LionZoo wrote:Kobayashi is in. Knowing Colin Kolles, he's probably going to axe him for Suzuka.
I think that he might keep him for the Japanese GP, but replace him soon afterwards - it's the same tactic that Sauber used when firing Kobayashi (the phrasing they used in their announcement made it clear that they wanted to axe his contract before the Japanese GP, but chose to release their statement after that race).
SgtPepper wrote:I hope we start to see a little more from Hulkenberg for the rest of the season. He may be doing well in the points standings, but I just haven't seemed to see the flare from him that we got last year.
It's true that he has been a bit quieter than normal in the past few races - there was that uncharacteristic mistake in Hungary, a poor qualifying session in Spa when normally he tends to do relatively well in wet conditions and although his race performance in Monza was hampered by floor damage and a poor strategy, his qualifying performance in Monza was a little disappointing. On balance, Perez has been the more competitive driver over the past few races, although some of the circuits have favoured him a little more given that they were rear traction limited (especially Monza) and perhaps shifted things in his favour.
To a certain extent, Hulkenberg's slide is a little symptomatic of the general slide in Force India's competitiveness - in the past few seasons, Force India have shown a trend of being reasonably competitive in the early part of the season, but gradually sliding back as the larger teams out develop them. I think that has, to some degree, put Hulkenberg on the back foot - couple that with a few poor qualifying sessions, and it's put him out of position without enough of a pace advantage to climb that far back up the field.
Now, Force India are supposed to be bringing a fairly major upgrade for Singapore, and they definitely need it - as recently as the British GP, Force India were running in 5th in the WCC and were only 15 points behind the third placed Ferrari team, but have lost a lot of ground in the past few races. They are in a pretty difficult situation though - they are close enough to McLaren that they can potentially beat then for 5th in the WCC, but at the same time McLaren's far larger resources would seem to give them the edge in a development race.
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