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

El_Duderino 09 · 05-07-2021 11:40AM

ELM327 wrote: »

In the best car in the field he should be comfortably ahead of all bar lewis and max. The fact that lando in a mclaren and a journeyman like Perez in his first year at RB are beating him or even close to to third is laughable.

At this stage I wouldnt give Bottas a taxi let alone an F1 car

You think the Mercedes is the best car in the field? Like, you seriously think the red bull is less good than the Mercedes or are you just saying it for the sake of denigrating Bottas?

The concensus is pretty clear in the last few races that the RB is slightly better than the Merc - except if making a point about how poor Bottas is.

El_Duderino 09 · 05-07-2021 12:18PM

ELM327 wrote: »

Even if it costs them the constructors?

They clearly still have a better car than RB, except the RB being better suited to the RB Ring. With two competent drivers they should be able to beat RB - who arguably are only where they are because Max is outdriving the car. Much as I dislike lewis as a person you can't claim he's not a good driver, but Bottas is so below par that he'd struggle to get a williams seat on merit right now.

Whatever about Austria. What about Monaco, Baku and France, where RB also had a better car than Mercedes? RB is on 5 wins in a row at 4 circuits. Its not just Austria.

Silverstone will be a big test. If RB is faster around Silverstone then I can't see where else mercedes will be better then RB. If Mercedes can be faster in Silverstone then they have a chance of being faster in that type of power circuit, but the slower, high downforce tracks look to favour red bull.

quokula · 05-07-2021 01:27PM

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

Whatever about Austria. What about Monaco, Baku and France, where RB also had a better car than Mercedes? RB is on 5 wins in a row at 4 circuits. Its not just Austria.

Silverstone will be a big test. If RB is faster around Silverstone then I can't see where else it will be better then RB. If Mercedes can be faster in Silverstone then they have a chance of being faster in that type of power circuit, but the slower, high downforce tracks look to favour red bull.

In France Verstappen only barely scraped victory thanks to superior pit strategy and driving the wheels off the thing. It was reminiscent of Schumacher's win at Hungaroring in 1998 against the very dominant McLaren Mercedes of the day.

Meanwhile Austria, Baku and Monaco are unusual tracks where we often see other drivers pull off upsets - in the entire hybrid era, Hamilton has just one win each in Austria and Baku, and two in Monaco. This is a pretty stark contrast to tracks that are more sensitive to car performance like Barcelona or Silverstone, where he has 6 and 7 wins respectively.

In the early races on more representative tracks like Spain, whenever it was dry and in clean air the Mercedes was clearly the faster car. Bottas has generally been faster than Perez too on nearly every track, which is a strong indicator that Max is making the difference as you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who seriously thinks Bottas is as capable a driver as Perez based on what they've done prior to this season.

I expect Mercedes to come back strongly in Silverstone as it's a major test of all round car performance and, like Spain, you rarely see anything other than the fastest car win on that circuit. If Red Bull do turn out to be competitive there then they're looking good.

ELM327 · 05-07-2021 01:32PM

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

You think the Mercedes is the best car in the field? Like, you seriously think the red bull is less good than the Mercedes or are you just saying it for the sake of denigrating Bottas?

The concensus is pretty clear in the last few races that the RB is slightly better than the Merc - except if making a point about how poor Bottas is.

DO you not remember the races before austria??

In france for instance Merc clearly had the better car. I do think the RB is not as good as the mercedes and Verstappen is outdriving the car.

If RB win in the same dominating manner in Silverstone and another different stye of track perhaps then theres an argument to be made about the RB having reached parity with mercedes but I dont think that point could be made after 2 dominating wins at one track, a lucky bad strategy call in france, and a lucky late accident for lewis after an unlucky accident for max in baku.

AMKC · 05-07-2021 01:39PM

Jordan 199 wrote: »

Does anyone know if the British Grand Prix will be live on C4 this year?

Yes it is live on C4 this year all of it. Am looking forward to watching it all. Hoping for good qualifying and race that weekend. Its the new format too. So it will be interesting to see how that works out.

Jordan 199 · 05-07-2021 01:52PM

AMKC wrote: »

Yes it is live on C4 this year all of it. Am looking forward to watching it all. Hoping for good qualifying and race that weekend. Its the new format too. So it will be interesting to see how that works out.

Cool. I think I will watch it on C4 that weekend, just for a break from the Sky coverage

muckwarrior · 05-07-2021 03:10PM

quokula wrote: »

In France Verstappen only barely scraped victory thanks to superior pit strategy and driving the wheels off the thing. It was reminiscent of Schumacher's win at Hungaroring in 1998 against the very dominant McLaren Mercedes of the day.

Meanwhile Austria, Baku and Monaco are unusual tracks where we often see other drivers pull off upsets - in the entire hybrid era, Hamilton has just one win each in Austria and Baku, and two in Monaco. This is a pretty stark contrast to tracks that are more sensitive to car performance like Barcelona or Silverstone, where he has 6 and 7 wins respectively.

In the early races on more representative tracks like Spain, whenever it was dry and in clean air the Mercedes was clearly the faster car. Bottas has generally been faster than Perez too on nearly every track, which is a strong indicator that Max is making the difference as you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who seriously thinks Bottas is as capable a driver as Perez based on what they've done prior to this season.

I expect Mercedes to come back strongly in Silverstone as it's a major test of all round car performance and, like Spain, you rarely see anything other than the fastest car win on that circuit. If Red Bull do turn out to be competitive there then they're looking good.

Personally, I think Bottas and Perez would be very closely matched in the same car. I don't really get why so many people seem to think Bottas is so terrible and Perez is so great. Bottas has beaten Hamilton fair and square over quite a few race weekends, something Perez has yet to achieve with Verstappen. Bottas is also generally closer to Hamilton than Perez is to Verstappen, although I'd rate Max as being a better driver than Hamilton recently, so I guess that puts their number twos roughly on a par.

El_Duderino 09 · 05-07-2021 03:34PM

ELM327 wrote: »

DO you not remember the races before austria??

In france for instance Merc clearly had the better car. I do think the RB is not as good as the mercedes and Verstappen is outdriving the car.

If RB win in the same dominating manner in Silverstone and another different stye of track perhaps then theres an argument to be made about the RB having reached parity with mercedes but I dont think that point could be made after 2 dominating wins at one track, a lucky bad strategy call in france, and a lucky late accident for lewis after an unlucky accident for max in baku.

Yes i remember the races before Austria. You say the mercedes was faster than red bull in france but max got pole by a quarter of a second in france. You think he did that in the slower car? Quarter of a second?

If red bull are even equal with Mercedes or lose but it's close, then its in RB's favour. Mercedes has a few upgarded parts coming to the last few races but RB had had a solid stream of updates coming to each race. The red bull has improved more than the mercedes so Silverstone will be the test of where they stand in mercedes home territory where mercedes usually dominates. If its close in Silverstone and Rb dominate the high downforce circuits, how is mercedes still the best car?

El_Duderino 09 · 05-07-2021 03:36PM

muckwarrior wrote: »

Personally, I think Bottas and Perez would be very closely matched in the same car. I don't really get why so many people seem to think Bottas is so terrible and Perez is so great. Bottas has beaten Hamilton fair and square over quite a few race weekends, something Perez has yet to achieve with Verstappen. Bottas is also generally closer to Hamilton than Perez is to Verstappen, although I'd rate Max as being a better driver than Hamilton recently, so I guess that puts their number twos roughly on a par.

Precisely this.

Bottas is not having his best season as he's further from Hamilton than usual, but he's still solidly out qualifying Perez and matching or out qualifying Hamilton on occasion. He's been faster in the races than Hamilton in some races too. Can any of that be said about perez being close to max?

I think it comes down to expectations vs reality. Perez is only expected to be a no.2 driver and occasionally hold up Lewis and he even managed it occasionally when red bull are dominant (by being within a pitstop window of Lewis, not by being faster).

We have wanted Bottas to challenge challenge Lewis to create a championship fight for the last few years and he has failed to do it even though he's been closer to Lewis than perez is to Max.

Bottas has let the fans down and they rate him as a driver accordingly. Its not about who is faster and I would day they're pretty similar. Perez wins on likeablility.

Debub · 05-07-2021 04:15PM

not sure if this is off topic but... I have an Android (Sony) telly, but cant find the ALL4 app on it (to watch FI on C4). I have to cast from my phone's app to the built in Chromecast on the telly. But, I am unable to cast the live program, only after its over - the live program I can only watch on the phone or tablet.
Is there a way to watch the live program on C4 on the app on my TV?
thanks

jv2000 · 05-07-2021 04:18PM

I think that once we look back at the entire season we will see that the Merc and RB were quite evenly matched. Some circuits suited one team more than the other. Merc also have their upgrades coming soon and if previous seasons are anything to go by then they could be very good upgrades. The other factor is with set engine mapping some cars are better set for qualifying than others. My impression of Merc this season has been that they lean more towards the race set-up. Hamilton will pull a worst-case top 4 qualifying and then have the race pace. Qualifying in 2nd always puts him in the mix. RB seem slightly more aggressive towards qualifying.

I will keep away from the Bottas debate but just say he should be doing better and has done better.

Frank Bullitt · 05-07-2021 04:29PM

ELM327 wrote: »

Even if it costs them the constructors?

They clearly still have a better car than RB, except the RB being better suited to the RB Ring. With two competent drivers they should be able to beat RB - who arguably are only where they are because Max is outdriving the car. Much as I dislike lewis as a person you can't claim he's not a good driver, but Bottas is so below par that he'd struggle to get a williams seat on merit right now.

Say again? RB have won the last 5 races (Max probably would have won them all had the tire not failed on him in Baku). Merc haven't had a pole since Spain, not really been putting any upgrades on their car and you think they are faster than RB?

Max is driving very well but he isn't out driving the car. The RB's car philosophy is well suited to the floor rules and they also redesigned their suspension to maximise that. Mercs concept is pretty close to the development ceiling already (Mark Hughes has written a bit about this), so even their upgrades might not bear much fruit.

If Max didn't stop the additional time yesterday, the gap to Merc would have been almost 30's at least...that isn't out driving the car, that is a driver very comfortable in the car.

This doesn't sound like a driving pushing a car beyond its limit (IMO, you can't do that in the current generation cars anyway):

“The car was on rails. On every tyre set we put on it was really enjoyable to drive. Pretty insane. I’m a bit amazed myself how today went. I didn’t expect it to be like this. Incredible job by everyone to deliver something like this.”

flazio · 05-07-2021 06:04PM

Debub wrote: »

not sure if this is off topic but... I have an Android (Sony) telly, but cant find the ALL4 app on it (to watch FI on C4). I have to cast from my phone's app to the built in Chromecast on the telly. But, I am unable to cast the live program, only after its over - the live program I can only watch on the phone or tablet.
Is there a way to watch the live program on C4 on the app on my TV?
thanks

Live watching is UK only.

AMKC · 05-07-2021 06:20PM

flazio wrote: »

Live watching is UK only.

What do you mean?

flazio · 05-07-2021 06:28PM

AMKC wrote: »

What do you mean?

Sorry, quoted the wrong post. Fixed now.

barryribs · 05-07-2021 07:07PM

Debub wrote: »

not sure if this is off topic but... I have an Android (Sony) telly, but cant find the ALL4 app on it (to watch FI on C4). I have to cast from my phone's app to the built in Chromecast on the telly. But, I am unable to cast the live program, only after its over - the live program I can only watch on the phone or tablet.
Is there a way to watch the live program on C4 on the app on my TV?
thanks

Your best bet is to head over to the Sony support forum, they have some experts on there who are involved with the company.

Harika · 06-07-2021 05:57AM

https://mobile.twitter.com/ausgrandprix/status/1412275229800292353

Australien GP 2021 cancelled

PopePalpatine · 06-07-2021 06:48AM

Harika wrote: »

https://mobile.twitter.com/ausgrandprix/status/1412275229800292353

Australien GP 2021 cancelled

I am Kangaroo Jack's complete lack of surprise.

rock22 · 06-07-2021 07:01AM

Jordan 199 wrote: »

Cool. I think I will watch it on C4 that weekend, just for a break from the Sky coverage

Just my opinion but I hope you won't be disappointed. I don't have Sky so i have only been watching the highlights on C4.

In the past year or so , Coulthard and colleagues have turned the programme into a Lewis Hamilton fan zone. Over the past weekend, I was wondering why Vettel got a penalty in qualification , if he had been held up by Borras. The matter wasn't mentioned by DC other than a passing reference to Vettel starting with a penalty.
During the race , Ricciardo had a few changes in positions, going from around 6th down to about 12th but no commentary as to what happened . Same for Vettel and Stroll 9 and other drivers). The discussion for the whole program was around Lewis Hamilton, Russell and Norris with the occasional reference to Vestappen. And I appreciate it is a UK program for a UK audience but it is becoming almost unwatchable .

Of course , hopefully, it will be different with a live program as less opportunity to edit .

flazio · 06-07-2021 09:17AM

Anyone for a double bill in Japan?

Pen Rua · 06-07-2021 09:40AM

flazio wrote: »

Anyone for a double bill in Japan?

Selfishly - no. Japan & Australia are the two races I've seldom caught live because of their early start time for us in Europe. Likely to be a small factor in F1's decision.

AMKC · 06-07-2021 09:43AM

Perfect time to go back to having a race in Korea so.

As for Channel 4 becoming a Lewis Hamilton fan zone I agree they can overdo it at times and this weekend was not there best but I have heard Sky are worse but hopefully the live race on C4 will be better.

duploelabs · 06-07-2021 09:49AM

flazio wrote: »

Anyone for a double bill in Japan?

As much as I love Suzuka, vaccination roll out in Japan is truly woeful so I doubt they'll be going there any time soon

quokula · 06-07-2021 10:20AM

Lots of discussions around the new engine formula at the moment. Seems like on one side you have the car manufacturers that want to make ever heavier and more complex electric units, and on the other side you have Red Bull (who will technically be an engine manufacturer as they're taking over from Honda) who want to hark back to the sort of screaming V10s that fans love.

Interesting to see an actual proper F1 team have a seat at the table for once, and not just car corporations. You wonder if the likes of Williams or McLaren had a say, they'd probably fall on the side of what's good for F1 over what's good for automobile marketing too. Such a shame the governance of F1 is such a sham and the car manufacturers always inevitably get what they want.

AMKC · 06-07-2021 10:34AM

duploelabs wrote: »

As much as I love Suzuka, vaccination roll out in Japan is truly woeful so I doubt they'll be going there any time soon

I would say do a triple race at Korea so. 3 weekends in a row. Or they could do two there and one in Malaysia. Remember that track? It was a good track.

quokula · 06-07-2021 10:37AM

Given that the Australian GP slot is right before Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi, it would surely make sense to go to Bahrain and use the outer circuit again. The Bahrainis don't seem to have covid concerns and were happy to host an extra race last year.

Or come back for a 3rd race in the A1 Ring... Pirelli just need to get working on developing a snow tyre.

ELM327 · 06-07-2021 10:54AM

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

Yes i remember the races before Austria. You say the mercedes was faster than red bull in france but max got pole by a quarter of a second in france. You think he did that in the slower car? Quarter of a second?

If red bull are even equal with Mercedes or lose but it's close, then its in RB's favour. Mercedes has a few upgarded parts coming to the last few races but RB had had a solid stream of updates coming to each race. The red bull has improved more than the mercedes so Silverstone will be the test of where they stand in mercedes home territory where mercedes usually dominates. If its close in Silverstone and Rb dominate the high downforce circuits, how is mercedes still the best car?

If all those ifs ands and conditions happen then yes it's clear RB have the better car.

Max got pole in france but did not have the race pace.

klose · 06-07-2021 11:10AM

ELM327 wrote: »

If all those ifs ands and conditions happen then yes it's clear RB have the better car.

Max got pole in france but did not have the race pace.

He did run wide at turn 1 though on the first lap which gave Hamilton the lead and was only negated by the undercut, how would he have faired if he didn't go wide at T1 we don't know.

ELM327 · 06-07-2021 11:12AM

That's another "if" though.
I know Murray always said IF is F1 spelled backwards, but when speaking about car and driver performance you can only look at actuality. Otherwise you're getting into the nonsense like the AWS graphics.

Hijpo · 06-07-2021 12:36PM

ELM327 wrote: »

That's another "if" though.
I know Murray always said IF is F1 spelled backwards, but when speaking about car and driver performance you can only look at actuality. Otherwise you're getting into the nonsense like the AWS graphics.

I think RB are maxing the car to get ahead of Merc.
I think Merc are limiting the car for reliability for the run in to the end of the season.
Merc are hovering in the background waiting for the DNF's to hand them points.

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

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