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

Rodney Bathgate

Strawberry Milkshake wrote: »

I didn’t feel the same excitement watching the qualifying highlights on Ch4 as I do watching it live. And I had to stay away from any social media and news all day yesterday until 6:45pm. Then they talked and talked and talked.

I’ve got my finger on the subscribe to sky sports button. I’m not in contract so not obliged to stay with it after F1 season finishes.

Do I? Don’t I?

Have you considered Now TV?

Rodney Bathgate

Rodney Bathgate wrote: »

Have you considered Now TV?

My multi room is at my parents house as I care for my dad so spend more time there than at home. They’re in the sticks and have no broadband. Mobile reception hit and miss too.

Feck it. I’m not in a contract so I can cancel at any time.

AMKC

Strawberry Milkshake wrote: »

I didn’t feel the same excitement watching the qualifying highlights on Ch4 as I do watching it live. And I had to stay away from any social media and news all day yesterday until 6:45pm. Then they talked and talked and talked.

I’ve got my finger on the subscribe to sky sports button. I’m not in contract so not obliged to stay with it after F1 season finishes.

Do I? Don’t I?

Strawberry Milkshake wrote: »

I didn’t feel the same excitement watching the qualifying highlights on Ch4 as I do watching it live. And I had to stay away from any social media and news all day yesterday until 6:45pm. Then they talked and talked and talked.

I watched it on C4 yesterday and enjoyed it. I enjoyed the chat before and after too. I did not think the talking was that long. I was on the internet yesterday even FB and did not have the results ruined for me. I suppose I am used to it now. If I could just buy the F1 channel I would but I can not and have zero interest in any of the other sports channels or sports so no way in hell am I paying for that.

I have no willpower

€25 per month for 6 months on a 31 day rolling contract. Button has been pressed.

Jordan 199

Strawberry Milkshake wrote: »

I have no willpower

€25 per month for 6 months on a 31 day rolling contract. Button has been pressed.

You did the right thing.

chicorytip

Strawberry Milkshake wrote: »

I have no willpower

€25 per month for 6 months on a 31 day rolling contract. Button has been pressed.

You could have purchased the Sky Sports Mobile TV app (Full live F1 coverage included) and cast the content into your TV screen - if you have a compatible TV - or just view on your phone. 13.99€ per month. No contract, cancel at any time.

naughto

Strawberry Milkshake wrote: »

I have no willpower

€25 per month for 6 months on a 31 day rolling contract. Button has been pressed.

Now tv is the route I went down share the account and I thinks its anot 11 ish a month

PukkaStukka

Inquitus wrote: »

The Hungary update will be huge, if it brings them into contention then they might rescue the next 2 seasons, if not they are in a serious hole at what couldn't be a worse time!

Binotto was interviewed by Sky F1 after the race and after what he said, I wouldn't bank on the Hungary upgrade being a silver bullet.

He said the upgrade is predominantly to sort out chassis issues, and when pressed about the lack of straight line speed, he specially ruled out that being fixed. There is no mention of an engine upgrade despite there being a rumoured 20bhp + in the pipeline.

If what he says is true, they are in a dire state

AMKC

PukkaStukka wrote: »

Binotto was interviewed by Sky F1 after the race and after what he said, I wouldn't bank on the Hungary upgrade being a silver bullet.

He said the upgrade is predominantly to sort out chassis issues, and when pressed about the lack of straight line speed, he specially ruled out that being fixed. There is no mention of an engine upgrade despite there being a rumoured 20bhp + in the pipeline.

If what he says is true, they are in a dire state

Awe sure if Charles Leclerc can keep getting 3rd on the podium that will not be to back for them. It could have been worse for them today. They could have ended up with no points like Red Bull.

El_Duderino 09

PukkaStukka wrote: »

Binotto was interviewed by Sky F1 after the race and after what he said, I wouldn't bank on the Hungary upgrade being a silver bullet.

He said the upgrade is predominantly to sort out chassis issues, and when pressed about the lack of straight line speed, he specially ruled out that being fixed. There is no mention of an engine upgrade despite there being a rumoured 20bhp + in the pipeline.

If what he says is true, they are in a dire state

Yeah the main problem is that they've been using an illegal engine for the last two seasons and it has made them competitive. It made them fastest on e straights but they were always significantly slower in the corners. Now the engine advantage is gone so they're slower on the straights and corners.

PukkaStukka

AMKC wrote: »

Awe sure if Charles Leclerc can keep getting 3rd on the podium that will not be to back for them. It could have been worse for them today. They could have ended up with no points like Red Bull.

The third was fortuitous. As you said yourself, two red bulls retired, as did a Racing Point. On pace, LeClerc was where he qualified: 7th. Looking at the pace Mercedes had, they could've lapped the field unfettered

PukkaStukka

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

Yeah the main problem is that they've been using an illegal engine for the last two seasons and it has made them competitive. It made them fastest on e straights but they were always significantly slower in the corners. Now the engine advantage is gone so they're slower on the straights and corners.

Agree the drop in performance is convenient after enginegate, but to be very clear, they weren't found to be doing anything illegal.

El_Duderino 09

PukkaStukka wrote: »

Agree the drop in performance is convenient after enginegate, but to be very clear, they weren't found to be doing anything illegal.

That's true and it's a distinction without a difference when you consider they were told they can't use it again. Without the dodgy engine components they went from being the quickest on the straights to being 0.8s behind merc on the straights in Austria. That's the salient point.

PukkaStukka

There is an interesting question to be posed though: how much of gap is down to Mercedes engine gains since last year? I think they've made a good jump which makes Ferraris situation appear worse

quokula

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

That's true and it's a distinction without a difference when you consider they were told they can't use it again. Without the dodgy engine components they went from being the quickest on the straights to being 0.8s behind merc on the straights in Austria. That's the salient point.

Same could be said of DAS, except the FIA have decided to wait until 2021 before they can't use it again. A sign of the difference in political clout between Mercedes and Ferrari these days.

ELM327

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

That's true and it's a distinction without a difference when you consider they were told they can't use it again. Without the dodgy engine components they went from being the quickest on the straights to being 0.8s behind merc on the straights in Austria. That's the salient point.

There's a difference between it being illegal and it being asked to be discontinued.

muckwarrior

I can't remember who here was arguing that Norris didn't deserve his place on the grid, but I think that argument can be put to bed now.

Dont be at yourself

Is there any detail on how the Mercs used DAS during the race? Was it just for safety car restarts or was it used during actual racing too?

Joeface

I did notice when behind the pace car , Bottas didnt appear to be using it from the in Car shot , just the standard weave .

TCP/IP

I think we can see from yesterday that Merc are so far ahead of everyone else that this season is over already after one race as much as I hate saying it.
The other teams should be embarrassed how far ahead Merc is. I am even at the stage where I would prefer Merc to leave F1 and then we can all have closer racing.
I can't believe how quick their car is this year it's frightening.
As for Ferrari incompetence in that team is at an all-time high the best thing they could do is get Italians out of all senior positions and get the English or German leaders in and gut the place.

Anjobe

TCP/IP wrote: »

I think we can see from yesterday that Merc are so far ahead of everyone else that this season is over already after one race as much as I hate saying it.
The other teams should be embarrassed how far ahead Merc is. I am even at the stage where I would prefer Merc to leave F1 and then we can all have closer racing.
I can't believe how quick their car is this year it's frightening.
As for Ferrari incompetence in that team is at an all-time high the best thing they could do is get Italians out of all senior positions and get the English or German leaders in and gut the place.

Its the Peter Principle in action - Ferrari keep promoting people from within to their level of incompetence. You would think they would learn from their own past, the last time they were successful the team was run by top motor racing guys who were not Ferrari lifers.

Arrivabene was the worst - why on earth did they think that a Philip Morris sponsorship rep would make a good F1 team principal?

ELM327

Ferrari now are in the same spot as they were in 1994-1995. They need a full rework of the team, and someone to lead that from the driver side and the management side.

quokula

TCP/IP wrote: »

I think we can see from yesterday that Merc are so far ahead of everyone else that this season is over already after one race as much as I hate saying it.
The other teams should be embarrassed how far ahead Merc is. I am even at the stage where I would prefer Merc to leave F1 and then we can all have closer racing.
I can't believe how quick their car is this year it's frightening.
As for Ferrari incompetence in that team is at an all-time high the best thing they could do is get Italians out of all senior positions and get the English or German leaders in and gut the place.

There are still a lot of mitigating factors to other team's position relative to Mercedes in fairness. The current hybrid formula was practically designed by them, after the three manufacturers campaigned for different directions (Ferrari wanted to keep V8, Renault wanted a flat 4, Mercedes wanted what we now have), and Mercedes were basically developing their hybrid engine for a year before anyone else.

Throw in the absolute nonsense that was engine tokens and extremely limited testing days while all the other engines suffered reliability problems that they had no opportunity to recover testing time from, and Mercedes basically had a two year head start, that everyone else has spent the following 5 years slowly catching up on while the rules have been kept stable so Mercedes have never had to go and rethink anything on their power unit but just continue to evolve it.

In the old days, when Ferrari were dominant the rules were regularly tweaked to send them back to the drawing board and help even things out. When Red Bull were dominant things like their perfectly legal blown diffuser got banned to try and even things up.

But Mercedes seem to have way too much political influence over everything right now, to the extent that development paths other teams have gone down have been shut down by the rule makers sending them backwards despite no evidence of illegality being found, while they actually worked in advance with Mercedes to give them the go ahead on stuff like DAS.

ELM327

quokula wrote: »

There are still a lot of mitigating factors to other team's position relative to Mercedes in fairness. The current hybrid formula was practically designed by them, after the three manufacturers campaigned for different directions (Ferrari wanted to keep V8, Renault wanted a flat 4, Mercedes wanted what we now have), and Mercedes were basically developing their hybrid engine for a year before anyone else.

Throw in the absolute nonsense that was engine tokens and extremely limited testing days while all the other engines suffered reliability problems that they had no opportunity to recover testing time from, and Mercedes basically had a two year head start, that everyone else has spent the following 5 years slowly catching up on while the rules have been kept stable so Mercedes have never had to go and rethink anything on their power unit but just continue to evolve it.

In the old days, when Ferrari were dominant the rules were regularly tweaked to send them back to the drawing board and help even things out. When Red Bull were dominant things like their perfectly legal blown diffuser got banned to try and even things up.

But Mercedes seem to have way too much political influence over everything right now, to the extent that development paths other teams have gone down have been shut down by the rule makers sending them backwards despite no evidence of illegality being found, while they actually worked in advance with Mercedes to give them the go ahead on stuff like DAS.

Agree. The likes of the '05 rule change that penalized ferrari for the 5 years of MSC dominance wouldnt happen to Mercedes now.

Harika

muckwarrior wrote: »

I can't remember who here was arguing that Norris didn't deserve his place on the grid, but I think that argument can be put to bed now.

Who said that? F3 championship winner and runner up in F2 in first season. If he doesn't deserve it, don't know who does.

Cork Trucker

ELM327 wrote: »

Ferrari now are in the same spot as they were in 1994-1995. They need a full rework of the team, and someone to lead that from the driver side and the management side.

They’ll need to poach half the Mercedes team including Hamilton in a similar fashion to what went on with Schumacher & Benetton, only thing is they have Sainz and LeClerc now. David Richards or similar would be a good acquisition to the team if it were possible, remember how he improved BAR starting with getting rid of Villeneuve at the end of 2003.

Cork Trucker

ELM327 wrote: »

Agree. The likes of the '05 rule change that penalized ferrari for the 5 years of MSC dominance wouldnt happen to Mercedes now.

Wasn’t Bernie behind the 2005 rule change?

ELM327

Cork Trucker wrote: »

Wasn’t Bernie behind the 2005 rule change?

I don't remember, but it was done to prevent the ferrari dominance

ELM327

Cork Trucker wrote: »

They’ll need to poach half the Mercedes team including Hamilton in a similar fashion to what went on with Schumacher & Benetton, only thing is they have Sainz and LeClerc now. David Richards or similar would be a good acquisition to the team if it were possible, remember how he improved BAR starting with getting rid of Villeneuve at the end of 2003.

As a lifetime ferrari fan I hope they don't get hamilton. (unless the era of crap ferrari is going to continue!)


A new non italian backroom team is needed. Seb would have been perfect, as would max, danny ric, or any of a few others.

TCP/IP

ELM327 wrote: »

As a lifetime ferrari fan I hope they don't get hamilton. (unless the era of crap ferrari is going to continue!)


A new non italian backroom team is needed. Seb would have been perfect, as would max, danny ric, or any of a few others.

Totally agree with this