The F1 thread

[Wrathbone]

Mansell sticks out to me more than Vettel. The mark of a great F1 driver is how they perform on their worst year rather than their best year. Even on Hamilton's worst year (statistically 2009 I think) he still got wins and remained broadly competitive in a struggling McLaren, and Schumacher's career was mostly similar in that respect, which is what sets them apart from other drivers. If I had to pick one I'd say Hamilton purely on the basis that I've watched his entire F1 career unfold and seen the brilliance in his driving, whereas I only came into F1 at the height of Schumacher's success around 2003/2004.

[Raid]

Looking at that list does anyone else think Vettel sticks out like a sore thumb?

Not really. Vettel won two of his championships in a dominant fashion, but the other two were really close (4 points in 2010, 3 in 2012), and he came fairly close in 2009 (11 points on the old system with three retirements to Button's one). Yes, the Red Bull was an excellent car during those years, but I think it's unfair to not credit the driver too, because his teammate never had the same level of success.

[Maturin]

Trying to rank across eras is incredibly difficult. I think sporting history will look back on Hamilton being the greatest F1 driver; nuance gets left behind as the years go by and the achievements are what stand out.

I honestly don't know if he's a greater driver than Senna and Schumacher, but at the very least he's their equal.

[DjchunKfunK]

I'm not saying Vetell is a bad driver, I just think he sticks out compared to those other drivers in the list and isn't in the same league talent wise. I don't know enough about Mansell to make a judgment on him.

[Wrathbone]

Everything I've heard about Mansell suggests he was like a more abrasive Jenson Button, which is to say a decent driver who arguably only won the championship because his car was leaps and bounds faster than the competition. Apparently he blamed his teams whenever things went wrong and when he couldn't fit into his McLaren in 1995 he rage quit and claimed it was because the car wasn't going to be fast enough.

[Rossell]

[Raid]

I can't really tell what Mansell is saying to his engineer in that.

So Qatar has been announced as a new race for the end of this year. A Reddit user decided to chart the average Democratic Index for all of the year's races over time.

6500 migrant workers have been killed in Qatar building their world cup infrastructure for 2022.

Jesus, decisions like this make it difficult to justify continuing to watch F1. Anyone else looking forward to the Pyongyang street circuit that I assume is coming for 2022?

[DjchunKfunK]

I feel that F1 has been the sport least bothered about politics for a while, remember we only did away with Grid Girls recently. It feels like a very backward sport in general in terms of political leanings so this latest move does not surprise me at all. It's all about the money and has been for a while, if your circuit/country can cough up a nice big sum it doesn't seem to matter how bad a country you are.

I'm probably not going to watch the next World Cup because of the terrible conditions during construction of the stadiums.

[Maturin]

I think F1 has always operated in a world of its own. It'll be interesting to see the response to this. I mean, I wouldn't personally boycott watching races because of it. Qatarian employment regulations are terrible, plus they have other major problems with freedoms allowed to a large chunk of the populous, but having a Westernised event with its own rules and regulations might introduce an interesting element into the equation.

Also, F1 have raced in China for many years and their human rights record is awful - thousands get executed every year without proper trial process for example - but we've all tuned in to that race each season. I don't separate the two personally.

I guess I just take F1 for what it is, warts n'all.

[DjchunKfunK]

I wouldn't personally boycott watching races because of it. Qatarian employment regulations are terrible, plus they have other major problems with freedoms allowed to a large chunk of the populous, but having a Westernised event with its own rules and regulations might introduce an interesting element into the equation.

Everyone is free to choose what they do and don't watch but in no way is F1 coming to Qatar going to have any impact on people's freedoms and rights in the country if that is what you are implying, the aim of these countries in getting sports to come take place there is to sportswash their reputation. The sports themselves come in, sit in a bubble and leave again, they make little to no impact on the people of the country.

I don't expect the response inside F1 to be much different to the response to any of the other races we currently have, which is why I said I thought F1 was particularly bad in this regard. Bernie started it and Liberty Media have just carried it on.

[Raid]

Yeah, the hosting of a grand prix is a reputation thing, it allows the host nation to present itself to an international audience as welcoming and let's them hide all of the shit that goes on. It works, too, I'm always shocked at work by just how many people I talk to that travel to these places for holidays.

What needs to happen is for one or the major competitors to boycott a race. Just imagine what message it would send for Lewis to decide not to compete, it'd be headline news all over the world.

[Maturin]

What needs to happen is for one or the major competitors to boycott a race. Just imagine what message it would send for Lewis to decide not to compete, it'd be headline news all over the world.

That's the interesting element to the equation I was talking about. A driver or team can't boycott a race due to principles if the race isn't there to begin with - and the boycott would be massive news.

But like I say, China are just as bad and nobody's been batting much of an eyelid for the last 16 or 17 years it's been running there. So I don't really know how seriously to take reservations about Qatar.

[2Channelwonder]

Not wanting to watch highlights at midnight am streaming the GPS data on Youtube, it's a real battle of the pitstops out there and now half the field has been lapped so traffic's also a factor now.

[Raid]

Brazil has pretty much cemented my opinion that this is the best F1 season I've ever watched fully (ie: every season since 2008, I only saw half of 2007). It's almost guaranteed to go down to the wire, and there's no sense of certainty over which is the quicker car right now. I just think it's a shame that it's all going to end in Abu Dhabi (I can't remember Yas Marina producing even an acceptable grand prix, nevermind a good one), and the two preceding races are taking place at tracks F1 has never visited, rather than solid classics like Interlagos.

[Wrathbone]

I'll spoiler in case anyone's not seen it yet due to the unfortunate coverage times for highlights (and on that note, no All4 on demand coverage of quali and the sprint race! That ticked me off):

Spoiler

I honestly don't know how Hamilton did that. Logically I can acknowledge that he got through the majority of the pack in the sprint because they weren't competing with him, and I think it's fair to say that the Mercedes cars were at least on a par with the Red Bulls on this track which must have helped. But seeing him actually pull it off and take the win, despite overly-harsh penalties being imposed upon him and no penalties for Verstappen clearly running him off the track... I've never seen him drive better.

Verstappen on the other hand is becoming the pantomime villain in this scrap. I found my cynicism bubbling at the end when he said over the radio "I tried everything I could." Yeah, no shit! He tried running Hamilton off track and he tried weaving on the straights when under pressure. I'm all for saying let them race up until the point where hard rules are not just bent but broken. I couldn't see any attempt to turn from Verstappen on the first incident, which is why I'm amazed he got away with it.