As per my comment above, it’d be the perfect time to announce it…
I can’t see any other option other than Russell being in that seat. Nothing else makes any sense from any angle. It’s when, not if, and the ideal answer to that is probably Thursday.
In depth interview with Hamilton
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/jul/10/lewis-hamilton-everything-id-suppressed-came-up-i-had-to-speak-out
I must admit I always used to think of him as a rather immature spoiled brat but his actions and words over the last couple of years has really changed that. I have so much more respect for him now. Maybe took him longer to grow up than others but what he has done the last coupe of years has been impressive. Mature. wise but direct
The lean patch he had at the end of his McLaren years and when he first moved to Mercedes taught him a few decent life lessons he needed, like not having a toxic celebrity girlfriend and focussing on what makes him perform better. Don't forget he didn't really have to do the early F1 seasons of his career being building blocks like pretty much every other driver so was missing a bit of knowledge there. Verstappen is to a lesser degree and has had to grow up a bit too.
Hopefully Toto will announce Russell or Bottas in the second seat very soon as it then gives the other driver plenty of time to find a different seat.
Don’t forget he didn’t really have to do the early F1 seasons of his career being building blocks
I'm struggling to think of many more rookies who debuted in a chanpionship-contender team. Villeneurve and Coulthard spring to mind, any others? Montoya and Button for a team in contention for race wins but not a championship
I’m struggling to think of many more rookies who debuted in a chanpionship-contender team.
Rookies who drove for teams that finished in the top three in the constructors' championship:
Jos Verstappen, 1994, Benetton
Michael Andretti, 1993, McLaren
Patrick Depailler, 1972, Tyrrell
John Surtees, 1960, Lotus
Jody Scheckter, 1973, McLaren
Gilles Villeneuve, 1977, McLaren
Bruno Giacomelli, 1977, McLaren
Hopefully Toto will announce Russell or Bottas in the second seat very soon as it then gives the other driver plenty of time to find a different seat.
If a driver/agent isn’t exploring several options at a time then they are complete mugs
Isn't Russell tied into Mercedes therefore I'm guessing he gets "steered" towards his options? Which I'm guessing are the main team or another year at William's.
So what do we think of next years car:
So what do we think of next years car:
Subjectively: Too long, much too long. Too heavy and it looks like a Halo equipped Indycar and nothing like a Ferrari 640
Objectively: Closer racing is a major plus, the removal of bargeboards certainly makes the car look cleaner and hypothetically less susceptible to wheel to wheel damage. Greater emphasis on driver safety can only be a good thing.
I'll reserve judgement for when the teams have launched their actual cars. The devil is always in the detail and that car in the pictures is just a starting point.
I'll reserve judgement for when the teams wheel their actual race cars out at the first test rather than the mules they'll show at the launches 🙂
It'd be interesting to see that side by side with the Merc/RedBull to give a proper comparison.
So what do we think of next years car:
When I saw that picture, I assumed I was looking at next year's Haas. I'm guessing the real cars won't look much like that. If the racing is better next year, nobody will care how they look.
When I saw that picture, I assumed I was looking at next year’s Haas. I’m guessing the real cars won’t look much like that.
The Hass will look far less complex tbf
I don't mind it (if that does end up being representative) The wings are very Indy and the long nose doesn't look great, but hopefully the teams sort that even if its just clever liveries
Looks better when you see a video of it - couple on Sky F1 website...
The rear wing will certainly change as they need to incorporate DRS.
Don't like the wheel covers as it hides the look of the new 18" wheels.
I really wish that they weren't using wheel covers.
Too long, much too long
Aren't they shorter than current cars?
Aren’t they shorter than current cars?
Not by nearly enough.
If F1 turns into a spec series I can many F1 fans losing interest. F1 is about the tech/innovation/loopholes/bending the rules/politics - it's so much more than just the racing on track and lead changes every lap.
If F1 turns into a spec series I can many F1 fans losing interest. F1 is about the tech/innovation/loopholes/bending the rules/politics
Nascar and Indycar have very large fan bases, being a spec series doesn't seem to be a problem if you have good racing and recognizable stars.
I'm as into the innovation as anyone, but the technical side of things is why the races are often so processional. Standardizing the gearbox and hybrid side of the powertrain, with a spec tub and brakes, but teams needing to develop their own suspension and aero kit, plus a range of engine manufacturers would massively cut costs and most fans would not know that the cars all had a bunch of shared components.
To be honest, I quite like the new car, not a huge fan of the new nose/front wing, but overall, it looks great. However, I'm not sure the current car is the main problem. We've seen some decent wheel to wheel action in the midfield for a few years now, I think the big thing is the sheer amount of data and sophisticated tech they use to dial the cars in to an Nth degree. Usually when a race is wide open its either because of weather or because there's limited running through practise. Limit practise and simulator time and maybe that would improve the spectacle and save money while they do it. Going to be really interesting how Silverstone works out this weekend with just the two practise sessions before/after qualifying.
The best races are when its close, that normally happens when some variable comes into play. So if you have more variables you have a better chance of a non-processional race, or a surprise outcome.
So, variables are:
Range of short lived tyres
Pitstops forced due to tyres
DRS allowing passing
Gravel traps so you are punished for going wide
...................all of which we have.
You could add in:
Much less practice time, track and simulator
The proposed wind tunnel time limits based on results is a good idea
Making it rain halfway round the track 🙂
Limiting fuel flow is no good for racing, that's just a tool to force them to try to be green.
If F1 turns into a spec series I can many F1 fans losing interest
The Aston Martin is essentially a Mercedes in a different colour scheme which is why they're often on Pole or fighting for the podium places...
You forgot to put a simile at the end of that statement, so readers may thing you are serious about Aston.
Wouldn't more testing and simulator time make things closer?
It's easier to make big gains if you are further back, say williams are a second behind Mercedes, a good test might enable them to find half a second, whereas Mercedes are already closer to the 'optimum' and might only find a tenth so the gap comes down to sixth tenths.
.
The problem with this before was always budget, the big teams could just test more and try more new things and cement their advantage but now with a cost cap I think it may be time to remove the testing restrictions, if that's where teams want to focus their efforts let them. The problem we have now with that, and things like limiting the number of PUs and gearboxes, is that any advantage a team has at the start of the year is almost baked in for the rest of the season, the development during a year when the slower teams see what the fast teams are doing and try to emulate it, or take a risk with something new, just isn't happening
any advantage a team has at the start of the year is almost baked in for the rest of the season, the development during a year when the slower teams see what the fast teams are doing and try to emulate it, or take a risk with something new, just isn’t happening
That's why they have a variable scale of wind tunnel and CFD time. The team leading the constructors' championship (currently Red Bull) have theirs cut, Merc have a bit more, McLaren more again, and so on all the way down the field. This is the first year of the cost cap, so it should level things up a lot for next year. I'm pretty sure that nearly all their development work will be focused on next year's car, so the backmarker teams this year should have a good shot at moving up towards the front next year.
The Aston Martin is essentially a Mercedes in a different colour scheme which is why they’re often on Pole or fighting for the podium places…
Only seen 1 podium from Seb and that was a lucky one. They're hounding the bottom rung of the top ten places at the minute!
You forgot to put a simile at the end of that statement, so readers may thing you are serious about Aston.
Only seen 1 podium from Seb and that was a lucky one. They’re hounding the bottom rung of the top ten places at the minute!
And we have a taker!
🙂
Always happy to oblige!
he best races are when its close, that normally happens when some variable comes into play. So if you have more variables you have a better chance of a non-processional race, or a surprise outcome.
So, variables are:
Range of short lived tyres
Pitstops forced due to tyres
DRS allowing passing
Gravel traps so you are punished for going wide
……………….all of which we have.You could add in:
Much less practice time, track and simulator
The proposed wind tunnel time limits based on results is a good idea
Making it rain halfway round the track 🙂Limiting fuel flow is no good for racing, that’s just a tool to force them to try to be green.
What about restricting practice time based on previous races finish position. Person who came 1st gets 50%, 2nd 55% etc. Would make no real difference to TV but would mean the winner of the previous race would have a harder time dialling in their car for the next.
I’m not sure of the looks, as already said I will reserve judgement until we see real cars that will actually race. I don’t like the direction of making cars heavier and heavier because of regulatory reasons. I think teams should be able to go as light as they can whilst delivering the necessary driver protection / safety standards.
The proposed wind tunnel time limits based on results is a good idea
It's not a proposal, it's happening this year.
The F1 website has posted some renders of 2021 team colours on the 2022 concept car and I have to admit that they do look quite cool, The Merc and McLaren could be good enough to convince me to buy a Scalextric set in a couple of years time.
Generic 2022 car in 2021 team liveries here
The rules have apparently been written with some leeway so it won't be in effect a one make series with cloned cars, but there's always unintended aesthetic consequences of new regulations - see the 2014 dicknose cars. I expect to see a lot of development work going into those venturi tunnels, hidden from view.
How about an extra race as well. All the drivers are given say £100,000 and a couple of hours. They go off and buy the best car they can in that time and bring it back to the race course, then race in it. No prep, just run what you brung kind of thing.
Has to be road legal and to keep the sponsors happy - its probably in their interests if its a car their sponsors make. So Ferrari / McLaren / Aston are pretty favourite for a win. Not sure about Alpha or Alpine or even RedBull. Of course Haas / Williams can spend their money on whatever car they fancy.
I still think that giving the drivers a can of prunes to eat just before starting the race will up the pace a bit. 20 drivers each with a maximum of one change of shorts per race and only ten portaloos at the finish line. Sharting = disqualification.
Yeah...that's mental. Also, Lando Norris on medium tyres is 1/1000th of a sec faster than Lewis on soft tyres. Either Merc are sandbagging, or that McLaren is quick at Silverstone.
Lewis needs to pay Bottas to 'have an incident' with Verstappen in the sprint race! 🤣🏎
Sharting = disqualification.
I believe that in the military the rule is that, "only the batman knows."
I believe that in the military the rule is that, “only the batman knows.”
"Scrutineers, please report to the laundry room".
Am I alone in getting increasingly suspicious at Red Bull's resurgence this year? 8/10ths is a huge margin. And Mercedes were meant to be bringing improvements this weekend to a circuit they are traditionally very strong at too.
:-O
Am I alone in getting increasingly suspicious at Red Bull’s resurgence this year? 8/10ths is a huge margin.
FIA's 2021 floor regs are working better than they anticipated. 😉
Am I alone in getting increasingly suspicious at Red Bull’s resurgence this year?
Considering the very limited changes from last year to this year, it's pretty surprising. I know the changes were supposedly hitting Merc's low rake concept more than the high rake RedBull, but last year the Mercs had about a second over Max at both Silverstone rounds so it's one heck of a performance change when supposedly not much was changing.
Am I alone in getting increasingly suspicious at Red Bull’s resurgence this year? 8/10ths is a huge margin.
1. Honda finally made the engine that everyone expected five years ago.
2. The changes to the floor hurt Merc much more than Red Bull. Also, the benefit of DAS may have been underestimated.
3. Merc may have underestimated Red Bull/Honda progress and thought they could cruise this year and focus all their resources for next year.
4. Red Bull had the fastest car at the end of last year and may have decided that this was their best chance to win a title, so they might have prioritized this year over next year. We'll know the answer to that question next year.
I don't think there's anything suspicious beyond the gray areas of the rules like flexi wings, tyre warm up, etc. Red Bull and Honda seem to have built a really fast car and Max is driving really well.
The have a new super oil as well iirc.
Don't forget, qualifying for tomorrow's sprint race is live now.
How the heck has Russell hauled that Williams to P8? Not sure what more he can do to get the Merc seat.
Wow Russell !!
Good from ric as well
I don’t understand how engine upgrades for reliability aren’t by definition a performance upgrade. Surely making the engine more reliable means you can run a better mode for longer as the risk of blowing the engine up is lower
The should add turbo to F1 engine to make it faster otherwise it's boring now.
I mean big engine vs turbo small engine whatever ...
They are turbo-charged. And only 1.6ltr.
They are turbo-charged. And only 1.6ltr.
I think they should increase the capacity. They used to have turbo on big engine but not sure what happened to them to make them reduce the engine size.
The current engines are already pushing close to 1000bhp. Power isn’t the issue with F1 at the minute, too much downforce is! 😀
They used to have turbo on big engine
The turbo engines cars have always been smaller capacity. In the "turbo era" they were 1.5L and the N/A engines were 3.5L. Turbos were banned in 1989, and engines made smaller (to N/A 3.0L) in 1995 and then went smaller again in 2006 to N/A 2.4L. Then went smaller again to 1.6 in 2014, but back to turbo with various recovery sytsems.
How the heck has Russell hauled that Williams to P8? Not sure what more he can do to get the Merc seat.
Yep, very impressive performance. If he's not in the second Mercedes seat next year (preferably announced this weekend!) then Toto has made a massive error.
Crikey I have not followed the changes for so long I still think of me boy racer mate with Benetton Ford ... LOL!
Yes, one of me boy racer mate from Borneo was actually a mechanic with F1 Benetton Ford at one time ... we were all surprised but not too surprised coz he had the fastest car in Borneo at that time and he could speak English and educated overseas ... Imagine you are driving down London and a dragster pull up beside you ... LOL!
How the heck has Russell hauled that Williams to P8? Not sure what more he can do to get the Merc seat.
While I wouldn’t disagree with that sentiment, there’s always the other way of looking at it: Williams have a car that’s capable of Q3 so why is Latifi always out in Q1 and, this weekend at least, over a second off his teammate’s pace? With the team looking like turning its fortunes around I would expect a big sponsorship deal for next year with the opportunity that it brings to have two decent drivers in the car. (Not that either of them will be Russell 😉)
True Bez - its only when team mates are side by side on the grid that you can be pretty sure they've both driven to the potential of the car. But I expect Williams have their reasons for having (son of a very rich man) Latifi in the other seat...
Can Williams afford, financially, to drop Lattifi? If so Botas and Aitken might be a good combo for next season
.
Who are the most evenly matched qualifiers this season, Sainz and LeClerc? I know the Haas are usually next to each other but the gap is bigger than the Ferraris
Can Williams afford, financially, to drop Lattifi? If so Botas and Aitken might be a good combo for next season
The actual ownership seems to be a mystery. It was bought by Dorilton Capital, but nobody has been able to confirm who actually owns Dorilton. It's possible that it's Latifi's father, which would make sense. If it's not and they don't need Latifi's money, Bottas and Hulkenberg would seem to be obvious candidates, along with Magnussen and Grojean. Having experienced drivers to develop the car is going to be essential if they plan to move up the grid. However, my money is on Bottas and Latifi being there next year.
Who are the most evenly matched qualifiers this season, Sainz and LeClerc?
On average results, Ocon and Alonso, and Vettel and Stroll are closer than Sainz and Leclerc.
https://www.racefans.net/2021-f1-season/2021-f1-statistics/2021-f1-qualifying-data/
I’d guess, though, that the variation in times is greater for the Alpine and Aston pairs than for the Ferraris: both Vettel and Alonso had ropey starts to the season but have since pulled well ahead of their teammates, whereas Sainz and Leclerc have been fairly well matched throughout.
As for the possible Dorilton/Latifi link (not something I was aware of or had given any thought to…), that would certainly cast a different light on trying to predict the Williams line-up…
Well this is……….fine, I suppose
Well this is……….fine, I suppose
Fine if you're Max, Alonso or Russell. Not so fine for Hamilton, Sainz and Perez.
Just seemed a bit pointless to me...normal qualifying is more exciting IMHO
First lap was on fire, tapered I fed a bit after that. I reckon maybe have a normal Q1 and then turn Q2 and Q3 into 15 minute sprint races 😉
Although you could see from yesterday that 3 days of proper competition must be good for ticket sales and broadcast rights.
Tbf they don't struggle with ticket sales across all 3 days at Silverstone even when Friday is just fp1 & 2. (Broadcast rights I don't know about)
It was OK - needs tweaking - perhaps a bit longer so tyre deg comes into it more?
May work better with next years cars if they can follow closely as we are promised.
And they could add some Mario Kart weapons to go with the new graphics! 🤣
Too much weaving too!
Here’s an idea! Perhaps the sprint race should be done in F2 cars!? 🤣🤣
It’s kinda taken the shine off the race for me, because I feel like I’ve already watched it.
I think 2 practice sessions on Friday then quali and sprint quali on Saturday would be better.
That just served to demonstrate that the most exciting bits of F1 are the start + first 3 corners and the pit-stops.
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Twodogs
Full MemberJust seemed a bit pointless to me…
Maybe slightly more frantic at first, then just petered out imo
The race was OK and as they said on C4, Silverstone isn't the best place for passing anyway. But FP2 was rather pointless as there was no scope for a setup change.
I was wondering whether swapping the schedule around might help so it's
Friday FP1 then Sprint, grid based on FP1 times and no Parc ferme afterwards
Saturday FP2 and current Q1-3 (I don't think it needs changing FWIW), Parc ferme starts from Q1
Of course you then need a reason for the Sprint as just awarding points for the top 3 wouldn't motivate many. That's what's stumped me...
Listening to the interviews afterwards I think all the drivers and team principles were a bit "meh"
Personally I hope it dies a quiet death. YMMV.
Pretty much don't feel I want to watch tomorrow as I've seen how it'll go, what with no tweaks so no change. Even if LH takes P1 in first few corners MV will win overall.
Friday FP1 then Sprint
TV audience figures will rule that out (as will tickets sold at the event)
Well that new format will work a treat in Monaco won't it....
Who are the most evenly matched qualifiers this season
Massive spin and that German driver have been pretty close on the grid 🤣