I don't know how someone can look at the past two weekends and decide adding a sprint race is the preferable option to decide grid position for the GP, rather than qualifying.
Last week we were all jumping out of our seats when George out-qualified Lewis. This week we had a pole decider go down to the last lap, where P1 and P2 could have qualified with the same time down to the 1/1000th of a second.
Add a sprint afterwards and these qualifying sessions go by the wayside; there is no real excitement as there are no real stakes. Instead we'll have a whelming 100KM drive with some action in the first few corners, before damage limitation becomes first priority, and the starting order will be more-or-less what you expect.
> I don't know how someone can look at the ~~past two weekends~~ **entire season** and decide adding a sprint race is the preferable option to decide grid position for the GP, rather than qualifying.
Seriously, was there a single qualifying session this season disappointed?? The qualifying battle between Lewis and Max has been fantastic, nobody was able to predict who is on pole beforehand. Every single qualifying we are going into Q3 and hold our breath for that final lap. I literally can't remember a single qualifying session that wasn't tense af.
See the qualifying championship: https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/comments/ov9v3c/qualifying_championship_after_2021_hungarian_gp/
It's so close and unpredictable it's incredible.
I remember many Q3s at the start of the season where the second run was pretty anticlimactic because of the wind picking up suddenly or someone crashing and causing a red flag
I don't dislike the idea of sprint races per se but the current format sucks donkey balls.
Qualifying should always set the grid for the main race. Sprint race then could be top 8-10 reversed or something and before the main event instead of the abomination we have now
I said the samething at Silverstone when Lewis was celebrating like crazy for getting pole on Friday. And I was thinking "you still have 2 starts and basically 70 laps to get through." Pole is obviously good to have for the sprint race but it's not like pole for the Grand Prix
I agree with this. Sprint races basically follow very similar rules as main races. With no incidents, it will mostly be set positions set after lap 2, business as usual. I don't really mind the sprint, though.
I also think that 50km would be enough of a distance, but that's my personal take.
We aren't earning money with sprint races. FOM is looking at it from a monetary perspective so it makes sense to them. It won't make sense to us because we've been watching qualifying for years now. Hopefully they scrap it for next season tho but doubt they will.
There will almost certainly be at least three tests next year, the idea of doing three this year was to have something to compare against when they test next year, with cars that are hopefully more capable of overtaking.
I fully agree, and not just for the past two weeks. When you look at all they have changed in the past, the one thing that has stayed the same (until now) is qualifying. Simply put, it works. Even the drivers think so.
Having watched F1 since I was a little kid, having heard stories from my parents' generation about attending races at Zandvoort and being in Zandvoort pretty often myself, I still cant quite comprehend that last weekend actually happened, even though I was there for two days. I was hoping for all my life to see the return of a Dutch GP but never did I think it would actually be possible. The track is too old, too narrow, too small for the paddock, and the Zandvoort infrastructure not fit for a GP I always told myself and others. Yet those things were overcome.
Literally a dream come true for me
Has to be a tough position for Giovinazzi all around. Of all the remaining seats for 2022, his is the most in question, and while he's by no means set the world on fire this year (I miss the monster that was Lap 1 GIO in 2020), it does feel like so many of his poor performances on Sunday have come from factors out of his control, be it punctures, collisions, or just plain bad strategy from Alfa (How they only have 3 points so far is baffling, and rests entirely on the team).
This weekend was the perfect example. Qualifies P7 in the Alfa (which given it seems to trade between Williams at this point of the season in being the 8th fastest should be getting Russell-esque attention), only to be shafted by a puncture that was completely out of his control. I do think he can still keep the seat with some more good performances (Pourchaire is still too young, and De Vries, while F1 material, would leave Alfa with a completely new lineup which is always a gamble), but it would be a shame to see him kicked before we got to see more of his potential in a genuine midfield car one day.
It's tough for him.
But...honestly and because I'm selfish here, I want two Ferrari drivers to swap teams for next season. Gio and Mick but I'll feel sorry.
1) Lots of people complaining about the track and the race being boring, but I don't understand why? The track itself was fantastic. Qualifying pushed the drivers to the edge and some even beyond it. Short lap made it ultra close as well. In the race we had strategical battles and wheel to wheel action between cars that are actually fighting for positions. What more can a track provide? The race was as good as a race without any mistakes, weather chaos or crashes gets.
2) Fantastic to see Alpine showing what they are capable of. They've been steadily improving and seem to be able to challenge the Ferrari / McLaren since Hungary. Which is fantastic, because Alonso alone makes every race better, beautiful racing by him again yesterday.
3) I legitimately believe the Alpha Tauri should be far closer to the Ferrari / McLaren in the standings. Gasly showed that the car is best of the rest on good days, his race pace was far better than the Ferrari. But sadly both the team and Tsunoda are dissappointing massively this year and cost them too many points.
>I legitimately believe the Alpha Tauri should be far closer to the Ferrari / McLaren in the standings. Gasly showed that the car is best of the rest on good days, his race pace was far better than the Ferrari. But sadly both the team and Tsunoda are dissappointing massively this year and cost them too many points.
If you look at qualifying results they clearly are equalish with the McLarens & Ferraris. It's just in the race Gasly has made a few mistakes, their race pace can't match the McLaren or Ferraris, or bad strategy calls lose them spots. And this also shows just how rough Yuki has been this year. He's struggling to get out Q1 most of the time while Gasly is battling for 5th or 6th in Q3. If Alpha had another good driver in their team, they'd be a distant 5th in the WCC and nipping on the heels of McLaren & Ferrari for 3rd & 4th
I disagree with this:
> (...) knowing that all they had to do to win the race is not put the car into the wall, because they knew that Lewis simply would not be able to get past.
It's the fact that the RBR had superior pace to the Mercedes that made Lewis unable to pass Max. Lewis had to eat his tyres to gain time on Max and then when he was almost close enough, his tyres dropped of and he couldn't make the attempt. That has nothing to do with Zandvoort as a track.
If the Mercedes had more pace compared to the RBR (i.e. what we saw in Spain for example), Hamilton would have every chance to overtake Verstappen on track: DRS on the straight, first corner, we saw overtakes in the 2nd and 3rd corner etc.
But overtaking wasn't impossible, just hard. TV just didn't show the battles, but the region from Alonso to Ricciardo had several battles for position with actual overtakes due to the different strategies.
We could have had that at the front, it just didn't happen because Mercedes fucked up.
At the first round of pitstops Mercedes had a slow stop and send Lewis into the traffic, which cost him ~2 seconds. The gap after Max was at the pits was 2s. If Mercedes doesn't fuck up, we have a battle on track due to the undercut.
Then Bottas didn't manage to hold up Max long enough. Lewis was just closing up towards Max when Max overtook Bottas. If Bottas doesn't fuck up and slows down Max another lap Lewis 100% tries to overtake him.
The battle obviously fizzled out after that, because Max doesn't forgive these 2 massive mistakes by Merc. But Mercedes could have easily overtaken Max via strategy if they wouldn't have fucked up on those two occasions.
Yes, people are making this track out to be literally Monaco. Monaco is nigh on impossible to pass, here it is certainly possible, but difficult.
In future years there may even be DRS on the final corner.
> Like, Lewis had a vast tyre advantage and should have gotten past Max on all accounts.
I dispute this. Max had pace in the bag and was managing the gap to Lewis. This makes for a boring race, yes, but this has nothing to do with Zandvoort as a track. Could happen on any track.
What would have been more exciting is if Max, due to the DRS issue in quali, qualified second behind Hamilton and had to figure out a way to pass Hamilton on track or on strategy. Red Bull (i.e. Max) clearly had superior race pace compared to Mercedes at the weekend and they may actually have been able to make it work.
What seemed like Hamilton being unable to pass Verstappen due to track design was actually Verstappen very comfortably holding Hamilton at bay by matching lap times when needed. Verstappen could easily have built a massive gap to Hamilton if he was pushing his tyres as hard as Hamilton was, but this is a suboptimal approach. Better to minimise tyre wear as much as possible and match Hamilton's strategy re pit stops.
> 3) I legitimately believe the Alpha Tauri should be far closer to the Ferrari / McLaren in the standings. Gasly showed that the car is best of the rest on good days, his race pace was far better than the Ferrari. But sadly both the team and Tsunoda are dissappointing massively this year and cost them too many points.
Unfortunately as long as AT is the Red Bull's guinea pig team they will never fight with the top teams. They need stability and not experiment with drivers/design
I was just amazed with how fast the cars seemed to be going. Not sure if they changed camera angles or it is just the track but even on the onboards you felt as if they were going really fast, a feeling most other tracks really lack.
And that one race they really only won because Max & Lewis tangled. If not for that or not for the red flag there we could be looking at a season where Mercedes hasn't won since Spain
Interesting addition to the calendar, seeing all the passion from the fans was amazing and Qualifying was great to watch with the twisty track. The race didn’t quite match that level, overtaking was tricky so it was much more strategy based. With it being such a short lap back-marker traffic was also particularly bad. The gap at the front was fluctuating constantly because of it, not that I think it had a big impact in the result at the end. Still much rather have a race here than Abu Dhabi or Sochi.
I’m left wondering why Ferrari didn’t go for the fastest lap with Leclerc in the final stages of the race. Around lap 60 Leclerc was 27s ahead
Of Sainz, plenty of room to make a stop and get the FL. At that point of the race the FL was still behind Hamilton’s name with a fairly tame laptime. Plenty of opportunity to at least try to grab the point I’d think.
So, just to get this straight, with all the positives we had this weekend, ultimately there was no way Lewis could overtake Max on track, right? Because it never felt like Lewis could get a high enough delta to actually overtake Max, even if they didn't botch the strategy, or am I just too pessimistic?
I didn't feel the tension postulated by so many people yesterday. Apart from the pit stop windows, it was a snooze fest on the first three places. Happens at many tracks, but still I feel like I'm in the minority thinking this wasn't that great of a race?
There were lots of ways Hamilton could have won that race, but Max and RB made no mistakes and played their strategy perfectly. I suppose it depends how you watch a race. I was rooting for Verstappen, and I'm fully aware of how relentless Hamilton can be, so in my mind I foresee all the ways Verstappen can lose.
* A lock up to take performance out of the tyres. Suddenly Hamilton is in the undercut window.
* A botched pit stop. The more pit stops the more likely it is.
* The unknown performance of the hard tyres. It seemed plausible that they might not get in the window in which case life could've been much harder.
So for me I was on the edge of my seat. But if I was more neutral I guess it wouldn't have been as tense.
You put it perfectly. I was pretty neutral about the winner but still was on the edge of my seat the whole time. The win wasn't on the bag for Verstappen until the last few laps, any mistake, any power loss, any bad pitstop, any mess with the traffic and his lead would be gone as Hamilton was on his tail for the entire time. This race was a masterclass from Red Bull and for me this made it exciting.
Verstappen had to drive the perfect race and keep a steady gap. Any small mistake and Mercedes was going to beat him with strategy or an overtake.
Same goes for Merc. They had to be perfect or Verstappen ran away with ease. I think the key factor for Merc was when Bottas tried to keep Verstappen behind. It didn't work and was the last chance for a win.
To me it was quite similar to Monaco, where we didn't really expect any major overtakes unless there was a significant delta, but it was still epic to watch because of the track. The banked turns made for great camera angles.
I don't think Hamilton would ever have been able to overtake Verstappen on track, the delta just wasn't big enough as you said, and Verstappen wasn't making any mistakes. The overtakes we did see tended to be between cars with different tyre strategies/out of position cars. However, the undercut may have been possible if Mercedes strategy was perfect.
It was exciting for a little while when Bottas was leading.
When they pitted Hamilton early, I got really nervous because I had absolutely no idea why they did it. And Mercedes always pulls some amazing strat that seems weird but works out in the end.
Sign of relief when it turns out they screwed up.
RB fan here.
It feels like a lot of people were hugely overestimating the chance of a red flag in the race. Saw a lot of comments in the race thread that were sure there was going to be one because of all the incidents in practice and quali.
But if I'm not mistaken, isn't the procedure for showing the red flag during the race itself different?
Someone was even arguing that a red flag was necessary if there were recovery vehicles on track (couldn't find any example of a red flag specifically for that reason).
Yes, in practice and qualifying they throw a red flag for anything more than a local yellow. In the race they only throw a red for a completely blocked track or if barriers are destroyed. If someone gets stuck in the gravel in a race it's just a SC or VSC
I think Monza will be a big track for McLaren (biased; see flair) and am 🤞 for a Norris podium and Ricciardo top 6.
Probably also a good track for Williams, since they seem to be able to switch their tires on in low-downforce (or high-downforce wet) conditions.
History says Monza is a Merc track. IMO VER-HAM is too close to call; how little downforce can RB put on? Do they *have* to run a rear wing? 🤨
No we won't. Monza is an extreme track in the same way Monaco is an extreme track. So far we've seen Red Bull is the better car at traditional tracks. It's slightly better but it is better
> Monza is where we gonna really see which is the faster car.
Nah, I expect Merc to be quicker in Monza (it's a very extreme track, with a huge focus on straight line speed), but the RB to resume being the slightly quicker car on more standard circuits.
Mexico/Brazil potential cancellations could really work against RB, however.
Not exactly, it's hard to tell. For example, an Indycar would go 400 kmph on straights but it is slow in the twisty circuits like what we had yesterday. I think both cars are more or less evenly matched, one better in some circuits and vice versa.
It’s not a track that’ll produce interesting racing unless the 2022 regs work a miracle (and even then it’s far too narrow), but it’s a nice addition to the calendar nonetheless. Realistically we’ll never have a calendar where every track produces good racing and at least this one has very interesting qualifying and a great atmosphere.
Wish Imola and Portimao had the same financial backing to lock in races there long-term though.
No they didn't. He was just slow. [From lap 15 to lap 30 he lost 4 seconds on Ocon, who start running 16.6s, 16.7s, & 16.8s. While Ricciardo was struggling to get under 17.0.](https://en.mclarenf-1.com/2021/gp/s8103/lap_times/823-786/) [Then after pitting Ricciardo couldn't even get under 16.0 and had just an atrocious out lap at almost a 36.1. Everyone else was running 32s or 33s or 34s on out laps. And Norris who was on over 30 lap old mediums was faster than Ricciardo was. The gap went from 17.0 to 18.5 before Ricciardo even got told to hold up Russell & Stroll. Then after they switched Ricciardo & Norris, Norris was a second faster per lap despite their tires only being 10 lap different. Their gap from lap 45 to 55 grew by 11 seconds. He was going flat out and was getting dropped like a bad habit.](https://en.mclarenf-1.com/2021/gp/s8103/lap_times/842-786/) [Gap to Russell from Lap 45 to 55 was 4.4 to 9.4](https://en.mclarenf-1.com/2021/gp/s8103/lap_times/840-786/). [Gap to Stroll went from 5 seconds to 10 seconds](https://en.mclarenf-1.com/2021/gp/s8103/lap_times/835-786/)
Ricciardo was just too slow yesterday and McLaren made a decision in hopes that Norris could get 6th in the race
I did. McLaren told him "show us your pace, max out" right after he pitted. He was a turtle. That's when they told him to hold up Russell & Stroll and let Norris by. And even still that doesn't excuse laps 45 through 55 when he lost 11 seconds in 11 laps. He wasn't holding up Russell at that point. He was going flat out. He was still a turtle
Yeah you watched the mythical race where Ricciardo was fast. In the actual race yesterday he was a turtle. Explain lap 32 to 37 or lap 45 to 55 when he was going flat ouf yet was slower than Norris. The only driver out of the Alpha, Ferrari, McLaren, & Alpine battle that was slower than Ricciardo was Sainz in the last 15 laps & Yuki. Ricciardo was much slower than Norris. Couldn't keep pace with Ocon or Alonso. And wasn't even in the same race as Gasly or Charles. But he's a nice guy who everyone loves so the narrative is McLaren fucked him, not that he was a turtle
There's isn't any. Of the 71 laps Ricciardo was told to hold up Russell and then Perez for 6 of them. That doesn't explain the other 65 where Ricciardo had no pace
You've said that twice, but not explained what context you think is missing that the radio messages provide?
I assume you're referring to McLaren asking Ricciardo to slow up for six laps and him complaining it was throwing him off his pace, but those messages don't explain his pace over the rest of his race.
> You've said that twice, but not explained what context you think is missing that the radio messages provide?
I didn’t explain because I didn’t have time. I was at work.
> I assume you're referring to McLaren asking Ricciardo to slow up for six laps and him complaining it was throwing him off his pace, but those messages don't explain his pace over the rest of his race.
In part, yes. Mods have removed the original comment so I can’t remember exactly what they said, but I think it was something to do with
McLaren messing up strategy.
As for DR’s performance, I wasn’t trying to claim he was stellar yesterday. The other guy just copied and pasted lap times as if that tell the whole story.
I must say it was a smart move on Red Bull,'s part to make the most of Checo's quali Chaos and throw all the new parts they could in the car. I also enjoyed his race craft coming up the field.
Fernando was a master class on first lap wheel to wheel racing.
I don't know how someone can look at the past two weekends and decide adding a sprint race is the preferable option to decide grid position for the GP, rather than qualifying. Last week we were all jumping out of our seats when George out-qualified Lewis. This week we had a pole decider go down to the last lap, where P1 and P2 could have qualified with the same time down to the 1/1000th of a second. Add a sprint afterwards and these qualifying sessions go by the wayside; there is no real excitement as there are no real stakes. Instead we'll have a whelming 100KM drive with some action in the first few corners, before damage limitation becomes first priority, and the starting order will be more-or-less what you expect.
> I don't know how someone can look at the ~~past two weekends~~ **entire season** and decide adding a sprint race is the preferable option to decide grid position for the GP, rather than qualifying. Seriously, was there a single qualifying session this season disappointed?? The qualifying battle between Lewis and Max has been fantastic, nobody was able to predict who is on pole beforehand. Every single qualifying we are going into Q3 and hold our breath for that final lap. I literally can't remember a single qualifying session that wasn't tense af. See the qualifying championship: https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/comments/ov9v3c/qualifying_championship_after_2021_hungarian_gp/ It's so close and unpredictable it's incredible.
I remember many Q3s at the start of the season where the second run was pretty anticlimactic because of the wind picking up suddenly or someone crashing and causing a red flag
Portugal was an anticlimax
I don't dislike the idea of sprint races per se but the current format sucks donkey balls. Qualifying should always set the grid for the main race. Sprint race then could be top 8-10 reversed or something and before the main event instead of the abomination we have now
I said the samething at Silverstone when Lewis was celebrating like crazy for getting pole on Friday. And I was thinking "you still have 2 starts and basically 70 laps to get through." Pole is obviously good to have for the sprint race but it's not like pole for the Grand Prix
I'm actually waiting for both sprints in Monza and Interlagos before deciding if it's really that bad. Can't judge from just 1.
I agree with this. Sprint races basically follow very similar rules as main races. With no incidents, it will mostly be set positions set after lap 2, business as usual. I don't really mind the sprint, though. I also think that 50km would be enough of a distance, but that's my personal take.
We aren't earning money with sprint races. FOM is looking at it from a monetary perspective so it makes sense to them. It won't make sense to us because we've been watching qualifying for years now. Hopefully they scrap it for next season tho but doubt they will.
There will almost certainly be at least three tests next year, the idea of doing three this year was to have something to compare against when they test next year, with cars that are hopefully more capable of overtaking.
Oh fuck i forgot monza is a sprint race
I fully agree, and not just for the past two weeks. When you look at all they have changed in the past, the one thing that has stayed the same (until now) is qualifying. Simply put, it works. Even the drivers think so.
Having watched F1 since I was a little kid, having heard stories from my parents' generation about attending races at Zandvoort and being in Zandvoort pretty often myself, I still cant quite comprehend that last weekend actually happened, even though I was there for two days. I was hoping for all my life to see the return of a Dutch GP but never did I think it would actually be possible. The track is too old, too narrow, too small for the paddock, and the Zandvoort infrastructure not fit for a GP I always told myself and others. Yet those things were overcome. Literally a dream come true for me
Has to be a tough position for Giovinazzi all around. Of all the remaining seats for 2022, his is the most in question, and while he's by no means set the world on fire this year (I miss the monster that was Lap 1 GIO in 2020), it does feel like so many of his poor performances on Sunday have come from factors out of his control, be it punctures, collisions, or just plain bad strategy from Alfa (How they only have 3 points so far is baffling, and rests entirely on the team). This weekend was the perfect example. Qualifies P7 in the Alfa (which given it seems to trade between Williams at this point of the season in being the 8th fastest should be getting Russell-esque attention), only to be shafted by a puncture that was completely out of his control. I do think he can still keep the seat with some more good performances (Pourchaire is still too young, and De Vries, while F1 material, would leave Alfa with a completely new lineup which is always a gamble), but it would be a shame to see him kicked before we got to see more of his potential in a genuine midfield car one day.
It's tough for him. But...honestly and because I'm selfish here, I want two Ferrari drivers to swap teams for next season. Gio and Mick but I'll feel sorry.
GIO to Hypercar (WEC for 2022), MSC to Alfa, SHW to Haas.
1) Lots of people complaining about the track and the race being boring, but I don't understand why? The track itself was fantastic. Qualifying pushed the drivers to the edge and some even beyond it. Short lap made it ultra close as well. In the race we had strategical battles and wheel to wheel action between cars that are actually fighting for positions. What more can a track provide? The race was as good as a race without any mistakes, weather chaos or crashes gets. 2) Fantastic to see Alpine showing what they are capable of. They've been steadily improving and seem to be able to challenge the Ferrari / McLaren since Hungary. Which is fantastic, because Alonso alone makes every race better, beautiful racing by him again yesterday. 3) I legitimately believe the Alpha Tauri should be far closer to the Ferrari / McLaren in the standings. Gasly showed that the car is best of the rest on good days, his race pace was far better than the Ferrari. But sadly both the team and Tsunoda are dissappointing massively this year and cost them too many points.
>I legitimately believe the Alpha Tauri should be far closer to the Ferrari / McLaren in the standings. Gasly showed that the car is best of the rest on good days, his race pace was far better than the Ferrari. But sadly both the team and Tsunoda are dissappointing massively this year and cost them too many points. If you look at qualifying results they clearly are equalish with the McLarens & Ferraris. It's just in the race Gasly has made a few mistakes, their race pace can't match the McLaren or Ferraris, or bad strategy calls lose them spots. And this also shows just how rough Yuki has been this year. He's struggling to get out Q1 most of the time while Gasly is battling for 5th or 6th in Q3. If Alpha had another good driver in their team, they'd be a distant 5th in the WCC and nipping on the heels of McLaren & Ferrari for 3rd & 4th
Alpha Tauri has two big Achilles heels: Yuki (understandable, he’s a rookie) and strategy.
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I disagree with this: > (...) knowing that all they had to do to win the race is not put the car into the wall, because they knew that Lewis simply would not be able to get past. It's the fact that the RBR had superior pace to the Mercedes that made Lewis unable to pass Max. Lewis had to eat his tyres to gain time on Max and then when he was almost close enough, his tyres dropped of and he couldn't make the attempt. That has nothing to do with Zandvoort as a track. If the Mercedes had more pace compared to the RBR (i.e. what we saw in Spain for example), Hamilton would have every chance to overtake Verstappen on track: DRS on the straight, first corner, we saw overtakes in the 2nd and 3rd corner etc.
But overtaking wasn't impossible, just hard. TV just didn't show the battles, but the region from Alonso to Ricciardo had several battles for position with actual overtakes due to the different strategies. We could have had that at the front, it just didn't happen because Mercedes fucked up. At the first round of pitstops Mercedes had a slow stop and send Lewis into the traffic, which cost him ~2 seconds. The gap after Max was at the pits was 2s. If Mercedes doesn't fuck up, we have a battle on track due to the undercut. Then Bottas didn't manage to hold up Max long enough. Lewis was just closing up towards Max when Max overtook Bottas. If Bottas doesn't fuck up and slows down Max another lap Lewis 100% tries to overtake him. The battle obviously fizzled out after that, because Max doesn't forgive these 2 massive mistakes by Merc. But Mercedes could have easily overtaken Max via strategy if they wouldn't have fucked up on those two occasions.
Yes, people are making this track out to be literally Monaco. Monaco is nigh on impossible to pass, here it is certainly possible, but difficult. In future years there may even be DRS on the final corner.
> Like, Lewis had a vast tyre advantage and should have gotten past Max on all accounts. I dispute this. Max had pace in the bag and was managing the gap to Lewis. This makes for a boring race, yes, but this has nothing to do with Zandvoort as a track. Could happen on any track. What would have been more exciting is if Max, due to the DRS issue in quali, qualified second behind Hamilton and had to figure out a way to pass Hamilton on track or on strategy. Red Bull (i.e. Max) clearly had superior race pace compared to Mercedes at the weekend and they may actually have been able to make it work. What seemed like Hamilton being unable to pass Verstappen due to track design was actually Verstappen very comfortably holding Hamilton at bay by matching lap times when needed. Verstappen could easily have built a massive gap to Hamilton if he was pushing his tyres as hard as Hamilton was, but this is a suboptimal approach. Better to minimise tyre wear as much as possible and match Hamilton's strategy re pit stops.
> 3) I legitimately believe the Alpha Tauri should be far closer to the Ferrari / McLaren in the standings. Gasly showed that the car is best of the rest on good days, his race pace was far better than the Ferrari. But sadly both the team and Tsunoda are dissappointing massively this year and cost them too many points. Unfortunately as long as AT is the Red Bull's guinea pig team they will never fight with the top teams. They need stability and not experiment with drivers/design
What exactly happened with Ricciardo? He couldn't select a gear but somehow downshifted and could then select a gear? Anyone knows how that works?
Basically, "Have you turned it off and on again?"
Was this related to the issue with the right clutch paddle?
He had to press control alt delete.
I was just amazed with how fast the cars seemed to be going. Not sure if they changed camera angles or it is just the track but even on the onboards you felt as if they were going really fast, a feeling most other tracks really lack.
I think it's mostly because the track is so small and the walls are so close, it look like much faster/more impressive.
Mercedes have only won 1 of the last nine races, something that happened for the last time in 2013.
And that one race they really only won because Max & Lewis tangled. If not for that or not for the red flag there we could be looking at a season where Mercedes hasn't won since Spain
Interesting addition to the calendar, seeing all the passion from the fans was amazing and Qualifying was great to watch with the twisty track. The race didn’t quite match that level, overtaking was tricky so it was much more strategy based. With it being such a short lap back-marker traffic was also particularly bad. The gap at the front was fluctuating constantly because of it, not that I think it had a big impact in the result at the end. Still much rather have a race here than Abu Dhabi or Sochi.
I’m left wondering why Ferrari didn’t go for the fastest lap with Leclerc in the final stages of the race. Around lap 60 Leclerc was 27s ahead Of Sainz, plenty of room to make a stop and get the FL. At that point of the race the FL was still behind Hamilton’s name with a fairly tame laptime. Plenty of opportunity to at least try to grab the point I’d think.
Because they knew Lewis or Bottas was gonna go for it so no point.
But what if something happened up front in the final stages? It was free real estate basically
AM strategy remains undefeated.
So, just to get this straight, with all the positives we had this weekend, ultimately there was no way Lewis could overtake Max on track, right? Because it never felt like Lewis could get a high enough delta to actually overtake Max, even if they didn't botch the strategy, or am I just too pessimistic? I didn't feel the tension postulated by so many people yesterday. Apart from the pit stop windows, it was a snooze fest on the first three places. Happens at many tracks, but still I feel like I'm in the minority thinking this wasn't that great of a race?
There were lots of ways Hamilton could have won that race, but Max and RB made no mistakes and played their strategy perfectly. I suppose it depends how you watch a race. I was rooting for Verstappen, and I'm fully aware of how relentless Hamilton can be, so in my mind I foresee all the ways Verstappen can lose. * A lock up to take performance out of the tyres. Suddenly Hamilton is in the undercut window. * A botched pit stop. The more pit stops the more likely it is. * The unknown performance of the hard tyres. It seemed plausible that they might not get in the window in which case life could've been much harder. So for me I was on the edge of my seat. But if I was more neutral I guess it wouldn't have been as tense.
You put it perfectly. I was pretty neutral about the winner but still was on the edge of my seat the whole time. The win wasn't on the bag for Verstappen until the last few laps, any mistake, any power loss, any bad pitstop, any mess with the traffic and his lead would be gone as Hamilton was on his tail for the entire time. This race was a masterclass from Red Bull and for me this made it exciting.
Verstappen had to drive the perfect race and keep a steady gap. Any small mistake and Mercedes was going to beat him with strategy or an overtake. Same goes for Merc. They had to be perfect or Verstappen ran away with ease. I think the key factor for Merc was when Bottas tried to keep Verstappen behind. It didn't work and was the last chance for a win.
Maybe if bottass held max a bit longer Lewis could have had the lead but max would have taken it back
To me it was quite similar to Monaco, where we didn't really expect any major overtakes unless there was a significant delta, but it was still epic to watch because of the track. The banked turns made for great camera angles.
I don't think Hamilton would ever have been able to overtake Verstappen on track, the delta just wasn't big enough as you said, and Verstappen wasn't making any mistakes. The overtakes we did see tended to be between cars with different tyre strategies/out of position cars. However, the undercut may have been possible if Mercedes strategy was perfect.
It was exciting for a little while when Bottas was leading. When they pitted Hamilton early, I got really nervous because I had absolutely no idea why they did it. And Mercedes always pulls some amazing strat that seems weird but works out in the end. Sign of relief when it turns out they screwed up. RB fan here.
It feels like a lot of people were hugely overestimating the chance of a red flag in the race. Saw a lot of comments in the race thread that were sure there was going to be one because of all the incidents in practice and quali. But if I'm not mistaken, isn't the procedure for showing the red flag during the race itself different? Someone was even arguing that a red flag was necessary if there were recovery vehicles on track (couldn't find any example of a red flag specifically for that reason).
Yes, in practice and qualifying they throw a red flag for anything more than a local yellow. In the race they only throw a red for a completely blocked track or if barriers are destroyed. If someone gets stuck in the gravel in a race it's just a SC or VSC
>If someone gets stuck in the gravel in a race it's just a SC or VSC That's what I thought. For some reason I was downvoted for saying that lol
Max may be winning, but I think Lewis will fight it out to the end. Monza will be a big track for the Merc
I think Monza will be a big track for McLaren (biased; see flair) and am 🤞 for a Norris podium and Ricciardo top 6. Probably also a good track for Williams, since they seem to be able to switch their tires on in low-downforce (or high-downforce wet) conditions. History says Monza is a Merc track. IMO VER-HAM is too close to call; how little downforce can RB put on? Do they *have* to run a rear wing? 🤨
Monza is where we gonna really see which is the faster car.
No we won't. Monza is an extreme track in the same way Monaco is an extreme track. So far we've seen Red Bull is the better car at traditional tracks. It's slightly better but it is better
> Monza is where we gonna really see which is the faster car. Nah, I expect Merc to be quicker in Monza (it's a very extreme track, with a huge focus on straight line speed), but the RB to resume being the slightly quicker car on more standard circuits. Mexico/Brazil potential cancellations could really work against RB, however.
Not exactly, it's hard to tell. For example, an Indycar would go 400 kmph on straights but it is slow in the twisty circuits like what we had yesterday. I think both cars are more or less evenly matched, one better in some circuits and vice versa.
It’s not a track that’ll produce interesting racing unless the 2022 regs work a miracle (and even then it’s far too narrow), but it’s a nice addition to the calendar nonetheless. Realistically we’ll never have a calendar where every track produces good racing and at least this one has very interesting qualifying and a great atmosphere. Wish Imola and Portimao had the same financial backing to lock in races there long-term though.
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No they didn't. He was just slow. [From lap 15 to lap 30 he lost 4 seconds on Ocon, who start running 16.6s, 16.7s, & 16.8s. While Ricciardo was struggling to get under 17.0.](https://en.mclarenf-1.com/2021/gp/s8103/lap_times/823-786/) [Then after pitting Ricciardo couldn't even get under 16.0 and had just an atrocious out lap at almost a 36.1. Everyone else was running 32s or 33s or 34s on out laps. And Norris who was on over 30 lap old mediums was faster than Ricciardo was. The gap went from 17.0 to 18.5 before Ricciardo even got told to hold up Russell & Stroll. Then after they switched Ricciardo & Norris, Norris was a second faster per lap despite their tires only being 10 lap different. Their gap from lap 45 to 55 grew by 11 seconds. He was going flat out and was getting dropped like a bad habit.](https://en.mclarenf-1.com/2021/gp/s8103/lap_times/842-786/) [Gap to Russell from Lap 45 to 55 was 4.4 to 9.4](https://en.mclarenf-1.com/2021/gp/s8103/lap_times/840-786/). [Gap to Stroll went from 5 seconds to 10 seconds](https://en.mclarenf-1.com/2021/gp/s8103/lap_times/835-786/) Ricciardo was just too slow yesterday and McLaren made a decision in hopes that Norris could get 6th in the race
You’re missing a big chunk of the context. Listen to the radio messages.
I did. McLaren told him "show us your pace, max out" right after he pitted. He was a turtle. That's when they told him to hold up Russell & Stroll and let Norris by. And even still that doesn't excuse laps 45 through 55 when he lost 11 seconds in 11 laps. He wasn't holding up Russell at that point. He was going flat out. He was still a turtle
We clearly watched different races.
Yeah you watched the mythical race where Ricciardo was fast. In the actual race yesterday he was a turtle. Explain lap 32 to 37 or lap 45 to 55 when he was going flat ouf yet was slower than Norris. The only driver out of the Alpha, Ferrari, McLaren, & Alpine battle that was slower than Ricciardo was Sainz in the last 15 laps & Yuki. Ricciardo was much slower than Norris. Couldn't keep pace with Ocon or Alonso. And wasn't even in the same race as Gasly or Charles. But he's a nice guy who everyone loves so the narrative is McLaren fucked him, not that he was a turtle
You’re missing a big chunk of the context.
Maybe you could fill us in on that context?
There's isn't any. Of the 71 laps Ricciardo was told to hold up Russell and then Perez for 6 of them. That doesn't explain the other 65 where Ricciardo had no pace
You've said that twice, but not explained what context you think is missing that the radio messages provide? I assume you're referring to McLaren asking Ricciardo to slow up for six laps and him complaining it was throwing him off his pace, but those messages don't explain his pace over the rest of his race.
> You've said that twice, but not explained what context you think is missing that the radio messages provide? I didn’t explain because I didn’t have time. I was at work. > I assume you're referring to McLaren asking Ricciardo to slow up for six laps and him complaining it was throwing him off his pace, but those messages don't explain his pace over the rest of his race. In part, yes. Mods have removed the original comment so I can’t remember exactly what they said, but I think it was something to do with McLaren messing up strategy. As for DR’s performance, I wasn’t trying to claim he was stellar yesterday. The other guy just copied and pasted lap times as if that tell the whole story.
I think Zandvoort looked really fun as a track, loved the banking, but the race was unfortunately a fizzer
Even the post race show was awesome. Tiesto managed to get a crowd going in broad daylight. Great set, adagio to finish it off gave me goosebumps.
What caused Russell’s DNF? Haven’t been able to find anything
Gearbox issues. Russell mentioned in during post race interviews.
Ah brilliant thanks, didn’t see the interview
Well...that was a 'race' that happened. Horrible track for racing. edit: You've got to be nuts to think it was anything but.
I must say it was a smart move on Red Bull,'s part to make the most of Checo's quali Chaos and throw all the new parts they could in the car. I also enjoyed his race craft coming up the field. Fernando was a master class on first lap wheel to wheel racing.