Formula 1 2024 Season

Coniglio Rampante said:

Just a thought-exercise:  is there anyone in IndyCar that could make for a good driving addition in F1 (meaning, quick enough and with good sponsorship money, etc.) ?

Sure. Alex Palou is already a superstar and multi-champion and is still in his mid-twenties. Pato O' Ward and Colton Herta are both young and quick, though Colton needs to work on his patience and racecraft. There are plenty of others who are quick and would probably bring money, though they are mostly a bit older. There are also quite a few younger, promising guys who haven't shown "it" yet but could.

I'd love to see any of those three given a shot in F1.  Just looking back in time, it seems like IndyCar champions/contenders aren't afraid of racing.  Recalling just two, Jacques Villeneuve and Juan Pablo Montoya, even if they weren't in the superior car, they were often "racy" and hard for others to pass.

So shoot, if the up-and-coming ranks in the traditional F1 feeder series are as dry as some say for some teams, I'd make serious a run at an IndyCar racer if I was a team principal ... especially if my team had a realistic  expectation of winning.

Good luck getting them a super license.  I think 25 years in Indycar and four Indy 500 wins is worth about 3 laps' of karting in the 6 year old league.

In reply to wae :

There is that.

wae said:

Good luck getting them a super license.  I think 25 years in Indycar and four Indy 500 wins is worth about 3 laps' of karting in the 6 year old league.

Although I agree, I think Palau has enough points.

I think redbull might still be spooked by Bourdais. I believe he was last one to make the jump after being like 4x champ in the US and got sacked in like 1.5 seasons with torro rosso.

I think Palou could do well.   Plus, he's Spanish, so has an in, so to speak.

wvumtnbkr said:

wae said:

Good luck getting them a super license.  I think 25 years in Indycar and four Indy 500 wins is worth about 3 laps' of karting in the 6 year old league.

Although I agree, I think Palau has enough points.

He has more than enough. The Indycar title is worth 40 points, and he's won two of them in the last 3 years.

In reply to wae :

I think Tsunoda turned the mental corner this season to be able to handle the off track crucible of RBR. That swerve towards Ricardo earlier this year was a wake up call. Tsunoda left that race probably with a lot of dirty looks and stern words from his own team. Since then he has been talking as much as possible on track with results. If I remember right they made some iffy pit calls in Silverstone. And he still pulled through to get a point. 

Generally speaking, F1 people regard IndyCar as being full of drivers who already had a chance and couldn't make it in F1.  I don't think you're likely to see a lot of hunting there.  The crossover drivers in the 90 and early 2000s (JPM, Bourdais, etc) came from CART, which was a very different series to IndyCar.

Part of the problem is the siloing of drivers into team-based development programs.  RBR started this practice of locking up young drivers, so I suppose it's karma that they've now got a shortage of drivers and the good prospects are under future contracts to other teams.

johndej said:

I think redbull might still be spooked by Bourdais. I believe he was last one to make the jump after being like 4x champ in the US and got sacked in like 1.5 seasons with torro rosso.

Listening to DWR with Bourdais made it seem like nobody was ever going to succeed in his position against Vettel.  The car concept was something that Bourdais really struggled to adapt to while it was perfect for Vettel's driving style.  Only after Bourdais convinced his engineer to tune the car to his style (say, strong front end) could he compete.  

After hearing how he spoke about the vehicle development process in F1, it was pretty evident why Checo was struggling last year.  When the simulations say X works and driver #1 loves it (or can deal with it better), why would you listen to driver #2's complaints?  

The above is one of my gripes with modern motorsports, Nascar included.  The simulations determine the setup and if a driver cannot can't adapt, they sink.  BUT, when someone gets the simulations totally wrong, you end up with an unexpected result.  

I think Palou signed with McLaren with the intention of an F1 option; however, we know how that contract went. The two who successfully moved from IndyCar to F1, JV and JPM, actually had a good car and team behind them. Moving from CGR like Zanardi and Newman Haas Seab & Da Matta to a third-tier team like Williams was bad; Toyota and Toro Rosso were also bad choices just to check a box that they went to F1. Herta going to AAF1 would really be just checking a box for a short stint before falling back into IndyCar. To be fair, those who come back to IndyCar other than Andretti and JPM didn't return to form when they came back to IndyCar. In addition those in the feeder/driver development programs are able to mesh with teams. Racing is so different crossover drivers with the exception of sports cars, they just don't do well.

Late to the party as I was away and couldn't watch the race untill last night,that was fun :)

 Pretty hard to find fault with EJ's idea of adding sprinklers to circuits,some of the best races are a direct result of a randomly wet not wet track.

 Full wet races usually just provide a procession or red flag.

  RB could/should give Perez the boot and stick Yuki in the seat and replace him with Liam.

 They know how Daniel and Yuki compare now so compare Liam to Daniel and then decide if Yuki keeps the seat or its one of the others.

 Or get off their wallets and sign Carlos allready.

 I doubt Max is leaving but if Jos/Horner/Marko gets more heated then who knows as Max will support Jos 100%.

 If Max goes it would be wise to have Carlos on board to lead.

It seems Perez's career with Red Bull has been fairly good (5 wins with the team isn't earth shattering, but still more than many drivers will ever get) and usually finished closer to Max, but maybe this year they built a car more suited to Max than Checo.  My WAG is RBR knew what they were doing and understood they were sacrificing Checo's chances at decent finishes in order to give Max a car he could often be dominate. 

Last yr Checo started off great then nose dived hard,worse this yr then last.

 With the amount of suspension/areo tuning an F1 car has available if they can't tweak it enough for both drivers then its either the engineer or the driver imo.

 Checos stats head to head with Max is pretty damn poor.

"Don't worry about wrecking the car Lewis.  You're going to Ferrari next year." 

The Race just released a video article about an alliance between Toyota and Haas.

Not going into the details- it's available on the U of Tubes if you want.

But the side notes are thoughtful to me- one is a possible technical partnership between Toyota and Fiat worldwide.  Things like that happen all of the time, and as the industry progresses into the relative unknown, it's a good idea to share info when you can afford to.

Second, to me, this is an example why Steiner had to go.  Most of his significant stories were about struggling to get funding- remember the Rich Energy debacle and the russian funding they got.  His biggest story was finally landing Moneygram.  In less than a year, Komatsu has the media talking about a partnership with one of the biggest OEM's on the planet.  That's a big change.

Well, that's interesting, considering they just extended their partnership with Ferrari for another 4 years.

In reply to Tom_Spangler (Forum Supporter) :

That's the Fiat part. Toyota is entering a technical partnership with Fiat, and Ferraris are just badge engineered Fiats ;)

Haas F1 Team have confirmed that Kevin Magnussen will depart his race seat upon the conclusion of his current contract.

https://twitter.com/HaasF1Team/status/1813845943004848274

Sad to see him leave.  For better or worse, he definitely adds some excitement to the races.  

Based on the racer interview KMags still thinks he has a shot after Carlos is signed.  However head to head If a veteran presences is need I would think it would between KMags vs. Bottas. Bottas has a advantage and a rumored secret meeting with Williams happened during Silverstone. Makes some sense if Kimi is signed to Merc and Carlos signs with Audi. Alpine would seem to choose between Mick Schumi & Doohan. KMags problem isn't the race, it's his qualifying, Dayle Coyne Racing in ICS has had several different drivers so maybe we will see KMags in ICS for a couple races 

Streetwiseguy said:

In reply to alfadriver :

Max is going to win every race until the next major rules change, and even then, he may continue.  He is a moot point.

I am quoting myself from early in the season, to express how I have never been happier to be wrong about something.

Checo just not doing himself any favors.