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

I just heard Danny Ric's post race radio and he had his "to whom it may concern...." moment. He said "for anyone who thought I'd left, I never left".

It must have been such a great feeling to have such a good weekend and the win is a bit of a bonus, but not a fluke. The mclarens were genuine contenders this weekend. Granted he was never the fastest driver and it required both Mercedes being shuffled behind him for different reasons. But he really deserves credit for his turnaround this season.

We'll have to see if he can maintain the improvement or not. It's not guaranteed that he can match lando from here on.

There's rumours circulating that Liberty Media are looking to offload F1 and are in talks with a Saudi Arabian group.

It would be a shame if it proves true, Liberty have done an amazing job with the parts of the sport they have control over - the rebranding was hugely successful, they've improved the on screen information, brought in new cameras, they've brought in AWS insights, improved ceremonies for things like driver of the day and fastest lap and pitstop, put an end to the extremely outdated and inappropriate use of grid girls, and of course fought tooth and nail to finally get a much needed cost cap into the sport. They also lured Netflix in who were able to use judicious editing and spend time focussing on the interesting battles further down the grid to make the sport much more appealing to new fans who would have been put off by the awful product you generally get from watching Sky.

Unfortunately though there are major aspects of the sport that Liberty don't have control over and haven't been able to penetrate, as the FIA have continued to be utterly useless on every level ever since the departure of Max Mosley, and they have remained completely subservient to the interests of the manufacturers (it was Mosley's attempts to stand up to them that ultimately led to his removal of course). The Saudis are probably a better match for them, they've already got financial ties to some of the worst regimes of that region anyway.

Filed out that survey, very interesting questions.

I hope not, SA are a disgrace on the planet, and their ownership would turn F1 into a joke with races in rubbish areas on rubbish tracks.

Watched the first half at lunchtime. Brought back a lot of memories, it's essential watching for any F1 fan.

Didn’t think it was great. It glossed over or entirely skipped quite a lot and didn’t really capture his win-at-all-costs drive.

The part with Mick was quite touching — hard not to root for him.

I called it at the time, as did Christian Horner, that the new slower pitstops the FIA mandated that were supposedly for "safety" but came completely out of the blue in response to a request from Mercedes just after Red Bull had beaten them in a race in large part due to their more efficient pitstops, have proven just the opposite of being safe and have just made mistakes more likely for the most efficient teams who now have to unnaturally and artificially slow themselves down.

It's now been confirmed, as I thought when watching it live, that the slow pitstop for Verstappen was entirely due to the failure a new process they put in to add an artificial delay between fitting the wheel and taking off in order to comply with the ridiculous new regulation. How ironic it is that something Mercedes forced through under the guise of "safety" almost resulted in their own driver being seriously injured if not for the halo.

Still, the rule change achieved its real goal and stopped Max stretching his lead in the championship - without it he'd have been second to Ricciardo at worst, with a great shout of winning that race.

This was only the second race with the new regulation in place, I wonder if we'll see many more botched pitstops, it could become the story of the season.

I know you think you're being clever with that comment but it was completely predictable, and people did predict it, for example here: https://racer.com/2021/06/25/horner-angry-at-technical-directive-to-slow-f1-pit-stops/

I predicted it in this thread a few months ago, I'd find the post if I knew how on the new forums.

Introducing an enforced artificial delay into a pit process that was a well oiled machine previously was always going to increase the probability of errors being made.

I don't agree with these new pitstop rules either but at least it made the race more exciting and allowed another team to win and not just win but get a 1-2 which was great.

So I suppose it worked by making the race more exciting.

Its a concerted effort to stop Max Verstappen winning the championship, orchestrated by Toto and Hamilton who lobbied for the rule change because red bull were faster than them at pitstops. This was the direct cause of the slow pit stop for Max in Monzo

Or in reality is that there is a .2 second delay between the time the wheel gun is released and the light can turn green, which still means the faster teams will have faster pit stops. Horner has admitted the stop in Monza was a human error as a result of the new technical directive. What I suspect from watching it is the guy on the front right did not follow the correct procedure so the light did not turn to green after the delay.

Because the lights that didn’t release the car only exists because of the new rules. Previously Red Bull just put the tyres on and as soon as they were on they immediately got a green light and went. They were more efficient at this than their rivals, who typically had a 0.2 second or more delay in their reaction times at this point in the pitstop.

Mercedes didn’t like that Red Bull were so quick, put in a complaint, and the rules were changed out of the blue mid season so there now needed to be a 0.2 second delay between putting the tyres on and going, or else there would be a penalty. The light that didn’t change was the one that artificially inserts that 0.2 second delay into what was previously an extremely well oiled and heavily practiced process, and for whatever reason it went wrong and didn’t update as it should have and left them stranded.

As the sport has always been. Whether it is tyre thread width measurements, double diffusers, blown diffusers, mass dampers, blown exhausts, team radio protocols, fric suspension.

The only difference is the team looking for the changes are no longer red.

I agree with your second point, the rules at the start of the season should be binding, for better or worse. If a team gains an advantage because they are able to comply with the rules and still gain an advantage then it should be up to the other teams to deal with it.

Yes, as said above by another, I also like the ingenuity aspect of F1. The more innovation, the more I'm interested. Less protests please.

At the end of the day it's humans who stop the car on its marks, jack it up, remove one set of wheels, attach a new set, drop the car, and take off. Seeing all that happen in under 2 seconds is impressive as hell.

A Dutch website www.netherlandsnewslive.com has quoted Helmut Marko saying RB may replace Max’s engine at Sochi but they’re going to wait for qualifying and look at the weather forecast before making a decision. He didn’t seem to mention the other grid penalty. I think they’ll do it.

The surrounding forest was a big factor in conditions not clearing in Spa. Remember it wasn't actually monsoon conditions like what we've seen in Asian rounds. It was just persistent rain with no chance of draining away.

Any other track on the calendar with those exact same weather conditions would get a race going. Even Hockenheim. (although the old track might be questioned) Unless it's monsoon conditions, we should be OK for a wet race.

Yeah I'd say you're right about that. Unless they could do a serious attempt at racing then they won't do that again.

But here's a question. If max took a penalty and they don't do the race, would the penalty roll over to the next actual race?

So Honda have introduced a new battery pack, and for sometime now. And I thought Merc were sneaky!

Sounds like it is lighter, more efficient and yields more power!

Thought Merc only introduced theirs a few races ago?

There are other areas that teams can still improve their PU, software plays a part so it might have been that. I remember a comment about derating at the end of straights.

I feel Taylor and Virgo are just familiar at this stage. I don't think they're any better commentators than the whole load of younger players coming through. Some a not good, but the ones that are good are as good as the two old boys. Mcmanus gives good technical insights, Hendry is very critical and Ken offers good positive chit-chat.

Nothing wrong with promoting the younger lads and getting rid of dead wood. Taylor is like an old version of Ken offering nice chit-chat but his references are 30 years out of date. He comes across as a sound man but miles out of date for the job. I don't think Virgo was ever that great as a commentator. But he was familiar.

Yeah his enthusiasm was infectious. I started following in 1998 and by that stage he was getting very confused and made it hard to follow at times. He was still good but he would never have gotten the gig in the first place if he was mixing up drivers and teams and all the rest.

But he's iconic. Nothing wrong with moving on, even from a legend like Walker, when their time has passed.

Just realised this is in the wrong thread! Meant to post about the commentators I the snooker thread. Ah, it might as well stay here know.