F1 2021 – spoilers here

^^ That, 100%

Sky are touting it on all their channels now, “Decider in the Desert!” with all the clips of crashes and controversy. I hate all that build up stuff, so much of it fake or manufactured.

A few years ago at a track cycling event there was a Vos vs Armitstead (as she was then) and all the posters and cycling magazines were trying their best to turn it into a clash of the titans grudge match showdown type thing. Vos and Armitstead seemed quite bemused by it all, it was just two friendly rivals doing their job. The efforts to manufacture some kind of no holds barred trash talking showdown just made the media look like idiots.

Am I right in thinking that MV is now disadvantaged for the race as he has less medium tyres left after flat spotting a set? Will this dictate their race strategy, whereas LH has more choices? I haven’t watched f1 in years but will tune in tomorrow!

I thought the opposite actually- we might see a similar tactic being used at other races next year, as it worked so well.

They’ve been trying it for years now and 9 times out of 10, teams screw it up or they lose out in other parts of a lap. Even then it only got Max an extra tenth this time.

Am I right in thinking that MV is now disadvantaged for the race as he has lessfewer medium tyres left after flat spotting a set?

FTFY.

Fantombiker – I think………

Which ever set of tyres you set the best time in Q2, are the set you start the GP on.

Because Max set his best Q2 time on Softs, he has to use that set to start the GP. By flat spotting his last set of Mediums, he had no fresh Mediums left so had little choice.

This means Max will have to stop twice, whereas Lewis/Bottas will probably only stop once.

Yep, on paper at least, Hamilton has a strategy advantage. It’ll be bucking the trend tho if this GP is in any way predictable!

will he have to? They said 23s per stop, with the increased pace and the better tyres, can he get and stay out in front of LH when he changes tyres and then eke out the single set of tyres with furious and nothing to lose defence of his line?

if the safety car gets deployed he could have a cheap pitstop of increase the life of the softs. I think there may be a few suprise win it or bin it moves.. How about that for a day late and a dollar short. If I were LH I’d leave Max in front for as long as possible.

You can run the soft tyre to lap 15-17 and then hard tyre for the remaining 50 laps, but you’d be slow at the end of both stints. But it would given Max track position and Lewis would have to overtake at the end on hard tyres which were only 10-12 laps better. Being on the medium is not much of an advantage – a one stop can work for either combo so long as the hard holds up against the new kerbs for 50 laps.

who knew there were so many F1 strategists on here.

I’ve just checked- this thread is a year old, 107 pages long and 20 were added in the last week

Exciting times 😄

Anyone know how much longer a pit stop takes here, with all that fiddly jinking thru the tunnel?

To me, that pit exit seems to suggest that the preferred option would be one stop otherwise too much time could be lost…

About 22 seconds, so actually pretty standard

who knew there were so many F1 strategists on here.

Alpha Tauri to bin it at lap 15 for a yellow flag safety car and a RB tyre change. It’s a team sport after all, even when your team has four cars. 🤣

I think Max is going to rue that lockup after his hotlap on the mediums in Q2, they’ll be having to go long in the first stint to cover Mercedes later in the race and that could leave them with little options to cover anything later in the race. Hamilton is happy where he is as he can avoid a 1st corner clash and then just wait to pounce at multiple points in the race if the long run pace from practice is a true reflection of what will happen tomorrow.

Either way it’s going to be interesting to see how desperate Max may have to get if Hamilton puts the pressure on like I think he will.

To be honest despite the racing being closer than for a while, everything else about the ‘spectacle’ has put me off, probably for good. There is more than a whiff of WWE about the smackdown around the races. The grudge match verbs, the booing, the tantrums. It feels like the sport is descenting into a branding exercise aimed at frustrated dweeby teenage boys and their adult equivalents. F1 racers were once the epitome of cool (and Lauda, who was his own brand of cool). Now, not so much.

Same here. I’ve always liked the traditional snide remarks etc but they’ve always been subtle and a slow-burner. Since Liberty took over the various sound effects in the world feed, various gimmicks (remember the Superbowl-style intro’s!) and encouraging the networks to ramp up the hype when it hasn’t been needed has really put me off watching next year. With the change of regulations creating a bit of a chapter change I really want to see Hamilton get his 8th title and then I can leave happy I saw history being made. I have no real desire to watch a driver as dirty as Max winning once Hamilton retires. There’s also the issue of the number of races getting ridiculous so that to follow the season you have to write off nearly half of the weekends in a year, I’d rather ride my bike more instead. It will be sad for me to leave F1 behind after 30+ years of only missing 1 race but the way the sport is going doesn’t sit well with me. I see the 2022 thread has already started, doubt I’ll be posting in that one.

Anyway, let’s enjoy this weekend and hope for a hard but fair fight!

The WWE thing is annoying, but i will say that for the first time in as long as I can remember, I’ve overheard random people talking about F1.

Great lap from Max!
Question is, will the low downforce setup on the Red bull cause higher tyre Deg? Far from an expert but surely there’s no free lunch, less downforce, more sliding, faster wear. Especially with full tanks.

Hoping like most for a nice clean race with no cockups/stewards required.

No doubt the sport’s owners / administrators are well pleased with themselves.

Hoping like most for a nice clean race with no cockups/stewards required.

The drivers and Wolff seem to have dialled the controversy-meter down a notch so I guess the fact they’re on different strategies may well aid in a clean race.

I did enjoy Lewis’s “I’m grateful I can see where he is” remark 🙂

Alpha Tauri to bin it at lap 15 for a yellow flag safety car and a RB tyre change

You are Flavio Briatore and ICMFP

I’ve just read that DC has said the crash last week was Lewis’s fault. On top of that Mark Webber refused to say that the crash was MVs fault and that he “hadn’t seen the telemetry”. Either he’s lying and he just wants to make his Red Bull buddies happy or he shouldn’t be commenting on F1 when he is ignoring the facts that pretty much every single F1 fan knows. I’m really sick of the Red Bull bias of those two – about time they got Eddie back to bring some reality back! Or bring James Hunt back from thr dead somehow – he just didn’t give a crap!

Might be the final nail in the coffin of me watching F1 on C4 and I may stump up for Sky coverage next year – I watched the FP3 with KC and Button commenting and I really enjoyed it.

I did enjoy Lewis’s “I’m grateful I can see where he is” remark

Lewis is the master of the understated comment like that which takes a while to sink in…. 😂

It’s an art, isn’t it?

I wonder how long you have to spend in the media spotlight to understand that your comments will be over-analysed and you can say some real cryptic stuff that people will pick up on.

Much to my surprise, my brother (who’s a far more considered sort than me) thinks the odds slightly better than evens that Hamilton will happily poke his nose in and sit where Verstappen can’t help himself but chop it off, with a degree of confidence that Max’ll be penalised after his driving standards this season. Me, I’m not so sure….

… but I’d still quite like to see it, if only to send the message that ANYONE can be over-aggressive, but that shit gets tired and it ain’t always gonna go your way.

Mazepin out with COVID. Hope he’s the only one!

What I agree that DC is a joke and Weber catching up quickly please don’t bring back Eddie. Perhaps C4 can make it part of the contract that there is no DC s part of the deal to buy the package they have

Mazepin out with COVID. Hope he’s the only one!

Makes a change from him being out by spinning into the barriers…

^😁

What time is lights out?

1pm, UK time.
I didn’t realise it was a middle of the day thing. Got back from a walk yesterday, turned the TV on and Q3 was just finishing! Thought it’d be later going off the timings of the previous Middle East races. Oh well.

Lunchtime

I’ve just read that DC has said the crash last week was Lewis’s fault. On top of that Mark Webber refused to say that the crash was MVs fault and that he “hadn’t seen the telemetry”.

That’s exactly what they said on the Qualy highlights show. Considering there’s YouTube videos with he telemetry that have been on there for a few days now I’ve lost all respect for those two now as commentators. At least Lee McKenzie still questions things correctly, pity they use her so little.

Perhaps C4 can make it part of the contract that there is no DC s part of the deal to buy the package they have.

DC is the package they buy, he owns Whisper together with Jake Humphrey and Suni Patel. There’s a tie-in too between Sky and Whisper as Brundle is DC’s manager. Before Whisper was set up there were rumours the contracted highlights package on FTA was going to end up on one of Sky’s random FTA channels tucked away at 3am.

I paid out for a month of Now TV..I don’t have to hear DC and Weber, but Karen pops up every 5 mins which is probably worse. Why is he the only TP to do in-race interviews?!

Too late to replace Mazapin I assume?
There must be someone else there with a superlicence, Zhou would be the obvious choice but I’m guessing g that can’t do that after quali?

Before Whisper was set up there were rumours the contracted highlights package on FTA was going to end up on one of Sky’s random FTA channels tucked away at 3am

Whisper was set up years before Sky got the deal – IIRC they started out doing promo videos for some of the F1 teams.

I’ve never warmed to the Sky coverage in the past. It always seemed like they threw loads of people and gadgets at it rather than feeling the soul of the event, so it’ll be interesting to see how it goes today.

Too late to replace Mazapin I assume?

The replacement must have participated in at least one practice session this weekend so that only leaves Jack Aitken as a possibility.

They said first thing this morning they weren’t replacing him (saving money on replacement parts presumably)

Yes!!

Oh look, Verstappen is pushing Hamilton around already. It’ll upset RB now that the stewards have said no investigation necessary.