Formula 1 2021 - General Discussion Thread (Read 1st post rules)

I dont think this is going to work out.
Perez wont compete with verstappen on outright pace so he will be relying on alternative strategy or messy races to try to bring himself into play. I could see him finishing ajead of max in maybe 2 races in a season.
I could equally see him taking out max if anywhere close off the grid.

I saw the news about Perez on twitter. I'm happy for them in that he has a seat for 2021 onwards. Both Max & Perez could become a very competitive pair of drivers when going up against the other teams on the track. They have great ability & potential to do very well with winning races within this new partnership.

For Albon though; it's very unfortunate to hear that he lost his seat to Perez. The consequences of his performance with RB has now been brought to reality.

Being a test/reserve driver for a F1 team is an unusual experience for Albon in that he could have the opportunity to be testing newer cars that could be potentially be better than what he had driven with RB last year or it could be worse than the previous year. The level of thinking being set in his head right now is that testing any new car for RB will be a big indicator in how his future will be secure with the team from now on. He really should be able to spot the big differences with how any new car works compared to previous years because winning races really is important for their new driver partnerships that will be developed with the team into the future.

The dynamics of RB's new engine for the car for the upcoming 2022 season is an interesting thing to observe at this moment. It's seen as being really critical to how their new driver partnership can continue to win any of the new races on the championship table for the whole of that year & in subsequent years afterwards. Their ability to do this as a new look team had worked brilliantly in the past because they were 4 time F1 WC's in recent years. In hindsight; this task of trying to source a new engine for the car really should not be a hard thing to do if they want to improve their impressive record in F1 with winning even more championships under their belt. Their team should have great ability & timing in themselves to find a engine that should be able to win races for the 2022 F1 season.

If they find that their new car that is not up to scratch for 2022; will questions be asked about how it could be influenced by the decision from Honda to end their partnership with them. Time will tell if that does become the case. It would be a great shame to see RB become what Ferrari were like in 2020.

No-one working for RB or their fans will like that reputation. It's RB now to get this job done right if they want to retain 2nd or better for 2022 & beyond.

Ferrari to launch the new car at testing in Barcelona.

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/ferrari-sf21-name-launch-test-2021/4929456/?utm_source=RSS&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=RSS-ALL&utm_term=News&utm_content=www

TCP/IP wrote: »

Bottas is a Williams’s/Haas level of driver who lucked into the strongest package in the history of the sport hell even George Russell made a show of him. Only reason he is there is as a rear gunner for Lewis nothing more.

I think that’s hyperbole and Bottas is a middle of the road driver but definitely not amongst the worst.

Do you really think Perez is going to challenge Max in any meaningful way?

I think max will make a show* of Perez

*beat him by more than 0.002 in quali and 8 seconds over the course of a race

BikeRacer wrote: »

The last time Max had a decent teammate in Danny Ric, Danny beat him 467 points to 392 with Danny having 2 more mechanical DNFs than Max. I think Perez is going to run a lot closer to Max than what people think.

That can't be right can it, there's only around 500 points available in a season and DR didn't win, was it that close?

So what do you do if you're Albon now?
Hand out your CV to the local pizza shops?

Albon will sit tight — there are a few paths back for him even within Red Bull.

- Perez underwhelms and only lasts a year
- Gasly continues his trajectory and replaces Ocon at Renault for 2022
- Tsunoda either ****s the bed and is out for 2022, or does very well and is promoted to RB

I think Vips is their only prospect in the junior programme currently, so he doesn’t have much competition.

BikeRacer wrote: »

Oh the delicious irony LOL

From the Redbull website....

https://www.redbull.com/ie-en/daniel-ricciardo-and-max-verstappen-best-teammate-battles


Danny Ric - 467
Max - 392

Depends how red bull used it.
Comparing full seasons is the most sensible way to do it to compare the drivers performance against each other. Including the partial Season is fine for completion but misleading as a measure of there relative performance (which is how the poster used it above)

recyclebin wrote: »

This is all semantics. Let's call it a draw between the Verstappen and Ricciardo!

My main thoughts on 2021:
- Perez should be a good improvement on Albon for Red Bull
- I think Ricciardo will be a step up on Sainz at McLaren next season. He should finish well ahead of Norris in my opinion.
- Sainz will be a step up on Vettel so it's a win for both McLaren and Ferrari.
- Renault will probably have same level of drivers as last year assuming Alonso's has still got it.
- Racing Point could be the biggest losers if Vettel doesn't perform.
- Alfa and Alpha will probably be around the same level again next season.
- Haas have nothing to lose on hiring two new rookies. They are similar to Williams in that no driver in the world is going to bring them up the grid with a car like that.

Meanwhile at Mercedes, Wolff has committed to another three years which is bad new for the rest of Formula 1. Mercedes now only have a third share in the company so it looks like they are slowly divesting their interest in being a racing team and going back to being an engine supplier. This is not surprising as the writing has been on the wall since they signed up McLaren as a their forth engine customer. I can see Mercedes selling off their remaining share in the next couple of years.

It would be lose, lose for both Ferrari and McLaren if one of their drivers trounces his team mate. It seems the ideal situation is for both to be as competitive as it takes to succeed in the constructors championship. Witness McLaren this season.

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

Yeah Ric and Max are both top drivers - not much in it one way or the other. Perez isn’t a top driver so RB will have a decent no.2 which is ideal for them.

The fair assessment of the two unknowns being Alonso and Vettel. If they perform well then they could be great signings. Vettel has to improve a huge amount to be a good driver again. It seems alike a huge ask. But he likes having an inferiority teammate so Stroll is ideal for him. If stroll is competitive with Vettel then Vettel is fcuked.

Interesting to see if Alonso still has it though. I suspect he’s still hungry for success and isn’t there to make up the numbers. He could have one good season on him but I doubt he has two.

With all the talk about cars suiting drivers and cars being setup for certain drivers. Should people wait until maybe half way into the calendar before attempting to rate Vettel and Alonso? Their partners will have been in the cars a lot longer than them.

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

Yeah that’s fair. Some people just see what they want to see though. Some people can’t see how slow Vettel is even after 2 seasons of being made to look a clown by his teammate. Same happened when Kubica was hammered by Russell. Some people made excuses for him all season.

Reality is those lads can’t lose in some people’s minds. If they’re slow they will blame he car, if they’re fast they’ll credit them for being fast. They both have average teammates so the bar is pretty low.

But yes, definitely need some decent time to make a fair assessment. Everyone will judge each individual race as the happen, but we just have to remember he sample size is small until there have been a good few races.

Was Vettel not doing acceptably in 2019? Leclerc only scored 10% more points.

I don't recall anyone making excuses for Kubica after the first few races.

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

The chat before the season was that LeClerc would be the winner if he could keep In touch with Vettel. Keeping in touch with Vettel (let alone outperforming him) was a big win for LeClerc. Being outscored by a young driver, second year in the sport and first year in the Ferrari, was a sign of what was to come in 2020.

I remember posters making excuses for Kubica all the way through the season. It’s only since the season ended that the narrative has changed. Same with Vettel. Some people don’t accept that he’s been bottom tier this year in spite of the he evidence in front of us.

People don’t generally acknowledge that they were wrong and changed their mind. They tend to just forget ever being wrong after they change their mind. Remember the opposition to the halo? Most of the posters wouldn’t remember ever being in opposition.

I wouldn't say he was made to look a clown in 2019.

I haven't seen many not saying Vettel has been performing poorly.

There were large amounts of people recognising they were initially against the halo after Grosjean's crash.

BREAKING NEWS: Lewis Hamilton has won BBC Sport Personality of The Year for 2020.

dublinman1990 wrote: »

BREAKING NEWS: Lewis Hamilton has won BBC Sport Personality of The Year for 2020.

What an oxymoron lol... personality lol

Interesting quirk of the token development system means that customer teams can get upgraded suspension and gearboxes without spending tokens.

“ Teams are limited to two tokens, but a quirk of the rules means outfits running customer gearboxes and suspension – like Racing Point and AlphaTauri – are able to upgrade those parts token free.”

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/ferrari-aston-alphatauri-free-token/4929660/?utm_source=RSS&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=RSS-ALL&utm_term=News&utm_content=www

References are still on his homepage and Facebook. So wouldn't read too much into it.

Imagine at the launch of the new HAAS when the cover is pulled off and a different driver was in the car. That would be something

https://mobile.twitter.com/HaasF1Team/status/1341731640549240835/photo/1

Haas reaffirmed mazepin

That would be good. But for what regions/countries and how long is left on Sky's contract?

riggerman wrote: »

Sky have the contract till 2024 I believe thanks to Bernie's deal a few years back.
Really looking forward to someone else taking over. Unfortunately for us here in ireland we are stuck with Sky or channel 4 highlights.

Any chance sky would be happy to be bought out? Has anything changed? Have viewing figures or subscriptions plunged? Anything like that?

Presumably Sky pays a fortune for the rights. If they’re not getting their money’s worth then they might be happy to withdraw. Otherwise, it might be a good option from 2025 onwards...

duploelabs wrote: »

Amazon in talks to broadcast F1, hopefully it works out

I don't. I know someone who had a subscription with Amazon recently and instead of only taking 7 euros out of that person's bank for the month they took 80 euros out and tried to bull**** there way out of it by saying it was a mistake bla bla bla. Anyways I think they since cancelled with themand zi do not blame them if that is the way Amazon is going to act. You think Sky is bad. Amazon would be worse so be warned.