Just caught up with things. Good to see Merc back in the mix, at this rate Ferrari will finish as 3rd best team.

Sainz – just got to up his game. Doing a really poor job in a race winning car.

I’m beginning to wonder whether Daniel Ricciardo will still be in that McLaren at the end of the year.

Normally watch on sky F1 but was out all day just watched the CH4 effort, its was appalling.

Did love the Top Gun piece at the start though – it was pointless messing about, but made me laugh. The race was better on the radio live though!

Red Bull bending rules to breaking point with their driver communication

In what way?

Great race, loved that. Would have liked to see Leclerc win tho

Great to see Hamilton getting his mojo back, and Russell is just on fire right now

Interesting that the Fort William drone footage really made the Barcelona one look crap

Red Bull bending rules to breaking point with their driver communication

In what way?

Teams are only allowed so many messages to the stewards directly, Red Bull were using TV coverage to exceed this figure, as mentioned by the BBC.

Can’t see anything in the FIA regs covering teams comms to the race director 🤔 Some articles have said teams are not allowed to talk to the director, others have said they are no longer broadcast on TV, so not sure what they’ve changed.

2022_formula_1_sporting_regulations_-_iss_1_-_2020-05-27_0.pdf (fia.com)

Interesting that the Fort William drone footage really made the Barcelona one look crap

Probably quite a lot harder to follow something that’s always at speeds in excess of 100mph. A lot more vibration too.

Also, I’d be wondering if they’ve had to use a fixed wing drone to get the speed and endurance required for the footage.

Brilliant race, loved it!

Bet Perez was fuming after being made to move over. And unlucky for Hamilton, that was a great recovery drive. Absolutely superb work from George, really smart racing.

Interesting that the Fort William drone footage really made the Barcelona one look crap

It really was crap.

Daffy
Full Member
Probably quite a lot harder to follow something that’s always at speeds in excess of 100mph. A lot more vibration too.

Either do it right or don’t do it at all. Struck me as a little pathetic, one of the richest sports in the world going “look, look, we have a drone!” when it added nothing and looked shit

c4 Highlights were abysmal , great drive by Checo hard to know if max would have caught him anyway, hard luck on Leclerc , great Result for Red Bull

“look, look, we have a drone!” when it added nothing and looked shit

Especially when they cut straight from the drone footage to the helicopter footage!!

c4 Highlights were abysmal

I no longer need to watch the CH4 shows now (don’t ask!) …. sounds like I made the right decision to change!

Perez having to suck it up for the team at this stage of the season is as bad as Ferrari were with Schumacher. I don’t mind team orders to close out a title but sometimes just let them race.

LeClerc had that in his pocket though, so I wouldn’t write him off just yet.

Perez having to suck it up for the team at this stage of the season is as bad as Ferrari were with Schumacher. I don’t mind team orders to close out a title but sometimes just let them race.

As much as we’d like to see them race – there’s only one reason Checo was bought in and that was to make sure he was consistently up front to disrupt other teams strategies and not hovering round in 6th and 7th like previous occupants of that 2nd seat.

The one thing he has got going for him though is Gasly isn’t really setting things on fire this season and isn’t even seeing-off Tsunodo, so Checo’s Red Bull seat should be safe for another season.

Perez having to suck it up for the team at this stage of the season is as bad as Ferrari were with Schumacher.

I agree. At least wait until the mid point of the season!

Thoughts on Karen asking for an increase in the budget cap… apparently due to inflation:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/61551759

My initial reaction is to let those 7 teams miss the final races.

My initial reaction is to let those 7 teams miss the final races.

I took this to mean they’ve been massively overspending, as per them bringing an upgrade to pretty much every race so far. Ferrari Team Principle Binotto was wondering how they were able to spend that much and stay within the budget cap, I guess now we have the answer

Set a budget cap and allow teams to overspend but they forfeit a race for every £Xmill spent.
Budget cap £10,000,000 (or whatever) spend £10,000,001 and you miss a race of your choice in what is left of the season.
If found to be cheating the books then it instant forfeit of all points and a seasons suspension.

My initial reaction is to let those 7 teams miss the final races.

Yep. Or maybe let teams borrow 10 million from the following year’s budget to cover unexpected costs (accident damage, for example), but not routine costs. This way you won’t have a championship decided by one team not being able to afford to repair damaged cars, but you won’t have constant campaigning to increase the cap.

Be interesting to see if there are anymore upgrades on the RB. I liked the Alpine chaps response,”If we could factor in inflation, everyone else could”

Could be an interesting twist to the season, RB putting all their eggs into upgrading the car early in the season, hitting the budget wall, then seeing the rest of the field trickle through their upgrades and RB going down the field.

My initial reaction is to let those 7 teams miss the final races.

I’m not sure they can miss races. IIRC they have to turn up to all of them (or maybe all except 1) or risk losing their membership of the series. Possibly they can miss more with force majeure though.

This is just hazy memories though, I can’t find confirmation.

Could be an interesting twist to the season, RB putting all their eggs into upgrading the car early in the season, hitting the budget wall, then seeing the rest of the field trickle through their upgrades and RB going down the field.

It would be great if the Haas strategy of just running the launch car until they have figured out how to maximize its performance before trying upgrades turns out to be the optimum.

It would be great if the Haas strategy of just running the launch car until they have figured out how to maximize its performance before trying upgrades turns out to be the optimum.

The problem is that simulations don’t/can’t simulate everything (as Merc found out) so real-life testing with actual parts is ultimately required to make progress.

RB speech will be to spend so the budget early in the year and then moan and whine at everyone until the rules are changed or not applied to suit them. It worked last year

It’s not just RB wanting the cap raised. All the richer teams want it. The smaller teams were unlikely to hit the cap previously so they’re less keen on exacerbating the gap between rich and poor.

Maybe there could be a sort of “tax”. For every £1 spent above the current cap, another £1 is paid into a fund to subsidise the smaller teams.

How much does a tiny violin cost these days? 🙂

Anyone else thrown by no F1 today at Monaco?

I was looking forward to FP1 and only just noticed Monaco no longer has Fridays off! 🙂

I did the same – looked for the practice on the radio, but nope tomorrow it is!

Really? Blimey, that is a change, maybe Liberty are flexing their muscles a bit.

Anyone else thrown by no F1 today at Monaco?

I was looking forward to FP1 and only just noticed Monaco no longer has Fridays off!

Yep, went to check the practice times and then remembered that they changed it.

Bernie not aware that he had a gun in his luggage.
Bernie Ecclestone: Former F1 CEO arrested in Brazil for illegally carrying a gun

Was he coming back from a work event at No 10?

Boris says he wasn’t aware Bernie was there.

Typical modern attitude……I can do whatever I want and always deny/lie my way out of it.
He should have taken up politics – he would have fitted right in.

Danny Ric is going to be looking for a new job next year at this rate. Beaten by a poorly team mate last week and put it into the wall today.

So the Merc is bouncing like a pogo stick again. “We’ve fix porpoising for good” aged well

Danny Ric is going to be looking for a new job next year at this rate. Beaten by a poorly team mate last week and put it into the wall today.

Yep. It’s a weird paradox that he seems so anxious and dependent on his own confidence considering how light-hearted he is (seems?) out of the car. He’ll be a great loss to the sport if that happens.