Formula One 2020

[Peter 4,047]

What a fantastic result by Dan.  In a second tier care.  Just awesome 

 

[Peter 4,047]

[Bored@work 3,989]

On 11/09/2020 at 11:28 AM, IronJimbo said:

I've done more than enough simming to appreciate how tricky it is 

A guy I know loves his simming. I keep giving him shit because he could have purchased a real race care for less than this cost him. 

 

[IronJimbo 1,383]

10 hours ago, Bored@work said:

A guy I know loves his simming. I keep giving him shit because he could have purchased a real race care for less than this cost him. 

 

Yeah, that's a bit nuts...

[IronmanFoz 1,635]

"Our' Daniel really isn't a very good driver is he!!! All in all a 9th seems to be pretty good for him these days.

 

[Peter 4,047]

5 hours ago, IronmanFoz said:

"Our' Daniel really isn't a very good driver is he!!! All in all a 9th seems to be pretty good for him these days.

 

Again when you understand the sport get back to us. 
 

a better comment would be, Vettel is the poor performer.  Top 6 car and can’t finish top 6 

[Andrew #1 1,241]

5 hours ago, IronmanFoz said:

"Our' Daniel really isn't a very good driver is he!!! All in all a 9th seems to be pretty good for him these days.

 

Trolling a thread on a forum where few people frequent? It’s all getting a bit sad for you, isn’t it. You should take better care of yourself.

[Peter 4,047]

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CG2a63WDK3-/?igshid=npawbm7opt6l
 

hilarious.  

[IronmanFoz 1,635]

A 3rd this week. A pretty good race. Good decisions with tyres and pits help heaps along with a little luck.

Good job. 

[Andrew #1 1,241]

Imola is an astonishing track. Brilliant for qualifying, but very poor as a race track for the current type of F1 cars. The double corner at Rivazza and the curving main straight ending at the premature Tamburello chicane means that a following car is too far behind at the beginning, gets too little DRS assistance along the straight and there is not enough braking zone to make good any of the limited overtaking opportunities that present. There is a lack of a genuine secondary overtaking zone as well. Perhaps with the advent of ground effects cars will be able to come out of Rivazza close enough to change all that. But at the moment it’s as bad as Barcelona for F1 racing. Alas.

Imola presents  an interesting contract with Murgello and Portugal - in the former the positive cambered corners at both ends of the main straight, plus the total length of that straight made for good overtaking opportunities. With the later there was a enough distance on the main straight that even with the sweeping flat out curves leading onto it, there was also sufficient time for a DRS enabled car to made the pass - although - as Ricciardo proved - positions could also be defended as well. 

Last night Ricciardo drove well and capitalised on luck. Despite what Ironman Foz says, he’s been driving brilliantly all year. In a sport where even the very best made mistakes - and I can think of about half a dozen mistakes that both Hamilton and Vestappen have made this year, but I can only think of three mistakes that Ricciardo has made all year - one in FP3 in Sytria, a messy second qualifying run in Q3 in Russia and that tangle with Sainz in the 70th anniversary GP after Renault had already ****ed up his race with poor tyre strategy. 
 

It’s pretty clear that the top 4 drivers this year are Hamilton, Vestappen, Ricciardo and LeClerc. They are head and shoulders above the rest, although Gasley has really really impressed as well.

Bottas has had some bad luck, but his performance at Monza demonstrates that he’s only ever been a second or ‘B driver’ (a very fine one mind you) and not a team leader. Unlike Rosberg - who was right up Lewis’s arse over the 4 years they were team mates (just like he was as a team mate in karting a decade before), Bottas is a full step behind Hamilton over the course of a season. 
 

Norris and Russell might both develop into A drivers in a top team, but Sainz and Perez are just fine journeymen - like Bottas but with less luck so far in their careers (but more luck than the similarly talented Hulkenberg). Stroll is a joke - while he can be fast he has zero race craft no judgement. He shouldn’t be in F1. Albon seems to have lost all confidence and isn’t projecting the steel set of balls needed in the top flight of racing. 

Raikkonen shouldn’t be in F1 either - it’s embarrassing for him to be taking a F1 seat away from an up Nd coming driver for no other reason than to have weekly golden oldie fights with fellow hasbeen Vettel for 10th place. 

perhaps the most interesting thing last weekend is the fact that the Alpha Tauri was clearly the third fastest car on the grid over the race weekend. But for engine failure Gasley may well have beaten Ricciardo. So now we have four teams with a car that is capable of being third fastest, depending on the circumstances of the track (maybe even 5 cars if you count LeClerc’s heroics). Further, the mid field is still just in touch with red Bull (at least the second car). If it wasn’t for Mercedes, this year would probably be the best every year of F1 racing that I can recall: sure there have been years where 3 or more teams have had competitive cars, but 5? All within a tenth of each other? I can’t recall that ever.

 

Edited November 2 by Andrew #1

[IronmanFoz 1,635]

9 hours ago, Andrew #1 said:

It’s pretty clear that the top 4 drivers this year are Hamilton, Vestappen, Ricciardo and LeClerc. They are head and shoulders above the rest, although Gasley has really really impressed as well.

Bottas has had some bad luck, but his performance at Monza demonstrates that he’s only ever been a second or ‘B driver’ (a very fine one mind you) and not a team leader. Unlike Rosberg - who was right up Lewis’s arse over the 4 years they were team mates (just like he was as a team mate in karting a decade before), Bottas is a full step behind Hamilton over the course of a season. 

 

Good summation in the previous post but I would not suggest that Bottas has some serious explaining to do as to why a B grade driver is consistently streaks ahead of the rest of the field except Hamilton........it must be the car.....that drives itself. Must mean that the rest of the field are B grade drivers or worse.

Sure Mercedes are the pick of the cars, but they dont drive themselves. 

What would be good is for the drivers get drawn to drive a random car each race. Then we can start talking about who are the better drivers.
 

[gregb 181]

1 hour ago, IronmanFoz said:

What would be good is for the drivers get drawn to drive a random car each race. Then we can start talking about who are the better drivers.

Similar to some of the Olympic sailing events where everyone gets issued with the same spec boat?

[Andrew #1 1,241]

Bottas is fast. Very fast. He’s very very good. No question. Yet when the acid test is applied he’s clearly a B driver. This is perfect for Hamilton and Mercedes - Bottas is a good test driver - giving great feed back to the engineers. He’s quick in par at ice and qualifying. He’s dependable in the race with getting the second Mercedes onto the podium. He can be relied upon to not crash into his team mate. Best of all there isn’t the ego and angst within the team that often happens whenever there is two genuine A drivers butting heads.

Think about:

Jones and Reutermann

Prost and Senna

Prost and Mansell 

Alonso and Hamilton

Vettel and Webber

Alonso and Button

Hamilton and Rosberg 

Vestappen and Ricciardo (and those last two pairings were with blokes who were mates off the track)

The only A driver pairings I can think of that have been harmonious have been Mansell and Piquet and also Lauda and Prost.

[Peter 4,047]

Tonight’s race starts in 30 mins at 9:10.  
 

its going to be great. 
 

its wet.  
hamilton is way back and can’t handle this track. 
Richie rich stroll is on pole. 

[Naut 705]

14 hours ago, Peter said:

hamilton is way back and can’t handle this track. 
 

That didn't age well 🤣

[Peter 4,047]

I know.  Can't believe racing point screwed it so bad.

Or should I say Stroll.  He lost it during the race.  On the 2 way radio back to the pitwall you could tell he lost it mentally.

And then Charles losing it on the 3rd last corner to go from 3rd to 4th.

I really liked the race.  Great action.

 

Once again Bottas proved he shouldnt be resigned.

[Andrew #1 1,241]

10 hours ago, Peter said:

I know.  Can't believe racing point screwed it so bad.

Or should I say Stroll.  He lost it during the race.  On the 2 way radio back to the pitwall you could tell he lost it mentally.

And then Charles losing it on the 3rd last corner to go from 3rd to 4th.

I really liked the race.  Great action.

 

Once again Bottas proved he shouldnt be resigned.

Stroll didn’t really lose that race. He simply could not get the intermediates to keep temperature in the specific conditions that prevailed in the second half. I’m not sure there was anything he could have done to fix that. Even Perez struggled but did enough to hang in there. Stroll was not alone in adapting to the variable conditions.
 

Hamilton did well on that score, but I think some luck and also that special cambering system that Mercedes has and no other team does played a big part. However, he struggled on the wets before the track dried out a bit. Vestappen and Albon both struggled at critical stages as did Ricciardo and Ocon. Bottas went AWOL again but remember - he’s a no.2 driver and generally good in that role. In fact I think he’s the best driver on the grid in that role. Ferrari managed to get temperature into their tyres at critical times and LeClerc actually went from being briefly second to 4th when he couldn’t make the overtake stick. Vettel drove very well to the conditions as did Perez. 

[Andrew #1 1,241]

Just watching the start again on a number of occasions. A special shoutout to Danny Ricciardo. Hamilton came into the first corner with too much speed for the conditions and lost grip. Ricciardo notice and corrected. He didn’t overcorrect, but tried to ‘thread the needle’ between Ocon who had already picked his line into the corner and an out of control Hamilton. He very nearly pulled it off, only to clip Ocon’s offside rear tyre by millimetres. He was super apologetic after the race but even Ocon - who is perhaps the most testy driver on the grid - didn’t blame him. While he might of failed to execute the impossible that is some of the finest driving you’ll ever see. I hope McLaren delivers a championship worthy car to him in 2022/23. He really deserves it.

[Peter 4,047]

I’d love to see Dan go to Mercedes and them flick Bottas.   Once again proved himself to not handle pressure. 

[Andrew #1 1,241]

2 hours ago, Peter said:

I’d love to see Dan go to Mercedes and them flick Bottas.   Once again proved himself to not handle pressure. 

Bottas is safe as long as Hamilton stays. Both Lewis and Toto value what Valteri brings to the team without causing friction with the no.1 driver. Once Lewis retires Mercedes will drop Bottas like yesterday’s breakfast. They’ll try to break Red Bull’s contract with Vestappen; failing that will likely promote Vettel up from Aston Martin. George Russell is a lock on the second seat.

Dan will only go to Mercedes if Lewis retires, and Vestappen isn’t available and they take a view that Vettel is past it and Russell isn’t quite ready to be the no.1 driver. An unlikely set of circumstances. 

Edited November 17 by Andrew #1

[IronmanFoz 1,635]

I hope Hamilton retires and DR goes to Mercedes just to prove it’s not about the best car

[The new guy 273]

Stroll had underwing damage that contributed to the rapid graining of his inters in the last stint.  

What was obvious to me was the difference between pace and experience on the weekend. Lots of fast people finished further back than they should have, but people like Lewis and Perez (a notable driver with exceptional tire deg history) made the right calls on what tires to be on. For example, Stroll was told to pit, and accepted it, then questioned why.  Lewis told them he was on the right tires and not to change unless it rained again.

Stroll, Max, Albon and Leclerc all looked fast enough at times to win the race, but lack of situational experience bought them all undone.

 

Put it this way - the podium had 711 grand prix worth of starts between them. 

[Peter 4,047]

Love these videos post race