The F1 thread

[Raid]

Excellent race, that. Not really sure what happened to Hamilton; other teams were keeping those yellow-striped soft tyres going for twice as long as he did, although he was clearly pushing them hard. When he got what was basically a free pit-stop under the VSC, it really looked like he was going to walk the rest of the afternoon and come home twenty seconds ahead of everyone else, but there was some brilliant defending by Kimi and Max that kept him from romping off. It does demonstrate though, as if further proof were needed, that F1 cars need to be able to follow one another better if the racing is to improve. And a spinning Seb once again demonstrated, as if further proof were needed, that Ferrari's problem this year has been less the car and more the driver.

[DjchunKfunK]

Speculation that the cars were not put back together quite right after the removal of the water pumps, so they lost a bit of speed and tyre degradation was higher than expected. Mercedes also left Hamilton out too long before calling him in for his second stop so he had to much time to make up.

[Maturin]

Yeah, they could have easily pulled him in earlier and he'd have come out behind Raikonnen. He may not have got past Kimi, but he would have had enough in his tyres to bring it home easily in 2nd, without needing to thrash the tyres to catch up & then battle Verstappen.

No great problem, but the team's strategy error cost him a position I think. Glad that Kimi won a race though, he had a lot of pace this weekend.

[Raid]

"I'm tripping major nutsack right now."

Nice one Daniel. Glad to see him getting a good quali result as his Red Bull career ends.

[DjchunKfunK]

"I'm tripping major nutsack right now."

Nice one Daniel. Glad to see him getting a good quali result as his Red Bull career ends.

Shame about the race.

[Raid]

Yeah..

Daniel deserves so much better. I don't buy into the conspiracy theories that he's somehow getting shafted by his team, but clearly Red Bull are doing *something* wrong and I have to wonder whether their approach is part of the reason Ricciardo's jumping ship to Renault. Renault have only had two retirements this year for mechanical reasons, Red Bull have had eight, and they have the same power unit. We do know Red Bull refuse to compromise their internal packaging to take more reliable components, and I suspect that attitude is something Daniel's fed up with. RB are going to be third regardless of how many breakdowns they have because their car is just vastly better than the next team's; they have three times the points of fourth place Renault.

While I was happy to see Max on the top step this week, I do have to worry about the guy's arrogance. He was *still* insulting Renault yesterday, despite winning the race - even Christian Horner backed off of his usual rhetoric and praised Renault for getting it right this week. Max is enormously talented, but he's taking pot shots at anyone and everyone that crosses his path, and it's already getting a bit wearing. I just hope he isn't letting it all go to his head.

[DjchunKfunK]

Hopefully he grows up, but right now his arrogance makes me dislike him rather a lot.

[Raid]

So F1 is confirmed as going to Hanoi, Vietnam in 2020.

https://www.racefans.net/2018/11/07/f1- ... r-in-2020/



It's an anti-clockwise track, so there's an awkward looking 270 degree turn at the start followed by two enormous straights, and the final section I think resembles the end of sector one at CotA, or the Esses at Suzuka; fast flowing corners that make it very difficult to follow another car and impossible to overtake on. It's a combined street / urban circuit, the straights are there already, but the final sector is being built specifically for the track, but it does likely mean that it'll be pretty narrow. I'm hardly an expert at analysing race tracks, but to me that says that there'll be four places to overtake here; a pair of DRS zones on the main straights, and the corners at the ends of those straights. Cars aren't going to be close enough on the start/finish straight having just gone through the esses.

Time will have to tell as to whether this becomes a Singapore or a Korea; it is at least in the capitol city so people aren't going to need to travel for four hours to get to it, but I'm not aware of there being a big following of F1 in Vietnam. Granted, Liberty have been so much better at promoting races than Bernie's old guard were; his approach seemed to be to take the proceeds from holding a race, and then not care about any of the rest.

[DjchunKfunK]

Those are a lot of straights and on first glance it doesn't look particularly demanding.

[Snowy]

I knew before reading the article it was another of Tilke's designs. Long straight, tight turn, rinse and repeat. Yawn.

[Raid]

I tend to give Tilke the benefit of the doubt, because although he's come up with some stinkers, he's also designed Circuit of the Americas and Istanbul Park which have created some classic races (I think CotA has been one of the most consistently good tracks in the last few years). I'll judge it on the first couple of races.

[DjchunKfunK]

I see Vestappan got a taste of his own medicine yesterday and took it in typical good grace. He really needs to grow up, his constant moaning and bravado when he makes mistakes is beyond tiresome.

[Raid]

I think Verstappen should have ensured Ocon had space to get through the corner once they had both committed to it, but Ocon shouldn't have been there in the first place. A lapped car should be able to unlap itself if it's quicker than cars on the lead lap, which was the case here, but not by jeopardising the car they're overtaking. I blame Ocon for what happened, but Max did himself no favours by expecting Ocon to get out of the way - being in the right does not help when you're facing the wrong way having just hit a back marker.

What Max definitely should not have done was start an altercation with Ocon once the race was over. I can perhaps excuse these things when both cars' races have been ended and the adrenaline is still high having just climbed out of a wrecked car, but this was half an hour after the incident. Well, now Max has to do some community service, which is not a punishment I realised the FIA could hand out. Vettel apparently had to do the same after he purposefully hit Hamilton in Baku last year.

https://www.racefans.net/2018/11/11/ver ... fter-race/

[Maturin]

Yes, he still has a way to go with his racecraft. The more experienced drivers would have avoided that incident entirely I reckon. He's learning a lot of things the hard way.

I think that shoving session afterwards was playing up to the camera - it didn't look at all genuine to me. More a case of: "Hey everyone, look at how passionate I am! Look at me shoving this other driver!". He'll grow up eventually. I hope.

Getting a bit tired of his Billy Big Bollocks radio chatter too.

[DjchunKfunK]

As Hamilton stated in the green room, Vestappan had more to lose so should have been more careful. That statement alone showed why Hamilton has five titles and Vettel doesn't. It's not just his superior skill he knows when to take risks and when not to.

Yeah Ocon was in the wrong but I can't really have any sympathy for Vestappan as he has so often been in Ocon's position.