wow, that is a great pair of drivers.Quote:
Originally Posted by OptionBase1
I do hope that Hulkenberg will get a chance for a free seat in 2021
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wow, that is a great pair of drivers.Quote:
Originally Posted by OptionBase1
I do hope that Hulkenberg will get a chance for a free seat in 2021
And I had missed something. Announced a few days ago, Yuki Tsunoda is coming up from F2 to the second Alpha Tauri seat replacing Kvyat.
All things considered, Alpha Tauri had a great season this year, and I hope that continues next year. It would be nice to see a close 5 way race for 3rd place in the constructors championship.
Haas, Alfa Romeo, and Williams are almost certainly going to be struggling to score any points each race again next year.
The drivers market seems to have settled now, and there are some potentially interesting things there, especially with the new people and the returning Alonso.
In terms of teams, things are likely to improve next year for McLaren (they are moving to Mercedes engines [after beating Renault with the same Renault engine], and have had a cash injection from a new shareholder), so they might make it a "top 3 teams" situation, with others battling for 4th place.
Williams also have a bigger budget, so they are likely to improve too - but it is debatable how much, we'll have to see.
I'm amazed how loyal HAAS has been to Steiner. There were plenty of equipment failures and brake problems persist. Why not move on and see if someone else could improve the team.
We're two months away from the season openiner in Bahrain... Lewis still has yet to secure his contract... There's conflicting stories... one moment, they're close, another, Russel is in, the next.... eeehhh... well... it keeps going back and forth. Wonder how long the drama llama will continue to go on like this until either one side or the other gives in or, or.... or something happens. Stay tuned after the break.
-tg
I hope Lewis doesn't get signed and they go with Russel. This summer Lewis was playing the angle of "with all the crap going on in the world it isn't the right time to sit down and talk about tens of millions of dollars" or something like that. Came off (to me at least) as complete hogwash, and merely a negotiating tactic. After all, in theory, the longer he waits to re-sign, the more he can probably squeeze out of them.Quote:
Originally Posted by techgnome
Then he gets Covid, misses a race, and it turns out there is a lot of success in that particular seat. And, thankfully, that seat is already under contract with Mercedes.
So now, his best bargaining chip, himself, has lost significant value.
So they can save many, many millions of dollars by replacing Lewis with Russell, they still likely win the driver and constructor's championship, and Lewis broke (or tied) all the big career records, so its still a good send-off.
But they are obviously going to end up paying Lewis, and then we'll get some BS PR from him about how guilty he feels making all that money when so many people are suffering.
Wow, I almost forgot about Lewis not having signed yet.
There seems to be some activity:
https://www.instagram.com/p/CKM23wNFRCw/
But nothing about signing or how the "talks"/"negotiations" are going (unless I missed something).
Honestly, at this point, I don't think I'd be put out if he didn't get signed for a year and sat this one out. But then again, once you're out, you're out, and it's difficult to get back in.
-tg
just read an article here in Germany, Lewis is asking for 40 million Euros for the new season.
WoW:eek: is all I can say, I would go with George Russel if I were Toto
Apparently that is his current contract amount, for his new contract he is asking for $40 million dollars which is around 33 million Euros plus a percentage of Mercedes F1 prize money which depending on Covid etc could be around 15 million euros at the top end, probably less this season.Quote:
just read an article here in Germany, Lewis is asking for 40 million Euros for the new season.
The article i read suggested that the deal will likely happen they are just in the negotiating phase. To those who think Hamilton is not worth that type of money, well if he keeps winning he probably is to the Mercedes bottom line.
Hamilton signed a 1 year contract for 2021. Darn. Russell in that seat would have made the entire season more exciting.
Now its going to be Hamilton winning 15+ races, locking up the driver and constructor championships with 4 races to go or so, and Bottas pledging after each race that he's about to start putting more pressure on Hamilton next time. Yawn.
How Perez does in Red Bull, and will Ferrari rebound are going to be what I'm watching for in the first few races.
I wouldn't expect to much change this year. With the new car next year, you have to wonder how much they want to invest in change this year. I'd have to agree with OB, same old stuff as last 8 years.
Sprint races should be interesting. Hopefully they don't just end up being more Mercedes point-palooza opportunities.
My biggest fear this year is that with all of the new F1 drivers there's going to be some bad wrecks due to their inexperience.
Can't wait for next weekend!
I had to get Sky in order to watch F1, since it's not on FreeTV anymore in Germany.
I just hope that Red Bull and others can make this season a little more difficult for
Mercedes.
Cautiously optimistic that Max can be battling Hamilton for the win on Sunday. He looked good in FP1 and FP2. I'm a bit disappointed in the gap from Max to Perez, but it is very early obviously.
The results from FP1 and FP2 make me think that the midfield competition will be even better than last year, and if so, that will be fantastic.
Max, with damage, still on the pole by a fairly wide margin. The midfield was super tight. Should be a really good race tomorrow. Hopefully it isn't ruined by Mazepin doing something idiotic.
:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:Quote:
Originally Posted by OptionBase1
Great race. Hamilton deserved that win. Red Bull with gremlins in both cars in the first race is a bit disappointing. If only they had the rock solid stability of Mercedes...
Bottas just has to accept the fact that he's not Nico Rosberg and will never be putting Hamilton to the test. I know they had the pit stop issue, but he was never close to Lewis from the get go.
I hope the rest of the season is of similar quality racing/strategy.
I bet that is why Bottas got another Contract for this season:rolleyes:Quote:
Originally Posted by OptionBase1
I was impressed with Perez, wonder where he would have been if he didn't have that issue (what was it ?) at the start of the Race (3rd perhaps)
Looked like everything just went out on his car, I didn't know that the car could be started again by the Driver
Seemed like a much better race than the parades we got last year.
Looks like RB & Ferrari might finally be able to take the fight to the front this year... time will tell though.
The car has always been started by the driver (or it's been that way for some time at least). That's one advantage that F1 has had over Indy. They have anti-stall tech on the engines that allows the driver to be able to restart the engine following an incident. Indy on the other hand, doesn't and requires a starter to crank the engine to get it restarted, which is why it sometimes takes longer to clear cars. I believe in the 21 or 22 season that's to change though, and Indy will add the same tech, allowing drivers to start and re-start their engines on the line, and following incidents.Quote:
I didn't know that the car could be started again by the Driver
-tg
Mazepin - https://twitter.com/HaasF1Team/statu...55269232128004Quote:
"Overall, I feel like I’ve learned a lot, and hopefully I’m able to convert that into something positive for the next race.”
Ummm... like maybe completing an actual lap of actual racing with other cars on the track? Jezzes. I didn't have high hopes for Hass on Sunday... but... not not even complete lap 1 like that?
-tg
Haas has been a real disappointment the last couple of year and this looks like another terrible year. Steiner hasn't keep this team competitive. You can't just use a "brake issues with the car" excuse for 4yrs.
It was a shame Max couldn't keep it on track at the critical moment, but it was great to see close competition at the front.
I also liked the fact that my team McLaren did well, and should be competing for podiums this year. :)
It has been that way for nearly 10 years, since they've had hybrids, as the electric motor can be used to start it up... before that they used what is basically a drill with a long pole on it:Quote:
Originally Posted by techgnome
http://www.formula1-dictionary.net/starter_motor.html
looking forward to the race today in Imola,
I can't believe how fast Lando was in that first section, and Red Bull looks really strong.
Wonder why Vettel is not getting his Speed up.
anyway it look's like this season will be interesting afterall:)
Wow. Bad day for Mercedes. Good day for Red Bull and Ferrari it looks like.
Nice recovery from Lewis to finish in 2nd. Perez struggles were tough. Red Bull absolutely needs the second car to perform this year, since it is clear that Max looks like he has a chance to win a good number of races.
The Russel vs. Bottas crash certainly seemed like Russel was trying a dangerous pass well outside of the dry line, so I'm not sure why he was up in Bottas' face post-crash.
Looks like it will be Ferrari vs. McLaren for 3rd in the constructor's championship, but it is early. Alpha Tauri has the performance potential to maybe be there as well, but Tsunoda looks a bit wild so far.
What a lucky break for Lewis that the yellow and red came out when it did. But watching him coming through the field was annoying. The Mercedes performance advantage was really on display. Plus Lewis drove great.
One bit of good news, my HAAS team seem to have a solid lock on last place this year.
Ok, so, something that confused me was Perez's time penalty, compared to Vettel's... Both were a 10sec penalty, no? Why did Perez get to stay out and not serve his penalty until his next pit, while Vettel had to serve his within 2 laps? That was something I didn't quite understand. And wasn't it for the same thing?
-tg
That was a fun race, it was good to see my mate Lando do so well :)
They were for different reasons... Vettel had a brake problem before the race, so the tyres weren't on the car when they should be (among other things, they could get a strategy advantage). Perez messed up behind the safety car, and re-took his position (which isn't allowed).Quote:
Originally Posted by techgnome
On the surface it feels like the Perez penalty should have been bigger (as it was about safety), but the possible advantages from wheels not being fitted in time means that Vettel had a bigger potential benefit.
Ah, yes... tires not being on the car... and they waiting until what lap to enforce the penalty? Sometimes I wonder about the stewards... It's not like it wasn't known at the beginning that it was happening.Quote:
Originally Posted by si_the_geek
Perez on the other hand... yeah, that was just plain stupid... he could have easily just handed that back and then regained the positions back later.
It was kind of a weird race though. First one in a long time that I didn't feel the need to fast forward through the boring middle bits.
-tg
https://www.gpfans.com/en/articles/6...t-infringement
Wait... so Perez, dumps his car into the gravel, loses two places, takes it back, gets a penalty... Kimi spins out, ends up at the back of the pack, does NOT take his position back... gets a penalty as well... One was a 10 second penalty, the other 30 second... what the heck?
"Art 42.6 indicates that the driver may retake his position, so long as he does so prior to the first safety car line " --- Had Perez passed the line? *shrug* don't really know at this point.
"Art 42.6 then indicates that should a driver fail to take his position he must enter the pit lane and can only re-join the race once the whole field has passed the pit exit. " -- Neither driver did this...
I dunno... It all sounds mucked up to me.
-tg
It does sound a bit odd, but I'm sure with enough checking of prior evidence it would make sense.
Really good race yesterday. Very happy that Perez was at least on the strategy radar for Mercedes when he was leading after everyone else pitted.
I'm predicting that Vettel retires mid-season and Russell moves to his seat to finish out the season.
Bottas had better not be in a Mercedes seat next year.
I went out to eat, yesterday, and there was a race playing on the TV. I know pretty much nothing about racing, but after watching this thread, I do recognize a few names, so I looked at the leader board, and the only name I recognized was Haas. Then I noticed that the graphics were really good, but a bit weird. Turns out, it was an e-sport race. So....I got to watch a video game while eating lunch. How weird.
Mercedes strategizes better than Red Bull every week.
Max could have made it more interesting if Red Bull had pitted him for new Softs the moment Hamilton got around Bottas, which I believe was with 13 or 14 laps to go. Playing the "wait and see if Lewis can pass Max" game simply resulted in the inevitable happening, but with no time for a counter-strategy. Yes, that alternate strategy would have required Max passing Bottas to just get back into second, but that shouldn't have been difficult. His chances of re-taking the lead that way are slim (perhaps 5%*), but that is still greater than the 0%* chance he had of re-taking the lead with the strategy they did employ.
*These estimates assume Lewis doesn't have some sort of issue. If he does, then either strategy likely results in a Max victory.
I know FP1 and FP2 aren't bellwether's of how the race will go, but I'm optimistic that this weekend will be tight up front and in the midfield.
I don't know, Monaco is such a follow the leader track. Unless Max or Lewis has a problem and ends up back in the pack, I really don't expect any passing. But it is a good race to take a nap listening to sound of the cars. I like naps!!!
Big time bummer for Charles not being able to race today. This race was a great opportunity for Ferarri to get back in the saddle.
Still, with the starting order the way it is, there's going to be chaos somewhere.
Well, that was quite the boring race for the most part. Good to see Red Bull making the championship fights interesting thus far.
I was hoping Perez could sneak out a podium, but moving up as many places as he did was still quite good.
Bottas is in perfect position to once again declare he is going to start putting up a fight for the championship.
It was the parade I expected it to be. Turned out the big story would be in the pits, and off-grid, this year with Leclerc not even starting, and Bottas's nut issue. I did get a laugh out of Hamilton's reaction as he kept learning about falling back behind positions during the pit stops. "Behind Perez?!?" LOL. But Verstappen pretty much ran a clean darn near perfect race. Got out to an early lead, and never looked back. Also a bit surprised Maze didn't cause further problems holding people up.
-tg
I was trying to think, was there ANY on track passing???? Well, maybe the start. I think the HAAS cars switched places. Last year I told myself I wouldn't waste my time watching this race but I did it again. lol But I did fast forward through the last 25 laps. I guess because of the history and the fact it's "Monaco" they will keep racing there, if you can call it that.
It is a fantastic track for testing driver skill, but not so great at allowing overtaking. It would be nice if there was a sensible way to create opportunities (like making some of the corners wider, allowing different lines for the driver behind), but I don't think they've got the space to make it work.
Nice to see that the championships swung away from Lewis+Mercedes, as that should add some degree of excitement for the rest of the season.
There had to be some kind of passing... Everyone from Stroll on down got lapped and the Haas cars got lapped three times... so there had to be some kind of passing happening somewhere... or was it all in the pits?
-tg
Your right there as passing of lap cars but they would pull over to let them by. Seems like there would have been someone making a pass for position on the track but I can't think of any.Quote:
Originally Posted by techgnome
I think it's funny that they keep trying to "fix" F1 from a fan's perspective... trying all sorts of gimmicks... to me, it seems like the answer is simple: make the cars narrower, so they have room to pass each other more often. Enforce track limits everywhere, and I don't mean 4 wheels going over the white line, I mean even two... after all if I put two wheels over the white line, I'm up on the curb and getting a ticket from the cops. OH, and for enforcement, during FP or Quali, track time is deleted as it is now, but during race, the lap is deleted... I don't mean the time... the lap.... So yeah, that means one second you could be in the lead going around turn 20 at COTAS... take it too wide, drop a tire... suddenly you're down a lap... lap didn't count buddy. That would shake things up real fast. Then we'd see who's a quality driver real quick. Keep the tires on the track buddy.
-tg
That could be fun, except for those times when somebody has a car with issues, or there is bad weather - we could easily have races that last a few hours longer!
It would also be really confusing sometimes, which I'm sure would cause lots of complaints
LolQuote:
Originally Posted by techgnome
Well, let make it easy on the officials, a simple row of spikes would do the trick.
I think a narrower car could help. But I'm not sure what they can do about the aero disadvantage that the trailing car has, remove all the spoilers, go back to the 60's look. A redesign is coming next year, it will be interesting to see what happens.
Crushed when Max had his tire failure. Jubilant when Hamilton missed the turn.
I love how Lewis felt he had to make an attempt at a profound message to the team while coming to the line for the final restart, while at the same time he forgot to turn off their "Brake magic". It was obvious that something was wrong right before the restart since his brakes where smoking like crazy. He had to have seen it. But, it was more important for the team to be told that it was a marathon, not a sprint - as if everyone on them doesn't know that already.
What he did was basically equivalent to LeBron James getting fouled on a three point shot with less than a second to go, down by 1. The other team calls time-out, and LeBron takes that time to showboat in the huddle, try to be Mr. Profound, blah, blah blah. And then he comes to the line and bricks all three free throws.
Manage the car, drive the car, be the car. Leave the feel-good nonsense talk to the garage after the race.
Yeah, that did not turn out the way I thought it would. When I saw Max hit the wall, I felt like Charlie Brown right after Lucy pulls the football away. And so close to the end as well. I was sure Hamilton was going to win, and was trying to do the mental math on the ddriver's points when...... Woah! He missed the turn! I started laughing. Certainly an ending for the highlight reel.
-tg
I was screaming on the couch when Max hit the wall. What a bad luck.
When the decision came to do a restart for the last 2 rounds I really had the feeling the Lewis would take the lead and get an extra 6 six points.
The pack starts and indeed Lewis takes the lead and .. he misses the first turn!
And I? I was cheering on the couch :P
I'm just glad nobody was hurt, I mean a that speed the car could have gone anywhere.
I wonder what Pirelli has to say about it, probably ...they picked up ..this or that.. and
that was the cause..:confused:
well I'm sure other people will have a diffrent opinion about that, because when Stroll
crashed there was no debris on the track
Watching two tribes of gumbies fighting over a ball. Is there really still a market for this?
Did I really miss the ball in this race? :P
BallBlazer for the Atari 800, featuring 2 futuristic cars, a ball and 2 goals.
https://youtu.be/MvyBMP4giaI?t=76
The NES version, better overview but missing the 3D action ;-)
https://youtu.be/Wyv6miGxW0k?t=48
It will probably take a few days for the full answer to come, but Pirelli think it was due to debris - after Max crashed they saw from other cars (including Lewis) that there were serious cuts in tyres, most likely caused by debris.Quote:
Originally Posted by ChrisE
It does seem odd that Stroll had the issue earlier, but it is easily possible that there was a minor crash in the early laps that left a small bit of debris.
Hopefully they'll manage to work out a way of preventing similar issues in the rest of the season.
RB thinks it was tire failure. They had no telemetry that showed there was an issue. It was unexpected and instant. Their claim is that if it had been debris, then they should have seen something sooner, even if only a second before. So who knows? What I do know is there will be 12million armchair drivers, all writing their opinions with little to no facts over the next week... and then in a couple weeks when the official results come out, everyone will be wrong, and yet they'll all find a way to cry "I was right!"
-tg
Felt bad for Max because of all the points he lost and that Hamilton would have the points lead again. But when Hamilton made that stupid move at the end, all was Ok. lol I like seeing other people besides the favorites win. Perez did a hell of a job keeping Lewis behind him all race. I was amazed that the Mercedes didn't blow by the Red bull on that super long straight away.
I never have understood why the F1 cars brakes start smoking while sitting still. Of course I've never taken the time to research it. I would ask but I'm afraid I'll just be told to read the documentation. lol
Well when you run 100+mph, then hit the brakes, they heat up... a lot. You don't see it when they are moving because the action helps keep them cool enough... but when you're then stoppe,d there''s no air flow to keep then cooled... and so they can "cook" while stationary. If you watch the pits, when a car retires, they put blowers on to the wheels, that's to cool the brakes to prevent them from cooking now that the car has stopped.
-tg
Also, it is not just the brake pads that can get cooked. The discs are carbon-ceramic and can be damaged by overheating.
Yeah I understand that brakes get hot. But there must be a significant difference with F1 brakes. I watch a lot of racing and F1 is the only cars that have smoke rolling out from the brakes after just one warm up lap. I don't know if it is because of design or materials, I'm just amazed they get that hot that quick.
With all of the shenanigans in F1, it wouldn't surprise me in the least if Mercedes was running something they can turn on/off that purposely causes the breaks to heat up (or prevents them from cooling down) so that that heat then transfers to the tires, and they use that system on starts/restarts/pit stops as a way to get a heat boost into cold tires.