There is also quite a fight in the "3rd tier" teams, i.e. McLaren v. Alpine (59 vs 47 points). 9th through 12th drivers are McLaren, Alpine, McLaren, Alpine... and perhaps Albon will be challenging them soon? Don't be dismayed by the Max Show. There is plenty of good racing to watch this season.
Those who are tired of the front running teams should check out Formula 1.5: https://www.reddit.com/r/Formula1Point5/
Basically, the top teams are treated as if they were in a different class. Driver and team championships are calculated along with results for each race. This year, Aston Martin, Ferrari, Mercedes and Red Bull are classed as F1 based on their results early in the season, so they are not part of F1.5.
It's been calculated on a historical level as well, very nerdy.
Nyck out and Daniel in at AT?
In reply to johndej :
Seems like a rumor right now based on a test Daniel ran in an AT today. But Nyck sure has some major challenges to get over.
Funny that RB might cycle drivers again mid season.
johndej said:Nyck out and Daniel in at AT?
Just confirmed!! Danny Ric is even driving the next race in Hungary!
In reply to Javelin :
Fast change. Just an hour ago, it was a rumor. Good luck, Daniel!!!
Yuuussssssss!
Psyched to see my boy Danny Ric back in a car! Getting the chance to attend the Dutch GP and then work the US COTA GP this year!
Given its RB I'm suprised Checo didn't replace De Vries and Daniel replace Checo
Brutal. I wonder what the "valuable contributions" were that DeVries gave AlphaTauri, as Tost commented?
I thought it might happen after the summer break, as DannyRic has been dropping broad hints about it practically all season.
Still, is driving an underperforming car the rest of the season really going to get him in shape to challenge for Checo's seat?
I thought Verstappen's comments were pretty brutal too - he's saying in essence 'I am the team", the rest are irrelevant.
MiniDave said:
I thought Verstappen's comments were pretty brutal too - he's saying in essence 'I am the team", the rest are irrelevant.
That's pretty much been the case since the halycon days of, ironically Riccardo and Verstappen at RB.
It's pretty much the reason why Riccardo left for Renault in the first place.
Ask Gasly and Albon about being Verstappen's wingman...
Then why does he want to go back? Just to be Verstappen's whipping boy again?
When Vettel was winning at RB, Mock Weeber complained that the cars were engineered and built to Seb's driving style, and that's why he (Mark) had so much trouble winning with it. Same is true for Verstappen?
In reply to 06HHR (Forum Supporter) :
Being Verstappen's wingman implies they are flying at the same altitude. The reality is none of his teammates have been anywhere near his level. In his weird Dutch culture that sort of honesty isn't considered brutal, but I guess I see why that appears offensive, especially in contrast to a decade of "humble" Lewis.
Ricciardo won't get Checo's seat unless he absolutely demolishes Yuki and the rest of Formula 1.5 in that POS car. He's a good stopgap to put pressure on Checo and keep DeVries from causing more damage. But big doubt he gets the RB seat.
In reply to maschinenbau :
I get that, the wingman comment was a bit cheeky on my part. Even when Riccardo was the #1 at RB he was really only keeping the seat warm for Max.. IMO the only reason Riccardo wants to get back to RB is they have the best F1 car on the planet right now, and will for the forseeable future (Unless they E36 M3 the bed with the 2026 engine, and Merc manages to pull it's head out of Toto's arse). As toxic as the #2 seat at RB appears to be from the outside, it's the devil he knows so why not make nice with Christian and Helmut and see if he can get back in the seat. Just my .02..
For Danny this is all about staying relevant an in an F1 seat as he landed on the outside seatless. He made some poorly timed team jumps post Redbull and this gets him a ride. Redbull has always had only one driver they make a god out of.
Don't get me wrong, I love Danny and will happily enjoy every second watching him duke it out for 17th lol. But he has proven over and over again that he is not WDC material.
From a pragmatic point of view, if Danny can get back to the main RB team, he can pick up the occasional win - and where else on the grid could he possibly do that? Sure, it would be #2 to Max, but every racer wants to win, and the #2 seat at RB is his best, and probably only, way to have that chance. I've always liked Danny's personality and attitude, and will be glad to see nim back. I don't think he forgot how to drive at McLaren, I think the car's feel had a lot to do with it, and it spiraled from there. I don't expect him to suddenly spring back to his top form, but I hope he does well. On the other hand, I think Checo has always been underrated, and until around 6 races ago, he was doing a great job at RB - and he's driving pretty well during the races, he's just messing up qualifying (which of course means he's only picking up minor points driving through the field, rather than picking up mayor points on the podium). Still, it's crunch time for both Checo and Danny, their futures are on the line for the rest of the season. Will be fascinating to watch.
It will also give them another known talent to judge Yuki against. If Daniel does well I don't see him moving up in place of Checo, they'll be booting Yuki and bringing in someone new.
Long in the tooth rumor and however thought this may happen during the break. Looking at the constructors championship I imagine this is a push past AlfaR and maybe Haas. Williams seems to be pulling away from the pack. Herta probably dodged a bullet even though his AA ride keeps getting the anvil. It will be interesting what the dynamic of AT will be next year with RB junior development. Liam Lawson has been holding hope for some time now, but it's getting a little long on the tooth. Hauger hasn't really much impressed, Jak Crawford isn't ready for F1 yet.
I am sure this is going to put some pressure on Logan. He seems to struggle during qualifying making too many rookie errors, however his race pace seems to be decent, and is knocking on the door for points.
Seems to me that Red Bull is Adrian Newey. Take him away and what do you think would happen to RB dominance? Why is there no speculation on the next up and coming Adrian Newey? Who's the next aerodynamicist stud?
My plan to "fix" Formula 1:
-Friday Free practice 1 then Qualifying for Saturday Sprint Race
-Saturday Free Practice 2 then a Sprint Race. Sprint Race points system: 20 points for 1st all the way down to 1 point for 20th place. In other words, every driver gets at least a point (this becomes really important for Sunday race)
-Sunday Race: Reverse grid based on WDC points with current points system used for results
-Teams have to declare if they are Factory Team or Customer Team (like MotoGP). Customer Teams are allowed more engines/gearboxes/etc before penalties kick in and also allowed X amount of private test days. Customer Teams lose status if they get multiple podiums in one season (Example: three 3rd places or 2 second places or 1 win)
-Mandate that the car must fit in a box of X,Y,Z dimensions and this box should be 80% of the size of current Formula 1 cars, minimum weight 700 kg
-Engine can be any reciprocating piston, 4 stroke configuration, any number of cylinders and displacement but it must fit in a box of X,Y,Z dimensions (I would suggest a 24"x24"x24" box). Running on biofuel.
-Greater freedom allowed for use of Production blocks (bigger box or more power units allowed if the engine block is from a production car with sales of 10,000+ worldwide)
-Maximum fuel used during race 100 kg
-Refueling allowed but only by gravity feed from one tank (like NASCAR) and refueling cannot take place while any other work on the car is being done.
-Maximum 4 mechanics in pits at one time. No limit if car is moved into the garage
-Mandatory 2 stops for tire changes per race (tire change during red flag conditions do not count towards 2 stop minimum)
-During Red Flag conditions, tire change must be the same compound that came off the car
-DRS allowed on every straight at any time (you do not need to be following anyone closely) but only for a set number of seconds total for each race.
Drivers championship points earned by driving spec formula fords provided by outside vendor. See who the best drivers are regardless of car.
Constructors championship determined by F1 cars.
Great race weekend.
I suspect it takes more ability to eke the most out of an F1 car than a FF. If you want Spec racing, just take their karting results before they become F1 drivers.
Sure it takes talent to drive an F1 car but some cars are better than others. You win championships by going head-to-head on equal terms. Example: Russell goes to Mercedes he's competitive. Botas goes to Alfa has no chance. I know it's semantics but it's not a driving championship so just call it an F1 championship or instead of a sprint race put them in equal cars and see what happens. An F1 car may be harder to drive than an FF but an FF is a pure racing car. Also, it would be very entertaining. Who wouldn't want to see Lewis and Max race each other in an FF. Let's face it, except for the cars an FV or FF race is more entertaining than F1. Just my opinion.
Keith Tanner said:I suspect it takes more ability to eke the most out of an F1 car than a FF. If you want Spec racing, just take their karting results before they become F1 drivers.
Or even GP2/F2, that's mostly a spec series.
I don't understand the desire to turn F1 into a spec series, don't we have enough of those already?
Regarding loosecanon's list:
I'm not sure sprint races are working, I'd be inclined to dump them and just focus on the GP. Reverse grids are a gimmick and have no place in top level motorsport, IMHO. "no rules" engine and chassis designs sound good but usually wind up destroying series due to costs going out of control. The factory vs customer team based on podium results seems likely to lead to the bizarre situation of a team retiring a healthy car from the lead to avoid becoming "promoted" (better to be front-running "customer" team than backmarker "factory" one).
Why the limit on # of mechanics? I love watching the impeccable choreography that is an F1 pitstop, it's unique and wonderful.
Red flag limits on tire changes have been discussed before and basically don't work for various safety-related reasons. This is not broken -- sometimes lady luck smiles on you and that's just the way racing goes.
DRS exists to try to equal out the aero penalty from following someone through a corner. The current fixes for "dirty air" have helped but haven't eliminated the phenomenon, so if you get rid of proximity-based DRS you lose a ton of passing. If/when the dirty air problem is fixed for real, I think it'd be much better to just dump DRS entirely and go back to fixed aero to reduce complexity and cost.
Regarding refueling -- while I quite enjoyed the race strategy subtleties that went along with the ability to refuel the car and I think the safety arguments are kinda BS (if everyone else can figure out how to do it safely, surely F1 can too), I just don't think it really fixes anything that's broken about F1. Also, I wouldn't be surprised if gravity-based refueling is so slow that no one would bother (for most of the other series refueling is effectively mandatory because of race length).
As for how I'd fix F1, the number one most important thing is to STOP CHANGING THE RULES. Designing an F1 car is all about finding the best compromise between competing goals -- drag, aero, horsepower, mechanical grip, aero grip, etc. They are all tradeoffs, any improvements in one area always mean a reduction in a different one. Designing the best F1 car means finding the best compromise, and that is hard. Every time they change the rules it means throwing out much of what has been learned and re-examining the previous design decisions to see if the new rules mean that it is now better to go the other way. This takes both time and money, but you can reduce the time by throwing more money at it. The end result is that rule changes benefit the teams with lots of money in the immediate aftermath, but the longer the rules are left stable the more the other teams can substitute time for money and catch up... until they change the rules again. Of course, some of the new rules are specifically limiting the ability of other teams to do that catching up by freezing components in the name of cost savings.
So what would I do? Leave most of the regs the way they are (the specifics don't really matter too much as long as they're long-term stable), but loosen up the restrictions on frozen components. We don't need rules to slow Red Bull down, what we need are rules that allow the other teams to catch up.
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