06HHR (Forum Supporter) said:No opinion necessary. Max cost his teammate P2 in the championship. If you want an opinion I think Seb is a real class act.
Multi 21
I find it weird that everyone has seemingly forgot what a diva Seb was when he was at RBR. The above mentioned reference is just one of many.
Or Seb getting Webber's wing after crashing in practice or quali and Webber making the quip "not bad for a number 2 driver."
In reply to z31maniac :
I did say it was an opinion.. Everybody can be a E36 M3 sometimes.
In reply to z31maniac :
I posted that I'm not all that sad to see him leave as a driver. You missed that... ;)
And he seems to be a good person, very genuine and caring. Just not when he's being a steering wheel.
z31maniac said:Multi 21
Vettel has matured, but yes, he had similar levels of shiny happiness to Verstappen when he was younger.
codrus (Forum Supporter) said:z31maniac said:Multi 21
Vettel has matured, but yes, he had similar levels of shiny happiness to Verstappen when he was younger.
He did it to LeClerc, too. So it didn't fully mature out.
So Russell beat Hamilton in points, qualifying, finish positions, and won a race this season which Lewis didn't do for the first time in 19? years. Hopefully Hammy gets his mojo back in 23.
Ferrari not shooting themselves in the foot and getting second in both championships is surprising.
Javelin said:
Ferrari not shooting themselves in the foot and getting second in both championships is surprising.
Tire management, pit strategy , and pace looked great. Just building on that to '23 should be exciting. MB had a promising finish to the season as well too. I think next season looks like there will be some competitive teams coming at Redbull hard.
I agree, there will not be a repeat of the 15 wins like this season.
I think there will still be the same three at the front, but the midfield will get scrambled a bit. But I do think the Mercs will be fighting for wins next season, maybe from the gitgo. The most impressive thing about the Mercs is how tough they are after getting hit, and how dead reliable they are. Honda has also done a stellar job building a reliable power unit to go with Adrian Neweys superb chassis.
New drivers, old drivers returning, good drivers leaving but staying in reserve and so on, plenty to watch for next season.
Plus, with 24 races, power unit replacement will become part of team strategy. We saw some of that this season, it will continue next year and will be even more refined.
Gonna be a long 4 months till March again.
Oh, did you see Lewis picked up the tab for the 20 drivers he invited to dinner before the race? £140,000!!!!! At current exchange rates that's over $160,000 or over $8K each? What do you suppose they could have eaten/drank to spend that much?
I figure a large chunk of that bill was to provide security and close the rest of the restaurant.
The food was probably not the reason for high cost per diner.
Interesting season.
Cars are maybe too big but aero rules work. We will see if budget cap and aero testing allocation causes the desired field convergence.
Leclerc might be a great racer but mistakes across the season may be worse than Mick Schumacher's. Would Leclerc have lost his seat if Ferrari was a low budget team?!?!
MB 2023 is a curious situation; will they be a year behind in development or have a "fix" that brings them close to the RBR?
I do actually feel like the number of races per season IS making them less special. It may be distaste from the end of 2021 tainting things though.
My wife, who has no interest in F1 apart from politely listening when I talk about races, started crying when they were interviewing Vettel at the end.
If Ferrari and Mercedes can build on this form into 2023, it should be a fantastic season.
In reply to MiniDave :
Power unit replacement is already a strategy- note the first time they take massive penalties are at tracks where it's easy to pass- like Monza. And since the following replacement penalties are LESS, they pick and choose which race to take the penalty. Teams manipulate the rules to explicitly break them, and it drives me crazy.
It used to be that penalties got worse the more you did something wrong, but because of the Honda debacle last decade, the penalties got lighter so that McLaren would not constantly start from the back. That's been over long enough that the rules should go back to penalize teams for multiple breaking of the power limit rules.
Otherwise, instead of an actual limit that actually limits costs, teams are using the rules to get better power at the end of the season- knowing when they can deal with the smaller penalties they get.
In reply to alfadriver :
I argue that now with the cost cap replacing engines already has an increased penalty. Also, getting VW into F1 I am sure included confirmation of that powertrain replacement penalty rule set.
I imagine HAAS merchandise sales are going down this year after getting rid of Mick and scolding him for doing donuts 
I am going to miss Vettel on the grid, his change from Senna mentality to good human is going to be missed. I really wished he would have one a championship with Ferrari, but obviously the inner works of Ferrari isn't helping anyone. However his move is allowing some young drivers (other than Alonso) get a chance. There was a interesting statistics that between Hamilton, Alonso, and Vettel the record since 2005, atleast one of them has been in the top 2 in the championship, except this year. I kind of wish that Alonso would have retired as well and perhaps Hamilton in the next few years. I look forward to cheering on Logan at Williams.
In reply to Advan046 :
Maybe, but the way they manipulate the changes so that the penalties can be worked into specific tracks pretty much makes the penalties moot. If they work like that, then eliminate the rule- it's pointless. If the cost cap can actually manage power unit changes, then just let it and get rid of the grid penalties.
It's pretty funny how the FIA/F1 bend over backwards to change the rules when the intent of other rules are gotten around- but on this one, its been like that for at least 5 years, and the dumb rule stands.
I'm excited for next year once all the bugs and issues with this new platform are shaken out and we see some better racing. And to the commentator's points, I do think DRS is too powerful. They need to dial it in so that the pass is possible at the corner, not a mid-straight easy pass. Right now they might as well wave blue flags at the person getting overtaken.
re: the dinner. They went to "Salt Bae." I looked it up, and the head chef looks straight out of a SNL bit. And the restaurants are known for being stupid expensive. Take into account that EVERYTHING is stupid expensive in Qatar... I believe the $150k price tag as obnoxious and stupid as it may be.
re: Max — This one really had me shaking my head in disbelief. They interviewed him after the race, and this is what he said:
"No, there was not, but also that is quite a tricky call to make," Verstappen said about a call to help Perez in the final stint. "You also don't want to end up… you can possibly block, but is that fair racing? I think it wouldn't be the nicest way to go out of the championship and out of the season like that."
Uh... While I may agree with the statement in the absence of the context of how Max won the championship last year... WTF!‽?
I can't stress enough how much I dislike his punchable face.
In reply to z31maniac :
Haha,puffer fish crossed with Syd the sloth :)
There was never going to be a scenio that Max would help Perez,he wanted win 15 and that was that.
I would like him to have a tough teamate sooner then later,his talent makes that tough obviously.
But a growing an Alonso/Senna/Prost/Shumacher cross in the lab should be doable right?? :)
vozproto said:I'm excited for next year once all the bugs and issues with this new platform are shaken out and we see some better racing. And to the commentator's points, I do think DRS is too powerful. They need to dial it in so that the pass is possible at the corner, not a mid-straight easy pass. Right now they might as well wave blue flags at the person getting overtaken.
They adjust it for each race, usually it's pretty close but they went a bit too far in one direction this time.
For 2023 I don't care who wins what or who drives what or what they do to the cars.....................as long as we get some good battles for the lead and championship.
It probably wouldn't be hard to argue that Ferraris lack of speed for the last few weeks was due to them running at a lower power level, because if they were to shred another engine or two, their budget cap would be in deep, deep trouble. I"m pretty sure they blew more stuff up than most of the other teams combined, and I don't know exactly what a new Ferrari turbo v6 costs, but I bet its quite a spendy little package.
So no judgment on any other teams. This is the kind of leadership that makes me really like Mercedes. I think they did an excellent job this year when the chips were down. Here is a quote from Toto this week.
“First of all, we have to put these cars in reception [at our factories] in Brackley and in Brixworth to remind us every single day of how difficult it can be. They know, everyone who is watching today, that this is a character-building season – not a blip of one race, a full season,” Wolff added.
Just saw a thing on The Race that apparently the FIA/F1 is considering rear wheel fenders for rainy weekends. So the spray is more subdued. Hm.
In reply to alfadriver :
Remember the original DW12 Indycar? That had rear bumperets. Most people hated the look, but I liked it. I know this isn't quite what they are suggesting, but a point of reference.
In reply to Adrian_Thompson (Forum Supporter) :
I didn't mind them- but yea, these are very different- more like a fender over your bike tires to keep your back less wet in the rain. Interesting idea.
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