Formula 1 2020/2021: Shits getting crazier

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

The next race isn't for three weeks? 

[williamjm]

43 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

The next race isn't for three weeks? 

They do usually have a summer break in August. At least there should be something to look forward to at the end of it, Spa is often considered the best track on the modern F1 calendar. 

[Werthead]

8 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

The next race isn't for three weeks? 

There's an annual "summer break" in August, usually 3-4 weeks. A typical F1 schedule starts in March and finishes in November, averaging a race every two weeks. However, this year they've gone bonkers trying to fit 23 races in, even extending the season to December, and that means when they come back they've got to put 12 races into effectively three and a half months. I think we've got a triple-header followed by a single week break followed by another triple header. It's the most intense F1 season even from a scheduling point of view, and then they've only got two months to finalise the 2022 car for testing in February.

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7jVZb7pYUEdeG3NB7Z4Oog

This guy is uploading highlight videos in surprisingly good quality. '81 & '82 complete seasons are up. It looks like '83 is going up now. I don't know where this stuff is coming from. It's not from the FIA season review videos I've seen.

Edit: A word of warning. I've never seen the '81 Belgian GP start line incident in that kind of resolution. It's... disturbing. Same for Canada in '82.

[Werthead]

On 8/9/2021 at 9:33 AM, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7jVZb7pYUEdeG3NB7Z4Oog

This guy is uploading highlight videos in surprisingly good quality. '81 & '82 complete seasons are up. It looks like '83 is going up now. I don't know where this stuff is coming from. It's not from the FIA season review videos I've seen.

Edit: A word of warning. I've never seen the '81 Belgian GP start line incident in that kind of resolution. It's... disturbing. Same for Canada in '82.

Jesus, I thought that was the fatality. Two mechanics were severely injured that weekend, one dying from his injuries (that was in practice though). The guy you see hit there, Dave Luckett, merely suffered a broken leg. But still horrific, and it's insane the race wasn't red flagged immediately.

The races were also ludicrously stacked in those days. 31 cars, through back then certain cars were not allowed to race if they fell below the qualifying time, so only 25 took the start.

ETA: These are the BBC video feeds, from the couple I've gone through. That's the legendary Murray Walker doing the commentary, with 1976 world champion James Hunt as his co-commentator on some occasions.

[kungtotte]

It's crazy to think these all happened years after the 1979 Italian GP that got Ronnie Peterson killed. You'd think they would have learned a thing or two about trackside safety and grid starts.

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

21 hours ago, Werthead said:

Jesus, I thought that was the fatality. Two mechanics were severely injured that weekend, one dying from his injuries (that was in practice though). The guy you see hit there, Dave Luckett, merely suffered a broken leg. But still horrific, and it's insane the race wasn't red flagged immediately.

The races were also ludicrously stacked in those days. 31 cars, through back then certain cars were not allowed to race if they fell below the qualifying time, so only 25 took the start.

ETA: These are the BBC video feeds, from the couple I've gone through. That's the legendary Murray Walker doing the commentary, with 1976 world champion James Hunt as his co-commentator on some occasions.

I know they're from the BBC, I've just never seen those particular edits before. They're somewhat longer than the season review race recaps. Maybe they're from BBC iPlayer or the F1 website or something. I'm guessing they've been upscaled because The image quality is amazing.

Way back when, there was a website I used to frequent called F1 Archives. I think he's moved his stuff over to vimeo. Anyway, there were a handful of races in 1991 that were presented on the BBC (I think) as 1 hour long highlight reels. The thing that was cool about them was they used  several camera angles that weren't part of the live feed. They definitely had the 1991 USGP but I can't recall any others. 

[Loge]

The Japanese Grand Prix has been cancelled because of Covid.

[Werthead]

Bloody hell, that was a horrible accident for Lando.

Good to see Seb stopping to make sure he's okay.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

I randomly found that ESPN was carrying the qualifying race around 15 minutes ago. How did all the positions at the end change like that? Was it due to the crash (which I didn't see)?

[polishgenius]

6 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

How did all the positions at the end change like that?

 

I didn't see the qualifying, but it's pretty common for positions to change at the end of quali as the big teams put their fast laps in - this wasn't a sprint-race situation was it?

Surprise to see Russell get his car up there, but wet runs do throw things up like that and Russell is very good. 

[Werthead]

It was the weather. It started raining hard, and then drizzled which makes estimating the crossover point from inters to full wets to dry very tricky.

George and Max took a punt and it paid off really well. Hamilton, surprisingly given his wet-track skills, was too conservative.

Losing Lando, who was easily on for a top 3 slot, and then Bottas serving his 5-place grid penalty from the last race also shook up the top runners.

[williamjm]

7 hours ago, Werthead said:

Bloody hell, that was a horrible accident for Lando.

Good to see Seb stopping to make sure he's okay.

I was watching the Channel 4 highlights show and they showed a clip of the pile-up in the W Series qualifying, also at Eau Rouge. It's definitely one of those occasions where everybody was lucky to walk away unharmed, one car in particular had a very nasty series of collisions.

Back to the F1 it looked like Norris could have been a real contender until that massive crash. In his absence it was a good pole for Verstappen but I think Russel is the undoubted star of qualifying. Everyone seems to think he's heading to Mercedes next season but that performance makes it even more likely.

[williamjm]

The weather does look awful there. 

[Werthead]

First discussions on abandoning the race for today and trying again tomorrow. Though it's 4-5 hours until nightfall, so they have 90-120 minutes to decide to start the race or not.

They have an unusual benefit in that the next race is at Zandvoort, just 190 miles away, so they can delay things a bit more than if, say, the next race was on the other side of the globe.

Red Bull furiously arguing to let Perez (whose car is almost fixed) back onto the grid, but the technical sporting regulations state the race started when the safety car left the grid on the formation lap, and as he couldn't make the start he's screwed. The race was then formally red flagged. However, Masi has referred to the stewards for an exception, which they're debating now.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

21 minutes ago, williamjm said:

The weather does look awful there. 

How often are races cancelled due to weather, because that looks miserable?

[Toth]

In any case, doesn't seem like there will be a start today...

[Werthead]

10 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

How often are races cancelled due to weather, because that looks miserable?

Almost never. Malaysia was once red flagged at the halfway point due to poor weather and everyone was given half points. Adelaide 1991 was red flagged after 16 laps (and classified after 14).

Spa was cancelled in 1985 just before the race start because the newly-relaid surface started disintegrating, but that was a different matter.

F1 cars are usually pretty handy in the rain and these sort of hardcore deluges are pretty rare. A big deciding factor is that it's Spa, probably the most dangerous track still on the calendar. A mistake that will give you a bump at Silverstone could kill you at Spa (they're still debating several changes to the track layout to make things better), especially in the rain, and race control will be remembering what happened when they pressed on with a wet race in Suzuka in 2015, which led to the last fatality in the sport.

TMI: Lews Hamilton went to the toilet just before the scheduled race start and reported to his race engineer "seeing something that would haunt him for life," from the previous visitor :O

[Werthead]

#redflag

[Werthead]

Ha, George Russell arguing they should run another couple of exploratory laps behind the safety car "to see what it's like." Of course, that would take them over the classification trigger, so if the race then didn't happen they'd all still get half points for grid/qualifying order

Mercedes fuming at the idea Perez can take part in the race, which the FIA is apparently now inclined to grant.

Race Control confirming the timing trigger started when the safety car went out on the first lap, so they have to conclude within the three hours, which they're almost at the 50% point of anyway.

Reportedly the Spa authorities are pointing out that it's not a bank holiday in Belgium, so a lot of the track stewards have other commitments, making running the race tomorrow difficult.