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Formula 1 2017 Season |OT| Japanese Horror Story - Sundays on Sky
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Psychotext
Member
Result aside, I was quite concerned at the lack of actual racing we saw here. Hopefully it's not how the whole season is going to go.
Also, Raikkonen needs to be a lot better than he was today.
Also, Raikkonen needs to be a lot better than he was today.
Thats Australia really.
Just saw the results, maybe we'll have a battle for top spot after all!
Yeah that's never going away. People like to cling on to it like a lifeline. We already had people expecting Lewis to bin the start lol.
Yeah that's never going away. People like to cling on to it like a lifeline. We already had people expecting Lewis to bin the start lol.
Mohonky
Member
Switch to tires with less grip? As soon as he switched to the Soft he went purple.
I think it was just a learning curve with the tyres, the Merc seemingly more tyre hungry than the Ferrari and poor judgement. He was keeping Ferrari the Ferrari behind him and the gap was growing then shrinking then growing again and then shrinking so its not like the Ferrari was right up under his gearbox, he was probably more concerned of being undercut and a combination of coming in too early and underestimating how long the others would stay out on track cost him. They had probably assumed (wrongly) that Verstappen would stop earlier before Hamilton got caught up behind him, obviously, Verstappen was out longer and despitethe better speed, he couldnt get past Verstappen. Had Verstappen not been there, its likely he would have still been in front of Vettel, of course, whether he would have enough tyre left at the end of the race to defend Vettel is another matter entirely but that is purely hypothetical because by the time Verstappen stopped, Hamilton was what, 6sec down on Vettel and he had used the tyres up following behind Verstappen and trying to overtake him.
Was just a bad strategy call, Merc assumed things about what the other teams would do as far as when they would pit and it didnt happen like they thought and put him behind the 8 ball.
And in fact his start was very good - pulled away quite nicely (something something supposedly Vettel didn't get a great start, but still).
sems4arsenal
Member
Unless it's going to rain can we stop at Qualifying at Monaco?
In retrospect, Hamilton should have done to Vettel what he often did to Rosberg: there's no way that a similarly-paced car on similarly-aged tyres was going to overtake, so he should have just kept Vettel behind him for another 8 laps and then pitted. It would have provided enough time to build a bigger gap to 3rd, 4th and 5th and likely would have prevented him getting stuck behind a Red Bull of all cars. Vettel for sure was the faster driver today, but Hamilton/Mercedes made it a lot easier for them than it should have been.
GrizzleBoy
Banned
The worst thing, is that Lewis was saying around this time last year that the new regs will destroy overtaking.
We could see that even with DRS Vettel couldn't get close to Lewis.
We could see that DRS was also pretty ineffective on other cars.
We could see track position was pretty critical.
Yet merc thought it would be okay to pit Lewis at a time where he's coming out behind a train of four cars including a racing red bull.
Regardless of hindsight, it was a terrible decision. It was the equivalent of pitting for new tyres at Monaco because there is a car behind you doing purple sectors.
If they absolutely had to do it, why not stay out long enough that Seb gets caught behind the red bull too, instead of giving him free air to get out in front of him?
Dutch Gronk
Banned
WEEEEE'RRREEE BAAAAAAAAAACKKKKKK!
THE RESSURECTION OF GERMAN JESUS!
THE RESSURECTION OF GERMAN JESUS!
Spinning on one corner and lightly damaging the back of the car means he should suffer catastrophic failure twice?
Sure bud
PdotMichael
Banned
This too is hammertime.
Ok, so I just woke up and.....Holy shit. I didn't expect that. Looks like we might get some good racing after all this year. Toro Rosso and Force India also proved me wrong and all their drivers scored points today, so good on them, but I'll want to see the highlights later on.
Dutch Gronk
Banned
Par for the course with big regulation changes like this. Don't forget as well that the non-works teams are paying much more for their engines than in any regulation shake-up before.
marvelharvey
Member
Boring race. Interesting result. Potentially exciting championship ahead!
At least it's better than the 80s, where McLaren or Williams would lap everyone but themselves. How times have changed.
Peter Ian Staker
Member
That's the most Italian image ever posted.
Reasoning of the aborted start - https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/whiting-explains-reason-for-aborted-start-886714/
It's a difficult balance to find. I actually enjoyed most races last year even though Mercedes was dominant, because the tyres combined with DRS caused a LOT of overtakes throughout the field. Mad Max in particular. Call it artificial but it was kinda fun.
Now we might have two teams fighting which makes for amazing championship meta, but there's not much happening on track yet.
When was the last season where we had both thrilling championship meta and exciting racing?
The main thing that will affect the racing this season is DRS. I don't think we had a single DRS-assisted overtake in Australia because there simply wasn't enough room to close the 0.7 seconds or so that was the "dirty air" gap. But if they can calibrate it properly for the remaining races (i.e. make it so you can close up but not a guaranteed overtake) then that will have a positive impact.
2012 at least for me.
We had three DRS-assisted overtakes today. Just to give an idea.
Oh yes, I'd forgotten about Ocon/Hulkenberg on Alonso. Was more thinking of Hamilton's woes.
nekkid
It doesn't matter who we are, what matters is our plan.
Norwegian Rudo
Member
Was there a single racing overtake in the top ten until Ocon on Alonso?
What? What kind of a stupid thing is that to presume about him? I'd have thought they'd take that as a sign he's looking forward to having a championship showdown with Vettel.
Dutch Gronk
Banned
Our championship season 😎!
A few things:
-Lewis came out of quali thinking this was still 2016 and they would just disappear into the distance after turn 1, but Ferrari had other plans. When he realized the Ferrari's pace was real he started to get jumpy. That's what happens when you get accustomed to having the fastest car for such a long period of time. And as a huge Lewis fan.. please shut the fuck up and drive. The floor was fine.. the Ferrari is just as fast as you. Don't get jumpy.
-I've been saying for years that Merc's pitwall is trash. They've had the luxury of always being able to outdrive their opponents when they fuck up strategy or something goes wrong on track.
-Merc's design philosophy works it clean air, but their cars have always been super sensitive to dirty air, moreso then their opponents. This is gonna hurt them dearly this year unless they can out-develop Ferrari and RB fast enough to get their 1+ second advantage back.
-This is only the first race of the season and props to Ferrari, but Merc still has the fastest car. With this race providing a bit more understanding of the tires I expect them to sort it out. Australia is an outlier, I fully expect Merc to walk Ferrari in China.
-Lewis came out of quali thinking this was still 2016 and they would just disappear into the distance after turn 1, but Ferrari had other plans. When he realized the Ferrari's pace was real he started to get jumpy. That's what happens when you get accustomed to having the fastest car for such a long period of time. And as a huge Lewis fan.. please shut the fuck up and drive. The floor was fine.. the Ferrari is just as fast as you. Don't get jumpy.
-I've been saying for years that Merc's pitwall is trash. They've had the luxury of always being able to outdrive their opponents when they fuck up strategy or something goes wrong on track.
-Merc's design philosophy works it clean air, but their cars have always been super sensitive to dirty air, moreso then their opponents. This is gonna hurt them dearly this year unless they can out-develop Ferrari and RB fast enough to get their 1+ second advantage back.
-This is only the first race of the season and props to Ferrari, but Merc still has the fastest car. With this race providing a bit more understanding of the tires I expect them to sort it out. Australia is an outlier, I fully expect Merc to walk Ferrari in China.
PdotMichael
Banned
With Hamilton getting out 0.3s more than other drivers. It's safe to say that the Ferrari is faster than Mercedes.
Or was that Alonso?
Or was that Alonso?
So those rumours about McLaren moving back to Merc engines might not be so farfetched after all... My dad knows someone who works in McLaren's gearbox department and my dad told me that they'll be switching later in the year once they've worked everything out.
I still hold an I'lll-believe-it-when-I-see-it mentality, but watch this space I guess?
I still hold an I'lll-believe-it-when-I-see-it mentality, but watch this space I guess?
Well I'm bookmarking this post if it turns out to be true. Did the guy tell your father anything else? I'd imagine there must be a lot of apathy between the team in Woking and Honda right now.
adamantypants
Member
Even if McLaren switched later in the season, I can't imagine its going to be a seamless transition. Look at last year's Renault. Car built around a Merc could perform decently at best. Now McLaren would have to do it without a works budget.
Listening to Box of Neutrals podcast, someone posited the question that maybe McHonda would've done better if Honda came to Manor's rescue. Manor could've stayed in F1 and Honda would've had twice the engine data for developing and testing. I wonder if something like that could've worked out.
lol, I've always thought this about Monaco. But then again you have moments where your team forgets what tires are and throw the race
Listening to Box of Neutrals podcast, someone posited the question that maybe McHonda would've done better if Honda came to Manor's rescue. Manor could've stayed in F1 and Honda would've had twice the engine data for developing and testing. I wonder if something like that could've worked out.
lol, I've always thought this about Monaco. But then again you have moments where your team forgets what tires are and throw the race
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