F1 2022

[Comrade 86]

43 minutes ago, Andicis said:

It's a weird one for Mercedes. They looked great on that Friday, but the setup didn't seem right since then. Unsure of what happened there. 

Practice a notoriously unreliable indicator though buddy. We've no idea what fuel loads or power settings are being used and teams will often sandbag before quali too. I think Mercedes have taken a sizeable step forward I'm just not totally conviced they fully understand why as yet. The cars looked fast on the straights too so it seems they've had to tone down the power up to now to address the porpoising at high speed. I think the Constructors Championship is well and truly gone now but they might yet be properly competitive before the season closes. Could well spice up the last half dozen or so races.

Edited May 8, 2022 by 86 Hair Islands
typos

[RadioactiveWaste]

Merc 3rd fastest car yet again, but still not solved their issues.

Fairly dull race for the most part. Although it's good to see Latifi is sticking to his 12 step program for wall addiction.

With Barcelona and Monaco next up it's set to be a feast for not overtaking.

Good to see Sainz getting back in the game though, I think getting the podium and holding off Perez will do him a world of good.

[ThePrisoner]

Oops!

[EtoileSportiveDeDerby]

59 minutes ago, ThePrisoner said:

Oops!

"Needs more time on the simulator"

depite being Born there, lived there all his life, he cant find his way round the place with an old or a new F1.

[RadioactiveWaste]

After last year's Monaco dissapointment Leclerc is going to take a leaf from the book of Schumacher and park it at Rascasse - get yer tenna on him on him pole.

[RadioactiveWaste]

So, onto Spain this weekend.

Frequently a dull race, with limited overtaking opportunity. Lets all hope the new regs work some magic.

Updates a plenty also in the offing.

 

[RadioactiveWaste]

Aston Martin rediscover their "Tracing Point" mojo...

 

[Andicis]

 

The new floor seems to have put porpoising on the straights for the Mercs to a minimum, still having some on corners but it seems a much more stable car now. 

 

For the first time this season, Hamilton sounds positive about the car.

[Andicis]

7 hours ago, RadioactiveWaste said:

Aston Martin rediscover their "Tracing Point" mojo...

 

Horner kept a can of green redbull with him today.

He can be amusing when he wants to be ?

[RadioactiveWaste]

2 hours ago, Andicis said:

Horner kept a can of green redbull with him today.

He can be amusing when he wants to be ?

I'm sure to a large extent the Karen Horner version of himself is a carefully constructed media face. It's a nice touch though.

Apparently the FIA are happy with what Aston did, the subtext is one of red bull's engineers was recruited by Aston Martin and I bet Horner is not forgiving of such things.

[EtoileSportiveDeDerby]

7 hours ago, RadioactiveWaste said:

I'm sure to a large extent the Karen Horner version of himself is a carefully constructed media face. It's a nice touch though.

Apparently the FIA are happy with what Aston did, the subtext is one of red bull's engineers was recruited by Aston Martin and I bet Horner is not forgiving of such things.

Red bull, gives you winge

[Gaspode]

Things looking a lot closer in P3 - both Mercs, Red Bulls and Ferraris in the top six with half a second across them….Qualifying should be interesting

[RadioactiveWaste]

Hopefully the mercedes gains are real. They looked OK at the start of the Miami weekend and got less competetive as the sessions went on.

 

[Andicis]

16 minutes ago, RadioactiveWaste said:

Hopefully the mercedes gains are real. They looked OK at the start of the Miami weekend and got less competetive as the sessions went on.

 

The differences this time is Russell and Hamilton are much more positive about the car than Miami, they did really well then too but now the car seems significantly more driveable. 

[Comrade 86]

Aston-gate stuff is so funny. No doubt Karen's got his panties in a proper twist whilst neatly forgetting that they've poached over 50 staff from Mercedes including the head of the powertrain division, Ben Hodgkinson. Of course I very much doubt that Red Bull benefitted as they wouldn't steal data, or copy designs, would they? 

As for the supposed Mercedes gains, when will the journos realise that practice sessions are only marginally more informative than testing as indicators of likely race pace? Sky were even talking up Merc's chances of nailing a pole position! As it is, they remain miles off the pace of the Ferrari and RB despite Russell nicking 4th. The fact remains that the W13 is a dog of a car compared to those we are used to seeing the team produce and it's absolutely not simply the porpoising issues that are holding them back. It may be a deal more comfortable for the drivers now, but it's still seems almost impossible to optimise. Lastly, big Hammy fan that I am, I'd dearly love it if he would stop whining all the time and just get his head down in the same way George has. Rather than blaming eveyone around him he should be looking to provide some more helpful feedback to the engineers than 'my car is s***'. The 'I'm the second driver' drivel is equally annoying. George has had all the luck going but boy has he made the best of it and Lewis needs to drop the childish insinuations and get back to letting his driving do the talking. 

[Andicis]

1 hour ago, 86 Hair Islands said:

Aston-gate stuff is so funny. No doubt Karen's got his panties in a proper twist whilst neatly forgetting that they've poached over 50 staff from Mercedes including the head of the powertrain division, Ben Hodgkinson. Of course I very much doubt that Red Bull benefitted as they wouldn't steal data, or copy designs, would they? 

As for the supposed Mercedes gains, when will the journos realise that practice sessions are only marginally more informative than testing as indicators of likely race pace? Sky were even talking up Merc's chances of nailing a pole position! As it is, they remain miles off the pace of the Ferrari and RB despite Russell nicking 4th. The fact remains that the W13 is a dog of a car compared to those we are used to seeing the team produce and it's absolutely not simply the porpoising issues that are holding them back. It may be a deal more comfortable for the drivers now, but it's still seems almost impossible to optimise. Lastly, big Hammy fan that I am, I'd dearly love it if he would stop whining all the time and just get his head down in the same way George has. Rather than blaming eveyone around him he should be looking to provide some more helpful feedback to the engineers than 'my car is s***'. The 'I'm the second driver' drivel is equally annoying. George has had all the luck going but boy has he made the best of it and Lewis needs to drop the childish insinuations and get back to letting his driving do the talking. 

Not sure that you're being entirely fair on the W13, the simulations showed this weekend that whilst they are off the pace over 1 lap compared to Ferrari (which is also some way ahead of RB over a single lap), over a GP they should be fairly competitive. Russell also said that he thought they could have got a faster lap than the ones they posted -

The positive is that now they've solved porposing according to Toto, from here they can start to bring the pace back in the car. I suspect they may be able to nick a podium tomorrow should things go well, but by the time Baku comes around you would expect it would be even closer to Ferrari and RB.

[RadioactiveWaste]

I think red bull engine troubles are going to be my favourite part of this season.

"No power" yess yess feel the hate flow through you ..my young apprentice....

I'm almost ready to call it for a fezza 1-2. Sainz is quality and he seems to have figured out the car now (knew he would, same as I knew Checo would come through his difficult stretch last season).

Much as I think Mercedes are improving, I'm starting to think their improvement is only going to be enough to keep them best of the rest ahead of a real changeable midfield. Haas, Alpine, Sauber, alpha tauri McLaren all looking strong at some tracks and struggling at others, with Aston Martin and Williams looking like it's going to be a long season.

 

 

 

[Andicis]

2 minutes ago, RadioactiveWaste said:

I think red bull engine troubles are going to be my favourite part of this season.

"No power" yess yess feel the hate flow through you ..my young apprentice....

I'm almost ready to call it for a fezza 1-2. Sainz is quality and he seems to have figured out the car now (knew he would, same as I knew Checo would come through his difficult stretch last season).

Much as I think Mercedes are improving, I'm starting to think their improvement is only going to be enough to keep them best of the rest ahead of a real changeable midfield. Haas, Alpine, Sauber, alpha tauri McLaren all looking strong at some tracks and struggling at others, with Aston Martin and Williams looking like it's going to be a long season.

 

 

 

Definitely not ready to call it Ferrari 1-2. LeClerc loves a spin off track, and Sainz just doesn't have the pace. 

I think it's a shoot out centered around tyre wear this weekend. The Ferrari seems to be absolutely shredding them so far, and neither driver is brilliant at managing their tyres. 

I personally think Verstappen is favourite this weekend, that RB is very good over a GP and is much less demanding on tyres, I could see Russell or Hamilton getting 3rd. 

[RadioactiveWaste]

20 minutes ago, Andicis said:

Not sure that you're being entirely fair on the W13, the simulations showed this weekend that whilst they are off the pace over 1 lap compared to Ferrari (which is also some way ahead of RB over a single lap), over a GP they should be fairly competitive. Russell also said that he thought they could have got a faster lap than the ones they posted -

The positive is that now they've solved porposing according to Toto, from here they can start to bring the pace back in the car. I suspect they may be able to nick a podium tomorrow should things go well, but by the time Baku comes around you would expect it would be even closer to Ferrari and RB.

We'll see, they are making progress at last but I have a nagging doubt that whenever they try to exploit the things the SIM data said were there the car is going to bite back.

I think there is "something" in the philosophy, Mercedes are no mugs at this and they didn't produce the car by mistake, but I'm going to hedge on the side of "next year's car"

[Comrade 86]

6 hours ago, Andicis said:

Not sure that you're being entirely fair on the W13, the simulations showed this weekend that whilst they are off the pace over 1 lap compared to Ferrari (which is also some way ahead of RB over a single lap), over a GP they should be fairly competitive. Russell also said that he thought they could have got a faster lap than the ones they posted -

The positive is that now they've solved porposing according to Toto, from here they can start to bring the pace back in the car. I suspect they may be able to nick a podium tomorrow should things go well, but by the time Baku comes around you would expect it would be even closer to Ferrari and RB.

I hope you're right but what I expect to see is CL and MV finishing @30 seconds ahead Mercs. If Sainz and Checo are even vaguely on it, there goes your podium right there. The Merc has straight line speed for sure, but it's still horrible through the slower corners hence my belief that the drivers are happy mostly because they're not getting shaken to pieces. Of course this yields benefits, but they're still half a second off the pace and you'd better believe that Ferrari and RB will be bringing upgrades themselves.

Interestingly, the speed traps kind of confirm both our schools of thought; Hamilton was actually 2nd fastest behind Leclerc on the speed gun through practice, but GPs aren't run around ovals and the W13's optimal window is so small I can't see Merc being in the hunt for podiums consistently even if they might compete on the circuits that lend themselves to the Mercs strengths. Checo seems a little inconsistent and can't live with MV anyway and Sainz's head is gone for the moment and therein lies the only real hope IMO. Even Toto called the W13 a 'complete diva' and he wasn't just talking about the porpoising.

Bear in mind also that RB are most likely not runnning their engines as hard as they can given their reliability woes. If Verstappen finishes, he wins and that's a sobering thought for everyone bar Karen. Let's be honest, powertrains can be tweaked to garner a few extra KPH relatively simply, but the Mercs behaviour through the slower sections of these tracks is a far tougher conundrum to solve. The truth is that this has been the case for several of the last few seasons but the Merc hybrid units were so far ahead of the competition in terms of raw power that they could paper over the cracks. And sure, the Merc drivers could have improved their laps but how many of the other drivers would say the same thing. Verstappen would, I'm sure and even Leclerc said he'd had a mid-lap wobble and look at the time he put down. 

Anyway, I think I'm talking down their chances partly because I'd like to see them prove me wrong so I'll STFU and hope they do just that tomorrow. As it is, Hamilton has to start the race better. He can't keep giving up places to George and expect preferential treatment in the race. He's still the faster driver in race trim but he has to show it. What I expect though, is Verstappen to hunt down Leclerc and close the gap further, with Checo pestering Sainz for P3. Sadly, I don't see Merc challenging until the last half dozen or so races, if at all.