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^ what they said.
Basically constructor dominance was always a part of F1 (with some exceptions here and there), just remember Ferrari or Redbull days etc. Its really that Hamilton is on another level and is constantly improving. He has so many skills, its unbelievable - he can get a quali lap out of nowhere that is half a second faster than his teammate's, he knows how to handle tires, engine, fuel consumption, etc, etc. I don't find team's dominance a huge problem, as long as its not being exploited or is done in an unfair way. Just remove Hamilton from Merc and see what happens to the championship battle.
Also, Rosberg was fantastic. All we need is to see Ferrari get their shit together.
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On August 03 2020 16:54 fLyiNgDroNe wrote:
^ what they said.
Basically constructor dominance was always a part of F1 (with some exceptions here and there), just remember Ferrari or Redbull days etc. Its really that Hamilton is on another level and is constantly improving. He has so many skills, its unbelievable - he can get a quali lap out of nowhere that is half a second faster than his teammate's, he knows how to handle tires, engine, fuel consumption, etc, etc. I don't find team's dominance a huge problem, as long as its not being exploited or is done in an unfair way. Just remove Hamilton from Merc and see what happens to the championship battle.
Also, Rosberg was fantastic. All we need is to see Ferrari get their shit together.
It would be bottas taking everything, instead of taking second place at the end of the season. Well maybe not easily, but that is only on bottas being rather average after the summer, that may leave you with that impression. Exception being 2018 where hamilton did a great job, but it was still Ferrari's (Vettel) failure more than that IMHO.
I respect your opinion and Im not going to argue this as you seem like a nice guy/girl in other threads, but in this topic, I seem to remember us somewhat getting upset at each other for disagreeing on Hamilton's talent vs the superiority of Mercedes. So I apologise in advance if my bottas comments upsets anybody.
This is not a bait, I promise Im doing my best to not get triggered again concerning this topic.
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On August 03 2020 23:28 KobraKay wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2020 16:54 fLyiNgDroNe wrote:
^ what they said.
Basically constructor dominance was always a part of F1 (with some exceptions here and there), just remember Ferrari or Redbull days etc. Its really that Hamilton is on another level and is constantly improving. He has so many skills, its unbelievable - he can get a quali lap out of nowhere that is half a second faster than his teammate's, he knows how to handle tires, engine, fuel consumption, etc, etc. I don't find team's dominance a huge problem, as long as its not being exploited or is done in an unfair way. Just remove Hamilton from Merc and see what happens to the championship battle.
Also, Rosberg was fantastic. All we need is to see Ferrari get their shit together. It would be bottas taking everything, instead of taking second place at the end of the season. Well maybe not easily, but that is only on bottas being rather average after the summer, that may leave you with that impression. Exception being 2018 where hamilton did a great job, but it was still Ferrari's (Vettel) failure more than that IMHO. I respect your opinion and Im not going to argue this as you seem like a nice guy/girl in other threads, but in this topic, I seem to remember us somewhat getting upset at each other for disagreeing on Hamilton's talent vs the superiority of Mercedes. So I apologise in advance if my bottas comments upsets anybody. This is not a bait, I promise Im doing my best to not get triggered again concerning this topic.
Totally agreed on the first part, but not on the 2nd. Mercedes' advantage in the 2nd half of 2018 was huge and even if Vettel hadn't crashed in Germany (which could've been caused by him losing some flaps on his front wing? Dunno, saw a vid about that not too long ago), Hamilton would've won that WDC.
Ferrari started the year well that season, but Merc totally outdeveloped them and were just better after the winter break and I don't think there's any way Vettel would've even won the championship that year (even with Ferrari's engine tricks). Mercedes is just really one step above the rest even when they start out on the back foot (imo).
Furthermore, I do think Hamilton is a damn good driver, but yea, it's not like a driver of Bottas' caliber wouldn't easily become WDC in that car (this year) if he had no competition from inside the team. That car is just so much faster that the others don't really stand a chance. Maybe RBR can snatch a victory somewhere, but since all GPs in the Americas (N/S America) have been cancelled, it would be somewhat surprised if that were to happen.
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On August 04 2020 01:44 Kaolla wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2020 23:28 KobraKay wrote:On August 03 2020 16:54 fLyiNgDroNe wrote:
^ what they said.
Basically constructor dominance was always a part of F1 (with some exceptions here and there), just remember Ferrari or Redbull days etc. Its really that Hamilton is on another level and is constantly improving. He has so many skills, its unbelievable - he can get a quali lap out of nowhere that is half a second faster than his teammate's, he knows how to handle tires, engine, fuel consumption, etc, etc. I don't find team's dominance a huge problem, as long as its not being exploited or is done in an unfair way. Just remove Hamilton from Merc and see what happens to the championship battle.
Also, Rosberg was fantastic. All we need is to see Ferrari get their shit together. It would be bottas taking everything, instead of taking second place at the end of the season. Well maybe not easily, but that is only on bottas being rather average after the summer, that may leave you with that impression. Exception being 2018 where hamilton did a great job, but it was still Ferrari's (Vettel) failure more than that IMHO. I respect your opinion and Im not going to argue this as you seem like a nice guy/girl in other threads, but in this topic, I seem to remember us somewhat getting upset at each other for disagreeing on Hamilton's talent vs the superiority of Mercedes. So I apologise in advance if my bottas comments upsets anybody. This is not a bait, I promise Im doing my best to not get triggered again concerning this topic. Totally agreed on the first part, but not on the 2nd. Mercedes' advantage in the 2nd half of 2018 was huge and even if Vettel hadn't crashed in Germany (which could've been caused by him losing some flaps on his front wing? Dunno, saw a vid about that not too long ago), Hamilton would've won that WDC. Ferrari started the year well that season, but Merc totally outdeveloped them and were just better after the winter break and I don't think there's any way Vettel would've even won the championship that year (even with Ferrari's engine tricks). Mercedes is just really one step above the rest even when they start out on the back foot (imo). Furthermore, I do think Hamilton is a damn good driver, but yea, it's not like a driver of Bottas' caliber wouldn't easily become WDC in that car (this year) if he had no competition from inside the team. That car is just so much faster that the others don't really stand a chance. Maybe RBR can snatch a victory somewhere, but since all GPs in the Americas (N/S America) have been cancelled, it would be somewhat surprised if that were to happen.
Pretty sure unless Hamilton has an issue, and Max outqualifies Bottas that there's no chance of another team winning this season.
Also I think every driver on the grid could win the WDC in the Merc if they were better than their teammate. The car is on rails and it is more than half a second faster than the next car on the grid. I don't think the difference between the best driver and the worst driver is that much in that car, simply because it's glued to the road.
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Cant open the links right now, are those the brake ducts protests? Or the general car is a copy of Mercedes ones? (or are those one and the same as far as FIA goes?)
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On August 07 2020 21:45 KobraKay wrote:
Cant open the links right now, are those the brake ducts protests? Or the general car is a copy of Mercedes ones? (or are those one and the same as far as FIA goes?)
FIA ruled RP front brake ducts to be legal but their rear brake ducts to be illegal..
To quote,
The stewards rejected that notion, and said that while the team’s current front brake duct design was acceptable given it was an evolution of the team’s 2019 design – conceived using CAD drawings of the brake ducts on Mercedes’ W10 car, when such a practice was allowed by the regulations – the team’s 2020 rear brake ducts must be considered Mercedes’ designs.
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On August 08 2020 00:41 LennX wrote:Show nested quote +On August 07 2020 21:45 KobraKay wrote:
Cant open the links right now, are those the brake ducts protests? Or the general car is a copy of Mercedes ones? (or are those one and the same as far as FIA goes?) FIA ruled RP front brake ducts to be legal but their rear brake ducts to be illegal.. To quote, The stewards rejected that notion, and said that while the team’s current front brake duct design was acceptable given it was an evolution of the team’s 2019 design – conceived using CAD drawings of the brake ducts on Mercedes’ W10 car, when such a practice was allowed by the regulations – the team’s 2020 rear brake ducts must be considered Mercedes’ designs.
Ok thanks!
I have since that post been able to read about it. So the issue was that, as you quote, front brake ducts are copied but an evolution from RP for 2020 season of a 2019 acquisition, thus valid. However, since they went with a different concept in 2019 for the rear of the car (sorry missing the proper english term) with the high rear (farther from the ground) akin to a redbull, and much less like the Mercedes philosophy (glued to the ground), RP used their own design rear brake ducts in 2019, as the Mercedes CAD they bought made no sense with their car's rear approach.
In 2020, they changed their approach and went with the closer to the ground rear of the car, thus the Mercedes brake ducts are pretty much what you would want. So they scrapped their 2019 design, and used the Mercedes CAD (acquired a few days after the prohibition for these things went into force). So the front ones are ok, the back ones are the reason for the penalty. Then again, they eat the penalty and then the car is considered legal for the rest of the season....its not an awful trade off for 15pts.
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Wow Hulkenberg. What a beast. Verstappen and Ricciardo both said in interviews afterward that Hulkenberg deserves a seat and that he should have been on the grid this year. I think after his performances so far these last two weekends, his stock has certainly gone up, even without the race. He said he's in talks with teams for next year so here's hoping. I don't think it's fair to judge either Hulk or Ricciardo's performances at Renault since Renault's been so inconsistent. The car last year made both of drivers look bad.
How devastated must Stroll be? Hulkenberg parachutes in last week, almost matches Stroll on literally no preparation, then this week on one week worth of prep he's comfortably and consistently faster than Stroll in a way that even Perez isn't.
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Like Hulk said: Sunday matters the most, let's wait for tomorrow. But so far, he's been really impressive. I will shout if he manages to get a podium finish tomorrow.
Sadly, besides RP there aren't really any desirable spots available. Alfa and Haas might be possible, but Hülkenberg deserves to be in a top team. Ferrari, McLaren, Merc are set up for 2021. RP / Aston Martin would be interesting, but then there'd be 4 drivers competing for 2 seats. (Perez, Stroll, Hulk, Vettel) Perez also has been really consistent, he should be at least in a midfield team. And Stroll has shown some improvement lately, even though some of it surely is linked to the better car. Vettel, on the other hand, really struggles at Ferrari atm, he just can't seem to find any good setup with the car. Or the team is really sabotaging him, which is highly unlikely, but hey...it's Ferrari.
Which leaves Red Bull, they won't sign any driver who's not from their ecosystem, even if Albon is slightly underperforming. Gasly has also been really good at AT this season.
We need more teams in F1. Seriously.
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I think it would be less Ferrari sabotaging Vettel and more that if there is a performance differential between various parts (say there are two parts that are theoretically equal but one provides better performance), the better performing part would go to Leclerc, and overall it would give Leclerc a better car, which in a way makes sense since Leclerc is the future of Ferrari and they need to keep him happy. The same thing has happened at Ferrari in the past. The only time where it truly has seemed like they are running two equally performing cars with equal preference for strategy was with Kimi and Massa in 2007-2009. Before that was Schumacher where he had preferential status in his contracts and after was Alonso/Massa where, despite Massa not being on Alonso's level, there was often a substantial pace differential between them (along with strategy favouring Alonso, etc.) that couldn't just come down to Massa being that much slower. I guess for Kimi and Vettel it was more that Vettel almost always ended up getting the better strategy despite the two being supposed equals, though that could just as easily come down to Ferrari's strategy being complete garbage for the last 5 years running.
This type of arrangement (a lead car getting first pick for components, etc.) isn't unheard of. Alonso was transparent that it was how McLaren was being run when it was him with Vandoorne in 2017. Alonso said Vandoorne's car had performance issues and was significantly slower his. That was why he defended Vandoorne from media attacks since he thought the attacks on Vandoorne were unfair and he didn't want Vandoorne's new career ruined over something that he had no control over. Back then Vandoorne's times were sometimes 1 to 1.5 seconds slower than Alonso and he was being hounded over it constantly by the media.
I honestly think this type of arrangement is also what's going on at Red Bull the last couple years. Max is one of the best drivers on the grid so it's not fair to expect his teammate to match him, but even so it seems like there may be more to it.The team are clearly favouring Max and whoever he has been partnered with has struggled with a less driveable car. Last year both Gasly and Albon struggled to get their car to drive well, and this year Albon's had nonstop setup issues (even the Sky people pointed out in practice yesterday how much Albon's car was understeering). Gasly clearly didn't forget how to drive, as he went back to performing quite well the second he was out of that Red Bull.
I agree that we need more teams, but we also need closer performance, which I hope 2022 will bring. The gap between teams is still ridiculous at times. At least Red Bull, McLaren, Renault, and Racing Point are close (and sometimes Ferrari) but there's still almost a third of the grid that is basically a non-factor. Driving at Haas, Williams, or Alfa should not mean that you can basically only score points if others have bad luck.
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The funny thing is that the gap between P3 and P20 has never been smaller. It's even more close between P3 and P14. Only Haas, Alfa Romeo and Williams fall off significantly. Mercedes is completely broken, it's even worse now as Ferrari have fucked up their engine ("cheating" didn't help) and RB can't out-aero the Honda PU, even though it has improved by a mile.
But there have always been periods of total domination. In the past, the FIA intervened earlier by changing regulations. (End of the turbo era in the 80s, 2005, etc.) With the PUs being so expensive, I get why they're so hesitant to change anything right now. Let's hope the cost cap will help in bringing down the differences at the front of the grid.
As for different cars in one team: I know that this has always been a thing. Barrichello is the prime example. It can work if you've got a dominant car. But Ferrari have a shitbox right now.
The 2nd Alonso stint @ McLaren was terrible in many regards. The engine was hilariously bad, McLaren also refused to make compromises in chassis development. So they threw anything they had at Alonso, which led to Vandoorne being helpless.
Gasly is in a weird spot right now. He clearly is a great driver when he's got the team behind him. But what are his options for the future? As long as there's Max @ RB, the team will favor him. He's Marko's golden child. Maybe Renault might be an option, but they are going full Toyota since they've come back as a works team.
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Great race from Max. His radio comms were hilarious today as well. I'm so happy there's at least one person pushing Mercedes a bit this season...
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Red Bull has got to be kicking themselves for the decision to not offer Ricciardo a better contract a few years ago. Yeah he was generally a bit behind Max, but he had the same ability to overtake as we're seeing from Albon as well as an ability to outright win races. RB would be fine with Max P2, Dan P4/P5. Albon's had some stunning drives, but his general consistency isn't quite there yet.
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51516 Posts
![[image loading]](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/424032506229293066/742628457825173575/unknown.png)
little red riding hood interviewing a wolf featuring random mobster
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On August 11 2020 05:56 Lmui wrote:
Red Bull has got to be kicking themselves for the decision to not offer Ricciardo a better contract a few years ago. Yeah he was generally a bit behind Max, but he had the same ability to overtake as we're seeing from Albon as well as an ability to outright win races. RB would be fine with Max P2, Dan P4/P5. Albon's had some stunning drives, but his general consistency isn't quite there yet.
This is something I was thinking about. Ricciardo had to have known something was coming that would make driving at Red Bull bad. Apparently his offer from Red Bull wasn't that different monetarily from his offer from Renault, so I doubt it was money. Early 2018 was when Helmut Marko started talking about how Red Bull wanted Verstappen to be the youngest champion, and soon after is when it seemed like tensions were building at Red Bull with Ricciardo and the rumours started that Ricciardo might leave. This was also when Ricciardo started to struggle to keep up with Verstappen most races in qualifying and in race trim.
It just seems like something is weird at Red Bull. Verstappen's doing great, but whoever he's partnered with chokes. Ricciardo had tons of issues in 2018 and seldom could keep pace with Verstappen (he was something like 0.3 seconds off pace on average in qualifying after being roughly on pace with Verstappen the previous two years) and that has continued for the new drivers. Gasly's qualifying for Spain this year was fantastic. He nearly matched his best Red Bull qualifying time from last year in his Alpha Tauri (Verstappen was slower than last year for comparison). Albon on the other hand barely did better than his time in a Torro Rosso last year and he was ~0.7 seconds off Verstappen in Q3.
It's obvious Albon has some work to do (he even says so himself. He admits his qualifying is rough), but even so it seems like he, or whoever is in that seat, is doomed to look terrible. Whether it's because Verstappen is just that good, or if there is some Red Bull favouritism that plays into it, we'll never know.
edit: I guess for clarification, I read Mark Webber's book that in part outlined his time at Red Bull and in it he discussed how Red Bull began to favour Vettel in 2010 and soon after Vettel got the better of every new part (and in some cases was able to run new parts on his car before Webber. We saw something similar in the first race this year. Verstappen broke his new wing so they gave him Albon's and Albon ran the old specification), got the more favourable strategy, etc.. How Red Bull has operated the last few years definitely has the similar vibe to what Webber described happening back in the day. I'd be quite curious to hear Webber's take on modern Red Bull. I'm sure it'd be interesting.
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Genuinely shocking strategy from both Ferrari and Red Bull this race. Vettel ended up taking things into his own hands again like in Hungary and salvaged his result. They put him on softs, he mentions that he might be able to stretch to the end, they ignore that, tell him to push, and then a few laps later ask him if he thinks he can stretch his tires to the end after he just spent several laps using the tires up.
Vettel in general looked much better this weekend. He wasn't nearly as far off Leclerc in qualifying and his race pace was solid.
Not sure what Red Bull was thinking with Albon's strategy. The whole weekend the narrative was that the hard tires were so bad that nobody would use them. Red Bull pitted Albon early, put the hard tires on his car, then dumped him out in traffic behind a DRS train. When they showed his onboard after his pit stop he was sliding around like crazy. He was the only driver the entire race that used hard tires. He probably could have got at least 5th or 6th had they done any reasonable strategy. His pace on the softs was good but by the time he was on the mediums at the end the damage had already been done. I heard his radio at the end of the race and he sounded completely dejected.
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On August 17 2020 02:57 Ben... wrote:
Genuinely shocking strategy from both Ferrari and Red Bull this race. Vettel ended up taking things into his own hands again like in Hungary and salvaged his result. They put him on softs, he mentions that he might be able to stretch to the end, they ignore that, tell him to push, and then a few laps later ask him if he thinks he can stretch his tires to the end after he just spent several laps using the tires up.
Vettel in general looked much better this weekend. He wasn't nearly as far off Leclerc in qualifying and his race pace was solid.
Not sure what Red Bull was thinking with Albon's strategy. The whole weekend the narrative was that the hard tires were so bad that nobody would use them. Red Bull pitted Albon early, put the hard tires on his car, then dumped him out in traffic behind a DRS train. When they showed his onboard after his pit stop he was sliding around like crazy. He was the only driver the entire race that used hard tires. He probably could have got at least 5th or 6th had they done any reasonable strategy. His pace on the softs was good but by the time he was on the mediums at the end the damage had already been done. I heard his radio at the end of the race and he sounded completely dejected.
Albon is Red Bulls guinea pig for Max. They test stuff on him, and if it works they shift it over to Max. That's one of the reasons they waited so long to pit Max despite his tires having gone off the edge; they wanted to see if the hard tires worked on Albon.
Ferrari tho, they never learn, do they? Their strategies have been consistently terrible for the last 3 years, if not further. They have a culture problem within their team which is not easily fixed without tearing the whole thing down and starting from scratch.
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Ferrari was shite at strategies before and after the Todt/Brawn/Schumacher era. It's in their DNA.
People nowadays have forgotten how bad Ferrari was doing before Schumacher came. Yes, there were some good years (e.g. Prost 1990), but overall, they underachieved for almost two decades. First, they slept on aero development, then they were very inconsistent during the turbo era, then they actually became decent again only to mess up completely in the early 90s. (Sticking to V12s for too long, not realizing the importance of electronic aids...)
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EPT
