Formula One 2020

[Raja]

5 minutes ago, Toth said:

Okay, my comment about Hamilton's luck didn't age well, did it?

I don't think his wins these last few seasons have anything to do with luck, imo. He's had the better car and out driven whatever competition he has had. Of course there is some luck involved ( Which driver that has won as many titles as he had doesn't?), but the reason for his championship wins has not been 'luck'.

[Werthead]

You could see Hamilton's breaks were smouldering on the restart. He should have gone ultra-conservative there but it's hard to see how he could have avoided that without still losing a lot of places.     

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To be honest F1 is a strange beast to get into nowadays (or even in the past, really) what with how vast the differences between the cars are and how Mercedes is slapping everyone into the ground with a vastly superior car and an extremely good (if annoyingly morose) driver. Who has absurd luck, as this race shows quite impressively. Take for example George Russell who is an amazing young driver who last year got the chance to switch with Hamilton and absolutely dominated the race, but with his actual team fails to get any points.

Russell did get points, just not very many. 

Also, morose? Hamilton isn't Ricciardo bouncing around like Tigger, but he's a reasonably positive guy. He's not exactly Kimi in his demeanour.

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I turned the race on out of curiosity and am totally clueless as to what happened. F1 seems like something I could really get behind, but it's not promoted at all in the states.

It's good but Azerbaijan is easily the craziest, most unpredictable race on the calendar, so this isn't really representative. The next race in France will 100% not be as good as this (well, if it is, it will be the first time in racing history) but the two races in Austria afterwards could be tasty.

[Toth]

1 minute ago, Raja said:

I don't think his wins these last few seasons have anything to do with luck, imo. He's had the better car and out driven whatever competition he has had.

I don't deny that, but I was rather thinking about how convenient some of the latest red flags were after mess-ups he did. That he's able to plow through the field like an absolute monster in a car that now also conveniently looks like something Darth Vader would drive, is a different thing entirely.

1 minute ago, Werthead said:

Also, morose? Hamilton isn't Ricciardo bouncing around like Tigger, but he's a reasonably positive guy. He's not exactly Kimi in his demeanour.

Maybe I used the wrong word? I was aiming at his incessant complaining about his tyres and how every race that he wins with a 50 seconds gap somehow always is the hardest race he ever did.

[Werthead]

I'm starting to think that Hamilton might eke out the driver's championship, but Red Bull could easily win the constructors' and maybe quite comfortably if Bottas can't get his shit together. Perez levelling up to stick with Verstappen through the race will cause real nightmares for Mercedes if he can do that race on race.

Great to see the affection everyone has for Checo as well.

1 minute ago, Toth said:

Maybe I used the wrong word? I was aiming at his incessant complaining about his tyres and how every race that he wins with a 50 seconds gap somehow always is the hardest race he ever did.

Oh yeah, that's annoying. To be fair, it's been a while since he's done that. Every time he's complained recently (at least this season) is because they've really had problems with the tyres.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

20 minutes ago, Toth said:

To be honest F1 is a strange beast to get into nowadays (or even in the past, really) what with how vast the differences between the cars are and how Mercedes is slapping everyone into the ground with a vastly superior car and an extremely good (if annoyingly morose) driver. Who has absurd luck, as this race shows quite impressively. Take for example George Russell who is an amazing young driver who last year got the chance to switch with Hamilton and absolutely dominated the race, but with his actual team fails to get any points.

Though the Corona years have oddly become quite a bit more unpredictable and the Mercedes seems to suffer on street circuits, leveling the playing field a bit. And I must admit, I'm just here rooting for Vettel, the German four times champion whom Ferrari left to starve and who seems to have the time of his life with Aston Martin, who in this year seems to be a weaker midfield car that he managed to miraculously drag to third, overtaking his prodigious former Ferrari teammate while at it. I really hope he can make the most out of the restart...

Interesting. I really don't know what's going on, but that was a thousand times better than watching a car go around in a circle 500 times. 

[Werthead]

That bottom one is the image of the weekend. "Experience Azerbaijan" indeed.

[Toth]

20 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Interesting. I really don't know what's going on, but that was a thousand times better than watching a car go around in a circle 500 times. 

Yeah, but as far as I can tell Indycars are actually able to fight each other for positions through racing instead of mostly only through strategy calls, so... I don't know, I don't watch any American race series, so the judgement is yours.

For further reference of really exciting races that happened last year, I'd point at Monza and Sakhir:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TB5yhZdF8SI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eglCFzxWg6U

It should be noted that in terms of raw talent the current F1 grid is a once in a lifetime lineup of prodigies who are potential world champions if they got the right car. Hamilton of course in front, but Verstappen, Leclerc, Norris and Russell are also extremely skilled (and, as weird as it is, seem to all have close relationships due to their carting days together, meaning quite some friendly rivalries) and Schumacher has an impressive record either, but it's hard to tell given that he has the worst car by far on the grid and Tsunoda as well, but he seems to struggle getting adjusted to his car. Then you also have previous champions Vettel, Alonso and Raikkönnen (though the latter seems to have settled on driving into his retirement without much in terms of ambitions) and other less prestigious, but still spectacular drivers like the victory hungry Gasly who seems six times faster after being kicked out of Top Team Red Bull, Perez who seems to have gotten an invincibility mod for his tyres somehow and Sainz whose gamble to go to Ferrari is still somewhat up in the air whether there is a payoff.

[Raja]

Drivers complain all the time about their car/ tires etc, it's par for the course for being an F1 driver

[kungtotte]

https://i.vgy.me/KE75T0.jpg I like this one better

[Werthead]

Audio message that Hamilton had switched off the brake-warming system and the light went off but the actual system stayed on and cooked the brakes (or, more accurately, reset the balance to manual without telling the driver it was on manual, so Hamilton didn't know to switch the cooling off). Perez also had a critical system failure after crossing the finish line.

Verstappen looking somewhat happier at the end of the race since he didn't lose out to Lewis (though he and Lewis lost out to everyone else).

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

16 minutes ago, Toth said:

Yeah, but as far as I can tell Indycars are actually able to fight each other for positions through racing instead of mostly only through strategy calls, so... I don't know, I don't watch any American race series, so the judgement is yours.

For further reference of really exciting races that happened last year, I'd point at Monza and Sakhir:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TB5yhZdF8SI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eglCFzxWg6U

Can't say, stock car racing has no appeal to me, though I am always here to see some drag racing. F1 may be a happy medium. I'll check those videos out in a bit, but for now I need to throw towels all over my place because one of my roommates turned on all our garden watering supplies without closing the windows so now we have a huge mess on our hands.

[TheLastWolf]

Lock this thread up, males, females, others and prefer not to say! Crossed 20 pages, plus, it ain't 2020 anymore 

[Werthead]

42 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Can't say, stock car racing has no appeal to me, though I am always here to see some drag racing. F1 may be a happy medium. I'll check those videos out in a bit, but for now I need to throw towels all over my place because one of my roommates turned on all our garden watering supplies without closing the windows so now we have a huge mess on our hands.

A real crash course in F1:

• There are ten teams, called "constructors," each fielding two drivers (plus a reserve driver who can step in if one of the main drivers is injured or ill). The current constructors are: Alfa Romeo, AlphaTauri, Alpine (effectively Renault), Aston Martin, Ferrari, Haas, McLaren, Mercedes, Red Bull and Williams. The teams tend to rebrand and rename themselves occasionally, or even sell out the entire team to another company.
• The teams are divided between "works teams" and "customer teams." Works teams have an engine built specifically for that team, customer teams buy their engines from the works manufacturers. Works teams have a perceived advantage in that engine/chassis development can be more closely integrated together. The current works teams are Ferrari, Mercedes, Red Bull (who are the works team for Honda, who do not have their own team, but from next year Red Bull are building their own engines based on the Honda design) and Alpine (who are the works team for Renault engines). Alfa Romeo and Haas use Ferrari engines; Aston Martin, McLaren and Williams use Mercedes engines; and AlphaTauri use Honda engines (and will use Red Bull engines from next year).
• Some teams are perceived to be "B-teams" for bigger teams up the grid. There's no formal definition of this, except that a B-team will usually buy most of their components from their respective "A-team", will usually run at least one driver as a test run for the bigger team and will sometimes make racing or strategic decisions that emphasise the relationship with the other team. Unofficially, Haas is seen as a B-team for Ferrari (Alfa Romeo to a lesser extent); and Williams (and to a lesser extent Aston Martin) are seen as B-teams for Mercedes. The only "official B-team" is AlphaTauri, who are literally owned by Red Bull, and will sometimes swap drivers with them mid-season if they feel the drivers are not performing well at Red Bull.
• All twenty drivers take part in the driver's championship and fight one another (even team-mates) to maximise their points. Teams can step in and give orders if they think their drivers are going to damage one another's chances.
• The combined points of the two drivers give the team their total points for the constructor's championship. The constructor's championship results in large cash bonuses for the teams. The tension between drivers wanting to drive for themselves whilst the teams want them to maximise the results for the team is a key part of the drama of F1. Drivers are on different contracts (typically 1-3 years) with teams so may be more or less compliant with team orders depending on their contracts and their overall skill level and how in demand they are.
• Drivers have to have a super-licence and will have usually competed in lower tiers of motorsport, including Formula Two, Formula Three and a myriad of lower categories (which seem to change their names on a regular basis). In theory, Formula E (the all-electric category) and W Series (the women's championship) as well, though in practice Formula E has turned into a retirement home for former F1 drivers and F1 teams haven't hired a female driver since the 1970s.
• In theory, drivers will be the brightest and best and will be sponsored by F1 teams from a very young age to come up through karting and lower formulas before making it to F1. Increasingly, due to the crazy finances of F1, we're seeing very rich kids competing in the sport by buying their team places; three of the current grid are the sons of billionaires, one of whom is also a team-owner and one wants to get more involved in the sport. Cue a lot of grumbling that naturally talented drivers are being left out of the sport in favour of worse-but-richer drivers (notably the presence of the cheerfully awful Nikita Mazepin, whilst a much stronger but poorer driver from Formula Two, Calum Ilott, languishes as a reserve driver).
• The races take place over a number of races all around the world. In recent years that's hovered between 17 and 20 races, but this year they are trying to go to 23 races, and possibly 24 next year. This was the sixth race of the season, which usually runs from March to November, but December this year.
• The rules and regulations for F1 are complex and change every year in minor ways. Every 6-8 years there will be a major rules shake-up, usually about engines or aerodynamics. Next year there is a huge aero shift which should result in very different-looking and different-working cars. The engines, which have stayed the same since 2014, will change again around 2024.
• British driver Lewis Hamilton, who drivers for Mercedes, is currently the most successful driver in the history of F1. He holds the joint-record (with Michael Schumacher) for world championship titles (7) and the overall record for wins (98), pole positions (100) and podium positions (169). He is the favourite to win this year as well, despite a current slight points deficit to Max Verstappen, who drivers for Red Bull.
• Mercedes have been the dominant team in the sport since 2014, winning every constructors' championship since then (six times with Hamilton and once with now-retired Nico Rosberg). However, this year they look increasingly likely to lose out to Red Bull, who won every championship from 2010 to 2013 and are looking to reclaim the crown.
• Ferrari are the oldest team in the sport and traditionally one of the strongest races in the field, having won more constructors' championships then any other team. However, they haven't won the constructors' championship since 2008 or the driver's championship since 2007. They showed good form in 2010, 2012, and 2017-19, but haven't been able to challenge consistently to win an entire campaign (and had their worst season in forty years last year). Italian F1 fans, and Ferrari fans globally, are known for their absurd levels of passion and Ferrari are under way more pressure than any other team as a result, often making barking mad decisions to appease the press and fans.

[Toth]

19 minutes ago, Werthead said:

In theory, drivers will be the brightest and best and will be sponsored by F1 teams from a very young age to come up through karting and lower formulas before making it to F1. Increasingly, due to the crazy finances of F1, we're seeing very rich kids competing in the sport by buying their team places; three of the current grid are the sons of billionaires, one of whom is also a team-owner and one wants to get more involved in the sport. Cue a lot of grumbling that naturally talented drivers are being left out of the sport in favour of worse-but-richer drivers (notably the presence of the cheerfully awful Nikita Mazepin, whilst a much stronger but poorer driver from Formula Two, Calum Ilott, languishes as a reserve driver).

It should be noted that the presence of pay drivers isn't remotely new given that motorsports isn't a cheap sport anyway, it's just that the rich daddies have become richer and more involved in the teams themselves than they did in the past. It should be highlighted that Niki Lauda, Michael Schumacher and Fernando Alonso were initially also considered pay drivers and so is Perez big time.

[Werthead]

3 hours ago, Toth said:

It should be noted that the presence of pay drivers isn't remotely new given that motorsports isn't a cheap sport anyway, it's just that the rich daddies have become richer and more involved in the teams themselves than they did in the past. It should be highlighted that Niki Lauda, Michael Schumacher and Fernando Alonso were initially also considered pay drivers and so is Perez big time.

True. Pay drivers are not new but in the past there was the feeling they needed to justify their presence with actual performance: Lauda, Schumacher and Alonso are three of the best drivers in the history of F1. Perez was in a different situation in that he was not rich, but he picked up significant backing from the richest man in Mexico off the back of his impressive performances in lower categories and carting. So if he could be called a pay driver, it was becoming a pay driver through his natural skill. Even Pastor Maldonado, much derided as he was, got a pole and won a race in a dramatically inferior car (he's still the last driver to win for Williams), showing he did have some skills, even if they were outweighed by sloppier performances.

Of the three main pay drivers currently in F1, Latifi is indifferent to mediocre, Lance Stroll is actually half-decent and has had some outstanding results and I think has now more or less outgrown the "pay driver" tag, and Marzipan should not be racing in F1.

[Toth]

1 hour ago, Werthead said:

Pay drivers are not new but in the past there was the feeling they needed to justify their presence with actual performance: Lauda, Schumacher and Alonso are three of the best drivers in the history of F1.

Indeed, Alonso and Schumacher seem more comparable with a Perez rather than a Stroll or Mazepin, what with coming from humble backgrounds and having caught the attention of a strong sponsor supporting their career. Meanwhile Lauda, while coming from a rich family, literally got himself into personal financial jeopardy taking on loans in a mad gamble to prove himself. I admit, the whole "rich dad buys you a spot" thing is comparably new and Stroll seems to be a rather unique case of actually having decent skills to show for it. Even Maldonado seems to have bought his pace mostly through his recklessness.