Formula 1 Discussion - And favourite driver?

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Found what Hamilton was upto.

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Morning session of the first day of testing is done. The ferrari is looking strong. I know testing times are meaningless but LeClerc was going around consistently putting in strong times.

If we had the top 3 (Leclerc, Albon, Vettel) being the three fighting for a championship I would not be complaining (and wouldn't know who to support) but I highly doubt that will be the case unfortunately.

Watching the practice today mercedes look to be suffering with porpoising still with Russell basically bouncing along the ground throwing up sparks. Aston, Alpine and Ferrari seem to still have some though seems less of a problem than than it was. I've not seen anyone else really suffer with any.

Front locking is a massive issue on these cars. It's happening a lot and seems very difficult to recover so there's going to be a learning curve for the drivers.
 
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Right, think I'm going all in on team Prancing Horse, she's a beaut.

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Lap times
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And Haas has managed to get some of their lost time back with an extra 2 hours tomorrow and Saturday night.

I also have tomorrow off work so I'll be watching the testing, have to get an edge in defending my title. 😉
 
Impressions from watching the whole first day of testing:

The Ferrari looks the nicest to drive, very few lockups and just looks less drama. They did have the floor off and mechanics around it a few times though.

The Red Bull looks very understeery and Perez did seem to struggle for consistency but he did put in a lot of mileage.

The Alpha Romeo looks a lot better than the "shake down" suggested.

The Hass looks a handful, a lot of locking up and running wide. That was in the hands of Fittipaldi though who doesn't strike me as overly capable.

The mercs still seem to have the worst porpoisong problem and it looks just heavy when maneuvering. Yeah they have a tendancy to sandbag in testing/practices but there was nothing there to suggest it will suddenly become a lot more agile.

The Alpine looks a pain too and not overly reliable. Might get some good Alonso radio calls this year.
 
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Coccxys said:
Impressions from watching the whole first test:

The Ferrari looks the nicest to drive, very few lockups and just looks less drama. They did have the floor off and mechanics around it a few times though.

The Red Bull looks very understeery and Perez did seem to struggle for consistency but he did put in a lot of mileage.

The Alpha Romeo looks a lot better than the "shake down" suggested.

The Hass looks a handful, a lot of locking up and running wide. That was in the hands of Fittipaldi though who doesn't strike me as overly capable.

The mercs still seem to have the worst porpoisong problem and it looks just heavy when maneuvering. Yeah they have a tendancy to sandbag in testing/practices but there was nothing there to suggest it will suddenly become a lot more agile.

The Alpine looks a pain too and not overly reliable. Might get some good Alonso radio calls this year.
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It's a shame we won't get some No-Fucks-Given comments from Kimi. I miss him already and the season hasn't even started.
 
As I read it mid season tech directives with a few races notice like in previous seasons. Hopefully the teams don't just start pulling that shit willy nilly or it will just go crazy.

Edit: found the full rule and its not as horrific as that sky line. It's 8 teams plus the FIA have to agree, the FIA can ignore them of it so chooses.
 
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I managed to watch a good chunk of the PM test session today. In addition to Ferrari being talked up, AT seems to be getting fair number of compliments about one of the better handling cars and not as severely effected by the "dolphin" effect...

If AT is one of the better cars handling this issue, I'd hate to see the others onboards! LOL
 
For fuck sake hambone still has some entourage of black people even at pre-season testing. Is that douche capable of spending any time with his actual team rather than having his celebrity entourage?
 
The porpoisong on the Merc looks horrific. Others are nowhere near as bad, the Merc is throwing up sparks on every down oscillation so the floor is bouncing along the track. It will be very uncomfortable and I can't see a car lasting a full gp at racing speeds like that.

McLaren and Aston Martin both seem to be having a lot of reliability problems.
 
Coccxys said:
The porpoisong on the Merc looks horrific. Others are nowhere near as bad, the Merc is throwing up sparks on every down oscillation so the floor is bouncing along the track. It will be very uncomfortable and I can't see a car lasting a full gp at racing speeds like that.

McLaren and Aston Martin both seem to be having a lot of reliability problems.
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Yeah, I saw that too when Ham was going down the straight. Crazy! Agreed on McL and AM not looking too great. My initial competitive order, based on nothing but feeling from watching the session (yeah, I know means squat!) and some hope I suppose.

Ferrari
RB
AT
McL
Merc
Alpine
AM
Will
Alfa
Haas

I am not sure if I can bet on F1 here in Canaduh, but if I could/can, I'd put $50 on Sainz for title. If these cars are kind of a handful, and Ferrari is the best car and with his inherent rally genetics, he might be one driver who this car suits.

As we all know, there could be heavy sandbagging go on throughout the entirety of the field, but I totally agree, Merc look like they have more hardship with the bouncing than most. It'd be great if their design with the sidepods doesn't allow for them to fix the fluctuating problem without a serious impact on performance and they have to redesign the car! I mean sandbagging is one thing, but I don't think that includes making the car handle badly. Turning down engine, high fuel I can see, but the bouncing issue seems pretty severe for them.
 
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Yeah sandbagging would usually be turn the engine down, tell the driver to take it a bit easier etc. That merc looks fundamentally difficult to drive quickly.

I agree for the most part with your ranking but I think Williams might be further up the field than that, maybe ahead of AM and Alpine.
 
Yeah, it gets tough to sort them from 5th down, which is a good sign! Yes, quite possible Williams will be much higher up, which would be great. As long as Merc is 4th or lower, then I will be ecstatic regardless of where the other's are. To see Ham scrambling to hold on to a top 10 finish would be wonderful and then we can see how "great" of a driver he is.

Let's see what end of day tomorrow looks like, but I will be surprised (and pissed) if Merc ends up fastest assuming they all go for a performance run or two. Ham just went 2 seconds slower than Sainz. On soft tires and what looked to be a performance run. 👊
 
Coccxys said:
If they're struggling down in the minor point places and not making major progress towards the front I expect a Lewis retirement announcement (unless he can find his way into the best car for 23 of course).
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Imagine a year where we never see Ham on the podium at all, George scores a few and Lewis announces his retirement and goes out with a whimper and a significant portion of the population becomes woke and realizes he was only lucky to win the titles as he got in a dominant team.

"F1 2022", coming soon to a theatre near you?? Oscar winner indeed if that script is followed.

Also, I saw a tweet about some docu Apple+ TV is making/made about Lewis? I will never watch it, but just wanted to mention it.
 
Well Sky seem to think Merc will be the dominant team again (with Ham beating Russell of course) followed by ferrari, red bull and alfa romeo being slowest. It feels like cope since merc sure don't look fastest.
 
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