2020 challenge discussion thread R12 Portugal 25 October

I understand that Kimi is already having his 2021 seat fitted. He's got nothing else to do with his time.

Meanwhile, Giovanazzi is nowhere near as cool as Kimi:





Best comment:

Gio: I have no idea where I am [on the long lap]
Kimi: It's OK, the track is round and you will always end up near where you began.

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Agreed, but Nikita Mazepin looks likely to be one of them. Russian billionaire's son. Blown away by teammate Nyck de Vries in F2 last year, currently 6th. Like Latifi, probably not completely shit but hardly an inspired choice. 

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I was amused by Take Innui's tweet that the F1 rules should state that each team must have two drivers: one a world class driver and one a bankrolled super-license holder. It would sort out the team finances across the sport

Not surprising. I think Haas’ issues are far deeper than the drivers. Although one would have to say, the disparity between both drivers in qualifying suggests that they don’t necessarily help matters. Their aerodynamic correlation just didn’t work last year. This year, at least they have more consistency between hot laps and race pace. The only problem now is that they now are consistently slow! Being a customer Ferrari team isn’t a great place to be at present. This current generation of car is so draggy and with such little off-throttle in corners, power has never been more important.

Mick Schumacher has definitely grown in confidence during this year’s F2 season. I still maintain the extreme tyre degradation means that babying tyres is the prerequisite to win. Nevertheless, he has now won a few feature races now, and he has achieved that by qualifying better. So I think he has hit on something, and it couldn’t have come at a better time with Alfa and Haas seats up for grabs. I suppose Verstappen didn’t win the Euro F3 title in 2014, Stroll dominated it in 2016, so it’s easy to read too much into driver performance in the junior ranks. Shwartzman is someone who could perform in F1, given the right opportunity. Like many in F2, he sometimes gets swamped in the races because of the tyres, so it would be unfair to judge him when he finishes 14th. Rather than another year of him trundling about on wasted tyres, a promotion to F1 could be just what he needs.

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Hamilton's pace advantage over Bottas today was perhaps the biggest since they have been teamates. It all initially looked so good for Bottas. He passed Hamilton on the opening lap, and once Bottas had passed Sainz he opened a small gap to Hamilton. Unlike Nurburgring, Bottas didn't make any obvious errors, Hamilton caught up quickly and the overtake was fairly easy. Bottas' race pace is his biggest weakness, Hamilton looks a lot more comfortable on a heavy tank and manages his tyres more effectively. 

Didn't like Perez's big weave across the pit straight to keep Gasly behind. He was quite rightly reprimanded. Its that sort of driving that needs penalising.

Really not sure what Stroll was thinking trying to pass Norris on the outside kerb into turn one. It was never going to work, being on the wrong side and the instability of braking on the kerb. 

Kimi's still got it, hasn't he?

A reminder that Gasly had a blindin' race there too.

Gasly was one of only two drivers to earn a perfect 10 score in Autosport's driver ratings (Leclerc was the other). I was interested to read that Red Bull don't believe promoting him again would work - despite his form, they don't reckon he'd be able to do more with the RB16 than Albon can. That seat really is a poisoned chalice.

I'd like to see Albon move back to Alphatauri, replacing Kvyat, with Hulk or Perez joining Red Bull. But I suspect that both Albon and Kvyat will be dropped, with Yuki Tsunoda joining Alphatauri from F2.

Speak of the devil - AlphaTauri have just confirmed that Gasly is staying for 2021. No brainer all round IMO.