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

quokula

One disappointment for me this year so far is the total anonymity of Alonso. Obviously there is only so much you can do with the car and he does seem to be asserting himself over Ocon now, but when he was in the thick of the action in that DRS train today he just seemed quite passive. He’s driven his fair share of poor cars in the past but he’d always be visibly wringing the neck of the car and ducking and diving for opportunistic moves or constantly on the radio finding ways to go aggressive on strategy. I don’t feel we’re really seeing that this season so far.

tanko

quokula wrote: »

One disappointment for me this year so far is the total anonymity of Alonso. Obviously there is only so much you can do with the car and he does seem to be asserting himself over Ocon now, but when he was in the thick of the action in that DRS train today he just seemed quite passive. He’s driven his fair share of poor cars in the past but he’d always be visibly wringing the neck of the car and ducking and diving for opportunistic moves or constantly on the radio finding ways to go aggressive on strategy. I don’t feel we’re really seeing that this season so far.

Has any driver left F1, returned and done much?

TheQ_Man

tanko wrote: »

Has any driver left F1, returned and done much?

Lauda and Mansell

Andrew76

quokula wrote: »

One disappointment for me this year so far is the total anonymity of Alonso. Obviously there is only so much you can do with the car and he does seem to be asserting himself over Ocon now, but when he was in the thick of the action in that DRS train today he just seemed quite passive. He’s driven his fair share of poor cars in the past but he’d always be visibly wringing the neck of the car and ducking and diving for opportunistic moves or constantly on the radio finding ways to go aggressive on strategy. I don’t feel we’re really seeing that this season so far.

I get the impression he has his sights more set on next year, he knows he has zero chance to win anything this year so is just happy to be back on the grid.

He’s past his prime anyway but if he was in a car with a fighting chance of another title then we’d see more fight out of him.

mickdw

tanko wrote: »

Has any driver left F1, returned and done much?

Kimi has had a longer second f1 career than most have had whole f1 career and has won races.

TheQ_Man

mickdw wrote: »

Kimi has had a longer second f1 career than most have had whole f1 career and has won races.

Second career is longer than the first as well.

01-09 & 12-21 (and beyond?)

vectra

tanko wrote: »

Has any driver left F1, returned and done much?

Kimi as mentioned above, he came back and literally bankrupt Lotus :pac:

eviltimeban

Kimi didn't "retire" though, did he? He just took a few years out as he didn't have a drive.

I think Alonso is doing pretty well in an ok car. He's been in the top 10 the last few races and I reckon he'll keep bringing it home in points scoring positions for many more races. Obviously he's not going to win a race this year, he might pick up a podium in a race of attrition. But he said himself he's there for the 2022 cars - he needed this year to get back into it and up to speed again, which he's doing.

Will he win another WDC? That depends on what the 2022 regs do to the field, and how Alpine respond to them. They could be a third-best team, after Merc and Red Bull, but with Honda pulling out, it does beg the questions as to what RB will be able to do next year. Max is a monster though, so not sure how Alonso would fare in a head to head with Max.

Merc should remain strong but if Lewis leaves and Russell comes in, that's another unknown quantity.

Mirafiori

TheQ_Man wrote: »

Lauda and Mansell

Prost had a season out before his 1993 WDC too.

titan18

eviltimeban wrote: »

Kimi didn't "retire" though, did he? He just took a few years out as he didn't have a drive.

He turned down drives in lesser cars that year (Toyota I think were one) so could have had a drive if he wanted to/willing to accept lesser salary.

vectra

titan18 wrote: »

He turned down drives in lesser cars that year (Toyota I think were one) so could have had a drive if he wanted to/willing to accept lesser salary.

I thought he got paid not to drive for a couple of years to make a seat available for Alonso?
Wasn't there a mention of 20 or 25 million?

barryribs

vectra wrote: »

I thought he got paid not to drive for a couple of years to make a seat available for Alonso?
Wasn't there a mention of 20 or 25 million?

This is how I remember it, Alonso became available early and Ferrari paid Kimi something like 10 million if he had a seat or 20 if he didn't. McLaren lowballed him and he earned more by not driving than if he had the McLaren seat + the ferrari payment.

flazio

Just catching up on C4 highlights, interesting to see in the background of Norris getting interviewed Toto Wolff and Carlos Sainz Jr having quite an in depth conversation with a Netflix boom over them.

AMKC

flazio wrote: »

Just catching up on C4 highlights, interesting to see in the background of Norris getting interviewed Toto Wolff and Carlos Sainz Jr having quite an in depth conversation with a Netflix boom over them.

Good spot. I will have to check that out again.

TheQ_Man

AMKC

Lol I did see that caption on Facebook but did not see your man been tossed out the window lol.

TheQ_Man

AMKC wrote: »

Lol I did see that caption on Facebook but did not see your man been tossed out the window lol.

There’s 2 or 3 versions of that going around. The part where Bottas is sent out the window is a new one. Hilarious though :pac:

El_Duderino 09

Interesting report that audi and Porsche might be joining the engine manufacturers meeting in Saturday to discuss the 2025 engine rules.

F1i.com: Porsche and Audi to join F1 engine meeting at Red Bull Ring.
https://f1i.com/news/410492-porsche-and-audi-to-join-f1-engine-meeting-at-red-bull-ring.html

ELM327

They are also leaving FE at the end of the year too.

Are the people who go to the meetings also the people who decide whether to go to the meetings? Nice jaunt down the Autobahn on company money, slight conflict of interest. :pac:

El_Duderino 09

OSI wrote: »

They were part of the discussions for the hybrid design weren't they?

Porsche certainly were.

The whole thing confuses me as both Audi and Porsche are part of the Volkswagen Group. But the both took part in FE as separate teams. I suppose they are marketed to different markets.

Polar101

eviltimeban wrote: »

Kimi didn't "retire" though, did he? He just took a few years out as he didn't have a drive.

He also wanted to try rally driving. He finished 10th in the WRC 2010 and 2011 drivers' championships.

donspeekinglesh

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

The whole thing confuses me as both Audi and Porsche are part of the Volkswagen Group. But the both took part in FE as separate teams. I suppose they are marketed to different markets.

They always compete separately. When they were in LMP1 they were both spending F1 team amounts on very different engine and hybrid technologies.
FE is so cheap it's a rounding error in their marketing budget. LMdH is a bit more expensive, but again they'll be competing against each other.

El_Duderino 09

Interesting to see Hamilton and Wolff both talking about the Red Bull new engine and the additional performance they have gained. The engines are homologated so they can't bring an upgraded engine, but they can make changes to improve reliability. And if they have better reliability then they can run the engine harder without worrying about it breaking.

So the suggestion is that they have gained performance through the reliability and Lewis and Wolff are stirring the pot in the hopes that the FIA will look into it for them. And they are also suggesting that the rear wing is still bending (but i presume it's passing the tests). Hard to know if they're genuinely looking for the FIA to do something or if they're getting their excuses in early for not winning the championship this year.

Mercedes has said they're not working on the car again this year. They're all about 2022 now. RB supposedly still has 20% of it's people on the 2021 car. So Mercedes probably just needs to weather the storm this year and resume dominating the field again next year.

Hijpo

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

Interesting to see Hamilton and Wolff both talking about the Red Bull new engine and the additional performance they have gained. The engines are homologated so they can't bring an upgraded engine, but they can make changes to improve reliability. And if they have better reliability then they can run the engine harder without worrying about it breaking.

So the suggestion is that they have gained performance through the reliability and Lewis and Wolff are stirring the pot in the hopes that the FIA will look into it for them. And they are also suggesting that the rear wing is still bending (but i presume it's passing the tests). Hard to know if they're genuinely looking for the FIA to do something or if they're getting their excuses in early for not winning the championship this year.

Mercedes has said they're not working on the car again this year. They're all about 2022 now. RB supposedly still has 20% of it's people on the 2021 car. So Mercedes probably just needs to weather the storm this year and resume dominating the field again next year.

James Allison announced they will be bringing new parts and small engine improvements in the next few races. Stuff that was already in the R&D phase before switching focus to next year.

https://the-race.com/formula-1/mercedes-insists-new-parts-coming-for-its-2021-f1-car/

quokula

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

Interesting to see Hamilton and Wolff both talking about the Red Bull new engine and the additional performance they have gained. The engines are homologated so they can't bring an upgraded engine, but they can make changes to improve reliability. And if they have better reliability then they can run the engine harder without worrying about it breaking.

So the suggestion is that they have gained performance through the reliability and Lewis and Wolff are stirring the pot in the hopes that the FIA will look into it for them. And they are also suggesting that the rear wing is still bending (but i presume it's passing the tests). Hard to know if they're genuinely looking for the FIA to do something or if they're getting their excuses in early for not winning the championship this year.

Mercedes has said they're not working on the car again this year. They're all about 2022 now. RB supposedly still has 20% of it's people on the 2021 car. So Mercedes probably just needs to weather the storm this year and resume dominating the field again next year.

As is usually the case, very little that comes out of Toto or Lewis’ mouth has much relationship with the truth, it’s just constant PR spin and **** stirring. Mercedes are still developing their car and have new parts coming. There is zero evidence that Red Bull’s engine is anything but homologated and legal, they’ve just been running a slimmer wing for a couple of races which you can tell just by looking at the car. Same goes for the flexing, the tests have been made more stringent which had no impact on Red Bull and there have been videos that demonstrate Mercedes have just as much flex.

Jordan 199

El_Duderino 09

quokula wrote: »

As is usually the case, very little that comes out of Toto or Lewis’ mouth has much relationship with the truth, it’s just constant PR spin and **** stirring. Mercedes are still developing their car and have new parts coming. There is zero evidence that Red Bull’s engine is anything but homologated and legal, they’ve just been running a slimmer wing for a couple of races which you can tell just by looking at the car. Same goes for the flexing, the tests have been made more stringent which had no impact on Red Bull and there have been videos that demonstrate Mercedes have just as much flex.

I presume they're passing all the tests. But Mercedes got the FIA to change the test on the rear wing once already by complaining about it, so I don't blame them for continuing to complain about it in the hope that they will change the tests again.

The rear wing flex is like the tyre pressures. The rules don't say how much the wing can flex during the race, it just says they have to pass the load test before the race. The FIA had changed the test parameters numerous times on tyre pressure tests before the race and I suppose Mercedes would like them to change the test on flexing wings again too.

Likewise with the Honda engine, if they have managed to squeeze a bit more out of the engine due to some reliability changes, who could blame them for wanting the FIA to look into it?

It looks like sour grapes for them to want to level the playing field after years of unchallenged dominance, but that's the sport I suppose.

TCP/IP

I used to admire what Merc has done over the last seven seasons even though I am not a fan but the way they think they have a divine right to be number 1 constantly really gets on my wick.
For the sport watching what RedBull has done this year and the great racing, we have had shows that having the same team win over and over again is just bad for the sport.