Motorsports Formula 1 Discussion

[Karan]

Yeah racing in concrete jungles and parking lots rather than traditional race tracks just doesn't cut. And obviously the sound is a big sticking point. The current turbo-hybrid cars all sound like vacuum cleaners compared to the old N/A engines, but at least the cars look and sound like they're going fast. 

[Karan]

Mazepin has decided to troll F1 further by starting the "We Compete as One" foundation (sound familiar?  :lol: ) to support Russian athlete's that have been forbidden from competing in top-level sports. And the foundation will be funded by Uralkali blood money of course.

 

 

 

[Karan]

And K-Mag returns to Haas to replace Mazepin! Solid choice I think. With his experience, he should be a good benchmark for Schumacher to try and improve against.

 

 

 

[Morphinity 2.0]

Yeah that's a slam dunk. Getting a guy who's already familiar with the team is an easy call. Haas needs to save face in any way they can, so maybe K-Mag can scrap for a few points here and there.

 

And a multi-year contract to boot! 

[Karan]

Well this sounds promising...

 

 

[4EverRangerFrank]

Definitely a twist I didn't see coming.

 

RACING is back. Looking forward to seeing what the new F1 cars are like in real action.

Edited March 14, 2022 by 4EverRangerFrank

[4EverRangerFrank]

VET missing the race due to Covid - HUL replaces him. 

[Karan]

Damn that was a tast qualifying. If it's a sign of things to come, it's going to be a pretty good season. 

- Ferrari's testing pace wasn't a mirage after all. Let's hope they have the race pace to stick with Red Bull though.

- Alfa Romeo and Haas were definitely the biggest improvements, wow. Haas could've got both cars to Q3 if not for Mick's mistake on his hot lap. And Bottas...wow! It's gotta feel good to beat the guy who took your seat.

- Mercedes have definitely slid back to being a second or so off Red Bull/Ferrari's pace, but let's see how they are in race trim. I feel like they'll be quicker there and closer to the podium.

- And looks like McLaren and Aston Martin were the two that really regressed this year, especially AM...ouch. And wtf Stroll you just got beaten by a dude who was sitting on his couch for a year. Man, AM have a long road to climb to get back to the midfield because at this rate they'll be scrapping with Williams for last all year.

[Marc]

I’m extremely happy for Charles, and absolutely heartbroken for McLaren.  To early to lose all optimism for them I guess but they do make it difficult

[4EverRangerFrank]

LEC

VER

SAI

PER

HAM

BOT

MAG

ALO

RUS

GAS

Quite the interesting grid! Very happy for Ferrari to have this early success so they can feel good starting the year. (With AM falling away so badly, I guess my interest in buying a Vantage will be tempered now. Can't have anything in the garage that doesn't race well - LOL! Oh, Same for the McLaren too.) I'm really happy F1 is back. LIGHTS OUT AND AWAY WE GO!

[NY Chief]

Can’t believe the “geniuses” at MB missed the boat so bad. Was it Niki?

[4EverRangerFrank]

THIS is the racing we wanted to see - overtaking after overtaking after another. Great stuff!!

[NY Chief]

Ferrari one - two! Congrats!

And f’g lucky Lulu STILL gets a podium even in a crap car because of BOTH RB’s going down late. WTF?

Edited March 20, 2022 by NY Chief

[Karan]

Very eventful race. Who would've expected 3/4 Red Bull Powertrains cars retire...ouch, not a good transition from Honda.

But it was promising to see the gaps between equally matched cars were close throughout the race, meaning drivers didn't suffer from the same level of dirty air washout as previous years. The battle between Verstappen and Leclerc was especially incredible. What a comeback for Ferrari to score a 1-2, wow! Leclerc drove a flawless weekend and totally deserved the win. 

[BlairBettsBlocksEverything]

2 words 

 

‘Holy’ and ‘Shit’

[BlairBettsBlocksEverything]

1 minute ago, Karan said:

Very eventful race. Who would've expected 3/4 Red Bull Powertrains cars retire...ouch, not a good transition from Honda.

But it was promising to see the gaps between equally matched cars were close throughout the race, meaning drivers didn't suffer from the same level of dirty air washout as previous years. The battle between Verstappen and Leclerc was especially incredible. What a comeback for Ferrari to score a 1-2, wow! Leclerc drove a flawless weekend and totally deserved the win. 

When the safety car came out all I could think was that verstappen was gonna get a good chance to pass Lerclerc but Thankfully that wasn’t the case. 
 

also big ups to Haas and Magnussen. Lucked out with the two Red Bulls retiring but a 5th place finish is amazing for them 

[Karan]

8 minutes ago, BlairBettsBlocksEverything said:

When the safety car came out all I could think was that verstappen was gonna get a good chance to pass Lerclerc but Thankfully that wasn’t the case. 
 

also big ups to Haas and Magnussen. Lucked out with the two Red Bulls retiring but a 5th place finish is amazing for them 

 

Yeah I was worried about that too, I hated when the SC came out, but once we started hearing of Verstappen's steering issues, then I thought maybe Sainz could get him for P2. Never expected Red Bull's issues to be so bad lol Either way, they have a fast car and I'm sure they'll bounce back. Hopefully Ferrari can continue to remain competitive all season though. 

Short turnaround to Saudi! We're back to that crazy wild track in less than a week. 

[NY Chief]

Do I hear more Abu Dahbi RB whining?

[4EverRangerFrank]

I watched the first 15-20 laps and the rest on DVR. How did HAM comb to the podium late? I was following updates on my phone. 

[4EverRangerFrank]

Holy smoke such a crazy ending for Red Bull. You almost feel for them. Tifossi rejoice!!

[Marc]

Beautiful drive from Charles.  So composed.  So many positives to talk about.  Very strange what happened to the Red Bulls.  Some interesting tire moves.  Absolutely heartbreaking to see McLaren back there.  Every year I have so much hope for them, more than ever for this year, so that was hard to watch.  

[Morphinity 2.0]

It's a sample of one, but I'm not totally convinced by the new regulations yet. It didn't really feel to me like cars could overtake outside of the DRS zones and maybe they can follow for longer without destroying their tyres (hard to say with the extreme deg we saw yesterday), but it's not like we saw tons of overtaking (I'd like to see the actual numbers and compare to last year). 

I'm afraid without the safety car, this would have been another snoozer. Before the final round of pit stops around lap 42, here's what the timing screen looked like:

 

Looks a lot like the final classification from the 2021 Bahrain GP:

[4EverRangerFrank]

Red Bulls talking to themselves this morning? In the extreme, Max may have lost his shot at a Championship with the DNF. Imagine for a minute, him going toe-to-toe with LEC or HAM the rest of the way only to find yesterday's lost points the early nails in the coffin. Yes, it's quite early in the season but yesterday's events could go a long way to having a major influence this year.

[Morphinity 2.0]

6 minutes ago, 4EverRangerFrank said:

Red Bulls talking to themselves this morning? In the extreme, Max may have lost his shot at a Championship with the DNF. Imagine for a minute, him going toe-to-toe with LEC or HAM the rest of the way only to find yesterday's lost points the early nails in the coffin. Yes, it's quite early in the season but yesterday's events could go a long way to having a major influence this year.

It's not impossible to overcome, but it's not likely. Last driver to win the Championship after failing to score points in the first race of the season was Hamilton in 2014. But to do that, he finished no lower than P3 in the 16 races he finished and only retired in 3 of the other ones. And I think the hope with the new regulations is there's no dominance like that. 

[Karan]

22 minutes ago, Morphinity said:

It's a sample of one, but I'm not totally convinced by the new regulations yet. It didn't really feel to me like cars could overtake outside of the DRS zones and maybe they can follow for longer without destroying their tyres (hard to say with the extreme deg we saw yesterday), but it's not like we saw tons of overtaking (I'd like to see the actual numbers and compare to last year). 

I'm afraid without the safety car, this would have been another snoozer. Before the final round of pit stops around lap 42, here's what the timing screen looked like:

 

Looks a lot like the final classification from the 2021 Bahrain GP:

 

Yeah I guess the jury is still out on the new regulations and how they affect passing. But a lot of that field spread you're seeing could just be down to natural performance gaps between cars and the higher deg attributed to this generation of Pirelli's. We'll get a better idea in upcoming tracks like Imola and Barcelona, especially with two evenly performing cars battling against each other. But so far the feedback from the drivers is positive that there's less washout when you're within a couple seconds of the car ahead.