1%er
Well-Known Member
James Allison watch
Interesting story/rumor doing the rounds. As mentioned in the 2016 thread Paddy Lowe the technical executive director at Mercedes AMG F1 team contract is up at the end of the year and it is rumored that he is going to return to Williams F1 alongside Pat Symonds who is expected to retire next year, at which point Paddy will become chief technical officer at Williams (If this story/rumor is true it could also have a bearing on Bottas moving to Mercedes)
Lowe previously worked for Williams between 1987-93 where he was responsible for introducing active suspension and traction control both of which helped Nigel Mansell win the 1992 world drivers championship.
So you may be asking yourselves, what has this got to do with James Allison? Well the reports that claim Lowe is moving to Williams also claim that his place at Mercedes is going to be taken by Allison. Mercedes AMG F1 team works out of offices in Brackley, Northamptonshire so Allison would be UK based, something he said he wanted.
European Grand Prix (name) again dropped from the calendar
The powers that be in Azerbaijan have decided to drop the name "The European Grand Prix" in favor of calling it the Azerbaijan Grand Prix from 2017 onwards. Executive Director of the race Arif Rahimov said "for our inaugural event, we wanted to position our country as a part of Europe, our race as a European one and also to showcase our European mentality to the world and demonstrate our country’s openness to foreign visitors who can easily visit and find comfort here. We now feel it is the right time to rename our race to the ‘Formula 1 Azerbaijan Grand Prix’. After last summer’s race, many F1 fans discovered that our society is closely linked to the European mentality but now we feel it is the right time to draw attention to the fact that the 2017 race is also set in Azerbaijan and will be named thereafter accordingly",
Interesting story/rumor doing the rounds. As mentioned in the 2016 thread Paddy Lowe the technical executive director at Mercedes AMG F1 team contract is up at the end of the year and it is rumored that he is going to return to Williams F1 alongside Pat Symonds who is expected to retire next year, at which point Paddy will become chief technical officer at Williams (If this story/rumor is true it could also have a bearing on Bottas moving to Mercedes)
Lowe previously worked for Williams between 1987-93 where he was responsible for introducing active suspension and traction control both of which helped Nigel Mansell win the 1992 world drivers championship.
So you may be asking yourselves, what has this got to do with James Allison? Well the reports that claim Lowe is moving to Williams also claim that his place at Mercedes is going to be taken by Allison. Mercedes AMG F1 team works out of offices in Brackley, Northamptonshire so Allison would be UK based, something he said he wanted.
European Grand Prix (name) again dropped from the calendar
The powers that be in Azerbaijan have decided to drop the name "The European Grand Prix" in favor of calling it the Azerbaijan Grand Prix from 2017 onwards. Executive Director of the race Arif Rahimov said "for our inaugural event, we wanted to position our country as a part of Europe, our race as a European one and also to showcase our European mentality to the world and demonstrate our country’s openness to foreign visitors who can easily visit and find comfort here. We now feel it is the right time to rename our race to the ‘Formula 1 Azerbaijan Grand Prix’. After last summer’s race, many F1 fans discovered that our society is closely linked to the European mentality but now we feel it is the right time to draw attention to the fact that the 2017 race is also set in Azerbaijan and will be named thereafter accordingly",
If this is the case then it puts a different complexion on the Bottas situation, as Lowe becomes a bargaining chip.
