General / Off-Topic Formula 1 - 2017 Season

[Manticore]

Another win for the red car. Not a great car because not a great race. It started off very processional but got a bit more interesting later on.

Alonso doing the Indy 5000 this year is probably the nail in the coffin of his F1 career with him doing the hammering in.

McLaren; the team who had Lauda, Prost and Senna (to name a but a few great) driving for them........... so seriously sad now.

Russia next!

 

[K-Rose]

I enjoyed Bahrain, another good race with lots of things going on up and down the field.

 

[Arry]

So who is going to win this weekend? Silverstone and I feel that the quote for the weekend goes to Christian Horner: With 'very British weather' half way though the third practise.

The Prima donna let the UK fan base down this week, by taking two days in Greece because he felt stressed and so avoided the event in London.

Vettel?

 

[TheAntitheist Crusader]

So who is going to win this weekend? Silverstone and I feel that the quote for the weekend goes to Christian Horner: With 'very British weather' half way though the third practise.

The Prima donna let the UK fan base down this week, by taking two days in Greece because he felt stressed and so avoided the event in London.

Vettel?

I was always a Button fan, he got me fully interested in F1 in 2009, there is something about Hamilton's attitude that i have never liked, i wanted Rosberg to beat him last year, and i want Bottas to beat him this year, however if the championship is between Vettel and Hamilton, i want Hamilton to win, because the only person on the grid with a worse attitude is Vettel. As for today's race, my guess is Hamilton.

 

[TheAntitheist Crusader]

Post race i feel happy for Lewis, great that a British driver is winning at home, it's weird, i like Lewis when he's doing the good charitable stuff, and the crowd surfing. But soon he'll be back to the depressing sulking attitude, i mean he's a multi millionaire, and he has that money for two reasons, fans and sponsorship, he needs to show some respect and turn up for events like the one in London.

 

[PS4gamer]

Was a typical Silverstone race for me. 10% action, 90% boring. I used to love the track but the changes over the last few years kind of spoiled it and especially the new layout is bad and losing imo the best corner 'Bridge' just made the track dull and bland.

I'm English but not a Lewis fan so I can't really cheer for the winner. I give the race 4/10, roll on good tracks. ie:- Spa, Monza, Suzuka

 

[Arry]

Was a typical Silverstone race for me. 10% action, 90% boring. I used to love the track but the changes over the last few years kind of spoiled it and especially the new layout is bad and losing imo the best corner 'Bridge' just made the track dull and bland.

I'm English but not a Lewis fan so I can't really cheer for the winner. I give the race 4/10, roll on good tracks. ie:- Spa, Monza, Suzuka

Agreed; with the new run off areas, it is too cheap for them to make mistakes and therefore take chances, they wouldn't if they were going straight into a gravel trap. To me it IS still a classic track and it has changed many times over the decades. More rain would have spiced things up a bit and it is nice to see, the tyres; do have a limit.

 

[PS4gamer]

Yes, to hell with miles of run off, bring back the gravel traps so drivers are punished if they abuse the track limits!

 

[TheAntitheist Crusader]

Also, can we not move to the halo or shield thing, they already ruined the noise of the cars, we don't need the visuals to be ruined as well.

 

[Stealthie]

I thought it was clever of Ferrari, the way they suckered Mercedes in Quali' yesterday.

Mercedes apparently realised that Ferrari were going to be fast in Hungary and had planned to set Q2 times on Soft tyres so they could run a different strategy during the race, in the hope of gaining some advantage.

In Q1 Ferrari weren't especially fast. In Q2 Mercedes were about equal with Ferrari and, as a result, Mercedes changed their minds, did a run on the Supersoft tyre and actually ended-up P1 and P2 in Q2.
And then, in Q3, Ferrari stopped sandbagging and disappeared off into the distance.
As a result, Ferrari took the front row of the grid AND suckered Mercedes into running the Supersoft tyres in Q2, thus committing themselves to running the same race strategy as Ferrari.

Now, Hamilton's my guy but you've got to hand it to Ferrari for selling Mercedes a dummy so convincingly.


Oh and the race was dullsville.

 

[TheAntitheist Crusader]

I thought it was clever of Ferrari, the way they suckered Mercedes in Quali' yesterday.

Mercedes apparently realised that Ferrari were going to be fast in Hungary and had planned to set Q2 times on Soft tyres so they could run a different strategy during the race, in the hope of gaining some advantage.

In Q1 Ferrari weren't especially fast. In Q2 Mercedes were about equal with Ferrari and, as a result, Mercedes changed their minds, did a run on the Supersoft tyre and actually ended-up P1 and P2 in Q2.
And then, in Q3, Ferrari stopped sandbagging and disappeared off into the distance.
As a result, Ferrari took the front row of the grid AND suckered Mercedes into running the Supersoft tyres in Q2, thus committing themselves to running the same race strategy as Ferrari.

Now, Hamilton's my guy but you've got to hand it to Ferrari for selling Mercedes a dummy so convincingly.


Oh and the race was dullsville.

It wasn't the best race but there were four cars within winning range, five or six if Verstappen didn't crash into Ricciardo, that's three teams competing within 10 seconds at the end of the race, which makes a nice change from either Vettel, Hamilton or Rosberg dominating and winning by over 20 seconds.

 

[Stealthie]

It wasn't the best race but there were four cars within winning range, five or six if Verstappen didn't crash into Ricciardo, that's three teams competing within 10 seconds at the end of the race, which makes a nice change from either Vettel, Hamilton or Rosberg dominating and winning by over 20 seconds.

It's nice to see RBR getting back into the mix.
Alas, I fear that's more the result of decent aero' and a track that doesn't allow more powerful cars to "stretch their legs" than due to overall competitiveness.
It's also funny to think how average Danny Ric' made Vettel look in 2014 and now Max Verstappen seems to be outshining him.

From what I hear, Ferrari's current competitiveness is a bit contrived in that Vettel has already burned through most of his allocation of engines/turbo's and ERS components.
It seems as though Ferrari are going to take quite a few penalties in the 2nd part of the season (I wouldn't be surprised if Vettel takes multiple new engine components at Spa and starts at the back of the grid, just to get those new parts "into play").
Knowing the way Ferrari operates, this is probably deliberate so they can say to the FIA "Look, the racing could be competitive if only you got rid of these silly allocation restrictions".
Which obviously overlooks the fact that Merc' (and all the other teams) could probably go quite a bit faster if they didn't have to worry about making each component last half a dozen races.

 

[Matt168]

I thought it was clever of Ferrari, the way they suckered Mercedes in Quali' yesterday.

Mercedes apparently realised that Ferrari were going to be fast in Hungary and had planned to set Q2 times on Soft tyres so they could run a different strategy during the race, in the hope of gaining some advantage.

In Q1 Ferrari weren't especially fast. In Q2 Mercedes were about equal with Ferrari and, as a result, Mercedes changed their minds, did a run on the Supersoft tyre and actually ended-up P1 and P2 in Q2.
And then, in Q3, Ferrari stopped sandbagging and disappeared off into the distance.
As a result, Ferrari took the front row of the grid AND suckered Mercedes into running the Supersoft tyres in Q2, thus committing themselves to running the same race strategy as Ferrari.

Now, Hamilton's my guy but you've got to hand it to Ferrari for selling Mercedes a dummy so convincingly.


Oh and the race was dullsville.

I don't buy the idea that Mercedes seriously considered running softs for the opening stint in Hungary. If there were stories like that around I imagine they were more likely to be a failed effort to tempt Ferrari in to splitting their strategies. Hungary is the second most vital track after Monaco where you cannot risk losing ground at the start. It wouldn't be a sensible approach for any of the top three teams and behind them I don't think any team could be at all confident of progressing to Q3 without supersoft tyres.

There wasn't much excitement on the track, which was predictable enough under the current regs, but I found the timing screen very compelling for this race. Hamilton could easily close to Kimi through the second sector during most laps but just losing touch by the DRS detection point for the main straight. In all likelihood that was Vettel easing back through the twisty bits with his wonky steering, but it added to the optimistic hope that something might happen.

 

[Matt168]

From what I hear, Ferrari's current competitiveness is a bit contrived in that Vettel has already burned through most of his allocation of engines/turbo's and ERS components.
It seems as though Ferrari are going to take quite a few penalties in the 2nd part of the season (I wouldn't be surprised if Vettel takes multiple new engine components at Spa and starts at the back of the grid, just to get those new parts "into play").

Vettel has used his allocation of turbo chargers for the year and I think he still only has one more MGU-H to use, although I think that many of the old parts are still usable for races. There could be a couple of penalties but I suspect they won't amount to much as teams are quite good at planning these things for less damaging races.

They can't pool multiple components any more though... I think the new rule this year is that the grid penalty is applied in first race started with one of the new components. There are new oil consumption regs set for Monza onwards which some say are aimed at Ferrari and may affect the introduction of new Internal Combustion Engines at least.

 

[Matt168]

The right man won the championship this year. Even after the disastrous decision by Vettel to try and shut off a hemmed in Verstappen at the start in Singapore I thought there was a strong chance that the title would still go down to the wire, but there have been too many instances where he hasn't been able to win races that were really there for the taking. I would like to see Hamilton proving he can maintain his focus after winning a title this time and maybe making up for his disappointment on his ninth place in Mexico. Two races where most of the grid can drive without worrying too much about the implications on championship positions could be entertaining... well, in Brazil anyway; Abu Dhabi rarely fails to disappoint.

 

[Patrick_68000]

Nice picture of Lewis Hamilton

 

[Manticore]

Congratulations to Hammertime.... I'm not a Mercedes AMG fan but he deserved his WDC and the wheels fell off Ferrari's campaign after the summer break (sorry about the pun).

Brazil up next....

 

[Stealthie]

The right man won the championship this year. Even after the disastrous decision by Vettel to try and shut off a hemmed in Verstappen at the start in Singapore I thought there was a strong chance that the title would still go down to the wire, but there have been too many instances where he hasn't been able to win races that were really there for the taking. I would like to see Hamilton proving he can maintain his focus after winning a title this time and maybe making up for his disappointment on his ninth place in Mexico. Two races where most of the grid can drive without worrying too much about the implications on championship positions could be entertaining... well, in Brazil anyway; Abu Dhabi rarely fails to disappoint.

Interesting point.

Even as a Hamilton fan, I'd have to concede that he has a habit of relaxing once a championship is resolved.

A couple of things are different this year.
Firstly, the Mexico race was fairly dull and Hamilton didn't really do much to show people what a champion looks like.
Secondly, Bottas can still take 2nd place in the WDC with a bit of effort.

I suspect Hamilton will be looking for an opportunity to shine before the end of the year and he'll also think there's some benefit in assisting Bottas to 2nd place in the championship.


Regarding Vettel, I think that (ironically, as a 4xWDC) he's having the same sort of year that Hamilton had back in 2011 (?), when he seemed to spend all his time crashing into Massa.
He wants to win and, in his own mind, he always assumes there's an opportunity to win so he's doing more and more reckless things in a desperate attempt to fulfill his own expectations.

And now I see we've got Ferrari threatening to "not play any more" as well.
I guess having 2007 engraved onto the sill-plates of their road cars, as the last year they won anything in F1, is looking more and more irrelevant as time goes on.

 

[duckofdeath]

Hamilton had a lot of over-the-limit battering ram moments, back and forth with Rosberg over the years. A driver on that level will do anything to win, or they wouldn't be there. Schumi, Senna, Prost, Alonso... They've all played the same billion dollar bumper car race at some point in their career to win a world championship.

 

[Arry]

Interesting point.

Even as a Hamilton fan, I'd have to concede that he has a habit of relaxing once a championship is resolved.

A couple of things are different this year.
Firstly, the Mexico race was fairly dull and Hamilton didn't really do much to show people what a champion looks like.
Secondly, Bottas can still take 2nd place in the WDC with a bit of effort.

I suspect Hamilton will be looking for an opportunity to shine before the end of the year and he'll also think there's some benefit in assisting Bottas to 2nd place in the championship.


Regarding Vettel, I think that (ironically, as a 4xWDC) he's having the same sort of year that Hamilton had back in 2011 (?), when he seemed to spend all his time crashing into Massa.
He wants to win and, in his own mind, he always assumes there's an opportunity to win so he's doing more and more reckless things in a desperate attempt to fulfill his own expectations.

And now I see we've got Ferrari threatening to "not play any more" as well.
I guess having 2007 engraved onto the sill-plates of their road cars, as the last year they won anything in F1, is looking more and more irrelevant as time goes on.

Hamilton had a lot of over-the-limit battering ram moments, back and forth with Rosberg over the years. A driver on that level will do anything to win, or they wouldn't be there. Schumi, Senna, Prost, Alonso... They've all played the same billion dollar bumper car race at some point in their career to win a world championship.

Max Verstappen is the Achilles heal to both of them. Both have damaged their cars trying to beat him into the 1st corner in resent races.

Fair play to the Golden boy, a 4th championship well deserved. He just needs to understand that 50% of his honours should also go to the car he has been driving.