F1 2022 thread - see post 1 for rules

Hulk is 35 years old. Doesn't make sense to me.

If finances are a factor, not sure Ricciardo would be as quick to take a haircut to Hulkenbergs level even with his form.

Looking forward to Gasly v Ocon. Gasly was getting a lot of plaudits a couple of seasons back off the back of 2020 when the midfield was a lot closely packed with talk of him deserving a better drive. AT took a step back with the new regs and I don’t think he’s been as consistent either with Yuki not being a strong litmus test to comparison. Interesting to see how the dynamic of him and Ocon works out. Would rank Ocon somewhere near the middle of drivers ability wise so interested to see how it goes. Ocon should have an advantage for the first year at least.

Ricciardo said himself he doesn't be on the grid next year. He's had his good times in F1, he's good craic to have around but F1 is a results sport and he isn't up to scratch for what it would cost to sign him. Maybe a back marker team will want him but it's hard to see him staying in the sport

Thsts great business for AT. They don't really want Gasley and now they're being paid for him to leave.

Wins championship on a Sunday, massive financial penalty for 2023 on a Monday?

Justifiably angry Gasly interview...

You'd imagine FIA will hope this is forgotten about with World champion and the finance stuff tomorrow, but I doubt the drivers will let it slide...

You'd think that the Suzuka authorities would've learnt their lessons following the previous meeting of an F1 driver and one of their tractors

Are you actually saying we need a red flag for every car broken down on track from now on?

Cars are recovered every weekend like they did today, It was Gasley who chose to dive past at 250kph, They had a safety car, Double yellow flags and even red flagged it and yet still drove at 250kph.

Gasly was at fault, but in low visibility they should decide to red flag it and then bring out any staff/equipment once the cars are in the pit lane.

When it's raining heavily and cars are aquaplaning, yes

The cars have the option of full wets though. The issue isn't the grip, it's the amount of spray that the tyres throw up that is obscuring the drivers views. This is an engineering problem to find a solution that throws the water out not up, or something similar. Aiden Millward explains it better here

Thought the tractor thing was crazy tbh, considering the whole Bianchi incident wasn't that long ago. I think in conditions like that a red flag should be thrown with any car that requires assistance of stewards/machinery/etc to be removed from track. The risks aren't worth it. Two incredibly dangerous and avoidable incidents in one race is a terrible look.

I agree with the lack of lighting on the tractor though. I think if it had been properly lit up Gasly could have taken evasive action. It's not the answer, but surely it's something inexpensive and effective that could be carried out pretty much instantaneously at the least.

The optics weren't good with it being Suzuka and with what happened with Bianchi, but it must be remembered that the outcome of the Bianchi investigation wasn't that this equipment should never come onto track, it was that equipment should never come onto track without a safety car. In fact this was why virtual safety cars were introduced, for situations that needed equipment out on track but they believed could be resolved quickly enough to not need a full SC.

We have to accept that not every location in every circuit will be reachable by a behind-the-barriers crane like you have in certain places. We have to accept that when a car goes off it can't just be left there. We have to accept that it's not always possible to just push a car away. This means that heavy machinery will always inevitably have to recover cars.

So either we a) say there has to be a red flag whenever a car goes off, which would practically kill the sport, or b) accept that a safety car is enough of an allowance for this situation.

In this case there was a safety car, and the field bunched up behind it and passed the incident safely, as is quite normal. The problem was that Gasly pitted and ended up falling back from the bunch, and then went far too fast when catching up. It was safety car conditions, the area of the crash was under double yellows, and Gasly knew where the incident was from the previous lap. There was simply no excuse for going that fast.

It's also worth considering that if the tractor wasn't there, marshals still definitely would be. And in a worst case scenario where Gasly lost control and hit the tractor he'd still have a chance of coming out ok in a modern F1 safety cell with a Halo. If he lost control and there was no tractor and he instead went into a group of marshals, that would 100% be a multiple fatality situation. And had everything been exactly the same as today but with Marshals there instead of a tractor, with Gasly passing the scene at speed, nobody would even be talking about it, even though that would actually be a far more dangerous situation.

So far me this is 90% Pierre's fault. However, going back to Bianchi, that was a similar situation where there were double waved yellows which mean "slow down and be prepared to stop" and this was previously believed to be enough to cover such a scenario. Having realised they couldn't always trust drivers to go safely through a double yellow zone, they upped the threshold for a safety car to be required. They now realise they can't trust drivers to drive safely during a safety car period either, so they will have to perhaps up the threshold again. Maybe an automated system that drastically limits engine revs starting 800 metres before the scene of the incident or something like that, to force drivers to drive at safe speeds and pay proper attention.

The reality is however that they will never be able to avoid getting marshals and / or heavy machinery onto track when a car goes off and needs to be recovered so you can't just simply say "it shouldn't be there" and as I mentioned, having marshals out there without heavy machinery is as dangerous if not more so. So in the absence of turning the sport into something that has red flags every dozen laps or so, they need to simply be able to trust that safety car conditions mean that the cars are driving safely, by whatever means.

This may also be a case for closing to pitlane during safety cars, something that would be terrible for fair competition but at least would mean that once the pack is bunched it can't un-bunch like it did today when Pierre pitted.

That was my point - if the delta is too fast then it needs to be reduced and this is what they should look at doing, I suggested in going further and automatically limiting revs well in advance of the critical sector because it's possible for drivers to go faster than the delta, as Gasly did for much of the lap. The only workable solution to this is to find a way to ensure cars are travelling past the area at safe speeds, because it's easy to say that heavy machinery should never be out there but it's simply physically impossible to remove cars without them in many cases, and having red flags every single time a car goes off is just not workable.

I will also reiterate that a tractor is no more dangerous than a marshal on track, but that gets far less attention. A tractor puts drivers at risk, but marshals are far more at risk and their lives are of equal value. The solution has to be to stop drivers passing incidents at dangerous speeds.