prix. There I heard they were negotiating with other drivers. I then also got a new chassis, but that car never worked as intended. We struggled with it for a few races and then sent it back to the workshop. There they still haven’t found what was wrong with it, I think. After the summer break, during the Belgian Grand Prix, I realised that my adventure with McLaren was over. Happily for me it was confirmed after the following race weekend, that way I could start working on my new future.

In those summer months the word “sabotage” has been dropped once in a while.

Not by me.

Of course not, because you never really angered yourself in everything that happened. Still not, apparently. Are you really too kind, as is often said and written?

Ah, too kind… I’d say professional. After McLaren made their decision public I just tried to make the best out of the races that I had left with the team. I still wanted to enjoy it, you know. In some of those weekends it went quite well actually. Austin, Mexico, Brazil, all of them decent races.

But no one noticed them.

Yes, that I know. But I learned to live with that. If you’re not fighting for points, then you’re barely on screen. That happened a lot in 2018.

“We have the best chassis, but the worst engine” was said in 2017 by team boss Zak Brown. But now with the Renault engine instead of the Honda it’s really shown McLaren’s true colours. How is something like that possible with such a big team?

Look, the McLaren where we started with in Melbourne was actually still the car from last year. The evolutions weren’t ready on time, those would only arrive at the start of the European season at Barcelona. But still we managed to score points in Australia and Bahrain. A good sign, because with those evolutions from Barcelona we would have been able to close the gap even further. At least that’s what we thought. We thought wrong. The new parts didn’t work at all. Once in a while we tried to look for solutions with further evolutions, but even that didn’t give us any results. In the meantime other teams were progressing, and we were dropping further down. It also didn’t help that it was quite chaotic on a management level. Jost Capito, who was recruited by Ron Dennis, never really achieved something. Last year Eric Boullier was also shown the exit. But in the meantime all the good engineers had left, and that was much worse. That phenomenom had actually already started before my first season. In the meantime everyone in the F1 paddock knew: nowhere was it that easy to lure away engineers or key personel as at McLaren. You wouldn’t have to try that at Renault. Of course that weighs on the mood inside the team. In short, I joined McLaren at the worst possible time in Formula 1.

With, looking at the cirumstances, the worst possible teammate? Fernando Alonso didn’t let an opportunity pass to show himself as the better of you two. He was the man that beat “the young talent that won everything”. That caught you out didn’t it?

No, I don’t think so. I knew the way Alonso worked and expected it to be like that. Fine, I had no experience whatsoever with those political games that he played. And you could definitely see that from time to time. But apparently that’s the way he functions. It’s not like he keeps many friends by doing so. And no, I didn’t send him a Christmas card. (grins)

Again: you never angered yourself. You could have criticised Alonso, but you never did. Verstappen wouldn’t think twice about that.

Max can do what he wants. As long as he gets the results, he’s the king at Red Bull. There’s nothing in his way over there. As for me: I won’t and can’t go into detail here, but the situation at McLaren wasn’t as simple as you and most other people portray it as. My choice to keep it professional and not get aggressive was the best option for me at the time, trust me on that one.

That attidude is probably valued by Mercedes boss Toto Wolff. Not only did you become their simulator driver, he also delivered you a seat at the HWA team in Formula E. The precursor of the Mercedes factory team. But be honest: how do those electric cars feel for a former F1 driver?

You simply can’t compare F1 and Formula E. And F1 car is planted on the road, an FE car slides all over the place. On a normal track that wouldn’t be so bad, but on street circuits like we use it creates some hectic races. If the suspension then starts failing you can be happy that you even finish. The atmosphere is also completely different in Formula E. Everyone just goes out to eat together in one big tent, even the press is welcome! A bit like GP2 you might say. In F1 everyone locks themselves down in their motorhome, they play political games and do all sorts of other things. Things I won’t miss, that’s for sure. I feel good here. In addition to that I also have the opportunity in FE to fight at the front and try to get a top result, I’ll always choose that instead of backmarker in F1. Always.

Jedan zanimljiv Stoffelov intervju u kojemu se dotaknuo svoga vremena provedenog u McLarenu, Alonsa i još po nekih stvari. Ima dosta zanimljivih informacija. Zanimljivo da se prošle godine do Barcelone, McLaren utrkivao praktički sa McL-32.

With, looking at the cirumstances, the worst possible teammate? Fernando Alonso didn’t let an opportunity pass to show himself as the better of you two. He was the man that beat “the young talent that won everything”. That caught you out didn’t it?

No, I don’t think so. I knew the way Alonso worked and expected it to be like that. Fine, I had no experience whatsoever with those political games that he played. And you could definitely see that from time to time. But apparently that’s the way he functions. It’s not like he keeps many friends by doing so. And no, I didn’t send him a Christmas card. (grins)

Zanimljivo kako spominje one poznate Alonsove političke igrice...
Ne čudi me...samo još jedna potvrda onoga što znamo i da ipak nije za sve kriva ekipa ili bolid u kojem se našao i da nije ipak slučajno da određena ekipa procvjeta nakon odlaska.

Zbog Alonsa su sigurno i uzeli Sainza a izbacili Vandoornea.