Formula 1 Discussion - And favourite driver?

[Coccxys]

Good to see Hamilton admitting he does zero simulator work for the team.

 

[durdledoor]

There really isn't much uncertainty about the tracklimits though, the drivers know exactly where they are and how far they can go. They memorize the entire track with target speeds and ideal entry/apex/exit to all corners, the ideal line and small details (such as checking foliage next to the track to verify wind direction) etc. track limits in a few corners is nothing to worry about. In the first race, FIA just had a really stupid way of deciding when to enforce them: If one driver gets a clear, direct benefit over another driver. Ie: when someone goes over the track limits to overtake, but Saint Lewis -blessed be his sacred name, lord of superior morals and political activism, knighted for unique achievements entirely reached through his very own individual skill and nothing else- went off track a dozen times to increase the gap to Verstappen, who was so far behind that this wasn't a "direct" way to profict from it. FIA then shut it down when Verstappen did the same for 2 or 3 laps - either cause they realized it was a shit idea or someone else than FIA's golden child profitted from it, who knows...

Modern racing doesn't use gravel pits, cause tarmac has proven to be a better alternative: Cars can start flipping violently if they enter it wrong, braking and steering is virtually impossible on gravel and cars are harder to remove from a gravel pit (which either leads to even longer yellow-flag phases or even safety cars). It also allows cars to go wide in a corner if things get too dicey and too many cars bunch up into one corner at the start.

The one thing that gravel does, though, as has been said: it neatly tells the driver to fuck off. You can't just go wide if you feel like it or if you fucked up an overtake, you need to stay on the track and if you don't, you'll have a good chance of getting your car stuck.
Without gravel to get stuck in, you need artificial boundaries and I really dislike that there is just an imaginary line and if you cross that one too many times, you get penalised... it feels too video-gamey - but in terms of safety it is the better choice. You can't do without those boundaries though, otherwise cars will go all over the place...
I don't like it, but it's kind of damned if you do, damned if you don't thing.

It's a problem without a nice solution, one might add a slip of astroturf or bumps, so any car going wide will go over those, forcing them to slow down, but that might also cause an accident if someone goes over that stuff and loses control of his car, so that's no good.

The penalty of something like gravel is that its likely you won't get the car out still running and get back on the track to earn points. If you are going for a title shot that could mean a loss of up to 25 points which is a big blow.
If you stray over line to try to get a racing advantage you may or may not get away with it, and you're still in the race so the temptation is greater


The last few years have largely been betting on which Mercedes driver comes in first. This is about the first season where another team looks to be in competition with Mercedes.

 

[LiveFromNS]

So, I just noticed both Williams just pitted on lap 29. They also did on Lap 6 under safety car and had a few laps behind the SC. So say they did 20 laps on mediums. So, why/how so little? That's weird if they are assuming RB and Merc are going to do 30+ to the end? Just seems weird Williams stopped so early on the Ms.

 

[Coccxys]

> There's no car advantage honest.
> 1.4 seconds a lap quicker.

Cars like Williams and Haas wear their tyres so much more than the front running cars as they're more reliant on that mechanical grip over the aero that the top cars have.

 

[RomanesEuntDomus]

If you stray over line to try to get a racing advantage you may or may not get away with it, and you're still in the race so the temptation is greater

Maybe I just misunderstand you, but a driver really doesn't get away with crossing the line without being punished if the stuarts want to punish that behaviour. When track limits are enforced, the stuarts will look at slo-mo footage to determine if you went across or not.
You can go for a risky overtake, where you might exceed the track limits and have to give back your position, hoping you'll somehow wrestle the car enough to stay on the road.

Also, Mercedes always pushed Hamilton, so not even the other guy in a Mercedes was a credible threat at any point... on the other hand, it's a bit too early to say Verstappen is really going to challenge Hamilton. I expect him to end up with like 100ish points less than Lewis, which isn't much of a "challenge", is it?.

 

[Coccxys]

Well played Merc. That's basically it entirely thanks to Mercades strategy.

Come on Bottas fuck the script, fuck the BBC obsessed team and gravel that fucker.

 

[durdledoor]

Maybe I just misunderstand you, but a driver really doesn't get away with crossing the line without being punished if the stuarts want to punish that behaviour. When track limits are enforced, the stuarts will look at slo-mo footage to determine if you went across or not.
You can go for a risky overtake, where you might exceed the track limits and have to give back your position, hoping you'll somehow wrestle the car enough to stay on the road.

Also, Mercedes always pushed Hamilton, so not even the other guy in a Mercedes was a credible threat at any point... on the other hand, it's a bit too early to say Verstappen is really going to challenge Hamilton. I expect him to end up with like 100ish points less than Lewis, which isn't much of a "challenge", is it?.

If you have gained a race advantage you may have to give that back but you are still in the race
Enforcement by stewards isn't always consistent or fair some would say
Gravel tends to be entirely impartial and loss of 25 points tends to deter infringement

Bottas isn't the driver Hamilton is, so its no surprise he's been mainly number two on the podium for the last few years but he's still been ahead of the other teams because Mercedes have been dominant since the changes made several years ago. Good for Mercedes not good for the racing viewers

Its still early in the season but RB car is broadly competitive with Mercedes overall at this point
The rest is a mixture of driver ability and luck. Verstappen will have a job to do, so the odds I suspect at this stage would be that Hamilton takes an 8th record title .

 

[Coccxys]

Its still early in the season but RB car is broadly competitive with Mercedes overall at this point
The rest is a mixture of driver ability and luck.

I really don't think it is. It very much looks like Merc is by far the better race car. The red bull can put in fast single laps but if Vestappen hadn't been in front of lewlew at the beginning giving him dirty air Hamilton would have just driven off into the distance. When both pitted for new tyres Hamilton was 6 seconds behind and 1.4 seconds quicker a lap, then when he caught up got stuck in the 1-1.5 second dirty air zone again.

 

[durdledoor]

I really don't think it is. It very much looks like Merc is by far the better race car. The red bull can put in fast single laps but if Vestappen hadn't been in front of lewlew at the beginning giving him dirty air Hamilton would have just driven off into the distance. When both pitted for new tyres Hamilton was 6 seconds behind and 1.4 seconds quicker a lap, then when he caught up got stuck in the 1-1.5 second dirty air zone again.

We would have to agree to disagree
Hamilton lost pole and has taken some 60 laps to retake the lead
He's an experienced and able driver so will take some beating this year still.
Mercedes had the better strategy in terms of pitstops and tyres
Given how it worked out there was little verstappen could do
Its important to collect points even if its not the maximum


You would need to look at a whole range of metrics including sector times straight line speed , etc but I would argue they are broadly competitive at this point car for car
When red bull were winning titles with vettel, . mercedes often had a straight line speed advantage but lost out on handling and aerodynamics .

 

[The Grognard]

There is no actual weaknesses to the Merc. It does everything well and they still have managed to retain the technical edge they've held since 2014.

 

[RomanesEuntDomus]

If you have gained a race advantage you may have to give that back but you are still in the race

Exactly, and ever since the farce of the first race this season, the rule was: "You're not allowed to go over the line for any reason at any time" like it is handled in qualifying, only in a race it takes three infringements before you get a time penalty.

Enforcement by stewards isn't always consistent or fair some would say

It's pretty easy to tell if a car went over the line or not. The stewarts might have a lot of leeway to declare someone's driving too aggressive, but they have no leeway when it comes to "driving over a line or not". If they enforce the rules differently, you can bet your ass the other teams will instantly start circling FIA.

Gravel tends to be entirely impartial and loss of 25 points tends to deter infringement

Yes, but it also tends to cause cars to flip uncontrollably, takes away what little control a crashing car might still have without slowing it down and makes removal of crashed cars harder. That's why it is not used in most tracks anymore. It would be nice to have a similar boundary set up that forces drivers to look out, but gravel has too many downsides, so we get that rather silly "imaginary line - do not cross" stuff...

Also, Verstappen will not challenge Hamilton, he just won't. The car is great at doing qualifying laps, but Mercedes beats RB by engineering and strategy in the race easily. Hamilton managed to close a >20s gap within 15 laps or so and overtake Verstappen, once he stopped for new tyres. The amount of power the car has to spare is insane and when it has a clear road, it will just breeze downrange without anyone getting even remotely close. I'll be severely surprised if Verstappen manages to stay within 60 points of Hamilton. Hell, I won't be surprised if the gap ends up in the 90-120 range.
Verstappen had a great race and that one slightly botched pitstop aside had all the advantages one could hope for and it still wasn't enough.

And goddamnit. Bottas pretty much got told "Move aside for Hamilton. Unlike you, he's supposed to win." That's just a dick move.
That's the kind of stuff that makes me wonder if it wasn't worth it to just stop the car somewhere and tell the strategist to fuck off.

 

[Coccxys]

Hamilton lost pole and has taken some 60 laps to retake the lead

On a track that is extremely difficult to follow on due to the dirty air from the car infront. As said earlier Hamilton was stuck 1-1.5 seconds behind after losing the lead but when both were on similar aged tyres of the same compound Hamilton was catching at 1.4 per lap until he hit dirty air again.

The red bull is good at one lap pace but just can't replicate that lap after lap on aging tyres with full tanks. It suggests that Honda's gains have been on abosolute battery power which can't be replicated lap after lap in the race.

 

[GigaKike]

So Hamilton wins again. But Red Bull has the "better" car. Sure lol

 

[RomanesEuntDomus]

So Hamilton wins again. But Red Bull has the "better" car. Sure lol

Come on, we need to elevate the performance of Hamilton somehow. Claiming that the Red Bull is super serial competition that he barely can keep in check does nicely for the "best driver ever" narrative, that ignores entirely literally anything happening on track.
The moment he doesn't just have his way with the entire field from lap 1, commentators stumble over one another to pretend that this somehow means mighty Mercedes has fallen and that the power dynamic is now inverted.

Edit:
The fuck is even going on at Ferrari:

 

[Full Race Replay]

It was quite an interesting race to watch. Verstappen's pass on turn 1 was incredible, just like in Imola. Unfortunately he didn't have enough in the tank and Mercedes' strategy call worked out nicely. It's too bad that we're already back to business as usual with Max just not having enough pace, but second place means that he's not so far out of reach of the championship just yet. It is a long year so let's hope Max can get some more quality wins.

 

[Ungrim Ironfist]

Firstly, good on Mercedes for their strategy today. Credit where it's due, they basically check mate'd Verstappen and RB. But lol at the coverage of this race. On my feed, the commentators were trying to hype up how Verstappen was going to defend against hambone on lap 60. Like, nigger, VER is on 30+ lap tyres, HAM isn't going to have to use some clever manoeuvre. Why risk it, when he can just fly past him on the long straight leading up to turn one, using DRS? And lo and behold that's what happened.

Also the amount of replays showing DRS takeovers

Also also the extent to which Bottas is getting cucked is unseemly, at this point. I'm glad he held up HAM on lap 52.

Despite the negatives, I thought it was an ok GP overall. But maybe I've just forgotten what an exciting F1 race looks like.

 

[Full Race Replay]

Firstly, good on Mercedes for their strategy today

That was definitely a pretty epic strategy call, and not like the Hamilton pole-to-win races that bore me. And there was a good amount of action through the field, not just drs-overtakes. I remember Gasly Vettel and the boys were going 3-wide in the 1st and 2nd sectors on that one lap, good stuff.


Here's my humble Catalunya final turn suggestion. I feel like this is the best case scenario besides moving the wall back so there would be enough runoff to use the old final turn instead of the chicane. (And also, use the old turn 10 even if the pavement is laid for the new turn for the motorbikes)

unrelated edit:

Do you guys think tsunoda is gonna be a one-year and done driver in f1? His performance has unfortunately been quite poor, and his comments about unequal cars to his teammate yesterday are pretty damning, I would be surprised if he was not at least directly warned about being fired for those comments. As for all the rookies, I think Mick Schumacher is way more promising in terms of talent/potential.

 

[Pee Cola]

The fuck is even going on at Ferrari:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=USgIhtu8oaY

About the same level of competence as McLaren:

Firstly, good on Mercedes for their strategy today. Credit where it's due, they basically check mate'd Verstappen and RB. But lol at the coverage of this race. On my feed, the commentators were trying to hype up how Verstappen was going to defend against hambone on lap 60. Like, nigger, VER is on 30+ lap tyres, HAM isn't going to have to use some clever manoeuvre. Why risk it, when he can just fly past him on the long straight leading up to turn one, using DRS? And lo and behold that's what happened.

Also the amount of replays showing DRS takeovers

Also also the extent to which Bottas is getting cucked is unseemly, at this point. I'm glad he held up HAM on lap 52.

Despite the negatives, I thought it was an ok GP overall. But maybe I've just forgotten what an exciting F1 race looks like.

Thanks for the wrap-up. I was almost going to stay up and watch, but I was knackered last night. Given how unremarkable the last two races were, we're probably due for a more interesting race in the next couple of rounds. Will have to make more of an effort to stay up for the next one.

Do you guys think tsunoda is gonna be a one-year and done driver in f1? His performance has unfortunately been quite poor, and his comments about unequal cars to his teammate yesterday are pretty damning, I would be surprised if he was not at least directly warned about being fired for those comments.

I'm not sure if Tsunoda will be a one-year wonder. He's been good enough to pick up a couple of WDC points (even though Gasly has picked up more). After a few more seasons, Tsunoda may end up being a solid mid-fielder; Japan isn't exactly known for its F1 champions, and I can't see Tsunoda breaking this drought. TBH I can't see Japan producing an F1 champion in my lifetime.

As for all the rookies, I think Mick Schumacher is way more promising in terms of talent/potential.

I agree. Once Mick gets a seat with a decent midfield team, we'll start seeing his true potential. That said, I can see Mick picking up a few WDC points this season.

 

[Full Race Replay]

Btw, that race director-team boss radio message was a cool touch. I hope they have more of those, especially if they argue about rules and stuff.

and add Toto to the people who complained about Mazepin
leclerc, norris, Toto in one weekend (Giovinazzi and Perez previously)

 

[Coccxys]

I think Tsunoda would be far safet if Honda was staying since Japanese and sponsored by them. He's getting the chance to make a claim for that seat, he better make it because Albon is still on a red bull contract. He had a great first race but its looking more and more like a fluke.

That bit of a battle between Russel and Schumacher was great because in 5 years or so that's going to be the fight for the top. Russel is going to be in a Merc and Schumacher in a ferrari by then and hopefully with decent equipment.

Nicely done @Full Race Replay for being 1-2 on this GP's fantasy F1.