Formula 1-2022 Season

Keith Tanner said:

Janel was very happy to see Max retire but was gutted by Checo's problem. She likes him. That was by far the happiest podium I've seen in a long time, everyone was overjoyed to be up there.

Remember how I wondered who RB were going to throw under the bus? Looks like Marco is blaming the required fuel pump the entire field was using.
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/the-background-behind-red-bulls-bahrain-dnfs/9188330/

I agree. I like Checo as well. From the onboard replays, it sounded like the engine just completely shut off and locked up instantly as he was about to get back on the throttle. 

Gotta love RBR, it's always someone else's fault. I like that Mercedes has a good jump on them for the Constructors Championship. The Ferrari's look STRONG though. They must have picked up more HP than they let on. 

Has everyone else just caught up so much to Mercedes on the engine front? Even with DRS open the Merc's couldn't gain ground on anyone. 

Jesse Ransom said:

 

And yeah, I don't expect everyone to be nice in F1, but RBR have made themselves easy to dislike. Still, I was a little shocked at how much I enjoyed watching Verstappen screaming about his failing car. Oof.

One thing that kind of gets me- had Hamilton let that kind of comment loose, he's be labeled as an entitled whiner.  Verstappen just gets a little ridicule.  That kind of comment was borderline "F2 engine" kind of crap.

And I've now seen multiple reports that Horner is blaming the steering on the car being dropped in the last pit stop.  Again, that's really dubious, given that they do the same thing on every stop.  So if it did break, they have a serious problem, since the stops were normal.

In the end, it's not ours to worry about. 

In reply to trigun7469 :

Sorry for the answer and silence, I had an offsite meeting for a few hours so no internet. Looks like other picked up the question and answered better than I could!

z31maniac said:

Keith Tanner said:

Janel was very happy to see Max retire but was gutted by Checo's problem. She likes him. That was by far the happiest podium I've seen in a long time, everyone was overjoyed to be up there.

Remember how I wondered who RB were going to throw under the bus? Looks like Marco is blaming the required fuel pump the entire field was using.
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/the-background-behind-red-bulls-bahrain-dnfs/9188330/

I agree. I like Checo as well. From the onboard replays, it sounded like the engine just completely shut off and locked up instantly as he was about to get back on the throttle. 

Gotta love RBR, it's always someone else's fault. I like that Mercedes has a good jump on them for the Constructors Championship. The Ferrari's look STRONG though. They must have picked up more HP than they let on. 

Has everyone else just caught up so much to Mercedes on the engine front? Even with DRS open the Merc's couldn't gain ground on anyone. 

The Mercedes straight line speed may, again, go back to the bouncing. Here's Sir Ham:

“The thing is with our car, we have a car that’s bouncing a lot everywhere,” said Hamilton. “It’s not just in a straight line. We have very poor rear end through all the low-speed corners and all the medium-speed corners.

“The only place that is generally quite good is, relatively, in the high [speed corners] and then we are very slow in the straight line. So, I don’t know if it’s drag or if it’s power, we haven’t figured that out yet.

“The others, we cannot keep up with them, even with the DRS. We do have a lot of work, and what that means is that you are just sliding a lot on the rear, and the tyres just get hotter and hotter and they degrade. So that’s where we’ve got a lot of [performance] to try and catch up on.”

The fact that Williams and McLaren weren't setting the world on fire doesn't seem to show a lot of power in the Merc engine, but those teams could have other problems. We'll find out more next week, I guess! 

It did seem like the Mercedes performed best when it was right behind another car. I don't know if that's due to DRS allowing them to stay in touch or if something about the turbulent air fixed their problem. Probably the former although the latter would be a lot more interesting :)

LeClerc admitting in the post-race interview that he was playing Max lap after lap was pretty funny - he was braking early to give up T1 in order to get DRS for T4 and take the lead again. That guy has the mindset to drive for a championship and not just a corner. He's going to be strong this year.

I feel bad for laughing, but that didn't stop me.

In reply to Keith Tanner :

Don't feel bad..............it's funny.

In reply to Keith Tanner :

Mercedes always seems to have the better "Passing car". The conversation about Max is always his mindset and how he can be forced into making mistakes or being overly aggressive. I agree LeClerc really comes off as a Professor, this could be a Senna Vs. Prost Personality, not saying they have the same talent ect... Even as cool LeClerc is they would basically have to dominate half the season to stay ahead of Redbull and Merc, it will be interesting how they make changes.

The story about Mercedes over the past 7 years was "they only work when they're at the front" :) I think the reason they're a good "passing car" is because they have Lewis Hamilton installed in the driver's seat and Lewis is pretty good at getting around other cars. Bottas always had trouble working through the field in the same car.

Max definitely needs to find his calm center and become more analytical. His frantic radio calls in this past race were not from a driver trying to work through a problem. I think that's where RB has done him a disservice, with the right mentor he could be a more complete driver. He's got the aggression and the speed, but he doesn't have the mental game sorted out yet.

Keith Tanner said:

Max definitely needs to find his calm center and become more analytical. His frantic radio calls in this past race were not from a driver trying to work through a problem. I think that's where RB has done him a disservice, with the right mentor he could be a more complete driver. He's got the aggression and the speed, but he doesn't have the mental game sorted out yet.

This succinctly sums up what I don't like about the Red Bull system.

Keith Tanner said:

z31maniac said:

Keith Tanner said:

Janel was very happy to see Max retire but was gutted by Checo's problem. She likes him. That was by far the happiest podium I've seen in a long time, everyone was overjoyed to be up there.

Remember how I wondered who RB were going to throw under the bus? Looks like Marco is blaming the required fuel pump the entire field was using.
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/the-background-behind-red-bulls-bahrain-dnfs/9188330/

I agree. I like Checo as well. From the onboard replays, it sounded like the engine just completely shut off and locked up instantly as he was about to get back on the throttle. 

Gotta love RBR, it's always someone else's fault. I like that Mercedes has a good jump on them for the Constructors Championship. The Ferrari's look STRONG though. They must have picked up more HP than they let on. 

Has everyone else just caught up so much to Mercedes on the engine front? Even with DRS open the Merc's couldn't gain ground on anyone. 

The Mercedes straight line speed may, again, go back to the bouncing. Here's Sir Ham:

“The thing is with our car, we have a car that’s bouncing a lot everywhere,” said Hamilton. “It’s not just in a straight line. We have very poor rear end through all the low-speed corners and all the medium-speed corners.

“The only place that is generally quite good is, relatively, in the high [speed corners] and then we are very slow in the straight line. So, I don’t know if it’s drag or if it’s power, we haven’t figured that out yet.

“The others, we cannot keep up with them, even with the DRS. We do have a lot of work, and what that means is that you are just sliding a lot on the rear, and the tyres just get hotter and hotter and they degrade. So that’s where we’ve got a lot of [performance] to try and catch up on.”

The fact that Williams and McLaren weren't setting the world on fire doesn't seem to show a lot of power in the Merc engine, but those teams could have other problems. We'll find out more next week, I guess! 

It did seem like the Mercedes performed best when it was right behind another car. I don't know if that's due to DRS allowing them to stay in touch or if something about the turbulent air fixed their problem. Probably the former although the latter would be a lot more interesting :)

LeClerc admitting in the post-race interview that he was playing Max lap after lap was pretty funny - he was braking early to give up T1 in order to get DRS for T4 and take the lead again. That guy has the mindset to drive for a championship and not just a corner. He's going to be strong this year.

My buddy and I were pointing that out. LeClerc just kept baiting him in to the over-under. 

Not that I'm in any way comparable to these guys, but I do the same thing all the time in iRacing with over aggressive drivers. Give them the inside at the last second, let them outbrake themselves, and drive right past on the exit. 

In reply to Keith Tanner :

Weird for a fuel pump to cause steering issues:)

In reply to kevlarcorolla :

I want to agree with this statement but my power running boards on my Escalade are giving me an error on my blind spot detection... you never know how these things are interconnected!

Although I do agree and I think the car was probably bordering on questionable to safely drive and they didn't want to retire because there is no points in that so RB were trying to keep it out there and don't want a direct line between something was potentially unsafe and we kept it out there anyway. The more potential issues they float the more difficult it is to say they knew something was wrong that should have retired the car and they choose not to.

Early context of the 2 different personalties of Leclerc and Max. I remember seeing this a few years ago, it's all starting to make sense.

So Red Bull's final excuse for Perez's car locking up was a fuel pick up problem.  Even though the engine won't lock up w/o fuel- since that's what they do every single corner.  Part of the reason was a vacuum problem in the tank- which is being blamed on the E10 part.  As if adding 10% alcohol changes the fuel so much that it creates a vacuum.  Please, go with that excuse.  Especially with the rest of the field able to finish the race on empty tanks.

So there was a delay in P2 due to a drone attack on a refinery about 40 miles away from the track.  

Hm.

I saw the delay but I didn't see why that happened. That is scary stuff, crazy times we are living in.

Here is a BBC story about it.

alfadriver said:

So there was a delay in P2 due to a drone attack on a refinery about 40 miles away from the track.  

Hm.

There was also one last weekend IIRC. 

Team principals unanimously agreed to race.  Driver's had a 4-hr meeting following that.  No word on the exact outcome of that yet.  

Have to imagine at least a few won't race. 

Very interesting that team principals met for 20 minutes and said yep good to go and drivers for 4 hours. 

NY Nick said:

Very interesting that team principals met for 20 minutes and said yep good to go and drivers for 4 hours. 

A lot of them (including Lewis) think they shouldn't be racing there in the first place, so I'm not surprised.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out.  I can see Hamilton and Vettel both saying they're not going to race.  Who else is at a point in their career where they can make that decision if they want and not really worry about repercussions?  Alonso I guess.  Not sure anyone else would feel confident enough to make that choice, even if that's what they wanted to do.

NorseDave said:

It will be interesting to see how this plays out.  I can see Hamilton and Vettel both saying they're not going to race.  Who else is at a point in their career where they can make that decision if they want and not really worry about repercussions?  Alonso I guess.  Not sure anyone else would feel confident enough to make that choice, even if that's what they wanted to do.

Vettel is still out with Covid, so he's avoiding the whole situation.

In reply to Tom_Spangler (Forum Supporter) :

I was wondering if the Covid was lingering just so he didn't have to race there  

Would Lewis boycott a race to make a point? Excellent question. Is the current state of the Merc a factor? He can possibly afford to miss this race more than others. But I doubt he'd do it. He uses his position to bring attention to things, but he has to be relevant to do that.

Vettel isn't in the hunt for WDC on any timeline, so his choice would be easier. But I'll bet the covid is real. It's only been a bit over a week since he got it, and it can definitely take you off your A game for longer than that.