The F1 thread

[Snowy]

While I agree that Hasaspin shouldn't lose his seat over his nationality, being a shit driver should carry some weight...

[Raid]

I take it Mazipan's father is the reason why he might lose his seat because to kick him out purely for being Russian seems terrible.

His contract is undoubtedly dependent on the Uralkali sponsorship, but given that his father is an actual oligarch (i'd even seen talk of him meeting with Putin in the last week, although given how much misinformation this conflict has generated, I'd be surprised if it were true), the team could have other reasons to not want to be associated with him.

[Raid]

Sky Germany are reporting that Mazepin has lost his drive, which I don't think is remotely surprising after the UK's motorsport governors said it will refuse to recognise Russian drivers (which would have prevented Mazepin from competing at the British GP). Steiner has said that Pietro Fittipaldi, the team's reserve driver, would likely be taking over.

The FIA have terminated their Russian GP contract. The 2022 race had already been cancelled, but there won't be another Russian Grand Prix until a new deal is made. The race was heavily linked to Putin, leading to his appearance in the drivers' cooldown room prior to the podium celebration that was already extremely uncomfortable back in 2014. It's no loss, it was already my least favourite race on the calendar thanks to the political associations along with the terrible track that only produced one exciting race (last year's, and that was only because of the heartbreak of Norris losing his first win).

[eny]

Wasnt Sochi going to be the last one and it was moving to St. Petersburg next year? Double hit for puta-in—he was born there.

[Raid]

I won't mourn the loss of yet another street circuit.

[Raid]

So Magnussen is returning to take the vacant Haas seat. I wonder if Gunther Steiner is a flagellant.

https://www.racefans.net/2022/03/09/haa ... -for-2022/

And if the reasoning wasn't completely clear over why Haas dropped Mazepin, he, along with his father, is now the target of sanctions by the EU.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/60678476

[eny]

Interesting revisions to the Mercedes, including VERY reduced sidepods...which Karen Horner may or may not have already had a moan about....as per.

[eny]

Ross's take on it:

[Raid]

F1 engineers doing what F1 engineers do; finding every available loophole to make their cars as fast as possible. Honestly the new design just looks like witchcraft to me, as I don't understand how they've managed to package all of the radiators that would usually have filled that space. Williams have done something similar, just not as dramatic, and Ferrari's basically scooped out a whole load of the space from the inside but left the outer edges intact. Unless Mercedes were running an entirely different car in the first test, it's seemingly something that can be changed without needing modifications to the chassis (which I believe are homologated prior to the season), so it's possible other teams could change their designs to match.

It's a bloody weird looking car from some angles.

[eny]

I agree, I am certain they have a more "in the spirit" version they can swap out if the regs are revisited. I think the intercoolers are close to the louvres, and high up, so heat more readily dissipates. There is a wing in the mirror pod too, so I guess that moves air to focus on the port maybe. Either way, game on!

[DjchunKfunK]

Under the new rules for F1 this year you don't need all teams to agree to banning something like this so if the FIA feel it is not within the spirit of the rules they will move to ban it and it will just need 80 percent of teams to vote to ban it. So it is unlikley to be a double difuser situation

[Raid]

I suspect if any part is going to get banned, it's the very obvious wings that the mirrors are mounted to. Ferrari and Red Bull have already complained about them, and they definitely don't seem to be within the spirit of the rules.

[Raid]

So I was linked to this video by a former Mercedes F1 aerodynamicist last night, talking about the new car's sidepod design. Much of it goes over my head, but it does explain why bits like that wing the mirrors sit on are considered legal. It's all to do with cross sections, and that wing is technically part of the sidepod.



In other news, the new season of Drive to Survive came out yesterday, and I'm 3 episodes in. Because Max decided not to take part in the programme, you do get an awful lot of Christian Horner instead, but they do include a lot of recorded radio messages and overheard conversations from Max to make up the difference. It's a real shame that in such an exciting year we only hear the direct responses from one of the two drivers, but so far at least they've hidden it reasonably well. I don't recall hearing Max moaning and wheezing over the radio following his big crash at Silverstone before either, which did put another spin on things. So far I don't think they've spun one driver into being the villain of the story, which was one of the things I was wary of with only one perspective being heard.

It's also the first time I've got to hear decent quality F1 audio through my cinema sound setup (I think All 4 only streams in 720p, so I certainly wasn't getting it during the race shows), and boy do these cars sound good. I really do miss high-bitrate coverage, but paying to watch it is just prohibitively expensive, so it's another thing I can get from Drive to Survive that I can't get elsewhere.

[DjchunKfunK]

I started watching Drive to Survive yesterday. Horner continues to be a giant tit, that is my review of the first episode.

[Snowy]

Horner is a loathesome creature.