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Formula One 2020


Werthead

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11 minutes ago, williamjm said:

Alonso may have been a great driver but he was often terrible at picking teams. I suppose at least the Renault might be an upgrade on the McLaren Honda even if as you say McLaren themselves are also better than their previous incarnation.

Some reports that Alonso apparently just misses the buzz of being in F1 and is apparently much happier this time around to just show up and be around in F1, especially if he can ace the triple crown at Le Mans this year before his return to F1. Although you do wonder how long it will be before he starts moaning about constantly coming in around 11th, with an occasional lucky 6th or 7th, which seems to be the upper limit of the Renault's capabilities this year (and probably next).

I've seen a lot of grumbling that Alonso and Raikkonen basically hanging around for working retirements in F1 is blocking more youngsters coming into the sport, which is a reasonable complaint, although arguably half the field now is made up of youngsters and relative newcomers.

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2 hours ago, williamjm said:

Alonso may have been a great driver but he was often terrible at picking teams. I suppose at least the Renault might be an upgrade on the McLaren Honda even if as you say McLaren themselves are also better than their previous incarnation.

I'd like to be wrong but I suspect his return will be similar to that of schumacher with mercedes. Let's hope the new rules shuffle things up in a way that he'll have a competitive car. Either way Alonso or Ricciardo will be kicking themselves

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  • 2 weeks later...

Ricciardo probably did the right thing. Mc Laren have improved a lot over the last couple of years. Renault haven't. Losing their only customer won't help either.

Ferrari had a horrible race at the second Spielberg GP, with Leclerc bumping into Vettel. Of course, their qualifying result wasn't very good anyway, but retiring in lap 1 is as bad as it gets. They had a better qualifying in Hungary, but not a particularly great race, especially Leclerc. Vettel gave a solid performance, but P6 was all the car was good for. Maybe he could have been 5th if they hadn't messed up that pit stop. One has to wonder about their pit stop strategy and tyre choices, too. They definitely got it wrong with Leclerc's first stop. 

That "pink Mercedes" is still damn fast. Will be interesting how that protest by Renault goes. If it's deemed legal they'll be in a very good position. once the budget cap kicks in.

The championship is going to be a snoozefest as nobody is anywhere near the Mercedes. Maybe we see a closer competition between Hamilton and Bottas, but that's it. Red Bull should easily finish second in the constructors competition ahead of Racing Point. Hard to tell where McLaren is. Their performance in Hungary was not great. Ferrari is currently fifth, and that probably reflects their strength quite accurately. Sainz might come to regret moving. 

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9 hours ago, Toth said:

Verstappen's crash seems to have fixed the car, he should do that more often!

Well, that botched start cost Bottas a lot of time. And everybody was struggling with the tyres. Red Bull seem to have managed theirs better than Ferrari but their pace wasn't anywhere near that of Mercedes.

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Interesting stuff across the three races. Mercedes in another league, Racing Point impressive but being let down by their drivers at the moment (although Stroll did relatively well in the last race). On paper that's a Red Bull-equaliser and Ferrari-beater, so they need to be bringing in better results. McLaren looking like they might not be able to sustain the form from the first two races over more demanding and technical tracks, but Silverstone should give us a clearer view of that. Ferrari seemingly all over the place. Williams have made a monumental step forwards from last year but they were so far behind last year that this has only really moved them into the backmarkers. Still, at least they're having to fight a little with the Alfas and Haas.

Big news of the week driver-wise was that Vettel has been in strong talks with Racing Point. Racing Point's opening performance, their already-impressive engineering team, their stronger financing under Lawrence Stroll and their transition into Aston Martin next year all make them a much more attractive prospect to Vettel than a few weeks ago, whilst Vettel's proven ability and technical skills make him attractive to the team. Despite his recent downturn in form, he's also clearly better than Lance Stroll and probably better - and certainly way more consistent - than Sergio Perez.

That does leave Perez in a bind. His strength in bringing money to a struggling team is clearly meaningless when the team suddenly has access to effectively unlimited funding (and they're going to have to buy him out of his contract for next year, which will be expensive), and although he's handy on the track he's also not absolutely outstanding. He is a popular driver though and scrappy in a dogfight, so he's clearly attractive to other teams. Haas have reportedly opened talks and I think that's a no-brainer (ideally they should drop both Magnussen and Grosjean at this stage), and I can imagine Williams and Alfa being interested as well. From Perez's POV the only concern is over Haas's long-term commitment to the sport, with some speculation that if they don't get some good results this year (which seems unlikely) they'll decide to make next year their last in F1.

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Interesting to see how those pan out. In theory Portimao and Mugello should be good, although there's been concerns that they may not be well-suited to the width of the cars and overtaking. Nurburgring we know can be good. Imola is almost too fast, for obvious reasons, but they have redesigned the track and improved safety even further since F1 stopped going there in 2006. The only current driver who's raced there is Kimi.

They've confirmed the Americans isn't happening, so that's Montreal, Austin, Mexico and Interlagos all gone. Apparently Vietnam is very likely to happen, and Sepang is in negotiations for a surprise return to the calendar. Abu Dhabi and two races in Bahrain are also probable, which takes us to 18. I'm not seeing much scope for further additions, unless they decided they could go to Australia in November or December and actually race this time.

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13 hours ago, Werthead said:

Interesting to see how those pan out. In theory Portimao and Mugello should be good, although there's been concerns that they may not be well-suited to the width of the cars and overtaking. Nurburgring we know can be good. Imola is almost too fast, for obvious reasons, but they have redesigned the track and improved safety even further since F1 stopped going there in 2006. The only current driver who's raced there is Kimi.

They've confirmed the Americans isn't happening, so that's Montreal, Austin, Mexico and Interlagos all gone. Apparently Vietnam is very likely to happen, and Sepang is in negotiations for a surprise return to the calendar. Abu Dhabi and two races in Bahrain are also probable, which takes us to 18. I'm not seeing much scope for further additions, unless they decided they could go to Australia in November or December and actually race this time.

So I guess that will qualify as "3 continents"? Someone stated earlier in the thread that the tournament has to occur on three continents to be considered a world championship. Although there's only really two Euprope and asia unless they try and include middle east and singapore as africa/australasia. An Australian race would seal it for sure though and to be honest I think they can easily say "we raced everywhere in the world where it was safe to do so" although I know there will be some pedants and Hamilton haters will cling to it not being a real world championship. Not me as long as there's 12 races.

The German grand prix could be even more eventful at that time of year as it often snows there. Although I imagine that would be an abandoned race unless they have snow tyres somewhere.

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2 hours ago, red snow said:

So I guess that will qualify as "3 continents"? Someone stated earlier in the thread that the tournament has to occur on three continents to be considered a world championship. Although there's only really two Euprope and asia unless they try and include middle east and singapore as africa/australasia. An Australian race would seal it for sure though and to be honest I think they can easily say "we raced everywhere in the world where it was safe to do so" although I know there will be some pedants and Hamilton haters will cling to it not being a real world championship. Not me as long as there's 12 races.

The German grand prix could be even more eventful at that time of year as it often snows there. Although I imagine that would be an abandoned race unless they have snow tyres somewhere.

My thought on that is that if Fangio can still be called one of the greatest drivers of all time when several of his championships were won with eight races (and one with seven), it's good enough for anybody else. And the last time we had an 18 race season was 2008 (and in fact 2009 was shorter at 17 races) and nobody has any issue with those.

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15 hours ago, Werthead said:

They've confirmed the Americans isn't happening, so that's Montreal, Austin, Mexico and Interlagos all gone. Apparently Vietnam is very likely to happen, and Sepang is in negotiations for a surprise return to the calendar. Abu Dhabi and two races in Bahrain are also probable, which takes us to 18. I'm not seeing much scope for further additions, unless they decided they could go to Australia in November or December and actually race this time.

Have they ruled out Japan? I haven't heard anything about it in the lists of potential GPs so I'm assuming the Japanese aren't interested even if it seemed a plausible option.

2 hours ago, red snow said:

So I guess that will qualify as "3 continents"? Someone stated earlier in the thread that the tournament has to occur on three continents to be considered a world championship. Although there's only really two Euprope and asia unless they try and include middle east and singapore as africa/australasia.

Alternatively they could go for the Boris approach and declare that Britain is no longer part of Europe.

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3 hours ago, williamjm said:

Have they ruled out Japan? I haven't heard anything about it in the lists of potential GPs so I'm assuming the Japanese aren't interested even if it seemed a plausible option.

Japan, Singapore and Azerbaijan were all cancelled last month.

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16 hours ago, Werthead said:

Japan, Singapore and Azerbaijan were all cancelled last month.

I think in general all the street circuits have been cancelled due to safety concerns except for vietnam, bizarrely.

19 hours ago, williamjm said:

Have they ruled out Japan? I haven't heard anything about it in the lists of potential GPs so I'm assuming the Japanese aren't interested even if it seemed a plausible option.

Alternatively they could go for the Boris approach and declare that Britain is no longer part of Europe.

That actually sounds like the kind of thing Boris' government would consider - rebranding the UK as a continent

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52 minutes ago, red snow said:

I think in general all the street circuits have been cancelled due to safety concerns except for vietnam, bizarrely.

That actually sounds like the kind of thing Boris' government would consider - rebranding the UK as a continent

The thing about the city circuits is that they require months of preparation work. IIRC, they need to start in May to host the Singapore GP in September. They probably could have had the race but they couldn't be sure when they had to make the decision. Other tracks are located in public parks that have to be closed to the public when the track is prepared for the GP. You can't hold races there whenever it suits Formula One.

Another thing is logistics. Formula One travels with a minimum crew and it is strictly divided into "bubbles." Members of one bubble aren't supposed to mingle with members of other bubbles. Travelling overseas has to be a nightmare under these circumstances if it's possible at all.

The three continents rule has been waived for this season.

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On 7/26/2020 at 2:57 PM, Loge said:

The thing about the city circuits is that they require months of preparation work. IIRC, they need to start in May to host the Singapore GP in September. They probably could have had the race but they couldn't be sure when they had to make the decision. Other tracks are located in public parks that have to be closed to the public when the track is prepared for the GP. You can't hold races there whenever it suits Formula One.

Another thing is logistics. Formula One travels with a minimum crew and it is strictly divided into "bubbles." Members of one bubble aren't supposed to mingle with members of other bubbles. Travelling overseas has to be a nightmare under these circumstances if it's possible at all.

The three continents rule has been waived for this season.

Good to know there won't be any desperate finding of tracks in the americas and australia just to fit that ruling.

It sounds like Vietnam is optimistic based on the logistics as it's definitely a city circuit.

I'll have to watch the end of race celebrations more carefully next time to see whether the teams were staying in their bubbles. I guess Vettel screwed it up when he was talking to Horner without a mask. Also seems a bit odd that drivers are flying back to visit family etc. Either the family members are quaranting throughout or they're just turning a blind eye to it. In many ways it's amazing the season happened at all. I know there are sports occurring within countries but international sports appear to have been canned. I guess F1 has the advantage of being relatively small and not relying on spectators as heavily for money/atmosphere.

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I'm wondering if this situation is going to dramatically change how F1 and the tracks interact.

The system previously used, where the tracks would pay F1 to host a race, seems to have been outright bizarre. If there's no tracks F1 cannot exist, so the tracks really hold the power. But because of Ecclestone's divide-and-conquer approach, they couldn't muster that power and we ended up with a lot of solid tracks in countries with proven F1 fanbases being thrown out in favour of sterile and unimaginative tracks in remote places where nobody gives a shit but the local dictator likes the prestige of hosting a race. Both the teams and drivers hate going to these places and would prefer more races in Europe or North America.

Now the tracks should really be looking at what they can do with F1 paying them to host the tracks (which makes way more sense) and doing some kind of profit-sharing thing afterwards based on ticket receipts. This would prevent favourite tracks disappearing from the calendar and would ensure a better atmosphere in years to come. The new F1 owners seem at least somewhat saner than Ecclestone (rumblings that sponsorship pressure is building to make F1 agree that all international television rights will have to go to free-to-air channels, possibly starting when the Sky deal comes up for renegotiation in 2023), so we'll see.

The real challenge will be if we get barnstorming races in Germany, Portugal and Italy/San Marino and there's a huge outcry for a return to them next year.

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5 hours ago, Werthead said:

I'm wondering if this situation is going to dramatically change how F1 and the tracks interact.

The system previously used, where the tracks would pay F1 to host a race, seems to have been outright bizarre. If there's no tracks F1 cannot exist, so the tracks really hold the power. But because of Ecclestone's divide-and-conquer approach, they couldn't muster that power and we ended up with a lot of solid tracks in countries with proven F1 fanbases being thrown out in favour of sterile and unimaginative tracks in remote places where nobody gives a shit but the local dictator likes the prestige of hosting a race. Both the teams and drivers hate going to these places and would prefer more races in Europe or North America.

Now the tracks should really be looking at what they can do with F1 paying them to host the tracks (which makes way more sense) and doing some kind of profit-sharing thing afterwards based on ticket receipts. This would prevent favourite tracks disappearing from the calendar and would ensure a better atmosphere in years to come. The new F1 owners seem at least somewhat saner than Ecclestone (rumblings that sponsorship pressure is building to make F1 agree that all international television rights will have to go to free-to-air channels, possibly starting when the Sky deal comes up for renegotiation in 2023), so we'll see.

The real challenge will be if we get barnstorming races in Germany, Portugal and Italy/San Marino and there's a huge outcry for a return to them next year.

As far as the TV rights are concerned, I can't see that Liberty are any better than Ecclestone. They just sold the exclusive rights for Germany to Sky, which Ecclestone has always refused to do. That's going to cost Formula One about 90 percent of its audience here. Their streaming service is also going away. You have to buy Sky's instead. 

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Melbourne is currently the centre of the pandemic in Australia. There is no way an Australian gp happens this year imo. Very excited for Portugal and Imola can't wait to see the cars on those tracks

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On 7/28/2020 at 7:03 AM, Loge said:

As far as the TV rights are concerned, I can't see that Liberty are any better than Ecclestone. They just sold the exclusive rights for Germany to Sky, which Ecclestone has always refused to do. That's going to cost Formula One about 90 percent of its audience here. Their streaming service is also going away. You have to buy Sky's instead. 

I'm surprised F1 haven't considered their own streaming subscription channel. I guess that would require them putting the coverage together though. So in effect sky does that for them.

If it wasn't for my brother having sky sports and us liking to get together to watch it, I'd have checked out already. It's a shame ch4 uk can only do highlights as whenever i watch qualifying highlights with them the pre show, presenters and commentators are much better than sky's.

@Werthead it really does seem like an excellent opportunity for track owners to renegotiate the ridiculous deal they currently have. F1 must have begged Germany as they lost the track over money last year. I wouldn't be surprised if germany and the other 'new' tracks (as well as those hosting multiple races) haven't all negotiated a deal going forward as coronavirus could still be an issue next year especially until spring. It's like you said though, unless multiple tracks form a coalition whereby if one walks they all walk, F1 can always divide and conquer.

I agree that it's a bit hypocritical making (yet still botching) BLM while holding races in China and Russia with their treatment of muslim and LGBT communities. 

Still if racing is behind a pay wall that's more likely to make me stop watching than if all the races were at dictatorships. Although it'd make the decision a lot easier if they were.

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2 hours ago, red snow said:

 

@Werthead it really does seem like an excellent opportunity for track owners to renegotiate the ridiculous deal they currently have. F1 must have begged Germany as they lost the track over money last year. I wouldn't be surprised if germany and the other 'new' tracks (as well as those hosting multiple races) haven't all negotiated a deal going forward as coronavirus could still be an issue next year especially until spring. It's like you said though, unless multiple tracks form a coalition whereby if one walks they all walk, F1 can always divide and conquer.

I agree that it's a bit hypocritical making (yet still botching) BLM while holding races in China and Russia with their treatment of muslim and LGBT communities. 

Still if racing is behind a pay wall that's more likely to make me stop watching than if all the races were at dictatorships. Although it'd make the decision a lot easier if they were.

They lost Hockenheim, not Nurburgring. Different owners.

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