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

Schumacher isn't exactly trouncing Mazepin lately. I'm not sure if he deserves or has earned a better drive just yet. He still has a lot to prove in my opinion. His upbringing would have gave him a lot more opportunities and a major head start compared to most.

What happened in qualifying the last day? Did he disobey team orders and overtake Mazepin or what happened?

Latifi provides about 75% of the Williams sponsorship so cant leave them.

Williams used to get all of Russells engines/parts at a discount from Mercedes so could see Merc offering the same discount if they take on De Vries so I imagine thats nailed on to happen.

And then from the academies;

Tsunoda was likely to stay as Vips doesnt seem likely to win F2 this year so will likely stay in F2 for 2022. Lawson and Daruvala are even further back than Vips. So RB dont have any replacement ready so Tsunoda remains. RB academy drivers are 1 and 2 in F3 so they may be an option for 2023 depending how they do next year in F2.

Ferrari's only F2 title contender would be Shwartzman, he may actually appeal to Haas (double down on the Russia theme with a second Russian driver) with Mick then shifting over to the Alfa displacing Giovinazzi.

The most interesting F2 drivers would be Zhou and Piastri the two Alpine juniors but Alpine dont supply anyone else engines so they have nowhere to go.

If he can even match Hamilton then he'll be considered better than Hamilton. Its like when leclerc joined Ferrari and the narrative was that if leclerc could lose but even stay somewhat competitive with vettel in his first year then it would be a win for leclerc.

You'd expect George to be ahead of Hamilton a few times in a season due to various circumstances, but they should be relatively rare. If they need to tell George to move over more than once or twice in the first half of the season then it means George is able to be ahead of Hamilton in the first place so he's probably as quick or quicker than Hamilton. And that would change the calculations entirely.

I don’t think George will play the Bottas role, and Mercedes like to pretend they don’t prioritise drivers until later in the championship. If George gets a few early good results over Hamilton, it will put Mercedes in a difficult position because Hamilton will not accept being beaten by his teammate (as we’ve seen previously). And all that will play into their rivals’ hands, who will be putting their weight behind Max and Leclerc.

Jesus that’s poor form if true. Wouldn’t be surprised to see Schumacher move to Alfa given the relationship between him and Mazepin and the clout that Mazepin has with the team.

Would he! Didn’t realise there were limits on when a number can be used again! Makes mazapins post even odd’er so!!

Yeah it's all in the retelling. I think there was a period before the summer break where Schumacher made some mistakes and spun a few times which narrowed the gap in some ways. But, as you point out, he is trouncing him in Quali and races.

But people use stats to suit their preferred narrative. For example you site the stat that Mazepin has only been beaten by a bigger margin by Gasley and Max has beaten Perex by the same difference, but would you site that as evidence that Perez is being hammered by his teammate? I think lots more posters would mount a defence of Perez loosing margin than Mazepin, in spite of the actual margin being about the same.

I didn’t realise Daniel had a seat at McLaren until 2023. The team boss still says they are committed to him but if his form doesn’t improve he’s probably going to cost them third place in the constructors this year.

No idea what that post from mazepin means but I’d like to see Schumacher out of that Haas so we can see what he’s actually like.

This is quite telling. Source - BBC

A Red Bull spokesperson said: 'We have released Alex to become a Williams Racing driver in 2022 but retain a relationship with him that includes future options."

I suspect that Alex will be treated like a driver who's just announced he's leaving the team throughout his time at Williams until such a time that he does move on or Red Bull say they have nothing further to do with him.

It would be great if someone started a thread for this weekends Italian GP.

RB might retain an interest in him beyond using him as a driver. He'll be getting to use a Mercedes engine next year and RB will be building its own engines from next year too. So they might be very interested in Alex, but for his knowledge rather than his driving services.

Toto wanted to make sure he had severed ties and probably lock him into all sorts of confidentiality agreements before he could sign to drive a Mercedes engine.

I don't know ow how these things work. Bit I'm sure Alex is still interested in a future RB drive and there's nothing to stop the head of the RB engine department from calling in on his old pal Alex for a cuppa. I wonder what will happen there.

I didn't look too closely at the stats, but Kubica seemed to do ok for someone parachuted in on Saturday?

He had only done 3 fp1 this season so far plus pre season testing. So not nothing but jumping in at fp3 was a tough ask. He did well. Didn't make a balls of it or anything (he spun on his first lap in one of the practice outings earlier in the season so expectations were low).

Quali was poor compared to Gio (who started a shocking 7th) but the race was surprisingly solid. Fair play to him.

I think Kubica put in a respectable performance considering the circumstances, that track seemed like a proper workout for the drivers, he’ll probably be a bit better at Monza.

I’ve no idea who De Vries is really but I’m happy to see Albon back in anF1 seat.

I'd imagine Williams will loose the Merc perks now. I know Albon was backed by a very big Thai oil company at one stage so he may be bringing that with him again.

I remember hearing they only got money off (not free, somethinglike 50%) the merc engines in Russell's car. So it's not an amazing deal. I'd say they really needed the money for the last few years but Russell himself was probably a sweetener. Now the team might not need the discount so much since they have some new investors.

Not only did he win Formula E but he became Formula E's first WDC although why any of the drivers who won the series before that were not WDC drivers is beyond me. I thought they were.

Bbc said he was the first Dutch WDC in an FIA competition. Beat Max to a WDC. .

It’s a silly technicality, as Formula E wasn’t designated a world championship by the FIA before so the champion wasn’t the world champion in the eyes of the FIA. In reality nothing about the series has changed, it’s just as international as before.

With Albon back, 35% of the drivers on the grid are now Red Bull Academy drivers. Along with two teams and restoring one of the best tracks on the calendar, they really get too little credit for how much they’ve contributed to F1 over the last decade and a half.

They might just be a drinks company but they have never been about anything other than associating their brand with the most exciting action and heroic drivers. They don’t need to sell a message of hybrid efficiency and reliability and all the other things manufacturers have lobbied for that have dragged the sport down in recent years. They’re one of the few serious voices in the sport calling for the next set of regs to bring back the screaming engines that the fans all love.

I’d love to see more teams of this nature invest in the sport (I guess the closest parallel were Benetton) rather than the heavy car manufacturer influence we have today. I hope the departure of Honda doesn’t put them completely out of contention and they can take over the engine program without too many major problems, perhaps it could be a model for the future with completely self sufficient teams who aren’t answerable to a manufacturer - obviously that will only work with far cheaper simpler power units than what we have today though, barring another billionaire like Mateschitz pouring their money into a project.

Max Verstappen going for a spin through the streets of Palermo:

AMuS thinks the new engine formula for 2026 might look like this

no mguh anymore. Interestingly Honda, Porsche and Audi are participating

Seems Merc are good with dropping the MGU-H if it means the VW would join.

Four winning constructors so far this year. Alpine, McLaren, Mercedes and Red Bull.