[NoSkillz]

Racing Point F1 - DRIVERS

Alright, things get interesting when we look at who is behind the wheel at Racing Point. We have one long-time incumbent and one new controversial addition to the team in 2019.

MAIN DRIVER -
Sergio Perez - 29 Years Old, Male, Mexico, 4 stars (out of 5)
Contract Status: Equal Status Driver
Contract: £214,000 per race, 9 months remaining

Affectionately known as “Checo”, Perez signed with Force India in December 2013 after previous stints with McLaren and Ferrari’s Driver Academy. Checo stuck with the team through the 2018 reformation into Racing Point and is unquestionably our most talented driver, with eight Formula One podiums on his resume.

He has very good ratings across the board: Braking 15, Cornering 14, Smoothness 18, Overtaking 15, Consistency 13, Adaptability 16, Fitness 15, Feedback 18 and Focus 15. Not too bad! At 29 years of age, he’s in the prime of his career and as such, he’s fully reached his potential and these ratings likely won’t improve.

He also has a couple of specific personality traits that my assistant tells me about - he's “Content” with his standing at Racing Point and that comes with a 30 point morale boost. However, it may hurt his desire to win trophies somewhat. Checo is also a “Hard Worker”, comes in early and that trait gives him a +15 point boost to his relationship with his mechanic and a +1 boost to his fitness. Finally, he’s considered a “Stable” personality and that gives him an additional +2 boost to his consistency.

Perez is a national hero in his native Mexico and has an extremely high marketability rating of 95%. This all said, my chief scout feels that he’s destined for a poor year-end finishing position in the Driver’s Standings, predicting an 18th place finish. Interesting.

MAIN DRIVER -
Lance Stroll - 20 years old, Male, Canada, 2.75 stars (out of 5)
Contract Status: Equal Status Driver
Contract: £71,000 per race, 33 Months remaining

The main beneficiary of Lawrence Stroll bailing out Force India was his son, who leaves the hapless Williams Racing Team and joins his father as an equal status driver at Racing Point.

This was the most obvious cliffhanger ending in F1 history but was still a very controversial decision, as Stroll ends up taking a seat away from young Wonderkid Esteban Ocon, who now is a reserve driver at Mercedes. If you watched the Netflix Formula One series that was just released, one of the episodes documented the friction between Ocon and Perez at Force India last year so it was clear that one of the two drivers had to go. Personally, I would have went with Ocon, who is clearly on an upward trajectory, is incredibly ambitious and a hard worker. But I came on board after that decision was made so we’ll just have to make the best of it.

Lance comes to Racing Point with some serious pedigree, having won the Italian F4 championship in 2014, the Toyota Racing Series in 2015 and the FIA European Formula 3 championship in 2016. He was a splashy signing by Williams in 2017 and soon won his first podium, finishing 3rd at Azerbaijan to become the second youngest driver in F1 history to reach a podium and the youngest to do so in his rookie season. He’s experienced tough times ever since and in 41 career races over two years, still has that single top three finish.

Stroll is still young and has some decent potential to improve so we will be charting his progress throughout the season. He’s currently sitting with the following attribute rankings: Braking 10, Cornering 11, Smoothness 11, Overtaking 10, Consistency 8, Adaptability 13, Fitness 15, Feedback 11 and Focus 9.

He comes with a lot of warts though. Our assistant says he’s “Crash Happy”, which results in a -2 hit to his focus. He’s also considered “Erratic”, which means a -2 hit to his consistency attribute. There are positives though: he’s considered a pay driver and we earn a whopping £868,000 per race (!) that he starts through his sponsors, an incredible contribution. He’s also considered a “Nice Guy” which gives him +5 boosts to his mechanic relationship, his teammate’s morale and to the chairman’s happiness. Speaking of his famous and rich father, that provides another +10 marketability boost and lastly, he has a two month boost to his morale since he just signed a new deal with the team.

Like Perez, Stroll scores very well on marketability ratings (85%) but my scout summarizes his capabilities by saying he is one of the weakest drivers on circuit (17th place predicted finish) but does have the potential to improve significantly.

RESERVE DRIVER -
Nicholas Latifi - 23 years old, Male, Canada, 3.25 stars (out of 5)
Contract Status: Reserve
Contract: £4,000 per race, 21 months remaining

Latifi is an interesting case. He has been a reserve for the last three years in F1, serving as a test driver for Renault in 2016 and 2017 and served the same role on our team last year. He’s won a couple of races on the F2 circuit over the past two seasons and has some very intriguing ratings and potential: Braking 12, Cornering 12, Smoothness 13, Overtaking 12, Consistency 15, Adaptability 10, Fitness 14, Feedback 13 and Focus 12.

My assistant tells me he is content in his role as a reserve with the team and that provides a 30 point morale boost along with the perk that he'll likely request a salary close to 100,000 less than a similarly skilled driver would ask. He’s also considered a hard worker, stable and most intriguingly, a “Racer”, which provides a +2 boost to all of his ratings on raceday. That propels him well above Stroll and into Perez territory from a skill standpoint. That all said, I’d likely be fired if I took a seat away from the owner’s son so Latifi will have to wait for his opportunity.

It’s going to be an interesting year. The fact that my scout feels Stroll will finish higher than Perez indicates to me that his father (our chairman) wants him in our number 1 car. However, I plan on giving the best car to Perez, as he’s our best hope for points this season. We’ll see how that works out!

Next, we'll take a brief look at our key staff members...