The F1 thread

[Raid]

I do get the feeling that race would have been a total procession without the new regs; Albert Park is now such a fast, tight circuit, and we didn't get this many overtakes even on the older, slower configuration.

I figured Red Bull would have some teething problems as they switched to their in-house engines, even with them paying Honda to keep their support for a bit longer. Three DNFs out of six opportunities is really poor, but maybe not completely unexpected. Max is now 46 points behind the championship leader, and I know there are 19 or 20 races still to go, but it's a pretty big deficit to make up when Ferrari aren't showing any real weaknesses yet. Leclerc though has more points than his next two rivals combined, and I have no doubts over his racing ability, so everyone will be hoping for mechanical issues or failures in development.

I'm beginning to get pretty annoyed with Lance Stroll. My opinion of him has yo-yo'd quite a bit over the years, with him showing the occasional signs of being a good racer, but those signs are usually fleeting. He repeatedly steers into his rivals because he doesn't know they're there, but he seems perfectly happy weaving all over the track defending so he does apparently know where his mirrors are.

[Snowy]

The only reason Stroll has a race seat is because of his old man. Always has been and always will be sub-par, if not entirely shit like Mazapin. It is such a shame that the likes of him get race seats just because they have rich parents, taking them away from others with much greater ability.

[Raid]

I'm not exactly thinking he's a champion in waiting or anything, but he's had three podiums in F1. There's talent in there somewhere (unlike with Mazepin who never showed one iota of it), it's just rare that it ever shows. What I can't decide is whether he's wilfully negligent, hot-headed, or just careless. He's more like Pastor Maldonado; yes he's there for the sponsorship, but there's the makings of a good driver in there somewhere.

Edit: Oh and I missed this at the end of the race; Albon took a Williams from the last row on the grid to 10th, in a strategy where he made his first pitstop on the last lap of the race. Incredible.

[Snowy]

Oh I don't disagree that he shows occasional talent, but if you were to stand him up against, for example, Nico Hulkenberg, then I would say there is no question of who I would want in my race team based purely on ability.

[Raid]

Don't get me wrong, I don't want him in the team, there are undoubtedly ten other drivers who deserve a shot. I've just been noticing him more recently, and not in a favourable light.

[Raid]

A little bit off topic, but a Russian kid racing under an Italian license has just been dropped by his team and is under investigation by the FIA for performing a Nazi salute on the podium.

https://www.racefans.net/2022/04/11/fia ... on-podium/

There's an excuse I've seen given that he was in fact performing a Roman salute that was later adopted by the Nazis. Unfortunately that Roman salute is also banned in Italy as it promotes facism, so it's not exactly a good explanation.

Either the kid is an absolute idiot, or he's too rich for empathy. Either way he's probably just tanked his career at the age of 15.

[eny]

So, another farcical lottery of red flags and rain. Jesus what a mess.

[Raid]

Yeah, another session I was glad to not have seen live. It seems pretty obvious that an hour's worth of practice with new cars in the wet for the first time wasn't enough. It seems that everyone was spinning everywhere, regardless of car quality or driver talent.

It's certainly a mixed up grid, other than the front row at least. Are the Sprint Race and Grand Prix sharing a starting order this year, rather than the SR result deciding the grid for the GP? I know there are points down to 8th in the sprint this year, but if it doesn't decide the grid we might get people actually really pushing for the points positions at the risk of spinning out.

[eny]

No, I think the winner of the sprint starts in pole. It's basically the start of the race, with positions carried over to the main GP. Red flags wiping out your outlap before setting a time stinks.

[Raid]

Oh, I'm not sure where I got that from then. In which case it'll still probably not be worth it.

Edit: Oh, I found it. The person who qualifies in pole during the Quali session will be considered to have been on pole for the weekend, regardless of whether they start in pole position after the conclusion of the Sprint. It's an unnecessarily confusing rule that's meant to appeal to the statistics nerds.

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/f1s- ... /10010998/

So Max will have the pole position stat for the weekend even if he ends the sprint race in 20th. It doesn't affect anything meaningful, but it's another thing that commentators are going to have to explain, because if the average fan hears a driver has pole position, they're going to expect them to be starting from pole position.

[Snowy]

How the hell the drivers manage with the porpoising of their cars - man alive I am feeling sorry for Leclerc's vertebrae.

Spoiler

Man a sorry weekend to be a Ferrari fan. I had to laugh though, Nico Rosberg's ill-concealed glee at the great race Russell is having and what a howler Lewis was having was bloody hilarious.

[DjchunKfunK]

How the hell the drivers manage with the porpoising of their cars - man alive I am feeling sorry for Leclerc's vertebrae.

Spoiler

Man a sorry weekend to be a Ferrari fan. I had to laugh though, Nico Rosberg's ill-concealed glee at the great race Russell is having and what a howler Lewis was having was bloody hilarious.

I thought that was rather sad to be honest.

This race should put a bit of a halt on those claiming the new regs are brilliant, was pretty much impossible for people to overtake without DRS and even with DRS it was still very tough.

[Raid]

The porpoising is really quite dramatic. The brain is pretty good at filtering out vibration in our vision, but I'm genuinely surprised that drivers can hit their breaking points when their head is bouncing up and down like that. It's mad. Russell is saying that it's giving him chest pains. When Lewis passed Alonso at the start, his car hit the deck so hard it may as well have just come out of a jump.

Spoiler

Bloody hell Charles. I said a few weeks back that I was beginning to see Leclerc as a champion in waiting, but not if he makes silly mistakes like that. I really hope he doesn't squander this huge championship lead; he's still got more than an entire race win's advantage, but we're only in race 4. Another dismal weekend for Sainz too - I was looking forward to seeing him get his first win this year, but he's going to need to complete a racing lap to do that. I think the accident was Ricciardo's fault, but this can't be doing his confidence any favours.

I don't think the conditions really made overtaking easy today once the cars were on slicks. The dry line was only a car wide for most of the race, and the painted lines were clearly treacherous. Even once DRS came in, it didn't make overtaking easy like it has on other circuits. I reckon it may just have been an outlier in terms of conditions and track rather than a signal that the new regs haven't worked.

Great to see Lando on the podium considering where that car was just a month back.

[Raid]

Well, after finally getting to watch the race (I gave up waiting for the Channel 4 replay to appear and was linked to an alternative), I can safely say that.... that was a sporting event taking place in the USA. The race wasn't great, I really don't think much of the track (which seems to have been designed more for trackside stuff than, well, the race track), but the post-race interviews and podium were just classic American cheese (ie: fake as anything). A police escort for the winner to get to the podium? And I do hope all of the NFL paraphernalia is just a novelty for the first running (like the Stetsons were in Texas), because it felt like a weird cross-promotion between two unrelated sports. The podium celebration with drivers wearing American football helmets with a gigantic statue of an American footballer front and centre was just weird.

[Wrathbone]

It’s a testament to the power of marketing. Despite the US having close to zero interest in F1 until very recently, the crowds in Miami appeared frenzied to a degree rarely seen in the sport outside of the Tifosi at Monza. Not to sound hyper-British, but it was all a bit too garish at times, and I worry that next year with Las Vegas added to the calendar it’s going to be a hot mess of noise and sleaze.

Actually that could well describe a lot of F1.