Formula 1 Discussion - And favourite driver?

[WhiskeyZuluLima]

I already had the 6 hrs of spa taped so I watched it. In America we get WEC on the fuckin MotorTrend channel of all things, and only the first and the last hour were broadcast with ads. So, pretty shit compared to the luxury of watching f1 on espn with no breaks during the race, but was quite interesting.

You'll have similar with IMSAs stuff on NBC, they only have segments on it normally. The shorter races which are part of IMSAs sprint championship, about two hours long each, will have full coverage, but the endurance championship (6 or more hours) will only be bits of it.
WEC have been intermittent on publishing the races after the fact, it seems Spa got that treatment and can be found here. This has the WEC commentary, if you remember the various options which I explained previously.

Apparently the performance gap from the hypercars to lmp2 is smaller than it was from lmp1 to lmp2 last year.

Yeah, the LMP1 category from previous, which is now the LMH(ypercar), used to be something ridiculous like 20 seconds quicker around Le Mans than the P2 class, now they've been reigned in such that an LMP2 actually lead the race into Eau Rouge on green flag - which previously would have required a crash.
The new Hypercar class is about the same performance through the corners as P2 and the GTE class, which when you remove the absolutely mental firing off the corners of the P1 class makes them massively slower to where they were.
The homologation for the Hypercar class is a 5 year development lock, so the Toyota's you see in Spa will be the same specification of car in five years time, assuming they continue running that far into the future. As a result, Glickenhaus are putting off getting their first entry into the WEC until the last minute before Le Mans because once that car enters the WEC it can't be changed, so expect entries to trickle in as teams/manufacturers who want to come in try to game the system.

And seeing the GTE cars which are a combination of pro and amateur drivers was quite interesting. Will try to keep in touch with this league, there are only 7 rounds this year so not even that much of a commitment. (I'm also taping Indycar and IMSA on youtube tv so will consider watching some of that when i get some free time)

The GTE classes are two distinct classes, although in the case of the Am cars you have some Pro (usually junior) drivers to provide the pace, what makes Am interesting is when you get relative aliens like Ben Keating who will quite happily drive all 6 hours of a race, and be nowhere near as slow as you'd expect of a guy who is a businessman first, and not fantastically young.
You say there's only seven rounds this year, which is wrong there's 6 (the Spa prologue on the calendar is a pre-season test) - however, on you saying it's not too much of a committment I'll grant you that it's only once a month roughly, they are still quite long.
The next race is an 8 hour race, then a 6, then the big one at Le Mans, then another 6, and an 8 - a total of 60 hours over the year, which is about the same amount of time as F1 will take from you over a year if you watch qualifying and the race each time around.

 

[Coccxys]

And as much as I don't understand RB's strategy of Checo on mediums for almost the entire race, I must say: keeping those tyres alive for such a long time is absolute masterclass.

If there was no DRS it might have paid off. Could have made it the widest car in existence and used battery tactically to try and slow hanbone up but yeah in its current guise it was a bit of a nothing strategy.

 

[RomanesEuntDomus]

Grosjean will testdrive Hamilton's 2019 car on the Paul Ricard racetrack in France. Hamilton on suicide watch.

All joking aside, it's nice that he can say farewell to F1 this way.

 

[Coccxys]

Latest rumour


Can't be arsed trying to cut around the advert between every sentence. If you want to read it it's here (it's daily fail, you have been warned)

I seriously doubt it, they have backed Bottas through a lot, only RBR pull moves like that these days and Merc don't own Williams.

 

[RomanesEuntDomus]

Like hell they'll put Russel next to Hambone, that is way too good to be true. Imagine Russel suddenly giving Hamilton a run for his money, his fame would explode.

But consider the following: Toto Wolff very recently called Michael Schumacher the greatest driver of all time and laconically added "up till now". Toto offers a drive to Grosjean in Hamilton's old car, now we have this rumor.... I would not put it past Wolff to cut down Hamilton with such moves, if that guy gets too much into his hair about installing quota-negroes into his team.

 

[The Grognard]

Merc doesn't do mid-season replacements like RBR does. If that was true, Bottas would have been out in 2018 simply because of how shit he was doing with a car that was the best on grid.

 

[Full Race Replay]

Merc doesn't do mid-season replacements like RBR does. If that was true, Bottas would have been out in 2018 simply because of how shit he was doing with a car that was the best on grid.

Back in 2018 did Mercedes have a good other option for the second driver? Nowadays George Russel has proven to be quite good in the merc and in the Williams. Honest question, I don’t know what the driver grid was like in 2017-8 but the situation might have changed in that Mercedes have seen more driver talent shaping up in the customer team, as well as the sakhir gp.

Unrelated, the Monaco eprix is this weekend end they are using the full layout instead of the shitty short layout from before. Except that the chicane after the tunnel is modified and it has 90s style barriers in the middle of it.

 

[RomanesEuntDomus]

Unrelated, the Monaco eprix is this weekend end they are using the full layout instead of the shitty short layout from before. Except that the chicane after the tunnel is modified and it has 90s style barriers in the middle of it.

I wonder if this is the new design that they are going with for F1, too. I would assume they'd go with one design for all layouts and this would prevent people from shortcutting while also preventing cars from slamming head on into the old barrier like Perez did in 2011:

Also, bit of a sidenote, but I watched the movie Grand Prix last weekend before the race.
If you haven't watched it, do so. It's an interesting time capsule of how tracks used to look like in the 60s, like completely normal street curbs in Monaco, bales of hay as protection in front of a brick wall, people just strolling around on the start-straight while the racecars scream past at top speed, it's surreal at times.

And the cinematography during the races is absolutely stellar, I think there is not a single movie that has topped that ever.

This crash sets up the story, the guy that crashed into the sea escapes lightly injured and is fired by his team, the other guy is heavily injured and makes a long, slow return to F1.
The movie also features another driver, a former champ, who is slowly losing his edge. The plot revolves around the individual struggles the three drivers go through.

 

[LiveFromNS]

Yes, Grand Prix is a fantastic movie, both for imagery and the plot. Just a fantastic film! And quite long too, close to 3 hours if I recall. Lot of IRL drivers appear in a scene or two, I remember Graham, can't forget that mustache! Funny you brought the film up because a few weeks ago I saw a tweet that the young Italian teammate to the veteran French driver at Ferrari passed away. But I echo that its like the perfect movie for the time about F1. Highly recommend those who haven't to check it out. There is a 2DVD set I downloaded awhile back that has great extra stuff on the second disc.

So, Q1 over in Spain. 0.735 between 1st and the first driver knocked out, P16! When we get to Q3 it should be easy to tell who had their engines turned down in Q1, but how I would love for it to be this tight throughout Q and the Race.

 

[RomanesEuntDomus]

Yes, Grand Prix is a fantastic movie, both for imagery and the plot. Just a fantastic film! And quite long too, close to 3 hours if I recall. Lot of IRL drivers appear in a scene or two, I remember Graham, can't forget that mustache! Funny you brought the film up because a few weeks ago I saw a tweet that the young Italian teammate to the veteran French driver at Ferrari passed away. But I echo that its like the perfect movie for the time about F1. Highly recommend those who haven't to check it out. There is a 2DVD set I downloaded awhile back that has great extra stuff on the second disc.

So, Q1 over in Spain. 0.735 between 1st and the first driver knocked out, P16! When we get to Q3 it should be easy to tell who had their engines turned down in Q1, but how I would love for it to be this tight throughout Q and the Race.

At one point during Q1, everyone between P5 and P13 was within a tenth of a second even. Margins for error are really slim.
And I just have to mention how Räikkönen somehow managed to churn out the best time in sector 1 towards the end of Q1... sure, it was beaten by the other cars pretty quickly, but it was still nice to see.

 

[Coccxys]

Hambone is off crying about the redbull car.

 

[BEz939]

Hambone is off crying about the redbull car.

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He’ll win by several seconds Anyways

 

[Coccxys]

He’ll win by several seconds Anyways

Oh but that's not the goal of this season. The goal is to win while talking up how redbull have the better car. That way he can shake the only winning because of the car asterisk. That's why sky, Hamilton and everyone on reddit are pushing how good that red bull is and how much on the back foot merc are. In reality merc are ahead car wise just not by as much as last year (which come summer they probably will be).

 

[RomanesEuntDomus]

Hamilton really puts his endless wisdom, wit and technical understanding of F1 on full display, when he describes some supposedly illegal or at least unfair piece of aerodynamical equippement as "bendy".

 

[Balr0g]

I think in this case James Hunt commentary is appropiate

Hamilton is certainly a main factor why he gets the best out of the Merc. But Russell's sole race in the Merc also showed: a talented driver who does not fit properly in the car can beat the entire field with ease

 

[RomanesEuntDomus]

With our current grid most drivers could churn out a championship in the Mercs, the most notable exception would be the rookies that started this year.
The car is a kingsmaker. Sure, Hamilton isn't a bad driver, but he's not this stellar talent of a century, he's simply a decent driver who sits in a car that has no competition by any other team and his teammate is a wet blanket that would never even think of trying to challenge Saint Lewis.

 

[Pee Cola]

With our current grid most drivers could churn out a championship in the Mercs, the most notable exception would be the rookies that started this year.
The car is a kingsmaker.

Very much so. George proved this at Sakhir last year, but ofc M-B shut that shit down real quick with those conveniently terrible pitstops.

 

[Coccxys]

I like the fact they're imposing track limits on drivers properly but the way they're doing it sucks. Its not overly fun to have constant lap time deletions and radio messages all though the gp about it.

This is the thing with modern tracks that have 30 miles of pristine tarmac as the run off, go back to a nice deep gravel trap immediately next to the white line and I guarantee no (deliberate) track limits violations. Make it super costly to even think of going over that limit. Shit like track limit reminders and penalties weren't needed at Tuscany last season, nor will they need to be that bothered at Monaco because going car entirely over the white line is severely penalised.

 

[Full Race Replay]

I like the fact they're imposing track limits on drivers properly but the way they're doing it sucks. Its not overly fun to have constant lap time deletions and radio messages all though the gp about it.

This is the thing with modern tracks that have 30 miles of pristine tarmac as the run off, go back to a nice deep gravel trap immediately next to the white line and I guarantee no (deliberate) track limits violations. Make it super costly to even think of going over that limit. Shit like track limit reminders and penalties weren't needed at Tuscany last season, nor will they need to be that bothered at Monaco because going car entirely over the white line is severely penalised.

Even if they don't want to put in gravel traps, just make the rule that track limits is the thick white line before the kerp for the whole track. None of this end of the kerb bullshit. That would clear up all this shit, especially the uncertainty, even if there are still unceremonious lap time deletions.

 

[RomanesEuntDomus]

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.