In reply to Keith Tanner :
When I first saw the car I was all excited that the red white and blue was going to be on the grid. And then I heard them say it was the Russian colors and I realized it was red, blue, and white. I was a bit crestfallen at that moment.
Easy fix. Reposting from page 4 of this thread :)
Also from Page 4 when I was banging on about liveries (as I do) - I have really come to appreciate the design on the Alpha Tauri cars seeing them on the track. The white wheels pop. The car is very distinctive and their logo is so clear. That's a good looking race car.
Aston livery is clumsy like everything else Aston is doing right now. Red Bull looks like it was made out of all the leftover Lego bricks, as usual. The Mercedes look mean. Ferrari looks like every other Ferrari which is good for branding. Willams looks amateurish, which has been the case since they lost that oh-so-yummy Martini stripe. Haas never shows up on camera unless it's in a wall, so it's hard to say :)
In reply to wae :
I put it to the whole Rich Energy fiasco- had they gotten real sponsorship, I think they would have been able to build on previous success, even to the point of finding and fixing what was wrong in 2019. Then the hangover going into 2020 with the bad engine- it was going to be a disaster taking Gene's eyes off the team.
Assuming that Drive to Win is accurate on how the team is run, all of that falls on Gunther Steiner. From how he failed to get any decent sponsors to what appeared to be a not awesome working environment for the engineers- seems like once trouble happened, it was doomed to fail. But that was aided a lot by Rich Energy, and the massive distraction that came from it, let alone the total lack of payments at the right times.
From the moment that HAAS announced their alignment with Ferrari I expected failure UNLESS Ferrari bought into the team as a full on second team like RB/AT.
Ferrari just didn't seem to have things figured out and was still seeming unstable. The year of engine might they had was good but hollow.
Rich energy came out of nowhere and as you all said only damaged HAAS F1 as a brand and team.
I was fascinated that they couldn't leverage the other HAAS racing ventures to get sponsored. They needed a solid big sponsor their second and third years. Maybe it is true they should have given Stroll or Latifi a drive back then.
Sprint Qualifying coming to three races in 2021:
-Rob
rob_lewis said:Sprint Qualifying coming to three races in 2021:
-Rob
Exciting! I might actually make an effort to watch quali to catch that.
I really like the idea. In our local karting club, there is Quali, which sets starting position for the 17 lap Pre-Final, and the results of the Pre-Final sets starting position for the 22 lap Final. Points awarded in Final only. So, I am quite familiar with the concept and it leads to some exciting possibilities. Example: on our track, starting 2rd is worse than starting 3rd so if I was sitting in 2nd in the Pre-Final with no hope of catching 1st, I would sandbag to get the 3rd position. I can see drivers jockeying to get a more advantageous grid position like starting on the grippy side of the grid or starting with better tires or whatever.
In reply to loosecannon :
It seems the rules are rather complex to try and manage all those strategies. Getting points to the top three seems like it will only extend the RedBull and MB dominance. The parc ferme rules seem to be adjusted such that teams can adjust suspension bit not sure how that will actually work???
In reply to Keith Tanner :
Happy Keith Tanner day fellow F1 fan!
Thanks!
So this sprint quali thing is weird to me for F1. It's basically a half distance race with (almost) no points awarded, then that's used as the starting order for the "real" race. But unless it's held on a track with a bunch of passing opportunities, the order will mostly be determined by the first lap of the sprint. The sprint distance is almost long enough that you might be able to do a no-stop if you start on hards, but it's also long enough that pit stop strategy could be a thing. Hmm.
What's it going to do for powertrain allocations? Right now, the teams are only allowed so many parts per season before they start taking penalties. And three 100 km sprint races adds a race and a half of distance. Obviously the teams are on board with the idea, but I'm curious if those allocations got relaxed a bit. And what does this do to the cost cap? Racin' ain't free.
I'm excited for the sprint races!
I look at it like this.... MB and RB will want to actually compete in the races to ensure a good outcome on Sunday.
The rest of the field can use it for testing. This is especially true since you will be allowed to change suspension setups between the sprint race and Sunday race. Also, you are allowed to replace certain items (like front wings) with the last iteration with no penalty incurred.
So you could try out that crazy wing design and corresponding suspension setup in the sprint race with little to no downside.
In other words, it MAY allow some of the teams further back to catch up. Plus, it MAY jumble up the field a little. One little half spin or botched pass attempt could change the ENTIRE outlook for sunday.
In reply to wvumtnbkr :
If it plays out that way it could be interesting. But have teams prepared for that given that this season is a throw away in prep for 2022?
L5wolvesf said:In reply to wvumtnbkr :
If it plays out that way it could be interesting. But have teams prepared for that given that this season is a throw away in prep for 2022?
Not sure, but if it makes money, it will be around for 2022 also!
Officially, the Candadian GP is a no-go, now replaced with Turkey.
Wonder what'll happen to COTA? Found it interesting that I got the "F1 Tickets on sale now" email from COTA a little while ago....
-Rob
Here is my bold prediction. Max will win more races than Lewis, but Lewis will finish second way more often than Max, due to reliability.
Posted as Max is fixing his brakes during FP2, instead of practicing.
Interesting qualifying.
Mercedes looks great on mediums. Red bull looks great on sifts.
Gutted for Mr Saturday. Just missed out for q3.
Race should be interesting with the different tire compounds and abilities.
I'm pretty confused by a couple of teams being at the front and back of the grid with their 2 cars.
Vettel looked pretty good! Stroll, not so much.
Alonso.... not good at all. Ocon, pretty strong.
And finally, norris! But what the he'll is going on with Danny avocado? (Not an autocorrect...)
In reply to wvumtnbkr :
I think what made it really interesting was the weather. That bright and shiny and dry track with consistent temps.... but with strong and variable wind.
Max was clearly caught out a few times with gusts of wind. And I'd be pretty confident that the Mercs were slower in Q3 because of the wind.
That was a pretty cool variable to have, actually- looks so nice out there, but it's treatorous. As much as I pan Stroll, I think both he and Ricciardo both had the same problem- while they didn't track Stroll's laps, Daniel had a few hairy corners.
I'm betting that will casue a few unexpected spins or "oh E36 M3" moments- which will allow some passes tomorrow.
I went back k and watched q3. Verstappen would have been on pole by .1 seconds if his lap didn't get deleted (got deleted because he lost the rear and had to chase it about 4 inches off track).
I'm not saying he should get to keep the lap. I'm saying he had the pace for pole. Tomorrow will be interesting!
So much for Mercedes being on the back foot.
And comparing their progress to Racing Point, it should be clear that copying does not equal understanding. Merc has done light years better finding the grip back.
The race was pretty impressive- like a lot of hockey games I've watched recently- Hamilton really jumped on the mistakes made by Max and Valteri. And "lucky" for Valteri that Max went too wide to get fastest lap. I was actually pretty dissapointed by Bottas after the stop- while the pass was pretty easy thanks to the slow stop and the mistake on cold tires- he fell back really quickly to Max. It was good that he came back, but it's hard to figure he would try to make the pass or not.
Watching Lewis stalk Bottas was fun, you know he was just waiting for Bottas to burn up his tires and make a mistake before disappearing. Great pass on Max too - there was some real racing for the lead before it settled down.
Mercedes does need to step up their pit stops a bit, I think Bottas might have been able to keep his position if he'd been a little quicker. Car positioning problem? It does seem that Lewis's stops are usually quicker.
Mazepin was a full minute behind his teammate. That's embarrassing.
I wonder if it's time for Kimi to retire? That crash on lap 2 looked like the kind of "reflexes aren't what they used to be" that we saw from Schumacher the last year or two of his comeback.
Pretty interesting how far Perez was able to stay out on the medium tyres. Was crazy 2-4 was able to come in for softs and still maintain there grid place.
In reply to codrus (Forum Supporter) :
Kim said he looked down at his steering wheel at the wrong time...
Lewis said he checked on Max just as Valeri hit the throttle, too.
One had more serious consequences.
Subscriber-unavailabile said:Pretty interesting how far Perez was able to stay out on the medium tyres. Was crazy 2-4 was able to come in for softs and still maintain there grid place.
Pre race, or maybe after quali, Lewis mentioned the hard tires were good for a race and a half. Not sure whether less tire life would have made a better race, but it was interesting how the different cars reacted to different tires. The Mercs were rocket fast on hard. Carlos ruined his mediums trying to stay in front of Lando, but Sergio ran 55 laps or so on his, and wasn't struggling too badly until the end. Heck, he picked up a bunch of time on the front 3 after he got back into 4th finally. Odd.
Pirelli should have brought their softest 3 compounds for this race, it would have been far better. I'm a Lewis fan and even I was amazed at how he went from 3rd to 1st and pulled away like that. This is the first race we've seen the top two teams second drivers being used for strategy. Valteri and Sergio were both used to try and take points away from the other team or to put pressure on the other team.
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