Formula 1 2021 - General Discussion Thread (Read 1st post rules)

El_Duderino 09

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117991918#Comment_117991918

They were never going to completely withdraw overnight. This transition was always in discussion as part of Honda's withdrawal. Joe Saward was talking about this transition 6 months ago. Red Bull doesn't have the expertise to just start building engines from scratch next year.

Dont be at yourself

Piastri seems like a genuine prospect, much more so than Zhou.

Rumours also of Andretti buying Sauber/Alfa, which might make a pay driver less necessary, and also pave the way for an American.

PopePalpatine

Andretti vs Haas is the wooden spoon fight we need.

El_Duderino 09

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117995645#Comment_117995645

I mean, I want to be excited but I think you're probably right.

Joe saward is always talking about how team owners know they can run another racing team (like an indy team) well so they think they can run an F1 team, but that's not how it works. He says f1 has a unique culture which means it takes inside knowledge of F1 to make it work. But you'd have to think Andretti would have the kind of racing knowledge to make F1 work IF they have the budget.

Sauber is a great story of survival in F1 as a team who has never really achieved anything note and never really competed at the front. But it would be great if they were taken over by someone with a budget and racing knowledge who could make them competitive at/towards the front.

El_Duderino 09

After a good start to to season, Perez has reverted to the mean of being an average driver. Nice guy, terrible qualifier, ok in races -bang average. Very lucky to sign his RB contract when he did. He might not have gotten a second year if he drove this poorly in the first half of the season. 

He's well suited to the midfield teams. If he's Max's no.2 he needs to be towards the front once in a while. He can't influence anything from so far back on the grid. Bottas is criminally underrated in these threads. Once again he's at the front of the grid and even starting ahead of Max. He's a superior driver to Perez. 

thefa

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118000443#Comment_118000443

Think criminally underrated is an exaggeration. He plays his second driver role well and given the choice, I think most would take Bottas over Perez. That said, think most would take Hamilton, Vertsappen, Norris, LeClerc, Alonso, Russell, Gasly, possibly Ricciardo & Sainz over him and would expect them to better his results in the Merc so he is middle of the pack ability wise.

I hope he gets a win before he leaves the team. Great opportunity today.

As far as I can tell this is the first time Bottas has taken points from Verstappen all season aside from torpedoing him. Perez has been similarly poor.

barryribs

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118000987#Comment_118000987

I think thats more a result of Verstappen driving better and a much improved Red Bull this year than anything else. As bad as Bottas has been, the constructors is as good as lost unless Perez improves. Always seems to be on the back foot after Saturdays, having to gamble on strategy to get him into the mix.

quokula

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118000987#Comment_118000987

In fairness Hamilton hasn't taken points off Verstappen except by torpedoing him either in the last six months, last time he beat him in a direct race on track was back in Spain.

A more interesting statistic is that since Bottas announced he was going to Alfa Romeo, he's actually been the top scoring driver on the grid, ahead of both title contenders. The Mercedes is such an utterly dominant car at the moment and at Turkey, much like the sprint race in Monza, Bottas showed he can very easily win in that car when he's not being put in a situation where he's forced to sacrifice his qualifying or strategy to aid Hamilton or hold up Verstappen.

mickdw

Really Bottas is the man redbull need.

Perez isn't right where he needs to be all the time. Bottas would arguably be a tenth or 2 off Verstappen all year long and able to win when Verstappen can't.

Will be interesting to see him in the Alfa next year though.

barryribs

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118013483#Comment_118013483

The worst thing to come out of the Netflix era of F1 is this toxic biased nonsense that people go on with. Hamilton is possibly the most dislikable driver in F1 but this garbage of Hamilton = Bad, Verstappen = Good is rubbish. Every driver, bar none, at their peak is a pain in the hole. Current fan favourite Vettel was despised when he was at Red Bull, primarily for dominating most weekends and mentally destroying Webber at every opportunity. Schumacher and Senna were amongst the dirtiest world champions ever and Prost was a political animal.

Captain_Crash

@barryribs I think the reason Hamilton is disliked more than the others is his insincerity! Vettel, Alonso, Schuey and the rest of them never hid the fact that at their respective peaks they were pricks! Infact I don’t think you can make it to the top of this sport without being a little bit c*nty!

Fans of the sport can see trough Hamiltons soapboxing!

El_Duderino 09

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118015037#Comment_118015037

Na. That's just the reason Hamilton is disliked and he's the current one at the top who is disliked. If the champion were different then the reasons to disliked him would change to suit the champion of the day. Hamilton isn't extraordinary, he's just the newest and current one.

Norris talked about mental health and nobody seems to dislike him for it. But if he were the dominant driver of the day then it would become a stick to beat him the same way discussing any issue can be used to beat someone if people want to find a reason to knock the person down. You can see people on boards say they are using whatever to curry favour or because it's cool to hold x, y or z position nowadays. The reasons to hate the guy at the top are perfectly adaptable to the driver of the day

barryribs

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118015037#Comment_118015037

Hard to argue with any of that, but the point I was making is that Hamilton is not always in the wrong with what happens on track. When a racing incident happens, its not always a 'torpedo'. You'd swear the way people talk about Bottas that he's the first ever number 2 driver that has been sacrificed for the proven team leader.

Captain_Crash

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118015708#Comment_118015708

Ah yeah of course, on track more often than not he’s in the “right”! The collision at Silverstone was his fault but all drivers make bad decisions here and there!

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118013680#Comment_118013680

Would he though? Bearing in mind Bottas looked beaten against a Rookie who jumped into the car are we to believe Bottas would be half a second a lap faster than all of Perez, Gasly and Albon? The evidence suggests either Verstappen is the GOAT (gonna need more evidence) or the car is incredibly specific to him. I don't rate Perez that highly but I expected a bit better and now it's been rookies and an old hand it makes me think the car is for him.

flazio

I too have to agree with the Red Bull seat, and not just with any teammates of Verstappen, Kvyat beforehand, where the cycle goes "Oh he's doing great in Alpha Tauri, Toro Rosso, Force India, Racing Point etc, he'll be mighty in the Red Bull", "Not a bad start, he'll be up alongside Max/Daniel in no time" "Great result, this should be his turning point" "Oh dear he's slipping away, perhaps he'll be replaced next year" and so on. I said earlier that there is no driver in any category of motorsport capable of constantly keeping Lewis Hamilton on the 3rd step of the podium or lower and I stand by that.

mickdw

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118015842#Comment_118015842

Ya Russell looked super when in the Merc but I believe he is a Hamilton beater given the chance. Next year will tell the tale I suppose.

I don't so much rate Perez anymore. I thought this was his chance but he has done nothing with the redbull. The best drivers will work with a hard to drive car. Pressure got to Gasley. Albon could have won a couple of races early on and had a different story. Pressure heaped on him then.

Bottas signed on a no 2 deal would likely quali p4 or better all season.

AMKC

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118015736#Comment_118015736

The collision at Monza was Lewis's fault too. Considering all the mistakes Hamilton has made this year not finishing at Baku, going of onto the gravel in another race his crash with Verstappen in Monza and the few mistakes he made in Russia it is a miracle he is not further down the drivers standings this year than he is. If Bottas had of been having a good year this year or even Perez they both could have been ahead of Hamilton.

Captain_Crash

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118017292#Comment_118017292

Haha I intentionally didn’t mention that to avoid any animated debate over it. VER got the pen and personally I’m of the opinion it was a racing incident with Lewis slightly more at fault. Both drivers had the opportunity to bail out in the few seconds leading up to the collision.

barryribs

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118017463#Comment_118017463

I think they were both racing incidents, Max more at fault in Monza, Hamilton more at fault in Silverstone, neither of which merited a penalty. Like you said, in both incidents, both drivers had the opportunities to bail.

Anyway, I think that has been done to death and some 'fans' should stick to the fiction section on netflix.

quokula

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118013680#Comment_118013680

If only they replace Gasly with Albon, he'll be much closer to Verstappen. If only they replace Albon with Perez, he'll be much closer to Verstappen. If only they replace Perez with Bottas, he'll be much closer to Verstappen.

Perez has already shown himself to be a top tier driver at other teams. Gasly is showing himself to be a top tier driver at Toro Rosso right now. Bottas has never shown himself to be a top tier driver, just one that's capable of winning races in the dominant Mercedes when the team let him. I'd be shocked if he wasn't further behind Verstappen than Perez was. There's a reason why he was a free agent and no team other than back of the grid Alfa Romeo was interested, even though multiple teams including Red Bull had not yet confirmed next year's lineup.

I think people are underestimating how much slower the Red Bull is than the Mercedes and what an impressive job Max is doing. Almost nobody would have said Perez wasn't a better driver than Bottas a year ago, before his performances started being judged against Verstappen.

El_Duderino 09

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118018669#Comment_118018669

Ah, perez has never shown himself to be a top tier driver. He's been alright in midfield teams in the past, but that's it. His quali is very poor and is a massive achilles heel and he would need to be mega fast to compensate for that big a deficit every week. And the reality is he is better on tyres than most, but he's bang average overall. He'll be delighted he performed so well at the start of the season and got a new contract. If he was performing as he has in the second hall of the season, he was much less likely to get another contract.

This last weekend was a good performance so we'll see of it was a blip or a the last several races where he performed poorly was a blip.

I'd have bottas over Perez. But Red Bull chose not to take him. They have their reasons including the fact that Perez did well in the first half of the season and Bottas struggled, but those positions have pretty much reversed in the second half of the season. Plus RB are disinclined to use non-RB drivers and they were predisposed to sticking with one non-RB driver rather than going for a second one which would reflect even worse on the RB driver academy.

The choices for him were either RB, who chose not to employ him, and the other teams without settled driver lineups were Haas, Alfa and Williams. That's why he ended up at the Alfa.

muckwarrior

I think Perez's pace this year, in the joint-fastest car, compared to last year shows just how good that Pink Mercedes was. It was probably the second fastest car on the grid overall.

El_Duderino 09

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118020750#Comment_118020750

Stroll struggling more this year suggests the same.

The pink Mercedes probably lost ground as the season went on. It was definitely the second fastest at the start of the season. It was probably only about as fast as the mclarens and ferrari at ferrari at end.

klose

I think hulkenberg just being drafted in from thin air and being competitive for two races (didn't he also qualify p3 at Silverstone?) in the racing point shows how good the car was.

artanevilla

Imola on the calender next year.

El_Duderino 09

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118022421#Comment_118022421

Yeah I think you're right. Stroll, bless him, is really out of his depth in F1. He must look at the data and know he's legitimately miles slower than all his teammates. He started off miles off the pace for f1 and through years of experience, he's improved to become a poor driver.

Gwynplaine

F1 needs a final race showdown, with Max to win. I haven't seen a full race for quite a while, only highlights. But from what I've seen, Max is a likeable guy, and a great driver.

Just as an experiment, could they put them all in the same car, and see what the outcome would be. Just 1 race

duploelabs

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118027799#Comment_118027799

So the teams can effectively just mess around for the previous season and hedge everything on one race?

And we thought sprint races were a bad idea