The F1 thread

stickyfiddle

Heartfeltdawn said:

Cols said:

That's the problem - he isn't.  It's his 4th year in F1 and he hasn't calmed down.  


A major part of the problem is that he's been protected through those four years, not only by Red Bull but also by the race stewards.  He's been allowed to get away with driving standards that would have got other drivers a hefty haul of penalty points, while Red Bull have kept silent during the races while he indulges himself in aggressive driving against his own teammate.

The longer people are allowed to get away with bad behaviour without sanction, the more difficult it becomes to correct it.  I fear it's already too late for Max to learn.

Remember Hamilton in 2011? 

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2011/jul/08/lewis-hamilton

 Max is young enough to turn things around. 

Yup. Ham and Massa were both pulling the same shit right through 2011. And let’s be honest, Vettel had some shockers in his first couple of seasons with RB, but he got away with it because the car was rinsing everyone else.

Fretwired

Heartfeltdawn said:

Cols said:

That's the problem - he isn't.  It's his 4th year in F1 and he hasn't calmed down.  


A major part of the problem is that he's been protected through those four years, not only by Red Bull but also by the race stewards.  He's been allowed to get away with driving standards that would have got other drivers a hefty haul of penalty points, while Red Bull have kept silent during the races while he indulges himself in aggressive driving against his own teammate.

The longer people are allowed to get away with bad behaviour without sanction, the more difficult it becomes to correct it.  I fear it's already too late for Max to learn.

Remember Hamilton in 2011? 

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2011/jul/08/lewis-hamilton

 Max is young enough to turn things around. 

But Hamilton got over this in a single season. Vestappen looks like he'll never get over it. He's coming across as an arrogant twat.  He was supposed to be the next wunderkind but he's currently getting he's arse kicked by his teammate.  He'd better watch out as there are some excellent young drivers about to be promoted from the lower grid and some new ones about to enter F1. RB may drop him if he doesn't stop crashing.

Fretwired

Shorter F1 races to get more fans .... silly idea or what?

Heartfeltdawn

Shorter races would be foolish. Sprint races would be a disaster. Blancpain GT Sprint meetings have a qualifying sprint race and then a main race. Generally everyone's a bit cautious in the first one, fearful of twatting the car up, and not much happens. I would postulate that the same would be true in F1. 

One element tried in Blancpain GT for the first time were joker pit stops at Paul Ricard. Previously minimum times for pit stops was enforced as smaller teams don't have as many mechanics available so were at a disadvantage. At Paul Ricard each team could have one joker pit stop with no time limit. 

https://www.autosport.com/gt/news/134809/spa-24-hours-to-introduce-joker-pitstops

Now imagine something like that in F1. You have two compulsory pit stops per race. One is a specific period of time, say 60 seconds. The other is as short as you can make it. A system like that could lead to double stinting harder tyres if strategy allowed it, come in for your first stop and wait 60 seconds, then a short one to super softs for a dart at the end. I think it could work very well and would allow for different strategies to develop.

One joker pit stop, one compulsory minimum time stop, and 60 seconds per race of push to pass boost per driver to use whenever they want rather than DRS (which for the most part is predictable and sometimes pointless at certain venues) would be a good way to shift things around without adding too many artificial elements. 

(the 60 second boost would be turned off for the first three laps and at restarts as carnage would occur. Imagine the leaders going down into SAint Devote all trying to boost pass each other.... carbon fibre rainstorms would ensue). 

Heartfeltdawn

https://jalopnik.com/toyota-mclaren-aston-martin-ferrari-and-ford-agree-o-1826633303?rev=1528377727142&utm_medium=socialflow&utm_campaign=socialflow_jalopnik_twitter&utm_source=jalopnik_twitter

It's a start. 

Fretwired

Heartfeltdawn said:

https://jalopnik.com/toyota-mclaren-aston-martin-ferrari-and-ford-agree-o-1826633303?rev=1528377727142&utm_medium=socialflow&utm_campaign=socialflow_jalopnik_twitter&utm_source=jalopnik_twitter

It's a start. 

Seems like a good idea. May get me to watch it.

Cols

Fretwired said:

Heartfeltdawn said:

Cols said:

That's the problem - he isn't.  It's his 4th year in F1 and he hasn't calmed down.  


A major part of the problem is that he's been protected through those four years, not only by Red Bull but also by the race stewards.  He's been allowed to get away with driving standards that would have got other drivers a hefty haul of penalty points, while Red Bull have kept silent during the races while he indulges himself in aggressive driving against his own teammate.

The longer people are allowed to get away with bad behaviour without sanction, the more difficult it becomes to correct it.  I fear it's already too late for Max to learn.

Remember Hamilton in 2011? 

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2011/jul/08/lewis-hamilton

 Max is young enough to turn things around. 

But Hamilton got over this in a single season. Vestappen looks like he'll never get over it. He's coming across as an arrogant twat.  He was supposed to be the next wunderkind but he's currently getting he's arse kicked by his teammate.  He'd better watch out as there are some excellent young drivers about to be promoted from the lower grid and some new ones about to enter F1. RB may drop him if he doesn't stop crashing.

Also, Hamilton wasn’t driving like a tit from day 1.  This was more mid-career off the rails than deeply ingrained behaviour.

Fretwired

Cols said:

Also, Hamilton wasn’t driving like a tit from day 1.  This was more mid-career off the rails than deeply ingrained behaviour.

Wasn't part of it meeting an in form Button as a team mate.

Cols

Fretwired said:

Cols said:

Also, Hamilton wasn’t driving like a tit from day 1.  This was more mid-career off the rails than deeply ingrained behaviour.

Wasn't part of it meeting an in form Button as a team mate.

That certainly didn’t help; he’d had a few years with Heikki Kovalainen rarely giving him any trouble.  Even after that, the general consensus was that Button had made a terrible mistake by joining McLaren, and that Hamilton would swiftly demolish him. Altogether Button was seldom able to beat Hamilton in terms of sheer qualifying pace, he frequently outraced him.
That can’t have done much good to Hamilton’s frame of mind.

gavin_axecaster

^Don't think so - it was his relationship issues and his immaturity in handling them.
Even in that year, when he drove like a numptie, he was blamed for a few things that weren't his fault. Crashing into Button in Canada - Button moved across him as Hamilton was overtaking, so it was really 50/50.
Kobayashi in Spa - I'm with Coulthard - Hamilton had track position.

Now most of the rest of the year he only had himself to blame, although Massa wasn't innocent.

Fretwired

gavin_axecaster said:

^Don't think so - it was his relationship issues and his immaturity in handling them.
Even in that year, when he drove like a numptie, he was blamed for a few things that weren't his fault. Crashing into Button in Canada - Button moved across him as Hamilton was overtaking, so it was really 50/50.
Kobayashi in Spa - I'm with Coulthard - Hamilton had track position.

Now most of the rest of the year he only had himself to blame, although Massa wasn't innocent.

Don't disagree but I think Hamiton is used to being number one and Button was a good racer who unsettled Hamilton forcing him to race hard and make mistakes. Daniel is doing the same to Max.

gavin_axecaster

Hamilton's first F1 teammate was double world champion Fernando Alonso, and Hamilton beat him, coming second in the championship by 1 point.
I seriously doubt having Button as a teammate bothered Hamilton one bit - he had handily beaten Button in 2010.

I think Max is just arrogant and his years of coddling haven't helped his attitude. The FIA should have been harder on him before now to curb his aggression (It worked on Grosjean, for a while at least). As it is he's in his 4th season and he doesn't think he needs to change his driving style, which should be a concern to Red Bull. He's costing them money and Championship points every race - wunderkind or not they can't put up with it forever.

Boromedic

When Button outscored Lewis in 2011, it was Lewis beating himself rather than Button beating him. He got in that funk he sometimes does where everything is negative (like this season after Oz), and it lasted nearly the whole season when he could see the title was a long shot. One of his flaws is his inability to shut out external personal issues affecting performance partly due to wearing his heart on his sleeve, and being more emotional than others. Fernando and Seb certainly seem less affected by such things. He also had one more retirement which probably makes little difference, however it made a big difference when Nico beat him to the title.

gavin_axecaster

Yep, Nico won the title but Hamilton won more races, had more pole positions, more podium finishes and was voted driver of the year by F1 Team Bosses.

Fretwired

Hamilton on the back foot in Canada. Looks like a Ferrari win.

Cols

Fretwired said:

Hamilton on the back foot in Canada. Looks like a Ferrari win.

   2nd fastest after Verstappen, and on the slower tyre?  Looks reasonable enough to me, did I miss something?

Garthy

Fretwired said:

gavin_axecaster said:

^Don't think so - it was his relationship issues and his immaturity in handling them.
Even in that year, when he drove like a numptie, he was blamed for a few things that weren't his fault. Crashing into Button in Canada - Button moved across him as Hamilton was overtaking, so it was really 50/50.
Kobayashi in Spa - I'm with Coulthard - Hamilton had track position.

Now most of the rest of the year he only had himself to blame, although Massa wasn't innocent.

Don't disagree but I think Hamiton is used to being number one and Button was a good racer who unsettled Hamilton forcing him to race hard and make mistakes. Daniel is doing the same to Max.

Vettel pissing it in 2011 clearly bothered him, and his form nose dived after he saw Sutil glass Lopez in a Shanghai nightclub and all the shenanigans with the Chinese police for about 6 months after.

Modellista

Cols said:

Fretwired said:

Hamilton on the back foot in Canada. Looks like a Ferrari win.

   2nd fastest after Verstappen, and on the slower tyre?  Looks reasonable enough to me, did I miss something?

You've made the mistake of thinking Fret's predictions have any bearing on reality. 

Fretwired

modellista said:

Cols said:

Fretwired said:

Hamilton on the back foot in Canada. Looks like a Ferrari win.

   2nd fastest after Verstappen, and on the slower tyre?  Looks reasonable enough to me, did I miss something?

You've made the mistake of thinking Fret's predictions have any bearing on reality. 

Er .. Mercedes engine upgrade aborted due to quality issues. Hamilton is on an engine that's already done 6 races and will have lost power. Toto admits Mercedes are on the back foot - looks like damage limitation.

Ferrari never show their hand until Saturday. Vettel has a new upgraded engine with more power. Vettel for the win.

http://www.skysports.com/f1/news/12433/11397041/canadian-gp-mercedes-delay-engine-upgrade-until-france

rocktron