Formula One 2020

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2 hours ago, red snow said:

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.

TV coverage is from Formula One and the same worldwide. Sky and the other TV channels produce the comments and some extra coverage from the pit lane. There is a streaming service in some countries but it never lived up to what was originally promised. You get the F1-produced video and the audio from one of the TV channels. The German comment used to be RTL but it's Sky now. It's bit weird because the what's on screen doesn't always match the audio. When there's an interview in the pit lane you won't see that person on screen as that's Sky's footage, not Formula One's. 

Ecclestone didn't care about the internet. Things were supposed to change with the Liberty takeover but I guess the TV rights sell better in a bundle with the streaming rights.

 

1 minute ago, Werthead said:

They lost Hockenheim, not Nurburgring. Different owners.

Both have hosted Formula One races in the past. The last GP on the Nürburgring was 2013. After that it was Hockenheim only. There also was a time when both tracks hosted a GP in the same year, but the one on the Nürburgring wasn't called the German GP. This year's won't be either. Then the German GP alternated between the Hockenheimring and the Nürburgring for while but that ended when the Nürburgring went bankrupt. 

[red snow]

That was me mixing up nurburgring and hockenheim. Most of my comments were regarding hockenheim though eg last year's track and this year's track so my point about it being a good bargaining chip still stands especially as it gave arguably the best race last year too.

I think it was during Schumacher's glory days they often had both tracks which makes sense as i imagine the sport was at an all time high in Germany (possibly Italy too). Didn't they use to call it the "European grand Prix" if it was the second race in the country that season?

It's great we are getting three Italian tracks and hopefully spectators for some of them.

[williamjm]

2 hours ago, red snow said:

That was me mixing up nurburgring and hockenheim. Most of my comments were regarding hockenheim though eg last year's track and this year's track so my point about it being a good bargaining chip still stands especially as it gave arguably the best race last year too.

I think it was during Schumacher's glory days they often had both tracks which makes sense as i imagine the sport was at an all time high in Germany (possibly Italy too). Didn't they use to call it the "European grand Prix" if it was the second race in the country that season?

I remember the Nurburgring was sometimes the Luxembourg Grand Prix and sometimes the European Grand Prix.

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6 hours ago, red snow said:

That was me mixing up nurburgring and hockenheim. Most of my comments were regarding hockenheim though eg last year's track and this year's track so my point about it being a good bargaining chip still stands especially as it gave arguably the best race last year too.

I think it was during Schumacher's glory days they often had both tracks which makes sense as i imagine the sport was at an all time high in Germany (possibly Italy too). Didn't they use to call it the "European grand Prix" if it was the second race in the country that season?

It's great we are getting three Italian tracks and hopefully spectators for some of them.

Italy also had two races too in those days. The Italian GP at Monza and the San Marino GP at Imola. Later, in Alonso's heyday, Spain had two races. The Spanish GP at Barcelona and the European GP at Sevilla. 

[red snow]

Perez can't race after testing positive for COVID-19. They are still entering two cars do probably guiterrez or possibly vandoorne (although he's getting ready to resume his formula e championship). I wonder if alonso is busy this weekend? Or maybe give hulkenberg a chance to get on the podium.

[lmanion]

Hope the hulk gets to have a crack in the pink Merc this weekend

[Loge]

Would be nice for Hülkenberg but that's really short notice. At least the factory is right next to the track.

[Werthead]

It's Hulkenberg. He's in the car right now for FP.

[red snow]

3 hours ago, Werthead said:

It's Hulkenberg. He's in the car right now for FP.

I'm really pleased they picked him. He has history with the team and he's only missed out on 3 races. This'll finally be our chance to see what he can do in a competitive car. Chances are his next week to race as well

[Werthead]

44 minutes ago, red snow said:

I'm really pleased they picked him. He has history with the team and he's only missed out on 3 races. This'll finally be our chance to see what he can do in a competitive car. Chances are his next week to race as well

If he finally gets his podium after retiring, that would be amazing.

[williamjm]

57 minutes ago, red snow said:

I'm really pleased they picked him. He has history with the team and he's only missed out on 3 races. This'll finally be our chance to see what he can do in a competitive car. Chances are his next week to race as well

He does have a disadvantage in that I don't think he's familiar with the 2019 Mercedes/2020 Racing Point so we might not see his full potential. The second race might be a fairer test since he'll have had a lot of laps in the car by then.

[red snow]

13 hours ago, Werthead said:

If he finally gets his podium after retiring, that would be amazing.

It'd make a great story.

13 hours ago, williamjm said:

He does have a disadvantage in that I don't think he's familiar with the 2019 Mercedes/2020 Racing Point so we might not see his full potential. The second race might be a fairer test since he'll have had a lot of laps in the car by then.

Yeah I'd be very impressed if he can keep up with stroll this weekend but getting to race around the same track next week is where he'll hopefully get a chance to shine.

Surely Haas will at least be looking on how he performs although I'm starting to think grosjean's cooking keeps him in his driving seat. Although to be fair he was the one who worked out they'd be better going to the earlier version of the car last season improving their performance

[BigFatCoward]

No matter how many times I visit the in laws just down the road from Silverstone, I can never get over the traffic on grand prix weekend. 

[Werthead]

26 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

No matter how many times I visit the in laws just down the road from Silverstone, I can never get over the traffic on grand prix weekend. 

Given there's no crowds at all this weekend and pretty much nowhere you can view the action from (at least in Austria people could go up the overlooking hills with binoculars), there shouldn't really be any traffic there at all.

[BigFatCoward]

32 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Given there's no crowds at all this weekend and pretty much nowhere you can view the action from (at least in Austria people could go up the overlooking hills with binoculars), there shouldn't really be any traffic there at all.

I just realised that, it was totally unrelated horrendous traffic. So if it had of been normal F1 traffic as well it would have been unbelievable. 

[Werthead]

1 minute ago, BigFatCoward said:

I just realised that, it was totally unrelated horrendous traffic. So if it had of been normal F1 traffic as well it would have been unbelievable. 

Oh yeah, that would have been nightmarish. They should probably consider doing something about the traffic approaches around Silverstone, they've only had 70 years to do it (and the very first GP there in 1950 had massive multi-mile tailbacks with tens of thousands of people as well).

[Werthead]

Somewhat dull race up until the last 10 minutes when all hell broke loose and then we got some good excitement (and Leclerc getting his second extremely lucky podium of the season). I was surprised to see this was the first time in 70 years an F1 race was ever won with a puncture, as I'm sure that should have happened before: apparently some cars have crossed the line lower down with a puncture, or finished in the pit lane having had to pit for tyres on the last lap (which you're not allowed to do at Silverberg, as the pit entry lane is actually faster, even with the pit limit, than taking the last corners normally), but never for the win. 

There seems to be mixed feelings going into the next race though. Pirelli's tyre choice was roundly criticised, but they did prove an element of unpredictability to the race. However, Kvyat could have easily been killed if his tyres had gone off at a slightly different point, and the carnage at the end of the race could have been a lot worse. Also, whilst making things unpredictable is fun, it's also an artificial way of making thing exciting. Hoping Mercedes get a puncture and crash rather than hoping Red Bull/Honda and Ferrari stop fucking around and make better cars is an odd thing to be doing.

With Pirelli wanting to take even softer tyres to this week's grand prix, I wonder if F1 will impose double some kind of pit stop rule (although I'm not sure if they can) to try to reduce the possibility of crashes.

[polishgenius]

It wasn't the greatest race, but the now-expected appearance of the Leclerc Locomotive provided some interest at the start once the safety cars came in. It's kinda funny that he holds everyone up, makes them fight amongst themselves, then as the tires go so they're also driving dogs he leaves the fiht behind. The podiums might be a fluke but he is driving the _shit_ out of that car.

1 hour ago, Werthead said:

which you're not allowed to do at Silverberg

Your autocorrect still thinking of the Hugos I see.

Anyway the commentators referenced the idea of a mandatory two-stop for next a few times so I assume it's at least possible.

[red snow]

It was a dull race for the majority and it was entirely down to all the drivers looking after their tyres so that they could make a one-stop strategy. Thankfully it looks like they won't be able to do this in the next race as the tyres don't seem to support a one stop strategy anyhow. lando Norris was refreshingly blunt about how the tyre situation makes for dull racing and stated that even from lap one he was having to back out of certain moves for fear of ruining his tyres right away. yes, the tyres made the end of the race exciting but at the expense of the majority of it being dull and was also needlessly dangerous. Just give them tyres that they can push to the limit with. If people insist on pitstops being necessary for extra excitement then just have an arbitrary pit stop (they'll probably change the tyres anyhow)

It was good to see Ricciardo in the mix and looking more competitive. I was surprised by how racing point weren't really there in the race but on the whole it looks like Renault, racing point and mclaren are where most of the good racing will occur this season.

Leclerc is showing Alonso levels of skill with his ability to absolutely maximise any opportunity of getting points. Weirdly he's gone up in my estimations moreso this season than last and I'm starting to see exactly why Ferrari gave him the contract. He's a potential champion and that's arguably without the best car. Him and Verstappen in similar cars would be interesting to watch.

Verstappen was funny in saying it was a dull afternoon too. Not fast enough to catch the mercedes yet too fast for anyone else to trouble him. Telling his engineer to stay hydrated was a nice bit of character shining through. Albon needs to be careful though - he's nowhere near Verstappen (showing how ricciardo was impressive to equal/better max most of the time). The frustrating thing is he's excellent at working his way through the pack but it's almost always due to him making mistakes that put him at the back. I'm trying to think of a race where he's started in the top 5 and stayed there throughout the race? I guess he has the fact no-one else is really around to replace him - I just hope he gets some solid races in soon.

Norris is really stepping up this year. I suspect there's a little bit of "sideline Sainz" now he's moving to ferrari but Norris is certainly growing in confidence and is no longer cautious when it comes to overtakes or sticking his elbows out.

I really hope Russel gets a chance in a better car. I think he's doing great things with that williams, I'd stick him in the mercedes in place of Bottas. Take a chance and nurture the talent. The only thing i see standing in the way there is the fact that Bottas is so good at being a second driver. When Hamilton sings the praises of his team-mate it's only because he knows he's not a threat.

[Werthead]

3 minutes ago, red snow said:

Verstappen was funny in saying it was a dull afternoon too. Not fast enough to catch the mercedes yet too fast for anyone else to trouble him. Telling his engineer to stay hydrated was a nice bit of character shining through. Albon needs to be careful though - he's nowhere near Verstappen (showing how ricciardo was impressive to equal/better max most of the time). The frustrating thing is he's excellent at working his way through the pack but it's almost always due to him making mistakes that put him at the back. I'm trying to think of a race where he's started in the top 5 and stayed there throughout the race? I guess he has the fact no-one else is really around to replace him - I just hope he gets some solid races in soon.

I'm not sure about that. Gasly has been on fire since he went back to Toro Rosso/AlphaTuri and he absolutely smashed it this race, overtaking Vettel with an around-the-outside move, then rapidly overhauling three other cars (one of them was Bottas, so that was gifted to him, but still impressive) to finish 7th, which is way out of place for that car. Okay, Vettel's clearly phoning it in and has stopped giving a shit, but he should have still been ahead of Gasly.

Re-promoting Gasly to Red Bull would be a bit bananas, but if anyone's going to do it, Red Bull would. Or they might be tempted to drop Albon and look again at Vettel, although I'm not sure Vettel is doing himself any favours with his performances at the moment. Yeah, the car's shit compared to what it should be but it's still the 3rd or 4th best car on the track and if Leclerc can finish on the podium, Vettel should be finishing just behind him at worst.

The Racing Point is clearly a great car lacking a great driver. Stroll's actually done quite well this season and would be making an argument for staying on the team purely on merit let alone the nepotism. Perez hasn't really unleashed his usual standout performances so far, and breaking his bubble to visit his mum in Mexico is a bit of a stupid thing to do.

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I really hope Russel gets a chance in a better car. I think he's doing great things with that williams, I'd stick him in the mercedes in place of Bottas. Take a chance and nurture the talent. The only thing i see standing in the way there is the fact that Bottas is so good at being a second driver. When Hamilton sings the praises of his team-mate it's only because he knows he's not a threat.

That would be more exciting. I think Mercedes are tempted but they quite like the harmonious relationship and they like it that Bottas stepped up last year and delivered second place and maximised the constructors (which he didn't do the year before). It's harder to say with this year. With Hamilton likely to sign another 3-year deal, I wonder if they're debating about giving Bottas a 3-year deal as well, just to settle things down for the next two years.

Bottas I think is an awkward position. Winning the occasional race and getting pretty much automatic podiums almost every race weekend (bar mishaps) is great, but he needs to up his game and beat Hamilton fairly on track, which not even Rosberg (who is likely a better racer than Bottas) really managed (Rosberg needed Hamilton's worst performance-afflicted season of all time to get that single championship victory).