F1

Jackflash

Midfield General
Staff member
Max continues to stretch the lead in the standings. The ease with which the Red Bull car opens a lead in the early laps doesn’t auger well for Mercedes and Hamilton. Either Hamilton has lost his edge, or the Mercedes shop has / is producing and inferior car, or both … or Max and Red Bull have found an extra gear. But it’s not just Max, Perez is also able to work his car through the pack from deep starting positions. Today he started in the pit lane yet sill finished 8th, indicating that the Red Bull team with a Honda power plant is superior to Mercedes.

Bottas continues to be anemic and twists in the breeze awaiting his fate for next season.
You tend to reach a stage in development where you hit a brick wall, and can't get any more from a power unit, which may well be the case for Mercedes. Lesser Teams are still heading for that brick wall, but have still got a bit of development left, unlike Mercedes couldn't financially get there earlier.
The focus must now be on aerodynamics, driver learning to brake a couple of hundredths of a second later into the turns.
Honda development is among the worlds best, when I was out in Nagoya I had a factory tour (not of their F1) but their saloon car production, attention to detail was unbelievable. Even in Japan it is considered the best build quality car out there. Such is their boast that over the main factory entrance is a big arched sign (in English) saying ' IF HONDA MADE MAN HE WOULD LIVE FOREVER'.
As you say Yankee it would appear Honda are still a little away from that wall.
 
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ivoralljack

Grizzled Veteran
Staff member
Back in the day I had a Rover Sterling Mk1 (1988) and in basic automatic form it did 0-62 mph in 7.6 seconds. That was wickedly quick back then particularly for a large automatic saloon. I had it tuned up and once, when bucketing down the M20 towards Dover to catch a late night ferry to France that we were in danger of missing, I took the speedo to the max reading of 150 mph. Accurate reading? Who knows but we were going pretty fast for sure. We caught the ferry and I noticed a vibration in the steering driving around Calais doing our booze run and when we got back to Dover the following day, I found that the tread had been stripped from both front tyres! o_O

Anyway, the point I'm making is that the car had a 24 valve 6 cylinder 2.7 litre engine (I believe later models were de-tuned from the Mk2 on). When I bought the car from my friend's showroom/garage, he wanted to show us all his party trick. He took a pencil, stood it upright on the engine block, then got behind the wheel and revved the guts out of the engine. The pencil didn't even tremble let alone fall over. I bought the car early in 1990 and that engine was so impressive. I can tell you that in a short space of time I put 200,00 miles on the clock, most of it hard fast motorway driving (you didn't have the same level of speed camera/trap technology back then) mainly close to 100 mph.

When I moved to Spain I still had the car and never spent a penny on it other than routine maintenance and consumables. Eventually I sold it because the bodywork had started to go. But both the engine and gearbox were still working absolutely fine. That series of Rover had a poor reputation but that was one of the finest and most reliable cars I have ever owned and I have had circa 30+ cars in my lifetime because of the business I was in. For me, it was an incredible tribute to Honda engineering.
 

Jackflash

Midfield General
Staff member
Alfa Romeo have officially announced Bottas will join them for the 2022 season.
Also Mercedes has announced Russell will accompany Hamilton for 2022.
Although Hamilton has partnered World Champions Alonso, Button, & Rosburg, he says Bottas was the best team mate he's had.
Possibly because he was often prepared to undertake the role of tail gunner for Hamilton.
Hardly a role he can expect from Russell, who himself has been showing signs of outperforming the car.
 

ivoralljack

Grizzled Veteran
Staff member
I'd guess that Russell will be under strict team orders at least for his first season as part of the deal for his seat. Be interesting when the shackles are released though.
 

Jackflash

Midfield General
Staff member
I'd guess that Russell will be under strict team orders at least for his first season as part of the deal for his seat. Be interesting when the shackles are released though.
Don't think Mercedes will apply any team orders to Russell, their objective is or will be to challenge Verstappen and Red Bull, and Mercedes will be looking to Russell claw back those seconds Hamilton is conceding to Max V and Red Bull.
Constructors points are what matters more to teams, and Verstappen is beginning to put the cat among the pigeons, he could possibly start to have a psychological effect on Hamilton, and I think Mercedes will be looking to Russell to stop the rot.
One possibility that may change things is that Honda are once again withdrawing from F1 for the 2022 season, Red Bull have an agreement with Honda to keep the power unit and develop it in house, also having to give it a different name. This could go one way or another.
 

Jackflash

Midfield General
Staff member
Think we are about to see a bit of nit picking between Mercedes & Red Bull, already Hamilton & Mercedes are questioning the legality of RBR's flexible rear wing, possibly something noticed by Hamilton when pursuing Verstappen down the straights.
There is a constant battle between F1 engineers and the FIA as to what they can and can't get away with. a lot of them being hairline decisions.
I remember in the 'Turbo' days, the FIA ruled on a fuel tank size of X amount of litres, on the assumption they would have to nurse the car a little to get over the line. (so they thought) it resulted in a team freezing the fuel allowing them to get a extra 16 litres into the tank, then flat out to burn the excess off in the first couple of laps. that ruling lasted 3 races.
 

Yankee_Jack

Key Player
Hamilton out did himself yesterday. “Shifting into reverse” at the start of the sprint, he managed to turn P2 into P4. While Botas, obviously now relaxed with a settled future, stormed ahead.
 

Jackflash

Midfield General
Staff member
Pretty stupid driving by MV. He's damned lucky his penalty is so lenient. Good to see the Macs getting one and two.
Didn't see the race, have seen some replays of some of the race incidents., and imo that's exactly what they are, racing incidents, These cars travel their length in 300-000th's of a second, and the length of a football field in one second. thinking time is very much zero. These marshals that think they know what a driver should and shouldn't do at race speed have never experienced racing at this level in their lives, all very easy to sit in a office and make video judgments.
We are talking about professional race drivers who are employed by their team to win races, not to adapt the 'After you sir, just in case we make contact' attitude.
 

ivoralljack

Grizzled Veteran
Staff member
Let's face it, Max has earned a reputation as a bully. Problems arise when his rivals refuse to be bullied and fight back as Lewis does - you get crashes. Max is, imo, an immature young man. He should realise he has massive talent and will become a multiple World Champion sooner rather than later. Meantime, just dilute the juice a little before something really nasty happens.
 

Yankee_Jack

Key Player
What I am seeing is that Hamilton is facing a real competitive threat for the first time in a long time and is at risk of coming second best to MV in the driver's championship. Where as in the past his skills and the car could make the the difference ... the car is not that superior any more. He's not dealing with this additional pressure particularly well and is demonstrating vulnerability. The incident in the race could have ended a lot worse than it did. It's going to make for some stellar racing and when the two leaders take each other out it gives the rest of the field something to really drive for.

And ... Bottas, now that his future is clear, relaxes and drives from last on the grid to place 3rd after penalties. Not a bad day's work.
 

Jackflash

Midfield General
Staff member
What I am seeing is that Hamilton is facing a real competitive threat for the first time in a long time and is at risk of coming second best to MV in the driver's championship. Where as in the past his skills and the car could make the the difference ... the car is not that superior any more. He's not dealing with this additional pressure particularly well and is demonstrating vulnerability. The incident in the race could have ended a lot worse than it did. It's going to make for some stellar racing and when the two leaders take each other out it gives the rest of the field something to really drive for.

And ... Bottas, now that his future is clear, relaxes and drives from last on the grid to place 3rd after penalties. Not a bad day's work.
It's a bit of a double edge sword, driver conflict and manufacturer conflict, Hamilton & Mercedes keep whinging on about RBR's flexi rear wing, They should be told by the FIA to either PUT UP or SHUT UP meaning either pay for an investigation or be quiet.
Yes the rear wing is known to dip in straight line speed but not the aerofoil itself, the whole rear structure of the car lowers at speed and until the FIA deems it to be illegal it stands.
There was an incident when the front wings of some team came into question, deemed to be flexible, it was not until 200 kg's was rested on them did they almost touch the track. illegal (banned)
End of story. No way, the normal fibreglass construction of the front wings was that the matting was laid north to south, but they discovered that if the matting strips were applied diagonally at speed the outer part of the wing flexed down to circuit level. static testing by the FIA proved nothing illegal for quite a while.
 

Yankee_Jack

Key Player
Things have really been turned upside down in Russia.

Starting grid has: 1) Norris, 2) Sainz, 3) Russell, 4) Hamilton …. 7) Bottas …. Last) Max V

let’s see who has the fastest start and best car … and how far up field Max can finish.

5 points separate Max and Lewis in the standings. Max could lose the championship with this race.
 

Yankee_Jack

Key Player
Ballsy drive by Norris. Shame he was robbed by rain at the end.

Lewis gets 100th victory. Rain or shine he might have taken Norris at the end.

Max did a perfect job, finished 2nd, great damage control and now has a newer power unit for the rest of the season.
 

Jackflash

Midfield General
Staff member
Pity for Lando, it would have been great to see him get his first win.
Worst feeling in the world when the car / kart wont respond to understeer, immediate reaction is to power the back end in an attempt to correct it, but the power being what it is its almost impossible to feather the power in, resulting in either a full 360 or into the tyres on the opposite side of the circuit. My condolences to him, but also my congratulations to Hamilton on his 100th landmark victory.
 

ivoralljack

Grizzled Veteran
Staff member
Fantastic performance from Hamilton; perhaps one of his greatest ever. Pundits and experts raving about his drive and well deserved after Verstappen blatantly drove him off the track to prevent being overtaken. All to no avail because Lewis nailed him later but it is an absolute farce that Verstappen wasn't punished for his action. He gets away with a lot under the guise of being a 'hard' driver when in fact he's really a bully boy who tries to intimidate other drivers with his tactics.

I don't understand why he has to resort to this kind of thing. He's a brilliant and talented driver who will doubtless become World Champion sooner rather than later - quite probably this season unless Mercedes' new engine proves too hot to handle as happened yesterday. The final races are going to be great viewing and, being honest, I'm rooting for Lewis because it seems to me that obstacles are deliberately being put in his path because the 'Authorities' want to see a new World Champion.
 

Yankee_Jack

Key Player
Agreed ... it is becoming clear that the establishment is seeking a new idol, new marketing revenue and so on. Although they did ping Max 50k euros for touching the Mercedes car after qualifying for the sprint.
 

Jackflash

Midfield General
Staff member
Fantastic performance from Hamilton; perhaps one of his greatest ever. Pundits and experts raving about his drive and well deserved after Verstappen blatantly drove him off the track to prevent being overtaken. All to no avail because Lewis nailed him later but it is an absolute farce that Verstappen wasn't punished for his action. He gets away with a lot under the guise of being a 'hard' driver when in fact he's really a bully boy who tries to intimidate other drivers with his tactics.

I don't understand why he has to resort to this kind of thing. He's a brilliant and talented driver who will doubtless become World Champion sooner rather than later - quite probably this season unless Mercedes' new engine proves too hot to handle as happened yesterday. The final races are going to be great viewing and, being honest, I'm rooting for Lewis because it seems to me that obstacles are deliberately being put in his path because the 'Authorities' want to see a new World Champion.
Cant say obstacles are deliberately being put in his path when his team used a fifth power unit when F1 rules state a maximum of three can be used in a season, hence his being back of the grid. It's his team that are creating the obstacles, which in fact is nothing less than cheating.
Also his disqualification from practice was again down to Mercedes, the rear wing of the car not meeting the 85mm measurements and costing him pole.
Mercedes need to get their act together, and start playing fair.
 
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