Formula 1 2024 Season

In reply to Keith Tanner :

Oof that is a staggering statistic. Makes you wonder how Checo has a job!

Logan Sargeant has out-qualified Checo 6 times this season but never his own teammate.

I presume Perez and his family are just sitting on giant warehouses full of redbull and currently adding a bunch more lol.

Keith Tanner said:

alfadriver said:

One thing we have not talked about is Haas!  Another great finish by Hulkenburg. Way better than the field. 

Hulk has scored more points in the last 2 races than Perez has scored in the past 6. Ouch.

The big thing for Haas is that they are really closing on 6th in the constructors, thanks to Hulk. Keep it up!!!  
 

Some work to do to match their best season of finishing 5th back in '18. But a massive step forward of recent seasons. 

It's too bad Haas is losing Hulk.  As for Mag, is there much of a reason to keep him another year beyond the stability he may bring next year with a new driver?
 

@adam525i....Regarding Checo:  I hadn't thought about Seargent out qualifying him like that.  
 

One thing I have been pondering about Checo, though, is how often he's not even driving in the same zip code as his teammate.  When Schumacher was at Ferrari, Irvine and Barrichello were qualifying and finishing reliably in the points and on the podium.  When Hakkinen was winning at McLaren, Coulthard was consistently in the mix providing reliable supporting points, often on the podium.  Same for J. Villeneuve and H-H Frentzen, and so on.

Checo looked to be a very solid choice coming from Racing Point, but damn, he's just not performing with the best machinery out there.  When he underperforms in qualifying, he spends way too long with the backmarkers whereas Max slices through them like a sharp knife through warm butter.  He really needs to get it together, especially now with the rise of McLaren, and with Mercedes and Ferrari still hanging around getting points.

As for Lewis, it was a great race for him and the team.  I just wonder how he'll react next year when he encounters the Ferrari "Wheel of Fortune:  The Strategies Edition" for the first time.  
 

Maybe they'll make it easy on him and simply install a Magic 8 Ball in his cockpit somewhere.  "Should we change to inters?"  "Should we try Plan C?" 

In reply to steronz :

The one thing I learned from Paul Haley's tire book is that tires don't always work the way they were intended to.

Sometimes the sligtest difference in car set up means said tire doesn't do what the engineers expected.

It was a good race. 

I was not sure if commentary was correct that Norris had a new medium but with as many laps to go as they had it was the best choice in my mind. The only risk being if they feared he wouldn't have a dry enough track on his out lap to get them to temp. Then he would get swallowed up. 

Lewis. So happy for him. I think I had a feeling he would win as I actually wanted to watch it live.

I agree that Max looked better than he was because he could push, probably burned up his hards while Lewis and Lando had to measure out the pace to get to the last lap. The McLaren just didn't like the soft that last stint.  While Lewis drove like he would use them up such that the threads came out as he crossed the line. 

Aston seemed to magically be in the points at the end. 

I did notice Albon and Tsunoda were on their way to fight over 10th but somehow they both got into the points. 

I very much doubted Hulkenberg's comeback but he has proved me very wrong. Wow. HAAS actually seems to have momentum. 

McLaren just grabbed the 2022-2023 Ferrari race Operations book by mistake today. They just might have had a 1-2. 

Tom1200 said:

In reply to steronz :

The one thing I learned from Paul Haley's tire book is that tires don't always work the way they were intended to.

Sometimes the sligtest difference in car set up means said tire doesn't do what the engineers expected.

I remember studying tire friction in school and actually did some at work. I found it similar to the weather forecasting science. You make your best mathematical decision based on your best assumptions. It is far from wildly guessing. Dynamic stick slip with tire angle of attack and rotational and planar deformation leads to guidelines which leads to someone saying the softs should be the right choice. 

So pleased for Lewis - looked like the Lewis of old, he was not gifted this race, and didn't luck into it, he earned it.  A forceful and well managed drive.  It was great to see his parents there to enjoy it, it obviously meant a great deal to Lewis.  Hopefully this will revive the spark and we'll see more good drives this year and in the next couple of years in red.  Listening to his comments and reading the interviews, he has really matured as a person over the years.

Advan046 said:

I remember studying tire friction in school and actually did some at work. I found it similar to the weather forecasting science. You make your best mathematical decision based on your best assumptions. It is far from wildly guessing. Dynamic stick slip with tire angle of attack and rotational and planar deformation leads to guidelines which leads to someone saying the softs should be the right choice. 

I think weather forecasting is a good comparison.  You can make projections and they're usually pretty decent, but sometimes you get a major curve ball and all your predictions are wrong.  Pirelli's big problem is that there is almost no testing time available.  To gather relevant data you really need to bolt them onto an F1 car and go turn some laps but the rules don't let them do that very often.

Piastri lost almost an entire pit stop's worth of time in that one extra lap.  Norris pitted from a couple seconds in front of him, then a lap later when it was Piastri's turn to pit, Norris had caught back up and was only a second or two behind him.  That's a huge time loss -- even at Brazil 2008 it took 3 laps for Hamilton to catch and overtake Glock (who had stayed out on dries).  It makes me wonder if Piastri had a spin or other off-track excursion that the broadcast didn't show us?

Tom1200 said:

There has always been a particular tire that was the one to be on going all the way back to when Goodyear was the tire supplier.

In '99 and 2000, Bridgestone was the only supplier and only made one tire.  So, yeah, it was "the one to be on", but it wasn't a hard decision to make. :)

2001-2004 was the Bridgestone/Michelin tire war, and which tire was best depended on which track you were at and what your car was optimized for.

wvumtnbkr said:

 

Nailed it.

 

Mclaren was still 3 and 4 and got more constructors points.

This couldn't have been better for me as a fan of Russell, Hamilton, Lando, and piastri.  

 

Awesome race.

Max made it exciting!  

QFT

Awesome race, glad to see LH get the win.  Absolutely perfect race by him and the team.  

Haas is making a good run at 6th in the WCC.  Can they start to challenge AM for 5th?  AM seems like they are on the down swing while Haas seems on the up.  Of course, they are all fighting for 9-10 in most races, so that 30 points is going to be a bit of a hill to climb.  

F1 Rumour: Sergio Perez Red Bull Future Questioned After Liam Lawson RB20 Test But how do they replace the money Checo brings $$$

Haas complete F1 2025 driver line-up with Oliver Bearman team-mate found – report (It's Ocon) Is he holding someone hostage? What secrets does he know?

While watching the Michelin Pilot Challenge at Mid Ohio, one commentator (John Hindaugh) recounted a talk he once had with a Michelin engineer and the "chemical grip" of the tires and how that would change with each track.  Hindaugh admitted it was over his head in detail so he couldn't provide specifics...but it sounded interesting.  I can only imagine (or maybe I can't) the molecular wizardry and science involved in making an F1 tire.

Sounded like Norris admitted to Hamilton in the cool down room that they did have a set of mediums left. I think he thought his car was better than Lewis and if they were on the same tire, he could beat him. I also think Lando didn't consider Max on hard tires as big of a threat. Bad decision cost him a shot, obviously. Piastri definitely got screwed by his team. THAT would have been an interesting finish had he been up there too.

Interesting stats I just read about Hamilton's win yesterday. 

104 wins
199 podiums
No one has ever won after their 300th start.
No one has ever won a race 9 times.
No one has ever won a race 17 years after their first win.

All records set and broke yesterday.

trigun7469 said:

F1 Rumour: Sergio Perez Red Bull Future Questioned After Liam Lawson RB20 Test But how do they replace the money Checo brings $$$

 

Haas complete F1 2025 driver line-up with Oliver Bearman team-mate found – report (It's Ocon) Is he holding someone hostage? What secrets does he know?

I used to be a big Checo fan and I was really excited to seem him at Red Bull.  My excitement to see him teamed up with Max has only been matched by my disappointment with the way he's been floundering.  Similarly, I think of all the drivers on the grid, Danny Ric is the one that I'd want to sit down and have a couple beers with and I was so pumped that he was getting back on the Grid in the RBVCARCASHVISAAPPWTFBBQ car.  That was going to be a baby version of the dominant car, he was going to be back "home" in the Red Bull program, and he was going to show the Yukester what-for.  And again, Lucy pulls the football away from me and his failure to perform week over week just makes me sad inside.

So if you're Red Bull, what do you do?  I'm on board with the idea of pulling the rip-cord on Perez, but neither Yuki or Dan are performing at a level that would give me expectations of anything better than what Perez is able to do.  Liam Lawson has promise to be sure, but we've seen guys come in for a race or two and look great, but wind up disappointing long-term.  Look at Van Doorne or Giovanazi - although I'd say Stoffel looked way more solid based on his emergency McLaren performance than Antonio did. 

I think you fire up the hot tub and vote Danny Ric off the island and start the 2024 season with Lawson in the acronymmobile, keep Danny Ric on Reserve duty, and in a couple weeks pull Perez out, promote Lawson, assuming that he's gotten his footing at the lower level, and bring Danny Ric back to backfill Lawson.  Or, alternately, scoop up another good potential junior talent and have him take the Reserve duty and put him in the junior car after potentially moving Lawson.  But seeing as they can't really go back in time and do that, I just don't see how punting Perez out mid-season doesn't leave you at a very serious risk of being exactly where you already are - or worse - in terms of the points-scoring for the second car, and none of the available options are bringing a sack of cash with them like Perez does.

I think Red Bull is sort of stuck with a bunch of bad options.  I would absolutely love to see either Danny or Liam take that second car and make a total fool out of me, but I think the probabilities are against that.

Great to see multiple front runners fighting for position.   All that was in mid-pack for quite a while.

In reply to wae :

Carlos Sainz isn't signed up anywhere for next year...

Not sure what would happen if he tried to jump ship mid season.

Just a whacky thought I had bouncing around in my brain while reading your post.

Saw today a rumor about Ocon to Williams and Sargeant out this season.  

I read someplace that there's a clause in Checo's contract that says he has to remain within 100 drivers' points of Max by Belgium, or they can dump him. He's well over that limit, with two races to go to the trigger point, and Max will out point him every weekend, so when do Red Bull pull the plug?

wvumtnbkr said:

In reply to wae :

Carlos Sainz isn't signed up anywhere for next year...

Not sure what would happen if he tried to jump ship mid season.

Just a whacky thought I had bouncing around in my brain while reading your post.

I would absolutely love that, but I cannot imagine that Ferrari would allow him to slip his contract.  Especially considering that he's only 6 points adrift of Leclerc - he's not underperforming and McLaren is not very far behind them in the constructor's championship.  The only driver that I think could be on the market for a mid-season change would be Sargeant and there's a really good reason for that.

jmabarone said:

Saw today a rumor about Ocon to Williams and Sargeant out this season.  

Oh, I forgot about Ocon..  Yeah, Alpine wouldn't be too sad to see him out of the car sooner rather than later.  But everything I've read seems to indicate he's heading to Haas next year.

In reply to wae :

They went all in with Max and Checo and have lost some feeder drivers along the way except Liam Lawson. I still think Jak Crawford would be a interesting prospect for RB to try and get back, because he doesn't have a shot with Aston Martin. F2 this year really doesn't have a clear competitor to move up.

In reply to DeadSkunk (Warren) :

I read that as well, however they really shot themselves in the foot with the lack of talent in the feeder series. I am not saying that Liam Lawson is bad, but he is not the next Max, I don't think he is even the next Danric. If they are smart they should court Carlos Sainz Jr, there is potential for a shake up in car performance in 2026, RB needs to land a good second driver and let them both race, to get the best performance. I am betting with Newey leaving that others will follow him, while he is the best he isn't the day to day person and whoever lands him will need to court the others.

In reply to trigun7469 :

F1 might be more entertaining if Newey went to Aston-Martin to work on the hypercar. The last few seasons would have been really competitive if you took away Red Bull's Newey advantage. The guy is special.

Just a thought-exercise:  is there anyone in IndyCar that could make for a good driving addition in F1 (meaning, quick enough and with good sponsorship money, etc.) ?