F1 2022 thread - see post 1 for rules

Having seen the segment on the AMG One on Top Gear this evening, I already had my suspicions it was little more than a trojan horse for F1 development away from the prying eyes of the cost cap, now having seen even more closely how barely functional and completely unusable it is as an actual road car and what an utterly pointless project it is without some ulterior R&D motive, it's hard to see how it is anything else.

Great GP weekend that as it had pretty much everything you could have asked for bar a midfield team getting a podium buy hey ho.

I think the team mates/ team harmony aspect was massive this weekend, stroll nearly driving vettel off the road (after Austin the lad should really be on his best behaviour) the Ocon/Alonso show, leclerc essentially begging his team for Sainz to give up a podium for a handful of points and once again sounding less then happy on the radio, and obviously the max/perez position swap fiasco definitely sours the mood at red bull.

Mercedes look to be near enough to where they would want to be but I wonder how much of that is in terms of car development (can't imagine red bull have developed their car much recently) so obviously we will see how that goes into 2023, let's hope there's three constructors challenging for wins next year.

Midfield looks pretty punchy, Alpine really do have pace, and the Aston with Vettel has race pace atleast, if they can dial in that car for next season I'll be interested to see what alonso can do with it.

Onto Abu Dhabi where the only real thing up for grabs is P2 between perez and Leclerc so we will see if max will play nice to help him out this time.

One is a 2 seater with a V8 engine that's intended to be a fast track car on its own merits. The other is a literal current F1 engine bolted onto a barely usable road car with experimental changes to its packaging layout, tolerances and cooling solutions. You should probably look at the actual plans rather than make assumptions based on who is involved.

The Red Bull projects sounds more like one of those passion projects to keep Newey engaged and happy, freedom to engage in this is the sort of thing that lured him to Red Bull from McLaren back in the day. But we will see when there's actually something to see.

Multiple reports now that Schumacher is out and Hulkenberg is in.

I agree that it’s time for Mick to be moved on, Magnussen has shown that the car has had pace but Mick had never managed to get much out of the car at all.

Hulkenberg, though. A likeable driver but I don’t really expect him to do much either. Presumably just 1 year while they assess their options?

Mercedes is without a reserve driver for next year. Might be worth employing Mick to see what he can tell them about his experience of driving the Ferrari engine.

I'd say that would be a great fit for him.

Danny Rics manager is probably on the phone to RB as we speak anyway.

Noooooooo!

Stupid boards made me click on a poxy Merc advert, now I feel manky!

As a reserve driver? Ricciardo has massive potential of getting back to his old self. Mick is meh. As has been said elsewhere, remove the surname and he's never an F1 driver (although to be fair, same argument could be made about Latifi and, if you're feeling mean, Stroll). Seems like a nice dude and all, but life at the top is bloody hard...

If thsts true it could make him a great fit alright. Haas has had some serious trouble figuring out the car and improving it. Remember that year (2019?) where they couldn't figure out if the original in spec was better or worse than the upgrade. So they raced both specs for the second half of the season and never figured it out. That's poor.

If Hulk is that good at feedback, he could be a great addition to the team.

Why is Verstappen being such a d!ckhead? He surely owed Checo that one, I was disappointed by that.

If that happened to be true then I wouldn't blame Verstappen for not helping him but I'd find it hard to believe that Checo crashed on purpose

max owes him, he really should have fcuking moved over!

Looks that way:

Binotto can hardly have any complaints getting the boot, Ferrari have a hefty highlights reel of mess ups all season!

The perez/Monaco situation is interesting, can it be revisited/retrospectivly punished for it?

Binotto seems to have fallen foul of the Peter Principle. Ferrari did well to develop the joint fastest car this season, but their race management is beyond a joke.

On the second part about punishing a driver retrospectively. Absolutely not. There's neither the will or precedent to trawl up the past and meddle in long finished races. How would they prove it anyway and what would the punishment be?

Yeah. Not even on the agenda.

Ah, I don't have a clue if Perez did it or not. How could I possibly know? But its being reported that Max thinks he did it and that's why he wouldn't help him on Sunday. Nothing wrong with commenting on the reports.

Bad move by Ferrari imo but sure what's new about that? They need a new strategy team not a new team principle, Binotto was a technical whizz by all accounts and had a good relationship with both drivers.

This is an analysis of the laps he did in Q3 at Monaco. It is up to yourselves if he crashed on purpose or not.

The telemetry is one thing and as ever won’t say whether the driver meant it or not. I still find the situation so illogical.

-Perez, a very reliable team player, deciding to make a stand while locking in a Ferrari 1-2 and risk his car while he’s at it

-Max waiting for payback for 5 months to deny Perez 6th place and harm relations

-An incident from 5 months ago now getting scrutinized as if no one cared at the time

I’d like to think there’s more to it as it’s all a bit pathetic. A bit of disharmony in RB will do no harm to the 2023 title with Mercedes’ trajectory.

They've had the biggest budget other than Mercedes for years, and they had a completely free run at the new regulations, sacrificing their last couple of seasons to focus on this year's car while the other top teams were fighting tooth and nail for the championship.

Developing the joint fastest car this season really ought to have been a bare minimum expectation. I personally had them pegged as favourites long before pre-season testing kicked in.

But to have had that car and to be in a position where they might not even secure second in the WCC is disastrous. Binotto should have gone a couple of years ago - in reality he should never have been promoted into a position that's way out of his expertise and out of his depth to begin with. They were on a better trajectory under Arrivabene, they really stalled out and went backwards under Binotto and only the opportunity presented by the new rules this year allowed them to get back into a competitive position, one that they've then squandered badly.

I've always had a positive impression of Frederic Vasseur, he's done well at Sauber and was hugely successful in GP2 so I could see him move the team forward, though it's certainly a risk as he's never been in a position with anything like the level of pressure and expectation of Ferrari.

It wasnt some agreement talked about before this race, Max said on the radio he had already talked to them about it in the Summer so it's obviously something more substantial

What’s great about that view(if accurate) is seeing Hamilton is basically doing all of the reacting to try and move Verstappen. Verstappen looks like he has picked his line and he’s confident that the corner is his.

What you can’t judge though is the reason the stewards penalised Max, which was the speed he was carrying into the corner.

It’s a strange one that looks one way, could be the other.

Hmmm not sure about that, something looked unlikely to be successful therefor it was clear it wouldnt have been successful?

Unless he actually understeers through space left by hamilton I don't think stewards can confidently apply a penalty. Bit of an exaggerated example but similar to when someone locks up trying to go down the inside and instead goes straight on and into the car on the outside.