F1 2022 thread - see post 1 for rules

The amount of predictions we are seeing recently is just ridiculous, YouTube is full of "experts" making videos about the coming season.... Absolute twats.

Imagine if we were back in Feb 2009... who would have been predicting the teams that came 7th and 9th the previous season would then dominate the sport for the next 13 years taking every single drivers and constructors championship between them up until this day.

Massive regulations change means no one can make even an educated guess at the moment, other than trying to speculate about budgets and the cap.

Myself if love to see both RB and Merc cock up and end up with a sport turned on its head!

A bit awkward that as AMG Mercedes F1 did not exist in 2008 or 2009. I have no idea who came 7th and 9th in 2008. I know Mclaren and Ferrari were at the front and Lewis won his first WDC. Thats all I remember. Only Red Bull did and they not start to Dominate until 2010.

It's fairly obvious from my comment which teams came 7th and 9th, RedBull and Honda (which famously became Brawn Gp for just 8 months from March - November 09 when the name changed again to Mercedes GP)

Teams don't just cease to exist because someone wrote a cheque... Are you honestly trying to say the likes of Merc or Racing Point morphed into some completely different operation the second the name changed? That's a load of crap.

Irrelevant to my point anyway which was that when there is a major rules change it's pointless to speculate on performance.

That's a render right?

It is. A beautiful one.

Yeah, even the Haas reveal had the pushrod suspension bar photoshoped in

I made a point about the last time we had a rule change this big in the championship and said no one other than Brawn/Merc and Redbull have won championships since. You disagreed calling my point "awkward" and saying the Mercedes team didn't exist at the time.

How can you agree that RP was a continuation of Force India and say the opposite about Honda/Brawn?

I never said that.

Technicaly do in 2008 the Mercedes F1 team did not exist yes the people who work there would go to work at Mercedes F1 but it was still Honda F1 not Mercedes yet. You can look back in the past at many of the teams including Red Bull and trace there heritage of what teams they came from but they were that team then not the team they are now. Yes a lot of the same people might work there but the team name and even the way they do things are where or how they do it will have changed a lot. They were Honda and as you rightly point out in 2009 it was Honda who helped fund the fitting of the Mercedes engine and for updates not Mercedes so it was still not Mercedes F1 untill it was bought by them in November of that year. Then the team became Mercedes F1.

No Alpine are still Renault and Aston Martin are still Racing Point which is still Force Ibdia.

Which is still Midland, which is still Jordan?

How many times do you have to change the brush head and the handle before you call it a new brush?

It was more of a throwaway comparison than anything before someone decided Brawn and Honda were in no way connected...

Merc weren't on the grid in 09, but the Brawn GP team that formed the basis the current Merc team grew from certainly was. It wasn't like they came in and cleaned out the place like RB did in 04-5. Merc knew they had a championship winning team and built on what was already there.

I definitely can't say they are the same anymore, but that's not how history works, it was gradual. I don't look at a Merc now and say that's a Tyrrell or a Brawn, I did however look at the 09 Brawn and say it was a Honda, and the 2010 team as Brawn with added silver! It was Brawn himself that built up the Merc team and put in the foundations for the Hybrid era.

If some people think when a teams ownership changes the team immediately becomes a new entity then what does that say about the likes of Williams and Mclaren...?

Chicane is gone and wider corners should make things pretty interesting

Reminds me of a similar play a few years ago by Eddie O'Leary (Michaels brother) who bought a tour of Willie Mullins yard in a charity auction..and he brought along Gordon Elliott!

Back to the 2022 season, I'd give a shout for Bottas to get a couple of podiums and maybe a win. Alfa Romeo also went all in on this years car and away from the crushing domination of Hamilton, and being top dog at a mid pack team, I reckon Bottas could be this generations Heinz-Harald Frentzen.

Bottas? He has had the best car for the past 4 seasons and scrapped together a few wins. You think he will do the same in an Alfa?

I have started my day with a good joke 😂

I mean, Ocon one on a day where the stars aligned for him and Merc made a balls of their strategy. And, he benefited from Bottas being a bowling ball at the start.

I can't see Alfa being any better than midfield. He will probably get plenty of points but can't see a podium barring a crazy crazy race.

Ricciardo won on merit in Italy.

He did - as long as 3 of the top 4 were removed and bottas had a mare. So he needed the top 4 to be removed for him to win it on merit.

In truth nobody could win on merit unless the top 2 teams were removed.

Sure. There was one race in the last good few years that didn't rely on exceptional circumstances.

Hamilton might have had the pace to come through for the win, but you can have that one. The rest, few as they were, relied entirely on the Mercedes and latterly the red bulls being taken out of contention by some unusual circumstances.

I am only talking about Ricciardo win, Hamilton didn't have the pace at all to trouble the McLaren, he even had a slow pit stop so that would have compounded it.

You are correct that since 2014, if Merc, RB or Ferrari didn't hit a snag, no one else would win. With the exception of Monza 2021 of course.

So? If he had the pace like you eluded to with Hamilton, he should have been able to overtake, no?

Don’t forget Max’s 11 second pit stop! Had that not happened he wouldn’t have been in a position to hit Lewis and would likely have been up Riccardo’s arse fairly quickly!

Max did not hit Lewis. Lewis got in Maxs way. It was all Lewis fault that crash. End off.

3 new cars this week, it is beginning to feel like the new season!

This is the 2022 thread. End of!

That pretty much counts him out of the conversation about who replaces Lewis if he retires at the end of this season.

I also see that F1 is stopping the kneeling during the anthem presentation. Fair enough.

Yeah but that's a serious amount of money now. 3 years of a contract (plus whatever mclaren want to sweeten the deal and make up for the loss of their investmen and hire a new driver) is probably very expensive.

Bottas cost $10m to buy him out of his Williams deal. Norris os presumably on atbleast $10m per year. If lewis goes at the endnof this year thennyoure talking $30m basic plus sweetner to help mclaren get a replacement. I'd say this effectively counts Norris out