The F1 thread

[Raid]

See I find Horner quite entertaining to listen to; he has to tow the company line, sure, but he does at least share his opinions and he's not afraid to criticise.

[DjchunKfunK]

He's always got that smug smile on his face, reminds me of an old IT teacher I had who only gave sarcastic answers.

[Rossell]

Speaking of smug, Lance Stroll's dad has just bought a stake in Aston Martin. Since he also owns Racing Point, it'll be rebranded as Aston Martin for 2021. I'm certainly alright with that because Racing Point is a shit name, but the pink colour is basically part of the furniture now so I'll miss that.

They'll also leave Red Bull as a sponsor now, I just hope the Valkyrie isn't affected. To be fair I had thought for a while that AM were spreading themselves thin in motorsport.

[Raid]

Racing Point has to be the worst team name in the period I've watched F1 (since 2007), so I'm happy to see it gone. At least HRT was vaguely memorable. The Sky crew were still calling them Force India at the end of the season, and these are people paid to get that sort of thing right.

[Rossell]

Yeah I mean at least you could call them Hormone Replacement Therapy, can't make anything fun out of Racing Point.

[Raid]

That's why they were memorable. ¬_¬

[DjchunKfunK]

Seems like talk of Mercedes pulling out of F1 might have been a little wide of the mark.

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/arti ... 4BOLk.html

[Raid]

I'm not actually convinced by that take; I trust F1Fanatic as a news source, and the quotes from Wolff in their article suggest it's not a done deal.
https://www.racefans.net/2020/02/10/wol ... tay-in-f1/
There's nothing in there to suggest that Mercedes are leaning either way, but it sounds like Wolff does need to convince the shareholders. Of course he's going to talk the F1 project up; he's not going to say that the team's fate hangs in the balance.

[Drarok]

Damned efficient Dutchies! I was pondering attending the Dutch grand prix, wondered what the prices were like… the whole thing is sold out, hard. Guess they all jumped on it ASAP given it's the first one since 1985 (!)

[Raid]

So pre-season testing is over. The concensus seems to be that Mercedes have the best car, and have debuted a new Dual Axis Steering system that allows for a number of benefits, but the gist of which is that they can manually change the toe-in angle of the front tyres by pushing or pulling the steering column.
Ferrari are looking less like title contenders this year, and Red Bull have likely leapfrogged them.
Racing Point have surprised this year with a car that looks incredibly similar to last year's Mercedes, with some pundits suggesting they may even be challenging Ferrari at times.
McLaren have a solid car, but haven't made the leap that last year's campaign suggested may have been possible.
Renault still likely won't be challenging the front of the field, with Sauber and the newly renamed Alpha Tauri following.
Haas look like they're really struggling, which after early success four years ago is a shame.
Finally, Williams are still tenth, but they're significantly closer to the rest of the field than last year.

Also, the new season of Netflix' Drive To Survive premiered this week. I've watched the first two, with the first being a pretty bog-standard introduction episode, but the second is the rather fiery Haas-focussed episode. Jesus, talk about a hostile work environment - it looks like an absolutely miserable team in which to work. It's well worth a watch. It still feels a little odd releasing a compilation of last year's season right as we're gearing up for the new one mind.

[DjchunKfunK]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/51688538

To the surprise of precisely no-one, Ferrari appear to have sorted themselves a nice little deal with the FIA.

[Maturin]

Yeah, was expected I guess.

Also, another interesting factor may be the extent to which Covid-19 interferes with the season. I wouldn't be surprised to see more than just the Chinese GP dropped.

[Raid]

It's not just race weekends, it's teams that are under threat. There's talk of the Italian teams in particular possibly struggling as the country deals with an outbreak.

And if race weekends are cancelled, there's a possibility of team's finances taking a hit. The prize money is derived from broadcast deals and sponsorship; if there's nothing to broadcast and sponsor logos aren't on show, revenue is going to go down, and some teams really rely on that income.

[DjchunKfunK]

I watched episode two of Drive to Survive yesterday and I didn't think Steiner was too bad, swears a lot but isn't overly aggressive and in most cases I could understand his frustration. I bet it isn't any different in other F1 teams.

[DjchunKfunK]

Watched episode 4 last night and I guess the prerequisite for being a Sun journalist is that you have to be a giant ass no matter what you are covering.