YouUnastanFren

2 minutes ago, Pinebro said:

Won't start until he looks Stevie in the eye. 

You're thinking of Mings. Buendia won't start until he rubs noses with Gerrard like an Eskimo

35 minutes ago, BOF said:

I just think if Alpine come out of this without their driver, they'll want to try and save face. They won't take it sitting down. 

On the other hand dragging it through court and still losing would be even worse PR

My understanding was that they only rule on contracts rather than contract offers but I have never really taken too much interest in their goings on.

The quote from Otmar in The Race article @BOFposted suggested it would only go to court if the only contract that was valid was the Alpine one

Quote

“If the CRB says, ‘Your licence is only valid at Alpine’, and then he says, ‘That’s great but I’m never driving for them, I’ll just sit out a year’, then you’ve got to go to the High Court for compensation.”

From that I take it that if the CRB say McLaren have a valid contract with Piastri there will be no court action.

1 hour ago, BOF said:

Seems the CRB have ratified both contracts now too. Piastri effectively has 2 valid contracts for next year

Shocking if true. Does the CRB announce stuff like the rest of FIA or is it all insider sources? I can only find random sites reporting it.

1 hour ago, ozvillafan said:

The part you are missing from your theory is Ricciardo.

What you may not be aware of is that he is also very good friends with Alonso.

They could all be colluding in this.

Not sure how involved RIC is in instigating this as he's the one getting unseated a year early in favour of a rookie.

That said it looks likely that he is getting paid handsomely to leave McLaren, if he can get that settled AND THEN be free from his contract to negotiate a new deal with Alpine then he comes out of this a winner as well really. Especially if the Alpine is more stable under braking as it seems so he can get closer to the cars potential than he can with the McLaren.

35 minutes ago, Rustibrooks said:

We are in need of a signing or something good for the club to lift everyone’s spirits 

Unless that signing is Mauricio Pochettino I think it'll be a tough task to lift spirits 

I agree they should definitely get what they're contractually entitled to. From what I can see that is likely to be nothing.

IMV they seem to have gambled on using the threat of Piastri taking the Alpine seat to try and force Alonso to sign a shorter contract than he wanted. Because of this they couldn't buy the Williams seat yet so they told Piastri to sit and wait with no contract signed for a 2023 seat until it was sorted with Alonso.

The part they didn't factor in was that Alonso and Webber are bffs and were willing to conspire against them to both find alternative seats while leaving Alpine holding their proverbial d***.

4 hours ago, BOF said:

I'm not suggesting you haven't watched the video, but if you have you'll have seen that they've pumped the guts of £10m into getting him this far and they also _guaranteed_ him a drive next season at Williams as per contract if they couldn't get him one at Alpine and then he **** off. 

I watched the video but it was mainly hearsay, and my definition of guarantee is different to that guys. If they had guaranteed him a seat he would be signed up to a contract locking him in to a seat and wouldn't be **** off to McLaren. Clearly none of us know the wording of his contract with Alpine but at this point it seems like it was more like a promise than a contract.

The money they've spent on testing that they've used him for is largely irrelevant from my perspective, if they'd offered him an Alpine seat and a long contract he'd have taken it, he's well within his rights to leave if they haven't signed him up.

Alpine have been caught trying to hoard F1 drivers and now they have 1 left. They tried to keep Zhou on the sidelines as well this year iirc as their reserve reserve but he signed with Alfa instead.

Serves Otmar right, he's been a talking **** about Alonso all season. Alpine are a mess.

8 hours ago, BOF said:

Gotta say after watching this, Oscar goes gown a notch in my estimation. Alpine not the bumbling idiots they initially appeared to be. Now it's only one notch. He's not the devil so keep your hair on  

 

Teams expecting loyalty when they haven't signed the driver up to a contract with a seat screams hypocrisy to me.

It was Alpine that sat him on the sidelines instead of paying for this alleged Williams seat for him this year after all, if no contract has been given to him then it would be naive of him to trust them that next season would be any different.

He doesn't owe Alpine any loyalty because they gave him testing time imo, they did that because he's fast. They wanted to use Piastri and Alonso as bargaining chips against eachother and they tried some brinkmanship against both and lost spectacularly.

4 minutes ago, tomav84 said:

bailey is a tough one. no obvious replacement if he doesn't work out.

KDH is the main candidate. I let my Villa tinted glasses con me into Digne over Trippier as well.

I will never learn that lesson.

Wordle 414 6/6

Haven't been caught in a last letter loop for a while

3 minutes ago, rbcuk said:

According to gerrard he just has to look him in the eye and show him he’s ready 

 

Bizarre. Sounds like something Nigel Pearson would say.

Can't think of any more damning than that.

19 minutes ago, TheAuthority said:

Not in the match squad today. 

They've done the old Lionel Hutch. Promised him First Team Squad. No time in the reserves.

Actually meant First Team Squad? No, time in the reserves

1 hour ago, bickster said:

Vlachodimos of Benfica and Lafont of Nantes are both rumoured too

Brenton seems set. From his press conference today:

Quote

What's he looking for from Ward or Iversen?

“You’re looking for a goalkeeper who can stop the ball going in the net, can distribute and can deal with the pressure. Kasper was a guy of consistency, so the next guy coming in will be ready. I’ve always said Ward is a number one, Iversen has gone away and done well. I don’t feel like I need to look outside for a new goalkeeper.”

There's still room on the 8.0 GK hype train. Departing 6.29pm today.

9 minutes ago, bickster said:

Unless Leicester buy a new Keeper

That would be classic FPL moment, especially if it appears out of nowhere 10 minutes after the deadline. Seems like they're just after Foster for a 3rd choice though so hopefully works out for at least 4 GWs

4 hours ago, bickster said:

£9mil in Keepers is somewhat extravagant. WIth Ederson as first choice why waste £0.5mil having Sanchez on the bench when you can have Ward for £4.0 mil ? 

It's actually 10mil in keepers which is even more extravagant. Every season I wish there was a way to only spend 8mil on keepers and this year we finally have it. No way I'm looking that gift horse in the mouth.

Not even had one race in F1 yet and he's already created a classic meme format.

5 subs this season means you'll rarely get the unexpected complete benching so I've gone with a weak as p*** bench.

Has enabled the hallowed threemium.

I've just seen that Leicester have both of their potential keepers at 4.0 so I'm ditching Ederson and downgrading defence a bit and squeezing in Son or Kane.

3 premiums might be overkill but I can really see Spurs having a good start.

24 minutes ago, BOF said:

Most FPL players have gone that way because of pricing this season. It's just a matter of how big to go.

I'm currently 5 atb with Perisic the cheapest. They're basically 5 wingers who get goal involvements though. Can't really justify putting similar funds into what would be other wingers who score less for a goal and way less for a clean sheet 

Just made a first draft and it's very defence heavy. Can't seem to fit Kane or Son in.

1 minute ago, Stevo985 said:

He matched verstappen’s pace when verstappen was relatively new to the sport and was still learning. He’s absolutely Mike’s behind Verstappen now. 
 

He’s comfortably behind Lando let alone Max. If his driving style is limiting him then that’s not really a defence. It just shows he’s not as good a driver as people thought he was

He matched Verstappen until he left in 2018, by which point Verstappen had done over 80 grands prix. But my point is not that he's as good as VER or even Norris, because he's clearly not. My point is that he was as quick as Verstappen in a car that suited him.

He's still capable of being quick, he's just not in the elite echelon of drivers that are quick in anything.

I agree his driving style being too limited is not a defence but I'm not defending him, I'm just trying to add more to the discussion than he is either quick or slow.

I agree he's not as good as he thinks he is, with the caveat that he might have the potential to be as quick as he thinks he is but he is not as versatile as he thinks he is. 

Ricciardo matched the pace of Verstappen for multiple seasons, he's not slow his driving style is just very limited.

VER, HAM, ALO would be quick in a shopping cart with an engine strapped on, some drivers can match their pace but only in perfect conditions. Vettel I think was one, in the perfectly balanced RB he was as quick as anyone would've been in it but he's not able to drag a bad car forward in other seasons. Raikkonen was similarly reliant on lots of front end grip. Similar for RIC too.

Driver 61 has a video I think gives good plausible theories on his issues.