So the picture is becoming clearer as to how Williams and Mercedes will help each other in 2017.
Reports indicate Felipe Massa has agreed to postpone his retirement for another year and will stay at Grove, allowing Valtteri Bottas to make the move to Brackley and replace Nico Rosberg.
Mercedes will compensate Williams for taking their lead driver by offering a significant discount on their engine bill and Felipe will get a nice paycheck plus another year of doing what he loves by inadvertently failing to find a peg on which to hang up his helmet, terrible I know.
Somewhere in Austria, Toto Wolff will be doing a jig of delight on a snowy hilltop. After Rosberg’s shock retirement, it provided the perfect opportunity for him to get Bottas, a driver he manages, into his team. While it seemed a tough task initially, he appears to have pulled it off and now feels as if he has the perfect driver line-up for next year.
Meanwhile, Williams, who were put in a very difficult position by the whole situation, will also likely feel as though they made the most of what they had available and while it’s not 100% ideal, it will have to do for now.
All I have to say to everyone involved is be careful what you wish for.
For Bottas, the whole thing is a win-win. He gets a seat at the best team on the grid and few are really expecting him to challenge Lewis Hamilton.
That means when he turns out to be rather good and beats the owner of car No. 44, everyone will be amazed and he’ll be the best thing that happened to F1, well, since Max Verstappen.
Hamilton will also sense the danger that Bottas represents. After all, he wanted Pascal Wehrlein on the other side of the garage, so he’ll be keen to impose himself on the Finn, who won’t be shy to fight back.
Basically, it’s highly likely the pairing Wolff wanted won’t go as planned. All he desires is a line up who do as they are told and don’t cause any problems after a few years of having two men who actually did care about beating each other and not just seeing a Mercedes logo on the podium.
Then there’s Williams, while it’s true Massa probably wasn’t ready to retire at the end of this year, what is the true motivation for him in 2017?
He has nothing left to prove and is just a stopgap until Bottas returns after one year, which is possible, or a permanent replacement can be found for 2018.
Also, let’s be honest, while the Brazilian has been good the past few years, this year there were signs of him looking past his prime. Therefore, the 18-year-old who’ll be in the other car, that being Lance Stroll, is likely much more enthusiastic at the idea of proving himself against an ageing Massa than he was against Bottas.
But with two drivers at either end of the age spectrum, it is probable neither is in a position to maximise the performance of the new car.
For sure Massa will give great feedback and help with development but he won’t push the limit of the FW39 as far as Valtteri would have. Stroll maybe can but it will take time for him to find those limits both of himself and the car.
Ultimately, as I mentioned earlier, Massa was the only choice for Williams in what was a difficult situation. They needed continuity given the rule changes coming next year and as it was always likely Mercedes would prize Bottas from their grasp eventually, the veteran of 250 Grand Prix starts was the only alternative.
For both teams, the respective deals, which are set to be confirmed in the New Year, were the most likely after the predicament Rosberg put Mercedes in. But while the world champions, in particular, feel they have got what they wanted, the way these deals could play out in 2017 is much different to what they envisage right now.
