On February 17 2022 22:38 Aristodemus wrote: Masi has been sacked, not that it changes anything for Hamilton.
Just saw the news myself. I was hoping to find some more coherent articles about this than a bunch of tweets, but I guess it's still too new. But hey, maybe we'll get a 10th "Guess who's back" tweet from Lewis or Mercedes?
Translation:
Michael Masi has to leave as Formula 1 race director. New race directors are Niels Wittich and Eduardo Freitas.
For the curious: Niels Wittich has been the DTM race director, while Freitas comes from WEC
Also:
edit:
Oh, there's a first hand source. That's a tad bit better than some tweets. Here's a video from FIA and the FIA president:
I'm not surprised Masi's out. It felt like it was gonna happen sooner or later. If we went into a new season that was supposed to be a reset and immediately started having race direction problems again, it'd be very harmful to the reputation of F1. They needed to do something concrete after last season and they actually did for once. I was fully expecting them to just put out a statement saying that they'd "found learnings from it and will do better" or some garbage like that but then nothing would actually be done.
In other news, holy moly that Ferrari. The sidepods are bonkers. It reminds me of the 2017 Ferrari in that it's completely out of left field and way different than every other car we've seen so far.
On February 18 2022 00:40 Ben... wrote: I'm not surprised Masi's out. It felt like it was gonna happen sooner or later. If we went into a new season that was supposed to be a reset and immediately started having race direction problems again, it'd be very harmful to the reputation of F1. They needed to do something concrete after last season and they actually did for once. I was fully expecting them to just put out a statement saying that they'd "found learnings from it and will do better" or some garbage like that but then nothing would actually be done.
In other news, holy moly that Ferrari. The sidepods are bonkers. It reminds me of the 2017 Ferrari in that it's completely out of left field and way different than every other car we've seen so far.
The Ferrari has a lot of stuff going on. The double tea tray(same as AM), what looks like a Monza spec wing(it's really, really flat in comparison to other cars we've seen), so they might have something else going on. The sidepods are definitely very different. They aren't undercut like many other teams.
On February 23 2022 16:03 FreakyDroid wrote: Sulayem seems to be making all the right decisions, I agree with everything he said. Curious what the new safety car and lapping procedures will be.
I don't necessarily think they need to change the procedures/safety regulations. Probably just be a little more trigger happy on VSC on incident, and then safety car as needed. There were definitely a lot of incidents which took longer than necessary to call safety cars if needed.
They just have to be consistent with it, within the rules of the regulations.
Lot's of spicy pictures coming out from the Barcelona test.
All of the top3 from last season have radically different concepts. I don't think they could copy each other even if they tried. Definitely hoping for a LMdh style race where all the teams are pretty close, but with radically different cars.
Some notes from journalists seem to be that Merc/Ferrari/AT have good ride height control. RB might need slightly stiffer front suspension to stop the porpoising, and then the other teams might have a bit more problems as they are in trouble on the straight.
Haas and Alfa have some reliability issues, but the other teams are putting in a good number of laps.
The new cars in action. Norris setting the fastest lap is music to my ears, I realize its just testing, but still .. And damn that Ferrari looks amazing, easily the best looking car on the grid imo.
Some interesting issues going on with the ground effect air detaching at high speeds, and then gaining downforce again after the car is lifted and has more air to work with, causing a bouncing effect at the end of the straight. Every team has this issue, some worse than others. Apparently Ferrari is one of the more stable ones..and if that's considered stable, compared to the rest of the field, I don't want to be a Mercedes driver atm, who's reportedly having the toughest time of it
Some interesting issues going on with the ground effect air detaching at high speeds, and then gaining downforce again after the car is lifted and has more air to work with, causing a bouncing effect at the end of the straight. Every team has this issue, some worse than others. Apparently Ferrari is one of the more stable ones..and if that's considered stable, compared to the rest of the field, I don't want to be a Mercedes driver atm, who's reportedly having the toughest time of it
Supposedly, there may be some loosening of bodywork allowed in undertray and tunnels because every team is having problems. I would expect the rule to be something like 200cm^2 of surfaced bodywork allowed in the tunnels to try to keep the flow attached. Enforcing a minimum ride height doesn't seem like the correct way to do things.
This fantasy league is pretty cool, i need to enter my date of birth in format DD/MM/YYYY and when i try to register it says "enter your date of birth in format MM/DD/YYYY", and the DD part doesn't accept over 12. :D
On March 04 2022 12:45 2xNoodle wrote: Isn't Piastri a junior for Alpine though? I imagine that even if he had money it would be tough bringing him to Haas.
Why's that? I imagine now more than ever Haas is desperate for some extra cash after losing their main partner
It'll probably be Fittipaldi. He'll likely have financial backing that others like Hulkenberg and Piastri won't have. I feel like from a racing perspective, the smart move longer term would be to get somebody more seasoned and with better car development skills like Hulkenberg for this year to help develop their car so they have a strong foundation for the next few seasons (though for drivers with recent F1 experience there's not that many options available. Hulk's currently signed as Aston's reserve driver, Giovinazzi is in Formula E, Grosjean seems to genuinely love IndyCar, and Magnussen seems happy where he is). But they need money to keep the team afloat so we'll probably end up with a pay driver like Fittipaldi.
In other news, the Sepang International Circuit's Twitter account has been tweeting a bit hinting at things. From what I've been seeing, they may be trying to negotiate back into the F1 calendar in Russia's place. If we end up with Sepang back I'll be very happy. That track's great.
On March 05 2022 23:31 Ben... wrote: It'll probably be Fittipaldi. He'll likely have financial backing that others like Hulkenberg and Piastri won't have. I feel like from a racing perspective, the smart move longer term would be to get somebody more seasoned and with better car development skills like Hulkenberg for this year to help develop their car so they have a strong foundation for the next few seasons (though for drivers with recent F1 experience there's not that many options available. Hulk's currently signed as Aston's reserve driver, Giovinazzi is in Formula E, Grosjean seems to genuinely love IndyCar, and Magnussen seems happy where he is). But they need money to keep the team afloat so we'll probably end up with a pay driver like Fittipaldi.
In other news, the Sepang International Circuit's Twitter account has been tweeting a bit hinting at things. From what I've been seeing, they may be trying to negotiate back into the F1 calendar in Russia's place. If we end up with Sepang back I'll be very happy. That track's great.
Rumors were that Guenther wants Hulk, which would make sense. Either he or Gio are the best development drivers available. Gio is unfortunately just slow, although he is backed by Ferrari. Hulk is pretty quick, but AFAIK hasn't driven in a racing series in the last year, although as a reserve he would likely still be doing some sim work. Mick, although he beat Mazepin thoroughly, probably doesn't have the development experience to lead a team, and is still a bit of an unknown as far as pace goes.
Fittipaldi's racing resume is pretty sparse tbh. As bad as Mazepin was, he was still one of the top drivers in F2, so besides bringing money I don't think he would be a good choice for having a team that is hoping to compete for the midfield.
The whole "who's gonna be in the Haas" situation seems to be getting interesting. It sounds like Fittipaldi is not able to get the funding needed for a full-time seat, and that the three frontrunners for the seat are Hulkenberg, Giovinazzi, and Magnussen. Giovinazzi apparently has a clause in his Formula E contract regarding getting called up to F1, and Magnussen also apparently indicated that he'd be willing to go back to Haas if given the opportunity this year (the rumour being that he was going to stay at Haas for last year until the Mazepins flashed their money at the team, which made them decide not to sign him again).
EPT
