Priceless wrote:Klon wrote:Brazilian sources - I think as much as some of us may or may not dislike his opinions, Captain Hammer has said about that enough. Unless we have something by Williams itself, Brazilian news at the moment aren't worth the paper they are printed upon.
Being Brazilian I can attest to that - speculation tends to gain appearances of truth when in the news around here. People here "like to make splashes" - I don't think I can put it better. I've read into the article, and to me that looked like a positive (in the sense of "optimistic") statement from Mr. Batista to the media and means nothing official from neither Bruno nor Williams.
I admit though I'd kind of like to see it happen...
I suppose that, given his potential leverage with Williams over the size of the sponsorship package he could offer, Batista might consider himself as a sort of "king maker", as it were, by being able to buy the seat for Bruno. There have also been a few rumours of Embratel staff visiting the headquarters of Williams too - not altogether surprising if Bruno has been talking to the team - but even so it is plausible that various commentators have allowed themselves to get carried away to generate attention for themselves, as you suggest.
Overall, to my mind it would be a major risk for Williams to take Bruno on right now - Maldonado, whilst he may have performed more strongly than some might have expected, was still pretty ragged at times and occasionally allowed that frustration to boil over on track. To pair a driver who has only completed one season with a second driver who has completed just one and a half seasons in effect risks leaving the team without a driver capable of directing the efforts of the team.
That is not to say that doing so would automatically be a disaster - Sauber, although they sometimes struggled, did quite well with Kamui and Perez in the circumstances - but Williams have generally looked for confident drivers to act as a figurehead of the team. If you think about previous Williams drivers, they've included Alan Jones, Keke Rosberg, Alain Prost, Ayrton Senna, Nigel Mansell, Nelson Piquet Sr., Juan Pablo Montoya, Mark Webber - drivers who might have had their flaws but all of whom had strong characters and a sense of purpose about what they did.
Whether any of the drivers currently on the market can offer the team that sort of figurehead around whom they can rally - and given the major changes going on amongst the senior management they need a strong driver more than ever - is debatable, but to my mind it'd be placing a lot of responsibility and pressure on either Maldonado or Bruno if they were put in that position.
