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

ELM327

RB have been pretty clear that Gasly is remaining at Alphatauri

ELM327

recyclebin wrote: »

They are in no rush. They can chose Albon, Perez or Hulkenberg whenever they want. Four more races to go so they will probably not announce anything until the end of the season.

The only thing that would upset that plan is if Hamilton calls it quits. That would open up a big merry go round. I'd say a lot of drivers have exit clauses if Mercedes come knocking.

I'd say max's exit clause would get him that seat if Lewis retires

El_Duderino 09

ELM327 wrote: »

I'd say max's exit clause would get him that seat if Lewis retires

That sounds good but max in a Merc would be no different to Hamilton in the Merc apart from the name on the trophy at the end of the year. We need one of three things to happen if the championship is to be competitive:
1 Mercedes regress or the other teams progress so the cars are more closely matched.
2 Mercedes to keep its dominance but not have a top driver so a top driver like max in a red bull and Ric in a McLaren can compete with the Mercedes drivers for the championship.
3 Mercedes has two top drivers who can have a genuine fight between them for the championship.

ELM327

I'd love to see latifi and bottas in the mercedes. I dont rate Lewis but it's clear he's better than Bottasby some margin.

vectra

As has been said already, 90% of the grid would win in Lewis's car.

Charlie-Bravo

I thought this was quite funny...only F1 fans would appreciate it:

vectra

LOL

El_Duderino 09

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

That’s probably down to the fact that his first teammate was a joke (efforts to get back in a seat were great, but his performance level was a joke). And he always out-qualified his teammate so he starts ahead every single time. But I think he hasn’t had great race pace compared to teammates.

Last year he would often out-qualify Kubica by half a second and would start second last. Kubica sometimes managed to get ahead of him in races. Russell was much faster but didn’t always overtake. When roles were reversed Russell would scarper a way from Kubica at half a second a lap again.

But I think if you watch Russell in a race, you’d see he’s not as good as his qualifying pace suggests. But that could be the car or he might set up for quali rather than the race.

Your views on Kubica don't need re-stating. Quick google says there was an average of 0.625 between him and Russell in Quali. I don't have any nice clean data to work with so a bit of wiki browsing showed me the following gaps (leading tenth digit) for this season.
0.6
1.5
0.6
1.0
0.7
0.5
0.5
0.2
0.1
1.0
0.3
0.8
0.4

I make that an average of 0.68 seconds per lap. So Kubica was closer to Russell than the reigning F2 champ. Ho hum.

Genuine question, how often did Kubica get past not because of externalities like safety cars? I'm not going to go digging for back of the field reports from races last year but I don't recall Kubica making any nice moves on him or making his tyres last longer. There were a couple of mistakes by Russell no doubt.

As for this year, would you accept that just maybe, possibly, there's an argument that he goes backwards in races precisely because his qualifying pace is so outstanding and he's getting much more out of the car over a single lap than either of his teammates have been able to?

El_Duderino 09

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Your views on Kubica don't need re-stating. Quick google says there was an average of 0.625 between him and Russell in Quali. I don't have any nice clean data to work with so a bit of wiki browsing showed me the following gaps (leading tenth digit) for this season.
0.6
1.5
0.6
1.0
0.7
0.5
0.5
0.2
0.1
1.0
0.3
0.8
0.4

I make that an average of 0.68 seconds per lap. So Kubica was closer to Russell than the reigning F2 champ. Ho hum.

Genuine question, how often did Kubica get past not because of externalities like safety cars? I'm not going to go digging for back of the field reports from races last year but I don't recall Kubica making any nice moves on him or making his tyres last longer. There were a couple of mistakes by Russell no doubt.

As for this year, would you accept that just maybe, possibly, there's an argument that he goes backwards in races precisely because his qualifying pace is so outstanding and he's getting much more out of the car over a single lap than either of his teammates have been able to?

Yeah he’s never near Latifi because the quali difference this year actually means he’s way up the grid where last year he still usually started next to Kubica in spite of the huge quali difference. Kubica being over 0.6s off his teammate is pretty dreadful but I credit Russell with being a really good qualifier.

Yeah I think he suffers from the same thing as LeClerc does in races: he qualifies really well and can’t maintain it as the other cars are better in the race. But the same caveat applies which is it’s hard to tell whether it’s poor race craft or the car lets him down.

Kubica got ahead of Russell a couple of times. I remember them being mostly mistakes or safety cars. It’s to be expected though as he usually ran second last and Kubica ran last, Kubica was the only one who could overtake him. Not sure why Kubica is important to this. We need to see Russell either in a decent car or at least with a decent teammate.

Even if quali is a strong part of his game, that’s ok. Bottas is much stronger in quali than the race and Hamilton is the opposite.

Cool_CM

Vietnam dropped for 2021. There goes that idea

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/54879815

Jordan 199

Looks like the only way to see the track is buy a copy of F1 2020

AMKC

Ha lol was just watching the T.V and just switched to Sky News and is a Professer James Curran on it and for a second I thought it was Eddie Jordan lol not some chair of Climate Ready Clyde lol.

ELM327

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

Yeah he’s never near Latifi because the quali difference this year actually means he’s way up the grid where last year he still usually started next to Kubica in spite of the huge quali difference. Kubica being over 0.6s off his teammate is pretty dreadful but I credit Russell with being a really good qualifier.

Yeah I think he suffers from the same thing as LeClerc does in races: he qualifies really well and can’t maintain it as the other cars are better in the race. But the same caveat applies which is it’s hard to tell whether it’s poor race craft or the car lets him down.

Kubica got ahead of Russell a couple of times. I remember them being mostly mistakes or safety cars. It’s to be expected though as he usually ran second last and Kubica ran last, Kubica was the only one who could overtake him. Not sure why Kubica is important to this. We need to see Russell either in a decent car or at least with a decent teammate.

Even if quali is a strong part of his game, that’s ok. Bottas is much stronger in quali than the race and Hamilton is the opposite.

Worth noting that Kubica outscored Russel last year.

El_Duderino 09

ELM327 wrote: »

Worth noting that Kubica outscored Russel last year.

Yeah, I'd agree - worth very little as it was such a rare event for Williams (only happened once). They were both miles off the pace and Kubica was miles off Russel's pace. Russell outqualified Kubica by over half a second on average (a trouncing) and he ran 580 laps ahead of Kubica where Kubica ran 265 laps ahead of Russell (another trouncing). That was the most unbalanced stat on the grid apart from the teams who changed drivers mid season (Redbull and TR).

Kubica finished one race ahead of Russell and one race in the points and since Williams finishing in the points was such a rare event, it's a terrible way to judge their relative performance but luckily there are lots of ways to measure teammates' relative performance

Lawlesz

ELM327 wrote: »

Worth noting that Kubica outscored Russel last year.

In all fairness, I don't think that is worth noting at all. He finished ahead of Russell twice in the whole season, one just happened to be at a fluke Germany, and even then he only got into the points after I think the Alfas were DQ'd.

Different story if he outscored him over several races, but inheriting a single point in a crazy race tells us nothing, especially when you factor in that he only finished ahead on one other occasion. Russell beat him comprehensively over the season, to suggest otherwise is just crazy talk.

Charlie-Bravo

Racing is racing, and flukes happen. Sure Hamilton and the VSC/safety cars are nothing but gifts! We all have to take the race result as it is and Kubica finished ahead, but George is way better. I have no doubt that Russell is a really good driver compared to the other rookies coming through. He aced the F2 season he was in. Same the way Hamilton raced in GP2 in 2006, just brilliant.

duploelabs

Vietnam dropped from 2021

ELM327

duploelabs wrote: »

Vietnam dropped from 2021

What an anomaly that will end up being. A great trivia, what circuit appeared in one f1 game but was never raced around.

Cool_CM

Jordan 199 wrote: »

Looks like the only way to see the track is buy a copy of F1 2020

It's such a ridiculous track

AMKC wrote: »

Ha lol was just watching the T.V and just switched to Sky News and is a Professer James Curran on it and for a second I thought it was Eddie Jordan lol not some chair of Climate Ready Clyde lol.

It's probably been mentioned, but there's a dude on the Great British Bake Off that looks the spit of Eddie Jordan :pac:

Jordan 199

Cool_CM wrote: »

It's such a ridiculous track

I'll see what it is like on my new Xbox Series X

El_Duderino 09

ELM327 wrote: »

What an anomaly that will end up being. A great trivia, what circuit appeared in one f1 game but was never raced around.

Zandvort? Only joking.

I’d say all the city races will be cancelled next year. There’s no way the model of packing loads of people into a city for a long weekend, will work in the next few years.

Listening to Matt Carter talk about this was interesting as he was involved in organising Montreal the race. He said the model is based on getting people into Montreal for the weekend. There are over a million people who travel 40miles or more into Montreal each GP weekend who never go to the racetrack. They make it a massive street party of different sorts and lots of business is done. The federal, state and city governments all pay to host the race and they make their money back through sales and PAYE tax due to greater commerce over the weeks and beyond.

That model collapses while covid and social distancing are a thing. They need to pack people in to make it work.

ELM327

So it's going to be a weird mix of great old tracks, moto gp tracks, and oil rich but human rights abuser countries

#we_race_as_one me bollox. Try being a non cisgender pansexual atheist in Saudi!

El_Duderino 09

ELM327 wrote: »

So it's going to be a weird mix of great old tracks, moto gp tracks, and oil rich but human rights abuser countries

#we_race_as_one me bollox. Try being a non cisgender pansexual atheist in Saudi!

Being a non cisgender pansexual atheist in Saudi would be very difficult and potentially dangerous on your own. As part of the F1 group then I imagine it will be fine. It's not as though the Saudis apply the law uniformly so it'll be in their interest to turn a blind eye to the F1 folk as they want to appear civilised before the world.

I wonder if the F1 teams will have to offer non-cis staff the option to opt out of going to Saudi. Terrible shame F1 is involved in this type of thing but, capitalism isn't suppose to have a conscience, it's just supposed to make money.

ELM327

The point I was making is that it's so blatantly two faced.
You're putting out this message of equality but then taking blood money from terrorists.

El_Duderino 09

ELM327 wrote: »

The point I was making is that it's so blatantly two faced.
You're putting out this message of equality but then taking blood money from terrorists.

Ok. Which would you prefer they stop doing?

Capitalism isn't suppose to have a conscience, it's just supposed to make money.

Inquitus

duploelabs wrote: »

Vietnam dropped from 2021

That's a shame, would have been nice to see it at least once

El_Duderino 09

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

Zandvort? Only joking.

I’d say all the city races will be cancelled next year. There’s no way the model of packing loads of people into a city for a long weekend, will work in the next few years.

Listening to Matt Carter talk about this was interesting as he was involved in organising Montreal the race. He said the model is based on getting people into Montreal for the weekend. There are over a million people who travel 40miles or more into Montreal each GP weekend who never go to the racetrack. They make it a massive street party of different sorts and lots of business is done. The federal, state and city governments all pay to host the race and they make their money back through sales and PAYE tax due to greater commerce over the weeks and beyond.

That model collapses while covid and social distancing are a thing. They need to pack people in to make it work.

Not that there's anything incorrect in what you said but just to draw it out a little bit more in case anyone wants to do further discussion... :pac:
I doubt the numbers for the race weekend stack up when it comes to covering the cost of hosting but Montreal, like Melbourne are about exposure and branding. Melbourne likes to advertise as the home of Australian sport e.g. There'll be a value calculated for the free advertising Montreal gets as part of the GP being seen around the world and it only takes a small increase in visitor numbers over the year to justify part of the licencing fee.
In short/medium-term post Covid I'm kind of surprised more cities wouldn't enquire about hosting a race. Though I suppose the hoops to be jumped through would probably mean it would take too long. Take somewhere like Dublin (yeah I'm going there! :pac: ), pre-Covid it's arguable how much actual increase you could have had in visitors due to hosting a race when the city already had very high prices and near full occupancy for much of the year. Post-covid will be a different story and if it didn't take a couple of years to actually get on the calendar I'd guess there'd be some second-tier cities willing to pay to have their hotels and bars filled for a week(end).

ELM327

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

Ok. Which would you prefer they stop doing?

Capitalism isn't suppose to have a conscience, it's just supposed to make money.

That kind of wokeism and politics has IMO no place in sport.
I'd prefer that they kept races to real tracks like Imola and Monza but that's just me :pac:

El_Duderino 09

ELM327 wrote: »

That kind of wokeism and politics has IMO no place in sport.
I'd prefer that they kept races to real tracks like Imola and Monza but that's just me :pac:

Sure. If F1 was just a sport and wasn't also a business, then that might be valid.

El_Duderino 09

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Not that there's anything incorrect in what you said but just to draw it out a little bit more in case anyone wants to do further discussion... :pac:
I doubt the numbers for the race weekend stack up when it comes to covering the cost of hosting but Montreal, like Melbourne are about exposure and branding. Melbourne likes to advertise as the home of Australian sport e.g. There'll be a value calculated for the free advertising Montreal gets as part of the GP being seen around the world and it only takes a small increase in visitor numbers over the year to justify part of the licencing fee.
In short/medium-term post Covid I'm kind of surprised more cities wouldn't enquire about hosting a race. Though I suppose the hoops to be jumped through would probably mean it would take too long. Take somewhere like Dublin (yeah I'm going there! :pac: ), pre-Covid it's arguable how much actual increase you could have had in visitors due to hosting a race when the city already had very high prices and near full occupancy for much of the year. Post-covid will be a different story and if it didn't take a couple of years to actually get on the calendar I'd guess there'd be some second-tier cities willing to pay to have their hotels and bars filled for a week(end).

Yeah there is probably more to it than the basic maths of people who attend the city for the race weekend. But if you remove people attending the city for the weekend then you're removing a lot of the incentive to host a race. Street circuits cause huge disruption to the host city. So they need some pretty immediate money in the form of hundreds of thousands of tourists. So I'd say city races are out for the time being. But as you said, other tracks might be interested in hosting races. I'd like to see who else would out themselves forward

But if this year has shown anything it's that the brand name tracks don't necessarily produce better races than the smaller venues. Melbourne is an example of a track that has prestige for reasons apart from the quality of the race. Same with Monaco - great location, terrible race. I haven't missed it this year when you have options like two Austrias, Portimao and Marinello.