The king is dead, long live the king.
Only 102 days to lights out for 2023..
I wish they'd just bin the hybrid nonsense, pointless virtue signalling.
I'm just listening to the sky f1 podcast (it's quite good, way better than the any driven Monday rubbish they did last season), they were with the McLaren drivers. Piastri is devoid of charisma. I know he's a rookie, but it's striking how bland he is. Especially when compared to Norris and Ricciardo before him.
I know charisma doesn't really matter, especially if you're a decent driver, but jesus...
It would not surprise me if it was Bottas last season in F1. His Heart just does not seem unto it and he has been very anonymous this season as another poster said. A pity as I liked him. He had some good races and Qualifying in the Merc. He was just another Webber unfortunately do. Just does not have that killer instinct. The amount of times I remember going yes Mark Webber has this now when he was on pole in the Red Bull and then he woukd mess it up and off would go Vettel or Lewis or someone else to win the race but in them times it was mostly Vettel and Lewis with the odd Fernando win in the Ferrari too.
Well Vallteri was the same. He would put it on pole and then come race day mess it up and Lewis would win yet another race.
I think the next gen cars are to be drastically reduced in weight, so that should help things.
The current ones are like limos, and the energy systems are a big part of this also.
Could be difficult to engineer tires that degrade faster but aren't also prone to failures. The heavier cars we have now don't make the job any easier.
It's hard to see how anyone could justify Bottas clogging up a seat for yet another season, it's been obvious for years that he's one of the worst drivers on the grid. Zhou's a pay driver who was worse than Latifi in Formula 2, but Valtteri's been making him look half decent.
In other news, Bridgestone are reportedly considering tendering to supply tyres from 2025. I think most people will have fond memories of their last stint in F1, though I do prefer there being one supplier to the tyre war which often took race results out of the hands of teams and drivers as the tyre supplier they were contracted to for the season that was often the single biggest factor when it came to pace at a given track.
I have sympathy for Pirelli, they got a lot of criticism in the early years for tyres that degraded too quickly, but that was just them fulfilling the brief they were given as F1 wanted more tyre wear to encourage more variety in races, and it certainly worked giving us some of the most exciting and competitive seasons of the last couple of decades. There was an overcorrection towards more durable tyres in the wake of that criticism, and I don't envy them with the difficult job they have these days since the horrendously overweight hybrids came in and the extremely limited testing kind of forces them to go conservative.
That all said, the tyres have just not been what F1 needs for the last few years. They degrade slowly making for mostly one stop races (and you'll sometimes see cars run almost an entire race on one set when they have an early stop for a nose change or whatever), but they are also very heavily sensitive to temperature which means they still have to be managed very carefully to keep them in the window. In an ideal world you want the opposite of that - tyres that wear more quickly by distance travelled, but can also be pushed and leant on without increasing the degradation quite so drastically. Easier said than done of course but we've seen tyres that achieved those goals better in the past.
I can't remember where I read it, but somebody put forward a compelling argument that Danny Ric could end up with Sauber next year. He (apparently) is quite close to Andreas Seidl and the gap between Alfa leaving and it becoming officially Audi is a nice spot to drop him into to see if he has the ability to get back to his former level. When I read this, I sort of assumed it would be to replace Zhou, but the way things are going you would struggle to come up with an argument for retaining Bottas. He's been very anonymous.
Haas issues seem to all be about poor tyre wear.
Feels like Bottas is only there to make up numbers, he is pretty anonymous during the race weekend.
I really thought Haas would kick on this season but they have been awful
Is this Valterri Bottas's last season in Formula 1?
I'd imagine that's the ideal scenario for them. Have a hugely dominant car that compensates for Stroll's lack of speed. But to have a teammate who is that much slower than stroll would mean they'd probably have the weakest driver lineup on the grid. That might work IF the car is so utterly dominant that it can carry him to a championship. But it means they wouldn't compete with the competition if the cars are roughly equally matched or even if the AM is just a bit faster.
That's a huge opportunity throw away if they can build a competitive car but just don't have any top drivers to mount a championship challenge.
Stroll has sold 120m sterling worth of Aston shares.
Interesting to see what his end game is.
I'd imagine as well as being a good investment, he goal is for lance to win a championship. The only way I see it happening is if they build up to having a dominant car. Daddy can then make sure lance is the quickest driver at the team.
Could quite easily happen in first year of new regs. Lance announced as team leader with a young team mate.
I think he is good enough to do the job from out front.
From the various articles I've read, it looks like he was directly involved in designing those cars before moving to a more managerial role in the years that followed. Most recently he's been overseeing the Red Bull Powertrains project.
I thought Horner's words were interesting (from the-race.com):
"His work on the generation of cars that gave us four incredible championship doubles between 2010 and 2013 was truly outstanding."
Maybe I'm reading too much into it but to me that sounds like Horner is saying Marshall didn't have as much influence over the more recent cars? Or it could be that he's trying to play down the loss.
I want that 6 months' gardening leave in my contract!
Yeah fair. But you can't fault the ambition to bring in a big, proven figure. It's possible it won't click at mclaren but I admire the ambition.
Presumably they're constantly promoting from within the teams too but we don't hear about it.
I hold reservation until his influence is felt. Paddy Lowe from Mercedes-Benz to Williams was meant to be a good move, James Key from Toro Rosso to McLaren was meant to be a good move, Daniel Ricciardo from Renault etc.
That can't be bad for mclaren. This happened to Mercedes when they were dominating too. Well played mclaren
Well well well.
I'll wait and see if this will be a good move (James Key was meant to be a good move) but swiping someone from Red Bull is generally a good idea right now.
I remember Barcelona already being the most boring circuit on the calendar before they added that chicane, which at the time they said would make for more overtaking and improved races. It didn't, but I won't hold out hope that getting rid of it again will achieve that much either.
Mucho gracias.
Done 🙂
Yeah, it's going to become awkward if Aston remain where they are for the next few years and Lance is pissing away opportunities to challenge for a constructors championship.
Lawrence Stroll is obviously serious about the team with the new factory/acquisitions etc.... But how serious can he really be if his son is holding the team back? An awkward conversation for him no doubt.
On the Alonso pit stop, no doubt it will be one they'll look back on at the end of the year as an opportunity missed, bar a double DNF foe red bull its hard to see where Aston can win a race here (at best one of the other street circuits?) you'd fancy Max to take a P1 with a pit lane start on a traditional race track these days.
Crazy how brave they were driving one of these bombs on wheels and the cars were so much smaller so they could actually pass around Monaco,
https://www.instagram.com/reel/CsZEsv2tkT9/?igshid=NjZiM2M3MzIxNA==
I was thinking that maybe someone else can start the race thread for Barcelona for a bit of a change.
That's great news.
Some great pictures of the floors on the Reb Bull, Merc and Ferrari in the below video. RB looks a lot more intricate.
With no Mickey Mouse chicane anymore!
True, but they are not going to hang onto p2 in the constructors for much longer, and that's down to Stroll.
Stroll was a lot closer to Vettel. He's getting trounced by Alonso. It probably suits Aston Martin to have a clear number one for now.
