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

Very settled grid next year. If Mercedes have a good car they will be frightening.

I wouldn't be too comfortable if I was Yuki or Checo. The latter is safe enough for now but if the performance drops Marko is ruthless. Brendan Hartley didn’t see out his year in Torro Rosa either.

He signed a 2 year contract this year.

But I'd say when George takes over and wipes the floor of him he will leave next year.

Playing the rear gunner goes out the window if Russell routinely out qualifies him or gets some early wins.

No one knows whats gonna happen next year and with these new cars could be bloody Haas being the front runners, they didnt put any money into this years car.

If Haas are still dead last again next season after publicly saying they don't give a shite about this year to focus on 2022 they should just pull out and call it a day.

You'd love to see a brawn like story next season, if it's the same story next season as this one you'd roll your eyes a bit.

They haven't always been stuck at the back. They were genuine midfielders when they started.

Their fortunes are directly tied to Ferrair's success. When ferrari were stronger and were the main (though distand) challenger to Mercedes, Haas were stronger.

The last couple of years they have really struggled and the Ferrari engine has been poor since the cheating setback. Now they ferrari engine had an upgrade and they have taken control of 3rd in the constructors championship over Mclaren.

This year they have decided not to develop the car at all to focus on next year. So there about a year behind everyone else. A full year of development is huge In F1and , low and behold they're a second off the nearest team in quali. A second isn't bad considering they are using last year's car.

Next year is the real test for them.

All bets are off for next year so if Hamilton is to win number 8, then this is the year to do it. He might not get another shot at it. Russell doesn't come into the equation at all if the car isn't near the front next year.

I would love a really close battle next year, kinda like 2010 or 2012. This year has still been great though, I still want Max to do it, he has been superb all year.

Yup, word on the gird is that Newey and his team presented a block of stuff to say that the bottom plane of the wing is flexing under load. That is what Max was looking at. Once the DRS failed the test, RB didn't push it too hard due to the penalty they were already going to get, so we might hear more about that soon.

For the 3rd engine, I didn't google but I will say Alpine?

Correct.

Which suggests the Ferrari has the best reliability this year. It also means neither of those events is using the upgraded Ferrari engine which appears to have helped the Ferrari team in its battle for 3rd in the constructors.

Those static load tests are not fit for purpose.

Surely with the great minds of F1, they are building in structures into wing supports that are effected by airflow, for example wing support being twisted slightly by airflow and therefore performing slightly differently to the static case to allow deflection.

There has already been a precedent about flexing wings. Teams were given loads of time to fix it and not penalised.

Surely in this day and age, the FIA can calculate the real world loads and apply these during static testing.

Now that it’s becoming very clear from the photos how Mercedes cheated to gain that unprecedented level of top speed advantage, something has to be done to preserve the integrity of the sport surely. How can that result stand, when you look at something like Hungary where Vettel was completely disqualified for a small issue with fuel measurement that wasn’t intentional and conferred no benefit.