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The 2021 F1 Season.

I'm not defending the guy per se but there's an important underlying condition at work here: he's 21 years old. Neurologically speaking, his brain is still developing and it won't reach adequately responsible adult maturity till he's around 25 years old. It's just the way it is. Young people do dumb stuff all the time. I agree, his dumb stuff was really poor - and really public - but, the fact remains, his rational, cortical brain is still developing. Of course, there are always exceptions to the general rule and it might well be his brain has already reached full maturity. And it might well be that his behaviour and mindset are so uninhibited by wealth that he might carry on with such behaviour. But either way, I think it's worth mentioning all the same.
 
Quick warning to PFMers not to buy any tickets for 2021 F1 races in case COVID is still causing disruptions, because you won't get your money back.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/mont...d-prix-ticket-refunds-covid-1.5848427?cmp=rss

I'm still waiting for the $500 refund from the Montreal F1 race that was cancelled in June. It seems like there are a very large number of customers who have not been refunded. I guess F1 think that this is an acceptable way to treat their customers.
 
Sean, I checked the Terms and Conditions on the website and came across the following (I doubt that I am providing you with any more information but this may be of interest to others):

https://tickets.formula1.com/en/t-61-terms-and-conditions

Platinium Group S.A.M, company registered in Monaco with company number 06S04539, with its registered office at 2 Rue du Gabian, 98000 Monaco ("we", "us", "our") sells tickets to Formula OneTM Events and related products under license from Formula One Digital Media Limited, the operator of www.formula1.com. Formula One Digital Media Limited is a company registered in England and Wales, with company number 08915039, with its registered office at 2 St. James’s Market, London SW1Y 4AH.

These Terms and Conditions of Sale (or more simply Terms of Sale) incorporate our Terms of Use (available under: https://tickets.formula1.com/en/t-61-terms-and-conditions), which should be read and understood before any purchase, is made.

The Terms of Sale has the following:

4.4 Cancellation of an Event: The Ticket is purchased for the relevant Event. No Tickets are transferable to other events.

Depending upon the circumstances in question if an event is cancelled or rescheduled and should the promoter of the event offer a full or partial refund of your Ticket(s) value, you would be entitled to receive the equivalent level of refund on the amount paid online for your Ticket(s) minus a refund processing fee. The initial Handling Fees charged at the time of purchase will not be refunded.

Should an event be cancelled (and not rescheduled) and the promoter offers no form of financial compensation, we will in no way be liable or responsible for providing refunds, nor any form of compensation, be it financial or other.

4.5 To claim your refund under Clause 4.4 above, please contact [email protected]

So it looks like a layering of responsibilities, where the promoter has not, for whatever reason, offered a refund, which then defaults to the responsibility of Formula1.com.

Have Formula1.com (seemingly operated by Platinum Group under license to Formula1.com) been in contact at all?

Just be clear, I am not aware of anyone within a team who thinks that this passing the buck and not paying up is acceptable.
 
As of midnight tonight I am no longer employed in F1.

I resigned from Sauber F1 in June this year and have been back in the UK for a couple of months now.

I resigned for 2 reasons:

1. Covid made my fortnightly commute back to have a weekend with my wife too risky (at risk in law in our house and at risk parents nearby). So I stayed in Switzerland and it quickly became clear that Covid was going to be around for a year or so and so resigning was the right thing to do.

2. Whilst I had the simulator project to make work, the general technical direction of the team (the engine performance drop for 2020 was another big factor) resulted in us moving closer to the back of the grid in terms of performance. Most of the things that I went there to do to move the team up the grid were stopped once the Technical Director who recruited me left as the new TDs did not understand vehicle performance and listened to others in the team who also did not understand it. So the drop back to a very distant 8th was to me inevitable. There are some good things happening there as the leadership have started to realise that they need to make changes or the current trajectory will soon put them last.

I am not sure what to do next as I have some health problems to sort out first and just want to enjoy being with my family and see friends outside on occasion. And I am very lucky that motorsport has looked after me for 30 years and so can take a long time working out what to do next.

I am still convinced that I can bring all that I have learnt together for one team and develop a better vehicle performance development process than any other team (based on what I led at Mercedes and what I have learnt at Sauber). But finding a team that really understands how badly they are performing in that area and accepting that is possible to do a lot better is a challenge as all the incumbents in leadership positions seem to be playing politics to keep doing things the same way and blaming others....

Please excuse the arrogance in the above paragraph! I
 
Well done Ian on making a positive personal/family-based decision - when you're as deep in a field as you are, stepping away must feel huge! I take my hat off to you and I wish you all the best. You've got the skills and experience to pretty much find work anywhere you want. May 2021 be a good year for you, your family and your new team... whoever that turns out to be :)
 
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