Formula One - 2017

In reply to Advan046: There are a couple of scenarios that could have played out with the Perez situation. Perez let's Ocon by, Ocon then passes Ric and secures a podium, it might have been more realistic that he drove away from Perez and didn't get passed by Vettel. Which is money in the bank for the manufacturer championship. Ocon is really a rookie who doesn't have a full season under his belt, Perez was driving very aggressively and Ocon could have acted like Max and took them both out or ruined Perez's car, and could have ended in tears. The scenario that occurred is that Ocon didn't want to risk crashing into his teammate, so Ric skipped away and Vettel passed both of them.

alfadriver wrote: I realize that, but it seemed to take an exit from Honda to come up with that kind of creativity. Which is more my point. Let alone the issue that Honda's engines were not exactly competitive at the time. Not as bad as now, but no where near Mercedes or Ferrari.

Honda's engines in 2009 were just fine. This was the naturally aspirated V8 era, that tech was well-understood and the various manufacturers' engines were really pretty close to each other. The Renault was the slowest of them, but that didn't really hamper Red Bull.

The key with the Brawn team is that Honda gave up on 2008 very early (I think it may actually have even been during the 2007 season) and sank all their resources into the 2009 car. They spent huge amounts of money on it and then walked away due to the economic issues before it had even run once. Ross Brawn got that chassis and the rest of the team for $1, but had to hack it up to put a Mercedes engine in it. The chassis was so fast that even that wasn't enough to kill it. It wasn't just the double diffuser either, other teams had one as well, but they were nowhere close to Brawn.

The reason Brawn faded by the end of 2009 season is that the other teams had a lot more money to invest into developing their cars during the season than Brawn. Had Honda kept the team and continued to develop it, I expect they'd have walked away with the 2009 championship (winning all but a few races seems likely) and probably taken a couple of Vettel's championships away from him as well.

Clearly they've missed the boat on the new turbo engines and it's become almost comical how many engine failures Alonso has seen.

In reply to codrus:

Maybe in 2004, but they dropped some of that early in 2005. And then coasted for the rest of that season- some good results, some not so much.

And I've also read some "coulda, woulda, shoulda" articles about Toyota, too.

Neither really did it when they should have been able to. Ross Brawn and team figured the rules enough to win a WC with a mid pack budget- and I really think that meant something in terms of Honda and creativity. 10 years later, that seems to have gotten worse, and has never changed since they got back into making engines.

So I see no real reason to stick with Honda- even with free engines, it's costing McLaren too much. And there's no obvious reason they know what is actually wrong- nothing seems to be really changing, so it makes financial sense to bail on Honda right now.

alfadriver wrote: So I see no real reason to stick with Honda- even with free engines, it's costing McLaren too much. And there's no obvious reason they know what is actually wrong- nothing seems to be really changing, so it makes financial sense to bail on Honda right now.

Honda's problems in the 2000s had to do with management and their unwillingness to stick with a particular team. They'd hire someone, give him 18 months, not see any results, then fire him and go with someone else. No one ever had a chance to actually try something and make it work until Ross Brawn, and even then he had to do it under his own name after buying out the team from them. Their V8 engines (and V10 in 2004) were fine.

The Japanese manufacturers seem to want to go into F1 and run it THEIR way and that pretty much never works. The proven formula is to buy an existing team and hire the design talent that's won championships before and knows how to do it.

I agree though, it's long since time for McLaren to dump Honda.

In reply to codrus:

And I think that problem in the 2000s are the same today, which gives McLaren more reason to bail. They've had their chance, and it does not appear that Honda know how to actually fix the problem. Maybe they will given 5 more years- and that's fine for team never expecting to actually win, but not for a team like McLaren, who is only 2nd in terms of number of years competing in F1 as well as number of WC's.

Azerbaijan Practice

Honda's problems are not just F 1, lots of failures in Indy Car. Skimping on essential parts/materials ?

You know, if that young Hamilton fella keeps it up, he might be able to make a living as a race car driver.

Kidding aside, wow.

Raikkonen qualified 3rd, only 1.1 seconds off of Hamilton's pole time. Perez recovered nicely to post in 6th place.

I am very impressed with Stroll today. I think he really did a fabulous job all weekend on a very tough track.

He will be replaying his last few corners, though.

Surely markwemple has something to say about Vettel's antics today.

I wonder whether Merc couldn't change Hamiltons tires because it was a safety mandated stop, or if they were out of tires, or if they figured it would take more time?

If you listen to Hamilton's radio through out the race it was very political. Regardless of the telemetry, clearly he sped up and let off the throttle in the exit, which is a unusual move. Seb then acted like a child and hit him. Hamilton took a chapter out of the Prost handbook of how to lobby, making Seb loose points and also asked his teammate to slow down so they he could pass Seb. Ham then in a interview after the race talking about leading a example for the young drivers......I don't think Seb or Ham are good examples. I am not a huge fan of Daniel R., but at least he is a clean driver and can get along with other drivers.

Streetwiseguy wrote: You know, if that young Hamilton fella keeps it up, he might be able to make a living as a race car driver. Kidding aside, wow.

Yes that was a very wonderful to watch pole position by Hamilton.

trigun7469 wrote: If you listen to Hamilton's radio through out the race it was very political. Regardless of the telemetry, clearly he sped up and let off the throttle in the exit, which is a unusual move. Seb then acted like a child and hit him. Hamilton took a chapter out of the Prost handbook of how to lobby, making Seb loose points and also asked his teammate to slow down so they he could pass Seb. Ham then in a interview after the race talking about leading a example for the young drivers......I don't think Seb or Ham are good examples. I am not a huge fan of Daniel R., but at least he is a clean driver and can get along with other drivers.

Hamilton gave Seb the opportunity to hang himself. He didn't accelerate out of the corner, Seb proceeded to screw up from there on. The side swipe was a dangerous, dangerous move in an open-wheel car and Seb's lucky he got off as easy as he did both in term of physical damage and penalties. Like it or not, a multiple world champion should be held to a higher standard (unless his name is Senna).

If you set aside the "I don't like Hamilton because he's a whiner" preconceptions, the radio transmissions were based on the team. Lewis wanted to hold up the field to let Bottas catch up under the safety car, but was told no. At the end of the race, he asked for Bottas' help if he wasn't engaged in a fight - there was no way for Lewis to know that Bottas was reeling in the Williams. That would have helped the team if Lewis had managed to get past Seb.

That was a beautiful move on Bottas' part. I haven't watched the end of the coverage on the British coverage yet, but the NBC guys totally missed it

trigun7469 wrote: If you listen to Hamilton's radio through out the race it was very political. Regardless of the telemetry, clearly he sped up and let off the throttle in the exit, which is a unusual move. Seb then acted like a child and hit him. Hamilton took a chapter out of the Prost handbook of how to lobby, making Seb loose points and also asked his teammate to slow down so they he could pass Seb. Ham then in a interview after the race talking about leading a example for the young drivers......I don't think Seb or Ham are good examples. I am not a huge fan of Daniel R., but at least he is a clean driver and can get along with other drivers.

Such is F1, it's always been super-political. Lewis played Seb like a fiddle, he had to know that that brake-check-that-wasn't-a-brake-check would piss him off and it might just get him to do something stupid. And sure enough, Seb took the bait. He really needs to learn to control his emotions. This isn't the first time his temper has gotten him in trouble.

I liked the race even if it was a bit over the top with stuff happening. The drivers keep complaining about the safety car speed but then it has always been so as far as I remember. Honda and Haas must feel a bit sick after being is such great positions and being run down by faster cars. I understand the moral politics of running the race in a place like Baku, but the racing has been interesting.

I was thinking Hamilton would get Vettel when he had a hard time passing Ocon was it? But he just didn't force the issue. Very smart move as every time someone tried a move into T2 they didn't make it out clean. Anyhow I am curious how much of a talking Vettel will get after that. He should get a suspension for 1 race weekend.

Ocon on Perez. I think Ocon will not be happy with himself. He seems to have pride in being a good sportsman and he put maybe just too hard a move on Perez. Then again, I can easily see Perez doing the same to him. I think it was a fine move as on the onboard it was clear he wasn't going to stop coming over. Ocon has a future but Perez may just end his career if he doesn't get a handle on how to deal with his team mate and the odd media hate.

Speaking of career ending, I think Grojean has been second to "Brittney" in getting no respect. His trouble with the brakes will probably end his F1 career soon. Maybe he will fall into Renault to replace Palmer just out of French pride but then Ocon would likely be THE PRIME renault choice.

Tom_Spangler wrote:

trigun7469 wrote: If you listen to Hamilton's radio through out the race it was very political. Regardless of the telemetry, clearly he sped up and let off the throttle in the exit, which is a unusual move. Seb then acted like a child and hit him. Hamilton took a chapter out of the Prost handbook of how to lobby, making Seb loose points and also asked his teammate to slow down so they he could pass Seb. Ham then in a interview after the race talking about leading a example for the young drivers......I don't think Seb or Ham are good examples. I am not a huge fan of Daniel R., but at least he is a clean driver and can get along with other drivers.

Such is F1, it's always been super-political. Lewis played Seb like a fiddle, he had to know that that brake-check-that-wasn't-a-brake-check would piss him off and it might just get him to do something stupid. And sure enough, Seb took the bait. He really needs to learn to control his emotions. This isn't the first time his temper has gotten him in trouble.

In watching the replay it seemed like Hamilton checked the field at that corner exit each time he was in circulating behind the safety car. Maybe it was how he got some heat into the right front tire, IDK. I think Vettel has a problem with Hamilton's safety car methods in general as back in 2007 Vettel took out Weber in Japan while the field followed Hamilton behind the safety car. So the bump in the back isn't new but the side slam is a whole other story.

I really hope the FIA suspend Vettel for that, it needs to be a strong message sent.

Who's "Brittney"?

I think Grosjean has a pretty solid place at HAAS, they've been good for each other. They weren't the only ones to have trouble with the brakes.

Interesting that a few of the teams decided to go with low downforce setups on that track to get the speed on the straights. Looking at it, I would have thought it would be a high downforce track.

I think over the years a lot of people have complained about how Hamilton handles safety cars. Of course he backed off, but I put the entire blame on Vettel. I want to like Vettel, but he keeps doing stupid things. Lewis' car clearly slows at the apex, but that wasn't the first time as even on TV you could see it corner after corner.

I've worked with a couple of professional drivers over the years, and I think you need to have a pretty selfish attitude in the car to succeed at that level. Hamilton and Vettel both have it, and it's a lot like watching Senna and Prost. Ironically Hamilton is far more like Prost than Senna, his hero.

Keith Tanner wrote: Who's "Brittney"?

That was Rosberg's nickname around the paddock.

Ah. Hadn't heard that. An F1 engineer friend of mine calls Alonso "Fred", that one was new to me too

Lewis didn't have a choice but hang way back otherwise ran the risk of passing the safety car before it cleared the safety line.He was warned he was very close to doing just that in the 1st caution.

Blame was totally on Seb for that one,hopefully when he has a chance to watch the replys he'll change his view of the incident.

WTF was with the Shooey?

obviously new to me but where the everlivin' berkeley did that start

Aussies and alcohol, man. They're weird.