F1 - 2021

[BruceK]

Ahh, thanks for the detailed info Craig. 

I was on the road when the race happened, so I just watch the recording two days ago. What an incredible race!   Poor Lando, he was in such a tough position as to whether to stay out on the slicks or pit for intermediates.  With the amount of rain coming being the big unknown, either way could be very wrong.   Even though it turned out that he made the wrong decision, I think he still did the right thing by trusting his gut.

[Brit_in_TX]

Considering the conditions, I found the Turkish GP to be dull. 

Hamilton tripped himself up by arguing about strategy and if he loses the championship by a few points - this will be the reason. 

Glad Bottas got a win this season, he has been deserving of it. 

[BruceK]

I agree it was mostly boring - damp without really raining.   

Loved the special Honda colors livery on the Red Bulls for the race. 

The little battle between Hamilton and Perez was great racing!

Lewis really is World Champion...  of Bitching and Moaning, isn't he?     ;D

[MiniDave]

As you all know I'm not a Ham fan, but he has won races in the past by disagreeing with his pit's strategy, he's also lost races based on their strategy so to me it all works out over time.

Still, it was interesting to see him getting called in and ignoring them....

Like 95% of F1 races in the past 20 years or so, the leader simply runs off and leaves the rest of them - as long as he can maintain the more than a second gap, he's pretty safe up front.

It was fun seeing some of the other drivers giving no quarter to the Hammy.....

Still getting the odd really slow pitstop.....fairly well eff's up some of the driver's races.

I don't know where we're headed championship wise - Mercedes a ways out in front in the Constructors, and Max still building his small lead in the Driver's.....having Checo come in right behind Max sure helps in the points for the team tho.

Vettel's experiment with the slick tires was fun to watch, but not fun for him!

Interesting that Hamster thought he could go the whole race on the one set of intermediates.....

Also fun to see the Ferrari's in the mix at the front, Sainz really made some great moves as he went thru the field, and Char held them off for a while at the front. I'd like to see some more winners from different teams the rest of the year. I think there could be one for Gasly and maybe LeClerc before the season is out.....

[Brit_in_TX]

I will be interested to see if we can get some other winners.  I saw something online that said this season has the highest number of winners since 2012.

Hamilton has always gone well in Austin in the past, so be interesting to see what happens there. 

[MiniDave]

COTA is def a HP track, so I think the Mercs will have an advantage there......I also would like to see more different winners, Norris is overdue and I think Gasly might be capable of pulling one off again too

[pbraun]

Yes, I agree. Been there to see 3 GP and it's a great track to watch at, and a super town!  Go LandoLad!

[BruceK]

Argh!    Just retuned home from a car show to find no F1 qually on my DVR.   Was it broadcast? 

[MiniDave]

Just started, they're only thru Q1 so far, turn it on!

[BruceK]

Thanks. But I checked again. Unfortunately the F1 Qualification is nowhere on my cable system.  Don't know why.  Other than sometimes on the US and Canadian F1 races they show up on different channels.

[MiniDave]

It was on ESPN for me......I'm on Google Fiber and it records it whenever or wherever it shows up for me.

[BruceK]

I wish my cable company did that. 

I found Qually appearing on an ESPN Standard Definition channel — which was not part of my "package"  so I could not see it.   WTF? (with HD who the hell watches Standard Definition TV anyway?)

Looks like tomorrow the race will be on plain old ABC network?!    With commercials I wonder?

[MiniDave]

God I hope not, it's been one of the real benefits of the last two seasons not having to cut away to commercials!

Have you seen the results already?

I'm watching Q3 now.....

[BruceK]

I checked.  Yes, the Austin race will only be shown on ABC tomorrow, not ESPN.  Sure hope it's Sky coverage - not some American commentators.   I seem to remember back in 2019 being delighted that ABC didn't have commercials for the Austin race.    Hope that is the case this year.

Qually was on some obscure special cable channel called ESPNews - I didn't even know that channel existed. And, as I said, I don't have access to it.

I'll look for the Qually highlights to pop up on YouTube - should be released soon.

[MiniDave]

OK, I won't spoil it except to say it was so close to being a NEW not-Hamilton on pole!   ;D

[BruceK]

Checo!!!!    4.gif

That was great.

[MiniDave]

Well, I only got to see the start of the race today, it was on our local ABC affiliate and they cut away to the weather as we had tornados dropping right and left about 30 miles north of us. While I can't fault them for cutting away from the race it meant we missed all the excitement.....at least in Austin!

I know who won, but I'll not post it just yet in case any others have it on record delay.

The good news - no commercials!

[BruceK]

So sorry you missed it. Most of the "excitement" in the race was in the final 20 laps in the duel between Max and Lewis.  Could Lewis with the newer tires catch up to Max who was 8.5 seconds ahead?  And how would lapped traffic and DRS affect things? 

It was great there were no commercials. Kudos to ABC for that.  But how the hell can a major network like ABC still be broadcasting HD in only low resolution 720p?  What year is this, 2011?  It was definitely a downgrade from the usual higher ESPN video quality.   

Here's a video of the highlights, but it can't be played here and can only be played on YouTube so you can follow this link.

https://youtu.be/-Ee08uFurok

[MiniDave]

I wonder why pole was on the outside of the first turn, isn't it usually on the inside?

Fun race, good to see action thru out the field!   4.gif

[LarryLebel]

Satisfying to see the Brit Git not win.

[Brit_in_TX]

I attended the Grand Prix at COTA and it was awesome.  We had general admission tickets, so were sat on the outside of turn 11. The commentary at the circuit made it pretty easy to follow the race trackside, although the video screen was a little small to see much of the detail without using binoculars!

The final part of the race was pretty intense and the crowd really wanted Verstappen to win. 

There was over 400,000 attendees over the weekend which one article told me was 40% higher than the previous race.  And the logistics at the track certainly seemed to confirm that, there was a lot of queuing for drinks and food. 

Next year I might get tickets for a grandstand, but it really depends what the prices will be for next year.

[Brit_in_TX]

This was walking around on Friday between the practice sessions.

[MiniDave]

When Bruce and I went a few years ago, turn 1 hillside was the place to be!

We didn't see an F1 race, rather Aussie Supercars, but boy would I like to drive that track!

CVAR does a vintage sports car race there in Nov.....might be fun to go to that....I'll know quite a few of the racers that will be there so I'm pretty sure I can get into the pits OK

[Brit_in_TX]

I watched from turn 1 in 2012 and also for MotoGP at the beginning of October (but I was in the Red Bull hospitality area).  As my wife is 6 months pregnant so turn 1 was not happening as Turn 11 was right near where we parked. 

For MotoGP, I was in the bleachers at Turn 12 for part of the day (before my friend called to tell me he had passes for Red Bull hospitality (free beer!)) and you could see a huge amount of the circuit and turn 12 is the main passing spot. 

I also watched NASCAR from Turn 2, and the good thing about that is you are really close to the track so you get to see the cars up close.  You can also see Turns 16-19 across the track

[MiniDave]

It is a fantastic facility, no question. We had tix for turn 2 in 2020, but of course we didn't go.....