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

Kimi has been odd, he shows flashes of brilliance and then does something really dumb, he has had a good run I guess it's time. I could see Bottas going to Alfa if it looks like the car is bit more competitive under the new regs. Any chance of him going back to Williams I wonder?

He has limited options it seems. I would favour Williams over Alfa but you never know when it comes to money and so forth.

I am not his biggest fan at all, but it would be a shame for him to not have a seat next year.

Would love to see a Journo raise this with Lord Lewis this weekend

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Lewis Hamilton has described Sebastian Vettel's five-second penalty for crashing into Valtteri Bottas as a "tap on the hand" and believes his title rival deserved a harsher punishment at the French GP.

Vettel collided with Bottas at the first corner and, though he was penalised by race stewards as both cars suffered damage, he recovered to finish fifth while Hamilton's Mercedes team-mate could only salvage seventh.

Hamilton avoided the chaos from pole, comfortably won the race and now leads Vettel by 14 points in the championship standings, but was still unhappy with the penalty the Ferrari driver received.

"Ultimately, when someone destroys your race through an error and it's kind of a tap on the hand really - they're allowed to come back and still finish ahead of that person he took out - it doesn't weigh up," said Hamilton.

"You shouldn't really be able to finish ahead of him if you took him out of the race."

Firstly, having taken a couple of days away from this forum to cool down I want to apologize for my recent postings.

I still stirve to treat Lewis Hamilton just like any other driver on the grid, that is to praise him when he drives well and criticise him when he blatantly does not, at all times though, treat him with respect for his achievements to date.

Moving on. How water tight are Vandorne and DeVris's contracts at the Formula E team? Would Toto put some consideration into putting Bottas over there?

I think if Bottas plays out the rest of the season in a support role and makes peace with that role he will still be there next year

Surprised that they would cancel altogether if the fans can’t go, surely other events would have faced the same difficulty?

Although I do remember the Dutch pretty quickly binning off the rest of the 19-20 Eredivisie when COVID came in, so maybe it’s just how they handle things.

It would be a real shame, not only for Max, but for the F1 season - I think everyone had this race in mind after what happened at Silverstone.

I'd say fans are essential to make it work financially. The circuit is on the edge of the city of Amsterdam so the city was in line for a huge boost in activity if it went ahead. No fans means no money so there's a great chance the government will bin it if the restrictions still apply.

They might decide to absorb the cost, but it would be expensive.

I think he's driving really well this year, the only poor races he's had were in Baku when he was the sacrificial lamb, and France when he called the correct strategy on the radio but the team stuck with a one stop. In my opinion his key battle this season is to beat Perez consistently, which he has been doing. He's never been spectacular but he's been remarkably consistent throughout his career and I think he's ideal for a midfield team who want someone who is reliable and solid.

I think its unlikely he will end up back with Williams, primarily because of the money. Its hard to argue that he wouldn't be a massive upgrade on Kimi or Giovanazzi at this point in their respective careers.

Not even the "car is designed for his teammate" shtick. That was a big one last year when vettel needed a dig-out.

Suppose it depends on the popularity the driver. More popular drivers get more excuses. The usual story.

I'd agree with that assessment re the car design. But I think the fact that it suited Russell doesn't meannit suits Bottas. Last year we got entirely bais based assertions that the Ferrari was built for Leclerc (even before he drove for the team. Not joking, some posters went as far as saying that).

I think bottas is just good and not great, so he's outshone his top tier teammate. But like you said, people found it hard to accept the same reasoning when Vettel was beaten by a faster teammate.

Leclerc has gone on to prove pretty conclusively, over the last 3 years since he joined Ferrari, that he's just better than Vettel is. And instead of applying the same logic to both, the excuses are roled out for one and not even considered for the other. Likeability is a big difference in the calculation.

Red Bull have lodged a petition to review the penalty given to Hamilton. As required for the petition, it is based off new evidence that wasn't available to the stewards at the time. After the flexing wings, pit stops and now this, I personally hope both teams are given a firm shoe up the arse and told to grow up.

Is there any topic you can't shoehorn a bit of Vettel hate into?

As for Bottas, he's doing everything Mercedes ask of him so I would be very surprised if they replaced him.

They're not even pretending that he's there to do anything other than support Hamilton these days. He spends qualifying acting as a tow truck rather than optimising his own performance, his race strategy is always built entirely around disrupting Red Bull rather than maximising his own result, and in the event he overcomes those hurdles and ends up ahead of Hamilton without other cars between them then they just tell him to invert the cars anyway.

He's had this role since he joined Mercedes, he's one of the slower drivers on the grid but also the most compliant. Toto Wolff has never hidden the fact he doesn't want a repeat of Rosberg, he's stated as much publicly. Put an above average driver in the second Mercedes and if and when they beat Hamilton regularly, Lewis will start throwing toys out of the pram, putting conspiracy theories against his own team out into the media, making private telemetry available to competitors, and all the other things he's done in the past when he's had to race another driver on fair terms.

Hamilton donated 20m of his own money to it, hardly a few quid nor a 'virtue signal'

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I know, doesn't mean they shouldn't be called out on their idiotic stance, and one can just look at their post history to see the foundations of their objections