StarAC17 wrote:

I have a feeling that your complaints are because you don't like Mercedes in general. All of top racers whine and curse when stuff isn't going their way. Go back to the Monaco qualifying and Verstappen was livid when Leclerc crashed and he yells at his engineers just as much as Hamilton does. Pro athletes are notorious for whining and most people give the benefit of the doubt to the ones they like.

Thanks, and thought about it. But no, thats not it. I don't dislike Mercedes at all. I have utmost respect for their work. Same goes for Lewis and his performance on and off track.
I guess I just don't like Totos whining. And for the record: I find the whining of twice in a row not getting in their best lap on Q3 by VER and Red Bull in general equally annoying. I mean, make the mistake in Monaco on betting on last minute best lap and get burned by a crash. Happens. Make the mistake twice in a row (on a similar track) and sorry, just not good enough strategy wise.

Well, that was a pretty crazy qualifying session!

Congrats to Leclerc for his second consecutive pole. This one thanks to a double tow along Baku's main straight from both Mercedes who were building up to their first flying lap. Other drivers did manage to get tows to a slightly lesser extent, so I don't mean to diminish Leclerc's achievement.

After changing his rear wing to a different one to Bottas, Hamilton finally managed to extract some pace from his Mercedes which had looked a dog all weekend leading up to qualifying.

Having crashed out of FP3, Verstappen only managed P3 after the Red Bull had looked strong in all the free practice sessions. His bad mood was not helped by the string of red flags through qualifying which also interrupted his second fast run in Q3.

Excellent run from Gasly to only be 5/1000s off Verstappen's Q3 time.

Norris again looking good, but a red-flag infringement sees him penalised with a three-place grid penalty, which drops him to P9.

Perez and Bottas both suffered from giving their illustrious teammates a tow in the first run, then having their second runs cut short thanks to a red flag.

Honorable mentions to Tsunoda and Alonso for finishing P8 and P9 respectively.

Dishonorable mentions for crashing and causing red flags to:
Stroll
Giovinazzi
Ricciardo
Tsunoda
Sainz

The race - looks to be set for a roller-coaster of a ride! With four different teams on the front two rows, we could be set for an exciting first few laps. The Ferraris were chewing tyres in their race simulations, so I don't expect Leclerc to maintain his lead for long or he will pit first. It will be amazing if we don't have multiple red flags or safety cars during the race. I'm excited!

Full qualifying results (before penalties applied)

A bit of a shit show with all the cars slowed down to a crawl at various times and the red flags screwing various drivers. Fortunately not too big an impact for the championship with Lewis and Max 2 and 3.

CRJockey wrote:

StarAC17 wrote:

I have a feeling that your complaints are because you don't like Mercedes in general. All of top racers whine and curse when stuff isn't going their way. Go back to the Monaco qualifying and Verstappen was livid when Leclerc crashed and he yells at his engineers just as much as Hamilton does. Pro athletes are notorious for whining and most people give the benefit of the doubt to the ones they like.

Thanks, and thought about it. But no, thats not it. I don't dislike Mercedes at all. I have utmost respect for their work. Same goes for Lewis and his performance on and off track.
I guess I just don't like Totos whining. And for the record: I find the whining of twice in a row not getting in their best lap on Q3 by VER and Red Bull in general equally annoying. I mean, make the mistake in Monaco on betting on last minute best lap and get burned by a crash. Happens. Make the mistake twice in a row (on a similar track) and sorry, just not good enough strategy wise.

It isn’t betting. They can make two fast runs in Q3 and it happens that the first isn’t perfect. There isn’t a lot of strategy other than drive as fast as you can in a flying lap.

marcelh wrote:

CRJockey wrote:

StarAC17 wrote:

I have a feeling that your complaints are because you don't like Mercedes in general. All of top racers whine and curse when stuff isn't going their way. Go back to the Monaco qualifying and Verstappen was livid when Leclerc crashed and he yells at his engineers just as much as Hamilton does. Pro athletes are notorious for whining and most people give the benefit of the doubt to the ones they like.

Thanks, and thought about it. But no, thats not it. I don't dislike Mercedes at all. I have utmost respect for their work. Same goes for Lewis and his performance on and off track.
I guess I just don't like Totos whining. And for the record: I find the whining of twice in a row not getting in their best lap on Q3 by VER and Red Bull in general equally annoying. I mean, make the mistake in Monaco on betting on last minute best lap and get burned by a crash. Happens. Make the mistake twice in a row (on a similar track) and sorry, just not good enough strategy wise.

It isn’t betting. They can make two fast runs in Q3 and it happens that the first isn’t perfect. There isn’t a lot of strategy other than drive as fast as you can in a flying lap.

I disagree. You can clearly see that often enough the first lap in the respective Q‘s is aimed at bringing in a reasonably good time as a safeguard lap. And then the final lap is all out full on the limit for maximum performance.

Hamilton regained the top position in the championship, for half an hour..

Well, after a crazy qualifying session, we ended up with a crazy race, but it was something of a slow burn. Amazingly, for Baku, the first few laps were uneventful, with everyone avoiding contact. Leclerc's lead didn't last long before he was passed by Hamilton (a move made a little easier by Leclerc having to swerve to avoid hitting a fallen tree branch!) After that, Leclerc was also soon passed by Verstappen and Perez. With Hamilton unable to pull away, that order persisted until the first round of pit stops. With Hamilton pitting first, the true pace of the Red Bull was revealed and by the time both Verstappen and Perez had stopped, they'd both jumped ahead of Hamilton.

Despite Hamilton getting close to Perez a few times, he was never in a position to make a pass. And that's how things stayed until Stroll's huge crash on lap 31 thanks to a blown tyre while hammering along the main straight. That brought out the Safety Car but because of the location of the accident, the pit lane remained closed. Things settled down again after the SC with Vettel in a fine 4th place until another huge crash on the main straight, this time it was race leader Verstappen's turn to suffer a blown tyre. The race was soon red flagged and would be restarted with two laps to run. But even more drama was to unfold - Hamilton made a good start and was alongside Perez heading for turn 1. Unfortunately for him, he had inadvertently knocked a switch to turn on "magic brakes" and suffered a massive lock-up as soon as he applied the brakes. He slid into the escape road and went from fighting for the lead to plumb last in the space of 150m.

Perez held on for a well deserved win, with a very happy Vettel second and Gasly in third. Phew!

Full result:

Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/20 ... ix/results

So after all that, Verstappen loses 26 points (he had fastest lap when he crashed) and Hamilton 18, so as you were in the WDC with Verstappen still four points ahead. But, thanks to Perez's excellent drive, a big change in the WCC, where Red Bull now lead by 26 points. After two street circuits where Red Bull was clearly the better car, Mercedes will be hoping to be happier at some 'normal' tracks. We have two weeks to recover from that madness before a triple-header of France, Styria and Austria (both at the Red Bull Ring).

keesje wrote:

Hamilton regained the top position in the championship, for half an hour..

[Nerd mode=on] Not true, because points are only awarded at the end of the race!

On a slightly more serious note, Pirelli will have to work very hard to convince people that their tyres didn't just explode. Apparently, one of Hamilton's tyres that was removed during the red flag period had been cut and could have failed at any moment.

Pirelli selected the three softest compounds for this race and questions will be asked whether they should have gone harder. They may be able to show that Stroll's and Verstappen's failures were due to damage, but many people will not be convinced.

I'm not a big fan of Hamilton, but hearing his voice at the end of the race when he realized that he accidentally triggered the Brake Magic mode was somewhat painful. Surely hard to be schadenfreude about it, really.

That one was nuts! Kept me watching every lap though. I feel bad for Hamilton, but worse for Verstappen, who was driving about as well as you could ask anybody to until he lost that tire. Vettel also driving a lot better than I'd previously been inclined to give him credit for.

Hamilton did smartly say this was a marathon, then went for the sprint and lost.

Keeping the championship interesting in the process.

Still the difference in pace between him and Bottas was painful to watch.

What a spectacular race weekend and I like it.

Mercedes had a very bad start of the weekend, but Hamilton showed us his skills in understanding his car by changing the set up completely before Q1. And it paid off with a front row start. OTOH, his team mate Bottas didn't come close and started midfield and complaining that there was something "fundamental" wrong with his car. I do believe the Mercedes isn't the best car for street circuits, but it looks they lost some mojo.

Red Bull was somehow underperforming in qualifying, but Verstappen and especially Perez showed Red Bull is closer than before to battle with Mercedes. All went well for their first 1-2 victory in five years when Verstappen became passenger when a tyre blew. We don't know the cause (debries or issue with the tyre, because Stroll blew also a LR tyre after just over 30 laps), but it was the start of a dramatic final. I really can't understand why Hamilton was so eager to go for first place after the restart. Just before the restart he was talking with his crew about "not to take too much risks".... Unbelievable, but maybe he's feeling the pressure from Red Bull/Verstappen and wanted to maximize the score, knowing Verstappen already retired.

I think Sergio Peres demonstrated to be the strong 2nd driver Red Bull has been looking for for years. It really showed during the first 95% of the race. Hamilton driving behind two strong red ones must have felt like the rest of the field felt for the last 5 years.

Who will replace Bottas at Mercedes? Norris?

marcelh wrote:

I really can't understand why Hamilton was so eager to go for first place after the restart.

For the first time in years he is being seriously challenged by someone. In prior years he had the best car by far so barring accidents and pit-stop fails he was nearly untouchable. It would appear to me that he does not handle stress well. This is the second race where he did not finish because of mistakes a 7 times champion should never make.

keesje wrote:

I think Sergio Peres demonstrated to be the strong 2nd driver Red Bull has been looking for for years. It really showed during the first 95% of the race. Hamilton driving behind two strong red ones must have felt like the rest of the field felt for the last 5 years.

Who will replace Bottas at Mercedes? Norris?

Norris just signed a contract extension with McLaren so he's not going to Mercedes.

George Russell is the one that most people think will replace Bottas next year.

Aesma wrote:

Hamilton did smartly say this was a marathon, then went for the sprint and lost.

marcelh wrote:

I really can't understand why Hamilton was so eager to go for first place after the restart. Just before the restart he was talking with his crew about "not to take too much risks"....

He just made a much better start than Perez and was fully alongside. He had the inside line and would almost certainly have taken the lead of the race if it weren't for that switch. It wasn't as though he took a desperate lunge from way too far back or crashed into another car. The mistake was inadvertently activating the "Brake Magic" switch, not his start or his challenge of Perez.

keesje wrote:

I think Sergio Peres demonstrated to be the strong 2nd driver Red Bull has been looking for for years. It really showed during the first 95% of the race. Hamilton driving behind two strong red ones must have felt like the rest of the field felt for the last 5 years.

Who will replace Bottas at Mercedes? Norris?

A bit more time needed, IMHO. I don't see anyone replacing Bottas in-season, but I suspect Russell will be driving for Mercedes in 2022.

This was the first race that Perez performed as Red Bull hoped he would, but the Red Bull was clearly the fastest car at Baku. Perez weakness is still his qualifying - in a way he's the mirror of Bottas. Bottas is normally a strong qualifier but has often shown he doesn't race well if he doesn't qualify on the first two rows. But yes, Bottas clearly has to improve or Mercedes will lose the WCC by some margin.

After six races it seems to me that Red Bull were clearly faster at Bahrain, Monaco and Baku, with Mercedes stronger in Spain and Portugal. I think they were pretty close at Imola. Mercedes struggled at both these street circuits despite that huge straight at Baku. We need to see how both they and Red Bull perform at more typical circuits like the next four or five races. That will take us to the summer break and give us all a chance to draw our breath.

Dull, it isn't!

No comment on Vettel´s race ? It seems he finally got the Aston Martin user guide !

I have to confess I was concerned by a huuge mistake of him at the restart but he did absolutely great just like his whole race

Alonso did also a great restart, he brings needed points for this unconsistent Alpine team, and Ocon DNF makes him the week end saviour of the team. Good operation.

That leaves only Ricciardo still struggling in his new car and that's painful to watch. Hope he'll find something, anything, soon to smile again.

Grizzly410 wrote:

No comment on Vettel´s race ?

I mentioned him, but yes a very good drive and it was nice to see him smiling and looking happy. He’s looked far too down for a long time now.

Aesma wrote:

Hamilton did smartly say this was a marathon, then went for the sprint and lost.

Keeping the championship interesting in the process.

Still the difference in pace between him and Bottas was painful to watch.

To be fair to Hamilton he got the perfect start but hit the black magic button. Bottas is just a dead man walking at this point, his team didn't give him a tow for quail. Still not a good enough performance during the race.

This is a fun season fill with drama. The championship still 2 driver race. Still hard to tell if the tire failures was due to derby on track for both cases, I'm siding with no.

PHLspecial wrote:

This is a fun season fill with drama. The championship still 2 driver race. Still hard to tell if the tire failures was due to debris on track for both cases, I'm siding with no.

Pirelli seems to claim such noting Lewis had a tire with a gash in it but.... Short of there being something between the final corner and both Max and Lances crash sites, I find it hard the believe. Now, the chance that a curb or the like was damaging the tires with repeated stress causing a structural failure, that I find far more likely.

scbriml wrote:

I think Bottas is underrated by many because he has the misfortune to have Hamilton as a team-mate. That said, he does seem to be in a bit of a downward spiral performance-wise. He hasn't beaten Verstappen on-track for nine races.

I don't. He was specifically chosen so as not to be too competitive with Lewis. Toto didn't want any more Nico-Lewis-2016 situations again, so he chose a replacement for Nico that would make it easy for Lewis to walk away with subsequent titles. They had plenty of chances to get Lewis a more competitive teammate, with Ocon and Russell but decided to pass on that. As such, if Valtteri's uselessness costs them the WCC, my sympathies will be very limited.

Make no mistake, I do want the bloke to do well: I can't stand Max and I'm sick of Lewis' domination, but rooting for Valtteri seems like a lost cause most of the time. His luck is comically bad.

StarAC17 wrote:

I do not think if Bottas is winning the race and has the pace that Mercedes is going to have him yield to Hamilton on a regular basis (Sochi 2018 was an exception).

Yes they will. Making Lewis - a driver associated more strongly with Mercedes than any other driver is with a manufacturer - a 9X champion is far more valuable to the company than a couple of wins for Bottas.

moo wrote:

If you do want to keep the other teams, how cheap should F1 get? If someone wanted to join but could only pony up $50m, should the cap now be $50m? How about $30m? $5m?

Noone is wanting to join, so the questions are completely pointless.

StarAC17 wrote:

Verstappen's reaction in the tunnel was priceless when his engineer told him that Leclerc hit the barrier.

He has anger management issues.

petertenthije wrote:

scbriml wrote:

This post was delayed out of sheer boredom. What an appallingly boring "race" that was.

It’s Monaco, what did you expect? Unless someone crashes, this race is always decided in qualifying.

You gotta be there.

TBH I didn't actually find the race too bad, but maybe that's because I was excited about Carlos getting his first Ferrari podium. The TV direction was absolutely awful though.

Aesma wrote:

Mercedes says Bottas stopped short of his mark and that caused the gun to be used at an angle, shearing off the ridges of the nut.

And Lewis was fairly quick to throw the team under the bus in one of the post race interviews. I'm loving how quickly the "no-blame" culture at Mercedes got thrown out the window once they had a serious championship challenge. Seems a bit ridiculous to blame Bottas for that pitstop.

CRJockey wrote:

While I like Ocon since he joined Racing Point a while back and consider him putting in strong and consistent performances for Alpine, I feel putting back Alonso in that car is a huge mistake. I would have much rather seen a young driver from F2, or Kevin Magnussen in that seat. Alonso seemed to be a overly-conservative and cautious decision. And one that is not paying back.

Magnussen would be a good choice, as would someone from the Renault Academy like Lundgaard or Zhou. Not that I want them to have signed him, but I'm also really curious about how Daniil Kvyat would do outside of the Red Bull program.

Magnussen didn't get on well with Cyril though.

StarAC17 wrote:

Go back to the Monaco qualifying and Verstappen was livid when Leclerc crashed and he yells at his engineers just as much as Hamilton does.

Disagree. Verstappen is far angrier and louder - he even caused the diplomatic incident with Mongolia last year after using a racial slurr on the radio. Dan Ticktum probably looks up to him.

Aesma wrote:

Hamilton did smartly say this was a marathon, then went for the sprint and lost.

Kinda reminds me of what he said at one of the pre-race interviews at Abu Dhabi 2016. He has a good poker face and sounded very sincere!

keesje wrote:

Who will replace Bottas at Mercedes? Norris?

Ocon has seniority in the Mercedes program. But I think Alpine (rightly - from their POV) wants to keep him.

zkojq wrote:

Make no mistake, I do want the bloke to do well: I can't stand Max and I'm sick of Lewis' domination, but rooting for Valtteri seems like a lost cause most of the time. His luck is comically bad.

Good post, zkojq.

And here you summed up my thoughts pretty spot on regarding Lewis and Max.

Regarding Valtteri: He is obviously not a bad driver and throwing him under the bus for the pitstop in Monaco was more than embarrasing for Mercedes and shows the newly felt pressure. But >90% of the fields drivers could do in the Mercedes what he is doing or has done the past couple years. I have to admit I wasn't aware that Ocon is in the Mercedes programme. But somehow I can't see a pairing HAM / OCO or even HAM / RUS at the moment. As you said, too competitive for Toto's liking. Will be interesting to see how Mercedes will go on with balancing the threat of not only losing WCC (probability >50% at the moment, IMO) but also be threatened by angry Max in the drivers championship and at the same time accepting a sub-par driver.

Hope to see Kevin at some point back in the F1. And agree with you regarding Daniil. I have a feeling he would be a solid driver for one of the lower midfield teams.

scbriml wrote:

On a slightly more serious note, Pirelli will have to work very hard to convince people that their tyres didn't just explode. Apparently, one of Hamilton's tyres that was removed during the red flag period had been cut and could have failed at any moment.

Pirelli selected the three softest compounds for this race and questions will be asked whether they should have gone harder. They may be able to show that Stroll's and Verstappen's failures were due to damage, but many people will not be convinced.

To be blunt: I don't believe for a second that "debris" has killed of two rear-left tyres within 1km on the long straight. Unacceptable failure mode. Neither do I believe that story about Hamiltons tyre also being close to "failing any moment". Thats just to appease Red Bull, and a lesser degree Aston Martin, that it also could have happened to the darling of the sport.

Pirellis performance is what you get single sourcing. Still better though than the Michelin / Bridgestone years.

TheFlyingDisk wrote:

I'm not a big fan of Hamilton, but hearing his voice at the end of the race when he realized that he accidentally triggered the Brake Magic mode was somewhat painful. Surely hard to be schadenfreude about it, really.

True. Bad cockpit design though, if such a catastrophic error can be made while simply doing routine tasks as upshifting and steering. Could potentially be a deadly design mistake on other track / speed combinations.

scbriml wrote:

Grizzly410 wrote:

No comment on Vettel´s race ?

I mentioned him, but yes a very good drive and it was nice to see him smiling and looking happy. He’s looked far too down for a long time now.

Absolutely agree. Nice to see him having a good race and a smile on his face.

T18 wrote:

PHLspecial wrote:

This is a fun season fill with drama. The championship still 2 driver race. Still hard to tell if the tire failures was due to debris on track for both cases, I'm siding with no.

Pirelli seems to claim such noting Lewis had a tire with a gash in it but.... Short of there being something between the final corner and both Max and Lances crash sites, I find it hard the believe. Now, the chance that a curb or the like was damaging the tires with repeated stress causing a structural failure, that I find far more likely.

More likely the curb theory is. But if I am not forgetting something, the only left handers where the guys go hard over the curb on the back left tyre are turn 15 and, arguably as it is the slowest point on track, the corner into the old town. There are other tracks where the curbs are far more prominent and brutally driven over than Baku.

Well, we will see.

CRJockey wrote:

TheFlyingDisk wrote:

I'm not a big fan of Hamilton, but hearing his voice at the end of the race when he realized that he accidentally triggered the Brake Magic mode was somewhat painful. Surely hard to be schadenfreude about it, really.

True. Bad cockpit design though, if such a catastrophic error can be made while simply doing routine tasks as upshifting and steering. Could potentially be a deadly design mistake on other track / speed combinations.

The Mercedes drivers use different steering wheels. Hamilton's Brake Magic button is at the back of the steering wheel on the top left-hand side, above the gear-shift paddle (behind the "N" button on the wheel below), while Bottas has a red "BW" (Brake Warming) button on the front left.

Bottas wheel:

Source: capture from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OX58IkeSl4c

Hamilton also uses a slightly odd clutch release process, where his left hand is over the top of his steering wheel. He adopted this method some time ago after a number of poor starts, and it does seem to have made his starts much more consistent. Indeed, his restart at Baku was just about perfect (maybe too perfect?) The BM button was apparent accidentally pressed when he jinked to the left as Perez moved over, then we know what happened when he hit the brakes!

It's not the first time in F1 history that a driver has accidentally pressed a button or made an incorrect setting.

Edit: I found an image of Hamilton's wheel, but I think it's a couple of years old, so don't know if it's still the same.

Source: https://lewishamiltonnetworth.blogspot. ... wheel.html

Edit 2: Having seen an onboard of the restart, his left hand is still over the top of the steering wheel when he makes an adjustment to the left as Perez moves over, so that's almost certainly the point the button got pressed.
See around 0:20 in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbgFAJHXNro

scbriml wrote:

Hamilton also uses a slightly odd clutch release process, where his left hand is over the top of his steering wheel. He adopted this method some time ago after a number of poor starts, and it does seem to have made his starts much more consistent. Indeed, his restart at Baku was just about perfect (maybe too perfect?) The BM button was apparent accidentally pressed when he jinked to the left as Perez moved over, then we know what happened when he hit the brakes!

It's not the first time in F1 history that a driver has accidentally pressed a button or made an incorrect setting.

Thanks much for sharing. I wasn't aware they use different wheels.

You seem to implying something fishy going on with his "too" consistent starts? Or is that a misunderstanding from my side?

Well, the fact that a button has been accidentally pressed before doesn't change that fact that a design that could potentially hazardous and at least has cost valuable points in Baku isn't ideal, design-wise.

Edit: Thanks for your edit and addition of Lewis' wheel. And good observation.

CRJockey wrote:

You seem to implying something fishy going on with his "too" consistent starts? Or is that a misunderstanding from my side?

No, nothing fishy, it's just a slightly odd technique (in as much as I haven't seen any other driver operate the clutch paddles that way).

A few years ago he had a run of poor starts and he seems to have developed this technique to fix that. I have a vague recollection of hearing him say it gave him a better feel than the more convention hand position. It seems to be working as I can't remember the last time he had a bad start.

However, I suspect his BM button will have been moved (or somehow disabled automatically for a start) by the time the lights go out in France.

scbriml wrote:

CRJockey wrote:

You seem to implying something fishy going on with his "too" consistent starts? Or is that a misunderstanding from my side?

No, nothing fishy, it's just a slightly odd technique (in as much as I haven't seen any other driver operate the clutch paddles that way).

A few years ago he had a run of poor starts and he seems to have developed this technique to fix that. I have a vague recollection of hearing him say it gave him a better feel than the more convention hand position. It seems to be working as I can't remember the last time he had a bad start.

However, I suspect his BM button will have been moved (or somehow disabled automatically for a start) by the time the lights go out in France.

Ok, thanks for clearing that up.

With regards to the BM button: Might be a good idea to make it a guarded switch, much like you would for irreversable items like fire bottles in the cockpit.

CRJockey wrote:

Good post, zkojq.

Thanks!

CRJockey wrote:

Regarding Valtteri: He is obviously not a bad driver and throwing him under the bus for the pitstop in Monaco was more than embarrasing for Mercedes and shows the newly felt pressure.

The thing is that Valtteri wasn't too bad a few years ago. In 2017 and 2018 he was far from being on Lewis' level, but he still ran fairly good races, delivered more than acceptable results for a second driver and generally did ok. This season he is nowhere. Maybe it's an unbalanced car, maybe it's the death-spiral of a lack of confidence, maybe Mercedes turning up the engine to compensate for his slower pace is no longer enough to make up the deficit.

CRJockey wrote:

But >90% of the fields drivers could do in the Mercedes what he is doing or has done the past couple years. I have to admit I wasn't aware that Ocon is in the Mercedes programme.

Ocon has a Mercedes contract underlying his Renault/Alpine one. I understand that it gave Renault/Alpine exclusive rights to him for 2020 + 2021, with the option for 2022.

CRJockey wrote:

But somehow I can't see a pairing HAM / OCO or even HAM / RUS at the moment. As you said, too competitive for Toto's liking.

I agree that it is too competitive for Toto's liking, but I think that they're goign to be forced into it somehow or other to replace Bottas. Long-term I am fairly sure that Ocon and Russell will be Mercedes' future, but Lewis has no reason to retire soon (unless the 2022 regulations turn out to make Mercedes uncompetitive).

CRJockey wrote:

Will be interesting to see how Mercedes will go on with balancing the threat of not only losing WCC (probability >50% at the moment, IMO) but also be threatened by angry Max in the drivers championship and at the same time accepting a sub-par driver.

Hope to see Kevin at some point back in the F1. And agree with you regarding Daniil. I have a feeling he would be a solid driver for one of the lower midfield teams.

Agreed.

CRJockey wrote:

T18 wrote:

PHLspecial wrote:

This is a fun season fill with drama. The championship still 2 driver race. Still hard to tell if the tire failures was due to debris on track for both cases, I'm siding with no.

Pirelli seems to claim such noting Lewis had a tire with a gash in it but.... Short of there being something between the final corner and both Max and Lances crash sites, I find it hard the believe. Now, the chance that a curb or the like was damaging the tires with repeated stress causing a structural failure, that I find far more likely.

More likely the curb theory is. But if I am not forgetting something, the only left handers where the guys go hard over the curb on the back left tyre are turn 15 and, arguably as it is the slowest point on track, the corner into the old town. There are other tracks where the curbs are far more prominent and brutally driven over than Baku.

Well, we will see.

I agree that it is most likely a failure of Pirelli, but remember Daniil Kvyat's seemingly random crash at Silverstone last year (or maybe the year before?)? That one looked to be another Pirelli error, but it turned out that some turf was ripped up at one of the turns previous, exposing some sharp bit of concrete/kerbing or something which was what caused the seemingly random blowout.

zkojq wrote:

The thing is that Valtteri wasn't too bad a few years ago. In 2017 and 2018 he was far from being on Lewis' level, but he still ran fairly good races, delivered more than acceptable results for a second driver and generally did ok. This season he is nowhere. Maybe it's an unbalanced car, maybe it's the death-spiral of a lack of confidence, maybe Mercedes turning up the engine to compensate for his slower pace is no longer enough to make up the deficit.

Agree, apart from Monaco he was nowhere. It seems it has gotten much harder to find the right setup & balance for the W12 and just maybe Valtteri's talent off track with regards to race engineering and car balance feedback and adjustments just isn't good enough.

zkojq wrote:

Ocon has a Mercedes contract underlying his Renault/Alpine one. I understand that it gave Renault/Alpine exclusive rights to him for 2020 + 2021, with the option for 2022.

Thanks much, interesting.

zkojq wrote:

I agree that it is too competitive for Toto's liking, but I think that they're goign to be forced into it somehow or other to replace Bottas. Long-term I am fairly sure that Ocon and Russell will be Mercedes' future, but Lewis has no reason to retire soon (unless the 2022 regulations turn out to make Mercedes uncompetitive).

Yeah, agree. I fail to envision Bottas in the Mercedes next season. Or, to be honest, in any cockpit apart from maybe the Williams after losing RUS to Mercedes.
Guess that Lewis' goal is to show that even with the new set of regulation he is the one to beat. We will see.

zkojq wrote:

I agree that it is most likely a failure of Pirelli, but remember Daniil Kvyat's seemingly random crash at Silverstone last year (or maybe the year before?)? That one looked to be another Pirelli error, but it turned out that some turf was ripped up at one of the turns previous, exposing some sharp bit of concrete/kerbing or something which was what caused the seemingly random blowout.

Thanks for bringing that up, I forgot about the Kvyat crash in 2020. And you might well be right. https://youtu.be/819f3dfnuUY
And yeah, I might be a little unyielding with Pirelli, as I find that failure mode so unacceptable.

All those comments about "angry" Max are hilarious. He's a sportsman and very is commited to become a F1 World Champion. And he is showing us his dissapointment vividly. But I also understand that it's too much for some snowflakes....

marcelh wrote:

All those comments about "angry" Max are hilarious. He's a sportsman and very is commited to become a F1 World Champion. And he is showing us his dissapointment vividly. But I also understand that it's too much for some snowflakes....

What are you trying to do? Show casing what a tough guy you are online because you like Max swearing?

CRJockey wrote:

marcelh wrote:

All those comments about "angry" Max are hilarious. He's a sportsman and very is commited to become a F1 World Champion. And he is showing us his dissapointment vividly. But I also understand that it's too much for some snowflakes....

What are you trying to do? Show casing what a tough guy you are online because you like Max swearing?

Not at all and you missed my point by almost 100 miles, “tough” guy….
I don’t “like” swearing, but I see a committed sportsman who only wants to win. The way he’s communicating may sometimes be a bit rude, but it’s also authentic. It adds some flavor to the social and political correct pre cooked comments without real emotion.
IMHO It’s great to see the emotion of sportsmen and -women when they are winning, but also the frustration when they are losing. It shows real commitment. But I don’t think we’re at the same page, so agree to disagree.

marcelh wrote:

CRJockey wrote:

marcelh wrote:

All those comments about "angry" Max are hilarious. He's a sportsman and very is commited to become a F1 World Champion. And he is showing us his dissapointment vividly. But I also understand that it's too much for some snowflakes....

What are you trying to do? Show casing what a tough guy you are online because you like Max swearing?

Not at all and you missed my point by almost 100 miles, “tough” guy….
I don’t “like” swearing, but I see a committed sportsman who only wants to win. The way he’s communicating may sometimes be a bit rude, but it’s also authentic. It adds some flavor to the social and political correct pre cooked comments without real emotion.
IMHO It’s great to see the emotion of sportsmen and -women when they are winning, but also the frustration when they are losing. It shows real commitment. But I don’t think we’re at the same page, so agree to disagree.

Oh, actually we are totally on the same page, especially regarding your last passage. And my dislike for him comes on general, not specific terms and dates way back to his starting F1 years.

Unfortunately the moment you discredited everyone who disagrees with you regarding Max as „Snowflakes“ it sounded immediately sour and, dare I say, childish.

But let’s leave that behind, may we?

marcelh wrote:

All those comments about "angry" Max are hilarious. He's a sportsman and very is commited to become a F1 World Champion. And he is showing us his dissapointment vividly. But I also understand that it's too much for some snowflakes....

Lewis swears on team radio maybe once a season. Sebastian is roughly the same. I don't ever remember Fernando swearing although his team radio can be somewhat passionate at times.

zkojq wrote:

marcelh wrote:

All those comments about "angry" Max are hilarious. He's a sportsman and very is commited to become a F1 World Champion. And he is showing us his dissapointment vividly. But I also understand that it's too much for some snowflakes....

Lewis swears on team radio maybe once a season. Sebastian is roughly the same. I don't ever remember Fernando swearing although his team radio can be somewhat passionate at times.

Fernando is a bigger asshole on the radio than Max IMO despite not swearing as much. Remember when he constantly mocked Honda for its “GP2 engine” and “feeling good, much slower than before”? Pretty shitty thing to do, publicly mocking your engine supplier.

marcelh wrote:

All those comments about "angry" Max are hilarious. He's a sportsman and very is commited to become a F1 World Champion. And he is showing us his dissapointment vividly. But I also understand that it's too much for some snowflakes....

As long as your consistent with this and don't attack Lewis for is when he is losing. When I read a lot of the reactions to Monaco, the sore loser card was played against Lewis by granted many idiots on the internet. But Max gets a break for his reactions when things don't go his way. It's not just F1, I see the inconsistency among fans of all sports that they give one star a pass for bad sportsmanship but defend the other.

What separates pro-athletes from everyone else is talent, work ethic and the fact that many cannot deal with losing which creates a level of commitment that most people cannot fathom.

zkojq wrote:
The thing is that Valtteri wasn't too bad a few years ago. In 2017 and 2018 he was far from being on Lewis' level, but he still ran fairly good races, delivered more than acceptable results for a second driver and generally did ok. This season he is nowhere. Maybe it's an unbalanced car, maybe it's the death-spiral of a lack of confidence, maybe Mercedes turning up the engine to compensate for his slower pace is no longer enough to make up the deficit.


Agree, apart from Monaco he was nowhere. It seems it has gotten much harder to find the right setup & balance for the W12 and just maybe Valtteri's talent off track with regards to race engineering and car balance feedback and adjustments just isn't good enough.

Lets look at this year for Bottas.

Bahrain - Podium
Imola - Crashed out and all around bad day. Had the crash not happened it would have been worse for Mercedes actually as Lewis was able to unlap himself but a bad day for him.
Portimao - Podium
Spain - Podium
Monaco - Pit error stopping what would have been a likely podium
Baku - Bad setup and no final hot lap in Q3 where he might have moved up to a better starting point.

I would put 2 races on Bottas, Imola and Baku. The rest he has been pretty solid.
The biggest problem for Mercedes is that Checo looks like he might even be able to take on Max at Redbull. My prediction is that Lewis gets number 8 but Redbull wins the constructors because even though Bottas is objectively decent, Checo is far better

For Baku, didn't Bottas get a "big rear wing" or something that proved utterly slow and made it impossible for him to pass any car ? Sky commentators were wondering if it was his choice, or if the better wing Hamilton got was the only one available.

Aesma wrote:

For Baku, didn't Bottas get a "big rear wing" or something that proved utterly slow and made it impossible for him to pass any car ? Sky commentators were wondering if it was his choice, or if the better wing Hamilton got was the only one available.

Mercedes does a pretty solid technical debrief on each race. According to this video he chose the wing with a greater downforce for the tough corners in the castle section.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcH6xj5n1Dc

Aesma wrote:

For Baku, didn't Bottas get a "big rear wing" or something that proved utterly slow and made it impossible for him to pass any car ? Sky commentators were wondering if it was his choice, or if the better wing Hamilton got was the only one available.

Yes, the choice of rear wing was down to the drivers. Hamilton chose the lower downforce one, while Bottas went the other way.

Pirelli got their investigation out regarding the tyre failure. Surprise, it wasn’t debris…

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article.pirelli-reveal-results-of-investigation-into-baku-tyre-failures.2pILHApKjmVjoDk8NQIvY5.html

CRJockey wrote:

Pirelli got their investigation out regarding the tyre failure. Surprise, it wasn’t debris…

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article.pirelli-reveal-results-of-investigation-into-baku-tyre-failures.2pILHApKjmVjoDk8NQIvY5.html

So they're basically saying nothing wrong with the tyres (as in not a manufacturing fault, not wear, not debris damage), but the way the teams "used the tyres". Meanwhile, unsurprisingly, Red Bull say we follow all the rules and guidelines for tyres, so not our car. So there you have it - not the tyre's fault according to Pirelli and not the team's fault according to Red Bull. Only in F1.

Meanwhile, F1 introduces a whole slew of new rules and regulations relating to tyres in a new TD sent to the teams yesterday.
https://www.racefans.net/2021/06/15/ext ... -in-spain/

RaceFans understands the revised and expanded directive TD003, which will come into force for this weekend’s French Grand Prix, runs to more than a dozen pages following the latest additions. It forbids various practices by teams and defines a series of new tests of tyre pressure and temperature.

So over 12 pages of additional dos and don'ts for the teams to get their collective heads around. And you thought tyres were just round and black!

With the return to more normal race tracks for the upcoming triple-header, expect the thorny issue to track limits to raise its head again.

There we go, Esteban Ocon signed for three more years until end of 2024. Happy for him.

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article.breaking-esteban-ocon-signs-bumper-three-year-contract-extension-with-alpine.5nWR2pWD1COJzdyB73g8NM.html

Max got pole position, outrunning the Mercedes's on a wide long stretches circuit..