To be fair the Spanish GP is pretty much a dull-fest every year. Teams just have too much data about the circuit.

Here’s hoping Monaco brings Red Bull into the mix.

Thought it was an alright race TBH. Probably cos I went into it thinking it would just be a good opportunity for a kip.

Corker of a lap from Hamilton after the SC finished. Think DC said he put 2 seconds between him and Bottas.

Had to laugh at Grosjean’s antics. Max seems to have got his head down, think he’s third in the WDC at the moment.

IMHO i think Merc have a secret team order – looks to me like whoever is leading in the first lap then thats it for the race – because although no one seemed to mention it in the coverage (well the crap C4 coverage) why did merc pit Bottas when Hamilton had the big blister on the tyre, and bottas was cloasing at 1 second a lap – he could have stayed out while Hamilton pitted and stayed out with a 20+ second gap and probably win with some tyre management, or at worst, second which is where he was anyway. – although all of that would have been scuppered when the safety car came out, but Merc did not know that at the time of pitting Bottas.

Corker of a lap from Hamilton after the SC finished. Think DC said he put 2 seconds between him and Bottas.

I think it was more like 4 seconds. Both drivers with fresh tyres decided to go for the fastest lap point, so Hamilton got his tyres prepped up and went for it. Bottas hung back as much as he dared to get a gap behind Hamilton and then went and pulled back a lot of the time he’d lost. I think at that point they had decided which of the two was going to cross the finish line first as by hanging back to get clear air Bottas screwed his chances of catching Hamilton.

Bottas was pitted to cover off any undercut threat from Vestappen not to give the race to Hamilton (Hamilton wasn’t driving to any secret team orders @ Baku chasing down Bottas) .

The first corner was great… and after the safety car it was a great couple of laps.

Hmmm.

Modified HASS livery incoming?…

Whyte 1 – Rich Energy 0

Modified HAAS sponsor incoming when the rest of the Rich Energy snake oil evaporates.

Have we done ‘Merc deliver F1 car to terminally ill child”?.  I’m torn between it being an amazing gesture from Hamilton vs a great bit of PR.  If it was genuinely pushed by Lewis then that’s proper good.

Not a good day at the office

Ouchy – wasn’t kidding when he said he lost the front aero.

so F1 looking at a Morocco race – just like the last throws of Bernies reign , Liberty are finding anyone and anywhere to host a race that will pull in some flippin great wadges of cash without having any history or (i assume) much local interest in the locals and the race.

it also seems C4 coverage now has to specifically state by the hosts that the F1 race is LIVE ON SKY F1 HD numerous times in all of their highlights coverage.

“World’s Greatest Driver” fails to qualify for Indy…

Pagenaud on pole as Alonso fails to qualify for Indy 500

First year of McLaren actually running the car, thinking they might have bitten off more than they realised?

The McLaren Racing team made wholesale changes to the No. 66 McLaren Racing Chevrolet with some assistance from some of the top teams in the NTT IndyCar Series paddock

The Mclaren entry this year was partnered / assisted by Carlin who are in their second ever year in Indycar and their fortunes at Indy were just as bad – they were the other two cars failing to qualify.

Last year with Andretti building and running the car there was far more engineering experience and seasoned drivers providing setup data etc whereas Carlin is running a rookie and Max Chilton who has not really got the best championship pedigree.

I think Mclaren’s inexperience caught them out big time, maybe if they had a full season programme or even run from the start up to Indy they would have had a far easier time reacting to car rebuilds, engine changes and general setup.

Think I missed the Carlin link, not that it seemed to be helping. I knew they were no longer Andretti with a McLaren badge though

jamesy01

Member

Modified HASS livery incoming?…

Whyte 1 – Rich Energy 0

Peter Windsor did an interview with the bearded Rich Energy dude recently where he said something like “They’re just some obscure mountain bike company, who’s ever heard of them?”.

Whyte apparently saw that and followed up with this tweet:

Let’s have some fun with Mr Storey… 😉 #WhosEverHeardOfWhyte

How about the RichEnergy Haas F1 team driver Romain Grosjean…? Pictured on 26th August 2014 on a LotusF1 Team demo-day.

Retweet if you’ve ever heard of us… 🤦‍♂️

via @PeterDWindsor pic.twitter.com/aXNhdnd26m

— Whyte Bikes (@WhyteBikes) May 18, 2019

Better news for Carlin in Pau though, with Billy Monger taking his first win after being dead last.

Cruel
😂

expect alonso to be back in McLaren F1 this season then, seeing as they are stronger than last year (which is not that hard) and he’s not going to be doing anymore WEC…?

expect alonso to be back in McLaren F1 this season

Really?   I’d expect Alonso to part company with McLaren after the Indy fiasco…

Alonso will never be back in F1 – no big team would take him. His time in F1 has passed.

Alonso will never be back in F1 – no big team would take him. His time in F1 has passed.

I think you’re probably right, but Ferrari must be looking at Vettel’s performances over the last couple of years and wondering how things might have turned out if they had Alonso in that car.

I’d expect Alonso to part company with McLaren after the Indy fiasco…

I’d expect him to stay as long as McLaren say they’ll keep funding goes at the 500. This attempt could show how real their appetite is

A man with Alonso’s experience should know that you can’t just turn up at Indy once a year and expect to win, especially with a new team. Those racing these cars week in week out will always come out on top.

But a man with Alonso’s ego might think it possible

He wasn’t far off last time tbf

IMHO he’ll be in at 1 race, the Monaco GP in a McLaren in 2019…..what else is he going to do – even if he leaves McLaren that leaves him mid season with nothing to do.

Something fairly serious must happen in the next 3 days if he was going to drive Monaco!

I really hope he gets a full Indycar season next year with McLaren next year, he has no other racing commitments after the WEC super season concludes at Le Mans and he only needs a few points to wrap up the championship there.

Bob Fernley parts company with Mclaren. Salutary lesson in making sure your gear shifters are compatible when you order stuff online:

https://www.bbc.com/sport/motorsport/48341341

RIP Niki Lauder.  One of the sports legends gone, sad times.

Sorry to see him go, proper character and what a man. 🙁

hols2

Member

Bob Fernley parts company with Mclaren. Salutary lesson in making sure your gear shifters are compatible when you order stuff online:

https://www.bbc.com/sport/motorsport/48341341

Amazing. Wonder why they wanted to make their own wheel in the first place? Arrogance or?

$50k – $100k each and they’ve made them before. So why not?

Amazing. Wonder why they wanted to make their own wheel in the first place? Arrogance or?

My assumption is that they’re just used to making everything in-house, so basically just arrogance. I’m sure that you’d want to do your own stuff once you were established so that you could wring every last millisecond out of the car, but buying stuff in when you’re starting from scratch is just commonsense, surely.

eddiebaby

Subscriber

$50k – $100k each and they’ve made them before. So why not?

Well because there’s already an off the shelf solution that’s known to work and used by a lot of other teams, and also because being a new team, you might experience delays, run out of time to get your steering wheel working, order one last minute from Cosworth only to find out that the wrong one was ordered leaving you with no gear shifters. 🤦‍♂️

My assumption is that they’re just used to making everything in-house, so basically just arrogance. I’m sure that you’d want to do your own stuff once you were established so that you could wring every last millisecond out of the car, but buying stuff in when you’re starting from scratch is just commonsense, surely.

Exactly!

Oh, man. I’d have paid the $50-100k just to be a fly on the wall when they opened the parcel from Cosworth.

Ah…the McLaren Indy debacle that serves to prove that McLaren’s hitherto weakness for gross incompetence hasn’t entirely been forgotten, but seemingly grasps to Fernando’s coattails like shit to a blanket.

Perhaps the first question that I’d ask is why would the Indy campaign be headed by proven F1 maestro Bob Fernley, while the F1 campaign is co-managed by Indy maestro Gil De Ferran? It’s easy to point towards isolated incidents like the steering wheel, but this leads me to suspect that the relationship between McLaren and Cosworth was dysfunctional, I can’t believe that Cosworth didn’t ask “what about the gear levers?”.

Something is clearly very wrong with the Indy management structure, either Fernley was unaware of fundamental problems like the spare car being at the paintshop and not at the circuit, or he was unable to ensure that such problems were addressed. We’ve seen this before at McLaren and are seeing it now at Williams; poor communications across departments lead to fundamental and insurmountable problems.

Credit to Fernando though – he declined the offer of having a seat further up the grid bought for him, which would have been an affront to sportsmanship.

We’ve seen this before at McLaren and are seeing it now at Williams

You forgot to add Sick Bikes to the list.

Blimey Mercedes! Let’s hope Max can keep them honest…

I saw an article that said it looked like Mercedes had improved this year on one of their main weaknesses; low-speed corners, so would probably be quick at Monaco where they have traditionally struggled.