2021 Formula One Sao Paulo Grand Prix

Appie Kuipers said:

And they say he is like Senna Senna was a real racer, Ham is the DRS doctor, for 7 years.

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Yes, it does seem a little unfair that Hamilton is the only driver allowed to use DRS.

Tiffarnio said:

Yes, it does seem a little unfair that Hamilton is the only driver allowed to use DRS.

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The fastest car gets the most advantage from drs, and you know it.

Richard Wilks said:

Regarding the second part of your post, maybe they did? Context is important. And since you seem to like the engineering aspect, a big gripe i have with this Mercedes domination and with the "its not the car" crowd regarding Hamilton, is that Mercedes did a better job yes, but they got a massive headstart, and their advantage was crystalized with the rules forbidding testing and the token system. Basically the headstart was never going to be recovered, because by partially freezing development, the rate at which someone could have caught mercedes was slowed down drastically, allowing them to always be one step ahead of the competition.

For comparison sake, imagine if in 1978, a rule came out that forbade testing, and any new component would have to go through a homologation schedule, and most of the chassis is freezed. We would have Andretti and the lotus 79 dominating F1 for years! Or the same in 1992, we would be talking about Mansell as a multiple world champion, or Prost could have the double of the titles, if Williams would go on 5 more years with the active car, and everybody else had their legs cut to catch up.

To cap it all, the token system was a complete failure, so much that we will now have real budget caps, and the likes of VW are saying the will never enter F1 unless they are given special concessions to catch up quicker...

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Absolutely, and Mercedes did get a head start because in 2012/13 when Redbull were fighting Ferrari for the championships Mercedes were quietly in the background working on their new hybrid engine. Once they realised the power they had it was then about designing an aero package to compliment the PU. It was no coincidence the end result was both Redbull and Ferrari trailing Mercedes for the next seven years.

The thing is I believe Mercedes will be ahead for a few more years, I believe Toto is pushing Redbull as hard as he can for as long as he can in these championships, if they win they win, if they don't they don't, they've got 7, but the aim is, Horner is desperate for these titles, especially cementing Max at Redbull for the foreseeable future so force him to throw everything at it plus the kitchen sink, absolutely everything! So for example if from early in the year Mercedes could channel 20% more resources away from this year and on to next years car over Redbulls resources, (Say Mercedes 60% on next years car, Redbull 40%) with both teams having over 2000 employees that could equate to 400 more personnel working on next years car, an additional 20% more wind tunnel time on top, 20% extra additional parts being designed, built and tested, etc. Not exact but you get my point, Redbull could be suffering the next couple of years because of this championship and they'll also have to be careful of Ferrari and McLaren too.

Regarding the engines and general development, it was introduced to stop the big teams endlesly testing and the smaller teams having to overspend to keep up, I agree if there was open testing Redbull and all the teams would be able to improve but then how much further ahead would Mercedes also get?

And what Mercedes did in Brazil with their engine was pretty clever really, if you say they needed to run their engines at 90% to last 7 races, with only 4 races left they could run 3 races 96%/94%/94% and use one of the older engines in a suitable race, not only did Lewis have a power advantage from a brand new engine but Max and co's used engines would have been down on power causing a wider gap so Lewis would have a pace advantage and a good possibility to win 3 races and then take his chance in the other with the older engine. From a team on the back foot going into Brazil and time running out it was a good tactical plan to give themselves a genuine chance of winning the championship.

Richard Wilks said:

Well first of all Max is not my man. I just happen to comment more on his side,because i believe he is being unfairly targeted lately.

Second, i did not forget the asinine reasoning that "outcome doesn't matter", that the FIA used to justify giving that puny penalty to Hamilton. But remember that the "let them race" was brought up also because social media and the press were up in arms with the penalties at Austria, and wanted them to "just race". Well now we are racing right?...

As for the incident itself, many people, you included, are working under the assumption that Hamilton would have made the corner if Max didnt "divebomb". Well i am not so sure about that. And i believe nor were the stewards.

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It doesn't matter how asinine you think the FIA s reasoning is. It's irrelevent to the point. The point is the stewards have been making their decisions on this basis, whether you agree with them or not, for at least the last few years. I included the Silverstone verdict as reinforcement of the point as it's the most high profile from this season.

Let's roll it back. In reply to another poster who said 'this sort of driving should not be tolerated', you posted a response referencing HAMs two incidents with Albon from '19 and '20. I thought it perculiar and pointed it out because it turns out it wasn't tolerated; HAM got a penalty and 'stripped' of a podium finish. It seems an odd example when I'm sure there's tonnes of examples you could've found that better proved your point.

Thing is, I'm still not sure what that point is. If it's "Hamilton's no angel either" then an example of him actually avoiding punishment probs would have better But then it's a weird game of Top Trumps to play when your card is of Max who had new rules introduced to curb his wreckless driving early on.

With regards to the incident on Sunday, you're right, I am under that assumption, and unfortunately can only assume because Max kinda hogs any line HAM would've took had he been left some track. What we can see is Max missing his corner and running wide, the reason for that is where the questions lay.
I've already stated a couple of times but I believe HAM takes evasive action, which is kinda difficult if you've scrubbed all your grip outbraking yourself but assume that'll be clearer once looked into.

For what its worth I don't think the appeal will go anywhere as any penalty will carry too much weight considering where we are in the season. Merc will need to prove beyond reasonable doubt their was intent and Max has enough wiggle room there as there's no 'smoking gun' with the onboard. If the appeal sorts anything hopefully it'll allow everyone to hammer out exactly what they want to deem acceptable between each other.

I wish there were more raced Arnouxx vs Villeneuve Dijon. Sunday it was. Amen

muzikant said:

I wish there were more raced Arnouxx vs Villeneuve Dijon. Sunday it was. Amen

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Lots of fans overhere act if they are FIA members, instead being a race fan, that’s why we have that endless discussions

muzikant said:

It was racing Silvetstone LH hit the rear of Max car. Interlagos Max and Lewis dont hit

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I mean the way LH fans are comparing the corners...not quite as bad as the Monza comparison. The amount of arguments I've had on Farcebook with LH fans saying Lewis outbraked Max into copse...LOL. You don't "dive" down the inside on a very shallow line at copse and expect to make the corner.

Amereto1 said:

I can agree to some of this, on the other side of the coin I would also say as the season has gone on Checco has got a lot quicker and is considerably closer to Max than the last few team mates, that is all about his driver skills and talent and not him all of a sudden being given a quicker car, something Albon and Gasly couldn't do. So even though Checco had a very quick car from the beginning of the season a driver still needs the talent to extract the performance and a driver still needs the talent to beat his team mates in the case of Lewis.

"Those who can design the tech the best".. This has always been the heartbeat of this sport going back to the 50's, it's the fans who get tribalism about drivers, the engineering aspect of F1 cars is what got me into F1 and what interests me the most, I would gladly have the career of Newey, Chapman, Barnard or Rudolf Uhlenhaut (designed gull wing doors, Le Mans cars and Fangio's car which won 9 out of 12 races in a season in the 50's, I wonder if people were moaning in 1954 how the sport is boring and Fangio is only champion because of his car..lol) over any F1 champion. That's why my disappointment is with the other 9 teams, 8 this season rather than Mercedes who I admire for their engineering excellence as I have done with Ferrari, Red bull, Williams, Brawn in the past.

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Yup Checco's done well once he's got used to the team and car. I don't like the hero worship the drivers get (worse since social media). I rate most of the drivers at the top, they have to be really good to get there...even the pay drivers have to have a certain skill level.

I'm more disappointed with the FIA during the hybrid era, they let Merc dominance stand too long, no team in the modern era has had such a long period of dominance, Merc have had five 1-2 wdc finshes in the past 7 years, that's ridiculous IMO. This years rule change should have come at the end of 2016. Ok teams should be allowed to make hay when they get an advantage, but not for 7 years... I watch Moto GP and they have an excellent system of "concessions" to lower teams, they get more development and testing than the more successfull teams and it's helped Suzuki and KTM get nearer to the big boys of Ducati, Honda and Yamaha. Once podiums and wins start to come the concessions stop. A similar system in F1 would be good I reckon.

Appie Kuipers said:

And they say he is like Senna Senna was a real racer, Ham is the DRS doctor, for 7 years.

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To be fair to Lewis every driver has the DRS it's a tool he has access to and uses, what would be better is that the top 2 teams every year are NOT allowed DRS, that would shake things up a tad!!

Damage Inc said:

To be fair to Lewis every driver has the DRS it's a tool he has access to and uses, what would be better is that the top 2 teams every year are NOT allowed DRS, that would shake things up a tad!!

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Best solution imo would be to completely get rid of DRS. Or just allow DRS for let’s say 5x during a race.
I was never a fan of this artifical overtake helper because it’s…well…artificial. There's no skill involved in pressing a button to overtake.

Damage Inc said:

I watch Moto GP and they have an excellent system of "concessions" to lower teams, they get more development and testing than the more successfull teams and it's helped Suzuki and KTM get nearer to the big boys of Ducati, Honda and Yamaha. Once podiums and wins start to come the concessions stop. A similar system in F1 would be good I reckon.

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F1 has recently employed a similar solution, the top teams get less time in the wind tunnel I believe.

Damage Inc said:

Yup Checco's done well once he's got used to the team and car. I don't like the hero worship the drivers get (worse since social media). I rate most of the drivers at the top, they have to be really good to get there...even the pay drivers have to have a certain skill level.

I'm more disappointed with the FIA during the hybrid era, they let Merc dominance stand too long, no team in the modern era has had such a long period of dominance, Merc have had five 1-2 wdc finshes in the past 7 years, that's ridiculous IMO. This years rule change should have come at the end of 2016. Ok teams should be allowed to make hay when they get an advantage, but not for 7 years... I watch Moto GP and they have an excellent system of "concessions" to lower teams, they get more development and testing than the more successfull teams and it's helped Suzuki and KTM get nearer to the big boys of Ducati, Honda and Yamaha. Once podiums and wins start to come the concessions stop. A similar system in F1 would be good I reckon.

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Yep! Totally agree about the FIA. The problem was though that Mercedes dominance came from it's power unit, and because of the financial investment into the PU and manufacturers wanting some kind of trickle down engineering into their road cars and such to justify spending the enormous amount of money on F1, Mercedes were not about to agree to rip all that up and start again, plus they clearly had the upper hand on performance. Mercedes had guarantees there would be no significant engine changes., a bit like what Redbull wanted before investing the money and taking over Honda and since 2014 the only engine rule changes have been to limit the amount of components a team can use in a season, hence Mercedes continued dominance. The next big rule change is 2026 so it gives Redbull/Honda a bit of time to catch up which Honda have made great progress already. The aero changes at the beginning of this season were clearly to rein in Mercedes, also to Aston Martin's downfall, but probably should have been done a couple years ago at least. They did introduce the wind tunnel allowance system, where the bottom team would get considerably more development time than the champion and the others staggered in between but would that catapult HAAS to the front end of the grid, I very much doubt it.

F_B said:

Best solution imo would be to completely get rid of DRS. Or just allow DRS for let’s say 5x during a race.
I was never a fan of this artifical overtake helper because it’s…well…artificial. There's no skill involved in pressing a button to overtake.

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Limited DRS would be an idea, it opens the possibilities of when do you use it, to catch the guy in front or overtake them, do you use them early in the race or risk being out of the DRS zone and not using them at all in the race, if the team says the guy behind has 1 DRS attempt left do you try and entice him to use it unsuccessfully or try and keep as far away from the 1 second activation as possible.

JPM is right

LeSunTzu said:

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Britisch Will

The only thing that make some sense is that the pavement around the track as to get a safe exit is killing this type of challenges, where is all later susceptible of scrutiny and later penalty.
This manouver brought a Montoya manouver to my memory that was not controvertial at all in the media, because it was done by Montoya to Schumacher but if would had happened in reverse, Oh my! That would be British media shooting bullets all around.

muzikant said:

Britisch Will

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Well muzikant, we will have plenty of food at Christmas, overthere the shelves are empty
Russell, Max deserves a panelty, what a looser, ofcourse next year he sits on Hams lap, an other looser without an own opinion

Appie Kuipers said:

Well muzikant, we will have plenty of food at Christmas, overthere the shelves are empty
Russell, Max deserves a panelty, what a looser, ofcourse next year he sits on Hams lap, an other looser without an own opinion

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OMG

Paul Glover said:

I love how people ignore my posts when challenged.

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I'm so used to it by now lol...or they say something like "nevermind all this, let's look to the next race"