F1 2019 (spoilers obviously)

Just watched Verstappen take Brundle around in an Aston Martin pre Grid.  Brundle was shitting himself whilst Max was cutting corners as he same time as waving his hands Off the wheel about in the car explaining about the extreme low grip and weird camber in some of the Mexico track corners 😀

He has a very punchable face too.

I’m glad I’m not the only one who thinks the same.

Thats got to be a penalty, vetell just straight ran Hamilton off the track at the start.

Thought the same, shame about Max getting a puncture.

Not really, he was driving all het up and red misty, it was always going to go badly.And now he’s last.

Albon? Calm, quick and third. Good lad.

Missed the ‘lmfao’ smilie off my comment about Max getting a puncture.

Leclerc on a different strategy again – a good move or screwed over again?

With that pit stop, yes.

How good was that? NOT for Leclerc obviously.

I’ve just realised that since they’ve been in the same team Albon has scored 58 points to Verstappen’s 39!

Am late to the party and still haven’t had an opportunity to watch the race, but it was very silly of Max to admit that he’d seen the waved yellows in qualifying and not slowed, even though he already had pole position in the bag.

Albon is fast becoming a very reliable wingman who’ll score solid points. He’s showing moments of brilliance too.

A race to forget for McLaren. The pit error with Norris was unfortunate, but I don’t know why Sainz failed to score points – anyone?

why Sainz failed to score points

The hard tyres didn’t work for him which resulted in lots of sliding, slow lap times and a short 21 lap stint before a second stop.

Thank you!

PJM1974

Member

Am late to the party and still haven’t had an opportunity to watch the race, but it was very silly of Max to admit that he’d seen the waved yellows in qualifying and not slowed, even though he already had pole position in the bag.

Yeah I think he might have got away with just having the lap deleted if he’d have kept shtum.

Enjoyed what we saw of the Russell/Kubica battle.

A great race spoiled at the end again by cars not being able to follow closely – the teams can’t be allowed to sabotage the 2021 rules.

She sells it well

I agree that the concept cars for 2021 do look betterer, but they’re still going to be much longer than their 2009 counterparts and 25kg heavier than what we have now.

I realise that I’m never going to see facsimiles of a Ferrari 641 or a McLaren MP4/6 or hear wailing V12s or V10s racing in F1 again, road car tech is clearly moving beyond hybrid tech to fully electric power units. Formula One has to be relevant to car companies’ R&D and road car projects, it’s a great shame that power units are so expensive that we only have four engine manufacturers in the sport. Would’ve been great to have Ford, BMW, VW, Hyundai, Toyota involved, but clearly F1 has become too expensive and too niche for them to make it worthwhile.

Joe Saward has an excellent column on the “things used to be better” thing.
https://www.motorsportweek.com/joesaward/id/00572

As far as costs go, changing back to non-hybrid engines won’t cut costs IMO because the engine manufacturers will always spend as much money as they can get. In race trim, I think the gap between Ferrari/Merc and Renault/Honda is only about 20 horsepower (so about 2% to 3%). A manufacturer who is willing to spend 200 million per year will be able to out-develop one who is only willing to spend 100 million. On top of that, you will never succeed without a massive budget for aerodynamic development, so cutting the cost of engine development would just result in that money being switched to aero. Any new manufacturer who wanted to be competitive is facing a bill of a billion dollars or so over five years to take over an existing team and build it up to be a front-runner. If you spent that billion wisely, after five years, you would be a consistent top four team, so you need to convince the board and shareholders that a billion dollars is worth it for a 25% chance of a championship after five years.

changing back to non-hybrid engines won’t cut costs IMO because the engine manufacturers will always spend as much money as they can get.

But it significantly reduces the barriers to entry for other engine suppliers, as they only have to build….. an engine

They have to spend 100 to 200 million per year on R&D or their engine won’t be competitive. If it’s not competitive, nobody will want to use it. The last true privateer engine manufacturer was Cosworth. I honestly have no idea when they last won a race.

In F1 2003 with Jordan. Not sure about other formulas but I think they are more into electronics these day.

Pretty sure it was Schumacher in 1994 with the V8 in the back of the Benetton before they switched to Renault for ’95. EDIT: forgot about the Jordan Fords in ’03!!

Cosworth have also hinted at a return in 2021 depending upon what parts are available off-the-shelf regarding the hybrid bits. If one of the current manufacturers drop out they would be well place to buy the IP and develop it while running a year-old design if needs be.

Cosworth have also hinted at a return in 2021

They have no customers. Back before Red Bull and McLaren swapped engines, both teams were unhappy and there was talk of them getting together with Cosworth to build their own engines, but that is well and truly dead. McLaren have signed with Merc once their current Renault contract runs out and Red Bull aren’t going to ditch Honda in the hope that they can do better on their own. None of the other teams are going to be interested in a Cosworth engine.

Cosworth would have to spend a fortune on a massive catch up operation too.

TBH, if I were Jean Todt then the FIA would mandate that all F1 cars should have a 500watt speaker stashed in the back and a recorded engine note that’s either a Ferrari 412T, a McLaren MP4/6 or a Williams FW22.

Short flying trip for FingerBoy. It’s about the most exciting thing that’s happened so far.

Go on Lewis, drive the wheels off it.

Fairly decent race.

WAHOO!!

thought Verstappen was going to take him out on the last lap (listening on 5Live)

Well done lewis different league. I think the ferrari motors are spent now, new ice and grid penalties for the next race so they can end on a win perhaps.

Get in there Lewis!

🐐

Ferrari were well off the pace, was it just a bad day or was there more to it?

With the Ferrari extra power rumors and other F1 teams asking the FIA if the following is legal so they could try it themselves

“A controlled leak may allow a small amount of oil to enter the combustion process, and produce a power boost for a short period of time”

Have Ferrari now stopped doing this (if they even did at all) so not to fall foul of the rules and end up with penalties/fines?

Reading through various reports it seems that the drop in Ferrari power coincides with the ruling.  Take from that what you will.

Actually, the latest allegation is that they were basically jamming the fuel flow sensors with electrical noise so they could get short bursts of power. Red Bull asked for a technical clarification as to whether that was legal, which was obviously declined because it would be cheating if it was deliberate. Ferrari denied doing it, but everyone did note that they seemed to lack their previous qualifying pace. The next couple of races will be interesting. If the Ferrari engine is suddenly down on peak power, it will look very suspicious.

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/fuel-flow-clarification-ferrari-red-bull-fia/4591689/

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/ferrari-engine-austin-hamilton-wolff/4591933/

Ferrari look all at sea now.

Vettel now 5th in the championship! Would anyone have bet on that at the start of the season?

It was good to see Seb congratulating Lewis before the podium, very sporting. I think that Seb knows he (in a Ferrari) can’t beat Lewis (in a Mercedes), I do wonder if Seb will quit at the end of this year.

Well done Lewis, 6 World Championships.

Is he the GOAT?

I think he might be. He’ll almost certainly surpass Schumacher’s records at some point, race wins seems on the cards next season and at 34 he’s has plenty of time left to get to eight world championships.

I can’t compare him to drivers I’ve never seen but I’ve been watching F1 since the Senna / Prost era and I don’t think there is a driver in the last 30 years that has had Hamilton’s mix of abilities.

It’s difficult to compare drivers from different eras but in terms of all-round driving ability compared to those around them I guess Jim Clarke, Ayrton Senna and Lewis Hamilton stand out. You could maybe include Juan Manuel Fangio in that list too but I don’t quite go that far back!

The first two as we know had their careers ended prematurely by fatal accidents so may well have achieved a lot more than they actually did.

An interesting point was made on the qualifying program on C4 comparing Schumacher to Hamilton. Schumacher had outright #1 in the Ferrari team whereas Hamilton has always had to fight his own teammate in an equal car.

Bar for 6 points, bad luck and cheating team mates, Lewis would have had 8 championships by now. He was so close in his 2007 rookie year with Alonso and again in 2016 only losing to Rosberg due to cheating (Monaco) and bad luck (Engine fail).

Just looking up some stats and Lewis is 4th in the overall win percentage list (on 33.47%, behind Jim Clark (34.25%), Alberto Ascari (39.39%) and of course Juan Manuel (46.15%)) which is mighty impressive bearing in mind he’s done more than four times as many GPs as any of them did. But what I think impressed me more is that he has not missed a GP since his debut – 248 on the bounce since 2007, 42 more consecutive GPs than anyone else. In for the long haul and still at the top.

Daffy

Bar for 6 points, bad luck and cheating team mates, Lewis would have had 8 championships by now. He was so close in his 2007 rookie year with Alonso and again in 2016 only losing to Rosberg due to cheating (Monaco) and bad luck (Engine fail).

I agree but there’s always ifs, buts and maybes in any great sportsman’s career