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Why are they all where masks outside and observing 2ms distancing? What’s the point they are trying to make?
Why are they all where masks outside and observing 2ms distancing? What’s the point they are trying to make?
Because they're responsible and trying not to be like the ****wits who think everything is hunky dory now?
Who after driving a car for about 2 hours total after being ways from the sport with all its difference in between put it in 3rd place?
Yeah but in f1 since 2010, no podium, never picked up by a top team, just trundles around in the middle. Waste of a seat.
Yeah but in f1 since 2010, no podium, never picked up by a top team, just trundles around in the middle. Waste of a seat.
Being a consistently good driver is a waste of a seat? Stroll is a waste of a seat.
Being a consistently good driver is a waste of a seat? Stroll is a waste of a seat.
He isn't constantly good though, he is constantly average at best. A persistent bottler who was always overlooked by the main players.
I don’t get the love for Hulkenberg….seems to me he’s a mediocre mid-pack driver who stayed around way too long
I think he's generally recognized as a decent driver, often fairly quick, but never quite managed to reach the podium due to bad luck and mistakes on his own part. His qualifying performance was impressive, that's why he's getting all the love today.
He isn’t constantly good though, he is constantly average at best. A persistent bottler who was always overlooked by the main players.
Who would you have put in the seat?
Enjoyed that, great drive by Max wonder what's going on with the merc, temperature related i guess.
Savouring the ferrari/vettel shitstorm that's brewing 😁
Bottas sounded like a broken man in the interviews 🙁
something really fishy about the merc tyre choice, they could have quite comfortably qualified on the hard tyre (horners jaw is still scrapping on the ground after Bottas banged in a 15 dead on it last week) and went instead on a tyre they disregarded (and didn't use last week in the race) as a race tyre in more adverse conditions and used it to start, most bizarre.
LH walking off with P1 trophy
Really?!! Wow. Shades of Vettel there.
Really?!! Wow. Shades of Vettel there.
Reported.
Not allowed to post negative comments about Hamilton here. Not even about his rap career
Ha ha!
He’d have gotten away with it if it wasn’t for that pesky kid!
Savouring the ferrari/vettel shitstorm that’s brewing 😁
The radio comment from Vettel telling his team they'd screwed up putting him back in traffic. I SO wanted the reply to be that he wouldn't be there if he'd managed to start without spinning it...
something really fishy about the merc tyre choice, they could have quite comfortably qualified on the hard tyre (horners jaw is still scrapping on the ground after Bottas banged in a 15 dead on it last week) and went instead on a tyre they disregarded (and didn’t use last week in the race) as a race tyre in more adverse conditions and used it to start, most bizarre.
Pirelli supplied tyres that are one step softer this week
Pirelli supplied tyres that are one step softer this week
yes I know, merc ran medium in quali 2 (and were still 1 sec faster than the competition) last week which was the hard this week. The medium this week which they ran in quali 2 (and hence their start tire) was considered last week to be an unsuitable race tyre.
Different minimum tyre pressure rules from Pirelli this week.
surely that just changes everyones times up or down. relative times should remain pretty similar.
Tyre wear will depend on downforce. Mercedes, because they have the most powerful engine were carrying a lot more of it than either Red Bull or Ferrari. Coupled with the higher pressures and track temperatures, this will put high strain on the centre of the tyre at the rear and the inside edge on the fronts.
Klunk
Membersurely that just changes everyones times up or down. relative times should remain pretty similar
Softer tyre = more sidewalL movement = more heat = more blisters
Softer tyre = more sidewalL movement = more heat = more blisters
exactly, so why did mercs run last weeks softest compound tire in quali 2 this week ? when they had a second over the pack running the harder compound.
exactly, so why did mercs run last weeks softest compound tire in quali 2 this week ? when they had a second over the pack running the harder compound
They thought they’d have pulled out half a pit stops gap in the time it took for that to go off then run hard/hard to the end. But that didn’t account for max - or everyone else - being as close to them as he was. So, this weeks medium / last weeks soft was a disaster which went away even sooner than expected, and max tyres lasted much longer than Mercs to compound the issue.
Then even worse, the hard performed even worse than their expectations. What they expected in stint two was the pace Lewis had at the end of the race, but that didn’t materialise
Apparently Merc ran lower downforce to avoid overloading the tyres like last weekend, but that made the car slide more. The higher tyre pressures meant the middle of the tread was overheating, plus the thicker tread on new tyres retains heat more. They also adjusted the setup to try to avoid overloading the front tyres, but that just made the rear tyres overheat instead. The Red Bull was easier on tyres, so Max could push hard right after his pitstops, whereas the Mercs just blistered their tyres when they tried to match him. It says a lot that finishing 2nd and 3rd is seen as a disaster.
^ That makes sense
I don’t get the love for Hulkenberg….seems to me he’s a mediocre mid-pack driver who stayed around way too long
Ross Brawn says Hulkenberg was their next choice as a driver if Hamilton hadn't signed for Merc.
Rumblings on social media of a possible return for Jerez and Istanbul for the tail end of this season to fill the gap prior to the middle east rounds. Istanbul esp would be a welcome return.
So 'Quali Modes' to be banned after Spanish GP. Not sure how they're going to police that? They'll just add a dial that goes up to 11!...
It's not just qualifying modes.
During the race, they often turn the engine down for reliability, or save fuel or do the opposite to overtake.
The only way of doing it is to remove the ability of the driver to change engine settings at all.
What about changing the mode to start the car?
All seems a very big can of worms and a big change at such short notice.
The only way of doing it is to remove the ability of the driver to change engine settings at all.
That seems to be the intention. I'm not sure how the different modes work.
The max fuel flow is regulated and oil burning has been minimized. Obviously, they can control the boost level, fuel richness, and ignition timing. The qualifying mode reduces durability massively, so it stresses the engine much more than standard mode, but the increase in power is only about 50 hp. My guess is that Merc figured out how to run higher boost with a leaner mixture, leading to higher temperatures in the combustion chamber, hence the reliability problem. Apparently they studied diesel engine combustion when they started developing their engine, which probably means they were researching how lean mixtures combust under high compression ratios.
Problem is, the regulations limit the fuel flow, not the combustion characteristics, so Merc must have found some way to change the combustion characteristics for short bursts. Maybe Merc used oil additives to alter the combustion characteristics in qualifying mode, as an octane booster rather than a fuel. Apart from something like that, I don't see how they can cheat if fuel flow is limited accurately.
wardee
MemberIt’s not just qualifying modes.
During the race, they often turn the engine down for reliability, or save fuel or do the opposite to overtake.
The only way of doing it is to remove the ability of the driver to change engine settings at all.
What about changing the mode to start the car?
All seems a very big can of worms and a big change at such short notice.
That's not he only way of doing it, but is the simplest. You could also for example mandate that the qualifying mode is also used for at least X laps in the race.
I just can't see that the rule change will stick if it's implemented as you've said, it's too far reaching.
It's not even proper Quali Mode! BHP so high you can't measure it and an engine that melts after 2 laps - that's Quali Mode! 🙂
the-muffin-man
SubscriberIt’s not even proper Quali Mode! BHP so high you can’t measure it and an engine that melts after 2 laps – that’s Quali Mode! 🙂
Yep, the good old days 🙂
https://twitter.com/ScarbsTech/status/1293912716411772929
Give them a manual gearbox as well while you're at it.
Give them a manual gearbox as well while you’re at it.
Nah, flappy paddles are common on road cars so they can stay, but to echo road car technology they should only be able to choose from 3 engine modes - 'Eco', 'Normal' and 'Sport',
thepurist
Nah, flappy paddles are common on road cars so they can stay, but to echo road car technology they should only be able to choose from 3 engine modes – ‘Eco’, ‘Normal’ and ‘Sport’,
"scenario 7 please Lando, that's Sport+ mode and air conditioning set to off"
my understanding is that they won't ban quali modes, but will mandate that teams must then use those modes for a certain percentage of the race...presumably enough that it would either destroy the engine or use all the fuel (is that even possible with fuel flow restrictions?). I assume the FIA have a way to check what modes were used for how long
I'm still struggling to see the point of the fuel regulations. Can't help but feel that "here's x litres for the race, off you pop" would be far simpler and more entertaining whilst still having eco credentials
I’m still struggling to see the point of the fuel regulations. Can’t help but feel that “here’s x litres for the race, off you pop” would be far simpler and more entertaining whilst still having eco credentials
agreed. but then I struggle with a lot of F1 regs at the moment. Now they've agreed a budget cap, they should throw away half the tech regs and just allow teams to innovate to their hearts' content within that budget cap (even if it's impossible to police)
I’m still struggling to see the point of the fuel regulations. Can’t help but feel that “here’s x litres for the race, off you pop” would be far simpler and more entertaining whilst still having eco credentials
Me too.
You've got 100 litres of fuel. If you can make a 7L V16 with 3,000hp get to the end of a race on that then hats off to you, that would push innovation. Next year you've got 90 litres...
.
Talking of engines and quali modes though, a serious question. Why don't Williams (and Haas/Alfa) engines go pop more often?
Take Williams in 2019 for example. Pretty much guarrenteed to be last, but can pretty much get through a season on the required number of engines. If they turned them right up for one race, what could they do, almost certainly score points, maybe good ones. OK, this would effect reliability and they would go bang at the next race or the one after, but then put a new one in, take the penalty and start at the back (as they would anyway) and repeat next time. Better to get half a dozen points finishes and a load of DNFs than a season of 20th places surely? Wouldn't work for the big teams, you need points almost every time to stand a chance in the championship. Might be expensive, but money is shared out according to success so maybe cost-neutral or even beneficial?
What's the lap time difference between pootling around preserving engines and giving it full beans? With fuel on board and tyre wear it will be slower than quali but should still get them well into the midfield (briefly)
They will be easily able to police the Qualy mode use thanks to the standard ECU. What I think they're going after is the way that the factory teams will have multiple maps to use all the time whereas the customer teams only get the basic maps and nothing more. I remember Williams and then-Force India both saying that they didn't get the same maps for their engines as Merc had a few years ago. It could also be a way of siplifying things for the general audience who will understand having 3 different modes (Eco, Sport, Sport+ as thepurist mentioned) as that's similar to their own cars rather than having 10 modes that can have a massive effect on the car's performance.
Personally I think it's a waste of time as the modes are no different to the previous generations where the drivers had turbo boost or just used more revs for a small amount of time. I enjoy the skill and strategy of using their equipment cleverly, balancing reliability against outright performance or simply running out of fuel. I feel it'll be like team orders, the teams will find ways of doing it anyway so it'll be made legal again soon.
. If they turned them right up for one race, what could they do, almost certainly score points, maybe good ones
They really wouldn't. They'd run out of fuel before the end of the race for starters.
they'll just run a relatively "high" output map and change the rev indicater/gear change indicator lights 1. quali normal 2 quali fast 3. race normal 4. race push 5. race economy. and a ultimate rev limit for each
The fact that there are only four engine manufacturers in the sport including three works teams must make for a certain amount of pay to win among the customer teams.
Both Williams and McLaren appear to be now neutral in the wake of Mercedes' defence of Racing Point. McLaren will have pissed off their engine supplier, let's see what happens next.
Regarding Williams and their engine maps, they may not be able to afford new engines when they go pop. They probably analysed the situation and think they will get better gains from spending that money in other areas.