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Guys,
Amongst all this FA/LH BS you are forgetting a couple of really big issues...
1) RD has lost his chief designer mid season and still needs to design and develop the 2008 car. So the team needs a new designer (not exactly millions of them around) and a very decent development team to make the car really sing for next year. PDLR is a good driver but nowhere near FA in terms of getting the last % points out of it, and LH has limited experience here...so who are MCL going to get to develop next year's car...remember having JPM and KR on board? with PDRL as test driver...opps a few seasons of top flight but not the dominance seen this year with the FA honed car. Look to Renaults' performance curve with FA as their driver.. 2 WDC against Ferrari and MS.
2) LH used FA's set up for the first few races and has done so again since the US GP.
I think LH is a better race driver than FA, although not as good as Kimi. Overall however the results that FA has against LH's lower fromula record tends to suggest that FA is a better driver. He does test better, provides more input into honing the car and from the record it would appear that this pattern was present in the lower formulae as well. The team therefore has a dilemma. It knows that having the best race driver is not enough to win, as the seasons since Mika left have demonstrated. They need, as do all teams, see Ferrari this season and Renault, a race driver who can and will develop the car. Damon Hill was possibly the best example of a great driver winnning the WDC in spite of nor being the best race driver, but winning it by hard work in testing to make sure he had the best car (and before any of you say otherwise he was with Williams for the previous season with Senna and as test driver the seaon before. HE was the reason Williams had the best car in 96 and in 97 when JV won the championship). JV is possibly the best example of a top flight race driver who was totally unable to develop the car.
RD knows that if he takes his eye off the ball (look to when MCL were developing the F1 road car or their Technology Centre to see that effect) he will not have a front row 'lock out' capable car. He also knows that having the best driver is more important than having the best race driver. If FA does leave his logical home is back with Renault. He will be physically closer to home, Renault being in Enstone near Oxford, whilst MCL are in Chertsy, about 90mins drive away. He will also be rejoining a team with whom he has already established a good rapport, and to listen to them he is not the prima donna character being painted currently.
My feeling is that LH is very much like JV. Give him a fantastic car and he will outdrive anyone. Give him a mediocre car and he will win on occassion. Give him a car to develop and he will bcome a 'fighting' midfield runner....see Williams with JV post Hill.
3) RD wants two things in life. The Constructors Championship for MCL and #1 on the nose of one of his cars. Who drives the car is a means to this end. He does not care if it is LH who wins or FA. He simply wants to have the best driver line up he can; to be honest he has it right now and to me the longer term success of MCL is best served by retaining either the present paring if possible or retaining FA until they can get a 'better' test driver than PDLR, who needs to get back into a racing seat, with somebody like Toro Rosso or even Red Bull (ditch DC) to get back into competition to see what the real task is again. Until he has the best test driver to generate the best car he cannot afford to simply have the best race driver on the team... and he knows it. That's why he was not too disappointed when JPM 'left' nor when KR left for Ferrari...he knew that neither was going to deliver what he needed at the time. FA does deliver and RD knows it...whether or not he can kept FA remains to be seen. But I'm with Sammyg on this one, if FA goes watch MCL's performance dip back into the pack and lose their supremacy.
4) Don't believe a word Jean Todt says about FA going to Ferrari. He will be gone by season's end, replaced by the most ruthless engineer there is, Ross Brawn, who will place far more store on development over race capability. He will have no trouble using FA, cheat rep or not...look at RB's record with Benetton and Ferrari for his approach. He will also not be too 'delicate' about who is or is not #1 driver. He cares not. He will make up his mind in terms of who delivers the most for the team. Before it was MS, certainly KR delivers on race day, but does he deliver in testing? Perhaps not as much....
Interesting times, but in the bigger picture FA currently has a greater coverage of that picture than LH.
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