Formula 1 Discussion - And favourite driver?

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Please tell me that's satire.
It's r/lewishamilton only the finest sauce of hambone fan salt when he ain't winning.

If you want the absolute true reddit moment for Hamilton fans it's right here
SmartSelect_20220327-231110_Reddit.jpg

Also looks like we're back to the "it's all the team's fault, I'm perfect in everyway" Hamilton we always get when he doesn't just walk it.
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I watched the final laps of the race. There was something present in the battle for first place that I haven't really seen in the sport for some time: The different personalities of the two drivers are evident in the way that they race each other. Max is gifted, possibly the more intuitive of the pair, but over-emotional. Charles is cooler and there is a grace in the way he handles the Ferrari that elevates his driving into the realm of the aesthetic. There were moments when he was taking a corner and the way he had the car positioned was beautiful in and of itself.
And it kind of makes me wonder what the grid would look like if we had some like old Schumi, not in terms of racecraft, but in terms of being able to exploit his rival's emotions. Verstappen, for all the talent he has, strikes me as a driver who would easily fall for Michael's brand of mind games (he even fell for Leclerc playing possum before the DRS zones). That's what made the Hakkinen/Schumi Rivalry great and I think Leclerc/Verstappen might end up having a similar dichotomy with Leclerc being the more calculated "get shit done" driver against Max's raw ability.
 
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It's r/lewishamilton only the finest sauce of hambone fan salt when he ain't winning.

If you want the absolute true reddit moment for Hamilton fans it's right here
View attachment 3115471

Also looks like we're back to the "it's all the team's fault, I'm perfect in everyway" Hamilton we always get when he doesn't just walk it.
View attachment 3115641
Gees, make a racing driver funko and put a baseball cap on him! Oh wait, they will probably have a chase with helmet and another exclusive with a silver suit!

My daughter's fiance actually bought funko stock awhile back and made a good haul before dumping it when the market started becoming oversaturated with them. Don't they make cereals and soda pops now as well? It might have been a neat fun idea/toy when it first came out, but like Beanie Babies and other toy collectibles, the 27 variants, seriously limited numbers of some models etc. is just a bit too much. But gotta reap the bucks as well know!

As for the race, I had Alfa/Bottas so that hurt when he went out. Mag came though but not as good as last race. I had Leclerc as turbo in both my teams, same as last week, so bit pissed he didn't manage to hold on.

It was a great race. At times. But it was also kind of meh for a lot of it. There was good action, but the gap between top 2 and rest is still too large sadly. In a way I hope Merc gets their act together to make it 3 at the top. I'd prefer another team like Haas or Alfa to be that 3rd team, but unlikely. It will be Merc or no one. It would be rather cool though if Max/Charles swap wins each weekend for the first half of the season. I'd like to see Checo and Carlos up with them and have a 4 driver fight, but they need to finish 1-2 next weekend so they can get back in touch a bit. It wont be long before both are helping their teammates if they don't soon start matching them.

Checo did look real good, and while not knowing how it would have all shaken out if no safety car periods occurred, he probably would have won the race or at least podium.

First day time race coming up, I know its fall in Australia, any among us from around there and can chime in on how warm the temps may be when they race? I assume we can expect 20C+ during the weekend?

Australia will be interesting with now 2 weeks to build shit/upgrades and also being a day race. Could there be a shuffle, will a team that looks pretty good fall off, or will one of the shitty teams rise up. As most races in F1 are in the day and usually quite warm, will that make any differences in the competitive order or with the actual racing/tires?
 
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And it kind of makes me wonder what the grid would look like if we had some like old Schumi, not in terms of racecraft, but in terms of being able to exploit his rival's emotions. Verstappen, for all the talent he has, strikes me as a driver who would easily fall for Michael's brand of mind games (he even fell for Leclerc playing possum before the DRS zones). That's what made the Hakkinen/Schumi Rivalry great and I think Leclerc/Verstappen might end up having a similar dichotomy with Leclerc being the more calculated "get shit done" driver against Max's raw ability.
This 2022 battle between lec and ver could have the same kind of dynamics like Mercedes and Red Bull in 2020-21, where Leclerc has the better car package and qualifies ahead and cruises to victory most of the time, and Max scrapes together some wins based off of wacky strategies with a bit of luck...the evidence from telemetry points out that Ferrari has the better car overall, they can bolt on more downforce for the same straight-line speed.
 
Plenty of good observations made by a number of posters already, so I will try to focus on stuff that wasn't mentioned.

I'm disappointed that Alpha Tauri isn't doing better, as I was looking towards Gasly taking points off Hamilton, but so far that hasn't happened.

This likely won't matter because even if Mercedes gets on top of its issues, the 2022 Championships will be out of reach by the time that happens.

As for some people complaining about Max whining, pretty much all the drivers have a touch of primadonna to them.

Carlos Sainz on the radio when anyone gets close to him, talks as though his life was seriously in danger, but I try not to let it bother me too much.

Even though I regard Hamilton as one of the worst whingers on the radio, I actually think that on that issue, people here are actually harder on Hamilton than he deserves.
 
First day time race coming up, I know its fall in Australia, any among us from around there and can chime in on how warm the temps may be when they race? I assume we can expect 20C+ during the weekend?
Summer was unusually cool and wet due to an extreme La Nina weather event, and I wouldn't be surprised if this year's Australian F1 GP is wetter than usual.

As for temps, I'd expect anywhere from 18-25C.
 
Also looks like we're back to the "it's all the team's fault, I'm perfect in everyway" Hamilton we always get when he doesn't just walk it.
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And this is what sets a real great driver like Michael Schumacher apart from Hamilton. When Schumacher joined Ferrari in 1996 he had this real awful period in the summer when he didn't finish races (or could even start in case of the French GP) But he never chastised his team instead he stepped up and said that if his boss is fired he will leave as well. And he also worked hard doing tests until the dark hours driving the car to get data. I never heard Schumacher complain about his team (though I bet that he made internal waves to get improvements)

Also take a listen to this team radio


Should Mercedes stay this way he might get more of these results. He might get a taste on what Vettel went through in 2014. Of course we are just 2 races in and a lot can change. But if the rumors are true that the exodus at Mercedes especially the engine department hurt them then Mercedes might revert back to the early 2010's. And all Merc customers will be fucked since the engine development is frozen except for some part which will be frozen come September. Well Merc might try to make improvements citing reliability but they will need the consent of 5 teams. Right now we have 4 teams with Merc engines. Makes me wonder if one team will give their ok should this request come to the table
 
And here comes the reddit takes on Hamilton sucking.

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Bottas in Reddit's eyes:
Bottas.jpeg
It's r/lewishamilton only the finest sauce of hambone fan salt when he ain't winning.

If you want the absolute true reddit moment for Hamilton fans it's right here
View attachment 3115471

Also looks like we're back to the "it's all the team's fault, I'm perfect in everyway" Hamilton we always get when he doesn't just walk it.
View attachment 3115641
How can his fanboys say that he shows grace in defeat when he always does the very generic "angry pouty child" routine by blaming literally everyone but himself.
But then again, maybe it was all his team's fault. After all, what did Hamilton's teammate achieve? Oh right. 5th place. Well fucken gee.
 
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The thing I'm most surprised about this season is the Alfas. I expected Zhou to be a pay shitter like Mazespin but he's been a pretty solid middle of the pack driver so far.
 
That alfa is challenging for top 8 in the hands of his admittedly much more experienced team mate. I wouldn't say he's off to that great a start playing at fighting with the Williams at the back. I will reserve judgement til mid-season though like all rookies.

That penalty fuck up was just embarrassing though. The team screwed up big time. They should have told him to give Albon the place back as it was obvious he went off the track to make the overtake (now teams have to police it themselves too). He then got the 5 seconds which is standard which was promptly served under the safety car which you cannot do. Then he got the drive through for that. I don't know what the hell the alfa sporting director, team principal or Zhou's engineer were up to at the time but there was some major failings there.
 
That penalty fuck up was just embarrassing though. The team screwed up big time. They should have told him to give Albon the place back as it was obvious he went off the track to make the overtake (now teams have to police it themselves too). He then got the 5 seconds which is standard which was promptly served under the safety car which you cannot do. Then he got the drive through for that. I don't know what the hell the alfa sporting director, team principal or Zhou's engineer were up to at the time but there was some major failings there.
They hired Ferrari's old pit strategy guy I'd wager. I find it interesting how good Ferrari has gotten so far this year with their pit crews and strategy. Yes we still have the "we are checking" but it has become far less memable

Also it seems as if the teams can still message race control (at least that is my impression when Sainz complained about Perez he said "Let FIA know" or something similar. And Red Bull ordered Checo to let Sainz past either on demand by Race control or as you said "self police"
 
Comparison of Russell and Hamilton’s qualifying laps:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=wfIFS6E2p-k
Adversity (actual adversity not just being black), builds strength. Russel has fighting to get the most out of a shit car for years, and is in a better position to make the most of the flawed Mercedes. Hambone on the other hand has only had good cars, so he's lost as he tries to perform in something less than optimal.
 
Also it seems as if the teams can still message race control (at least that is my impression when Sainz complained about Perez he said "Let FIA know" or something similar. And Red Bull ordered Checo to let Sainz past either on demand by Race control or as you said "self police"
Teams can still contact the race director, but those conversations are no longer broadcasted. FIA says to avoid putting the race director under pressure, I think it's so people don't bitch about the race director using a similar word like some team principal like with Masi telling Wolff that they went motor racing.
I assume that FIA made it clear that calls starting with bitching and whining will be penalized though.

Adversity (actual adversity not just being black), builds strength. Russel has fighting to get the most out of a shit car for years, and is in a better position to make the most of the flawed Mercedes. Hambone on the other hand has only had good cars, so he's lost as he tries to perform in something less than optimal.
Wouldn't surprise me. Hamilton had tailor made cars with perfect setups that could effortlessly drive half a second quicker than anyone else if need be and then just coast through the rest of the race as unchallanged leader with enough lead for a free pitstop. Russel had to nail every single lap on every single weekend to even take a whiff of a points rank.
One learned to lean back and let the engineers sort it out. The other learned to drive a barely drivable car and compete in the mid-field, where competition is fiercest.

I mean, this is one race, so we should not put too much emphasis on it, let's wait for the next couple races, if this stays the same, we'll know it's just Hamilton being on the downswing of his career while Russel slowly emerges as a great driver.

Truly, Verstappen, Leclerc and Russel in a threeway fight for the title would be pretty neat.
 
Yeah, those are great points that I never even thought about. It is very likely, I agree, that he has had it too easy and now can't deal with a car that has to struggle to even get 3rd row. He is used to front row and not having to work too much to keep cars behind him given the prior regs prevented following and attacking on a consistent basis.

Lewis having it easy for so long has made him lax and not prepared to cope with having a car that more often than not won the races it competed in. Or he has lost the driving skills he had a decade ago as he has never had to use all he had for 8 years. Remember that race a year or two ago where he was panting and stressed over the team radio. That was the most I ever heard him sound like he was working his ass off behind the wheel. I mean other than a handful of races over last 8 years, what would the percentage be of him having to really be at peak performance while racing? I'd say less than 20%, closer to 10%. Like maybe 20 races as a quick rough guess using 160 races over the 8 years as a basis. Most of the time he was either out front, or breezing past opposition if he was down the field a bit.

Assuming Merc doesn't really improve to challenge top 3, and some teams behind can keep in touch with Merc, will be quite fun to watch Ham having a shit race most of the time. He could easily not even be top 5 in WDC at end of year and would be lucky to place 6th if Alonso, Bottas, Mag, Ocon stay looking good and their teams keep improving. Merc/Ham need an instant fix to get them challenging for wins or they are going to have to fight to be 3rd best. All those teams have the extra development perks due to Merc winning the title last year. Up until mid-season when it resets to current WCC order. So, for next 10 races or so, those teams if they have their shit real together, should be able to close the gap even more to Top 3. Theoretically.

So yeah, great observations @Things Better Forgotten and @RomanesEuntDomus on George having 3 years to learn how to deal with a shit car and Lewis having it too easy for too long. Given all that, it won't really be a huge surprise if Russell does wipe the floor with Lewis a bit. Hope so, it may speed up him finally leaving and going to Hollywood which is where he ultimately wants to be! He probably has aspirations (illusions) to be the next Rock or Will Smith or some other black entertainment icon.
 
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So yeah, great observations @Things Better Forgotten and @RomanesEuntDomus on George having 3 years to learn how to deal with a shit car and Lewis having it too easy for too long. Given all that, it won't really be a huge surprise if Russell does wipe the floor with Lewis a bit. Hope so, it may speed up him finally leaving and going to Hollywood which is where he ultimately wants to be! He probably has aspirations (illusions) to be the next Rock or Will Smith or some other black entertainment icon.
This really give a sense of Deja Vu with Vettel's 2014 season when Ricciardo replaced Webber and Red Bull was strangled by an unreliable Renault engine and other changes. Vettel suddenly struggled while Ricciardo who had driven for HRt and Torro Rosso was able to get the best out of the car. then again Vettel was mostlikely not shoiwing everything as he wanted to leave so there is that.
 
Adversity (actual adversity not just being black), builds strength. Russel has fighting to get the most out of a shit car for years, and is in a better position to make the most of the flawed Mercedes.
Russel had to nail every single lap on every single weekend to even take a whiff of a points rank.
So yeah, great observations @Things Better Forgotten and @RomanesEuntDomus on George having 3 years to learn how to deal with a shit car and Lewis having it too easy for too long. Given all that, it won't really be a huge surprise if Russell does wipe the floor with Lewis a bit.
I think George might be the next Jenson Button, able to get the best out of a midfield car. I mean, he got a front row start in a Williams.
 
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