The F1 thread

[Drarok]

No fuckin' chance.

[Wrathbone]

Sir Frank Williams has died.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/59453378

Needless to say, his impact on F1 has been profound. I wish he'd seen Williams resurgent in performance before he'd gone, but it's not exactly a lacklustre legacy he leaves behind.

RIP, Frank.

[Raid]

I never saw Frank in Williams' prime, in fact my overriding memory of him was being so glad to see him being taken out of the garage at the 2012 fire following Maldonado's win, but the way people in the sport talk about him, he was clearly a force to be reckoned with.

[eny]

Aw no, that really is sad news. My F1 watching peaked with the Williams rise and success, my first in-person GP was at Silverstone in '95, camping for the whole weekend hoping for Damon's success—him driving alongside Coulthard in the Williams, with Schumy in the Beneton, alongside Herbert. Great race which saw Damon and Schumy swapping first place continually, and eventually both colliding with each other and crashing out. Massive contribution to the sport, he will be sadly missed.

[Wrathbone]

I never saw Frank in Williams' prime, in fact my overriding memory of him was being so glad to see him being taken out of the garage at the 2012 fire following Maldonado's win

That remains one of the weirdest incidents I can recall in F1. I hesitate to suggest there was foul play or some bizarre conspiracy going on, but I still can't explain how one of the worst drivers in F1 history won a race in an uncompetitive Williams - on Frank Williams' 70th birthday, no less - which was followed by a garage fire in highly strange cirucmstances (later blamed on the Williams team having modified their safety procedures) in which 31 people were injured. The whole thing raised a lot of questions which were conventiently brushed aside.

[Raid]

Yeah, it was a very strange day. I don't believe the conspiracy theories; for one thing it wasn't Maldonado's car that caused the fire, it was Senna's - the other car was still in parc ferme so the fire wouldn't have covered up anything. Also I don't think Maldonado was one of the worst F1 drivers in history - he was stuck in dreadful cars for most of his F1 career (he was GP2 champion though), and I remember his performance in that winning race was actually pretty good (he kept Alonso behind him at Alonso's home race). The guy just didn't know when to back down, or keep his mouth shut. His conduct absolutely stank, but he was quick on a good day.

[Wrathbone]

Maldonado was like a rocket in a china shop: often fast, usually at someone else’s expense, always with expected damages. The main reason he got into F1 was due to Hugo Chavez bankrolling him. I’ll never forget him taking out both Force Indias in the space of two corners.

Maybe he won that race legitimately by some freak chain of circumstances, but I have no problem placing him amongst the worst drivers the sport has ever seen. Mazepin may be competition in that respect, but he doesn’t have a fast enough car to really get in the way of most other teams. Maldonado had enough pace to be a problem for everyone.

EDIT - Correction, I misremembered. He took out both Force Indias on the same corner. On the same lap. I do miss him.

[eny]

What a fucking farce this is.

[Wrathbone]

Spoiler

That was exhausting. What a weird combination of thriling racing, frustrating track design resulting in endless incidents and strange handling of those incidents by Michael Masi.

I'm starting to think Masi is a problem. On the one hand he's got the unenviable job of mediating two major teams with two championship rivals who each have a history of not backing down, so you wouldn't often expect a decision which is seen as 'correct' by everyone. On the other hand, there were many questionable actions from him today, regardless of whatever stances you take:

- The controversial late call for the first red flag was arguably correct, as it appears the extent of the barrier damage wasn't clear until it was inspected, so I'll give him a pass on that.

- The choice to stick with VSCs rather than full safety cars after a couple of incidents which left lots of debris on the road was odd. Alonso called it out. Surely it's more dangerous for the marshals if the pack is spaced out rather than bunched up.

- The decision to restart after the second red flag in the order of Hamilton, Ocon, Verstappen was a fair decision. But why on earth was Masi negotiating it with the teams?! Bloody well tell them, or go through the proper process! It's one thing to avoid pointless penalties from the stewards, but it's another thing entirely to circumvent the stewards by bartering on a starting order. How is that above board and proper?

- The handling of Verstappen having to give the place back was a total disaster. I'm not sure what Hamilton was thinking and why he didn't just zoom past him, but I can understand hesitance given how crazy things had been to that point. What I can't understand is why Masi didn't organise the communication of the decision clearly - Hamilton didn't even know he was being given the position! Mercedes as a team was only told as Verstappen was already slowing down. Even after the collision, it was a good few laps before everyone was clear as to what was meant to happen.

- As Martin Brundle commented, can anyone explain which of the various incidents the 5 second penalty against Verstappen was for?


What a farcical bloodbath. I can't wait for next year.

[eny]

Spoiler

The key point for me was that second restart and the recklessness of Verstappen reacting to Hamilton overtaking him. He late braked into nowhere at the start of the corner after Hamilton was in front, shot through mid-overtake and consolidated the overtake with his unsafe re-entry to the track. I believe that was why they gave him the 5-second penalty. The starting order after that, with Ocon on pole was always going to be a hindrance to Hamilton that Verstappen took advantage of. The miscommunication and the general lottery of decisions throughout spoilt what should have been a clean competition if it wasn't for the limitations of such a narrow track that quickly becomes very dangerous. Hamilton has a whiskers edge as the deserved champion for me, as he kept his car from being wiped out 4 times at least, whereas Verstappen had more of a luxury of abandonment and going for broke. Anyway, it is all down to the final rejigged track, it's going to be exciting.

[Raid]

Honestly I'm not even sure where to start.

What a bloody terrible racetrack. What shambolic race direction. What ridiculous driving standards. How many slave labourers died to bring us that... spectacle?

I thought that incident in qualifying was going to be the defining moment of the weekend. You've no idea Wrath how much I had to hold my tongue last night when we were starting the D&D session.

Quite honestly I'm delighted at the drivers championship result going into the last race, because it effectively makes this entire weekend pointless.

[Rossell]

The word shitshow is probably the best way to describe that. Jesus.

[Raid]

Spoiler

Here's the replay from the helicopter; you can see just how slowly Max is driving; Lewis had ample time to pass him and chose not to: https://streamja.com/wkvbo

I think the reasoning behind the brake test incident was obvious; neither driver wanted to be in front when it came to the DRS line, which was just ahead of where it happened. Max was told to give the place back "strategically", and realising that Hamilton was simply refusing to pass him, he stabbed the brake pedal hoping he'd go past. Max surely had to know that Lewis was directly behind him at that point, so did he deliberately cause an accident? What was the goal there?

I don't think Masi was negotiating with Red Bull over the radio after that first restart; he was giving them the option of voluntarily giving the place back, rather than causing a stewards' enquiry. It's still not good enough; he shouldn't be giving any room for interpretation, he's the race director, not race suggester.

This championship has gotten so dirty that I'm not entirely convinced that Max won't simply drive into Lewis at turn one in Abu Dhabi, Prost / Senna style. It would be the perfect end for this. Plus it would mean that we wouldn't have to watch most of the Abu Dhabi grand prix. I'm tempted to just ignore the F1 news this week as I'm not sure how much of Christian Horner complaining I can take.

[Wrathbone]

What a bloody terrible racetrack.

I may have misheard as I had the preamble on in the background while doing other stuff, but I think Martin Brundle spoke to the track designer on the grid who more or less admitted the chaotic experience of driving a lap round it was an accident. That would explain a lot while raising other questions, like how did nobody see this coming? Did they run simulations with quad bikes? Was the layout simply eyeballed? Did nobody consider that combining the speed of Monza with the claustrophobia of Monaco was a monumentally bad idea?

It's lucky nobody was badly injured or worse, in retrospect.

On a separate note, is it me or are there now significantly more races airing later than they used to? It's incredibly frustrating when the highlights are on at stupid o'clock, meaning my options are to stay up late / get up early and have less sleep than I need, or fork out a tenner for a Sky Sports day pass, which I resent. I did the latter yesterday, as I'm already tired, and I've had to do it two or three other times this year to watch races at a reasonable time. In previous years, I think I've only done that twice. Annoyingly I'll probably be doing it for next week's race too - not because it's on late, but because I want to see how the end of the championship unfolds live. We've not had an end to a season like this in quite some time.

[Raid]

It's perhaps more noticeable recently because we've just gone from the Americas (where the time difference means races naturally start quite late in GMT) to the Middle East where all of the races take place in the evening. There are more Middle-Eastern races this year than ever before. I'm pretty fed up with it too, given that my only real option for watching is the Channel 4 broadcast. I'm not willing to pay silly money to watch it live.

What I found most surprising about the track was the lack of cranes. Monaco works because there's a crane at just about every single corner, but in Saudi Arabia where money is also limitless, they can't do that? I'm kinda glad I didn't watch this one live because the amount of time spent not at racing speed must have been infuriating.