It's like they're still using the strategies they've used the last 5 years when they ran mid-pack ... It's like they've forgotten how to run a proper strategy from the front.
-tg
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It's like they're still using the strategies they've used the last 5 years when they ran mid-pack ... It's like they've forgotten how to run a proper strategy from the front.
-tg
Vettel retiring - I wasn't overly surprised.
Alonso announcing he's taking over Vettel's seat - Very surprising to me. Certainly not a step up performance wise currently. That said, I really hope he does well there.
I think these drivers are at potential risk of losing their current seats at the end of this year (note that I'm not taking into account any of their potential contract statuses that may "guarantee" their seat in 2023):
Daniel Ricciardo
Yuki Tsunoda
Nicholas Latifi
I don't expect any seat changes at Red Bull, Mercedes, Ferrari, Haas*, or Alfa Romeo.
*Unless some higher tier team lures Mick away from Haas.
That surprises me. He's better than last year but I haven't seen anything special. Mags has out preformed him.Quote:
*Unless some higher tier team lures Mick away from Haas.
Stroll hasn't kept Vettel, but then again, his dad has lots of money. lol
I agree it's time to let Ricciardo go. That is, if there's a better prospect. I don't follow any other European base racing so I have no idea who the new up and comers are.
Right, but as long as he's a competent driver, which he's demonstrated he is, he's essentially destined for a higher level team because of his name alone. There's no way he spends a couple more years at Haas and then just falls out of F1. I don't expect him to be elsewhere next year, but wouldn't rule it out.Quote:
Originally Posted by wes4dbt
Meanwhile, in other news, Hamilton is now part of the new ownership of the Broncos. ... Hmm... I mean that's OK, I'm a Broncos fan, not a fan of Hamilton, don't hate him, just don't like him... anyways... the new playbook now includes: "Tyre Deg", "Box-box, Box-box", "Ok Hamilton, we'll look into that" and "Green flag".
-tg
Alpine: Piastri will be driving for us in 2023.
Piastri: NOPE
2 days into the summer break and things are already off the rails for next year. As long as Max is still with Red Bull and George is still with Mercedes next year, I'll be happy. Beyond that, it seems like there might be significant seat swapping in the works.
Meanwhile...
McLaren: We've signed Alex Palou...
Chip Ganassi Racing: We just invoked Palou's contract extension...
Palou: I think I'll look good in Orange Papaya...
CGR: We'll see all y'all in court.
So it seems the silly season has started early and is starting to cross racing leagues...
-tg
Yeah, interesting that McLaren is the "poacher" in both of these cases.Quote:
Originally Posted by techgnome
When they last-minute pitted LeClerc trying to get the fastest lap and he lost a position right out of the pits...I mean, you do that move when you have a comfortable enough lead where even a hiccup in the pits doesn't lose you a spot. Then, when he doesn't get the fastest lap after all, AND gets penalized for speeding in the pit lane and therefore losing a position...I was laughing pretty hard at the absurdity. Those last two laps sum up Ferrari this year. And yet, they still publicly deny that they've made strategic mistakes this year.
And I guess whiny "woe-is-me" Lewis is what we get when he's not winning. Almost broke his back, he says, but walks away and refuses medical attention. Anyone want to bet that he fakes a hate crime against himself within the next two years? :rolleyes:
Alonso's instant line about Lewis only knowing how to drive when out front was harsh, but he's certainly got enough experience racing against Lewis to say that.
I hope Perez has accepted he's not at the same level as Max. I know earlier in the season he was bristling at team orders to let Max by, but his continued qualifying pace disparity and his spin out at the end of today's qualifying demonstrate that he's second fiddle to Max, albeit a good second fiddle, which pretty much any other driver would be as well in his seat.
I'm hoping to see Russell on the podium tomorrow. Maybe Lewis can make it to lap 2 this race.
Yeah, everyone is second fiddle to Max. Though it's hard to say for sure, in F1 there seems to be a wide performance range between cars. The car can make a good driver look great or the opposite. But I think Max is the real deal.
It would make F1 a lot more interesting if the cars were equal. 2 or 3 seconds a lap difference is to much.
Happy for Max and George. Alpha Tauri/Tsunoda need to be penalized heavily for whatever nonsense happened with his stop on track, restart seatbeltless, pit, and then stop on track again. I can't imagine it was done as a gift to Max to screw up Mercedes strategy, but it was really strange and suspicious.
It sucks for Lewis that their strategy imploded from both the VSC and the safety car later.
And, of course, Ferrari doing Ferrari things. Tire carrier missing, unsafe pit release. If they lose out to Mercedes in the constructor's championship, then they need significant changes in team leadership.
Hard to believe that a tire not being ready could even happen. Only other time I can remember was Riccardo in Monaco.
Maybe they need more pit crew members. lol
It's a shame that a year that started out looking like it would be an exciting championship battle has turned into a snooze fest. Probably real fun for the Max fans. lol
I got nothing against Max but these races would be a lot more fun to watch without him. lol
That's why lately I've taken to just recording the race, watch it later, and skip 75% of the race... unless I see a yellow come out... then I'll back it up and start watching it to see what's going on. At that rate it only took me a little over an hour to watch the Mona race. And then there was the yellow flag finish - yawn. Looking to next weekend though. I've enjoyed the races at Singapore in the past.
-tg
Gonna have to wait around 3 weeks for Singapore.Quote:
Originally Posted by techgnome
I always record the race. They usually start @ 5 or 6 am my time. I don't like any sport enough to watch it that time of day. lol
I'm admittedly a Max fan. If it was known it was going to be a runaway season, of course I would want it to be Max in the lead, but I would much, much prefer a season like last year.
Now, I'm rooting for Russell to get 2nd in the driver's championship, and Mercedes to to get 2nd in the constructor's championship, so that at least provides something to closely follow as Max/Red Bull close in on locking up their respective championships with several races to go.
I hope Mick has a seat next year, but it is looking more and more like that may not be in the cards. Latifi's seat needs to be given to someone else, maybe he ends up there.
What's up at HAAS?Quote:
I hope Mick has a seat next year, but it is looking more and more like that may not be in the cards. Latifi's seat needs to be given to someone else, maybe he ends up there.
I wish I knew ... the last two years they kept saying "just wait, we're pouring our development into the new cars for 22, be patient" ... annnnnnd... here we are ... not much has changed.
-tg
Rumors are:
Pierre Gasly -> Alpine
Nick De Vries -> Alpha Tauri
Latifi -> Gone
Mick Schumacher -> Williams
I believe that means that there would still be an open seat at Haas, and that doesn't take into consideration Yuki Tsunoda seeming to be on thin ice at Alpha Tauri.
Is Mick leaving HAAS by choice or is HAAS releasing him? Because Williams isn't really an upgrade.
It was announced several weeks ago he was no longer a Ferrari Academy driver. Someone from Haas, probably Gunther Steiner, recently said his results have been way too inconsistent. So, it seems like Haas is likely to release him. And yes, I agree that from Haas to Williams seems like basically a horizontal move performance wise. But a seat is a seat.Quote:
Originally Posted by wes4dbt
I'm curious if Daniel Ricciardo ends up driving next year. I can't see him in a Haas seat, I would imagine Ferrari would rather promote someone new up into any potentially open Haas seat. He seems unmotivated to me, so him not taking up a seat is probably a good thing for F1 as a whole when there is other talent out there.
I agree, Ricciardo's performance has been poor. Time to give someone else a chance.Quote:
Originally Posted by OptionBase1
HAAS was looking pretty good at the beginning of the year but lately it seems most teams are improving and moving pass them. I don't know what being a Ferrari Academy driver has to do with HAAS, I basically just watch the races. We don't get much F1 press around here. Plenty of NASCAR news. lol
Haas is what I believe is called a "Ferrari customer" team. They use Ferrari engines. I believe their agreement with Ferrari is that one of the Haas seats will be available each year for a driver that is part of the "Ferrari Academy", which is basically a pipeline of drivers that come up through the lower tier Formula 4, 3, and 2 series and drive for Ferrari affiliated teams.
And the Nascar race tonight has been wild and crazy. I don't believe for a second that all these tire failures are just because of aggressive setups. I think the tires this year are flawed.
Just posting this here for any Nascar fans. Holy crap, they need to figure out why tires are failing constantly. This is getting embarrassing. It is totally ruining the playoffs at this point. A huge black eye for Nascar, worse than that race years ago where they had to throw phony "preemptive" yellow flags at Indianapolis every 12 laps because tires were blowing out like crazy then as well.
I remember that Indy race. Track was like sandpaper.
It may not be all the fault of the tire. Reddick's tires ran 0ver 60 laps, on the winning car. This new car has everyone guessing on how to setup the car and what air pressures they can run. NASCAR has never ran a low profile tire before this year. NASCAR will figure out whether it's the tire, camber, air pressure....
I think it's been a great year, but if I was a car owner I don't think I'd be to happy. But the races have been fun to watch.
Right, it could be setup related, in which case it falls (at least partly) on the team and not completely on Goodyear. But I get the impression that teams really don't understand why it keeps happening, so who knows.
Wild race today. 1st through 3rd was a procession, behind that was 2 hours of chaos.
Was a good race. I was surprised that even when they went to slicks and Leclerc had DRS he still really never came close to being able to make a pass.
The race I really enjoyed was the Talladega race. But those super speedway races are always entertaining. From lap 1 to the checkers is constant action.
I stayed up late for all that? Fell asleep with about 20 minutes to go in the race, then learned that all the talk about point distribution tiers was wrong, because the new partial points distribution rules only affect a race that is red flagged and never restarted.
Apparently, as the new rules are written, if a race starts for 1 minute, is then red flagged for, say, 2 hours and 49 minutes, and then restarted for a final 10 minutes of racing, that still counts as a full points race. I highly doubt that was the intention of the new rules.
And the whole "recovery vehicle on the track that Gasly drove by under red flag" controversy is like as close to 100% blame on Gasly as possible. The safety car was already out for a time, then the red flag comes out, he's flying down the course, approaching the area of the Sainz crash, in wet conditions. I would imagine that if you were to examine the timing of past incidents of a crash -> safety car deployed -> recovery vehicles on track, there is no way this incident was indicative of the recovery vehicle jumping the gun as far as entering the track "early".
I hate that this was the race that Max clinched the title. At least there still is a tight race for the rest of the top 6 driver positions.
I agree, it was completely Gasly that caused the unsafe situation. You got double yellows, then a red flag and it was pouring rain. He was going way to fast.
I guess the announcers had to find something to talk about during the delay.
It was quite disappointing that, for the hugely hyped USA Grand Prix weekend, considering that F1 is gaining popularity in the USA in a big way, only FP1 was available to watch on "traditional" ESPN cable channels, while FP2, FP3, and Qualifying were all only available on the "fringe" pay-for ESPN channels. Very, very disappointing. I get that College Football is more popular than F1, but still. Very, very disappointing.
I was rooting for Lewis to hang on and get his likely only win this season, but Max with the comeback was fun to watch also. Alonso's crash was really scary, a lot of drivers were lucky to avoid the chaos there.
I know Red Bull has a really good car but Max is just dominating. I know Lewis dominated for several years but the Mercedes was a far superior car. The Ferrari performance is very close to Red Bull but Max is in a league of his own right now. That's great for Max but I'd like to see someone else win once in a while. lol
I certainly made the right choice to focus on the Nascar race and just check in with F1 during commercials. Ross Chastain's last lap move will live in infamy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3hBPzmre2s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOY9p5gFa5Q
I dare say that this is Nascar's equivalent to the "The band is out on the field!" Cal-Stanford play almost 40 years ago.
It was incredible. I've never seen anything like that before. It almost didn't look real. Think Hamlin was a little stunned.Quote:
Originally Posted by OptionBase1
Mick Schumacher finishing dead last in qualifying while Kevin Magnussen gets the pole has certainly destroyed any tiny lingering chance Mick may have had for retaining his seat next year. Assuming Nico Hulkenberg gets Mick's seat, Haas should hopefully do well in the midpack battle next year.
Yeah, I was surprised when I turned on the qualifying sprint and Mag was on pole. How did that happen? Was weather involved? He wasn't competitive with the top three teams during the race.