kungtotte Posted September 1, 2021 Share Posted September 1, 2021 On the topic of sponsorship, Williams declared a couple of weeks ago that they aren't reliant on pay drivers to operate any more which would open up their choice of drivers much more than it is now. So Chadwick or anyone else has a better shot at replacing Latifi despite not bringing in the big bucks. As for the rest... the rumour mill is constantly spinning and while some are more credible than others (Russell signing for Mercedes isn't exactly a curveball prediction for example), some are way out there but spoken about as though they are done deals. Out of all the rumours discussed right now Alfa-Romeo moving away from a Ferrari engine is the wildest one yet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Iskaral Pust Posted September 1, 2021 Share Posted September 1, 2021 What are the best sources for F1 news? I used to follow the sport very closely back in the Schumacher era, but lost touch when I first moved to the US and found the coverage and commentary for races to be unwatchably bad here. But after watching Drive To Survive I’m remembering what I was missing, and I heard that US race coverage has improved over the years. Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Werthead Posted September 1, 2021 Share Posted September 1, 2021 5 hours ago, kungtotte said: Out of all the rumours discussed right now Alfa-Romeo moving away from a Ferrari engine is the wildest one yet. Alfa Romeo F1 isn't really an Alfa Romeo works team, though. They're still Sauber with a title sponsorship and a technical/commercial partnership. The team can sever its Alfa Romeo partnership fairly straightforwardly and still operate, it'd just need to change its name. The motivating factor here is that the team believe that the technical advantages of an alliance with Ferrari via Alfa Romeo are currently negated by Ferrari being so poor, so the offer of an alliance with Mercedes is more appealing, plus Ferderic Vasseur and Toto Wolff are friends and political allies in the F1 paddock. This may be appealing to Mercedes because they really only have one B-team, Williams, who are insufficiently competitive to give other drivers of interest a really good workout (McLaren are 100% their own team with their own agenda, despite using Mercedes engines, and Aston Martin have moved in the same direction). That said, Williams are doing better than Alfa this season so who knows if that's a good idea. Quote What are the best sources for F1 news? I used to follow the sport very closely back in the Schumacher era, but lost touch when I first moved to the US and found the coverage and commentary for races to be unwatchably bad here. But after watching Drive To Survive I’m remembering what I was missing, and I heard that US race coverage has improved over the years. The BBC F1 page is useful because it thoroughly rejects any kind of rumour-mongering and only reports confirmed information. However, because F1 tends to confirm things very rarely, that does mean sometimes weeks go by without substantive updates. Otherwise Autosport is okay, but paywall half their articles. Planet F1 is reasonable. F1's own news page is surprisingly decent, since F1 (the sport) often has no idea what's going on with the driver market or internal team politics, so they seem to enjoy following that as much as anyone else. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Werthead Posted September 1, 2021 Share Posted September 1, 2021 There we go, Kimi's gone (well, from the end of the season). Possibly the bluntest driver to ever race in Formula One, whose taciturn, filter-less and irritable sober persona was apparently completely at odds with his incapable-of-shutting-up party animal side which came out whenever he passed within a mile of alcohol. Extremely fast in his day, not far off winning the 2003 and 2005 titles on merit, undermined by McLaren reliability and a superior Schumacher and Alonso, but picked up his only World Championship in 2007 by mounting an impressive fightback against Alonso and Hamilton (who to be fair were at each other's throats all season long, which may or may not have contributed to McLaren's end-of-season meltdown in form). His Lotus comeback was spectacular but brief, and he suffered the ignomy of being out-performed by Romain Grosjean after a sterling start for the team with two wins. After that a slow, slow decline over many seasons being outraced by Alonso and Vettel, though his consolation win in 2018 in the USA was quite nice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Chatywin et al. Posted September 4, 2021 Share Posted September 4, 2021 Vroom, vroom! I really like how quickly the coverage is changing here in the states. They actually explain a ton of things for noobs like me during these qualifying sessions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Werthead Posted September 4, 2021 Share Posted September 4, 2021 The banking at Zandvoort isn't quite as dramatic as it first appeared, and doesn't seem to be side-loading the tyres anywhere near as much as feared (Pirelli have said the tyres are actually not getting worked out as much as at Silverstone and maybe Spa, let alone some of the heavy turning circuits). However, they seem to be far more sensitive to hitting the curbs and grass than at most tracks. Both Williams crashed out from very brief touches outside the lines, which seems to have encouraged everyone else to stay more firmly within the limits. It looks like both Verstappen and Hamilton had more pace to give but they may have gone slightly conservative on the last run. Norris looking weirdly off-pace, given that Ricciardo did really well. Giovinazzi has reportedly been told his fate will be decided at the end of the Monza weekend (next weekend!) so he has to pull his socks up, which he seems to have responded to. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wilbur Posted September 4, 2021 Share Posted September 4, 2021 2 hours ago, Werthead said: The banking at Zandvoort isn't quite as dramatic as it first appeared, and doesn't seem to be side-loading the tyres anywhere near as much as feared (Pirelli have said the tyres are actually not getting worked out as much as at Silverstone and maybe Spa, let alone some of the heavy turning circuits)... Did the Zandvoort track have some work recently to increase bank angle in some of the turns? The quali summary I watched looked like there was some good banking on a couple of turns - not Indianapolis style, but more than I remember from back in the day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Werthead Posted September 4, 2021 Share Posted September 4, 2021 24 minutes ago, Wilbur said: Did the Zandvoort track have some work recently to increase bank angle in some of the turns? The quali summary I watched looked like there was some good banking on a couple of turns - not Indianapolis style, but more than I remember from back in the day. Yeah, I think they increased it a bit, but not a huge amount. It's certainly not Indy-style, but then modern F1 cars couldn't handle that anyway (or they might, but the tyres wouldn't). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
williamjm Posted September 4, 2021 Share Posted September 4, 2021 I missed the start of the qualifying so was a bit surprised to see Perez didn't make it through the first qualifying session. I hadn't seen the news about Kimi's Covid test so we also a bit surprised to see Robert Kubica listed in a qualifying session again, and then went through the rest of the drivers to work out who he was replacing. I wonder how long Kimi has to isolate for given that the next race is only a week away? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Chatywin et al. Posted September 5, 2021 Share Posted September 5, 2021 What percentage of those second and third place trophies end up in a dumpster? Hamilton seemed genuinely happy for Max winning his home race while losing the lead to him. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Chatywin et al. Posted September 5, 2021 Share Posted September 5, 2021 Lol, they kept cutting to this beautiful middle-aged woman after the race ended. Didn't realize that was Ginger Spice. Man I had such a crush on her when I was a kid. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
williamjm Posted September 5, 2021 Share Posted September 5, 2021 8 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said: Lol, they kept cutting to this beautiful middle-aged woman after the race ended. Didn't realize that was Ginger Spice. Man I had such a crush on her when I was a kid. She's married to the Red Bull team boss Christian Horner so shows up quite often at races. I thought it was a fun race, the banked sections give Zandvoort a different feel to other tracks and despite some predictions it wasn't impossible to overtake, even if not easy. Hamilton kept close enough to Verstappen to keep it interesting without ever quite looking like he was going to get ahead, but all it would have taken would be one mistake from Max. 20 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said: What percentage of those second and third place trophies end up in a dumpster? If that was going to happen I think Hamilton's third place trophy from the washout last weekend would be the first to go. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Werthead Posted September 5, 2021 Share Posted September 5, 2021 It looks like Pirelli were right: the tyre wear was nothing like what some feared and they went too conservative, to the point where the delta between the hard and medium was effectively nonexistent, and even the change from hard to soft was not particularly dramatic. I expect next year, bearing in mind the cars will be even slower and the wheels larger, they'll go down at least one step, if not two, to make tyre wear more of an issue. Otherwise, some interesting strategy options there. In hindsight Mercedes may have been better doing a third stop 25 laps before the end and going with the soft and trying to blitz Max at the end, but I'm not sure the soft-hard gap was large enough to make that as viable as we've seen in other places. But they could have left Bottas out to stop Max pitting, and then done a swap or a late Bottas stop to get Lews back ahead of him, so they had nothing to lose. Of course, just when they started to talk about that, Lewis reeled in Max by a second or so, so suddenly it looked unnecessary and by the time he realised the medium was starting to give out, it was far too late to do another stop. It makes you wonder if Max figured that danger out from the timing boards and kept his speed down until it was needed (there was certainly no radio communication to that end). Making Bottas stop for new tyres because Hamilton was stopping for new tyres to keep the gap between them, then stopping Bottas going from fastest lap, was pretty crummy, and I'm surprised Bottas was so accommodating knowing he's been given his marching orders. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Chatywin et al. Posted September 5, 2021 Share Posted September 5, 2021 1 hour ago, williamjm said: She's married to the Red Bull team boss Christian Horner so shows up quite often at races. Lucky him. Quote If that was going to happen I think Hamilton's third place trophy from the washout last weekend would be the first to go. Yeah, surprised they'd even bother to give them out. I still don't get why they give second place medals out in football tournaments. The players all take them off immediately in disgust. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toth Posted September 5, 2021 Share Posted September 5, 2021 47 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said: Yeah, surprised they'd even bother to give them out. I still don't get why they give second place medals out in football tournaments. The players all take them off immediately in disgust. No, that's just the English... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
williamjm Posted September 5, 2021 Share Posted September 5, 2021 3 hours ago, Tywin et al. said: Yeah, surprised they'd even bother to give them out. I still don't get why they give second place medals out in football tournaments. The players all take them off immediately in disgust. For F1 I think how valued a 2nd/3rd place trophy is depends on the driver and circumstances. For anyone not at one of the top two teams a finish like that could be on of the highlights of their year. It's probably a bit less exciting when you've already got 96 victories like Hamilton. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Werthead Posted September 8, 2021 Share Posted September 8, 2021 Everything falling out as foreseen: Russell to Mercedes, which is going to be very interesting; Bottas to Alfa Romeo; Latifi staying at Williams; Albon to Williams, which has vaguely annoyed Toto Wolff but there you go. The second seat at Alfa is now the interesting question, with Alfa having to choose between retaining the solid-but-unspectacular Giovinazzi or bringing in De Vries. There's reasonable arguments both way: Giovinazzi builds up the Italian fanbase and Ferrari would like to keep him as a reserve second drive should Sainz move on, plus he provides continuity for Alfa Romeo. However, his performances have rarely impressed (besting a checked-out Raikkonen on a regular basis is hardly a mean feat) and he's had a fair old time to pull out some Russell-style back-of-the-grid spectaculars and has acutely failed to do that. Bottas is a much more dependable, solid performer who should provide the team with some great benchmarks and feedback immediately, so the argument for keeping Giovinazzi becomes a lot weaker, especially with Alfa and Ferrari's relationship not being as close as it once was. De Vries has some very impressive form from lower categories and having a second Dutch driver on the grid to tap into the orange army buzz could be canny marketing. He is at the upper age limit of what's considered to be a young driver these days (at 26, turning 27 next year, he's three years older than even Verstappen) though, and some feel his achievements in lower categories were flattered by opponents collapsing more than his own skill, though that's been said about Leclerc and Russell as well, and they've proven handy in F1. Personally I'd bring in Ilott over De Vries any day of the week, but Ilott's poor financial backing makes him an unattractive prospect to back-of-the-field teams, despite his impressive potential. Chadwick has some of the same drawbacks, though again those can be minimised if she wins W Series again (Powell, the only driver likely to beat her, seems to be considered too old at 29 and probably has worse financial backing); personally, for all the teams' talk of equality, there seems to be a feeling that it's going to take a lot of bravery to become the first F1 team in almost fifty years to hire a female driver. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kungtotte Posted September 9, 2021 Share Posted September 9, 2021 Meanwhile you have Zhou's backers saying they're willing to front €30 million for him to drive at Alfa next year, which would make F1 more attractive to the Chinese market. And the rumors circulating is that Andretti is angling to buy the team which would put someone like Colton Herta on the radar assuming he can get enough points for his super license. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Werthead Posted September 9, 2021 Share Posted September 9, 2021 15 hours ago, kungtotte said: Meanwhile you have Zhou's backers saying they're willing to front €30 million for him to drive at Alfa next year, which would make F1 more attractive to the Chinese market. And the rumors circulating is that Andretti is angling to buy the team which would put someone like Colton Herta on the radar assuming he can get enough points for his super license. Andretti would probably be better buying Haas before Mazepin Senior decides to pull the trigger on it. The Chinese money on offer is bananas, but F1 seems somewhat wary about getting more in bed with China than they already are (losing the Chinese GP two years in a row isn't helping with building the fanbase over there either). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ithanos Posted September 10, 2021 Share Posted September 10, 2021 Was about to post this in the YouTube thread but regulars here might appreciate it more. 7min 35secs well spent. No indication this was not a production version. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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