Formula 1 2020 - General Discussion Thread (See MOD warning on first post)

ELM327

g1983d wrote: »

Hulkenburg reported to be replacing Grosjean at Haas next year

That would be an upgrade.
Big John has no place in F1

g1983d

ELM327 wrote: »

That would be an upgrade.
Big John has no place in F1

Pity yhe dog of an engine won't bring him any closer to a podium for at least a couple if years, on the plus for him they seem tk be loyal to drivers

El_Duderino 09

ELM327 wrote: »

That would be an upgrade.
Big John has no place in F1

Yeah the old argument that "he can be quick on his day" is true, but "his days" are scarce. Recently he's been anonymous at best and he's prone to howlers far more frequently than an exceptionally quick day.

Hulk vs KMag will be interesting as an intra team battle. But I wouldn't expect much from Haas next year.

johnnysmack

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

Hulk vs KMag will be interesting as an intra team battle.

Suck my balls honey!

El_Duderino 09

johnnysmack wrote: »

Suck my balls honey!

Oh yeah I'd forgotten about that! How better to get his own back on him than by outscoring him over a season?

Hijpo

So have Ferrari rolled back three years of development? Was there more than one finding (chassis/aero) when investigating the engine power which has them so far back in performance?

mickdw

Hijpo wrote: »

So have Ferrari rolled back three years of development? Was there more than one finding (chassis/aero) when investigating the engine power which has them so far back in performance?

What ever about engine power losses, id imagine the entire ferrari team is in a mess.
More a political mess than anything else imo.

PukkaStukka

Hijpo wrote: »

So have Ferrari rolled back three years of development? Was there more than one finding (chassis/aero) when investigating the engine power which has them so far back in performance?

Martin Brundie made the point that Ferrari should be at least 1sec ahead of one of their customer engine teams, which suggests this weekends abominable performance is down to both chassis and engine

pyramuid man

mickdw wrote: »

What ever about engine power losses, id imagine the entire ferrari team is in a mess.
More a political mess than anything else imo.

Nothing new there. They will probably just keep playing musical chairs with management until one of them gets lucky and wins something.

Frank Bullitt

Feels like once that ruling came down on the PU's, they knew from then on that this years car would be compromised. After that, seems like anything new for the car in terms of aero has just been lacking in any kind of impact.

Spa is showing the first signs of the lack of power, Monza will REALLY show it up, and Mugello might be just as bad. Dark days for them, no real end in sight until 2022 at least, unless the FIA grow a set and let the PUs catch up and not freeze them.

Saw this, sums it up.

PukkaStukka

The current regulations and the proposal to freeze PU development from the end of this year with limited updates thereafter will result in advantages being locked in like they were at the start of the hybrid era, and will undoubtedly benefit Mercedes powered teams. This is very bad news for Formula One as a sport and it's fans. It will result in predicable and preordained race outcomes like we are seeing currently and have already seen for the majority of the hybrid era. This is going ro further undermine the sport and drain it's appeal further which is the last thing that it needs right now.

AMKC

Yes it's very bad. The only good thing you could say is that at least Renault,McLaren and William's are improving and the McLaren will have the Mercedes engine next year so you never know. Maybe they will be up there fighting with Mercedes and Red Bull.

El_Duderino 09

AMKC wrote: »

Yes it's very bad. The only good thing you could say is that at least Renault,McLaren and William's are improving and the McLaren will have the Mercedes engine next year so you never know. Maybe they will be up there fighting with Mercedes and Red Bull.

This is the level of wishful thinking we have to resort to. In reality, next year will continue on from this year.

Some things might change in 2022. I expect Mercedes has the best all round team and they will build the best car in 2022 and have the best engine in 2022 and have the best driver in 2022. Hard to see anything change in the short term. Only short term hope is if they withdraw.

After that the Red Bull could offer a challenge and Racing Point is building a factory that could change things IF they can manage things well. But if I were a bookie I'd give short odds on Mercedes winking the drivers and constructors championships for the next few years.

If you listen to the podcasts, they try to make an argument for why the championship isn't over and how max could MAYBE make a challenge IF Mercedes balls it up AND the tyres dont work out for merc AND Lewis makes mistakes AND red bull out developes merc. In reality merc rarely make mistakes, Lewis rarely makes mistakes, the Mercedes team reacts really quickly to errors like the tyre problem they had in Silverstone. We're left totally clutching at straws. Sensible money is on Merc for the win this year, next year and for the foreseeable future.

It's strange how much the YouTubers and all insist that the championship isn't over. Actually as I type this, it isn't, F1 is niche enough that I guess they need to keep talking it up to keep themselves with an extra 10-15% of viewers/clicks.
5 years of Ferrari at the start of the millennium was seen as pretty bad and was enough for massive changes to change it up. We're on to year 7 of Mercedes with year 8 next year inevitable. People want to pretend like it might not happen but they can be safely ignored. That's 8 straight years.
Going on from that, let's be honest, Mercedes need to do nothing for next year. They can go all-in on 2022 with their works engine from now. A few years ago I would have thought it alarmist but seriously at this point the sport is dying. Subscription figures and broadcast rights are long-term deals so it'll be a couple of years before any of that really bites but the young fans aren't coming in and I think it's fairly obvious from around the net that even what would be the hardcore fans are pretty disillusioned and worse, apathetic, at this point.

Ikozma

What have renault done to have such a big improvement in recent weeks?

El_Duderino 09

Ikozma wrote: »

What have renault done to have such a big improvement in recent weeks?

They said they were bringing incremental updates. None made huge differences on their own but they must have accumulated.

This is a very particularl circuit though. Ferrari hadn't been tha bad all season, Renault hasn't been this good all season. The higher down force circuits suited ferrari better, maybe the low downforce suits the Renault. Well see how they do next week time monza.

Burkie1203

Ikozma wrote: »

What have renault done to have such a big improvement in recent weeks?

probably what ferrari were doing last year.

GarIT

Burkie1203 wrote: »

probably what ferrari were doing last year.

It's unliely. The max fuel reservoir size between the fuel flow sensor and the engine has been reduced from 2L to 250ml this year.

mickdw

GarIT wrote: »

It's unliely. The max fuel reservoir size between the fuel flow sensor and the engine has been reduced from 2L to 250ml this year.

Are you serious - there was a 2L fuel store after the flow sensor?

duploelabs

Binotto “sorry but the contract is iron clad there is no way out of it”

Sainz “****. Why is your legal team the only department that works properly?”

(nicked from reddit)

klose

Watched both seasons of drive to survive over lockdown and said I'd follow it this season, I'm enjoying it though I can see how one sided it is towards mercedes, has the sport always been like this? I mean would the bookies even give you worthwhile odds on a ham-bot-ver 1,2,3?

I can't see how Hamilton can't be feeling a bit bored with it, I see verstappen after each race he says each time coming third or "splitting the Mercedes" is the best they can hope for, again must be a fairly abject feeling to have.

H8GHOTI

It’s a shame the FIA stopped Ferrari doing whatever they were doing to gain performance last year. Don’t care if it was illegal, it was making the races more interesting.

GarIT

mickdw wrote: »

Are you serious - there was a 2L fuel store after the flow sensor?

Yeah I posted a link a few pages back but it got lost in the mess. In 2019 and earlier there was a maximum of 2L of fuel allowed between the flow sensor and the engine. This year it is reduced to 250ml and from next year everything between the fuel flow sensor to the engine/injectors/that sort of area is a spec part.

https://motorsport.tech/formula-1/fuel-flow-gate-did-ferrari-attempt-to-trick-the-system-and-if-so-how-could-it-be-done

It's only speculation that Ferrari were taking advantage of it more/better than the other teams, but it is one of the few rule changes this year and there is an obvious drop in performance.

GarIT

H8GHOTI wrote: »

It’s a shame the FIA stopped Ferrari doing whatever they were doing to gain performance last year. Don’t care if it was illegal, it was making the races more interesting.

On principle I disagree but emotionally I completely agree.

I wish Crofty would calm down. I just noticed the cheering when Hamilton crosses the line to win. Can we not get E.R. from Winnie the Pooh to commentate on the last lap. "Lewis Hamilton wins again, who would have guessed, oh well, maybe next time"

PukkaStukka

H8GHOTI wrote: »

It’s a shame the FIA stopped Ferrari doing whatever they were doing to gain performance last year. Don’t care if it was illegal, it was making the races more interesting.

Well I posted a few pages back about Mercedes finding the sort of performance this year that Ferrari lost and nobody on the grid seems to be questioning that. In circumstances where chassis and engine development are about to be frozen, someone having that kind of sizeable advantage is not a good thing for the sport. Already some on Italy are wondering aloud on social media if what's going on is the beginning of a preplanned Ferrari exit. I certainly hope not but today's performance does add a little creedance to that notion

AMKC

H8GHOTI wrote: »

It’s a shame the FIA stopped Ferrari doing whatever they were doing to gain performance last year. Don’t care if it was illegal, it was making the race;):eek:s more interesting.

Agreed.

Hijpo

GarIT wrote: »

On principle I disagree but emotionally I completely agree.

I wish Crofty would calm down. I just noticed the cheating when Hamilton crosses the line to win. Can we not get E.R. from Winnie the Pooh to commentate on the last lap. "Lewis Hamilton wins again, who would have guessed, oh well, maybe next time"

So, this season is the first season I have watched all the races. Never really paid much attention to Crofty until I started reading about him on this forum. Now I understand everyone's comments.

I would imagine the ex drivers on the panel wish he would shut up trying to chime in with jargon to be "one of the lads" and come across as very knowledgeable. Really cringed for him on lap 17 when Brundle had just said "no DRS until after this lap" before Ricardo passed Perez, as ricardo makes the move crofty chimes in "and here is Daniel Ricardo who HAS got DRS" then Brundle tells him DRS wouldn't be switched on yet after the safety car.

Jordan 199

The Constructors Championship between third and sixth place is tight. Nine points between third placed McLaren and sixth place Renault.

3rd: McLaren: 68 points.

4th: Racing Point: 66 points.

5th: Ferrari: 61 points.

6th: Renault: 59 points.

Frank Bullitt

I have to ask lads, is anyone else like me when they are properly frustrated/upset with the current state of F1 and how it is being run?

We literally have snoozefests week in and week out now, nothing about it AT ALL is exciting, and I really mean nothing right now. We have very little close racing, very little excitement, no drama or anything. I am lost at this.

Yes, Ferrari dominated the sport in the early 2000's, but this level or boredom makes that look like an Irish wedding in comparison. Also, where the hell are the FIA right now with doing anything meaningful at all with making a change. We had plenty of rule changes (some minor, and some major) that switched things up before, like the tire rules in 2005, or the aero changes in some seasons. Even fast forward to the early 2010's we had close battles.

I would hazard a guess that the lack of leadership and action from the FIA is because one of the main chaps at the helm worked for the team who are walking away with it right now...would you say?

Anyway, I seem to rant a lot in here lately, I really have turned into my Da it seems. But mother of Christ...what the hell has happened to the sport I used to wake up at 6am on a Sunday to watch a race for...

rock22

To be fair, the mid field race was exciting. Renault doing a good job after losing out during the safety car/first round of pit stop. And Gasly ,and for a while Perez, provided some excitement.

But i agree that the top three were never in doubt and it is unlikely that we will see a finish other. than HamVerBot or HamBotVer with maybe an occasional Bottas win.