FORMULA ONE - 2020

loosecannon said:

Wow! Alonso back to Renault? He's a mega talent but also is a disruptive force on a team. I guess if the team environment suits him, he can flourish but we'll soon see. I don't care for Ocon so I don't feel sorry for him. I'm pretty excited to see how teams act at the same venue they were just at. Who will make changes? Who will stick with the same plan from last weekend? This is unprecedented, should be exciting

Well, Ferrari already said they are bringing an entirely new aero package to this weekend.  They are even referring to the car from last weekend as a bad car and sorta calling the new aero package a new car.

In reply to alfadriver (Forum Supporter) :

Agreed! He doesn't seem like management material.

Then again, Prost seemed like the idea team boss and his team was a disaster. The F1 game has only gotten harder since then too.

wvumtnbkr said:

loosecannon said:

Wow! Alonso back to Renault? He's a mega talent but also is a disruptive force on a team. I guess if the team environment suits him, he can flourish but we'll soon see. I don't care for Ocon so I don't feel sorry for him. I'm pretty excited to see how teams act at the same venue they were just at. Who will make changes? Who will stick with the same plan from last weekend? This is unprecedented, should be exciting

Well, Ferrari already said they are bringing an entirely new aero package to this weekend.  They are even referring to the car from last weekend as a bad car and sorta calling the new aero package a new car.

So that might help, unless of course the problem is that their oil burner engine got shut down. I guess we'll know by Saturday!

Vettel wants Red Bull seat, had initial talks with Renault There has been a German presser that thinks there is big news for Vettel in the next week or so. So Albon is sacked or goes to Alpha?

In reply to trigun7469 :

red bull would regret it if it happens.   I dont think theres a chance vettel comes in and does anything more then Albon has

trigun7469 said:

Vettel wants Red Bull seat, had initial talks with Renault There has been a German presser that thinks there is big news for Vettel in the next week or so. So Albon is sacked or goes to Alpha?

Given that Vettel does not accept being the virtual #2 at Ferrari, how can he deal with being the actual, stated, etc # 2 at Red Bull?  

And for the cost, why in the world would they pull the plug on Albon?  He's shown to be quick enough.  Unless Vettel is planning on going to the team that was not a stand in for Kubica- Torro Rosso which is now Alpha Tauri?

I very much don't get it.

In reply to alfadriver (Forum Supporter) :

In reply to 79rex :

When has Redbull/toro Rosso made a questionable move? Ask Kyvat, Pierrie, Bourdais,Jaime, Jean-Eric, Buemi, Hartley, and who ever they dump next. Horner said during practice it won't happen. Horner doesn't want Vettel, but he does not make that decision.  Albon was moved up too soon and can be reckless, not in a Max kind of way, but a kinda of way that can make him disappear (see drivers above). Imagine Albon making one of his bad moves on Max, he would be done. To me it makes as much sense as Kimi continuing to drive and Alonso going back to Renault. Maybe Liberty is manipulating the driver market to keep the popular drivers in. Many have said it that they need more cars on the grid to build popular drivers rather then hang on to popular drivers.

So during P1 today Horner said they don't have a place for Seb in 2021 as they have 2 very good drivers now. Therefore based on history of Horner/Red Bull statements Seb V. will be at Red Bull next year.

Related but unrelated to all this stuff, I saw a short vid yesterday talking about the including drivers salaries in the cap (didn't happen) and it mentioned that Hamilton is thought to be making 40M/yr Euro, while some other drivers are getting 150k.  Would have never guessed the low end was 150k. 

I'd believe it, they're the pay drivers who are investing in their careers and/or have a bunch of money already. I'd race F1 for 150k/year and I'd be doing neither of those :)

If you haven't watched it, you need to see Lando's last two laps with the team radio. A friend of mine who used to work at Mercedes F1 and is now at McLaren was really impressed with the race engineer's timing and delivery. Also, it's a great peek into the way the driver/engineer work as a team.

That last lap from Lando was epic.  My inner Tifosi is praying for a real car this weekend.

That Mercedes/McLaren engineering friend has some choice things to say about Ferrari. "Cheating like MFs...serves them right. Twats".

In reply to Keith Tanner :

Can't say I disagree with him.  But it's kinda sad that they got the prize money using the cheater engine.  Other teams could really use that money.  And I bet that monitarily, F benefited by this cheat a lot more than McLaren's spying.  

Just watched a tech focus from Formula 1 covering the changes from last weekend to this....  And got a sobering reminder of how much sharing goes on between Ferrari and Haas.

We've heard one of Ferrari's major problem this year is lack of correlation between the model, wind tunnel, and on track. 

Haas uses Ferrari's wind tunnel.

So if the major problem is in the tunnel, Haas is going to have a terrible season.  Again.  Good thing they seem to have secured their system going into 2022, as they were(are?) a serious risk to be gone this season.

I am glad Alonso is coming back for next year. Should be interesting. 

In reply to alfadriver (Forum Supporter) :

Haas should pull a Racing Point and copy the Ferrari of last year (or this year) then the two teams could learn from each others developments

He'll, their 2018 car might be better....

loosecannon said:

In reply to alfadriver (Forum Supporter) :

Haas should pull a Racing Point and copy the Ferrari of last year (or this year) then the two teams could learn from each others developments

Coulda, woulda,....  

But the next car will be toally new, with ground effects.  And a HUGE change for most of the field except for Merc and now RP- the car needs to not have all of that rake.  I think that will end up being a pretty big adjustment for most teams. It's one concept that I never understood why the entire field other than MB did- given MB performance.  One would have thought that at least one other team would have realized that Merc's design seems easier to tune and set up.  And seeing how RP is doing, well...  another woudla, coulda,...

P3 rained out, sounds like they expect Qualifying to be rained out.  

So do they qualify tomorrow morning, or do they go with the best practice times?  If they want to mix things up, they should go with the practice times.

Q1 starts in 10min (9:46am EST).  

Can't recall the rules- if Q1 starts, does that mean qualifying has to totally complete?  It at least would suggest that if Q1 happens, that would form a better grid that FP2.

That was some fun qualifying!!!  Rain makes the conditions so VERY variable, and it was fascinating to see some drivers go even faster when the rain seemed to be getting worse.  Hamilton had an epic last lap to be ahead of Verstappen by 1.2 sec.  Max *might* have briefly gotten pole had he not spun, but that lap from Hamilton was really something.

And McLaren starting 3rd!  Both of them look pretty solid.

With the rain muting any power deficit- the Ferrari really showing it's having significant aero problems.  And while they are still among the slowest- Williams seems to be finding their aero and chassis issues- just 0.089 sec from making Q3 over Vettel.

Looks like it'll be fun following McLaren this year

That was exciting! I hope the Indy races aren't snoozefests....

It seems like the Lewis haters will be slashing their wrists again today.  

" It wouldn't have been that big a gap if Max hadn't spun.". 

Yeah.  That's right.  He spun, and Lewis knocked another half second off what would have been pole anyway.

That man just keeps setting higher standards.

Streetwiseguy said:

It seems like the Lewis haters will be slashing their wrists again today.  

" It wouldn't have been that big a gap if Max hadn't spun.". 

Yeah.  That's right.  He spun, and Lewis knocked another half second off what would have been pole anyway.

That man just keeps setting higher standards.

Lewis is the GOAT. Yes, I put him ahead of Senna, Prost, Fangio, Schumacher, etc. 

If Mercedes keeps this up, I expect 8-9 'chips out of Looooouuuuueeeeeeeeeeeeeeesssseeeeee.