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Originally Posted by BSchneiderFan
Not to turn this into a Ralf-bashing thread, but one has to wonder for how much longer Schuey Minor can command such a high salary; his results so far at Toyota really haven't justified it, and Toyota has a reputation for impatience in the driver department.
V-B's main point is sound, of course. But I'd add a rider: I think that Williams's approach to driver management - "They're just employees, we hire them to win the constructors' championship" - has been raised to a fetish by Sir Frank and Patrick, and has done the team serious harm. They lost Damon Hill when he probably had another title, maybe two, in him, they saw Villeneuve walk away probably at the peak of his ability for a more conducive working atmosphere, they failed to get the best out of Frentzen before his move to Jordan showed what he was capable of, and they failed to keep Ralf and JPM in the same team when they could have achieved great things. I'm not suggesting that the drivers were blameless in these incidents, but I would accuse Williams of plain bad man-management. And for what? To prove how tough they are?
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The thing is, when Williams replace a driver with a lesser-known one, it usually means they are paying out a much smaller salary to the new man. That saved money can be ploughed back into development of the car, thus boosting the performance of both their entries. Frank understands that the driver is a fairly small part of the performance equation. Do you think Williams would have done significantly better in 1999 with JV at the wheel instead of Ralf, or in 1997 with Frentzen in place of Damon?
Taking your points in reverse order, Ralf is probably safe at Toyota as long as the team is German-based and needs a German driver to boosdt its appeal, and as long as his ast name is Schumacher. Any improvement they could get with a moere capable driver (assuming that guys like Davidson and Zonta are mroe capable, whcih is unclear), they would lose out in terms of publicity and sponsorship, and the whole effort would have less percieved value without a sueprstar driver. It's a sad state of affairs really.