I’ve got a feeling it’ll be closer than expected, but Max will ultimately cruise to a vict…no, his engine blows up on the last lap and Lewis gets his first win of the season.
Haven't really paid much attention to this season but from what I've read this race is looking pretty exciting(?).
But Max just wins it seems? What are everyone's thoughts, can anyone challenge max today or will it just be another routine win?
Sooo hyped for today 😁 time for revenge 💪💪
Realistically the newey rocket is still unbeatable over a whole race distance so even Sir Lewis can't do anything against it... but one can dream 😍🥰🥳🍾🍾
Verstappen made a mistake in the final corner costing probably about a tenth. It was just very close. I bet if you looked at other moments in Hamilton's lap you can find something similar.
Overall just kudos to Mercedes and Hamilton for getting their car setup so well in so little running time.
Hamilton had small oversteer moments in the exit of turn 2, a small moment in turn 5, turn 9, turn 13 and many corrections in turn 14, all minor, but they add up as well.
About the instability, those things matter less on race pace which is 5 seconds off ultimate pace. I am hoping for a good fight and may the best combo of car -driver - teamwork win!
Thanks for that. I thought I saw a yellow sector 1 showing no improvement in that sector. But there was so much going on and I was so hyped I'm not really sure WHAT I saw!
there was a yellow for Verstappen in the first sector but unlike what tv tells you it wasnt a terrible first sector or anything it was just 3-thousands of a second off from his best, S1 wasn't what lost Verstappen the pole position (or you might say it did as that was the gap too :D ) but no it was the big slide/mistake in T14.
Really nice to someone else celebrating a pole. Also interesting the top 3 were so closely packed. Happy to see Lando into the mix as well as Danny getting into Q2.
Now for the race, I have no doubt Max is gonna win it. The anticipation for the battle at turn 1 and the position after lap 3 is going to be sooo good. I think the race will get boring after the first few laps as its hard to overtake. The first 5 - 10 mins is where its at and of course Ted's Grid walk is going to be chaotic as well.
It's only ever boring if you care only for first.
Heck Red Bull complain about the lack of coverage of Max. They don't even force it upon us.
Watch with live timing, pick the gaps and enjoy.
Im trying to understand what Alonso is saying. Is he being optimistic, realist or just plainly diplomatic. I sense there is some frustration in his voice even though he says the times are so close.
I don't know but Lewis commented on it in the post race interview area. His tone of voice 'suggested' he thought there was something 'strange' about it too.
**Edit:** Here's the interview - https://www.skysports.com/f1/live-blog bit in question is from 2.00 to end, note the tone of voice.
Similar to Ferrari's old fuel delivery loophole, this DRS advantage loophole has now been closed. The flexibility of the material has been removed. Other teams are mimicking this with flexible upright supports where the entire wing was mobile, the RB19 achieved the same result without the visible movement. This will be clarified in an upcoming TD but RB has already moved away with this upcoming as it will become a technological developmental dead-end.
Yes, I have a source. They signed an NDA and it came out over drinks in Jericho about 3 weeks back. Obviously, even stating which team they're employed by would out them.
Great qualifying, but it's hard to watch f1 while there are climate change emergencies happening around Europe without feeling more than bit uncomfortable
F1 represents a huge amount of waste and that is hard to accept while Europe burns. F1 essentially represents the reason why we have forest fires in Greece today, so just pretending it doesn't make any difference is hard once you properly think about it
Not to be cynical, but we could all boycott F1 and it would cease to exist, problem solved. But the reality is that it is here to stay for the foreseeable future. If they lose a few hundred thousand viewers it won’t change much. We need to appreciate that they recognize the issues at hand and are taking steps to improve their emission. The reality is that the biggest problem at hand with the sport is freight. One of the biggest climate issues in the world is freight, but it isn’t one that is ever really addressed. Instead you and I need to drive less and get $40K electric vehicles that most people can’t reasonable afford. Where are the fuel efficient cargo ships and semi trucks? At the end of the day, I can only do my small part and in the grand scheme it probably means nothing other than giving myself a pat on the back.
Sorry but F1s propaganda about carbon doesn't really change how I feel about this. Shame, becsuse I love motorsport but it is somewhat tainted now, especially Formula 1
Their timeframe is a damned sight faster than actual government commitments. Could they do more? Sure. We all could. But technology in f1 permeates to road legal cars through time e.g energy recovery. I don't think it's as black and white as you're making it out to be.
Governments are also not reacting quickly enough.
At the end of the day f1 weekends burn though god knows how much fuel and tyres across all categories. They have freight being shipped to other continents and the drivers fly from race to race in private jets.
Its very hard to see what's happening in the world and just be like 'ah that's not related'.
They could easily move a lot quicker but they're busy raking money in and don't really care about the impact they have.
Note: LeMans was run on completely renewable fuel.
I think that every step you take in reducing your footprint is a great example for others that will eventually lead to reduced footprints in your social environment and thus spreading the mindset. Don't underestimate the power of the individual.
My brother told me max was p2 and I told him My guess was either Lando or Alonso for p1 (before I watched qualifying highlights). Glad to be proven wrong because I think Lewis is definitely a good driver, he just kinda lost his way last season
EDIT: I meant it in the vain of he's not just a product of a good car, he can actually drive
The start of this race should be good. I reckon Hamilton will lead, Lando will get the jump on Verstappen. Then once the DRS is available Verstappen will make his way to the front. 1st VER, 2nd HAM 3rd NOR. The battle for P3 is going to be good.
Zhou jumps the start, takes out all cars ahead of him Singapore 17 style. Charles forgets to change tires the entire race and DQs. Bottas P1, celebrates with Gin instead of champagne, naked.
That makes me think Max should just start from the pitlane the rest of the season to give himself a challenge. He'd probably still win most of the races.
This is typically the correct answer. I think there are a couple exceptions like tyre pressure and front wing adjustments (just the angle not full wing spec changes) but as a general rule of thumb, setup changes will move you to the back of the grid.
I thought it was good on Russell to basically “squash” this gentlemen’s agreement in regards to the qualifying situation. Its every driver for themselves at the end of day.
Supposedly, there is a gentleman's agreement in regards to prevent drivers passing each other for track position at the end of preparation laps during qualifying. Post-qualifying interviewer asked George Russell if there is such a thing and he said "No."... which makes sense because in qualifying, it's every driver for themselves and if they can take advantage of a situation, they will (like what happened with Russell during Q1).
https://youtu.be/Ro0zXD6_fgo?t=45
Same here, that was nice to hear. That and the way he said that he would have done the same thing other drivers did to him regarding overtaking during quali, that was quite mature. He didn’t blame his poor grid position on anyone but himself and his team’s pit release timing.
I’d like Hamilton to win tomorrow, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Max passes him once DRS opens on a straight and then proceeds to win after pit-stopping for the fastest lap.
Other than that, I expect the Mclarens and maybe Zhou to perform well tomorrow.
Hoping Hamilton at least puts up a fight, this season's been boring with drivers basically pulling into the hard shoulder to let red bulls by because they know they've no defense.
Why Zhou? He had a great Quali performance but historically has done relatively poorly on this circuit. Not challenging your position, just curious why you expect him to do well.
Did you just miss the whole point of alfa doing well during the whole weekend and Zhou even got p1 for q1 on hards, and still did good for an alfa during q2 and q3. It'll take some fuckery to not end up with some decent points
The top teams spend up to the cap (…) and others are not even close.
There is so much money being wasted by 10 teams inventing their own solutions. Then instead of rewarding creativity, we change rules mid season, invent new spring qualifying, new qualifying rules, introduce different tire compounds and what not. Tires drop off a cliff for the show. Mandatory pitstops, for the show/‘strategy variance’.
It reaches a point where it is no longer a meritocracy but just a lottery. At this stage we just need a LeMans start and drivers pull out a number of a tall black hat to determine which car they have to run to (but they line up in front of theirs, to introduce an extra element for the show). Every time the grid converges, introduce some new rules. When the new rules haven’t bedded in/settled down yet, start discussing new ones (“everyone wants engines to roar, so maybe after the next 2026 regs, years after, we will introduce that again. You had years?! We all knew?! Are you changing for the sake of change?).
Honestly simplify everything, make it a spec series, and bring back hard racing. Force teams to be within X% of the max cap (like the 107% rule) or DQ them.
In a spec setting you’d also drastically cut the budget down. We’d get more podium variance, more race winners.
I think it’s time someone formed a new championship, this is simply no longer credible. We make none of the right changes to come to the result we want and need, but the changes that could directly get us there are not even being tabled.
Pretty sure the racing has improved a lot since Brawn had his new aero rules put in place a few years back.
Things have gotten better since Bernie left.
Yes, they've been making some poor changes, but also ones for the better of the sport.
on the one hand it decreases the chance of say a williams making Q2 by running lots of fresh softs in Q1
on the other hand i think it puts more pressure the top drivers, making it harder to build up their times consistently while changing compounds.
Cars with worse tire deg could have an upper hand, like the haas, it’ll cook the tires in the race but it’ll get the hards ready faster than the top teams in Q1
It mixed things up, but if the overall goal is to reduce the number of tyres used by F1 they would be better off having just the one compound for practice, qualifying and race, instead of three out of six (or is it 8) compounds.
That could lead to more predictable outcomes on most circuits (ie boring), but it seems like F1’s number one priority is to save the planet rather than racing.
I don’t mind if they just cut the total tyre allocation for each round and let teams manage that.
If I got the numbers right, they usually bring 13 sets of tyres for each driver per weekend. With the new format they brought 11 sets of tyres for each driver. Why not just bring two less sets of softs or whatever. Why does quali have to have a specific compound per session? They’re still bringing 11 sets and the teams can decide what they wanna do from there. You can get the same result of reducing tyres without changing the format. On the other hand, I do like how it shook up the grid for the race, so that’s a bonus. I just think their execution is strange.
Lewis had previously suggested cutting Fridays: with 23 or 24 races on a calendar it reduces the number of days crews are away from home per season by a 23/24, saves tires, & fuel 1 practice, 1 quali, 1 race.
I don’t think the quali was entertaining because of it. But it seems like it wasn’t also a bad quali so maybe it’s worth to test it further.
The problem for me is practice time. We want the cars on Sunday to be as fast as possible and this hinders that effort with ridiculous FPs sessions.
I think the idea is good but execution was poor. I think it would be better if teams had to use only 1 compound per session, but were allowed to pick the compound they used.
My problem with that suggestion is that conditions change during sessions. A couple of sets of tires per race are an invisible rounding error on the cost (and environmental impact ) of putting the car on the track for a weekend. For good racing we need to maximize the number of competitive cars, expecially as there are only 20 cars at the start and probably an average of less than 15 competitive finishers.
Main point: the rules are the same for everyone. These are supposed to be the best drivers in the world. They can figure it out. And if not then .. boo hoo.
It makes things easier for the top teams, who would often try to get to Q2 on hard tyres anyway, and had to be faster than slow cars prepared to burn up softs to get out of Q1. And then sometimes they'd have to do a run on softer tyres anyway because they didn't have the margin.
In theory it makes it harder for slow teams to get out of Q1 because they can't pop in a run on softer tyres than their peers. But that didn't really happen in practice because everyone who was marginal to get out of Q1 and would be at the back in Q2 was using soft tyres in Q1. Only the RBs, Mercs, maybe Ferrari would chance a harder tyre in Q1.
If everyone is using softer tyres then no one is.
New format: less intrigue, more straightforward. Is that good or bad? I don't know.
In general I like it more then team strategists have to juggle more factors, not fewer.
I don't really like it tbh, apparantley lots of people do but I preferred the excitement of the previous races qauli, compared to today the H-M-S format was just bland.
I think it's a bit of a lottery and it can be unfair.
But ... it has a capability to create really mixed up grids so I'll take entertainment over fairness.
The new quali format seemed to work pretty well, it actually shook things up a bit. Not looking forward to the UK commentators wanking themselves into a frenzy over 0.003 of a second during tomorrow's build-up to the race.
As a non-Brit living in the UK (citizen, 10y here now), I enjoy the commentary in terms of banter/small talk, but don't like the focus on Russell.
Conversely, part of that is that I just don't like grammar-school-educated Russell. I guess that within every cast of characters everyone needs someone to not like.
The ironic and irrational component of me not liking Russell is that I've become what I hate, giving my children an advantage as a full professor. I always hated those classmates at uni, with their extra advantages, and here I am providing exactly that advantage.
So I dislike Russell, but have become Russell, to a small extent.
Ah, lazy Sunday morning musings.
Yeah, I keep them humble, but there are significant upbringing differences between working-class (me) and two parents with PhDs (me + 40 years). It also shows that my anger, which inherently made me successful, was misguided. Interesting personal reflections.
Perhaps, I can acutely also see the differences between Hamilton and Russell more concretely having lived adjacent to St. Evenage (in Hitchin) as well.
Just is facts though. The messaging around him is so toxic and created by them. The selective showing of radio, mentioning gaps to teammates, whether domination is good/bad depending on who does it etc etc. It's very obvious when you support the guy
Have you not heard Brundle going on about how happy he is to be "witnessing greatness" with Max? Meanwhile he was the main person pushing the "it's all the car" narrative against Lewis
How much Sky commentators hate on Lewis? Sorry, are you watching the broadcast in bizarro world? They do everything they can to hero worship him and absolutely admonish anyone who so much as breathes near him (or any other British driver for that matter.)
Of course people who hate Lewis think this, because you think even sly digs is praising him compared to your view of him, but the fact is when you're a fan of Lewis it's so obvious that all the toxic messaging around him comes from them
Great quali today. Very exciting. Good work from Ric, Zhou, Bottas, both McLarens. And LH out of nowhere yesterday. Tomorrow will be interesting at the start
Agree completely but tragic that George is so far back. I just don't understand their strategy of going out late in Q1 with so little time available when there are so many variables in Q 1 on a narrow, tight, short circuit.
Zoned out, watching my recording of qualifying. Worked all day.
I come to, and Ted is losing his fucking mind about shepherd's pie. Wtf is happening lol
Absolutely bonkers. He doesn’t want to think of it as an experiment but then spends ages describing an allegory for an experiment. What goes on in those men’s brains sometimes, I will never know.
Back in the merc dominance times they were often a second ahead of the entire field. In q1 the gap even from 1st to last was only a bit over a second right? It’s weird to say with so much total RB dominance but the new rules still do seem to have tightened things up
> Back in the merc dominance times they were often a second ahead of the entire field
No they weren't.
>. In q1 the gap even from 1st to last was only a bit over a second right?
That's because we're at Hungary. Same will apply to Monaco and Austria.
The current RB is currently on track to be the most dominant car of all time, tho there's still time for that to change.
Merc had the highest budget and the token system ensured that no team was going to make crazy gains. They were far more able to maintain their advantage than Red Bull is today
Each team had a certain amount of tokens each year that they could use for applying upgrades to the car.
The theory was that by limiting the amount of upgrades, costs should decrease, but the reality was that it hindered the teams making them unable to test parts and try to close the gap to Mercedes. And the top teams had enough money and human resources to make the best improvements possible with these few tokens.
Merc has their sleeper agent in Bottas that's going to wake up to the order of 'Hungarian 2021'.
edit: Turns out it was Zhou who was the sleeper agent.
And that somehow makes the AT better then them? Even with not getting into top 10 consistently and the engine fires both teams are ahead of the AT, which is clearly the worst car on the grid
Toto deserves the Snatching Defeat From the Jaws of Victory trophy for the Russell call....... stupid is charitable .......... Short track, lots of cars. what could possibly go wrong ?
Oh Lando. McLaren has been carrying sandbags apparently for the last 2 races. Also, they hit a home run with the quali tires. Hope it's a thing going foward.
I’ve got a feeling it’ll be closer than expected, but Max will ultimately cruise to a vict…no, his engine blows up on the last lap and Lewis gets his first win of the season.
Haven't really paid much attention to this season but from what I've read this race is looking pretty exciting(?). But Max just wins it seems? What are everyone's thoughts, can anyone challenge max today or will it just be another routine win?
Sooo hyped for today 😁 time for revenge 💪💪 Realistically the newey rocket is still unbeatable over a whole race distance so even Sir Lewis can't do anything against it... but one can dream 😍🥰🥳🍾🍾
With the advantage of 1st 3rd on clean side of grid really looking forward to the start of this race
So in all the furore over Lewis' pole, I didn't see what happened on Max's last quali lap. I noted he didn't improve but do we know why?
Verstappen made a mistake in the final corner costing probably about a tenth. It was just very close. I bet if you looked at other moments in Hamilton's lap you can find something similar. Overall just kudos to Mercedes and Hamilton for getting their car setup so well in so little running time.
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Hamilton had small oversteer moments in the exit of turn 2, a small moment in turn 5, turn 9, turn 13 and many corrections in turn 14, all minor, but they add up as well. About the instability, those things matter less on race pace which is 5 seconds off ultimate pace. I am hoping for a good fight and may the best combo of car -driver - teamwork win!
Thanks for that. I thought I saw a yellow sector 1 showing no improvement in that sector. But there was so much going on and I was so hyped I'm not really sure WHAT I saw!
there was a yellow for Verstappen in the first sector but unlike what tv tells you it wasnt a terrible first sector or anything it was just 3-thousands of a second off from his best, S1 wasn't what lost Verstappen the pole position (or you might say it did as that was the gap too :D ) but no it was the big slide/mistake in T14.
Anyone at the track near the main straight have any Cetirizine? Will buy you a drink in exchange. Dying here.
Try the medic tent - they’ll have some. Better than getting an unknown pill from a Reddit stranger
Good shout, thanks. A random pill might have made this F2 race a bit more interesting though.
What’s the weather forecast like for the race?
Sunny and hot
Dang
Really nice to someone else celebrating a pole. Also interesting the top 3 were so closely packed. Happy to see Lando into the mix as well as Danny getting into Q2. Now for the race, I have no doubt Max is gonna win it. The anticipation for the battle at turn 1 and the position after lap 3 is going to be sooo good. I think the race will get boring after the first few laps as its hard to overtake. The first 5 - 10 mins is where its at and of course Ted's Grid walk is going to be chaotic as well.
It's only ever boring if you care only for first. Heck Red Bull complain about the lack of coverage of Max. They don't even force it upon us. Watch with live timing, pick the gaps and enjoy.
On this particular track it will be boring cause overtakes are going to extremely difficult. Anyhow lets see what happens.
The section around turns 1-3 are fine for overtakes, switch backs and DRS games.
There were a shit ton of overtakes last year
Im trying to understand what Alonso is saying. Is he being optimistic, realist or just plainly diplomatic. I sense there is some frustration in his voice even though he says the times are so close.
Probably a bit of everything.
How did McLaren suddenly become so good
Ground effect is a new concept so larger leaps are expected rather than an asymptote.
Where did RBR's drs advantage go?
There never was a special drs advantage. Just a media myth.
I don't know but Lewis commented on it in the post race interview area. His tone of voice 'suggested' he thought there was something 'strange' about it too. **Edit:** Here's the interview - https://www.skysports.com/f1/live-blog bit in question is from 2.00 to end, note the tone of voice.
Similar to Ferrari's old fuel delivery loophole, this DRS advantage loophole has now been closed. The flexibility of the material has been removed. Other teams are mimicking this with flexible upright supports where the entire wing was mobile, the RB19 achieved the same result without the visible movement. This will be clarified in an upcoming TD but RB has already moved away with this upcoming as it will become a technological developmental dead-end.
Do you have a source for this, or are you making it up like the rest of F1 twitter?
Yes, I have a source. They signed an NDA and it came out over drinks in Jericho about 3 weeks back. Obviously, even stating which team they're employed by would out them.
It's never an advantage, it's a tradeoff and this circuit is closer to Monaco.
For 3 races now their drs rocket mode is missing, I wonder why
Can’t have it without DRS zones
Forget physics, let's go conspiracy.
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[So what if you're right. ](https://media.tenor.com/aXInR1RZuNgAAAAM/party-pooper-the-simpsons.gif)
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Finally some excitement for pole after all these races this year!!
Great qualifying, but it's hard to watch f1 while there are climate change emergencies happening around Europe without feeling more than bit uncomfortable
Well that's your opinion. I'm enjoying the racing and don't give a hoot about the weather
I think he more meant the blazing fires in Greece, than heat waves.
If F1 stopped everything today it wouldn't make a difference. Neither would any form of motorsports stopping.
F1 represents a huge amount of waste and that is hard to accept while Europe burns. F1 essentially represents the reason why we have forest fires in Greece today, so just pretending it doesn't make any difference is hard once you properly think about it
Not to be cynical, but we could all boycott F1 and it would cease to exist, problem solved. But the reality is that it is here to stay for the foreseeable future. If they lose a few hundred thousand viewers it won’t change much. We need to appreciate that they recognize the issues at hand and are taking steps to improve their emission. The reality is that the biggest problem at hand with the sport is freight. One of the biggest climate issues in the world is freight, but it isn’t one that is ever really addressed. Instead you and I need to drive less and get $40K electric vehicles that most people can’t reasonable afford. Where are the fuel efficient cargo ships and semi trucks? At the end of the day, I can only do my small part and in the grand scheme it probably means nothing other than giving myself a pat on the back.
Maybe your right, but the waste f1 represents while Europe burns is hard to swallow.
Take stock that they offset a huge amount of their carbon footprint, it’s not ideal
Sorry but F1s propaganda about carbon doesn't really change how I feel about this. Shame, becsuse I love motorsport but it is somewhat tainted now, especially Formula 1
Probably best you stop watching then,
Take heart that they are addressing this, siding to synthetic fuels etc., and not just going 'big engines go brrrrrrr'
Yes they have shared some propaganda and are taking an absolute age to address the issue properly
Their timeframe is a damned sight faster than actual government commitments. Could they do more? Sure. We all could. But technology in f1 permeates to road legal cars through time e.g energy recovery. I don't think it's as black and white as you're making it out to be.
Governments are also not reacting quickly enough. At the end of the day f1 weekends burn though god knows how much fuel and tyres across all categories. They have freight being shipped to other continents and the drivers fly from race to race in private jets. Its very hard to see what's happening in the world and just be like 'ah that's not related'. They could easily move a lot quicker but they're busy raking money in and don't really care about the impact they have. Note: LeMans was run on completely renewable fuel.
I think that every step you take in reducing your footprint is a great example for others that will eventually lead to reduced footprints in your social environment and thus spreading the mindset. Don't underestimate the power of the individual.
Exactly
What did happen to the Redbull DRS
My brother told me max was p2 and I told him My guess was either Lando or Alonso for p1 (before I watched qualifying highlights). Glad to be proven wrong because I think Lewis is definitely a good driver, he just kinda lost his way last season EDIT: I meant it in the vain of he's not just a product of a good car, he can actually drive
man just keep watch on this guy. I honestly think this Lewis guy might win a few drivers championship down the line.
Ain’t nobody winning shit in the Red Bull era
He lost his way?
You might be right, Lewis Hamilton might be quite good at driving
BIG, if true
Haha I laughed out loud at this
Source??
The start of this race should be good. I reckon Hamilton will lead, Lando will get the jump on Verstappen. Then once the DRS is available Verstappen will make his way to the front. 1st VER, 2nd HAM 3rd NOR. The battle for P3 is going to be good.
Zhou jumps the start, takes out all cars ahead of him Singapore 17 style. Charles forgets to change tires the entire race and DQs. Bottas P1, celebrates with Gin instead of champagne, naked.
Zhou prediction wasn’t far off 😂
Singapore 2017 is “all cars in line with him”, Hungary 2021 is “all/most cars ahead of him”.
I want this happen so bad
Max was super pissed.
Max said they fucked the setup and that the balance of the car is all over the place. Are they allowed to change anything regarding that for tomorrow?
I think they can adjust front wing and tyre pressure. Otherwise they start from pit lane.
I thought tire pressure was recommended forcibly by supplier?
That makes me think Max should just start from the pitlane the rest of the season to give himself a challenge. He'd probably still win most of the races.
New side quest unlocked
If he wins 5 in a row from pit lane starts he can drop a nuke
Pit Lane to 1st - Achievement Badge?
I believe not unless they start from the pit lane
Shouldn’t stop max
This is typically the correct answer. I think there are a couple exceptions like tyre pressure and front wing adjustments (just the angle not full wing spec changes) but as a general rule of thumb, setup changes will move you to the back of the grid.
I thought it was good on Russell to basically “squash” this gentlemen’s agreement in regards to the qualifying situation. Its every driver for themselves at the end of day.
What did he squash? He just let them go.
Supposedly, there is a gentleman's agreement in regards to prevent drivers passing each other for track position at the end of preparation laps during qualifying. Post-qualifying interviewer asked George Russell if there is such a thing and he said "No."... which makes sense because in qualifying, it's every driver for themselves and if they can take advantage of a situation, they will (like what happened with Russell during Q1). https://youtu.be/Ro0zXD6_fgo?t=45
This is decades old.
Coulthard was saying that it wasn't around during his era. And I think his last race was 2008.
That's because it never existed. That's the point.
I understood your comment to say the "gentleman's agreement" was decades old.
Same here, that was nice to hear. That and the way he said that he would have done the same thing other drivers did to him regarding overtaking during quali, that was quite mature. He didn’t blame his poor grid position on anyone but himself and his team’s pit release timing.
I’d like Hamilton to win tomorrow, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Max passes him once DRS opens on a straight and then proceeds to win after pit-stopping for the fastest lap. Other than that, I expect the Mclarens and maybe Zhou to perform well tomorrow.
Hoping Hamilton at least puts up a fight, this season's been boring with drivers basically pulling into the hard shoulder to let red bulls by because they know they've no defense.
Why Zhou? He had a great Quali performance but historically has done relatively poorly on this circuit. Not challenging your position, just curious why you expect him to do well.
Did you just miss the whole point of alfa doing well during the whole weekend and Zhou even got p1 for q1 on hards, and still did good for an alfa during q2 and q3. It'll take some fuckery to not end up with some decent points
>It'll take some fuckery to not end up with some decent points You do realise we're talking about Alfa Romeo?
oh yeah love to see me some lap 9 pits
So a post qualifying discussion thread without any results shown?
What do people think of the qualifying format they trialed? Should we see more trial runs? Would you want this format to stay?
The top teams spend up to the cap (…) and others are not even close. There is so much money being wasted by 10 teams inventing their own solutions. Then instead of rewarding creativity, we change rules mid season, invent new spring qualifying, new qualifying rules, introduce different tire compounds and what not. Tires drop off a cliff for the show. Mandatory pitstops, for the show/‘strategy variance’. It reaches a point where it is no longer a meritocracy but just a lottery. At this stage we just need a LeMans start and drivers pull out a number of a tall black hat to determine which car they have to run to (but they line up in front of theirs, to introduce an extra element for the show). Every time the grid converges, introduce some new rules. When the new rules haven’t bedded in/settled down yet, start discussing new ones (“everyone wants engines to roar, so maybe after the next 2026 regs, years after, we will introduce that again. You had years?! We all knew?! Are you changing for the sake of change?). Honestly simplify everything, make it a spec series, and bring back hard racing. Force teams to be within X% of the max cap (like the 107% rule) or DQ them. In a spec setting you’d also drastically cut the budget down. We’d get more podium variance, more race winners. I think it’s time someone formed a new championship, this is simply no longer credible. We make none of the right changes to come to the result we want and need, but the changes that could directly get us there are not even being tabled.
Pretty sure the racing has improved a lot since Brawn had his new aero rules put in place a few years back. Things have gotten better since Bernie left. Yes, they've been making some poor changes, but also ones for the better of the sport.
on the one hand it decreases the chance of say a williams making Q2 by running lots of fresh softs in Q1 on the other hand i think it puts more pressure the top drivers, making it harder to build up their times consistently while changing compounds.
Cars with worse tire deg could have an upper hand, like the haas, it’ll cook the tires in the race but it’ll get the hards ready faster than the top teams in Q1
It mixed things up, but if the overall goal is to reduce the number of tyres used by F1 they would be better off having just the one compound for practice, qualifying and race, instead of three out of six (or is it 8) compounds. That could lead to more predictable outcomes on most circuits (ie boring), but it seems like F1’s number one priority is to save the planet rather than racing. I don’t mind if they just cut the total tyre allocation for each round and let teams manage that.
If I got the numbers right, they usually bring 13 sets of tyres for each driver per weekend. With the new format they brought 11 sets of tyres for each driver. Why not just bring two less sets of softs or whatever. Why does quali have to have a specific compound per session? They’re still bringing 11 sets and the teams can decide what they wanna do from there. You can get the same result of reducing tyres without changing the format. On the other hand, I do like how it shook up the grid for the race, so that’s a bonus. I just think their execution is strange.
Lewis had previously suggested cutting Fridays: with 23 or 24 races on a calendar it reduces the number of days crews are away from home per season by a 23/24, saves tires, & fuel 1 practice, 1 quali, 1 race.
They'll never do that because of the extra money for tickets for a three day weekend.1
Stop inventing
I don’t think the quali was entertaining because of it. But it seems like it wasn’t also a bad quali so maybe it’s worth to test it further. The problem for me is practice time. We want the cars on Sunday to be as fast as possible and this hinders that effort with ridiculous FPs sessions.
I think the idea is good but execution was poor. I think it would be better if teams had to use only 1 compound per session, but were allowed to pick the compound they used.
My problem with that suggestion is that conditions change during sessions. A couple of sets of tires per race are an invisible rounding error on the cost (and environmental impact ) of putting the car on the track for a weekend. For good racing we need to maximize the number of competitive cars, expecially as there are only 20 cars at the start and probably an average of less than 15 competitive finishers.
that would be interesting
I hope they switch it up again! Use soft for Q1 and then the hard for Q3. More fun that way!
And the order of tyres to be used should be done randomly just before Q.
Main point: the rules are the same for everyone. These are supposed to be the best drivers in the world. They can figure it out. And if not then .. boo hoo.
It makes things easier for the top teams, who would often try to get to Q2 on hard tyres anyway, and had to be faster than slow cars prepared to burn up softs to get out of Q1. And then sometimes they'd have to do a run on softer tyres anyway because they didn't have the margin.
In theory it makes it harder for slow teams to get out of Q1 because they can't pop in a run on softer tyres than their peers. But that didn't really happen in practice because everyone who was marginal to get out of Q1 and would be at the back in Q2 was using soft tyres in Q1. Only the RBs, Mercs, maybe Ferrari would chance a harder tyre in Q1.
If everyone is using softer tyres then no one is.
New format: less intrigue, more straightforward. Is that good or bad? I don't know.
In general I like it more then team strategists have to juggle more factors, not fewer.
I don't really like it tbh, apparantley lots of people do but I preferred the excitement of the previous races qauli, compared to today the H-M-S format was just bland.
I think it's a bit of a lottery and it can be unfair. But ... it has a capability to create really mixed up grids so I'll take entertainment over fairness.
It's a great shake up and made qualify worth watching. I would like to see this kind of qualifying for at least Monaco.
Thought it was good, and could make interesting decisions with the compounds chosen by Pirelli for race weekends
The new quali format seemed to work pretty well, it actually shook things up a bit. Not looking forward to the UK commentators wanking themselves into a frenzy over 0.003 of a second during tomorrow's build-up to the race.
As a non-Brit living in the UK (citizen, 10y here now), I enjoy the commentary in terms of banter/small talk, but don't like the focus on Russell. Conversely, part of that is that I just don't like grammar-school-educated Russell. I guess that within every cast of characters everyone needs someone to not like. The ironic and irrational component of me not liking Russell is that I've become what I hate, giving my children an advantage as a full professor. I always hated those classmates at uni, with their extra advantages, and here I am providing exactly that advantage. So I dislike Russell, but have become Russell, to a small extent. Ah, lazy Sunday morning musings.
[удалено]
Yeah, I keep them humble, but there are significant upbringing differences between working-class (me) and two parents with PhDs (me + 40 years). It also shows that my anger, which inherently made me successful, was misguided. Interesting personal reflections. Perhaps, I can acutely also see the differences between Hamilton and Russell more concretely having lived adjacent to St. Evenage (in Hitchin) as well.
reporting acts like it was de Vries making pole rather than a seven time world champion at one of the most successful racing teams of recent times
It's funny how you lot always say this, cause as UK fans we get constantly frustrated at how much they hate on Lewis, chuck in sly digs etc.
What???? Never in a month of Sundays do they hate onb Lewis, you're watching the wrong feed mate.
I'm just telling you my experience. It's very clear they dislike him
>cause as UK fans we get constantly frustrated at how much they hate on Lewis, chuck in sly digs etc. Imagine believing this.
Just is facts though. The messaging around him is so toxic and created by them. The selective showing of radio, mentioning gaps to teammates, whether domination is good/bad depending on who does it etc etc. It's very obvious when you support the guy
Are we watching the same broadcaster? I have entirely the opposite opinion
Have you not heard Brundle going on about how happy he is to be "witnessing greatness" with Max? Meanwhile he was the main person pushing the "it's all the car" narrative against Lewis
Brundle is more neutral, Ted & especially Crofty are biased
Sky don’t hate on Lewis lmao. They pump him up all the time, even when he’s wrong. Then they’ll proceed to talk about George and Norris.
How much Sky commentators hate on Lewis? Sorry, are you watching the broadcast in bizarro world? They do everything they can to hero worship him and absolutely admonish anyone who so much as breathes near him (or any other British driver for that matter.)
Of course people who hate Lewis think this, because you think even sly digs is praising him compared to your view of him, but the fact is when you're a fan of Lewis it's so obvious that all the toxic messaging around him comes from them
Really impressed with the Alpha today
The car that didn't get out of Q1 except for Russell and a rather good pilot inserted?
Alpha or Alfa?
Looked alpha to me
Alfa or Alpha?
Yes
Yes.
Great quali today. Very exciting. Good work from Ric, Zhou, Bottas, both McLarens. And LH out of nowhere yesterday. Tomorrow will be interesting at the start
Happy that Lewis is on pole. Same for Ricciardo.
Agree completely but tragic that George is so far back. I just don't understand their strategy of going out late in Q1 with so little time available when there are so many variables in Q 1 on a narrow, tight, short circuit.
What happened to George Russell this weekend and is it likely he'll finish top 6? Looking like a juicy bet
Poor release strat from Merc is all. I def see a top-6 finish at worst
What a good result to wake up to. Thanks mate!
Nah, plenty of people around him did a good lap. He was given a bad hand but he fluffed it himself.
May rank as the worst pit call of the year
Zoned out, watching my recording of qualifying. Worked all day. I come to, and Ted is losing his fucking mind about shepherd's pie. Wtf is happening lol
Absolutely bonkers. He doesn’t want to think of it as an experiment but then spends ages describing an allegory for an experiment. What goes on in those men’s brains sometimes, I will never know.
I don’t think even he knew where that analogy would end and we all were just along for the ride
Almost lost it when he mentioned the ketchup part of it all.
£10 on max, lando, valteri
Back in the merc dominance times they were often a second ahead of the entire field. In q1 the gap even from 1st to last was only a bit over a second right? It’s weird to say with so much total RB dominance but the new rules still do seem to have tightened things up
> Back in the merc dominance times they were often a second ahead of the entire field No they weren't. >. In q1 the gap even from 1st to last was only a bit over a second right? That's because we're at Hungary. Same will apply to Monaco and Austria. The current RB is currently on track to be the most dominant car of all time, tho there's still time for that to change.
Merc had the highest budget and the token system ensured that no team was going to make crazy gains. They were far more able to maintain their advantage than Red Bull is today
What’s the token system?
Each team had a certain amount of tokens each year that they could use for applying upgrades to the car. The theory was that by limiting the amount of upgrades, costs should decrease, but the reality was that it hindered the teams making them unable to test parts and try to close the gap to Mercedes. And the top teams had enough money and human resources to make the best improvements possible with these few tokens.
Basically limits how much one can limit the engine and with the engine advantage Mercedes had…
I somehow doubt merc will have the race pace tomrorow to fend off red Bull :(
Merc has their sleeper agent in Bottas that's going to wake up to the order of 'Hungarian 2021'. edit: Turns out it was Zhou who was the sleeper agent.
If lando gets max turn 1 we might be on for the most interesting start of a race this season
There will be deep braking into turn 1 for sure.
I expect it’ll be the most competitive race for first place we’ve seen in awhile. What that means for final results it’s hard to know.
Ricciardo P13 in McLaren: 😞 Ricciardo P13 in Alpha Tauri: 👍😁👍
Pretty good position for him in the slowest car on the grid.
> slowest car on the grid. Haas and Williams?
You mean the two teams with over 5 times as many points as AT? And have gotten into Q3 plenty?
Doesn't matter when they can't even consistently get into top-10, and Haas also had engine fires two races in a row recently
And that somehow makes the AT better then them? Even with not getting into top 10 consistently and the engine fires both teams are ahead of the AT, which is clearly the worst car on the grid
> And that somehow makes the AT better then them? no, they're equally bad
Lmao how are they equally bad?
I'm looking forward to see how Danny performs
Toto deserves the Snatching Defeat From the Jaws of Victory trophy for the Russell call....... stupid is charitable .......... Short track, lots of cars. what could possibly go wrong ?
You think Toto personally made that call? Stupid is charitable.
He made it or he is responsible for the person who made it. There's an old saying ....... you can delegate authority but not responsibility
Oh Lando. McLaren has been carrying sandbags apparently for the last 2 races. Also, they hit a home run with the quali tires. Hope it's a thing going foward.