Formula 1 2019 - General Discussion Thread

skipper_G · 12-11-2019 10:34pm

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

True they're fourth best now. I think it was pretty fluid for the first half of the season. But they have done great development as you say. So if they can keep it going then they could be fourth again next year. I don't think there's been a consistent fourth place team over the last few years.

In any case, I think anyone with a soul is happy to see mclaren get it together.

Pre financial disaster Force India were 4th two years on the spin, was nice while it lasted

I wouldn't call myself a Mclaren fan per sé but I agree, it's great to see them moving in the right direction again. I hope it's sustained

Jordan 199 · 12-11-2019 11:14pm

You could say the hiring of James Key is the key to McLaren heading in the right direction.

El_Duderino 09 · 12-11-2019 11:15pm

Jordan 199 wrote: »

You could say the hiring of James Key is the key to McLaren heading in the right direction.

You think he could unlock their potential?

I hear he lost a lot of weight.... Now he's a skeleton Key.

quokula · 12-11-2019 11:31pm

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

True they're fourth best now. I think it was pretty fluid for the first half of the season. But they have done great development as you say. So if they can keep it going then they could be fourth again next year. I don't think there's been a consistent fourth place team over the last few years.

In any case, I think anyone with a soul is happy to see mclaren get it together.

In some ways yes. In other ways it's still very depressing that McLaren regularly scoring points but never getting anywhere near a hope of a podium is such a cause for celebration.

mickdw · 12-11-2019 11:37pm

McLaren without Ron is not really McLaren in my opinion.
He gets bad press but being realistic, he built it and was at the helm for most of the success.
Any of the stories you hear coming out of the team from years ago were that he was the best at what he did. Tough but very good to work for.

uchimata83 · 13-11-2019 12:24am

mickdw wrote: »

McLaren without Ron is not really McLaren in my opinion.
He gets bad press but being realistic, he built it and was at the helm for most of the success.
Any of the stories you hear coming out of the team from years ago were that he was the best at what he did. Tough but very good to work for.

Couldn't agree more. Ron was a winner and a perfectionist and demanded the same of everyone around him, which probably rubbed people the wrong way. There was a story doing the rounds that when they built Paragon he measured the distance between the plumbing pipes to ensure that they were parallel on every wall on every corridor.

We are still none the wiser on why one of the biggest names in the sport was ousted either. Andrew Benson made a comment at the time that something went down behind the scenes, but to my knowledge it was never elaborated upon.

El_Duderino 09 · 13-11-2019 9:01am

uchimata83 wrote: »

We are still none the wiser on why one of the biggest names in the sport was ousted either. Andrew Benson made a comment at the time that something went down behind the scenes, but to my knowledge it was never elaborated upon.

He wasn't a success the second time around. Imagine explaining to the board why the plumbing costs were multiples of the budget because you got a ruler and made the plumbers redo work to an unreasonable and unnecessary standard. He sounds odd more than productive.

I think the reasons weren't published out of respect for him. He just wasn't up to it when he came back the second time. He tried to do it the autocratic way and it just didn't work. Joe Saward talked about it before he was fired but the writing was on the wall. He said he ballsed up a decade long sponsorship deal with Johnny Walker. They wanted to pay £70m for x years. Ron wanted £120m and he played hardball. He ended up with a car almost without sponsorship that year so I imagine that wasn't the only deal they lost.

He wanted £120m because that was the going rate back in HIS day. But it wasn't the going rate any more (post recession). So Walker took their £70m elsewhere (Force India I think). He wasn't able to adapt to the reality. He just had one gear and that gear wasn't suitable to the job anymore.

Cork Trucker · 13-11-2019 12:03pm

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

Good memory. Podiums for non top 3 team drivers are rare of late. The 2021 regulations might make things a bit unpredictable and maybe some teams will forego some development in 2020 to focus on the new regs. So, who knows?

It was a crazy race that day, but it is events like these that create such scenarios, Kvyat passed Stroll in the final laps, and as we were on about Sainz, he finished 5th that day, 1.2 seconds off third place, another few laps and anything could have happened for him or Stroll.

El_Duderino 09 · 13-11-2019 5:58pm

The Beyond the Grid podcast has an interview with Mika Hakkinen. He sometimes seems a bit boring but he comes across as a throughly good guy. He's not an entertainer, just a completely great bloke.

uchimata83 · 14-11-2019 6:34pm

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

He wasn't a success the second time around. Imagine explaining to the board why the plumbing costs were multiples of the budget because you got a ruler and made the plumbers redo work to an unreasonable and unnecessary standard. He sounds odd more than productive.

I think the reasons weren't published out of respect for him. He just wasn't up to it when he came back the second time. He tried to do it the autocratic way and it just didn't work. Joe Saward talked about it before he was fired but the writing was on the wall. He said he ballsed up a decade long sponsorship deal with Johnny Walker. They wanted to pay £70m for x years. Ron wanted £120m and he played hardball. He ended up with a car almost without sponsorship that year so I imagine that wasn't the only deal they lost.

He wanted £120m because that was the going rate back in HIS day. But it wasn't the going rate any more (post recession). So Walker took their £70m elsewhere (Force India I think). He wasn't able to adapt to the reality. He just had one gear and that gear wasn't suitable to the job anymore.

The example I used was just to show his attention to detail on the 100 million or so facility he built. If you really want the see the level of his ocd, read about the fountains at his house.
If he survived spy gate, he'd survive anything, this was something related to him and Ojeh

Jordan 199 · 14-11-2019 8:13pm

Interlagos:

Impressionen-Formel-1-GP-Brasilien-Sao-Paulo-13-November-2019-169FullWidth-609dc468-1646454.jpg

El_Duderino 09 · 14-11-2019 8:39pm

Jordan 199 wrote: »

Interlagos:

Now that's clever Heineken advertising.

Harika · 14-11-2019 9:53pm

https://mobile.twitter.com/F1/status/1195070898719477760

So sweet

AMKC · 14-11-2019 11:26pm

Harika wrote: »

https://mobile.twitter.com/F1/status/1195070898719477760

So sweet

Well there goes any chance of him ever getting a job at Mercedes lol. I don't think they would be to happy to see him disposing of there cap like that. Fair play to Vettel do for making a young fans day.

Faugheen · 15-11-2019 1:25am

I found this video from March before the 1000th GP.

https://youtu.be/WQBW_VNCSTw

Basically it goes through the winner of each race since 1950 and how the record books shaped over time.

The one thing that sticks out big time is how Alberto Ascari is still in the top 25. He truly was the class act of his time even in the company of Fangio.

Jordan 199 · 15-11-2019 4:04am

Martin Brundle driving the McLaren MP4/4 that Senna won the 1988 title in:

McLaren-MP4-4-Martin-Brundle-Formel-1-GP-Brasilien-Sao-Paulo-14-November-2019-169FullWidth-b9019772-1647067.jpg

McLaren-MP4-4-Martin-Brundle-Formel-1-GP-Brasilien-Sao-Paulo-14-November-2019-169FullWidth-b9019772-1647067.jpg

:cool:

Inviere · 15-11-2019 5:25pm

AMKC wrote: »

Well there goes any chance of him ever getting a job at Mercedes lol. I don't think they would be to happy to see him disposing of there cap like that. Fair play to Vettel do for making a young fans day.

I'd say he'd be murdered, if not by the Tifosi, then Ferrari's own PR team if he put on a Silver Arrows cap

PukkaStukka · 15-11-2019 5:57pm

Jordan 199 wrote: »

Martin Brundle driving the McLaren MP4/4 that Senna won the 1988 title in:

:cool:

A car that's 31 years old yet looks better than anything else current out there now. How has F1 become so bad?

Inviere · 15-11-2019 6:50pm

PukkaStukka wrote: »

A car that's 31 years old yet looks better than anything else current out there now. How has F1 become so bad?

Hardly specific to F1 though, there's plenty of older super/hyper cars that are subjectively better looking than similar from today. I'd agree the old F1 cars are kinda timeless, and beautiful in an aesthetic sense, but they'd be eaten alive by the modern cars in a heard to head - that's what matters in motorsports.

Harika · 15-11-2019 10:32pm

Mercedes Team for sale :eek:
https://f1-insider.com/f1/mercedes-bleibt-in-der-formel-1-aber-nure-vorerst/
(german)
Mercedes looking to sell team to Mazepin/Penske and instead only provide engines for cash, caused by the Diesel scandals.

skipper_G · 15-11-2019 11:01pm

Harika wrote: »

Mercedes Team for sale :eek:
https://f1-insider.com/f1/mercedes-bleibt-in-der-formel-1-aber-nure-vorerst/
(german)
Mercedes looking to sell team to Mazepin/Penske and instead only provide engines for cash, caused by the Diesel scandals.

I don't buy that for a second myself. Some randomer on twitter decided that Toto wasn't in Brazil because he was off selling the team to Penske. It sounds like clickbait

uchimata83 · 15-11-2019 11:17pm

skipper_G wrote: »

I don't buy that for a second myself. Some randomer on twitter decided that Toto wasn't in Brazil because he was off selling the team to Penske. It sounds like clickbait

I thought that Toto not going was planned months ago. Nothing reported anywhere else either

pjohnson · 15-11-2019 11:24pm

Mazepin thrown in aswell since Nikita did the rookie tests this year :pac:

Frank Bullitt · 15-11-2019 11:44pm

The advantage that Ferrari had on the straights is very back again.

elperello · 16-11-2019 12:46am

Inviere wrote: »

Hardly specific to F1 though, there's plenty of older super/hyper cars that are subjectively better looking than similar from today. I'd agree the old F1 cars are kinda timeless, and beautiful in an aesthetic sense, but they'd be eaten alive by the modern cars in a heard to head - that's what matters in motorsports.

Not wishing to be controversial or anything but I think the real measure of a racing car is how it performs against it's contemporaries.

How it would perform against cars from another period is of secondary interest.

mickdw · 16-11-2019 1:03am

elperello wrote: »

Not wishing to be controversial or anything but I think the real measure of a racing car is how it performs against it's contemporaries.

How it would perform against cars from another period is of secondary interest.

Very true but the simplicity of the design of the cars from that era makes them look just about right to the eye.

vectra · 16-11-2019 2:25am

Gintonious wrote: »

The advantage that Ferrari had on the straights is very back again.

Was it ever gone?

Inviere · 16-11-2019 7:42am

elperello wrote: »

Not wishing to be controversial or anything but I think the real measure of a racing car is how it performs against it's contemporaries.

How it would perform against cars from another period is of secondary interest.

That goes without saying. My point was that good looks do not equate to a competitive race car.

flazio · 16-11-2019 11:30am

More likely that Toto is helping the Formula E team get set up for the season launch next week.

pjohnson · 16-11-2019 11:34am

flazio wrote: »

More likely that Toto is helping the Formula E team get set up for the season launch next week.

Yeah they are all Merc F1 tester's that have moved to the FE team (Vandoorne, DeVries and Gutierrez)

Formula 1 2019 - General Discussion Thread

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