Formula 1

Agree with the first part. It's natural to be how they are under the pressure. I don't think that red bull will particularly care about the report though as at the end of the day they still won. I'm surprised it didn't annoy mercedes more to be honest as the wording was admitting errors but trying to play them down too

 

Masi failed on a regular basis last season. Some of his decisions helped Verstappen*, some helped Hamilton. But the one's that stick out the most are the decision to 'race' two laps behind the safety car at a drenched Spa, thus handing Max an unfair win. It's the only race in the sport's history that didn't have any 'green flag' running. It was such an error, that the regulations have been changed so that a minimum of two 'green flag' laps need to have been 'raced' before any points are awarded. And yet Verstappen* said a couple of days ago that he deserved the WDC because "I won more races". When in reality, Spa shouldn't count, and moving onto example number two of Masi's huge mistakes, nor should the Abu Dhabi result.

What transpired in that season finale was shameful. For whatever reason, Masi manipulated the result of that one race, and thus the championship, by changing the sport's rules on the fly.

Today was a refreshing change. No Toto, no Spice Boy, and to be honest, very few radio messages at all. My only gripe with the F1 TV presentation remains the annoying replays of the 'start' after about three laps in. From different angles. By all means, show it in the corner or something, but I want to watch the race. Oh, and when you see a standard overtake using DRS down the straight, and within 10 seconds you get three replays of said overtake. Annoying.

Based on testing, and last week's practice, plus quali and now the race, it looks to me like Mercedes already have a car capable of matching the others, but that bouncing or 'porpoising' is killing them. Once they get to the bottom of that, I'd imagine they'll match Ferrari and RB for pace. And, they're usually the best team in terms of in-season development and upgrades.

I'm a huge Lewis fan. But I don't want him to run away with any season. I'd rather it be ultra competitive and see him earn his win. Which he probably would. I still think, even at his age, he's the best driver on the grid.

 

Can someone explain the * thing after Max please? I dont get it!

So pleased about today, just wish I could've seen Horner's face as it unravelled!!!!

 

I'm not convinced Mercedes will be able to catch up quickly enough, but we shall see. Perhaps Red Bull have some reliability issues given whats happened to 3 of their 4 cars today, fingers crossed.

I want Lewis to get his 8th after last year, but Id be pleased to see Ferrari do well this year too. Anyone but Red Bull to be honest.

 

On the Lewis running away with it thing that's not what I meant (though kinda is what I said), I just meant that I think they'll be the top team and he will win again. In an ideal world Ferrari, red bull and mercedes would all produce awful cars and we'd have a really exciting year with the midfield full of the best drivers but that will never happen.

Completely agree about the replays. There's nothing worse than cutting away from the race to show the start over and over again. To make it worse they often show the start but cut the replay off just before the corner where something happened. DRS replays annoy me too because they're so fake and artificial and why would anyone want to see a replay of a car driving past another in a straight line?

Completely forgot about spa too. That was a complete joke of a race. Same thing for me though, Masi wasn't doing it to deliberately favour verstappen he was just utterly incompetent and doing it just to meet contractual obligations and it was all about money. He should have gone after that race imo as he proved he was out of his depth.

Also hadn't noticed that there were no team radio from those two clowns but now you mention it it was refreshing not to have them on the radio. I'd be happy with a lot less team radio in general tbh. Drivers should drive

 

It's Lewis Hamilton fans who refuse to accept Max Verstappen is a world champion and so are putting an asterisk next to his name to prove a point. Childish if you ask me but there you go.

 

The * stands for 'won by human error'.

 

Max is brain dead or lacks the race craft needed to win another WDC in an evenly matched car! Le Clerc played a smart game and in his post race interview pointedly wondered why MV overtook him at the end of the 1st DRS zone given that the trigger point for the 2nd DRS zone is shortly after enabling le Clerc to return 'the favour'. Why , as Le Clerc said did he repeat the same overtake (with the same outcome) ?
The other example of immaturity from MV was his moan over the radio about being told not to push hard on his outlap - stupid since the life of the tyre (as had to be pointed out to him as WDC FFS!!) would have been much shorter without bringing the tyre in gradually. Even LH was reminded of that after his 2nd stop but without whinging to his race engineer.

On the subject of the FIA 'Report' ..... Funny how the human error was blamed on 'pressure' but the Stewards endorsed the devcisions made , when they were not under the same pressure having time to review and consider since the race had finished. They even had a 'get out' (MVs 'mini overtake) under SC which could have meant a 5 second penalty giving LH teh win after all, and the reason they gave for rejecting it was actually wrong!! They said something along the lines of the 'SC Lights ere out and it had entered the pit lane' ...which is nonsense as the rules are you are not allowed to overtake before crossing the timing line. In every way it was a stitch up endorsed by the RD, the stewards and the FIA.

Still it is over and we now move on.

I enjoyed the battle between CL and MV though and indications are that it is easier to stay close on long corners before straights making DRS/slipstreaming more effective. Looks like we will see a lot more overtaking this year and hopefully more close battles to come .

 

Lewis probably questions decisions more than most but he tends to do that assertively not with the aggression Max uses.

Lewis does it out of experience and is right more often than not, Max because he always thinks he knows better.

 

Adrian Newey is a legend in F1 and brilliant designer. However, it has often been said his designs were considered by many to be right on the 'bleeding edge' and a bit 'fragile' albeit that trait has not been in evidence for the past couple of seasons.

Rumours circulating round the pit lane post race suggested that Red Bull under fueled their cars having never completed a race length run in testing . It cpuòld explain the fact bith cars had 'fuel issues' right at the end although it seems a bit of a fundamental error unless they anticipated longer or more SCs

 

**I think you mean "F1 fans" rather than plastic fans who only follow one particular driver and know little about F1 rules, etiquette and tradition

 

And who would you be referring to there? Can honestly say I've never heard the words plastic fans used in relation to formula one before.

 

I didn't say he did win it fairly. However the * whenever his name is mentioned makes no sense. It makes sense to use it when referring to him as a world champion but not just in general whenever you mention him surely?

 

Fair point. I agree!

I am curious to know if the reports and changes include a restructuring of the stewards who, IMO, were equally culpable for the AD debacle given they had time to calmly assess what occurred and reverse it but chose not to. They were also guilty of inconsistent decision making throughout the season regarding the application, or not, of penalties and the severity of them.

I believe some sort of remote 'reviews' may be happening (the dreaded VAR) which does not fill me with confidence as one of the problems is retribution needs to be quicker not the old chestnut... "the incident will be reviewed after the race"

 

Just noticed your post. I was not implying you were one , but the rise of MV has created an army of Orange clad Dutch fans, most of whom know sod all about F1 and just follow one driver. It is well established and recognised that UK (given its Uk's long tradition in motorsport has the most knowledgeable fans in the World (not a myth).

The Italian Tifosi, it is accepted, are focussed solely on the Ferrari brand regardless of who drives for them rather than the sport. Many other countries Middle East, China etc. again have no tradition and like many of the newer venue attendees are there for the spectacle (not unlike Monaco which is, frankly, on the calendar solely for the rich to flaunt their wealth given the track is no longer suited to modern F1 as a sport).

It is fair and essential that F1 has attracted a wider audience in these days of commercial pressures especially when FTA ended when once it was more for petrol heads, but plastic fans (and I have heard that term in reference to F1) exist. I just wish they would not clutter up F1 forums with ill informed, nonsensical posts.

 

His book is worth a read.

I'm not convinced there isn't a link between the issues Gasly faced with the Red Bulls but we shall see. Apparently fuel pump was blamed at one point for the Red Bull issue but these are universal parts and not something RB have made.

 

The whole stewarding thing has been an absolute shambles for years.
I'm not sure if it was Lewis or max, toto or Christian or even someone else but somebody mentioned that when a steward flies to the gp with a driver it obviously influences them. With that in mind why do we have stewards at the race track at all? It's not like in football where it's an on field referee communicating with the players anyway is it. The stewards could quite easily be permanently stationed at the FIA headquarters and never ever come into contact with the teams or drivers other than for their official duties over the radio, via email and on zoom calls. Thy could have all the best camera angles there, all the telemetry etc just like they do at the track but with extra impartiality and a reduction in both costs and carbon emissions.

Agree with you that reviewing incidents after the race needs to stop wherever possible. There really is no justification for it in a good 99% of cases. If the reason is that they're too busy then employee an extra couple of stewards. With the savings made by not flying them all around the world and putting them up in hotels they could easily afford this. Another one that annoys me more than it should is "incident noted" then around 5 laps later "no investigation necessary". That's because you have investigated it. How can no investigation be necessary when they've investigated it for 5 laps? It's just the wording but it frustrates me.

They need to create a lot more hard and fast rules rather than opinion based rules for me. The main one is the huge white line around the track. Enforce it. Don't just say oh we don't think it's that important this time.

Then there's one that you've complained about verstappen doing quite a lot which is running other races off the track. I hate that they will look back at an overtake and um and ah about whether he left enough room around the outside. Surely they could tighten this rule up to dictate exactly what can and can't be done because I watched an highlights package of Riccardo overtakes yesterday and what he has been praised for many times is being late on the brakes which has caused his opponents to back off or be run off the track. He's praised for it. Max is slammed for it. It wouldn't be hard to tighten an clarify these rules to make it much clearer. I hate the 'he was ahead' thing because it's all subjective about at what exact moment did it matter. The main problem here though is the way recent tracks have been designed as they seem to create the problem whereby unless it's DRS down a straight the only way to overtake is to throw it up the inside in a tight corner. Bring back the corners where you can overtake on the outside.

 

Didn't all the teams inspect the pumps and some replaced them but some, including red bull, didn't? Could be that the way their car is designed and the layout of the engine puts extra strain on the pump that isn't there for others? I'm not sure if that's a possibility or not because my knowledge of engines is about as in depth as my knowledge on the clitoris. I can barely find one, nevermind know how it works.