Formula 1 - 2017 Season

[BruceK]

New season  is just beginning this weekend  and I'm watching the first practice sessions from Australia, looking forward to Sunday's race.   

The cars look a lot better this year with the wider tires front and back and the new lower wings. 

Anyone else watching?

[MiniDave]

I'm watching Qually right now....times are coming down but it looks to me like the Mercs are still going to be .5 seconds faster than everyone else.

[Jims5543]

I would like to take this moment and congratulate Lewis Hamilton on his 4th WDC and record breaking 2017 season.

Once Bottas comes to terms with the Merc it will be another 1-2 season. I suspect he will be in P2 in 2-3 races.

[MiniDave]

I'm not ready to give it to them yet  -  Vettel's only a few tenths back - although I hear the Mercs are over 1000 hp now, and still using the same amount of fuel! pretty amazing!

And how about Grosjean finishing 6th in the HAAS?

[Jims5543]

I would like to take this moment and congratulate Lewis Hamilton Sebastian Vettel on his 4th  5th WDC and record breaking 2017 season.  ;D

I will believe it after 2 or 3 more races.  Right now I think Mercedes got caught being too complacent and not used to being challenged properly.

I also think Bottas, if allowed, is going to be a real problem for Lewis.  He seemed to hold station after closing in on Lewis late in the race. So far, he is being a good #2 driver. 

[MiniDave]

Well, if they couldn't have Ricky Racer win it, the hometown folks were perfectly happy with Sea Bass!  ;D

Did you hear the way they Boo'd the Hamster? I actually think he likes playing the villain, it will help push his "gangsta rappa" image forward after he's done driving. Did you realize this was his 12th race in Aussiland? Can't believe he's been around that long already.......

I think the Hamster is in for a tough season, between the resurgence of the boys in red and his new teammate.......

Too bad for Haas, both cars out after Mr. Greenjeans did such a fantastic job in qually.

The rest were pretty much as expected except for Ocon, hell of a first race for the new team for him - and well done!

All I can say is for once Ferrari didn't muck it up, could be a fun season. Sea Bas said the cars were hella fun to drive, and he could have gone on all afternoon - that's in sharp contrast to some of the other boys who clearly were having a tough day of it in their cars. But, if Sea Bass is happy with his car? Look out!

However........

The same problem as before - not being able to pass - seems to be even worse this year. Lewis is a consummate passer when he has the bit in his teeth, and he said right away there was no way he could get around Verstappen, and that was on his fresh tires. We could have another season of the front runner going off into the distance and the rest parading around.....same as when Vettel won his championships and Lewis did the same.

We'll see what happens in China - which is one of Vettel's favorite tracks, btw.

[gr8kornholio]

Excited to see some competition to the Mercs, and a good play by the Ferrari's.  Totally bummed my driver Ricardo had such a horrible day.  Better days ahead I'm sure. 

[BruceK]

Lots of action in this race.  Of course much of that was due to the weather.   Looks like it's going to be an interesting season with the Mercedes and Ferrari fight.

Quite a show from Max, moving up so far during the race.  But disappointing to see him complain like a little baby about Grojean being in front of him.  Don't like it?  Pass him! 

[MiniDave]

So much for not being able to pass?

However even with the rain it was pretty much same ol same ol for the winner, get out in front, put in a gap and cruise home for the victory.

Some good stuff in this one, no doubt.

[gr8kornholio]

Yea I was really surprised by Max, started to sound like Vettle from last year.  Of course I was hoping he'd whine himself into a mistake so Riccardo could pounce.  No such luck. 

Maybe they should wet the track before every race.

[MiniDave]

Another good race today in Bahrain, and Vettel and Ferrari make it 2 for 3 on the season, not a bad start.

The Hamster gave it his all at the end but I don't think he really had a chance, I think Vettel was just minding his pace and controlling the gap to the end of the race.

The Ferraris and Mercs are pretty well matched this season, I think it's gong to seesaw all season, should be fun to watch!

Poor Alonso, things just are NOT getting better a MacHonda....made it to lap 55 at least....better than his teammate at least, Van Dorne didn't even get to start.

I think Alonso may be going to jump ship to Indy car if he does well this month, shades of Mansell.

[MiniDave]

Interesting race in Spain, I still do not understand how Vettel put such a huge gap on the Mercedes in the early going and then lost the race in the end.....

Alonslow finally finished a race - in 12th, which is partially helped by the Mercedes and Red Bull ahead of him dropping out - so really he had a 14th place car, still an improvement over dead last, but not much.....I imagine he could not wait to get on the plane to Indianapolis!

I think the surprise of the season is the continued steady strong performance by the Force India team, both drivers in the points every single race this year - I don't think any other team can say that. They are going to challenge Red Bull for third in the constructors this year if they keep this up.

[BruceK]

I'm really liking some of the post-Bernie changes from the new F1 management.   Such as prominent numbers and the driver's 3 character name on the cars, the post-qually interview in front of the grandstands, and I think I saw grid girls with t-shirt canons in the background during the interviews.

[Jims5543]

Ferrari blew that win for Vettel, once again.  Vettel was opening up a nice lead on the soft tires while Hamilton was running the hards, Hamilton even complained that it was impossible to keep up with Vettel, Mercedes pit wall told him the tables will be turned in the last stint and to just stay as close as he could. 


The virtual safety was implemented, Mercedes took advantage of the speed limited front strait and pitted, Ferrari were sleeping, they probably felt it was worth staying out on the softs even though the real advantage was to pit during the virtual safety car when the competition could not go full speed on the front straight. It was that moment, when Hamilton pitted that Ferrari lost. I watched the Sky broadcast and they were all over this when it was happening calling the Mercedes move brilliant, and it was. Not sure NBC covered that or if they were at one of their 100 commercial breaks when it happened.  Sky has no breaks through out the race.

From that point on the race was over.  The only thing I thought Ferrari should have done since they could, was pit again (Riccardo was so far back) put on another set of softs and see if they could run down the Merc. Which I think was impossible since Hamilton was on softs too.

As I typed that, it dawns on me, Mercedes just had the better strategy, Bottas slowing down Vettel after his first stop was most likely the event that killed his race. He had no chance in the final stint on Mediums vs. Hamilton on softs with no gap.  The best he could hope for was 2nd after he got caught behind Bottas.

Winning move of the day was Kimi meeting up the the kid that was crying (Thomas) when Kimi was knocked out in turn 1.  Huge props to Ferrari for finding the kid and bringing him to hospitality for the meeting. Bigger props to Kimi for meeting up.



Ferrari are no strangers to this, a little less known story, I follow this kid on Instagram, his name is Sam. How I found Sam was when he got to meet his hero 2 years ago, Sebastian Vettel. Sam has Vanishing White Matter disease, cannot walk and is terminal. He is a huge F1 fan (I am sure parent influence) and Vettel fan.  Ferrari and Vettel arranged for the boy to have full pit access during the Austin race 2 years ago.  Crazy how this had almost no coverage and the Kimi thing was all over the place.  Here is a pic of Seb meeting Same, picking the lad up and putting him in his car.



I hope we see more of this kind of stuff in F1, it seems it has been going on all along, for whatever reason (Bernie I am looking at you) we barely saw it.  I hope to see more of this.


One last note, seems Liberty now offers fan experience packages, I saw an article on this, they are not for the faint of heart and can set you back big money for even the simplest package, not sure that is getting away from the Rolex / Ferrari scene Bernie wants, but the packages are selling out. I guess they found a good market to tap into.  I am a fan I attended one race in Montreal in 2011 as a bucket list type of thing, for a family of 4 it set me back some coin, the plane tickets were cheaper than the grandstand seats.  I would love to do it again, no way I am dropping thousands for an "experience", not that big of a fan.

[pbraun]

I think going to pre-season testing in Barcelona would be a great way to see these cars and drivers at a more reasonable cost.

[MiniDave]

Big day in racing today, Monaco F1 is on now, Vettel is set to win it unless something unexpected happens, then later we get to watch Alonso try to race at Indy, then tonight the NASCAR 600 mile race.

Fun day for race fans!

[MiniDave]

Update:

Vettel wins Monaco, Kimi finishes second, Mercedes 4th and 7th. Ferrari now leads both the drivers and constructors championships over Mercedes....good start to the 2017 season!

At 50 laps Alonso P1 at Indy!

[BruceK]

I cracked up during the pre-race radio transmission between Alonso and Button when Jensen said he was going to pee on Fernando's seat.  71.gif

[MiniDave]

I did not hear that!  :-\

I did hear him say "take care of my car"

[BruceK]

I did not hear that!  :-\

I did hear him say "take care of my car"

Check it out. There must be a recording out there on the Interwebs

[Jims5543]

Here is the radio transmission, I laughed my ass off.

Lap times were interesting, once Kimi, and this breaks my heart, got out of the way, Vettel was off flying.


I did not notice this wall where poor Pasquale ended up on his side. If you look close it is a painting of the harbor, see the shadow up in the corner?

[MiniDave]

This weekend it's Canada's turn, and right now in FP3  Vettel leads Kimi's best time by a few tenths and the Hamster is third just a few tenths back from the two Ferrari's. I have to admit it's been fun seeing something besides a Mercedes in the top spots, but it really is only a two team championship this year - better than last year no doubt, but still not what we'd all like to see - in Indy car racing, 7 different winners in 7 races so far this season!

Qually is at 1 pm central time, the race tomorrow is at 1 pm also....Looking forward to it!

It's been interesting seeing the improvement in the Renault, I think they are sneaking up on the other guys and poised to become a player at the front of the grid, maybe not this season, but certainly by the next one. Hulk happy!

Likewise Force India has been a consistent top ten team all season, I don't know how far they can continue to go up the grid, but they have outperformed many better funded teams and again - consistency is their forte' this season.

Red Bull has shown 5th place form all season, I really thought they might do better and it's hard to believe it's the engine holding them back with the improvements the Hulk has made.

McLaren - what the heck are they going to do now? Go back to Benz? Renault? Clearly their deal with Honda is over, and even tho Honda has signed with Sauber, will they actually be on the grid next season?

And what of Alonso? Could he oust Kimi at Ferrari next season? I don't think so. I think his best move might be back to Renault. With the improvements they've shown I think he could bring them back to the front of the grid again.

As the steering wheel turns......   ;D

[MiniDave]

Qually in Canada......


Pos.
Driver
Team
Time
1

Lewis Hamilton
Mercedes
1:11.459
2

Sebastian Vettel
Ferrari
1:11.789
3

Valtteri Bottas
Mercedes
1:12.177
4

Kimi Räikkönen
Ferrari
1:12.252
5

Max Verstappen
Red Bull Racing
1:12.403
6

Daniel Ricciardo
Red Bull Racing
1:12.557
7

Felipe Massa
Williams
1:12.858
8

Sergio Perez
Force India
1:13.018
9

Esteban Ocon
Force India
1:13.135
10

Nico Hulkenberg
Renault
1:13.271

[BruceK]

Very very close.  Should be a good race tomorrow between Ferrari and Mercedes. 

[BruceK]

Just watched the surprise presentation of one of Senna's helmets to Lewis.   Wow.