The 2018 F1 driver transfer discussion/speculation threadFormula 1 

twitcher
Wasn’t Perez supposed to have announced his 2019 plans by now? After the Singapore clash, does Ocon maybe have a shot at keeping his seat?
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Dunno. All Perez has said on the matter is that he signed a contract and was happy with his decision. Could be that the team he signed with wanted him to not talk about it until they were ready to make the announcement themselves.

Elsewhere, Williams isn't sure of who will replace Stroll, and will probably wait till the end of the season to pick someone. Formula 2 championship leader George Russell is a rumored candidate.
 
EngieDiesel
Dunno. All Perez has said on the matter is that he signed a contract and was happy with his decision. Could be that the team he signed with wanted him to not talk about it until they were ready to make the announcement themselves.

Elsewhere, Williams isn't sure of who will replace Stroll, and will probably wait till the end of the season to pick someone. Formula 2 championship leader George Russell is a rumored candidate.
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I can think of a Mercedes driver looking for a seat, and Williams are looking to get a gearbox supply deal from Mercedes for 2019... time for Toto to do some bargaining?
 
Dennisch
Perez has been a weird turd for some time now, he deserves to lose his seat after this weekend.
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I disagree somewhat. That is the reason they have the penaltypoint system in place. He only has 5 points on his license (like Max). He still deserves to redeem himself. Grosjaen however already has 9 points and there are still quite some races to go.

I personally would have liked Ocon in the red bull seat next season. I dont see Gasly challenging Max at all next season.
 
Bram Turismo
If Vandoorne isn't talented enough for F1, then so Perez isn't either. I've never thought much of him. His only impressive season was his rookie year with Sauber, other than that, I've never cared too much for him. Ocon has been the better driver since the first race they teamed up.
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Where did I say Vandoorne isn't talented enough? And just because you or other don't think much of driver A or B or you think driver B is just as or more deserving than A doesn't make them a horrible driver. Perez has shown that he is a good journeyman driver that can bring in points for the team and help escalate them to a position that some may not expect. This has been the case for him at Sauber and for the last four years at Force India. I don't know if I could say Ocon has been better, because in reality it's been 50/50. 2017 Perez was better, this year Ocon is better and keeping up with Perez even with his own bad luck that wasn't Perez induced. The only reason Perez is ahead is due to the podium finish.

Point is Perez like a host of other drivers is capable of making mistakes, if we axed every driver that did this each race by the many here who suggest it on a knee jerk, we'd be hosting F3 only drivers or the bottom of the barrel F2 in a couple years. He was punished for being an airhead, and being an airhead doesn't take away all the contributions he's given to the teams he's joined.

Dennisch
Really?

Because Perez has a history of trying to push people into walls or off the track. What he does isn't racing, it's venting his anger and using his car as a tool.
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If it's that clear then why hasn't he been banned? Why hasn't he accumulated tons of driver points over a season for said ban?
PocketZeven
I disagree somewhat. That is the reason they have the penaltypoint system in place. He only has 5 points on his license (like Max). He still deserves to redeem himself. Grosjaen however already has 9 points and there are still quite some races to go.

I personally would have liked Ocon in the red bull seat next season. I dont see Gasly challenging Max at all next season.
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Grosjean will be down to 7 end of next month. I'm sure he's been told to keep his head down.
 
Bram Turismo
If Vandoorne isn't talented enough for F1, then so Perez isn't either. I've never thought much of him. His only impressive season was his rookie year with Sauber, other than that, I've never cared too much for him. Ocon has been the better driver since the first race they teamed up.
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But unlike Vandoorne, Perez has done things in F1 other then being demolished by a team mate each weekend.
 
The one aspect Perez has over everyone in the midfield is that when there's chaos in the top teams, he always seems to be the driver that steals a podium.

Since 2014, the midfield podiums have been scored by:
Perez - 5
Grosjean - 1
Magnussen - 1
Button - 1
Stroll - 1

I don't see Ocon, Hulkenberg, Sainz or Vandoorne on there. For all his occasional silly streaks, he is still the driver you want in your car in a bonkers race.
 
I think that's a bit skewed though because Force India had that one or two seasons where they genuinely were the third fastest team in several races. I don't think that had much to do with Perez as it did the car. Ocon wasn't his teammate at the time though - don't even remember who was.
 
TheElbows
I think that's a bit skewed though because Force India had that one or two seasons where they genuinely were the third fastest team in several races. I don't think that had much to do with Perez as it did the car. Ocon wasn't his teammate at the time though - don't even remember who was.
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Hulkenberg
 
And accomplished...nothing? Isn't he on 150 starts without a single podium at this point? It's why I consider him an absolute Ghost. Just floating behind the news and media...silently drifting from team to team.
 
TheElbows
I think that's a bit skewed though because Force India had that one or two seasons where they genuinely were the third fastest team in several races. I don't think that had much to do with Perez as it did the car. Ocon wasn't his teammate at the time though - don't even remember who was.
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And last season they were the fourth fastest car and probably their fastest car consistently to date. Furthermore, considering how many issues happened in the Super star league between those three teams, you'd think that someone people rate more highly than Perez would have snatched a shock podium. Or more realistically been the guy that finished 7th or 6th consistently thus showing where the car belonged when the other three teams finished 1-6 or 1-5. However, it wasn't and Perez was that guy the only other people to finish best of the rest typically when Perez didn't were Sainz, Massa, Hulk and Ocon. But Perez had a pretty big over the season margin of finishing ahead. I think Perez of the season finished 62% of the races ahead of Ocon and had similar results in quali. This season as I said prior Ocon is the better driver and Perez only is ahead of him in points because of the podium finish at Baku. Which funny enough might have been Ocon if he didn't try to stick another around the outside pass that caused his car to be wrecked early into the race, on another narrow street circuit.

I'm all for Ocon and I agree he should have a seat, but if justifying a seat means that people are going to try and unjustify Perez's gains or similar that that seems pretty counter on trying to sell why Ocon should be around. I believe Ocon's merits alone should prove that he deserves a seat those are: equaling and at times beating Pascal who had been with Manor from the start of the season, while Ocon joined midway. Beating Perez this season (if all goes the way it has). Joining FI and finish a place behind his established team mate, in their first year as team mates.
 
Sure, and I'm not discounting Perez as being a qualified F1 driver. Like many people, I like Ocon more, but that's because he's not a dick and he's young and interesting. Perez is a plenty decent driver, but I don't think he's anything special (and very good chance Ocon won't be anything special too - but he's still an unknown, hence interesting). Perez is a known quantity. A decent driver, and a world class whiner.

Regarding Ocon's performance at FI...I can't say much because I don't know what kind of situation they're in as a team. Ocon could very well just be the next Hulkenberg, no idea...but I'd like to see what he can do. It's possible he's in one of those team situations where Force India is building cars around Perez and Ocon is just dealing with it, etc. No idea. Perez had been around with FI for a decent time, and I think any quality mid-field driver would have performed as Perez did when they had the rather good Force India run.
 
Great news to wake up to. Nothing against Ericsson personally, but he’s had his shot, time to move on.

I really like the way ferrari seem to be going about this. They have Kimi in reserve if LeClerc doesn’t work out, and they have Ericsson in reserve in case Gio doesn’t work out. Seems pretty smart to me:
 
Good, Sauber will do great (they already do, so maybe greater) things under Vasseur with GIO/RAI line up and Ferrari support, can't wait for 2019
 
Yep, good switch, and solidifies much more "Ferrari" in the Sauber back-up/junior team, etc. Let Kimi head the junior team for a couple years before slotting in another junior Ferrari driver and voila. Fun fact, beyond the tweet a few posts above, I don't believe I've ever seen Ericsson..I just assumed he was a generic Scandinavian blonde fellow.
 

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