The F1 thread

boogieman

The Mercs still look horrendous to drive despite the improvements, the in-car footage of Hamilton showed how much he’s still getting bounced around. Shame about George losing so much ground in the qualis, hopefully he can get through the field a bit in the actual race.  

chillidoggy

George looked gutted, didn’t he? Bottas must be laughing like a drain, though.

I reckon it’ll be a Ferrari 1 - 2. Unless of course their race pace isn’t as good as the Bulls. Or unless Sainz bins it yet again.

As for the track, it’s as superficial and vacuous as an Instagram influencer.

sweepy

Is  it me or is all this Miami bollocks a little grating ? Let’s just race and ditch all this , scrap that, the race is Zzzzzzzzzz

thumpingrug

The police escort to the podium, which isn't near the finish line, is a bit fucked up.

stickyfiddle

thumpingrug said:

The police escort to the podium, which isn't near the finish line, is a bit fucked up.

They’re lucky Lewis didn’t nick 3rd, or he wouldn’t have made it…

Fairly middling race overall. Some excitement from the SC in the final 20% and Russell gets credit for his hedge towards that paying off. 

CavemanGrogg

I can't see L.H. staying in the F1 for much longer, which is a shame as he is a good driver, for some reaon to me he seems more concerned and focused on things othder than the F1, wearing jewellery for example, lots of jobs in life, even minimum wage jobs require that no jewellery be worn while working for safety reasons, and L.H. has just gotten upset about being told that his nose stud needs to be removed for racing for safety reasons, it's not like he can't put it backin on the way to the podium, it takes seconds, but it'll take a surgeon hours to remove it from your skull should you be hit hard enough in the face.

thumpingrug said:

The police escort to the podium, which isn't near the finish line, is a bit fucked up.

Unfortunately given the recent high profile attacks on high profile people in public in recent weeks, and the location of the race - America more guns than there are people, it's an unavoidable shame.  Makes me think of Ali's reaction to being greated by British police when he landed at Heathrow and was shocked to learn that we don't trust our with guns - you guys practise what you preach I believe he said to the copper who met him at the aeroplane's door.

Majorscale

The police escort was just for show so they can add more lights and noise, just typical American flashy bollocks stuff

thumpingrug

Majorscale said:

The police escort was just for show so they can add more lights and noise, just typical American flashy bollocks stuff

That's exactly what it looked and felt like.  Nothing to do with security or protecting anyone.  Most other F1 races the drives happily mingle with the fans.  Lewis has crowd surfed often.  Violence at F1 is extremely rare.  IF Miami is that unsafe, or guns that freely available that they are taken into the trackside then perhaps Miami isnt the place to be racing.

chillidoggy

Flawless drive by Max, and I loved the battle with Leclerc, those two provided pretty much all the excitement.

But it didn’t change my previously stated view of the track!

stickyfiddle

Apparently Merc, Mclaren and AM have hefty upgrades this weekend. In typical Stroll-mandated fashion, the new AM sidepods are a slightly squared-off copy of the Red Bull ones... 

Cols

Yep, a few years on from the Pink Mercedes we've now got the Green Red Bull.

On the plus side, the upgrades are going on both cars; previously it was reported that only Baby Stroll was getting the upgrades, with Vettel running the old spec "for comparison".  This probably gives an indication of the likelihood of Vettel sticking at AM for another year.

fretmeister

Mercs look quite improved.

Couldn't see any porpoising on the straights in FP2, and the commentators said they were fastest on the straights too.

Fingers crossed!

stickyfiddle

Yeah, both Merc running much lower and looking far more stable than in previous races. If they can get to the front for half the rest of the season it's even possible that Ferrari & RB could fight for 2nd/3rd fastest in races and Merc could challenge for the title. 

RiftAmps

Red Bull (MV) long race pace in FP2 was an average 1:26.0, Ferrari was 26.6 and Merc 26.9.

Max managed 5 laps out of 13 in the 25s, CL only two, and Lewis just 1 before tyre deg started to kill them.

Teetonetal

Cols said:

dazzajl said:

boogieman said:

Well I hope he’s better at driving than fashion design 

I don’t think we’re really his market here

In the name of all that's good, who is his target market?

Fashion in this sense has never had a target market other than people who follow fashion. 

To be honest, he pulls it off quite well.

goldtop

^ Agree. There are lots of middle-aged blokes like us who buy a Hollister or Super Dry shirt and think it makes us fashionable (instead of just gullible). That's not what LH is doing. Nor George Russel, actually. They both have their own approach.

Meanwhile, I'll be happy if LH is in the top 4 today.

stickyfiddle

RiftAmps said:

Red Bull (MV) long race pace in FP2 was an average 1:26.0, Ferrari was 26.6 and Merc 26.9.

Max managed 5 laps out of 13 in the 25s, CL only two, and Lewis just 1 before tyre deg started to kill them.

the fact that we don’t know fuel loads notwithstanding, it’ll be interesting to see if it plays out like that, as RB haven’t been top on single lap pace so far and Barca is notorious for being hard to overtake. If you’re not in front that long run pace may not help.

chillidoggy

I’m going with Leclerc for the win, he just looks so good, but Sainz is showing some form, too. Could he clinch 2nd at his home GP? I reckon so.

But if I’m right, it’s gonna be all about tyres again, strategy will be key. I don’t like the circuit, and overtaking will be difficult.

RiftAmps

George finished 0.643scs off pole, and Lewis even further back at 0.762. Based on lap time % (which is the standard way of measuring the performance gap between the Teams), this is 0.817% slower than Pole position.

At the opening round in Bahrain, Lewis qualified 0.680 off pole. This was 0.751% slower.
They may have solved their porpoising, but the gap to the front is ever so slightly wider.

If the race is green all the way through, then after 66 laps the highest placed Merc will still be 20-30secs behind the winner. Can't fight for a title like that. Even if you can finish within 10 secs of P1, you're still an eternity behind.

Boromedic

It's going to be a tyre management race though rather than a balls out race, so pole laps aren't going to translate to the race distance. It's going to be who can look after the tyres and drive within a window of time to make the pitstops work; especially in the current heat of Barcelona.

Alas I think that is going to be Red Bull, however I hope they're using up all of their development tokens early and Ferrari can compete sooner rather than later. I think Mercedes could be in the mix on race pace, they were faster than the Ferraris marginally on race setups, but I think their deg is higher. The drivers are saying the car is an improvement so that's something positive at least.