Formula 1 2024 – WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS

Am I alone in that I don’t want to see lots of overtaking?

The thing with most motorsport is that due to qualifying, the fastest cars start at the front.
So typically those behind dont have the pace to overtake. Its only when one car starts out of position, or the cars are of a similar speed then overtaking is possible.

I’d rather have quality over quantity too

The current regulations seem to have helped with this.
Although unsure if its the car concept or Wind tunnel/CFD limits which have helped close up the field

At Baku the top 7 cars were within one second of each other (would have been 8 without Landos incident)
In the past that could have been just 2 cars from the same team

I personally wonder how much the performance is restricted by Pirelli ?

I personally wonder how much the performance is restricted by Pirelli ?

Keep in mind that Pirelli were asked to make tyres that degrade so that strategy plays a bigger role. What the drivers mostly complain about is thermal degradation, so if they put in more than one or two fast laps, the tyres just get cooked and lose pace. What the drivers want is tyres that lose pace as they wear, but are able to be pushed to the limit the whole time. Whether that’s actually possible, I don’t know, those cars crank out 1,000 BHP at maximum deployment and generate tonnes of downforce so all of that has to be transferred to the road through a few inches of rubber.

Alpine confirms it will no longer produce it’s own engines…

Renault confirms it will stop building it own F1 engines in 2026

Christ, Piastri must wake up every morning and laugh about how he escaped his Renault contract.

How can a works team **** up so badly? Just sell the team already and have done with it. Pointless half-arsing it.

Just sell the team already

Isn’t that what Flavio is there to do?

…not officially! :-)

How can a works team **** up so badly? Just sell the team already and have done with it. Pointless half-arsing it.

I get the impression that they’re a bit like Mclaren-Honda a few years back. Officially a works team, but the chassis and engine sides were both half-assed and blaming each other. At least that was so uncompetitive that it was obvious that both sides needed a complete restructuring. Problem with Renault is that they looked like they were becoming competitive a few years back, but that just gave them cover for not actually fixing the problems.

…not officially! :-)

Does Flavio do anything ‘officially’?

Does Flavio do anything ‘officially’?

Lie, cheat, scheme… and manage Alonso.

Rumours that Perez is going to announce his “retirement” at Mexico.  Horner saying something like “ideal scenario is Perez in Red Bull next year” but that “2 weeks is a long time in f1”

So Lawson into an RB 11 races into his career? Explains the mid-season change. Hadjar in whatever VCARB decide to call themselves next year? And Yuki staying where he is?

Bottas to RB/RBR in case Lawson doesn’t come up with the goods…

Is Bottas going to be better than Perez? They were both very decent second-tier drivers in their day (and I don’t mean that disparagingly, I mean not quite Hamilton/Alonso level, but still better than most – regular, dependable race-winners, easily as good as Webber, Barachello, Coulthard, etc)

I’ve not seen any flashes of brilliance from Bottas lately which leads me to think he’ll be better than Checo. I think both have had their day unfortunately, and Riccardo too.

I think Bottas would be a good replacement for Perez, he’d be a good number 2 driver for next season alongside Verstappen. Not as quick as Max, but quicker than most. Take your point that he hasn’t shown any brilliance recently, but he is in the slowest  car on the grid.

A handy interim whilst Red Bull sort the mess they’ve created with the driver line up.  Tsunodo will never get the chance whilst Horny is drawing breath for whatever reason.

Planet F1 is currently unreadable.

80% of the ‘stories’ are puff pieces for Danny Ric that ignore the speed of his decline since he left RB.

I know they’re on a break, but some actual news would be lovely.

I’ve not seen any flashes of brilliance from Bottas lately

Of course not: he’s driving a shitbox. But I agree, I can’t see any reason to put him into a RB over Perez. And I don’t think that the issue is even just one of whether he’s better than Perez, it’s what’s going on at Red Bull Towers. As far as I can see from my armchair, Horner has been defending both Ricciardo and Perez and trying to keep some stability because he knows that it didn’t work when they were chewing through Gasly, Albon, Hartley etc and spitting them out. But Ricciardo and Perez simply haven’t been delivering consistently, which means Horner’s now on the back foot in terms of driver management. Marko wants to throw the young pups in at the deep end and wants drivers to prove themselves immediately. They need some balance: they need the young talent but they also need to nurture it better than they used to. I think the pendulum is swinging Marko’s way and he presumably wants to use the remainder of 2024, and quite possibly 2025, as a mass audition—who they choose and how they handle them after that remains to be seen.

Of course not: he’s driving a shitbox

Either he’s not as good as he used to be or we have all underestimated Zhou, which is of course possible, he could be brilliant and the car even worse than we think. But Bottas isn’t miles ahead of him, in the way that say Albon was compared to Sargent in a slow car.

In light of recent events I think Lando only has 4 races left to take the title. I can easily see Qatar and UAE being cancelled.

I’ve not seen any flashes of brilliance from Bottas lately

Much as I like him as a person, I think his recent performances are those of a man who 1. knows that this (up until these rumours started circulating) is going to be his last year in F1, and 2. is driving a car that is woeful, I think even just being on the same lap as the leaders at the finish would be ‘flashes of brilliance’ right now.

andrewh

Either he’s not as good as he used to be or we have all underestimated Zhou, which is of course possible, he could be brilliant and the car even worse than we think. But Bottas isn’t miles ahead of him, in the way that say Albon was compared to Sargent in a slow car.

Hard to tell in that shitbox, but if you look at the quali h2h, it’s 17-1 in Bottas’ favour.