Noni wrote:Gandalf wrote:
I think if that had happened last year he would have got that penalty. But as the general consensus was the stewards had been throwing penalties around like confetti there's been a general push to be more lenient from this season on. And rightly so in my book!
As for Lewis and his mate upstairs, he is laying it on a bit thick these days. I don't like to see it. Nor do I like to hear him tell every crowd how they are the best. But it's all minor criticisms. We are undoubtedly witnessing one of the all-time greats right now - so let's just enjoy that!
My all-time favourite driver is Nigel Mansell. I just loved to watch him at work. But I wouldn't want to invite him around for dinner. I think you'd lose the will to live after three hours with him!
Lewis, for all his faults, ain't a bad guy!
I am also a huge fan of Nigel Mansell too. Though bad luck has played its path with him. Could never understand Frank Williams motives during those 90s era signings. 2 British WC and he sacks them both after winning.
Reading some of the media reports on Hamilton, it was purely a minor offence under a safety car. No other cars were involved. So no penalty was awarded. Though a slap on the wrist was the only offence thrown at both the team & driver. It was classed as one of his best winning periods.
Williams didn’t sack two World Champions.
The reason Nigel Mansell left was a mixture of trust/money/Alain Prost.
Mansell won the World Championship in ’92.
Williams signed Prost early in ’92 to race in the ’93 season, but didn’t tell Mansell.
When Mansell found out he feared a repeat of the in-house political games that Prost played when they were team mates at Ferrari.
When Mansell became World Champion he expected to be paid like a World Champion. But Williams renegaded on a previous agreement, believing there was no point in paying Mansell huge sums when they had Prost driving for them.
So Mansell left Williams. But with no other team to go to he also left F1.
As for Damon Hill, that was a very different reason.
In ’94 Senna got killed. But that year Hill came within a whisker of winning the championship.
But the following season Hill came a very distant second to Schumacher. It was clear to Frank Williams that Hill wasn’t the one to lead the team.
Frank Williams was a longtime admirer of Heinz-Harald Frentzen and tried to hire him for the ’96 season. But Frentzen had a dilemma. If he were to leave Sauber he would leave them in a difficult situation. Sauber had recently lost the services of Karl Wendlinger due to serious injury, and if Frentzen also left that would mean Sauber going into the ’96 season with two inexperienced drivers. And as Peter Sauber had helped Frentzen earlier in his career when driving for him in sports cars Frentzen wanted to repay the favour.
So Frentzen signed for one more season with Sauber, but also signed a contract with Williams for ’97 onwards.
And Williams signed Jacques Villeneuve for the ’96 season.
This meant the driver line-up for ’97 was already set in ‘95 – Villeneuve and Frentzen, and no place for Hill.
But, as we now know, Hill went on to become World Champion in ’96. That left Williams with a PR nightmare (again!) but with two watertight contracts it would have been too expensive to keep Hill in place of one of the other drivers.
So he wasn’t actually sacked. It’s just his contract wasn’t renewed.
It’s also worth remembering the Prost became World Champion in ’93 – and then retired. So Williams have actually lost three reigning World Champions.
