motorsports: F1 2020 Resumes with Austria Race

That was a very boring race even with some of the crashes in-between. Mercedes procession which I slept through. The tire failures made it a bit interesting but as usual Hamilton gets lucky. How does this happen everytime? If the situation had been reversed, Bottas could've limped home for the win and be leading the championship except now Hamilton's gap is even greater. There's absolutely nothing gripping about this year's championship fight.

The first race was exciting and this last lap...everything in between has been underwhelming. HAM is very lucky - that tire could and should have shredded, eaten the front wing and made him spin! BOT or VER could have won. MB running circles around everyone. Smug Toto going to have that smirky look again next week.

VET with the unforced error on lap one. Looking like another parade race. Hoping HUL gets on the podium. Tires becoming the story again.

 

VER knows how to manage tires and has really matured as a driver. He?s had a great day so far to lap 28.

VER has no tire issues at all. Congrats on the win. LEC in 4th feels good too.

Verstappen was the class of the field today, well deserved victory. Bottas blaming the team for poor strategy and costing him the win. He will never be able to compete for the championship, always seems to find a way to come up short.

Shame for Hulkenberg I really thought he could've finished better but still P7 is not far off from the potential of that car. I'm really puzzled what's happening with Vettel. Clearly the car is good enough to be in the top 5. He just seems to be completely checked out both mentally and physically which is sad to see. I was hoping he could end his Ferrari career on a high.

MB always seem to have luck in their side even when things go wrong like last week. This week? You could see HAM?s LR tire fault expanding and contracting as he went around turns and yet, no tire failure.

 

VET is a conundrum. Skill is there but what?s in his head? I can see him just walking away if this continues. Change of scenery could help but the car needs to be very competitive on it?s own.

 

VER and Red Bull for that matter have really gelled into a formidable MB challenger - when MB has challenges.

MB is such a well oiled machine. Even on a poor weekend for them, in Toto's words, they still bring home a P2 and P3. Who is he kidding, of course they have this championship in the bag.

 

Vettel is a very sensitive driver, not just to his car, but to the environment around him. That was clear from his Red Bull days that he performs at his peak when everything around him is in harmony and it's far from that at Ferrari. I'm really hoping this Aston Martin deal comes through for him, because I don't see that team slumping backwards anytime soon based on Lance Stroll's confidence they'll be able to win this case thereaby allowing a certain degree of 'copying'.

VET at AM next would be the best possible outcome. Agree with your assessment too - VET needs stars to align...

Lap 41 LEC retires after odd incident. Hoping for rain to make this race interesting.

HAM again. One good part of this season is the increased competition from mid-field teams. VER maturing nicely.

Pretty boring race overall. Solid race results for Racing Point and McLaren and Verstappen was a star as usual. And nice to see a solid race result for Vettel despite being shafted by Ferrari in the strategy department.

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article.hamilton-schumacher-senna-machine-learning-reveals-the-fastest-f1-driver-of.3DwwPLW4glCmlunjciH1Cz.html

Kinda fun but misleading and kind of silly. Surprised to see names like Kovalainen and Trulli but someone like Hakkinen was missing even though he routinely dominated Coulthard in qualifying? And to only present the data from 1983+ onwards is misleading to say the fastest driver in F1 when they're ignoring greats like Clark, Fangio, Stewart who were quick qualifiers in their era.

I was wondering how they would account for historical figures but they didn?t, so yeah just good fun.

Spa - start packing up and putting away the church bells in Maranello.

 

1955 Spa

Somehow it just gets worse for Ferrari and I can't imagine a no points finish in Monza will help at all, which is what it's looking like. Their straight line performance is absolutely woeful.

Yeah they won't be able to get points in Monza if it's a normal race with no DNF's in the top 10 as it's even more engine dependent. I knew their trick engine last year had a performance boost over it's rivals but I thought it was maybe just 0.3-0.5 seconds over a lap depending on how much straights the circuit had. I never expected it was giving them such a huge performance boost. It just goes to show how poor their chassis really is in the aero side as they needed such a powerful engine to make up for it. At this rate I don't think they will be able to change the development cycle for their engine for 2021. So means they may not be competitive until 2022. Good luck with that Sainz.

Kinda fun but misleading and kind of silly. Surprised to see names like Kovalainen and Trulli but someone like Hakkinen was missing even though he routinely dominated Coulthard in qualifying? And to only present the data from 1983+ onwards is misleading to say the fastest driver in F1 when they're ignoring greats like Clark, Fangio, Stewart who were quick qualifiers in their era.

 

Speaking of (my childhood hero) Stewart...ever see this?

 

https://www.roadandtrack.com/motorsports/news/a6920/the-king-of-monaco-65-7-roa0314/

 

and this one

 

https://www.amazon.com/Formula-One-Drivers-Quick-Dead/dp/B074XL2484

Yeah they won't be able to get points in Monza if it's a normal race with no DNF's in the top 10 as it's even more engine dependent. I knew their trick engine last year had a performance boost over it's rivals but I thought it was maybe just 0.3-0.5 seconds over a lap depending on how much straights the circuit had. I never expected it was giving them such a huge performance boost. It just goes to show how poor their chassis really is in the aero side as they needed such a powerful engine to make up for it. At this rate I don't think they will be able to change the development cycle for their engine for 2021. So means they may not be competitive until 2022. Good luck with that Sainz.

 

Yeah they've already conceded next year, from what I've seen. Sainz and Leclerc are in for a year of misery. They better pull out all the stops for 2022, because Maranello might just go up in flames.

The core design rules are frozen until 2022 so there's little avenue for them to change for next year's engine. At most they can try to make some gains through improved aero. But ultimately there's no compensation for lack of power. Sainz and Leclerc better be mentally prepared for another year of suck. This reminds me of their early/mid 90s doldrums until the dream team (Schumacher/Todt/Brawn/Byrne) pulled them out of it.

 

I go to Maranello almost every year for vacation, being a diehard Ferrari fan, and the fans there are notoriously critical even in their reasonably successful 2015-2019 seasons. So I can't imagine how bad it must be there now lol

I'm certain there is hysteria in Maranello. The locking-down of PU development rules for next season assures Ferrari of a weak showing at best and utter failure becoming likely outcome. Their 2018 package now seems better than this one - maybe drag it out from storage and fire it up! The aero gains next season will be marginal and might allow them to compete for P7/P6 on good days. Ugh!

Agreed. The 2018 Ferrari was probably their most competitive racer in the turbo era, combined with a fast and motivated Vettel and a solid Raikkonen backing him up. It has been all downhill from there...

Great race today. Great to see that podium and fantastic redemption for Gasly.

 

Can't believe how much worse and worse it can get for Ferrari. What a shitshow. Glad Leclerc is okay, that was a massive crash that was total driver error.

 

A couple of other things:

- I agree with Hamilton. I don't know why there's no screen or light at the entry to pit lane indicating pit lane is open or closed. If Hamilton makes a move to pit lane and sees those lights should be able to make a move back onto track as long as it's before the pit lane entry pylon. With that said, his engineer should have told him pit lane was closed and the penalty was 100% deserved.

- No idea why teams are allowed to change tires and repair cars under red flag. That's an absolutely baffling rule that needs to change.

Solid drive by Gasly, he didn't put a foot wrong. Fantastic job also by Sainz and Stroll. All 3 podium finishers were very deserving, as was Norris.

 

Ferrari were laughably bad today. They were even worse than some of the backmarkers of the 90s. How bad are they going to make Vettel's season? They've given him a completely cursed car. Even Leclerc couldn't handle that tractor of a car and binned it.

 

Yeah there should be more visual indication that a pit lane is closed. I always wondered why they have a big traffic light at the exit of the pitlane but not the entry. Having said that, at most circuits once you commit to entering the pitlane, even if there's a red traffic light there, it'll be very difficult and dangerous to rejoin the track. So you do need to rely on the track side lights and your engineer. And how pathetic was Bottas today? One of the worst number 2 driver's in F1 at the moment. But he's absolutely perfect for the Mercedes role. He'll never give Hamilton any sleepless nights. Makes his job even easier.