F1 2020 (spoilers abound)

Vettel has spun trying to overtake Sainz!

Vettel being a **** again ha ha ha ha.

Vettel

Vettel just hasn’t had his head in this for a couple of years now! Consistent mistakes and toy/pram moments.

Perez has finally passed Norris, the Racing Point does indeed look to be the third fastest car this weekend. George Russell is fighting with Giovinazzi and Ocon, currently in twelfth.

Anyone else think that the two Mercs might not actually make it to the end…?

vettel could get some points after the safety car! It aint over yet.. Cheers Russell

It’s like going back to the 80s / 90s with all of these retirements

Impatient Albon

Dodgem cars time.

Leclerc to win?

Cracking last lap from Norris!

YES!!!! Norris!!!

Wow.  Great news for McLaren!

worthy top 3 and pretty good race.. I imagine it will be business as usual by next weekend with merc and red bull at the sharp end.

Well that turned out well in the end. More races like that please

That was entertaining

Really enjoyed that, now will have to see whether the next race on the same circuit will be as good or everyone has optimised everything and it turns boring.

I didn’t agree with the penalty, but love seeing Norris and McLaren up there. Gutted for Russell

So why didn’t the Mercs come in for soft tyres during the last safety car ?

They’d have been half a second faster for the final 11 laps & guaranteed one two

Pit stops are full of risk. You don’t box unless you have to. See Raikkonen’s wheel coming off.

So why didn’t the Mercs come in for soft tyres during the last safety car ?

They’d have been half a second faster for the final 11 laps & guaranteed one two

The cars behind would have stayed out, the Mercs would have had to pass them which may have been tricky given their reliability worries and having to pass people also has risks.

Are they still limited to three engines this year? Or has this been reduced to take account of there being fewer races?
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Also a McLaren question for anyone who knows. If they are changing engines next year then presumably they will have designed the 2020 car around a Renualt engine, and the 2021 car around a Mercedes. Now the rule changes have been delayed and everyone will be using an evolution of the 2020 cars in 2021 and the 2021 cars in 2022 how will trying to get a Mercedes engne into a car desgned around a Renault one work? Will they have to have a massive redesign for next year?
Having said that, putting a Merc engine into a chassis designed for something else turned out OK for Brawn…

 Or has this been reduced to take account of there being fewer races?

No one really knows how many races there will be, there are confirmed by races but others could be added/removed due to the pandemic in that particular country at the time

Also a McLaren question for anyone who knows. If they are changing engines next year then presumably they will have designed the 2020 car around a Renualt engine, and the 2021 car around a Mercedes. Now the rule changes have been delayed and everyone will be using an evolution of the 2020 cars in 2021 and the 2021 cars in 2022 how will trying to get a Mercedes engne into a car desgned around a Renault one work? Will they have to have a massive redesign for next year?

From what I gather, all engines have a standardized arrangement of mounting points to the chassis, so in terms of hardpoints it should be plug and play. Of course, there’s the issue of aero around a different engine package, so I believe that McLaren have negotiated some sort of concession here

In reality it’s (probably) not quite so simple. There will be differences in packaging and location of ancillaries that’ll require some compromise between fit and performance, there may also be a difference in weight distribution that could change the balance of the car.

Zak Brown seems to acknowledge that 2021 may be a bit of a bummer.

Well, that was a bit bonkers.

Loved hearing the squeals in the commentary room when Albon went round the outside, I mean, there can’t be many people who’d gone round the outside of Hamilton. Such a shame it went so pear-shaped for him,

Also a shame that Russell lost power and we weren’t treated to Vettel romping home behind a Williams 😉 I don’t buy Vettel’s post-race interview where he’s blaming the car for losing the back end there, it looks totally like he’s realised he’s **** it when the gap starts to close and he has no choice but to slide.

Still, at least he’s not in Sainz’s shoes. Realising you’ve signed up just when Ferrari look like imploding yet again must take the edge off it. Ricciardo on the other hand…

Quite an intriguing prospect seeing it all play out again next week, especially if Red Bull can sort their technical issues. (And on the matter of technical issues, haven’t Haas had endless brake problems since they joined? What’s going on there?)

Sweepstake on which corner Seb bins it at next week? 😉

at least he’s not in Sainz’s shoes. Realising you’ve signed up just when Ferrari look like imploding yet again must take the edge off it. Ricciardo on the other hand

That Racing Point looks pretty handy. Two multiple world champs available for next year, let’s see who ends up partnering Stroll.

LMAO at Ferrari facing the prospect of finishing 5th behind Racing Point and McLaren unless they can get their shit together in the next few weeks.

there can’t be many people who’d gone round the outside of Hamilton

Yup – cos he will just nerf you off if you try as he did here – and get away with it as he gets treated generously by the stewards compared to many.

should have been a drive thru at lest given he nerfed off a guy that had passed him and put him off the podium

and get away with it as he gets treated generously by the stewards compared to many.

that’ll be the 5 second penalty that took him off the podium and the same penalty any other driver would have got?

Lewis knew what he was doing – looking at the on-boards he could have easily been 3 to 4 foot further to the right. He was far from troubling the apex of that corner.

He didn’t nerf Albon – just made life very hard for him. Albon will learn that overtaking the best F1 drivers is a tough job.

5 second penalty is consistent with what others have received in the past.

5 second penalty is consistent with what others have received in the past.

I’m a bit confused now what the rules actually are. I thought last year it was deemed acceptable to run people wide on the outside.

Edit: just rewatched the incident and Lewis tags his rear wheel, I misremembered their positions as being alongside each other

cos he will just nerf you off if you try

Hamilton hardly has a history of “nerfing people off”, he has a justifiable reputation as one of the fairest wheel-to-wheel racers on the grid. Ultimately you don’t win races by backing down in every confrontation and there’s a fine line between legitimately holding your line and causing a collision; any good racer will be right on that margin and Lewis was right on it yesterday.

Remember Verstappen vs Leclerc at turn 3 last year? Much more of a “nerf”. No penalty there: fair racing, said the stewards, despite Verstappen barging Leclerc from the inside whereas Albon put himself in the danger zone by trying round the outside where there’s always a good risk of your back end being nudged. So I’m not sure how you perceive a pro-Hamilton bias.

Fundamentally, trying round the outside of a medium speed corner with a gravel trap right next to the kerb is a super-risky strategy, especially if the person you’re trying to pass isn’t known for backing down. (Note that he did back down earlier in the race: when he was on the outside in the same corner.)

Not saying that it’s Albon’s fault and Hamilton was a bystander, but it’s racing, I don’t think anyone did anything wrong there. Albon rolled the dice (and all credit to him—he’s a great overtaker and had it worked he’d have achieved something amazing) but I think that’s one where he just needs to accept he got unlucky.

To me it’s a borderline penalty. Not super harsh, but for most of F1’s existence no-one would have batted an eyelid.

I dont understand why Bottas didnt let Hamilton overtake, then allow him to get 5 seconds ahead ?

Given team orders are allowed, they missed an opportunity.

Because in an unknown number of races season, a bad result like yesterday could mean Lewis doesn’t get championship #7 this year.

I thought the turn3 penalty was harsh, Albon had acres of track space to his left, but he turned into Hamilton’s line just after he got his nose in front.

Another steward inconsistent penalty imo.

I dont understand why Bottas didnt let Hamilton overtake, then allow him to get 5 seconds ahead ?

Bottas is serious about wanting to win the championship. Rosberg did it, so Bottas just needs to drive well and have a bit of luck and he might do it too. If you recall, Hamilton didn’t mind holding up Rosberg to let other cars catch him when they were battling for the championship. Nothing wrong with that, but it shows you can’t expect your teammate to do you any favours when a championship is at stake.

Obviously Bottas wouldn’t have voluntarily let Hamilton past, no driver would be stupid enough to have done that. It’s more a question of why Toto or James didn’t make the call. (Unless they did and Bottas ignored it, but you’d think that if that radio message had happened it would have been broadcast.)

It’s not up to Bottas to make that call either – Toto was the one who should’ve been on the radio to engineer a team 1-2 finish but AFAIK nobody from Merc made that decision.

This. Bottas is the only serious challenger to LH this year. While it’s undecided, don’t expect any favours from either to the other.

IIRC, at the title decider with Rosberg, Merc were asking Hamilton to stop messing around and trying to back Rosberg up because they wanted the 1-2 finish for the team wheras a 1-2 finish was the last thing Hamilton wanted. Hamilton ignored them, which is not really surprising. Can’t really imagine them expecting Bottas to do any different, especially seeing as how much faster their car seems to be.

I think Merc were genuinely worried about a double DNF if the gearbox sensor issues they were seeing caused a failure.

That’s probably why they didn’t try playing a cute strategy at then end to get Hamilton 5 seconds clear of Le Clerc or Norris for that matter.