The F1 thread

[Snowy]

Try and get a spot looking down over Eau Rouge, at least on one of the days. That would be amazing to see the cars going through there up close.

I imagine everyone and their dog are doing to aim to do that. On the plus side, there's nothing stopping me walking over there for a bit from wherever our seats end up getting set up. Definitely on the to-do list!

I've got until Thursday to research into the best spots to sit in – anywhere where I can see some track and a big screen will keep me happy.

I have done Spa, it is a great track but you have to get a decent spot.

We watched quali from the Eau Rouge (including a spectacular barrel roll crash from Villeneuve that took virtually everything but the monocoque off his Williams - when they got him out he was laughing with the marshalls about what an epic crash it was - I would have filled my overalls had that been me!). When we arrived on race day though, Ze Germans had moved in overnight, erecting mini scaffolding and plank 'grandstands', climbing trees and hammering in plank seats, you couldn't get close enough to see anything. This was in Schuey's heyday when they used to pour over the border for the race, but I thought I would forewarn you.

And congratulations to you and your wife on your recent wedding

EDIT: Also I would point out that Spa is fucking massive in terms of area, and really hilly too. Plan in advance which spots you might want to view from and try and work out your route between them, as it can make for a very long walk otherwise. Suggest using the support races on Saturday to do your scoping. They tend to open the track up post-race too, so if you can get anywhere close to La Source it will give you an opportunity to potentially watch the podium from the track, which is always cool.

[Maturin]

By the way guys, the Spa race is being shown free to air this weekend on CH4. Make the most of it! These days will soon be over.

Qualifying starts at 2pm today.

[Raid]

Another fairly dull race but with renewed hope for the championship I suppose.

Spoiler

Hearing Hamilton mope because his car has an apparent weakness is getting quite old. He just sulks after every race he doesn't win, and magnifies the problems with his car to be far more significant than they actually are. Ferrari breezed past you on the straight, Lewis? Yeah, did you not notice the Force Indias doing exactly the same thing? Y'know, the Force Indias with the same power units you have? I laughed at Christian Horner's comment after the race that he'd play a tiny violin for Lewis after he'd complained about engine power. Granted, Seb mopes too when he's not had the best day, but it feels less frequent. Great to see him bounce back, although you could almost hear the boredom in his voice today during the usually quite animated post-race radio message.

I think Force India were the stars this weekend. Yes, they did get a bit lucky in qualifying with the Red Bulls and Kimi not being fueled to reach the end of the session, but then strategy is part of the game and they were best of the rest in the unofficial Category B teams after what must have been a scary few weeks. I still think it's silly that they don't get a fresh supply of PU components to match their new team entry; how can they lose their Constructors' points but not get any of the benefits of being a new entrant?

[Snowy]

Another fairly dull race but with renewed hope for the championship I suppose.

Spoiler

Hearing Hamilton mope because his car has an apparent weakness is getting quite old. He just sulks after every race he doesn't win, and magnifies the problems with his car to be far more significant than they actually are. Ferrari breezed past you on the straight, Lewis? Yeah, did you not notice the Force Indias doing exactly the same thing? Y'know, the Force Indias with the same power units you have? I laughed at Christian Horner's comment after the race that he'd play a tiny violin for Lewis after he'd complained about engine power. Granted, Seb mopes too when he's not had the best day, but it feels less frequent. Great to see him bounce back, although you could almost hear the boredom in his voice today during the usually quite animated post-race radio message.

I think Force India were the stars this weekend. Yes, they did get a bit lucky in qualifying with the Red Bulls and Kimi not being fueled to reach the end of the session, but then strategy is part of the game and they were best of the rest in the unofficial Category B teams after what must have been a scary few weeks. I still think it's silly that they don't get a fresh supply of PU components to match their new team entry; how can they lose their Constructors' points but not get any of the benefits of being a new entrant?

Yup, whiny bitch is whiny. Also the little dig that Ferrari have some tricks in their car, implying a lack of fair play just because they had the faster car.

He shits me off.

[Maturin]

He whines, but no less or more than Vettel as far as I can see. I think Vettel whines more during the race maybe, whereas Hamilton a bit more afterwards. Dunno. F1 drivers basically.

I can definitely see Ferrari getting a lot of 1-2 finishes for the remainder of the season, assuming most of the races are dry, so I'd fancy Vettel to win the championship from here.

[Raid]

Also the little dig that Ferrari have some tricks in their car, implying a lack of fair play just because they had the faster car.

In fairness, he's hardly the only one talking about Ferrari having found some sort of clever trick or workaround - the media have been pushing that theory since Monaco. The FIA have been satisfied that whatever Ferrari have done is legal but even people like Brundle (who tends to have his sources inside the paddock) are still talking about it. We'll presumably never know if it's just a standard power unit improvement, or whether there's something a little more cunning going on. It's not as if there's no precedent for clever loophole exploitation or workarounds that massively boost a car's performance being declared legal; Brawn and Button's 2009 championship rode atop one.

[DjchunKfunK]

Whining from drivers seems to be de rigueur for the sport nowadays, most of the top drivers do it when their car is not performing how they would like.

[Raid]

Soooo... LeClerc's halo appears to have taken the full weight of Alonso's Mclaren in yesterday's accident. It deflects so much energy that the Mclaren's suspension snaps.



I didn't put up much of an argument when it was confirmed that F1 would use the Halo system from this year onwards - clearly protection for the driver's head is a good thing, aesthetics be damned. I didn't expect to see its usefulness confirmed more than once (there was an accident in F2 earlier in the year) in its first year though.

[Wrathbone]

Yeah, regardless of whether a more elegant solution is found, I don't think there's any question that the halo has saved probably two lives or at least prevented two severe injuries. I can't imagine anyone arguing against it now.

[Drarok]

I wasn't particularly for or against the halo – it looked a bit weird at the start of the season, but I soon got used to it. Definitely seems like a sensible move to have it.

As for drivers moaning, I haven't heard this weekend's post-race so I can't speak to that one, but Hamilton did have a spell of really impressing me with how mature he was being for a while, saying things like how happy he was with the team's efforts even though it didn't pan out for a particular race, stuff like that. He's been a bit more like his whingey old self a few times recently though, hope he can reign that in.

And finally – I WAS THERE! I wanted to share the experience to more folks than just here so I ended up sticking it on my blog.

[Rossell]

Got Channel 4 highlights on. The Monza race sounded awesome on the stream.

[Maturin]

Yep, I watched it live. Great race!

Almost forgot what that feels like....

[Raid]

Monza was a disappointing race for me, not just for the state of the championship following it, but more for the creeping doubts over whether Ferrari can seal a world championship bid with its current driver lineup. Kimi is reliable, but he isn't fast enough, and Seb seems to be getting increasingly error prone. He's lost multiple potential victories in the last couple of years because of errors that were his own fault. Seb ruined his own race yesterday. He lost the lead in Baku locking his tyres on the safety car restart. He crashed out in Germany with nobody else around him. He locked up in France and took himself out of contention along with Bottas. While I'd never claim Hamilton was perfect, most of his failures this year have come either on Saturday or from strategy blunders. Something needs to change. There've been doubts over Raikkonen's future pretty much every year since he came back to Ferrari, and maybe switching him out for LeClerc is the right way to go.

And while I'm laying the blame for Seb's accident sqaurely at his own feet, Ferrari did seem to have shot themselves in the foot with their tyre selection for yesterday's race. For those that don't know, teams select 11 sets of tyres for the whole weekend for each driver from the three compounds that Perelli give them - Ferrari went almost entirely with super softs, and so they didn't have any spare sets of the softs to use during practice, meaning they didn't know how they'd wear during the race. Kimi's softs were destroyed during the race, and Seb's were so bad they had to move him to a two stop strategy.

Grosjean was disqualified from the race following a protest from Renault about the legality of the Haas' floor. This moves Sirotkin up into 10th scoring him his first point. This is the first time in F1 history that every race driver has scored points during the year. It also moves both Force India drivers up a place each, leaving them with more points than three other teams, despite the team having only competed in two races.

[Drarok]

What what what? Where can I read more on this Grosjean/Haas thing?

[Rossell]

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/13847 ... or-illegal