The F1 thread

[eny]

https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/horner-gerri ... esolution/

[Raid]

I do wonder how it will work with Leclerc though, he needs a killer season this year I reckon to keep his top placing.

There is no way in hell Hamilton joined Ferrari without the stipulation that he's either number 1, or the drivers will be treated equally. The latter feels unusual for Ferrari, but then there've been plenty of examples over the last couple of years where we've both been yelling at the TV to use team orders, so who knows?

I can't help but feel a bit uneasy about the Christian Horner stuff. For one, he has almost the same name that I do, so I'll undoubtedly have a barrage of tweets calling me scum the next time I need to log into that excrement heap, but the timing on this just feels a bit suspicious. Red Bull's car launch is on thursday, and it's undoubtedly going to take place without the team's leader. I know Horner isn't well-liked here, but he's incredibly successful and the media love him, and this could so easily be an attempt to destabilise the team because it's going to be a talking point. I don't want to think about how Ted will explain the situation using the bag of sweaty cheese he bought on the way to the testing circuit.

And with several of the new cars having been launched this week, it's obvious that this trend of not bothering to paint large parts of the car is continuing, and it's quite ugly. I liked it when there was a single black car on the grid; the Mercs looked aggressive and were easy to pick out from the pack, but now more than half the field is going to be "black with a single accent colour", and it's not only boring to look at, it's going to make distinguishing them difficult.

[Maturin]

I wouldn't be surprised if there are minimum painted area requirements from next season. It's not a good look at all.

[DjchunKfunK]

I do wonder how it will work with Leclerc though, he needs a killer season this year I reckon to keep his top placing.

There is no way in hell Hamilton joined Ferrari without the stipulation that he's either number 1, or the drivers will be treated equally. The latter feels unusual for Ferrari, but then there've been plenty of examples over the last couple of years where we've both been yelling at the TV to use team orders, so who knows?

I can't help but feel a bit uneasy about the Christian Horner stuff. For one, he has almost the same name that I do, so I'll undoubtedly have a barrage of tweets calling me scum the next time I need to log into that excrement heap, but the timing on this just feels a bit suspicious. Red Bull's car launch is on thursday, and it's undoubtedly going to take place without the team's leader. I know Horner isn't well-liked here, but he's incredibly successful and the media love him, and this could so easily be an attempt to destabilise the team because it's going to be a talking point. I don't want to think about how Ted will explain the situation using the bag of sweaty cheese he bought on the way to the testing circuit.

And with several of the new cars having been launched this week, it's obvious that this trend of not bothering to paint large parts of the car is continuing, and it's quite ugly. I liked it when there was a single black car on the grid; the Mercs looked aggressive and were easy to pick out from the pack, but now more than half the field is going to be "black with a single accent colour", and it's not only boring to look at, it's going to make distinguishing them difficult.

I don't think it's anything to do with destabilising the team. Horner has always come across as a bit of a tit and up himself, so I would not be surprised if he was a terrible boss on top.

[Snowy]

I do wonder how it will work with Leclerc though, he needs a killer season this year I reckon to keep his top placing.

There is no way in hell Hamilton joined Ferrari without the stipulation that he's either number 1, or the drivers will be treated equally. The latter feels unusual for Ferrari, but then there've been plenty of examples over the last couple of years where we've both been yelling at the TV to use team orders, so who knows?

I can't help but feel a bit uneasy about the Christian Horner stuff. For one, he has almost the same name that I do, so I'll undoubtedly have a barrage of tweets calling me scum the next time I need to log into that excrement heap, but the timing on this just feels a bit suspicious. Red Bull's car launch is on thursday, and it's undoubtedly going to take place without the team's leader. I know Horner isn't well-liked here, but he's incredibly successful and the media love him, and this could so easily be an attempt to destabilise the team because it's going to be a talking point. I don't want to think about how Ted will explain the situation using the bag of sweaty cheese he bought on the way to the testing circuit.

And with several of the new cars having been launched this week, it's obvious that this trend of not bothering to paint large parts of the car is continuing, and it's quite ugly. I liked it when there was a single black car on the grid; the Mercs looked aggressive and were easy to pick out from the pack, but now more than half the field is going to be "black with a single accent colour", and it's not only boring to look at, it's going to make distinguishing them difficult.

I don't think it's anything to do with destabilising the team. Horner has always come across as a bit of a tit and up himself, so I would not be surprised if he was a terrible boss on top.

Oh I don't know. I mean, he is an absolute meat-whistle and has much too much influence (the appalling decision at Abu Dhabi in '21 where Hamilton was robbed of the title was almost certainly down to his whining and wheedling), but in the early days at least the more laid-back style of the team was a lot to do with his influence. Attracting Newey was partially down to Horner's management style - which also makes for an interesting question: will Newey stay if Horner goes?

Sure Red Bull these days are just as corporate as the rest, and probably more cut-throat to boot. And yeah Horner is a flute and right up himself no question, but you don't achieve that level of success without being able to bring the team together, that's the magic ingredient and he certainly had it at one stage at least.

I really dislike Red Bull though, and I would not shed a tear if Horner got the boot, indeed I would be praying that Newey then retired if for no other reason that to reset the utter dominance of his car designs.

[eny]

Snippet of an update on Michael Schumacher, no improvement unfortunately.


https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/formula- ... aking-news

[Raid]

It's been twelve years since the accident, it's been pretty clear for a long time that we'll never see the man again - you don't go from being one of the world's most famous sporting figures to a total and absolute media blackout for over a decade if it's an accident you can recover from.

[Wrathbone]

If he's capable of communicating with his eyes (to what extent, I wonder) then I truly hope that means he's shown he wants to keep going. I can't imagine the horror of being trapped in a body like that against your own will.


Onto recent racing events (given its been well over a year since the thread was last updated!), I'm enjoying this season more than last and am glad to see Verstappen is finally being called out for his bulldozer wheel-to-wheel racing and lack of restraint when things don't go his way. And Piastri overshadowing Norris is exactly the sort of underdog story I can get invested in.

[Raid]

Snowy and I have been religiously watching the races over Discord voice chat for a few years now. We both agreed that Sunday's collision was worthy of a race ban by itself. I don't think Verstappen is ever going to change until the stewards actually start properly and consistently penalising him - penalty points don't mean anything, 5 second penalties when you've got clear air for half a race don't mean anything. Look at what happened with George at Monaco, which was a good example of how the stewards ought to be penalising deliberate corner cutting - the only difference between what he did and what Verstappen regularly does is that George admitted it was deliberate.

On a lighter note, one of our discoveries this last year was Lollipopman Comics; he does little animations for most races that really nail some of the more amusing aspects of F1. There are a few long-running gags that maybe don't make sense as an introduction, but this week's was pretty good.

[Wrathbone]

Look at what happened with George at Monaco, which was a good example of how the stewards ought to be penalising deliberate corner cutting - the only difference between what he did and what Verstappen regularly does is that George admitted it was deliberate.

Verstappen has vaguely admitted his move in Spain was deliberate, but I note he hasn't apologised - not just to Russell but to Red Bull. He went from a likely podium to 10th because he had a strop. When your team has built a car around you to such a degree that multiple other world-class drivers can't get it in the top 10, and then you fail to deliver results because of your own stupidity, you owe the team a frank and public apology.

[Raid]

I think it's unlikely he'd have had a podium, he was going backward on the hard tyres (though it's worth noting it was Verstappen that asked for new tyres during the safety car and was then surprised by the only option being the hards, it's pretty rare that Red Bull have that sort of communication error).

Anyway, the difference is that Russell admitted it over team radio during the race, and afterwards agreed the penalty was fair. Verstappen will never make that kind of admission because everything he does is right and fair, and everyone else is at fault. He's the son of a thug and his behaviour has been constantly reinforced during his career - he'll never change so long as he's not properly penalised. He needs to start receiving black flags and race bans. It's frustrating because he's unbelievably talented and exactly the kind of driver I'd normally support, he doesn't need to be such an unlikeable prick.

[Wrathbone]

It's frustrating because he's unbelievably talented

He's an unbelievably talented driver. I'm not at all convinced he's a talented racer, based on his inability to fight for position on track without causing an incident (ignoring cases where there's a huge speed differential and the overtake is a done deal). I'd wager that fewer than 25% of his overtakes with similarly competitive drivers are completed cleanly.

It's not just that he's an aggressive driver. Hamilton, Alonso, Schumacher, etc - all aggressive drivers in their prime, and sometimes they caused incidents, but the difference is they resorted to dubious, marginal moves as a last resort, when a clean move just wasn't going to get them in front. Verstappen goes for those moves as the default. So often he's in a position where he could spend another lap, sometimes even a few corners, engineering a better opportunity to make a fair and clean move, but instead he leaps straight into divebomb tactics, pushing the rulebook to its limits or just ignoring it entirely.

This is why he will never be one of the greats to me. Hamilton on his best day is a precision missile. Verstappen is a meteorite.

[Sly Boots]

I don't follow F1 but honestly Verstappen sounds like me on the rare occasions I play an F1 game

[Wrathbone]

Spoiler

[Raid]

It's frustrating because he's unbelievably talented

He's an unbelievably talented driver. I'm not at all convinced he's a talented racer, based on his inability to fight for position on track without causing an incident (ignoring cases where there's a huge speed differential and the overtake is a done deal). I'd wager that fewer than 25% of his overtakes with similarly competitive drivers are completed cleanly.

Fair comment. Certainly in his world champion years he's been aggressive to a fault, because he's had a car good enough to get alongside the car in front, and at that point the simplest way to overtake is to pretend they're not there and run them off the track. He's like Lisa and Bart fighting - swinging their arms around and if the other gets hit, it's their own fault. He's barely ever been penalised for it, so why not do it every time?

He's shown moments of real brilliance though. I think he was the first to realise that when defending in the first of two back-to-back DRS zones, you were better off deliberately letting the car behind pass before the DRS timing line, and then re-pass them with DRS in the second zone. Yes, that sort of thing makes a bit of a mockery of the sport, but it's within the rules and an intelligent way of using them to your advantage. It was so effective that I started doing it myself in the F1 game.

If you ever get an hour or two spare, or can work with interviews on in the background, I'd strongly recommend the High Performance Youtube channel. It's probably the best unofficial F1 content I've found in the last few years (it's not purely an F1 channel, but they've had a lot of interviews with F1 personalities), as they really dive into how the interviewees work; Adrian Newey's revealed that Max has a ton of mental headroom compared to other drivers, and it's one of the reasons he's so successful.


Unrelated, but Claire Williams' one is a great listen too.