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F1 2016


Mandzipop

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Great race, even if it was getting a bit farcical with all the interruptions in the middle. Hamilton was unlucky to miss out with a freak technical problem. Ricciardo and Bottas both put in great recovery drives after early problems and Stroll impressed with a calm drive to take his first podium, he had a difficult start to his season (not always entirely his fault) but he produced a very mature drive today.

Force India must be very frustrated, both Perez and Ocon could have been fighting for podiums and maybe even a victory if they hadn't run into each other.

37 minutes ago, red snow said:

The only defense was that which Coulthard gave him in terms of we'd have to see whether Vettel steered into Hamilton. As Coulthard pointed out Vettel was busy shaking one hand at Hamilton so he maybe wasn't using the other for active steering.

I'm not sure he did it deliberately, but it's not much excuse if he was so busy gesticulating that he couldn't control the car, it's part of a driver's job to be in control at all times. I agree a stop-and-go penalty doesn't seem enough, I'd say a black flag might have been justified.

I don't remember what penalty Pastor Maldonado got for deliberately driving into Hamilton (who seems to attract this sort of thing) a few years ago, that seems the most similar incident I can think of.

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10 hours ago, williamjm said:

Great race, even if it was getting a bit farcical with all the interruptions in the middle. Hamilton was unlucky to miss out with a freak technical problem. Ricciardo and Bottas both put in great recovery drives after early problems and Stroll impressed with a calm drive to take his first podium, he had a difficult start to his season (not always entirely his fault) but he produced a very mature drive today.

Force India must be very frustrated, both Perez and Ocon could have been fighting for podiums and maybe even a victory if they hadn't run into each other.

I'm not sure he did it deliberately, but it's not much excuse if he was so busy gesticulating that he couldn't control the car, it's part of a driver's job to be in control at all times. I agree a stop-and-go penalty doesn't seem enough, I'd say a black flag might have been justified.

I don't remember what penalty Pastor Maldonado got for deliberately driving into Hamilton (who seems to attract this sort of thing) a few years ago, that seems the most similar incident I can think of.

I guess this season has featured far lighter penalties in general which is good in terms of race outcomes not being determined by tribunals instead of racing but I think Hamilton made a very good point (and I think he was being genuine rather than wanting to maximise Vettel's punishment) that Vettel's punishment basically says that kind of behaviour isn't intolerable. 10s penalty for potentially taking an opponent out of the race? We know there are several drivers out there (and even more from the past) who would take that.

 

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apparently Vettel's action has angered other teams too

" The problem for the stewards was that the next level of penalty was disqualification, and they demurred from that. But two experienced senior figures from teams not involved in the incident told this reporter after the race they felt that is exactly what should have happened. "

Grosjean got a one race ban back in the days where he constantly seemed to cause accidents in the first lap (although most agreed it was more ineptitude than deliberate). Although given he'd caused/been involved in 7 out of 12 first lap incidents he may just have clocked up the sufficient penalty points. The ban actually seemed to be a turn-around for him and I think most would agree he's been a decent driver since. Maybe Vettel needs something like this but who knows whether it would work on him - it certainly never changed Maldonado.

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On 26-6-2017 at 11:14 AM, red snow said:

apparently Vettel's action has angered other teams too

" The problem for the stewards was that the next level of penalty was disqualification, and they demurred from that. But two experienced senior figures from teams not involved in the incident told this reporter after the race they felt that is exactly what should have happened. "

And I agree. If it were, say, Magnussen, he'd have gotten a black flag in a jiffy. Add to that, Vettel has gotten away lightly before ("tell Charlie to fuck off"), and he really did the sport intself an ill turn. Also, it was fucking madness, and should be punished just for that. What a big baby. I saw him squirm before the media with a reporter repeatedly asking him if he turned into Hamilton on purpose and he insisted that he only bumped into Hamiltons back. He pretended not to know that he had smashed into Hamiltons side, and kept coming back to brake-test and running into the back of the Mercedes.

Also, FIA has confirmed on the basis of telemetry that Hamilton didn't do anything untoward, or indeed anything different from the previous laps. Vettel was just over-eager and misread the situation. FIA has also released a graph from the telemetry. So I have to take back my earlier comment where I said that I was sure Hamilton gave Vettel a brake-test.

Apparently Vettel is being pulled before a FIA tribunal... That sounds a bit farcical, and I'd have preferred if he'd gotten black flagged straight away. But if this means he can still get a race ban, I'm all for it.

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It sounds like he might get a race ban, with the possibility of his points from Azerbaijan being nullified as well.

That may be a bit harsh, but on the other hand Vettel clearly has anger management issues and if this makes him think twice before freaking out next time, that might be a good thing (even for him). Hamilton's seen red a few times in the past and done silly things, but generally when he was a lot younger. He's matured and developed more patience (most clearly seen when he calmly got out of the car and inspected the damage during the red flag rather than pulling a Schumacher and going over "for a word"). If anything, Vettel sees to have become more reckless as he's gotten older, which is weird. It might be that he sees Hamilton matching and maybe overhauling his haul of WC trophies and is getting frustrated by it.

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On 28-6-2017 at 11:51 PM, Werthead said:

If anything, Vettel sees to have become more reckless as he's gotten older, which is weird. It might be that he sees Hamilton matching and maybe overhauling his haul of WC trophies and is getting frustrated by it.

He's definitely frustrated. I think his frusration has been building up at Ferrari. His idol was Schumacher and he wants so much to emulate Schumachers success, he can't seem to handle it anymore if things aren't going his way. Letting most of his antics slide, or accept them and back him (Ferrari), or give him a slap on the wrist (FIA) doesn't help either.

And Vettel has never dealt well with adversity. Remember Multi21 and the Turkish GP where he ran Webber off the road (don't remember the year).

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13 hours ago, Antonius Pius said:

He's definitely frustrated. I think his frusration has been building up at Ferrari. His idol was Schumacher and he wants so much to emulate Schumachers success, he can't seem to handle it anymore if things aren't going his way. Letting most of his antics slide, or accept them and back him (Ferrari), or give him a slap on the wrist (FIA) doesn't help either.

And Vettel has never dealt well with adversity. Remember Multi21 and the Turkish GP where he ran Webber off the road (don't remember the year).

Indeed. And as much as I liked Webber, there was no real question that Vettel was the better driver. The problem for him now is that there is also no real question at all that Hamilton is a significantly better driver than Vettel, everyone knows it and that's going to be a problem for Vettel.

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Interesting story breaking (slowly) over the last month or so. Petronas are heavily rumoured to want to pull out of Formula One, not feeling they get a return. If they go, some of their co-sponsors go. If they go, Mercedes lose around $70-90 million of funding a year. Given their massive running costs (and Hamilton's salary), they would have to win the Constructors every year to justify staying in the sport, and the Daimler board apparently consider this far too big a risk (particularly with a resurgent Ferrari).

Mercedes are apparently going to spend the summer trying to convince Petronas to stay. How well they do in the championship will play into this in a big way. If they can't convince them to stay and they can't find an alternate partner, Mercedes will enact an emergency plan where they sell the team and redeploy as an engine manufacturer (probably in 2020). Apparently McLaren will be their preferred partner in such an outcome, based on their prior strong working relationship. They may also be considering selling the team back to Honda (a ten-year round-trip via Brawn), which may explain why Mercedes and Honda engineers have been collaborating recently.

This explains why McLaren are suddenly so happy to consider returning to Mercedes, as they know they'll only be a customer team for a year or two and then will be the preferred main engine team again. In the meantime Honda get to do more development work with Sauber for another season or two and, if they're feeling ballshy, can then buy back their old team and get back into the mix.

Hamilton will probably just ride the wave and if it means ending up back at McLaren, fine (since he's always kept the door open). The question mark is over Alonso, whether he aims for Mercedes for 2018 or hangs tight at McLaren until they team up with Mercedes again. Mercedes really seem to not want to have Alonso and Hamilton sparking off one another, but Liberty Media must consider it a really mouthwatering prospect, especially if Raikkonen goes and you get a competitive second Ferrari driver in the mix as well, and possibly Red Bull moving up.

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A reasonable race with a really good ending, with two split second races going on at once and the possibility of Hamilton overtaking Ricciardo and Vettel overtaking Bottas, and Mercedes having potentially seconds to decide to swap Hamilton and Bottas to protect Hamilton's standing in the championship as much as possible. Luckily that didn't happen and Bottas scored a well-deserved win.

Someone needs to go and give Vettel a massive slap though. His start with slightly lacklustre and Bottas smashed him fair and square. Spending the whole after-race saying "He jumped the start!" when that's not physically possible (there's connecting sensors in the car, the lights and the line itself, so a car would be detected jumping the start instantly) just makes him look like an utter prat. Again.

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On 30/06/2017 at 11:04 PM, Werthead said:

Indeed. And as much as I liked Webber, there was no real question that Vettel was the better driver. The problem for him now is that there is also no real question at all that Hamilton is a significantly better driver than Vettel, everyone knows it and that's going to be a problem for Vettel.

I'm not so quick to write off Vettel in the "is he as good as Hamilton" debate. I'd still say Hamilton was better but Vettel has gone a long way in proving he is a racer. It's just a shame he also appears to be a bit of a dick at times and whiny (but Hamilton has been guilty of that in the past too). Vettel is leading the season and while he's had a lot of luck he's also earned the majority of those points with aggressive (sometimes too aggressive) racing. He genuinely seems to chase every last possible point and never seems to settle with the position he's in unless he's in first.

20 hours ago, Werthead said:

 

Someone needs to go and give Vettel a massive slap though. His start with slightly lacklustre and Bottas smashed him fair and square. Spending the whole after-race saying "He jumped the start!" when that's not physically possible (there's connecting sensors in the car, the lights and the line itself, so a car would be detected jumping the start instantly) just makes him look like an utter prat. Again.

I totally agree with this. Combined with the last race he really needs to get some PR advice as it's incredibly poor form to accuse the winner on the podium of getting a jump start. Even more petty to then refute the stewards' ruling. Given his previous race you'd think he'd have the sense to shut the fuck up. I'm really against the crowd booing drivers on the stadium but Vettel was fair game for what his behaviour on the podium yesterday. He really needs to be careful because he surely doesn't want to become the bad-guy of F1. Although Liberty Media should maybe encourage him as it's good for the sport in a wrestling/boxing sense.

 

I thought the race itself was pretty poor but I agree another 5-10 laps could have transformed it

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Really interesting read on the Mercedes gossip. I caught the initial rumour from Eddie Irvine on Channel 4 a couple races back but didn't know so much detail had since emerged.

It sounds like a bit of a merry go round with Mclaren getting mercedes and Mercedes turning back into a Honda team but it is a scenario that suits both mercedes and mclaren (and probably explains the likliehood of Mclaren getting out of the Honda deal). Bad news potentially for the current mercedes mechanics etc if Honda doesn't buy in.

I also heard that some (possibly Eddie) beleived that the "China F1" team that was registered last month may in fact be what Mercedes will become if Petronas pull out? This makes sense given it would be a quick turn around.

As for Hamilton - it does seem like he's more loyal to mercedes (the engine) and I'm guessing now Ron Dennis is gone there's an option for Hamilton keeping the trophies he wins at races. Not sure anyone would want to move to former-mercedes team if it had a Honda engine it. Besides the current Mclaren/Honda drivers. It sucks to be Alonso though if he left mclaren just before they got the mclaren engine.

I keep waiting for Ecclestone to sweep in with his billions and form a "fuck you F1" team with Ron Dennis running it just to destroy the existing field :)

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I forgot to mention how good a job Ricciardo is doing this season. That Red Bull isn't as good as his championship points suggest. It's a shame Verstappen is having some bad luck as they'd be chasing Ferarri in the constructors. It's another reason we can't say Vettel is sub par because he was outclassed by Ricciardo. I think that's more the case that Ricciardo is a world class driver. The fact him and Verstappen are evenly matched still has me convinced that Red Bull have the best driver line-up by a wide margin.

It's why the rumour of Verstappen going to Ferrari might result in pissy fits from Vettel. Not because Vettel is bad but because Ricciardo and Verstappen are major talents.

Now, if Verstappen does move, maybe Red Bull should consider the advertising exposure of having Alonso on their team? Seeing him and Ricciardo fight it out could be just as entertaining as an Alonso/Hamilton pairing (minus the history). Even better if Red Bull closes the gap so they can win races without incidents occurring.

Alonso/Ricciardo and Verstappen/Vettel with Hamilton thrown in the middle of it sounds like a good season in of itself.

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It appears the "Verstappen to Ferrari" story was set-up by the Carlos Sainzes. It was first printed by La Marca, and then either handed to The Independent or simply taken over by the latter. The story comes completely out of the blue, as Vettel does not want an equal teammate, and more importantly, Verstappen is burning with ambition and wants to make it with Red Bull. There hasn't been one breath of disloyalty on his part, and his relations outside Red Bull are all with Mercedes. If he leaves Red Bull, I think he'll be going there. Verstappen has also shown no affinity whatsoever with Ferrari, and clearly does not like Vettel. (Things might change if there were a possibility of becoming the number one driver there, but I doubt that.) Caveat: if his Red Bull keeps breaking down, all bets are off.

Howcome the Sainzes? Sainz jr has been driving for Toro Rosso for three years now, and he's eager for a better team. He's also burning with ambition. So last weekend we suddenly get him saying that he's unlikely to drive for Toro Rosso next year (which could mean "I'm walking out of my contract" or "I'm going to be driving a Red Bull"), there's the story of "Verstappen to Ferrari" and there are all kinds of statements from Red Bull: Horner and Marko and Tost all saying Sainz is going nowhere. Sainz Jr and Sr have been given a stern talking to by all of the above, and later on, on the Friday in which the "Verstappen to Ferrari" story has broken, they're both sitting in the Red Bull motorhome, when in comes Helmut Marko, gives them a brisk nod to follow and starts to tear them a new one. This is after all the parties have explained why Sainz Jr. made his statement about next year, so that can't be the reason. A Dutch journalist was around when they left, Sr two minutes before Jr. The reporter claims to have heard the entire story from sources, presumably at Red Bull. Sainz Sr later confronted him about it and denied everything, including the order of events which was already established. Ergo, it was a move to try and create unrest at Red Bull, to either get Verstappen upset or get Red Bull to oust Verstappen.

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Solid race although it really only took off in the final few laps (again). Vettel's petulant whinging resurfaced - it's okay for him to run Verstappen off the track but not okay for Verstappen to do the same, although there was contact when Vettel did it and none when Verstappen did - but seeing his tyres go on the last lap was hilarious. Hamilton is now 1 point behind him and the Mercedes updates are much more effective than Ferrari's (Ferrari even seemed to go backwards this weekend, with much heavier tyre wear than we've seen from them whilst Mercedes was fine).

Bottas also had a magisterial recovery drive. Even Hamilton seemed genuinely shocked into admiration by how well he did. And an outstanding performance by Renault. A shame McLaren couldn't expand on some promising qualifying pace though.

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Shame Hamilton's tyres couldn't blow too, bringing Bottas right into the title race.

Kimi looked devastated in the driver's room at the end. Don't blame him, even though he only lost one spot. It just ain't working for him.

Ricciardo also had a great race.

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  • 1 month later...

Apparently there's a primitive AI system on each car governing the kinetic energy system. The system works out where the car is on each track by measuring throttle inputs and then automatically deploys the electrical energy for the optimal result afterwards.

This was fine but Alonso decided to take Pouhon flat out in qualifying with no breaking (which wasn't possible for the last few years, and only barely possible this year), which confused the system. It assumed he hadn't taken the corner and counted the next corner as Pouhon. So it then started deploying the energy in the wrong places and screwed up the rest of his lap.

So Alonso quite literally outdrove the capabilities of car even more than usual, to the point of breaking it.

This guy needs a better ride. Unfortunately, with Vettel and Raikkonen now confirmed as staying at Ferrari, that's locked everyone into staying where they are. So he now has to hope that either Honda step up again (and there's been some improvements in the last few races) or that McLaren switch to Renault, as now seems to be the preferred option. But that's only going to happen if Honda can switch to another team (they've invested way too much money in F1 to simply waltz off with nothing after three years), and with Sauber having pulled out that leaves Toro Rosso on the table. Red Bull senior management are apparently open to the idea for the money, but it sounds like everyone at Toro Rosso thinks this is a bullshit idea and they are urgently trying to shoot it down.

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Extraordinary victory from Hamilton, since it required him to do something very technical: reduce speed on the safety car restart to keep Vettel behind him and prevent Vettel from using the slipstream to pass him at the top of Eau Rouge. Very few drivers would think of that and it took Vettel (who fancies himself a technical driver as well) aback. 

More frustration for Vertappen and Alonso, and Force India need to invest in some serious therapy time for their drivers.

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By reduce speed you mean keeping Vettel at bay just before the restart? Hamilton was trying to get heat into those tyres; Vettel had ultra-softs, much easier to get to optimal temperature.

Vettel was a bit too eager, if he'd waited just one second, he would have a better chance. Vettel's emotions got the better of him again.

But superb drive by Hamilton. Bottas has been reduced to a clear number two, just like Kimi. I have to say, Vettel has his whiny moments, but I love this battle between him and Hamilton. They're really pushing each other to great heights.

 

Verstappen was pretty clear afterwards, this can't go on. Extra frustrating for him that he's gotten the better of Ricciardo (great move on Kimi and Hulk, by the way) more often than not, and he's got nothing to show for it while Ricciardo is stringing together the podiums. Sort of. Max's father and unofficial manager replied for the Dutch camera's, they're both clear that this season is lost, but also there's huge pressure on Red Bull and Renault. According to reports, Renault and Alain Prost himself apologised to Max. It think it was Horner who said it. Nevertheless, there's nothing Max can do unless Mercedes want to buy off his contract at Red Bull, which I don't see happening. 

 

And Alonso... Honda is not going to do it, and there is no obvious place where he can go. I don't see him going to Williams, where development is non-existent, unless you mean backwards development. Perhaps Force India will can Perez. After today, I could see them doing just that. Ocon is a proving to be too much for Perez, and Perez can't seem to handle it. Today's moves were both deliberate attempts to thwart Ocon in my view, regardless of what Perez says. It seems Perez himself crashed out because he cut his rear tyre on Ocon's wing, but I would have understood (though not approved) it if Ocon had pushed him out.

Edit: maybe Renault for Alonso?

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