Toto Wolff – Bulseye View

(Editors note- As I was getting ready to publish, the news that Horner is keeping his job went public. Some of the content below covers what a post Horner Red Bull would have looked like.)

The 2024 F1 season is officially here and fans the world over are anxiously waiting to find out………Who will Mercedes hire to replace Lewis, will Checo keep his Red Bull seat, where will Sainz land, will Horner get sacked at Red Bull for inappropriate behavior, can Lewis and Ferrari win in ‘25?? Yes, 2024 is officially the year of The Silly Season. Barring some really bizarre circumstances, it’s a foregone conclusion that Max will cruise to a 4th world title so let’s just crown the champ now and get into the good gossip!

I have to confess, I will still attempt to watch every single lap of every race, Max domination or not, but I’m more excited for the game of musical chairs that is about to take place than spending 100+ hours on the couch watching Max look like he’s on a Sunday drive along the coast. F1 has always been part sport, part soap opera, and this season is shaping up to be a Netflix directors fantasy. I spent the better part of an hour last night watching the sad plight of Nyck de Vries in his failed Alpha Tauri rookie season in the latest Drive To Survive episode 2, so can you imagine how dramatic it will feel when the heavyweights start swapping around? Move over Kardashians! Similar to what the NBA is experiencing at the moment, the actual race broadcast numbers will likely decline drastically due to the predictable outcomes over 24 races, but social engagement through the various platforms should go through the roof when some spicy news hits the wire. Is there a media insider who breaks the news before the teams announce it? I want Ted Kravitz dropping Twitter (X) bombs.

To recap, this all got started when Lewis Hamilton shocked the world and announced that after 10 years and 6 world titles with Mercedes, he was trading his silver overalls at the end of the year for the red of Ferrari in 2025. Interesting side note, after Ferrari announced the signing, their stock price jumped 12%, adding $10 billion in market cap. Do you think Lewis deserves a raise? On top of this, Red Bull has very publicly stated that Perez must improve his performance over the second part of last year or he is out. Can you imagine, a Mercedes and a Red Bull seat up for grabs at the same time?

This thought calls for a fantasy timeout: The worst case scenario is that Sainz signs with Mercedes and Perez does enough to keep his seat at Red Bull. This would crush dreams and put the silly season to rest in seconds. However, let’s say that Sainz does decide that he is the man to spearhead the Audi F1 project into the future and Perez buckles under the Red Bull pressure, then, oh yes, we would be looking at full scale change of epic proportions.

Under this scenario, here is how I envision it all playing out:

Two things that seem solid for ‘25 is Ferrari will have Hamilton and Leclerc and McLaren will have Norris and Piastri. From there, let’s get crazy.

Mercedes – Toto smiles that devilish grin and mutters “Fuck You Lewis” under his breath as he signs Fernando Alonso to a two year deal to team up with George Russell.

Red Bull does a deep dive into its past drivers Sainz, Danny Ric, Gasly and Albon and comes to the conclusion that it’s none other than Sainz who they have been missing all these years. Max, now firmly confident in his place within the team, green lights the move for Carlos to come home.

Aston Martin – Lawrence Stroll, feeling the strain of world domination slipping from his fingers, signs Pierre Gasly to replace Alsono and tells son Lance that ‘25 will be his last year before moving into management to make way for Honda’s golden boy, Yuki Tsunoda.

Alpine- Fading into irrelevance, Alpine do the sensible thing and promote academy driver Jack Doohan to team with Ocon.

Visa Cash App RB (VCARB): After finding that Yuki is going with Honda to Aston in ‘26, VCARB promote Liam Lawson to team with the always smiling Danny Ric, forming a Down Under super team.

Sauber-Stake-Audi: Planning for the future, Audi start working behind the scenes and pry Alex Albon out of his Williams contract while signing Nico Hulkenberg to be their initial guys to launch their assault on the F1 world championship.

Williams: Seeing the value in Checo as a development driver and North American sponsor magnate, Williams bring in Perez to be the benchmark for young Kimi Antonelli, on loan from Toto for two years.

Haas – Picking last after all the moves have been made, Haas go with Ferrari academy driver Ollie Bearman to team with the veteran Kevin Magnussen.

In this world, Bottas, Zhou, and Logan Sargeant are left without seats while Yuki spends ‘25 on the sidelines. Will this happen? No way, but I’d love to see it.

So, back to this business of F1 racing, 2024 style. We know that Max will be the champ and could conceivably win another 20+ races, but after that, there is a fascinating eight man battle shaping up for second. Ferrari, Mercedes, McLaren, Perez and Alonso all fighting to fill out the podium will be my focus for the season. Even if Max is some twenty seconds up the road, the thought of drivers and teams of this caliber duking it out should make for fun tv. In fact, I’m hoping that Oracle will be left disappointed with their tv exposure figures because the world feed director will spend the majority of the show riveted to this pack of eight. Max can watch from the trackside screens like the rest of us if he wants to feel involved.

Why will it be so close (for second, of course)? This is year 3 of rules stability and the word of the day that you will likely see thrown around is Convergence. The teams have all had three years to copy each other, hence bringing about convergence from top to bottom, and with zero driver turnover this past year, the engineers have hopefully been able to take the drivers feedback and come up with solutions that plagued their ‘23 cars. The Ferrari should be nicer to its tires, the Mercedes more predictable on turn in, the McLarens better mid corner and the Aston faster in a straight line. It’s just too bad that Red Bull appear to have come up with a revolutionary design that has measurably improved upon the all conquering RB19.

Either way, It will be exciting to watch these guys go into Q2 and Q3 with zero margin for error and then get after it on Sundays. And if racing for 10th place is your thing, then you are in for a big year! The 8-pack plus Max equals 9, so we should have the rest of the grid scratching and clawing for that elusive single point awarded to 10th. (Note – If this sounds boring and you enjoy watching racing to see dramatic finishes for victory, then I recommend watching Moto3 motorcycle racing or go visit your local dirt or kart track.)

Now it’s time for Bulseyeview Wants To Know brought to you by The Onion | America’s Finest News Source:

Red Bull – Will Perez buckle under the pressure of being the perfect #2? Will there be an exodus if Horner is forced to resign? Did they get too greedy in coming up with a unique new design rather than sticking with an evolution of the old 22 out of 23 race winning warhorse?

Mercedes – At what point do they start to phase out Lewis and put all of their energies and development bits into Russell’s side of the garage? Who the heck are they going to sign? Do they have the engineering staff in place to regain the upper hand come 2026?

Ferrari – Have they found a solution for their long run tire woes? Same as above regarding Hamilton, at what point do they phase out Sainz? After pulling off the Hamilton signing coup, can Fred Vasseur assemble the technical team to return Ferrari to glory?

McLaren – Will they start the year on competitive footing to make a run at second in the constructors race? Will Piastri make the 2nd year leap and give Norris a real fight for inter team superiority? Can Zak Brown set the record for most blue chip sponsors on the side of a car?

Aston Martin – Will Lawrence Stroll be able to accept being a 5th place team or will he tire of mediocrity and cut bait? Can Lance close the massive gap to Alonso? And if not, does he keep his seat as long as pops owns the team?

Alpine – Who will emerge as the victor in the Ocon v Gasly battle? Who is now managing this team and will they last a season? Is the Renault board still all in on F1 knowing they could sell the team for a massive sum?

VCARB – Can Danny Ric get the upper hand on year 4 Yuki? Will this be the surprise team who claim a fighting 5th in the constructors championship?

Stake – Will the Sauber gang do anything noteworthy this year?

Williams – Will Sargeant become a respectable F1 driver this season in year 2? Is James Vowles the man to lead Williams back into the hunt for race wins? Can the team retain Albon if they show significant gains?

Haas – When will Gene give up the fight and sell? (Andretti-Cadillac anyone?).

With that, here is a Bold Claim:

Horner gets fired, causing Adrian Newey to rethink his place within the team and the world at large. He’s conquered the world with Williams, McLaren and Red Bull, but there is one team outside of England who is the grandest of them all. They just signed Lewis Hamilton. Winter and spring in Italy are lovely. The food and wine in the region is excellent. The cycling and motorcycling is about perfect. Maybe, this would be a fun chapter to close out a glorious F1 career?

Fast Forward to 2029: After Verstappen easily won the ‘24 and ‘25 titles, the Adrian Newey penned ‘26 Ferrari came out and decimated the field, allowing Lewis Hamilton to win his coveted 8th WDC. Struggling to get anywhere near the pace of the Ferrari in the Red Bull-Ford entry, team Verstappen forced their way out of Red Bull and into the arms of Vasseur to partner Hamilton. (And cue to the Prost v Senna ‘88 documentary). In ‘27, Max reasserted his dominance to win his 6th title with little resistance from Hamilton. In ‘28, Lewis dug deep and used canny old man Niki Lauda style tricks to get into the head of Max, who made a series of bizarre driving errors, allowing Hamilton to steal #9 and retire as the GOAT.

(Note – The GOAT designation didn’t last long because starting in ‘29, Google F1 entered their AI designed car piloted by Lighting Bigsby, the best AI pilot the world has ever seen, and won an astonishing 734 races in a row without ever making a single mistake. The podium celebrations became slightly awkward but Google remedied it by placing a cute robot into the cockpit who would then go up to the podium and was capable of spraying champagne. Google even came up with their own company anthem that accompanied each win).

Should I send this idea to the Brad Pitt movie team to save them from making another version of Driven?

Here are the picks:

Verstappen – 19 wins

Perez – 2 wins

Leclerc – 1 win

Russell – 1 win

Hamilton

Sainz – 1 win

Norris

Alonso

Piastri

Danny Ric

Stroll

Tsunoda

Gasly

Ocon

Albon

Bottas

Zhou

Hulkenberg

Sargeant

Magnussen

Do yourself a favor and check out the MotoGP Ducati wars and don’t forget to support your local Indycar series. Here’s to a safe and exciting season!

And then there were six. The final stretch to decide a champion is upon us. Six races over eight weeks. Lewis vs Max. Mercedes vs Red Bull. Time to brace the family for Crofty and his Sky Sports cohorts yelling in the living room throughout the weekend. Netflix must be licking their chops. This F1 season has been great theatre to date and the final act is guaranteed to have more plot twists than a season finale of ……..Dallas? (I feel like I’m dating myself a little with that reference, but has anyone done it better?).

So how is this going to shake out? As I type, Max is sitting with a scant 6 point lead over Lewis, but the pace of the Mercedes at the last round in Turkey looked ominous. Seeing that this is now my 40th year of being an unapologetic F1 junkie, I’m going to dip into my memory of championships past, and predict the future for you, the Bulseyeview reader.

Austin – Lewis has dominated the US round at the bumpy Circuit of the America’s, winning five of eight races, and he will do so again next Sunday in front of a full house. More importantly, this new free flowing, stress free Bottas, coming off a feel good win in Turkey, will hold Max at bay and bring home a 1-2 for Toto’s boys. Max will be best of the rest and finish on the bottom step of the podium in 3rd. (Lewis fast lap)

Points – Lewis 282.5 – Max 277.5

Note – the last time we had half points awarded in a race during a championship, Niki Lauda defeated Alain Prost in 1984, 72 – 71.5, due to the Monaco GP being called early because of extremely wet conditions.

Mexico – There is something about the Honda engine at 7,300 ft above sea level and Max on a circuit without a lot of rubber on the racing line that makes for an unbeatable combination. Max strikes back with a resounding win to swing the championship back in his favor. Perez, urged on by the boisterous home crowd, beats Bottas and follows Lewis home in 3rd. The Ferrari boys have a P5-P6 weekend to close the gap to McLaren. (Max fast lap)

Points – Max 303.5 – Lewis 299.5

Brazil – It wouldn’t be Brazil without chaos, so heading into turn 1, Lewis from p2 on the grid goes for a gap up the inside and Max turns in on the Mercedes. Lewis makes contact with his right front to the left rear of Max, sending the Red Bull into a spin. Lewis continues in p1, Max remarkably doesn’t get collected by the rest of the field and rejoins in the back. Lewis incurs a 5sec penalty for his troubles. It’s looking like a Mercedes 1 -2 until with 10 laps to go the skies open into a downpour. Bottas immediately spins off. Lewis ignores a call to come in for intermediates and does a two minute lap. Out of nowhere, Carlos Sainz emerges through the spay and wins his first race. Lewis recovers to p6, Max winds up p7. (Lando fast lap)

Points – Max – 309.5 – Lewis 307.5

Qatar – The Losail GP in Qatar will be run under the lights on a high downforce, 16 turn track prone to having sand storms. F1 has never raced here before, but this feels like a Red Bull type circuit with low grip and many slow to medium speed corners. Lewis will be brilliant, but Max will control the pace and take the win on a circuit that is almost impossible to pass on. Leclerc will be a surprise 3rd place for Ferrari, giving the Scuderia the constructors lead over McLaren. (Lewis fast lap)

Points: Max – 334.5 – Lewis 326.5

Saudi Arabia – The Saudi street track is being worked on 24/7 to be completed in time for the Dec 3-5 weekend, but sadly, it will be discovered that the tarmac wasn’t finished properly and the F1 cars will tear the circuit to bits by Saturday FP3. Think Dallas GP ‘84. Race control will do everything in their power to make the race happen, but after 12 cars crash during a delayed Sunday morning qualifying attempt, the race will be cancelled.

Points: Max – 334.5 – Lewis 326.5

Abu Dhabi – So here we are, down to the final race to decide if Max will win a first title or Lewis will claim a record 8th world title. The Yas Marina circuit has undergone a much needed facelift, opening up a few corners to make it a quicker track. This favors Mercedes, and Hamilton and Bottas lock out the front row of the grid. Max will start P3. If they finish in this order, Lewis will be champion. If Max can overtake Bottas, he will win the title by 1 point! This is amazing. As the lights go out, they get through T1 somewhat conservatively and fall into line as they qualified, Lewis, Bottas, Max. It’s looking like the tires are holding up well so it’s going to be a 1 stopper. Red Bull blink first and attempt to undercut Bottas near mid distance. Mercedes cover the following lap and keep the Red Bull at bay, just. Now Max will have to pass Bottas on the track to take the title. Hamilton has checked out. Max can get close, but the dirty air hurts his tires and the Mercedes has a HP advantage in the two DRS zones. With 5 laps to go this is starting to feel like 2010 all over again when Alonso in the Ferrari couldn’t find a way past Vitaly Petrov in the Renault, handing the title to Vettel. Max keeps the pressure on, but Bottas is resisting. Will this go down as Bottas’s finest drive as a Mercedes driver? The short answer, NO. On the very last lap, Bottas runs wide in the second to last right hander, allowing Max to flick to the right and make a lunge in the final corner. Bottas closes the door and the two collide. It looks like a blatant move. Bottas is out on the spot. After what seems like an eternity, Max renters the track minus a left front wheel. The injured Red Bull is crabbing and sparking as Max sees the waving checkered flag. Max is 200 yards from the finish line and a world title when suddenly, the orange McLaren of Lando Norris accelerates beautifully off the last corner. To complicate matters, Sergio Perez is tucked under his rear wing trying to take the position. In a blur, Lando veers left and passes Max just before the line. Perez hears the radio at the last second and slams the brakes to keep behind Max. It’s pure confusion for a few seconds until it sinks in. Lucky Lewis is champion again. In the commentary booth, Crofty has lost the plot completely and DiResta is resorting to unintelligible Scottish slang. For Max, it’s heartbreak. He quickly unbuckles himself just over start finish and starts sprinting down the side of the live track back to the final corner to find Bottas. The fine folks at Liberty Media and Netflix are beyond ecstatic. On the pit wall stand, Horner is exchanging heated words with Toto. Jos Verstappen and Helmut Marko are seen passing behind them on a scooter heading towards the scene of the crime both clutching what appear to be large socket wrenches. It’s pure pandemonium as Hamilton brings his winning car into parc ferme. The Brits in the grandstand across from the pits are going wild. The Dutch army are chucking beers. Lewis can’t get out of his car as he’s overcome with emotion………… (Lewis fast lap)

Points: Lewis 352.5 – Max 349.5

The Fallout

In the weeks following this insane finish to the ‘21 season, the FIA assumed the role of judge and jury and doled out some draconian penalties.

-For being judged to have intentionally taken out Max in Abu Dhabi, Bottas is fined $3m and is suspended for the first 3 rounds of the ‘22 championship. Interestingly, new Alfa-Sauber team owner, Michael Andretti, drafts in his new Indycar driver, Romain Grosjean, to partner American rookie Colton Herta while the Finn serves his suspension.

-For running down a live track to confront Bottas, Max is fined $2m and is placed on triple probation. Nobody really knows what triple probation is but it sounds serious. For throwing punches directed at Bottas, Max is stripped of his 3rd place race points, thus giving Lewis a comfortable 352.5 to 334.5 final points tally.

-It was confirmed by eye witnesses that local Yas Marina security officials were able to thwart Jos Verstappen and Dr Marko’s attempt to assault Valtteri Bottas, but local police requested to hold them over for questioning over the following days. Somewhat mysteriously, presumably orchestrated by the top boss, Dietrich Mateschitz, the Verstappens and other RBR top officials reportedly arrived at a local airfield on Sunday night and departed on an unidentified jet to an unidentified location.

-Lost in the shuffle, Lando’s last lap gift of second place gives McLaren a 1 point edge over Ferrari for 3rd in the constructors championship. Zak Brown is later spotted shirtless in the garage slamming Heinekens and chest bumping startled engineers.

-On a personal note, after Netfilx air Drive to Survive Season 4 in March ‘22, being an F1 fan becomes all the rage, particularly in blue state America. It takes a little prodding, but I decide to come out of the closet and tell the world my big secret. Immediately, I find myself the man of the hour at cocktail parties and Sunday bbq’s. Suddenly everyone from the mailman to the soccer moms at the park have an opinion on Danny Ric’s shortcomings in the McLaren For the first time in my life, admitting that I’m a racing junkie doesn’t give the public the impression that I spend my Sundays tanking beers in a lazy boy chair watching Nascar for 5 hours. It’s a little strange, but I enjoy my time in the sun.