F1 2022

[Comrade 86]

Poor old Carlos. George gets another great break as he glides by the first bend melee making 4 places in the process. Hamilton stuck in behind and clearly not loving life right now. Verstappen in clean air and gone, sadly!

[Andicis]

Ocon should surely be penalised for that, clearly an unsafe release.

[SSD]

Cars designed to use DRS and race control decides not to use it until half way through the race. More entertainment towards the end, Norris and Russell superb drives. Title race back on again.

[Alph]

Was it worth it, Leclerc? RB were always going to pit if he did to try and take the FL anyway. 

Sainz.... urgh

Mercedes looked well short today didn't they? The time they seemed to lose breaking earlier than the likes of Bottas and Gasly etc? I thought Bottas was going to do Russell too

[Andicis]

Russell drove a phenomenal race today. The car clearly was poor, but he extracted all the performance possible from it. Sainz is the most unlucky driver on the grid. 

[RadioactiveWaste]

Had to do things this afternoon so missed almost all of it.

Will add some thoughts later.

Although, oh dear Carlos is an obvious one.

[Alph]

And Danny Ric. 

Joined the back of the DRS train and then pits onto hard and then finishes last

[RadioactiveWaste]

Dominant from red bull.

Unforced error from Leclerc.

Good job by: Lando, George, Bottas, Yuki, Magnuson and Seb, and probably Albon to he fair.

Bad race from: Danny Ric, Charles Leclerc, Carlos Sainz (although not really his his fault he got took out he needed strong result), Gasly, Lewis (very bbad), Mick Schumacher (him and Carlos having a competition to not look like the driver Ferrari want them to be at the moment)

Overall a decent race, not a classic but not bad either.

Aston Martin came back to life.

Alonso unlucky with damage.

 

[Comrade 86]

Pains me to say it but despite the PR speak, I do rather think Lewis downed tools this weekend. On balance, he's shown he can at least match George, but to my eye, there's only one Merc driver currently putting it all on the line and it ain't Hammy. Sure he's endured some rotten luck but that doesn't really excuse anything IMO. Conversely, George, whilst enjoying all the luck going, has absolutely taken full advantage and some. Fair play. 

Sainz seems to be the architect of his own downfall currently and when he's not, he has no luck at all. He's a gent for sure, but he's also a hard racer and I expect him to knuckle down and close the gap to Leclerc. The latter showed his impetuous side this weekend and has to learn to race for the team, not purely for himself, if Ferrari are to secure a WCC title.

Kudos to Alex Albon for holding off far quicker cars without the antics employed by other drivers and also Yuki whom I tipped up last year as one to follow and is not letting me down. He's improving with every race and I think he is finally getting his head down and doing the hard yards required to dine at the top table. Alonso, much like Lewis, appears to have run over a black cat at some point, but the fire still burns brightly and he's always a good watch.

All in all, a cracking season of hard but fair racing so far, for anyone but Hammy fanboys like me! Close quarter racing and some hope that the championship could still be more competitive than had seemed the case. Karen of course getting more smug by the week, which is the only downside ? 

[RadioactiveWaste]

I think perhaps Georgie boy having had a lot of experience driving utter dogs of cars is helping him whilst Lewis is used to perfect cars year in year out.

Was a very bad race by Hamilton. There's not even a suggestion he tried something different in the set-up to explain the difference. 

 

 

[Andicis]

It wasn't a great race by Lewis, but contextually it was very very tough. He got screwed by Ocon that set him back after the team had a poor pit (they should have stopped earlier) and then with DRS disabled until he was stuck firmly in a DRS train, if Gasly could have got round Albon it would have cleared the way for Hamilton, but that never happened. Russell got to race in clean air. 

[RadioactiveWaste]

4 hours ago, Andicis said:

It wasn't a great race by Lewis, but contextually it was very very tough. He got screwed by Ocon that set him back after the team had a poor pit (they should have stopped earlier) and then with DRS disabled until he was stuck firmly in a DRS train, if Gasly could have got round Albon it would have cleared the way for Hamilton, but that never happened. Russell got to race in clean air. 

It's a fair point, but I still feel it was underwhelming from Lewis. Yeah in clean air he'd probably have been better. I'm just disappointed.

For saying that, I'd take a bet Lewis wins at least 1 race this season (I remember how bad the 09 McLaren was and he won a race in it)

[Comrade 86]

19 hours ago, Andicis said:

It wasn't a great race by Lewis, but contextually it was very very tough. He got screwed by Ocon that set him back after the team had a poor pit (they should have stopped earlier) and then with DRS disabled until he was stuck firmly in a DRS train, if Gasly could have got round Albon it would have cleared the way for Hamilton, but that never happened. Russell got to race in clean air. 

Agree with most of this but whilst I want Hammy to best George, at least for a year or two, George passed K-Mag without DRS and spent most of the race with the wrong setting on his front wing. This was not Lewis at anywhere near his best though there are, as you point out, mitigating circumstances. I think the issue is somewhat to do with confidence under breaking too - George's car is not set up the same way as Lewis' and he is clearly happy to break a little later. Lewis was alongside Gasly on multiple occasions but blinked first, but in Lewis' defence, the 4.9 second pit-stop was a killer too.

A weekend to forget but it adds a little spice too as he will be absolutely hating being behind his team mate so I'm hoping we see a marked reaction in Bahrain. Have to say I'm enjoying the racing despite Hammy's tribulations but I'd love to see the hard-charging we saw in the second half of last season. He's not become a poor driver overnight, of that I'm certain.

[RadioactiveWaste]

Of course, with the next race being in Miami, it's going to be a field day for referring to Miami's cultural influence in film and TV. By which I mean I'm going to post lots of clips of the golden girls.

 

[Andicis]

4 hours ago, 86 Hair Islands said:

Agree with most of this but whilst I want Hammy to best George, at least for a year or two, George passed K-Mag without DRS and spent most of the race with the wrong setting on his front wing. This was not Lewis at anywhere near his best though there are, as you point out, mitigating circumstances. I think the issue is somewhat to do with confidence under breaking too - George's car is not set up the same way as Lewis' and he is clearly happy to break a little later. Lewis was alongside Gasly on multiple occasions but blinked first, but in Lewis' defence, the 4.9 second pit-stop was a killer too.

A weekend to forget but it adds a little spice too as he will be absolutely hating being behind his team mate so I'm hoping we see a marked reaction in Bahrain. Have to say I'm enjoying the racing despite Hammy's tribulations but I'd love to see the hard-charging we saw in the second half of last season. He's not become a poor driver overnight, of that I'm certain.

I'm a big fan of Russell, whilst he's a bit heavy on the PR, he's a really good racer, aggressive when required but mostly a very clean, fast driver. He's shown up big so far this season without a doubt.

I think I read during the Australian GP that Hamilton's car was carrying extra sensors to harvest data so they can fix the car faster (can't remember the source, other than noting it was a reliable one). 

He's definitely not breaking late as he would normally do. The porpoising definitely is impacting his confidence in the car. I think it actually helps Russell that he's used to driving in that shitbox Williams, and everything else is an upgrade. 

[RadioactiveWaste]

So, how relevant is Russell's experience of dragging a shitbox into Q3 going to be at Mercedes where he'll be expected to get podiums?

Turns out, exceedingly relevant.

[SSD]

Lewis on Sunday

[RadioactiveWaste]

Who else is excited for the Miami dolphins car park grand Prix?

Will Mercedes fix their car?

Will Sainz rediscover his form?

Will red bull break down?

Will Latifi recover from his addiction to walls before Williams replace him with Oscar piastri?

Will the McLaren be back to a heap of poo at a race that isn't freezing bloody cold?

All these and more as the teams head to Florida in aquest to find "Florida man"

[ThePrisoner]

2 hours ago, RadioactiveWaste said:

Who else is excited for the Miami dolphins car park grand Prix?

Will Mercedes fix their car?

Will Sainz rediscover his form?

Will red bull break down?

Will Latifi recover from his addiction to walls before Williams replace him with Oscar piastri?

Will the McLaren be back to a heap of poo at a race that isn't freezing bloody cold?

All these and more as the teams head to Florida in aquest to find "Florida man"

We're due Verstappen pushing the car to it's absolute limit in the heat with a lap to go. 

I still find the Mercedes situation tricky, ok Russell has been lucky but also has put himself near positions to get that luck. Assume Lewis' configs just aren't working with the car. Not sure that it's a case of him not being arsed but would like to see some level of determination from him.

[RadioactiveWaste]

41 minutes ago, ThePrisoner said:

We're due Verstappen pushing the car to it's absolute limit in the heat with a lap to go. 

I still find the Mercedes situation tricky, ok Russell has been lucky but also has put himself near positions to get that luck. Assume Lewis' configs just aren't working with the car. Not sure that it's a case of him not being arsed but would like to see some level of determination from him.

I think Lewis is being more aggressive in set up to try to get the car where he wants but George is just like "3 years in a Williams, this is great being in the 3rd fastest car"

If, and it's a big if, Mercedes can fix their car, I think Lewis will be back to somewhere near his best.