That Red Bull is just a work of art. It almost doesn't need DRS to overtake. Checo winning will spice things up but Max came back from 15th and it didn't look like he didn't need to break a sweat.
@AdamNovice it is a beast, the other cars look in a different class, his overtake on Charles within the DRS train showed how easy it was Correction: just seen the replay it was George who didn’t have DRS but speed delta was still insane!
Checo winning was nice but reality was it’s only due to Max starting P15. Normal service will resume soon barring other disasters.
Just seems like both championships are pretty tied up which as a relative neutral is a bit dull. We had it with Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull in the past and was hoping for more competition for championships than last year, or those past duller days. It’s a long season, and perhaps there is a twist in the tale but hard to see the others catch up 1 second performance gap.
What surprised me most was Ferrari, what happened to them? First stint Charles (on Softs granted) was carving through the field, then they were slower than Mercedes. Even though they lose out on SC I thought they would catch up. Worrying for the prancing horse.
@themightyant Just couldn't get speed into their hard tyres. I think Charles starting on softs was a mistake, should have been on hards and got them out of the way. There pitstop timing wasn't great either because it made them vulnerable after the SC.
See Alonso got a ten second penalty, bad stewarding again. Should not have taken 30 laps.
@AdamNovice agreed. Stewards should have let him know well before and given him a chance to try and build up that lead, which considering the earlier pace advantage and knowing Fernando would have likely been there.
Great weekend for George though, amazing lap in qualifying and solid drive today, plus that bit of luck and he snips 3rd. Merc somehow second in the constructors 😂
@AdamNovice not so sure Charles was on the wrong tires to start, it was working well for him early carving up the field. But for unlucky on the SC. Worrying for them anyway.
Wow! That press conference was a bit mad. Not sure why Max was throwing the toys out of the pram and criticising his team. Some perspective needed I think, they’ve put a car together that is a second faster than the opposition.
Impressed by George as usual, rightly saying Fernando’s penalty was a bit harsh. He’s so level headed, not surprised he was elected by the other drivers to be their representative for the GP drivers association for the third year running.
terribly dull race. outside of the early overtakes for max/Charles, but they werent even challenged tbh.
F1 is in a VERY strange place.... popularity up, yet so much is bad in it right now. Many boring circuits leading to boring races. Strange stewarding and overall f1 leadership, closer racing seems further spread this year.
@stvevan This is exactly my feelings towards the sport at the moment.
I've watched F1 since the days of Nigel Mansell but feel like I'm in a real low in regards to my interested towards the sport. It's these long periods of domination by one particular team / driver that brings it down as a true sport for me. We had years of Ferrari and Schumacher, years of RBR and Vettel, then years of Hamilton and Mercedes, and now we are back to RBR with Verstappen. No matter how much action there is in the midfield, and let's be honest there isn't that much of that, it's the action up front that really makes a race exciting. If you don't have that then the majority of the grid are just fighting for scraps.
These regulation changes were supposed to spice up the racing but all they've really done is lock in that advantage of one team. The budget cap and development / testing restrictions just ensure that no one can catch up and it's even worse for those teams so far behind or that have to change their concepts because it's not working. I'm not saying we undo those things, because they've put teams in a position where they can actually continue to survive, however it does feel like they don't fully address the problem and there needs to be a rethink in the way restrictions are applied or perhaps the budget cap needs to start including those top paid members of staff and even drivers. I'd like to think they at least know there's a problem that needs addressing here and that they aren't happy with the way things are just because the popularity has increased and people are making money.
@render@stvevan Completely agree with all you both said here. I feel exactly the same. Sport just isn't as engaging if it isn't competitive at the front, if P1 & P2 are sewn up and everybody else is fighting for scraps, just as it wasn't exciting in many years previously. It's a shame.
Add to that boring races and odd stewarding decisions - after taking an eternity to make their decision they then overturned their overturn and Alonso was rightly reinstated as #3. It's just bizarre how they can be so inept.
Right now it feels like this season is another wash, which just two races in is a gut punch to the vast majority of fans of the sport who aren't specifically rooting for Red Bull/Checo/Max.
It's not helped that while Checo is a decent driver, he is miles off Max. Just as Valtteri was miles of Lewis, Barrichello was miles off Schumacher and Webber was miles off Vettel. When we have seasons like this where one car is just so dominant we need a good team mate rivalry to keep it interesting. e.g.
Senna v Prost
Mansell v Piquet
Rosberg v Hamilton - though that was only really close in one season (2016).
Alonso v Hamilton in 2007 - though this last one is likely the perfect reason teams don't like two #1 drivers as they cannibalised each others results and had in fighting that docked points - Alonso sabotaging Hamilton's quali in Hungary, which he was penalised for, and later driving him off the track at La Source just two examples in a dogged season. Add to that a bit of bad luck for Hamilton in the last two races - getting a DNF in one and a gear box issue in the other to finish 7th meant neither McLaren driver won the WDC and handed it to Kimi by 1 point. Made for great drama and entertainment, but not good for the team.
I think the ONE thing that perhaps makes me hopeful, not necessarily for this season but longer term, is the cost cap MAY help others catch up over time. That isn't going to have an impact quickly but perhaps we won't see periods of dominance being AS long as they were before. (Ferrari 6 in a row, and 8 in 10 years, Red Bull 4 in a row, Mercedes 8 in a row). But who knows.
Whatever their intentions for the rule changes and cost cap, so far it has backfired in many ways.
@themightyant That Alonso penalty was really bizarre. I actually stopped watching straight after the race finished so I could jump into gaming session so didn't even realise that Alonso had had his podium taken away from him. They're really in a bit of a mess with regards to stewarding still and I can't imagine the drivers and teams are happy with that situation as there needs to be at least a solid rule book which everyone abides by.
You are right with what you say though, it doesn't feel that Checo will take the fight to Verstappen this year or subsequent years even. He's a solid driver and I really admire his race craft but he's not consistent enough and it also doesn't feel like he'd be given an equal chance to get the wins / championship even if he was closer. What we needed from this year was at least a Ferrari or a Mercedes to be up there fighting this out as we waited for other teams to get closer, then it wouldn't be so bad waiting a few years for other teams to move forward.
I'm pretty much at the point where I wouldn't even mind if they bought ballast into the equation just to spice things up a bit. We've already got DRS in the mix to artificially make some overtakes happen so why not just play about with ideas like that, even if just in the sprint format. I don't see they've got a lot to lose for me personally as I'm already watching way less coverage than I was and I'd imagine there's a lot of people only watching because they got sucked in by Drive to Survive and will move away from it as soon as they are bored.
I don’t agree. I think the cost cap did bring all the teams closer together, but the picture is slightly skewed by the RB dominance. If you eliminate them from the roster you actually have a very competitive and close grid with competitive advantages changing from track to track. I think it’s going to take 3 maybe 4 years to really see the effects of the cost cap (small teams growing into it and the bigger teams losing performance). In the meantime I’m all for some form of BoP or a succes handicap to close things up; reducing CFD time is clearly not enough. I don’t get the complaints about some teams not having a fair chance to bounce back if they get it wrong. I don’t like teams spending their way out of trouble; it should always be clever engineering that leads the way. And if you engineer a turd of a car, then yes you are in trouble. Fortunately, Aston Martin has proved it is possible to make a big leap under the current regulations. There… rant over 😉
@render Super strange. 1) To take so long to come to a decision, and then 2) To reverse that decision. If you are going to take that long, which they shouldn't, at least get it right.
Also saw the predicable, and understandable, cries on social media that the FIA will now overturn decisions. They really are shooting themselves in the foot at the moment.
Absolutely agree re: Checo. He's not in with a chance without something major happening, but i'd love to see it, or better yet AM to get a massive upgrade and close the gap, just to keep this season's title alive. It's very flat at the moment. Max v Fernando would be a treat.
@Mr_B021 You are right about the midfield being closer, I've said so on several posts above e.g. where 3-15 was within 0.5 s in Q2 for example. That side of it is great, and working as intended.
But it means little if P1 & P2 is basically decided before the race and everyone else is racing for scraps. That side of the cost cap and reg changes are not working and are in fact hampering that changing anytime soon. I agree with you the cost cap is there for a reason, and important, we need to see it through, but as often is the case there have also been unintended consequences.
I remember when Mercedes were so far ahead and it wasn't fun to watch, same with Ferrari a decade earlier.
Even watching Max carve through the field on Sunday was significantly lessened because his car is just SO much faster, it no longer feels like driver skill. He isn't sending it into turn 1 with a great move for example, he just puts his foot down, opens the wing and breezes past like he's on a Sunday drive. That isn't thrilling racing. Which is a shame as he's a supremely talented driver, but with that car, and with Checo as a teammate he is in a league of his own. It makes for a very dull championship.
EDIT: I'll still be here week in week out. I still love the sport, just a little less right now.
@Mr_B021 It should absolutely be down to engineering excellence, and I definitely wouldn't want to lose that aspect of the sport, however if you get it wrong that's ruled you out for pretty much the entire campaign and maybe even the next one or two in order to claw back that lost time. With testing restrictions you can't dedicate the time to testing potential new parts and even if you could you might not even be able to make those parts or make the number of changes required within the budget.
That sucks from a team / driver perspective because they know that they won't be challenging for wins etc. but it sucks even more for the fans who are in a lot of cases now actually forking out real money to watch it. If there was a lack of on track action it didn't feel so bad when it was on free to view TV but here now in the UK it's £18 a month to watch every race live on Sky. The only alternative to that is to use another service that Sky run and pay £11.99 just for a one day pass to watch one race. I know you can watch the highlights later on for free but for a lot of people there's nothing like watching the race live. That was something I always used to enjoy as watching live I got that feeling of excitement as the lights went out knowing that anything could happen. Over the past 5 - 6 years I've pretty much lost that feeling and it's been replaced by the certainty that unless anything really random happens the winner is a forgone conclusion.
Fair play to anyone that still gets that level of buzz and I can imagine that if you do have a preferred driver / team and they are winning then you likely will do. For me though I've always watched it as a fan of F1 and just wanted some good exciting racing - racing that more times than not doesn't happen. I've stopped looking at it with rose tinted glasses and can clearly see these faults now. I realise that actually it doesn't warrant the money I pay for it, especially when there's plenty of other things I could be spending that cash on and plenty enough teams and drivers have more money than they probably deserve.
I agree with you both that the Red Bull dominance is sapping all the excitement out of the championship right now. Nobody wants to watch that till November, let alone pay for it. But I think the cap works as intended for the cars 3-20. Yes, the cap limits the catch-up potential, but at least that potential is now roughly the same for all teams. I don’t want teams like Ferrari or Mercedes (or RB when the time comes) to spend their way out of trouble in a way that’s impossible for teams like Haas or Williams.
Aston would probably not even be in its current position without the cap. At the moment I really enjoy the tussle between Aston, Mercedes and Ferrari. Maybe RB are the exception which has to be reigned in, not the standard to which all the other teams have to catch up. Let’s just hope for a vintage season like 2012 with 7 different winners in as many races sooner rather then later 🤞🏼
@Mr_B021 I agree with the broad strokes of your point. Yes it's keeping the rest of the field closer especially bringing teams like Haas and Williams closer. Aston I don't know, between that brand and Lawrence Stroll who seems on a mission like Dietrich Mateschitz was before him, I think they'd be spending big and competing anyway soon enough.
I just think regardless of the aims of that something hasn't worked if Red Bull can be a second a lap quicker. In F1 terms that is an eternity.
However I also have two problems with the cost cap.
1) F1 is meant to be the pinnacle of racing and engineering excellence. If we are limiting that too much is it still the peak? It also opens up the opportunity for another racing series, with less limitations, to come and take it's crown?
2) My concern is that they are change the regulations again in a few years and just as everyone starts to catch up to Red Bull the gap will widen again and whether that is Red Bull or someone else. Are we just going to end up in this cycle repeatedly and it will never, or infrequently, resolve?
EDIT: I should add I fully support the IDEA of the cost cap, it's something i've long admired about American sports with their draft system, and wished we could implement something similar in other sports to prevent, for example, the same 4-5 teams winning the English Premier League year after year, or break the Barcelona/Real Madrid dominance. But there are problems with that due to our league system.
As for F1 I just feel it needs some work as the law of unintended consequences has struck and it hasn't actually fixed the MOST important thing, there is still one player at the top.
@themightyant Like you say a second is an eternity and means that most races are going to be forgone conclusion. I would say most people don't tune in to watch for that interesting midfield battle, they want to see action at the front of the race. The perfect season would be one where the ebb and flow changes from track to track. I want to see cars and drivers that perform well on some circuits but not others. I want to see different strategies being a bigger deciding factor than who has the faster car.
Basically I want to see loads of different teams and drivers in with a shout of winning a race because they are right there battling it out at the front, within seconds of each other. There's no interest in having one driver 30 seconds off the front cruising to victory or overtakes happening just because a driver qualified out of position and they can breeze past the others. It should be wheel to wheel battles with people having to send it to make it past someone because the cars are that close in performance.
The cost cap isn't solving that problem at the moment and as mentioned if the regs change regularly enough then it's unlikely that it will solve it at all. On the other hand the more teams we can keep in F1 the better and it does seem that there's at least a chance that it will do that.
@render Agreed! And even if the field is much closer like @Mr_B021 right said, it isn't actually leading to more exciting racing very often.
Take last weekend as an example even within most teams within 0.5s of each other, and even within teams, drivers with the same car (ignoring individual setups), there wasn't much happening. Charles was tucked up behind Carlos, Lewis was behind George, Pierre was tucked up behind Esteban, Lando was tucked up behind Oscar etc. there wasn't actually much wheel to wheel racing happening despite the midfield being closer.
This was so abundantly clear that the most exciting battle in the closing stages was Logan Sargeant, Oscar Piastri & Lando Norris for P15-P17.
Obviously that is just one track and race, but it isn't good for the sports image or future.
Ended up getting up at 5:30 for quali, must be mad. Lol. But so far it’s been rewarded. One red bull out in Q1, wrong red bull for the championship, but still helps excitement.
Red flag left a bizarre situation where they were all doing many laps on the same tires. Exciting! Felt one bad lock up at the wrong time might mean missing out.
Q2 less surprises but was still a little on edge. Midfield is large and close again.7 constructors in Q3.
Forums
Topic: Push Square Formula 1 thread - F1
Posts 481 to 500 of 760
Please login or sign up to reply to this topic