Motorsports Thread

[figbat]

How so? Max had enough time to stop and resume without losing the lead. I think most teams banked on the fact that it wasn't going to restart so track position was key. The biggest cock-up was the safety car picking up George as the leader when it should've been Max, meaning the whole field had to file past the safety car again to get Max at the front.

Actually, reading further into it it seems it wasn't so much a cock-up as I and others thought. Looks like it was a by-the-book execution of inflexible regulations. It all comes down to the fact that if a safety car goes out in the last 5 or so laps you can forget any further racing.

 

[icowden]

Actually, reading further into it it seems it wasn't so much a cock-up as I and others thought. Looks like it was a by-the-book execution of inflexible regulations. It all comes down to the fact that if a safety car goes out in the last 5 or so laps you can forget any further racing.

Unless its at Abu Dhabi at the end of the WDC and you want a new WDC...

 

[Deleted member 26715]

How so? Max had enough time to stop and resume without losing the lead. I think most teams banked on the fact that it wasn't going to restart so track position was key. The biggest cock-up was the safety car picking up George as the leader when it should've been Max, meaning the whole field had to file past the safety car again to get Max at the front.

It all comes down to where the cars are on the track at the point the Safety car is deployed, if the Safety car is released, then Verstappen, LeClerc & Russell came into the pits, Hamilton didn't & drove up the Safety car then yes he would be in the lead & would have won. But if the Safety car is deployed, Verstappen, LeClrec & Russell come into the pits & exit before Hamilton passes the pit exit then the order stays the same.

I still can't get my head around the sequence of events that allows Verstappen & LeClerc to get into the pits & back out again before the Safety car is deployed, I can't work out how they ended up in front of the Safety car, which surely they must have been for Russell to have been behind it, otherwise he would have overtaken them whilst they were in the pits

 

[Jody]

Unless its at Abu Dhabi at the end of the WDC and you want a new WDC...

Funny that

 

[figbat]

It all comes down to where the cars are on the track at the point the Safety car is deployed, if the Safety car is released, then Verstappen, LeClerc & Russell came into the pits, Hamilton didn't & drove up the Safety car then yes he would be in the lead & would have won. But if the Safety car is deployed, Verstappen, LeClrec & Russell come into the pits & exit before Hamilton passes the pit exit then the order stays the same.

I still can't get my head around the sequence of events that allows Verstappen & LeClerc to get into the pits & back out again before the Safety car is deployed, I can't work out how they ended up in front of the Safety car, which surely they must have been for Russell to have been behind it, otherwise he would have overtaken them whilst they were in the pits

The SC came out of the pits after Max et al had already gone past. The highest-placed person who was first to reach the SC was George. It turns out that rather than let him and the rest of the pack past and therefore keep a constant stream of traffic passing Danny’s stricken car, they chose to let a queue form behind George. Max was already part-way around the lap and would have joined the queue near the back, but decided to pit and so took longer to reach the queue. He had enough time between himself and Charles to go in and come out again before Charles arrived. Charles likewise ahead of George, so he pitted too.

This left a queue behind the SC which was not in race order so then they had to let everyone ahead of Max file past so that Max was at the head of the queue. After that, had they had time, they may have further allowed all lapped cars to pass the SC and then a further lap before coming in. However there was not time for all this, so it finished behind the SC. There was no mechanism by which Lewis could’ve gained the lead save for some incredibly botched pit stops for the leaders.

 

[Deleted member 1258]

Update on Alex Albon, I wish him a speedy recovery.

https://www.williamsf1.com/posts/30a27ca2-26e6-4b01-b050-9fe8874a2d52/an-update-on-alex-albon

 

[Reynard]

It is, it's the format not the drivers

 

[Illaveago]

I was just reading about some new ideas that they are thinking of bringing in for F1.
It seems like they want to mess it up .
The way it is at the moment I am beginning to go off it . There is no opposition to Red Bull . The championship has been sewn up and the only bits of interest now seem to be when the FIA or Ferrari cock things up .
I wish they would put more historic car racing on as that is becoming more interesting .

 

[Deleted member 26715]

But surely they only brought in the changes for this year as they were upset about Mercedes winning that got what they wanted tough if it's more Red Bull

 

[Illaveago]

But surely they only brought in the changes for this year as they were upset about Mercedes winning that got what they wanted tough if it's more Red Bull

Last year Red Bull were on par with Mercedes otherwise the championship wouldn't have ended on the final race ? To change the rules in such a way to create one powerful team isn't creating an even playing field .
One team's dominance can depend on drivers , both opposition and team drivers . Lewis and Verstappen are equally matched . Perez is nowhere near as good as Verstappen neither is Russell against Lewis . In previous years Lewis Hamilton had the likes of Alonso , Button and Rosberg as team members to fight against yet alone other drivers in a race . At present Verstappen hardly has any opposition .

 

[icowden]

The way it is at the moment I am beginning to go off it . There is no opposition to Red Bull . The championship has been sewn up and the only bits of interest now seem to be when the FIA or Ferrari cock things up .

To be fair, if Ferrari hadn't made such a massive number of blunders at the start of the season, they would be neck and neck with Red Bull. A couple of errors from LeClerc and a load of strategy and reliability issues have done for them. It does seem that Red Bull far and away had the best car design and it's impossible for the other teams to catch up to them this year.

I would imagine Merc are now working hard on next years car to bring themselves back into contention. They will have a mass of research from this year about how the new rules work and where they need to make changes.

I think we are tending to miss some subtleties as well. Although Red Bull have clearly run away with the championship (both constructors and drivers) both Merc and Ferrari are in with a shout of coming second. Russell is only 16 points behind LeClerc and Merc are only 35 points behind Ferrari.

 

[Deleted member 26715]

Last year Red Bull were on par with Mercedes otherwise the championship wouldn't have ended on the final race ? To change the rules in such a way to create one powerful team isn't creating an even playing field .
One team's dominance can depend on drivers , both opposition and team drivers . Lewis and Verstappen are equally matched . Perez is nowhere near as good as Verstappen neither is Russell against Lewis . In previous years Lewis Hamilton had the likes of Alonso , Button and Rosberg as team members to fight against yet alone other drivers in a race . At present Verstappen hardly has any opposition .

But they didn't know that Red Bull would be so successful in the interpretation of them when they introduced the new rules, they weren't just done over winter, it had been going on 2+ years. Also with RB you have to remember that the car is built around Verstappen, if he wants a slack tail happy car then that's what they build, his team mate has to learnt to live with it or get swapped out. They clearly are doing something the others aren't Ferrari have changed something & Mercedes got it completely wrong.

With Russell that's a hard one currently, he's certainly a very very good driver, does he have the 20 years experience of Hamilton, No, but is he leading Hamilton in the championship, Yes, could he realistically end up 3rd on the podium at the end of the year in the WDC it's looking good for him, to me he has been the motivator in the team showing Hamilton what is possible with a bad car.

 

[Deleted member 1258]

Last year Red Bull were on par with Mercedes otherwise the championship wouldn't have ended on the final race ? To change the rules in such a way to create one powerful team isn't creating an even playing field .
One team's dominance can depend on drivers , both opposition and team drivers . Lewis and Verstappen are equally matched . Perez is nowhere near as good as Verstappen neither is Russell against Lewis . In previous years Lewis Hamilton had the likes of Alonso , Button and Rosberg as team members to fight against yet alone other drivers in a race . At present Verstappen hardly has any opposition .

I recon Hamilton and Russel are evenly matched, most of the difference between them is Hamilton's extra experience. LeClerc and Verstappen are evenly matched its the cars and the teams that have made the difference.

 

[figbat]

George is a real talent. Look what he did in Lewis’s car in Bahrain, a car that was too small for him and he wasn’t accustomed to. He was on the way to winning that race easily if not for pit stop blunders. He showed Bottas a clean pair of heels. Not to mention the pole in the Williams at Spa.

 

[Illaveago]

But they didn't know that Red Bull would be so successful in the interpretation of them when they introduced the new rules, they weren't just done over winter, it had been going on 2+ years. Also with RB you have to remember that the car is built around Verstappen, if he wants a slack tail happy car then that's what they build, his team mate has to learnt to live with it or get swapped out. They clearly are doing something the others aren't Ferrari have changed something & Mercedes got it completely wrong.

With Russell that's a hard one currently, he's certainly a very very good driver, does he have the 20 years experience of Hamilton, No, but is he leading Hamilton in the championship, Yes, could he realistically end up 3rd on the podium at the end of the year in the WDC it's looking good for him, to me he has been the motivator in the team showing Hamilton what is possible with a bad car.

I can see why Lewis is angry with his design team . Initially they had a car which was worse than their customer teams . It has taken them most of this season to get close to Ferrari . As Lewis has pointed out Adrian Newey is the only person who has had previous experience of ground effect cars and the new rules have played right into their hands .
Russell has had a lot of luck ! Safety cars have played into his hands quite a lot . The last race Russell benefitted from a tow from Lewis during qualifying. His experience with the poor handling Williams cars may have helped him to adjust better to the new car than Lewis who liked his cars to handle his way . I don't believe he is as good as Lewis or Lando Norris , he may be fast but he hasn't done much overtaking or defending .
I agree that Red Bull have some trick which other teams haven't figured out or can't prove at the moment . It is strange how they seem to turn up a t a circuit with a car that performs straight away .