F1 2022 - Round 2: Saudi Arabia

Busi_Girl08

Well I hope they're just fireworks

quokula

As exciting as the race was I hope DRS line strategy doesn’t become a major thing. It can probably be mitigated by putting the detection zone in a different place that’s away from the part of the track where overtakes happen.

Busi_Girl08

Wait when did Charles get that fastest lap? Surely not during the yellow flag?

Captain_Crash

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118843839#Comment_118843839

Yeah, it was fairly clear that lockup from Max wasn’t a mistake, just him making sure he wasn’t ahead before the line… think LEC done it too a lap or so later

quokula

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118843863#Comment_118843863

Yeah I was wondering that myself. Wasn’t quite keeping track of the fastest lap but I saw it was on Perez at one point then on Verstappen then at the end it was Leclerc and all of the final laps had yellow flags. Max did comment on the radio that Leclerc gained a bunch of time in the yellow zone too so would be interesting to see some analysis.

Are the extra fireworks masking the sound of the missiles?

that race was great fun

quokula

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118843708#Comment_118843708

After 8 years of the hybrid era, the director has probably become accustomed to there never being anything worth seeing that could be missed live. Needs to readjust to proper racing being back.

McFly85

Hamilton giving his team a kicking again. It’ll be a long season for him by the looks of it

namloc1980

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118843863#Comment_118843863

The lap before the yellow flag was the fastest lap.

waynescales1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118843954#Comment_118843954

That's a good point, this idea that a battle isn't over after a pass has been completed is something TV directors need to bear in mind from now on.

quokula

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118844040#Comment_118844040

They’re a bit behind the top two but they’re still in another league to the midfield teams. Reminds me of the BMW Sauber in 08 - automatic 5th and 6th as long as the drivers are reasonably competent, with scraps to be picked up from issues for the top two.

Despite that, Lewis did an incredibly poor job this weekend, he only scraped into the points thanks to Bottas and Alonso retiring and would have been 12th without that.

Russell comfortably finished fifth with a lot of daylight between himself and the rest of the field. The difference between Verstappen and Leclerc over the race distance was smaller than the difference between Russell and Hamilton over a single lap. That’s embarrassing.

Vicxas

Latifi is the the human equivalent of the Butterfly effect. When he crashes has a great determination of the race for everyone else. Gutted for Checo but literally nothing he could have done

recyclebin

Has Helmut got Latifi on a retainer to help Max win races :P

Gamb!t

What a brilliant race, roll on the next one.

namloc1980

No further action with the yellow flags.

This is it

No one can say the races aren't exciting! Loving the battles between LeClerc and Max. Sainz again a little off their pace, won't be happy with that.

Rossi IRL

The DRS line shenanigans are fun and all, but I think they should put the detection point on corner exit and not on corner entry.

If there was a 3rd car involved in the fight today then it would of ran straight into the back of the 2 lads braking erratically.

Itssoeasy

Well we couldn’t have asked for a better start to this new era. There’s variety and it’s not a procession. The top two was close and 6th and 7th had a sprint to the line. The DRS might need to be looked at as drivers are taking the piss a bit.

you’d have to think Mercedes will sort the issues from this weekend out by Melbourne but it’s a bad opening two weekends overall. George was okay but Lewis had a disaster.

RunningFlyer

Fantastic racing, very good start to new regs and season.

Agree with DRS, easy solution is to change the detection point from the end of the straight to midway so they are at full throttle and would be foolish to slow down for the next straight advantage.

On a side note, the marshalling seemed a bit haphazard at times and dangerous - worst example was when Latifi crashed and a Marshall ran out on track with a fire extinguisher when it was only double flagged yellows. He must have ran out straight away as the VSC/Safety Car hadn’t even started. Next camera shot showed him back behind his barrier so I reckon he was shouted at fairly quick to get out of there.

Was strange with the VSC also I thought, expected a full safety car considering there were 2 cars out of service on same part of track being manually wheeled by Marshalls.

Looking forward to Australia now! It’s been a while!

recyclebin

Wonder how long Leclerc and Verstappen will keep it cordial. Verstappen was doing a lot of whinging on the radio about Leclerc crossing the pit lane entry line. Seems like he was trying to get the stewards to penalise him for it which is poor form.

This is it

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118844565#Comment_118844565

I wonder how much we hear/don't hear. Max moaning was getting a bit much. Are all drivers the same or similar I wonder.

Frank Bullitt

Well that was a belter, 2 races on the bounce now with close racing at the front and both Max and Charles have given us a lot to look forward to this year.

I love this version of F1!

oceanman

should be some season ahead with Max and Charles....these two seem to be in a class of their own.

PsychoPete

If its Verstappen and LeClerc for the championship then it will probably spill over eventually but they know each other very well, both aggressive and hard drivers so probably maybe not too bad much bad blood if it comes to that. I think last year Hamilton got a bit of a shock with how aggressive Verstappen is but this year Leclerc will give it to Verstappen just as aggressive. The two of them want that kind of hard racing, looks like it's going to be a very exciting season

eviltimeban

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118843811#Comment_118843811

Jenson and Brundle would be a good commentating duo.

Lawlesz

I like Jenson, seems a great guy. But I wonder about his commentary... He gets a lot wrong, seems hes not really a natural at it. Crofty asked him to take us through a lap during quali and he literally was "turn 9, into turn 10, 11, 12 now turn 13..." and eventually gave up because the cars were going too fast for him! He also said quali fastest lap would be low 29s but didn't think they'd get into the 28s. Perez did a 28.2. Maybe he just needs practice, but seems better at the punditry if anything. I like Brundle though, he is very good at what he does so maybe it is not fair to compare

Brundle and Button wouldn't work. Button isn't suit to commentary fullstop either. In his defence though I doubt anyone can keep up with naming those corners :P

micks_address

got the distinct impression that hamilton just didnt want to be there this weekend and he was like ill do the minimum to get by and get out of there. feels a bit like watching ronaldo at utd.. came back to win something for his last season or 2 and found things falling apart around him. Im sure Hamilton thought he'd have a good car this year.. win the championship and retire... long way to go but its hard to see that happening this year at least. really its a pity he didnt get the 8th championship last year and he'd be off into the sunset now..

flazio

Brundle is over 25 years at it,David Coulthard is about 15 years out of the car and even he's feeling out of date. The only two native English speakers I can think of working in the media who have experience driving* the turbo hybrid cars in Grand Prix (*"racing" would be stretching it) are Jenson Button and Jolyon Palmer. Jolyon, I think is excellent, although some people smash him for daring to utter the phrase "I don't think Lewis deserves a penalty". For me though, best ex driver commentator is Mark Webber.

Joeface

From the race yesterday , Ablon's Dive penalty incident , Its funny how narrow the TV cameras make the track look , and that Stroll had closed the door fully on Ablon, Over head , He left Plenty of Room .

lolie

Regarding Crofty I'd take anyone over him at this rate, well maybe anyone except Valsecchi.

It's the constant stupid laughing about nothing that does my head in. Anyone else notice after the safety car restart he made a big deal of Russell pulling off a brilliant move on Magnusson to move up to 5th when in fact he was ahead of him the whole time.

This is it

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118846155#Comment_118846155

Would love to see a few snaps from before that, as they round the last kerb. Definitely seemed like Stroll shut the door, but certainly Albons fault.

Joeface

That is a Usual Occurrence from him , Brundle use to correct him but I assume he got tired of it .

the constant explaining of the Yellow camera from him this year ....no I not going there it just doesn't end

coltmaster

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118846359#Comment_118846359

When Murray Walker made gaffs like that all the time, but everything else he did more than made up for it. With Crofty he has no personality, he is like David Brent, thinking he is the office comedian, when he isn't funny at all. You need a colour commentator and someone passionate, Brundle can do both, Crofty can do neither.

flazio

The passion and experience is why I stuck with the Setanta/BBC and the Eir/Channel 4 combinations until it finished at the end of 2018. Ben Edwards is such an excellent voice. He's unable to travel anymore but F1TV are letting him do 10 races for their service from their UK Base and he started last week with Bahrain.

https://youtu.be/M5gaYnFIhDc

shanec1928

some great racing and great battles. surprised they let they alpines battle with each other for so long.

the camera work was shocking, says it all when jenson was calling to get the action back on screen. that and missing a good bit of the races while they show replays, how is there still no live feed in a corner of the screen while a replay is on.

eviltimeban

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118846243#Comment_118846243

It's unbearable alright. Even when he normally talks it sounds like he's telling some kind of joke. It's all laddish and overly jocular. And he really needs to stop saying "wiley old fox / campaigner". It's like he heard Brundle say that about Alonso once and decided to use it in every race. And the stuff he comes out with during free practice commentating is cringe worthy.

He seems to be popular with the Sky team and around the paddock though.

Longing

John Watson is still my number two commentator after Murray Walker. He was excellent on Eurosport in the '90's has supporting commentator but these days he is doing GT3, excellent voice and knowledge but he is getting on years I think he is 76 this year.

Sky sports commentators and most of the crew are absolute clowns. except for Brundle but he is still no way near the Walker or Watson level. Kravitz, Herbert, Hill, Lazenby, Button, di Resta not worth listening to only keep Chandhok maybe Davidson but his love for Mercedes blinds his judgement at times. C4 team is way out in front.

LIGHTNING

I use to like the BTCC commentary team from back in the heyday.