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Post by ChrisM on Jun 12, 2021 17:02:38 GMT
With 3 races on 3 consecutive week-ends, let's just have one thread for comments on all 3 races.
Kicking off in France on 20th June, let's hope that we have answers from Pirelli on the tyre failures from Azerbaijan and that the Hamilton v Vettel battle resumes on track
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Post by Deleted on Jun 18, 2021 16:42:34 GMT
It looks like the bendy wings are still available. Max basically a second quicker from fp 1 to fp 2 and Lewis,75 of a second faster.
I know you cannot judge quite that easily, especially as the Mercs tend to turn the wick up on Saturday but it will be interesting to see
what happens in quali.
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Post by Sav on Jun 18, 2021 23:15:52 GMT
They should stop going to Paul Ricard, the multicoloured lines do my head in. I don't mind it at night, so I can't see them. I was watching the GT World Challenge race from Paul Ricard a few weeks ago, and I couldn't wait until darkness descended. The track might be more interesting if they removed the chicane on the Mistral Straight. Signes would then become a proper corner. Teams might be forced to run lower downforce. It would then be a choice; do you want to be fast in the twisties and get mullered down Mistral, or be fast down Mistral but be compromised for the corners?
Magny-Cours is still around, albeit not used like it used to be. It is at least a proper track, with proper corners and proper track limits.
Hopefully the F3 drivers can make Paul Ricard entertaining, they usually do something crazy or desperate, or both. Paul Ricard needs it, by far the worst layout on the calendar.
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Post by ChrisM on Jun 19, 2021 10:27:40 GMT
^
Yes, but isn't Paul Ricard owned by Bernie? I doubt that there's much chance of a French GP being held anywhere else so long as he is around
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Post by Big Blue on Jun 21, 2021 12:26:06 GMT
Paul Ricard is indeed owned by the ex-Mrs E so doesn’t have much issue getting a slot on the calendar. It’s up for sale if you’re interested.
I drove through that forest and right past the circuit on the way to La Ciotat a couple of years back and I can’t begin to imagine how horrible the traffic must be on a race week. There is an airport right on the circuit though, so I doubt the powers that be give a shit about the traffic.
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Post by Sav on Jun 21, 2021 22:17:36 GMT
The only puzzling aspect is that despite who owns it, it took ages for F1 to return to Paul Ricard. I think for a few years Mr E held onto the belief that Europe was a thing of the past, so planted new Grands Prix in anywhere but Europe. First Austria returned, then France. Maybe, just maybe, it was discovered that more than three spectators turn up to European races, and paying ones. Not that Mr E ever cared about the volume of spectators, maybe the volume of countries wanting to spend $15 million per annum on a Grand Prix diminished.
I think what you saw yesterday was a team that has became too used to racing at the front, amongst themselves. I think the excuse of Bottas' tyre vibrations as to why they pitted Hamilton second was inexcusable. Did they want to win the Grand Prix, or prioritise a driver who sits in a winning car but has fewer points than Norris, who drives a much slower car? I liked Red Bull's approach, where Perez completely gets out of the way when Verstappen shows up in a race. Bottas needs to become a clear number two, if Mercedes want to win a championship, let alone both. Monaco again was a blunder, thinking they would get an undercut when it was obvious there was no undercut with Hamilton. The tyres were too hard at Monaco, its been that way for years.
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Post by Big Blue on Jul 2, 2021 11:34:33 GMT
There are some drivers at the bottom of the leader board that need a long hard look in the mirror as they’re being handed their arses on a plate by some Friday-only reserve drivers. Marzipan (sic) is so far adrift in percentage terms that I think he took in the sights of Salzburg on his slower laps!
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Post by johnc on Jul 2, 2021 12:21:29 GMT
There are some drivers at the bottom of the leader board that need a long hard look in the mirror as they’re being handed their arses on a plate by some Friday-only reserve drivers. Marzipan (sic) is so far adrift in percentage terms that I think he took in the sights of Salzburg on his slower laps! and the old man Kimi who is in his 40's in an average car is still in the top 10! |
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Post by ChrisM on Jul 2, 2021 14:28:01 GMT
I laughed out loud when I read that George Russell was wearing an English footie tee-shirt in the paddock rather than an official Williams one, to rub salt into the wounds of the German drivers/team staff
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Post by Sav on Jul 12, 2021 22:53:11 GMT
I found Lando Norris’ five-second penalty frustrating. The rule itself needs revising; I didn’t see much “forcing” from Lando. Perez ran out of road, it’s a risky place to be with the gravel to drivers left. Now Norris is seemingly a few penalty points away from a race ban. This is equally as ridiculous, the whole regime doesn’t need tweaking, it needs completely overhauling. If someone like Grosjean drives like a nutter and wipes out several cars, it would be right to ban him. I think since that Belgian GP in 2012, the FIA became convinced that a penalty point system was needed.
The current and previous race director have used the term “let the drivers race”, but if the rules don’t allow the drivers to race, vague statements just throw more confusion as to what is permitted or not permitted. If the 2022 car allows more racing, that would be fantastic, we just need laxer rules and a permanent stewarding panel. They should be there to investigate serious matters, not some of the trivial stuff we now see. The fact we can now hear the teams’ communications with Michael Massi, only reinforces how trivial some of this stuff is. One team trying to get another in trouble, or whatever. This is a racing series, if someone gets slightly nudged off the circuit; the driver on the receiving end isn’t getting the position back.
Another thing I would change is how unfairly F2 gets treated in terms of superlicense points. If it was about attracting the brightest and the best, that would be great. The only small issue is, someone like Mazepin can accumulate enough points by driving in F2 (somewhat dangerously and mediocrely), get to drive a Mercedes F1 car, and he suddenly has enough points to race in F1. I’m willing to bet Alex Palou from IndyCar could step into the Haas at the next Grand Prix, and outpace Mazepin. The issue is, racing in IndyCar doesn’t accumulate the points that F2 does. I was watching the F3 races from Styria, and thinking how far away it was from F1. F3 is a big DRS train, that most of the field sits in, it isn’t about raw drivers speed.
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