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

Self made billionaires don't tend to be idiots though. I listened to that Beyond the Grid interview with Lawrence and I'm not convinced this is going to work out the same way as McLaren have in the last 5 years. The interview feels like it was heavily vetted before being allowed to be conducted.

Lance isn't world champion material but he might have a race win or two in him if he turns up and the circumstances align like they nearly did in Turkey last year.

Motorsport.com: Petronas committed to Mercedes F1 team, Aramco rumours dismissed.

Petronas issued a statement committing to the long term future with mercedes. We'll just have to wait and see what happens

Looking back over the years of F1 its strange to see we had a 7time WDC then it went back for a while with Alonso as a two time WDC and then Kimi in 2007 as a 1 time WDC as well as Lewis for a bit and Jenson as a 1 time WDC but then we got Vettel as 4 time WDC in a row as well and then Lewis got back to winning 2 in a row and then 4 after Rosberg broke his run of WDC wins in 2016 thankfully to stop it being 6 in a row. We all thank you Nico Rosberg just wish you would have stayed on in 2017.

Anyway the reason I brought all that up is just to say that Micheal Schumacher is still the GOAT. Why YOU MAY ASK.

Well Micheal Schumacher is and always will be the GOAT because he won 5 WDCs in a row and that is where the real Champions excel. Hamilton has done well yes but he has only ever won 4 WDCs in a row and hopefully that's all he will ever win in a row so Micheal Schumacher will remain the GOAT.

Yes you can quote all the numbers you want about how Lewis has won 100GPs etc but there is more races per season now than there was in Micheals time. I am sure if he had of been in his prime and had as many races as Lewis has had in the best car the Schumachers GP wins would have been over 100 so the target for Lewis would have been higher.

The massive gulf in difference between Schumacher and Hamilton is that Schumacher did win titles in the best car, but he also regularly showed himself to be comfortably the best driver on the grid in some really awful cars too. He won the title in a Benetton that could barely get into the top ten in the hands of other drivers. He fought championship battles in early Ferraris that were nowhere near the podium in the hands of other drivers. Then when Ferrari finally came out with a decent car he dominated, and continued to dominate even as the FIA did everything they could to keep changing up the technical rules to mix things up. He completely destroyed every teammate he ever had, including some great drivers like Massa and Barrichello who later fought for world championships in their own right.

On the other hand Hamilton didn't stand out without the best car on the grid. He was outscored by Button as teammate. He was beaten to a title by Rosberg as teammate. His mistakes landed him equal on points with Alonso despite Ron Dennis openly admitting the team were trying to stop Alonso beating him. The only teammates he's actually consistently beaten in his whole career are Kovalainen and Bottas, both of whom could do no better than joining back of the grid teams afterwards. When the McLaren was regularly one of the best cars, Hamilton just never got the most out of it the way Vettel did with the Red Bull and Alonso did with the Ferrari, and was in so many incidents with guys like Massa and Webber due to his poor racecraft.

Then finally he landed the Mercedes drive, who had been lobbying hard behind the scenes for the hybrid formula they'd been preparing an engine for for years. Once that engine was introduced the team had a huge advantage beyond anything Ferrari ever had, yet he still failed to consistently beat an average driver like Rosberg and lost one of the titles, but once Bottas was in place as a subservient teammate it was basically impossible to lose.

To sum up, Ferrari wouldn't have won those titles without Schumacher. Without him winning races and fighting for titles in some utterly dire cars, they wouldn't have attracted the sponsorship and technical staff to build up a title winning operation. And even in their title winning years, at least a couple of those were not in the clear best car and Schumacher had to work very hard for them. As for Mercedes, they'd have easily won the same number of titles without Hamilton. Their dominance of the hybrid era was already baked in before he joined them. Three quarters of the drivers on the grid would have as many titles as him in the same circumstance, a good few of them would have won more than him as they'd never have lost to Rosberg.

Schumachers decision to go to Ferrari when they were in the state they were, over McLaren who were openly approaching him, says it all to me. He wanted the challenge to make Ferrari into the team they should have been. He chose the very tough, unwalled path, and the rest is history.

This is the key one for me. To go to a team who'd gone so far backwards and help build it into what it became stands alone as what separates him from the others. I've no doubt he could have probably picked up two more championships in 96 and 97 had he stayed with Benneton. It's hard to argue that he didn't win any world championship in anything other than the best car, but it's about how he got there.

The biggest knock I have on Hamilton is that he hasn't won more given the cars he's driven. Arguably should have won in 07 with the full backing of the team, the hijinks that were going on with Alonso's car at the end of the year and that awful mistake in China. I'd give him a pass for this as it was his first year, but that McLaren was much better than the Ferrari that year. And of course 2016.

more cool.

If Aston Martin do get to be a top team then Lance doesn't need to be a top driver. He just needs to be a good number two which is the level he is already at. Vettel was brought in for his experience to build the team. His best day's are behind him. Aston Martin will bring in a better number 1 driver when the time comes. That way Lance keeps his drive and his father won't have to sack him.

I'd say them becoming seriously competitive it's a medium term project. They're building a new factory which will add loads of potential to the team, but they have to recruit and staff the factory to realise that potential. They have a culture as a small team with modest resources who punches above its weight, but they will need to build a new culture as a team with money and facilities and lives up to their hype. And I think that will take time to come to fruition.

Everyone in F1 has a 3 year plan to be world champions/championship contenders, but I think it would be much more realistic to have a 5 year plan to be contenders. Even that might be ambitious if they are still a customer team as customer teams rarely win races let alone compete for championships. They probably need to attract Audi or VW to supply them with engines AND they need the engine to be really good. And that will take several years to happen.

[Autosport Podcast - F1 and More] 532: 2021 F1 Global Fan Survey Results Revealed #autosportPodcastF1AndMore

https://podcastaddict.com/episode/130169999 via @PodcastAddict

Interesting discussion on the survey and what has changed since the 2017 survey.

Ah damn, practice at 5.30 this evening. I look forward to listening to practice on the radio in work on a Friday.

Is the Austin race usually good? I know there's loads of hype but I can't remember if the racing is good or not.

Yes it's a great track and the racing there is normally great too. It has the hills too and corners on them so the drivers can not see the apex untill they are at the corner.

There has been some great races there. Who can forget Vettel getting spinning around and then driving the car backwards somehow not crashing and still getting into the points or Kimi winning his last race there with Ferrari in 2018.

There's a cost cap coming in and they have for a decade or more been the team that's most consistently delivered the most performance per dollar spent. Not just in 2019 with the pink Mercedes but going back years with many of their own designs, they frequently punched above their weight relative to the likes of McLaren and Renault. With Stroll's injection of resources and a blank slate you'd think it's not beyond the realm of possibility, and they've a new factory coming online for the seasons beyond too.

Is it a coincidence that Mercedes teams have been going through engines like crazy since Red Bull made an enquiry to the FIA about some suspected trick they were using?

Does anyone think that Haas are more of a liability this season than the chirpy underdog.

Mazepin seems to cause nothing but havoc on the track, and Mick Schumacher nearly cost Max the race by not getting out of the way (although he did give max DRS for the last lap)