The F1 thread

[DjchunKfunK]

Sainz and Ricciardo playing seat tennis.

[Raid]

Well, that was a hell of a start to what I'm expecting to be an interesting season (and sadly, the first I've not been able to watch live as we ditched our Sky sub). Norris on the podium, neither Red Bull finishing, Vettel once again showing why Ferrari are ditching him... Still, I'm really expecting Mercedes to be 1-2 at almost every race this year; I did only watch the highlights, but it seemed like they pulled out a 10 second lead on Albon in just a few laps after one of the safety car restarts.

I always enjoy seeing new drivers making milestone achievements and Norris on the podium was a good one. He's such an entertaining personality, and he did it with such style claiming his first fastest lap of the race in the process. McLaren have had a dreadful time in the last ten years, and they've now had two podiums in three races (Sainz was promoted in Brazil after Lewis, heh, received a penalty for driving into Albon) - it's entirely possible they're now 4th in the performance order, and it feels like they're returning to form.

And next week we stay exactly where we are for a brand new race; the Steiermark Grand Prix. I do think it's a missed opportunity to not be using alternate layouts for these duplicate track races, but I suppose there's a lot of work making a track suitable for Formula 1, and there probably just isn't the time to do it. The championship is going to be peculiar; we only have 8 races on the calendar at the moment, although I expect we'll get more than that as it only covers two months.

[Drarok]

I've just gone down a rabbit hole trying to find out what's the difference between the Austrian and Styrian Grands Prix.
Nothing. They're the same track and everything, just a different (and confusing) name. Weird!

Great race today, I loved it! So many twists and turns (ho ho Vettel spun joke), DNFs and drama galore!

Glad to see McLaren moving back up the board, it's been a long time coming! Not sure I see why HAM got a penalty, he understeered in a corner when someone attacked around the outside. If you watch the on-board he doesn't unwind the steering at all. What could he have done to avoid that bump? Seems like Albon got greedy and went for 2nd with a poorly-judged move and caused the tangle instead of taking a nice 3rd place and (his first?) podium.

[Raid]

Yeah, it doesn't look to me like Lewis did anything wrong in that incident; he clearly keeps his car turning to the right, he doesn't relax his turn at any point, and Albon who is moving much faster runs into the back of the Mercedes' wheel. The FIA seem to have taken the view that Hamilton could have turned further to the right, and that he didn't leave Albon enough room. It would have been an outstanding overtake, but there's a reason why overtakes around the outside seldom happen.

[Maturin]

Yep, I didn't see any straightening of Hamilton's steering wheel to veer into Albon (unlike other similar incidents in the past when the inside driver deliberately altered his line to squeeze them out). I'm not sure what drivers on the inside are expected to do in these situations now. Slam on the brakes when a car tries to overtake on the outside? Just to make sure nothing bad happens to the other driver? "No, after you sir."

[Drarok]

Cool. Glad to see some other level-headed responses – the F1 subreddit are frothing at the mouth and shouting about how it's obviously HAM's fault in their little echo-chamber.

[Rossell]

I haven't seen it yet so I'll let you know what I think later on chaps.

Edit: Racing incident.

[DjchunKfunK]

I liked Binotto's comments about the engine saying it wont get better, not such a good engine now you can no longer cheat eh?

[Raid]

Yeah, I think it was pretty damning that all three Ferrari powered teams were significantly slower (Haas 0.6, Ferrari 0.92 and Alfa 1.12 seconds) in qualifying than last year. Other factors such as temperature could have played into that, but every other team bar Red Bull (who stayed fairly static) was quicker than in 2019.

[Raid]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/53325412

ffs Fernando, stop making bad team decisions. Also, this is your third time at Renault, just blink twice if you're under duress, yeah?

Honestly I'm happy to see him returning, but I just think he's going to be miserable.

[Raid]

Not as good a race this week, but there were some brilliant moments. That penultimate-last lap battle was pretty good, and Verstappen's battle with Bottas was excellent. Norris remains third in the championship, and I think it's obvious he's a rising star. I'm almost worried about the driver pairing at McLaren next year; I just can't see either he or Ricciardo being too happy about team orders. I know we're only two races in, but McLaren are currently second in the championship some 12 points ahead of Red Bull, and I don't think it's unthinkable that they could be going for more podiums in 2021 with a Mercedes power unit in the back.

But Ferrari? Oh dear oh dear. I see that incident as being LeClerc's fault (and he's gone on record as saying none of it was Vettel's), and funnily enough it was almost exactly the same error that Vettel made last week. I think that as we're likely going to have a short season this year, there's every chance that Ferrari aren't going to be in the top three by the end of the year, with McLaren or Racing Point in third instead.

[Maturin]

Yeah he's taken full responsibility for it at least, which Vettel didn't really do last year when he caused them both to go out - but it was just as silly and needless either way. They seem to have a nasty habit of finding eachother on the track; there have been other cases of front spoilers clipping each others tyres in tight situations, as well as the two major race ending incidents. Probably for the best that one of them is leaving the team.

Renault have launched a protest on Racing Point, going on their Mercedes car design. Be interesting what happens there.

[Raid]

See, I thought that Racing Point had been protested at the start of the year and cleared, so either my memory is wrong or Renault have some new evidence. It's telling that Mercedes have been asked to supply parts for comparison though.

[Maturin]

Similar to Red Bull complaining about the Mercedes dual steering system last race - it had already been cleared by FIA and the complaint was thrown out by the stewards immediately. I can't remember now if they officially cleared Racing Point completely or if it was just based on certain parts in testing.

I guess it's possible Renault have a genuine point if they've discovered new evidence.

[DjchunKfunK]

The Racing Point issue sounds like new evidence which has lead to Mercedes being asked to supply specific parts. I can see this issue leading to a rule change of some sort. Martin was talking about it during the race yesterday and whilst I think it is a smart use of resources I do think it goes against the spirit of the sport, it's one thing to copy an innovative design like the double defuser on the Brawn car and quite another to just wholesale copy a full car.

As for the race apart from the first few and last few laps I thought it was rather boring. It was funny seeing the Ferraris take each other out.