Formula 1 Discussion - And favourite driver?

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I would count today's start as a massive norris panic even if Crofty and button were sucking dick about how great it is to see him start so aggressively.

He saw Max got a better start and panicked throwing it over in a way that meant he would never make the 1st turn. It wasn't some genius 4D chess squeeze then unlucky at T1 like Croft kept saying.

If Verstappen gets close enough to make him panic in the upcoming races he will.
 
Certainly looked that way. Verstappoen has a reputation (kinda like Senna) so this can happen. Remember when hamilton flunked the restart at Baku 2021 (which gave us the great Mark Webber scream)? Wasn't that bad but imagine that would have happened.
 
I been loving the "It's so over" and "We're so back" cycle with Max and what a way to endcap the end of a regulation cycle. Regardless of who wins I certainly think Hamilton is the biggest loser this year because it's easily his worst year and makes me believe he should of retired in 2021 with what could have been a great end cap to his career or 2024 where he could at least get a win or at least score a podium.
 
I'm wondering whats happened thats closed up the field to McLaren since the Summer break, did Woking cease development on the current car early when they had a huge lead to focus on 26, or did RB/Merc stumble upon what MCL was doing in the first place that gave them such an advantage early on?
 
There is a line between ruthlessness and desperation and Norris is the wrong side of it. Even before the start, the angle of his car telegrpahed his retarded tactics. From his point of view, nerfing one of his rivals off the circuit may seem an acceptable risk given his lead. While it is likely he will be World Champion he doesn't feel like one. Today the content of his character was evident in his conversations with the pits during the final laps, where it seemed as though he was expecting the team to spoonfeed him a solution to his Verstappen problem .

Bearman - a British driver who I do like, and who has visibly imropved as the season has progressed - had a really good start but the Haas wasn't up to. Piastri was sliding around all over the place. He is not in the right mindset and there is no time no to reflect and regroup. Unless Norris succeeds in taking Verstappen out, I could see him taking the bronze medal.

This was another race where the marshals were an absolute shambles. The man who was sent onto the circuit, under the virtual safety car, to retrieve the debris for one of the collisions - I forget who it was - missed a bloody great piece of bodywork, had to go back for it, and then dithered on the track while the other marshals shouted at him from the wall. There is clearly a problem here.
 
JoseRaulChupacabra said:
If Pastry can just keep his whipped cream on the plate, he might still have a chance.
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It wouldn't be surprising if McLaren modifies the floor to avoid more embarrassment and ends up losing competitiveness like Ferrari did earlier this season after that double DSQ in China. The thing is, what if this makes Piastri level with Lando again? it would fuel claims of McL having developed the car towards Lando in the last rounds. To me it's still inexplicable that Piastri went from hero to zero just like that. I've seen drivers collapse mentally before but usually they had an external reason for it. I'll be eagerly awaiting to see what happens with the car's performance from now on.
 
Double disqualification came out of nowhere. Is the technicality an engineering thing where they let the drivers down? Cus if I were the Mclaren boys I would be fuming. Couldn't come at a worse time. As far as Piastri collapsing, he looked worried after qualifying. I don't understand it either. Maybe he has spooked himself. I don't imagine disqualification will help either of them mentally. I'm expecting mistakes out of reckless desperation from now on.
 
Halo Cipher said:
Double disqualification came out of nowhere. Is the technicality an engineering thing where they let the drivers down? Cus if I were the Mclaren boys I would be fuming. Couldn't come at a worse time. As far as Piastri collapsing, he looked worried after qualifying. I don't understand it either. Maybe he has spooked himself. I don't imagine disqualification will help either of them mentally. I'm expecting mistakes out of reckless desperation from now on.
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I didnt really pay much attention to the practice sessions but if I recall correctly McLaren was expected to struggle at this race, but were surprisingly strong. I wonder if the engineers just got a little over ambitious with the setup and this DSQ is a fluke.
 
VorpalAnvil- said:
I didnt really pay much attention to the practice sessions but if I recall correctly McLaren was expected to struggle at this race, but were surprisingly strong. I wonder if the engineers just got a little over ambitious with the setup and this DSQ is a fluke.
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I think McLaren's position was due to the disrupted practice sessions they didn't get enough of a picture on plank wear and thus didn't raise the height. Something like that.

Doesn't explain why the other 9 teams didn't have same issue.

My assumption is if there had been normal running in practice, they would have made appropriate adjustments. Again tho, why did the other 9 teams not have same issues?

Definitely odd, I expect we will hear more about it.
 
Halo Cipher said:
Double disqualification came out of nowhere. Is the technicality an engineering thing where they let the drivers down?
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They didn't get clean long runs in in practice so weren't able to make sure they were high enough not to wear the plank on long runs starting with full fuel.

I suspect the championship will end on a wet fart in Qatar. Don't forget Norris only needs to outscore them both by 2 points over the weekend to win it.
 
it's getting very real now.
Not A Bunny said:
If Red Bull cared about anyone other than Verstappen, they'd have done this months ago. I guess they are more concerned about looking too flaky with their drivers, but I suspect there's a great game of theatrics going on in the sport where everyone watching knows what's happening and everyone involved pretends that nobody can see it (either that, or you have a bunch of Les Grossmans in some positions of power over at least the top four teams that know you can see what's happening and give as few shits as necessary).

Of course, I have a working theory that there's really no driver development at Red Bull and they just insist on keeping good drivers, but not anyone with enough potential to eclipse their golden boy. I have a different working theory that Max buddies up to all the rookies for the purposes of poaching later (I do not for one second believe that Max is buddy-buddy with anyone that isn't convenient to him); I think it's more likely that Antonelli ends up at Red Bull before Max ends up at Mercedes.
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They know the car was/is impossible to drive. Yuki has a contract with honda which is about to expire. 1 + 1
 
I think mclaren were running too close to the ground in qualifying for an advantage and it bit them in the ass during the race. Thoughts?
 
Halo Cipher said:
I think mclaren were running too close to the ground in qualifying for an advantage and it bit them in the ass during the race. Thoughts?
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Well the closer you can get to the ground the better but you need to not destroy the plank. No one sets off to run too low because the disqualification is inevitable if you do. That is on of the reason they do long runs in practice because they need to calculate the wear rate and see if they're safe or need to sacrifice some performance and raise it slightly. You can't change ride height between qualifying and the race so deliberately running too low in qualifying would be crazy and mean you have to do a whole race of lico.

We're talking insane margins here so a slight miscalculation or incorrect wear rate in the simulation and this is the result. It was 0.12 mm (less than the thickness of a human hair) too worn in the case of Norris so not hard to see how they could end up woth that result from an incorrect assumption.

Don't forget the FIA issues a TD between Brazil and Vegas banning a certain style of titanium skid block they found an unnamed team was using. Essentially the design expanded when hot (from dragging along the ground) protecting the plank more, then when cooled (when it would be measured) contracted back to the size allowed for the part. If that unnamed team was McLaren then that means they have everything set for being lower than the plank would survive under normal circumstances. It would mean they'll suffer in Qatar and Abu Dhabi too either by having to be too high or for getting disqualified for a wrecked plank again.
 
Coccxys said:
Well the closer you can get to the ground the better but you need to not destroy the plank. No one sets off to run too low because the disqualification is inevitable if you do. That is on of the reason they do long runs in practice because they need to calculate the wear rate and see if they're safe or need to sacrifice some performance and raise it slightly. You can't change ride height between qualifying and the race so deliberately running too low in qualifying would be crazy and mean you have to do a whole race of lico.

We're talking insane margins here so a slight miscalculation or incorrect wear rate in the simulation and this is the result. It was 0.12 mm (less than the thickness of a human hair) too worn in the case of Norris so not hard to see how they could end up woth that result from an incorrect assumption.

Don't forget the FIA issues a TD between Brazil and Vegas banning a certain style of titanium skid block they found an unnamed team was using. Essentially the design expanded when hot (from dragging along the ground) protecting the plank more, then when cooled (when it would be measured) contracted back to the size allowed for the part. If that unnamed team was McLaren then that means they have everything set for being lower than the plank would survive under normal circumstances. It would mean they'll suffer in Qatar and Abu Dhabi too either by having to be too high or for getting disqualified for a wrecked plank again.
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Would this thermal tech perhaps be related to the tire heating thermal trick Woking has enjoyed this season?
 
VorpalAnvil- said:
Would this thermal tech perhaps be related to the tire heating thermal trick Woking has enjoyed this season?
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I can't see how they'd be linked except for the extra downforce they could make from having the blocks protecting the floor would protect the tyres.

I think they realised towards the end of the race they were fucked, that's why they got Norris into extreme LICO to try and avoid wearing the plank too much. That also matches with Piastri's plank being worse because they didn’t have him doing the same.
 
Verstappen is probably cursing his own stupidity in Spain (which demoted him from P5 to P10) then Talibantonelli in Austria and the race in Hungary. Those are points he is now missing. Then again if Norris wins in Quatar it's all over.

Also, why Red Bull closed the gap: they still put resources into the current car just to see how close they can get. And look at that, several wins across the board, P3 in the constructors (thanks Verstappen) and now even a fighting chance. All other teams (except Haas update in austin) focused on 2026 (Alpine allegedly threw the entire 2025 season in the bin to focus on 2026). Will be interesting to see how Red Bull's focus on 2025 will bit them for 2026. Maybe they learned some things this year they can use for next year.

But Mclaren running too close to the ground? Not sure. Quali was wet and usually when it's wet you have to raise the car more to not create aquaplaning. Maybe Mclaren gambled too much but it might also have been the specific track conditions of Vegas.
 
Balr0g said:
Verstappen is probably cursing his own stupidity in Spain (which demoted him from P5 to P10) then Talibantonelli in Austria and the race in Hungary. Those are points he is now missing. Then again if Norris wins in Quatar it's all over.

Also, why Red Bull closed the gap: they still put resources into the current car just to see how close they can get. And look at that, several wins across the board, P3 in the constructors (thanks Verstappen) and now even a fighting chance. All other teams (except Haas update in austin) focused on 2026 (Alpine allegedly threw the entire 2025 season in the bin to focus on 2026). Will be interesting to see how Red Bull's focus on 2025 will bit them for 2026. Maybe they learned some things this year they can use for next year.

But Mclaren running too close to the ground? Not sure. Quali was wet and usually when it's wet you have to raise the car more to not create aquaplaning. Maybe Mclaren gambled too much but it might also have been the specific track conditions of Vegas.
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Well, seeing as they were using the trick that helped them run closer to the ground, it's fair to say that part of why the mclel was so fast was it's ride height. They will definitely raise it in the coming races to avoid another DQ, so that will hurt them. Maybe not enough to drop to 7th, but enough for the Mercs to jump ahead a bit and hold them back. Remember, if George gets consistently P2, then we only need one p4 from Norizz. It helps reduce the amount of fuck ups needed from mclel.

Also, for the kiwis down undah, Qatar is one of Piastris good tracks, no matter how buck broken he is, and he probably realized that the team sabotaged him (no lico orders to try and preserve his plank, while Norris did it aggressively, resulting in greater deg on his). Maybe a flash of brilliance, maybe a crash between them, always impossible to tell.
 
Ultimately we need a norris DNF in Qatar with Max and Piastri on the podium for a great season finish. Either way thank god for Max breathing some excitement into the season it was looking pretty dull at the summer break with Piastri vs Norris and fat Zak manufacturing it all.
 
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