The F1 thread

[DjchunKfunK]

I watched this last night - getting TV time is easier when the wife is working and I managed to avoid seeing any news.

What a race, I was cheering Alonso like I have not done since he was in red, absolutely phenomenal racecraft. Lewis annoyed me again though, simply because he is incapable of not whining. His bleating about how Fernando was shutting him down when he would have known he wasn't going to get any help from that quarter, saying how dangerous Alonso's moves were when he was at least 50% of a high speed shunt the week before - he can't help himself. Belt up and get on with it, stop your incessant wheedling and whinging man!

Delighted for Ocon too, always nice to see an outsider pick up a surprise podium or win.

I think that's overly harsh, there were some points where you could argue Alonso overstepped the mark slightly but you have to remember that these drivers are super tired by the end of a race and especially Hamilton this race so much more irritable, after the race Hamilton accepted that it was great racing and as we said the other day all drivers complain over the radio looking for some slight advantage.

[Maturin]

Besides, Alonso's whinged/complained many times in the past over the radio himself. If the drivers had been swapped over in that battle, it would have been Fernando saying all the exact same stuff on the radio to his team no doubt.

But we seem to be going round in circles over this issue. I don't really get the focusing on Hamilton for complaining over the radio when it's proven they all do it, but there you go.

[Wrathbone]

I thought the battle between Alonso and Hamilton was remarkably well-handled by both of them given how long it went on and how close they got. The fact that they both came out of intact had nothing to do with restraint and everything to do with arguably the two best drivers in the world putting their vast skill and experience into practice. As good as Verstappen is, I can't help but feel that if he'd been in place of either of them, it'd have ended in tears.

[Raid]

Winners "whine", it's just a normal part of their makeup. You can't be that competitive without truly believing you're right most of the time, and therefore the other guy must be wrong. Vettel did it, Alonso did it, Verstappen does it. We just hear it more from Hamilton because he's at the front most of the time, and the TV producers think we want to hear from the frontrunners.

I too was cheering for Alonso though, mainly because I thought it was in the best interests of the championship that Hamilton not take the maximum points haul on a day where Verstappen was prevented from doing so through no fault of his own. Still, it was nice to see the guy back on form, and I'm really glad to see Alpine's rise back to prominence - there were a few good races with Ricciardo last year, but I never would have expected a win (and I consider that win to be on merit given that the second car basically kept one of the sport's most fearsome competitors behind him for a significant amount of time).

[Snowy]

For me Lewis' griping is the stone in my shoe that stops me really warming to the guy. I know what a shame this is as it is plainly obvious what a phenomenal driver he is. That is why it sticks in my craw so much and I keep coming back to it. Vettel was exactly the same, if not worse, which was even more painful as he was driving a Ferrari for several years so I had to back him. Everything you have all posted is totally reasonable but it still riles me

I would have thought that dicing with another unbelievably talented driver like that, opposition you would almost never see, would be the ultimate spice, the thing that drove you to race in the first instance. My favourite moment in F1 of all time (from the years I have watched) is still Hakkinen bracketing Zonta at Spa to overtake Schumacher on a drying track. Alonso's defending against Hamilton was close to that for spectacle.

Years ago I used to race online as part of a league on the old GTR2 game. I am not very good with computer driving games, the loss of sensation from real driving is something I can never overcome but I got reasonably good on that. I only ever raced in the lower leagues - 1960s Mini Coopers and Alfa GTAs - but regardless, I loved battling for position more than anything, even including the occasional win. That is as close as I will ever come to a professional racing drivers experience but I was gutted that Hamilton was not savouring the dogfight in the cockpit as much as we were on the screen.

Ah well, started rambling. Point being that I really want to like Lewis and he is phenomenal but he needs to shut up

[Drarok]

I don't get the "I had to back X because team loyalty". I'm mostly watching for entertainment.

I like that Lewis is a phenomenal driver as I can cheer my country for a change. I like that Max is bringing a proper challenge for the first time in years. I'm hopeful for George Russell getting into a decent car, he looks like he's got serious skills to show off and I can't want to see it. The little scraps and moves in the midfield are brilliant, and the excitement for people scoring their first points or getting pipped by someone old enough to be their grandfather is fun, too!

I love exciting racing! Having one team just spectacularly far ahead of everyone else would be awesome for like... one race.

[Raid]

Yeah, this is probably the best season of F1 we've had in the better part of a decade. Have we had two teams this closely matched over an extended part of the season since 2007/2008?

[Wrathbone]

Alonso vs Vettel (Ferrari vs Red Bull) in 2012 was incredibly close, with Vettel pipping it by 3 points. I don’t recall there being as much wheel-to-wheel action as this year, though.

[Raid]

I remember 2012 being a really dramatic year; 7 different winners in 7 races, Maldonado winning immediately followed by Williams' garage burning down, Hamilton signing for Mercedes, a truly incredible drive from Vettel to come from the back of the field in the final race to win the championship... but other than that I don't think I remember much in the way of racing.

[Snowy]

I don't get the "I had to back X because team loyalty". I'm mostly watching for entertainment.

One of my earliest memories is sitting on my dad's lap watching F1 on our new colour TV (we had had a B&W before that). I immediately decided that I loved the red cars, much to the horror of my dad who would much rather I supported one of the many English teams. I sat watching F1 with dad until I moved out, and still sometimes pop over to watch the race with him and my love of the red cars persisted, probably due to his disapproval as much as anything else, I mean until Schumacher joined they never won much in my lifetime.

I have attended F1 races all over Europe since then as well as GT races, Le Mans etc and always enjoyed being a Ferrari fan - it has led to some sensational food (especially in Italy, being a Ferrari fan from abroad coming to Italy to see Ferrari race gets you 5 star treatment), some fun encounters (a big group of German F1 fans in the Schumacher era adopted me for an evening's drinking in Spa), so I have kept the faith

[Raid]

Well that was a sarcastically pointless exercise, wasn't it. Sure, they couldn't race in those conditions by most accounts (Max said he wanted to race, but he wouldn't have had spray in his face, so of course he'd say that), but George Russell is forever going to have an asterisk next to his "first podium" stat. Did he earn his second place? Well he put his shitbox Williams onto P2 yesterday, he beat the conditions when almost nobody else could, and at least he's ahead of Latifi in the points standings now.

It wouldn't be quite so bad if two of my former co-workers weren't there, one of whom was attending his first ever Grand Prix. At the start of the weekend I told him how jealous I was. Not so sure now.

[Wrathbone]

Just let them drive to the conditions. If they have to drive at 50mph, so be it. If they encounter dangerous conditions in dry weather, they slow down and drive appropriately, so this should be no different. Awarding points when there wasn’t any racing is obscene.

[Raid]

Sadly I don't think that's possible. F1 cars just don't work at 50mph, they're tuned for 200. They don't generate downforce nor heat for the tyres, it's why you always hear drivers complaining that the safety car is too slow. They're like fixed-wing aircraft, which can't fly below a certain speed else they'll fall out of the air. Any actual racing at those speeds would just result in cars in gravel traps or walls.

What I take issue with is declaring that a race. There was no racing, how can it be declared a race? Having a podium celebration just rubbed it in the fans' faces after they'd spent 4 hours waiting in the pouring rain to see cars pass them once or twice behind the safety car. I'd like to think the idea was to give the fans something from a wasted day, but I imagine a lot of them took it as an insult.

[Wrathbone]

Sadly I don't think that's possible. F1 cars just don't work at 50mph, they're tuned for 200. They don't generate downforce nor heat for the tyres, it's why you always hear drivers complaining that the safety car is too slow. They're like fixed-wing aircraft, which can't fly below a certain speed else they'll fall out of the air. Any actual racing at those speeds would just result in cars in gravel traps or walls.

I’m not saying it would be easy, I’m saying do it anyway. These are the best drivers in the world - they should relish a near-impossible driving challenge, even if it’s a case of last man standing.

Failing that, they should have raced on foot.

[Rossell]

Maybe it could be decided by one of those paper boat races down the pitlane in the rain they're all so fond of.