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

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I think his spell at Sauber has been a downward slope from the second Ferrari sprint. He's struggled to best Gio and they're both out of the sport. Neither were worth their place for next year.

Vettel could easily be the next former champion to become dead weight. He's got a poor teammate to make his mediocre performances look good (save a couple of good and very lucky results). They've got last year's Mercedes and the best power unit on the grid and both went out in q1 last time around. That's poor.

I wonder why some drivers lose their pace and others don’t? Lewis and Seb are a similar age and it’s night and day. Same with Alonso and Kimi.

It's a great question. It's probably to do with motivation. Both in terms of psychology and risk taking in the race weekend and motivation to train hardest. Vettel has a family life. He keeps it very private so I presume he's relatively normal at home. Being a dad is a job in itself. I think lots of drivers' motivation is blunted when they have children. In short, they have more going on outside of F1.

Rosberg spoke about how he had a child during the 2016 championship year ad he said was a useless dad and his wife had to do everything because he had to be completely dedicated to getting the correct amount of sleep and training etc. So that was surely part of his reason to retire so he could dedicate himself to some extent to being a dad and husband.

And with a bad car the motivation dulls. We're seeing Alonso as the exception, not that he's in a particularly bad car, but he (and Ocon) are getting more out of it than other drivers would.

Seb's energy and motivation was sapped by the toxic / pressured world of Ferrari. A non-competitive Ferrari is probably the worst car to be in; the Italian press are unforgiving and you have the whole "tifosi" counting on you to make their dreams come true. Which you can't, cos your car is crap.

If Seb had moved to Merc or back to Red Bull, his motivation would increased and therefore his performances would have too.

Because the Mercedes is quite different to the Aston Martin, and the Alpine is quite different to the Alfa - though we saw from their Ferrari days that Alonso was always a cut above Kimi, just as he was always a cut above the entire grid.

When there's a championship to fight for Seb is on a different level, and he was comfortably better than Hamilton and close to Alonso's level back when they had evenly matched cars. He hasn't lost it so much as circumstances have left him with little to fight for, and he doesn't have that killer instinct of an Alonso to fight tooth and nail whether it's for 1st or 11th. He also has a family life and interests outside of F1 so he doesn't need to take unnecessary risks with little reward.

Hypothetically if Vettel joined Merc ahead of 2014 he'd currently be fighting for his 12th title (as there's no chance in hell he'd have lost one to Rosberg), but instead he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Kimi leaves F1 with the helmet he started with. Nice touch.

Looking ominous in FP2 unless the Red Bull is carrying a lot of sandbags.

So Merc have a large gap on one lap pace, but RB have a huge gap in race pace.

They both must have gotten a deal on sandbags.

It goes without saying that they are in different cars, everybody knows this. We've seen what George has managed with that williams. I don't recall any similar heroics from seb or kimi. Having children seems to be the common denominator though.

I'd disagree - I would not be a fan of Hamilton's media trained persona and much preferred him in the earlier days but cannot deny his talent.

It seems to be a typical Irish AND British trait that we turn on people when they become "too" successful.

Personally I think we can't fully appreciate his achievements because they have happened within our generation but records are made to be broken so good luck to him! I certainly think he has a cleaner driving attitude but if Max prevails, credit where it is due. It has certainly been an interesting season ... Alpine providing a notable contribution too!

Hope Max can do it, been the best driver this season and him being dangerous is completely overblown imo. Over on Reddit today there was a tweet digging up an old Hamilton quote when he was questioned on his own aggressive driving style, and he said he needed to drive that way because he didn’t have the fastest car, which is pretty much spot on for what Max is doing now.

And I don’t hate Hamilton, I’m just tired of seeing the same team with the best resources win over and over again. This season has been generally brilliant, but the last few races have ultimately been a procession.

The difference in this case is that RB have arguably had the best car this season and mercedes have been on the backfoot (due to their own fault in stopping development too early last year), although they seem to have caught up in the last few races.

I think Max has had a great season... you only have to compare him to his team mates the last few seasons to note his ability. (Although RB and their second driver is a whole other topic). But, I am not a fan of his driving style. I think for me, it is on the wrong side of aggressive.

I do enjoy Hamilton as a racer and I think he has had an interesting career - and he probably wasn't unlike Max at that age back in the day.... "is that Glock going slow" might just be the F1 quote of the millennium lol!!

I understand completely that it has gotten boring for a lot of people with Hamilton always winning and the mercedes dominance.

But I have so much respect for Hamilton maintaining his level of performance for over 14 years! (and do think there is more to him than just having a fast car).

Yup he really is a fantastic driver and a very talented driver in rain conditions.

I was hoping Schumacher's record would remain for a long time but I wouldnt begrudge Hamilton he's been solid throughout his career and deserves it.

Croft and Kravitz wreck my head fawning over him but its the usual English BS over their own.