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“There is nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends. I have no notion of loving people by halves, it is not my nature.” - Jane Austen

Oh please, none of the previous drivers who get a seat in TR get real race experience before their actual season starts. It has always been only tests and Friday Practice. RB is just totally disrespecting and breaking the guy again. Which is why the hysteria. Also if Honda decides to put their own driver (by paying whoever they need to) Dany's place is going to be gone. But considering Toro Rosso's work on Dany's side in the garage this year, they've been planning... …the swap long time ago. That Singapore incident now makes sense. I’m sure they told him he’s gonna be swapped for Gasly, hence, the nerves and the mistake. Sam stuff like 2016    

Vettel was given Scott’s seat at the end of 2007 before he did a complete season in 2008 and Alguersuari was given Bourdais’ seat with several races to go in 2009 before his first complete season, and it was a massive help to the team each time. Sure, each situation was/is different because the drivers/circumstances were different but Toro Rosso has always given junior drivers more than one full season to prove themselves and I understand completely if you can’t stomach the way the Red Bull junior program works but I look at how other teams handle bringing in young drivers (if they bother with it at all) and I don’t see their approach getting them to a situation where a QUARTER of all drivers on the grid are from their program.

Should Vettel/Dan/Max/Carlos/Dany/Pierre have waited until they were 25 to start, like Stoffel? Gone through the revolving door at McLaren like Checo or Kevin? Been a Ferrari young driver like Lance (and Checo too actually IIRC) and end up having to rely on their parents’ personal fortune to buy them a chance? To say nothing of a shot at the first team.

Dany’s fantastic. He’s wonderful. He’s got such heart and such determination. To be demoted like that and keep going despite it all, to be publicly humiliated like that but then show up that weekend and still fight. I mean, of course it’s a shitty situation. To see how well Carlos is doing and to see other teams courting him and then to see Red Bull refuse to let Carlos go, to know that if Carlos wasn’t being loaned out then there’s no doubt that he’d be kept on and Pierre would be taking Dany’s own seat. He knows his performance isn’t up to scratch and he knows he can’t blame all of it on technical issues. 

Honda’s only real potential driver literally won’t be eligible for a super license for at least another full season right? He has 4 out of the 40 required points and this isn’t the Bernie show anymore, I really truly can’t see any sort of bribe swaying the FIA enough (simply because it would be so glaringly obvious and in full view of the public) to overlook that many missing points.

And other than Pierre there are no other eligible RB juniors waiting in the wings, so Dany will have another year now at Toro Rosso to make the case for himself and even though I don’t think we’ll see him at Red Bull again it’s a chance to get himself a seat somewhere else, just like academy players in every other sport.

But considering Toro Rosso's work on Dany's side in the garage this year, they've been planning the swap long time ago

I mean if you truly believe that they sabotaged him or that his mechanics somehow didn’t put in as much effort as the ones on Carlos’ side - when every last point is priceless to Toro Rosso this year, or rather not priceless but worth a literal giant heap of money - then okay, there’s nothing anyone can say that will convince you otherwise.

But like... in all of this I just don’t see the supposed motive for “disrespecting and breaking the guy down.” Why keep him at all then? They could’ve brought in Gasly this year or even brought in somebody else. Marko’s hardly the sort of guy to keep someone around for sentimental reasons. Why risk angering the Russian market? Why not axe him completely the way they did with all those other drivers? After Gasly they may have a problem because there’s no clear next-in-line but they could have easily slotted Gasly in last year and figured out a way to either keep Carlos happy or used this year to get someone else ready to take over in case one of the other three decide to leave. Either way they always have Buemi as a reserve driver. 

Judging by Dany’s face, he had the same question

Carlos pulling some weird and questionable moves the last few GPs...

yeah, i guess you are right for most of the points. You put that quite well. I guess I am just very angry at how RB/TR keep treating him and humiliating. Reading the sabotage, I don’t think they sabotaged him, I just think that Hamlen is still young and far from being a super great racing engeneer. I understand he is still learning but like… all the fact that his car keeps getting out of the working window or the fact that Dany cant understand why his car doesnt work half the race or quali and then suddenly starts working makes me think that his side of the garage is not doing a great job… Which means its not right to blame it all on Dany, which everyone actually does, when realistically this year he had only several mistakes really (what happened with Carlos, even Tost said it was both drivers fault, so his real mistake is Austria, Singapore, which is think is due to him knowing about the situation with gasly, and possibly one…more which I cant think of right now). Its just very sad when, other drivers make stupid several mistakes also but everyone only rememebr Dany#s since they generalise from Sochi 2016 and immediately assume everything is his fault when realistically the first races when he had great chances for points he kept having technical issues (remember his great race in Australia and that air issue he had) or getting stupid double penalties.                    Not surprised he kept getting nervous about his position in the team and tried too hard to prove himself in e.g. Austria or Singapore.                     But yes, otherwise I agree with everything you said.                     Sorry if I sound a bit too agressive. After last year I didnt think stuff like that could happen again 

No you’re really right about the differences in staffing, it’s a stellar point and I didn’t think about it enough during the season. If you already don’t trust the car and at times don’t trust yourself then at the very least you need to be able to have complete confidence in your engineers.

And thanks for responding with all of this, you weren’t aggressive at all, I know exactly how upsetting it is and as you said, this is hardly the first time and everyone thought this sort of thing wasn’t going to happen again.

The thing is that I don’t think that people are holding him responsible for the technical failures. Even if you take them out of the equation Carlos outperformed and outscored him by a significant amount of points - and Carlos has been plagued by plenty of issues too, including an identical number of DNFs + his own share of penalties - and while I completely agree that he’s still suffering from the Max swap and from the comparison to Carlos it’s just not going to get better on its own. It’s like every mistake he makes on track just keeps piling up and crushing his psyche because he can’t seem to find a way to shake it off and reboot psychologically.

I really doubted that Grosjean could get rid of his jittery first lap nerves that nearly cost Fernando his head (instead they just cost him the championship) but after his ban he dealt with those issues with a sports psychologist and bounced back and like, Grosjean in 2013 at Lotus was phenomenal and after a while nobody talked about his crashtastic past. 

I agree that many of Dany’s mistakes were a result of the pressure he was under to improve but it’s always always going to be like that, no matter who he drives for. Dany can get a grip on his form again and I think that Red Bull understand that they owe him more chances because they promoted him very very early and then demoted him and knocked his confidence six feet under. I’d have to look it up but IIRC Tost and Marko have both said that Dany can’t be judged on points alone due to all the tech issues STR have had. They understand that. They want him to do well. They need for him to do well. But they can’t wait forever.

I’m not saying that if they had Gasly and another young driver who was ready that they wouldn’t replace Dany but for now I just don’t see any indication that that’s the plan? Because the plan was clearly for Carlos to replace Jolyon after the deal was made and to bring Gasly in alongside Dany and when the early Renault switch became impossible... idk, it just makes too much sense from a team perspective to do this.

I mean, let’s be serious, there’s definitely a warning here for Dany. Benching someone for two races is harsh but we see it happen in football all the time when a player isn’t performing as expected and often enough it’s a young player who capitalizes on that and gets a chance to pick up some time on the pitch.