Formula 1 2020 - General Discussion Thread (See MOD warning on first post)

They did fairly well with Vettel, Ricciardo, Max (and to a lesser extent Sainz and Gasly).
It's not RB, it's the lack of talent to match Max.

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

The bit in bold just isn’t true. When they pick a favourite they back them no matter what. Between “multi 21” and the turkey crash in which they backed their no.1 and the Baku crash where they also showed who is their no.1 and who isn’t.

I think you’re right about max making the car look better than it is and that explains some of the gap. I feel red bull is in denial about how far their car is from the Mercedes.

You're aware multi 21 was the team issuing an order in favour of Mark Webber and against Sebastian Vettel right? It's a perfect example of their even handedness even when one driver was a three time world champion and likely to be fighting for a fourth, they still asked him to stay behind his slower teammate for the sake of bringing the cars home safely. The fact Vettel was too fast and made the overtake anyway is not on the team.

Your other examples are instances where team-mates crashed into eachother (a clear example of them being allowed to race), and the only thing they're guilty of there is not criticising their driver in public enough for your satisfaction.

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

I know what multi 21 was. It was Vettel betting (correctly) that the team wouldn’t punish him for ignoring team orders. In both those crashes they backed the no1 driver and blamed the no2 driver.

They pick the faster driver as their no.1.

Is anyone seriously making the argument that they don’t favour drivers?

If you favour one driver over another one, you would use team orders in his favour. Not, as Red Bull did, use team orders against him. The fact he ignored those team orders and overtook Webber in a racing move on track is not in any way due to Red Bull.

How would you expect them to punish him? He was the world champion and the world championship leader. They publicly admonished him over the radio, and I'm sure they did more behind closed doors. What more could they do that wouldn't actively sabotage themselves in the championship?

Again, your strongest example of them favouring one driver is an incident where they tried to use team orders against that driver. A race which that driver won by outracing the other driver fair and square out on track against the team's wishes, and a race which the team criticised him for winning. I'm really flabbergasted at how utterly logically backward it is to try and use that as evidence that the team favoured that driver.

So yes, I am seriously making the argument that they don't have a history of favouring one driver over another, because all the evidence points pretty indisputably to that being the case, as the crazy backward logic of using multi 21, or incidents where the drivers were allowed to race eachother but crashed as the main counter arguments show.

So Latifi was poor compared to Russell because Williams is toxic.......interesting theory.

pjohnson wrote: »

So Latifi was poor compared to Russell because Williams is toxic.......interesting theory.

Yeah ... The mind boggles

I have an idea if there happens to be a team or two go bust... If teams were able to field a third car, only that third car could have one of a pool of rookie drivers for the race weekend. The driver would get a standardised steering wheel, and each driver would race at in at least one race weekend at each team. So say for even the 10 teams, each rookie driver could spend two race sessions per team across a 20-race season.

quokula wrote: »

If you favour one driver over another one, you would use team orders in his favour. Not, as Red Bull did, use team orders against him. The fact he ignored those team orders and overtook Webber in a racing move on track is not in any way due to Red Bull.
...

That’s not the only way to favour a driver. They imposed team orders on the drivers (and when the no1 defied them, they said he was a naughty boy but hey-ho, he’s a racer and that’s why we love him). They did naff all about it (nothing as far as we can tell) because Seb was the goose who laid the golden eggs. He was their no.1 driver.

The notion that RB doesn’t favour it’s faster driver, is to deny the evidence of our eyes. Why did Red Bull sack-off Sainz? Because the No.1 said so. Now they’re struggling to find a top driver to partner the No.1 and they’re settling for an experienced, middle of the road driver while Sainz gets a chance with Ferrari.

It doesn’t add up. Max is their main man right now and o think it probably extends to the point of preventing them from
Signing a second top driver.

Gonna be really interesting to see how Checo stacks up against Max next year, will really be a chance to gauge them both, also if Checo performs better than Albon and consistently inserts himself into the battle for the top 4 in the race as well as qualifying it will really open lots of tactical doors for RB which have all been firmly closed with a poorly performing Albon at the helm of the 2nd RB.

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

And that’s all well and good to say and it’s a great approach on paper, but they aren’t getting good performance from these guys. And if they didn’t need good performance from those guys then it would also be fine, but they do need good performances from them and they fail to get them. So it’s a RB problem.

You’re kinda agreeing with me that RB is failing to get the best from these drivers.

If a driver like Albon can do well in the TR and then once in the RB, perform about as well as Gasley in the AT, it suggests that either the AT is about as fast as the RB, or the drivers perform better at TR/AT then they do at RB. And if that happens a few times, the it suggests it’s a problem at RB.

Of course its a RB problem, They did not put the best drivers in the second car, .... The RB is a GP winning car (both cars) The problem was they only had 1 driver capable of just doing that.

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

The notion that RB doesn’t favour it’s faster driver, is to deny the evidence of our eyes. Why did Red Bull sack-off Sainz? Because the No.1 said so. Now they’re struggling to find a top driver to partner the No.1 and they’re settling for an experienced, middle of the road driver while Sainz gets a chance with Ferrari.

Sainz scored less than half as many points as Verstappen when they were team mates. Red Bull have a record of bringing the best of the best into F1. They want another Verstappen or Vettel. They are the only top team who regularly promote drivers and give them an opportunity to perform. If they do, they are kept on. If they don't, they are ultimately let go.

They dropped Sainz because he didn't show at Toro Rosso that he'd be able to push Verstappen. They had wanted to keep Ricciardo who was a very strong driver, but he followed the money to Renault. They then gave Gasly a go because he was strong at Toro Rosso and they thought he had more potential, but he didn't perform. They brought Albon in because he too was strong at Toro Rosso, but again he couldn't hold a candle to Max.

They have now hired Perez, who has a strong case for being the best F1 driver in the world right now who isn't already contracted to someone else. They're doing everything in their power to get the most competitive driver they can in that seat, albeit within the confines of their own driver program prior to now. This is a pretty stark contrast to other top teams, for example Mercedes keeping Bottas trundling around year after year without the slightest interest in putting a competitive driver in that seat.

You've gone from trying to use the fact that they used team orders against Vettel to prove they gave him preferential treatment, to using the fact that they keep trying to put faster drivers in the seat next to Max as proof that they don't want him to have a competitive team mate. These are some serious stretches of logic.

There's a lot of Bottas bashing in this thread, granted he's no Hamilton, but he fulfills a role for Mercedes that Red Bull have not had in a 2nd driver for a number of seasons. He is always fairly close to Hamilton in qualifying, and generally not too far behind in the race either. He pretty much ensures they will win the Constructor's championship year after year with his consistency. He will ultimately be replaced by Russell most likely for the 2022 season, but until then I would hardly describe him as a hindrance to Mercedes aims and goals.

Inquitus wrote: »

There's a lot of Bottas bashing in this thread, granted he's no Hamilton, but he fulfills a role for Mercedes that Red Bull have not had in a 2nd driver for a number of seasons. He is always fairly close to Hamilton in qualifying, and generally not too far behind in the race either. He pretty much ensures they will win the Constructor's championship year after year with his consistency. He will ultimately be replaced by Russell most likely for the 2022 season, but until then I would hardly describe him as a hindrance to Mercedes aims and goals.

He is often miles behind in the race and fails to make any progress once he falls behind. Has he ever even overtaken Verstappen?

But yes he suits Mercedes' 2nd driver position

Infoanon wrote: »

Was Sainz not dropped (or allowed leave !) Due to his fractious relationship with Max ?

RB never expected Danny Ric to leave and where left with very few options which in hindsight didn't work out.

Checo and Max will be an interesting combination !

It was a story the media cooked up out of nothing. Max and Carlos have both said on record that they had a good relationship with eachother.

Here's a decent interview with Sainz about it. Red Bull were pretty to the point when calling the rumours bullsh*t

GarIT wrote: »

Don't believe everything you read in the media probably pre written by pr people. The commentators and journalists at the time were saying it was the case.

You're saying "don't believe the media" while you're choosing to believe rumour mongering reporters looking for clickbait, over direct quotes from the drivers and teams themselves.

quokula wrote: »

You're saying "don't believe the media" while you're choosing to believe rumour mongering reporters looking for clickbait, over direct quotes from the drivers and teams themselves.

Yes, I'm saying don't believe a prepared PR response over the journalists. Either could be true. But it's not clear cut that it didn't happen.

Two weeks ago Toto admitted to lying in interviews to gain an advantage over other teams and trying to get them to look in the wrong area.