F1 2020

[MiniDave]

He's 2 pts away from getting a race ban ..... but he could win the driver's championship anyway.....

[BruceK]

Yes, that incongruity perfectly sums up Hamilton.

[MiniDave]

So, they took the two points back again from Hammy.....

They're also really getting Mick Schumacher ready to drive in F1, I think he gets one season with Alfa Romeo next year and - unless he has a terrible year in the Alfa - in 2022 he's in a Ferrari.

This weekend he'll drive the Alfa in FP1, Giovanazzi must see the handwriting on the wall.

[MiniDave]

Well, Honda just turned the F1 world on it's ear - they're leaving after 2021 season!

All sorts of implications there....like will Red Bull be able to keep Verstappen? What engine will they use now, they've pretty well burned their bridges with Renault, and Mercedes can't supply everyone. But they may not have a choice and will have to use Renault engines - they sure wouldn't want to start over with a new mfr (VW/Audi/Porsche?) and Ferrari is already linked with 2 other teams. Not that Ferrari would take them on anyway.....maybe build their own engines? They've talked about it before....

Honda have made it their goal to win the championship next season, but they will be working under a self imposed spending cap - so they may be limited in what they can actually accomplish.

And back to Verstappen....maybe this is the opportunity to go to Mercedes?

[MiniDave]

It's cold in Germany today - 45* - not exactly F1 weather.

The cold seems to help the Ferraris tho as they're both in the top 5.

Track limits are being strictly enforced again and lap times deleted right and left.

Lance Stroll is sick and Nico Hulkenberg is running in his place. He got no practice so he's on the back foot, but the last time he subbed for Lance he did well in the race, so hopes are high.

Could be an interesting race as it's not only going to be cold tomorrow, but it's also supposed to rain at some point in the race - however if it gets foggy they'll stop the race.

I noticed that the guys keep their wheel guns in a temp resistant silver bag in the pits - to keep it warm. Never seen that before!

Edit: and while ONE of the Ferraris managed top 5 in qually, I'll leave to you to figure out which one didn't get out of Q2.........again.

The Hulk also did not have a good day in Qually, finishing 20th. I think he's hoping for rain tomorrow - he may get his wish.

[BruceK]

The 'ring sure does eat racecars, doesn't it? 

After Bottas was out I thought Lewis might follow too.  Max needs just a little more to play with the Mercedes boys. Great podium result for Ricardo and Renault finally.

[MiniDave]

Power unit problems are always a surprise in this era of absolute reliability - back in the day you could count on a few strategic engine or gearbox failures to shake up the order by the end of the race, but that hasn't been the case in the last few years.....so seeing several cars have power unit failures today was an eyebrow raiser....

Good for Ricky Racer to finally hit the podium, too bad it's right before he bails for McLaren. It's been fun seeing some of the midfield teams running so far up the order - I wish it would happen more often.

Also, too bad we didn't get to see Micky Schumacher run in Friday practice, I wasn't expecting miracle times, especially since he was driving an Alfa but it still would have been fun to see him taking the laps.

Speaking of gearbox failures, Clancy lost 3rd gear in todays Lake Garnet GranPrix, but he has two other gearboxes I built previously for him ready to go in - a regular and a close ratio with straight cut gears - and we'll be rebuilding this one over the winter also with straight cut close ratio gears....or we might go all out and build a crashbox instead.

[MiniDave]

This weekend in F1 - the teams visit a track they've never been to before - as F1 anyway, some of the drivers have driven here in the lower formulae in previous years - including the Hamster.....the track is in Portugal.

This track is noted for having a lot of elevation changes - drivers refer to it as the roller coaster.

I'm hoping it gives some new teams a leg up and throws a wrench into some of the top teams - it will be fun to see if someone else can master this track.

Looking forward to friday!

[MiniDave]

Haas has told both of their drivers that their services won't be required for next season - or further! Silly season starting already. Now the question is will they take on an experienced driver to pair with one of the F2 series champs out of the Ferrari "youth corps" or go with two rookies?

There's been solid talk of having Mick S join the Alfa team, but now I'm hearing Kimi wants to run another year, and they want Giovanazzi to go another season with Alfa too, so that avenue may not be open to Mick.... so if HAAS go with the Hulk or Perez (or both?) then which of the very talented ready for prime time drivers will they chose? They currently have 3 that are all highly regarded - of course Mick brings "the name" with him!

Williams is said to be evaluating their two guys too, and George or Nic or both might be out of a ride if they can sign Hulk and or Perez.

Silly season indeed.

[MiniDave]

Wow, Portimao is a fantastic track....talk about elevation changes and great corners!

They're really enforcing track limits here at three different corners - where if you exceed those limits you'll have that lap time AND the next one eliminated.

Since the track surface is brand new it doesn't have a ton of grip.....Sainz said the track was like
Tokyo Drift! I'm just watching practice one, so no idea who's going to go fast yet. Looks like a really fun track to drive!

[cstudep]

Sounds like it could be a great race to watch. I think they ought to mix things up like this more often. It just makes for better racing in my opinion.

[MiniDave]

So far, it's business as usual.....the two Mercs fighting it out for the top spots and everyone else chasing them, with Verstappen closest but LeClerc not far behind.....of course when they really turn it up to 11 tomorrow in qually, then we'll see.

I don't know if all these hairpins and very slow corners will make for an exciting race, or if it will be the same old stuff, with the leader driving off and the rest just motoring around after him......but up and down over these hills looks like fun!

[cstudep]

Might end up being one of those that seems like it ought to be more fun to watch but mostly just ends up being more fun for those that get to drive on it. I really enjoy watching some of the vintage car races like the one someone posted on Bruce's Marcos posting on BAT. Watching those back and forth battles between cars is always fun.

[MiniDave]

Well, same old same old.....

"..........Records are made to be broken" Michael Schumacher

And The Hamster did just that, winning his 92nd race today.

The early part of the race was fantastic as the cars that started on medium tires seemed to have absolutely no grip where the red tired cars blasted thru the pack - but within about 10 laps order had been restored and all the real fights were in the midfield again.

This was a fun track to watch a race on, especially from the in-car cameras as all the elevation changes and corners made for some fun video.

I would absolutely LOVE to drive a modern MINI on this track, or even a classic. It will never happen of course but fun to think about.....

Watching the Mercedes lap everyone up to 5th place tho tells you something about the performance advantage they have. This is not the first time or track they've done this on either.

LeClerc did well to bring the Red car in 4th again - that seems to be as far as they will go this season unless Hammy, Bottas or Verstappen has a problem. Vettel came from 15th to 10th - and got one more point on the year, so he's up to 18 points total. A truly miserable year for him and he admits LeClerc is far outdriving him. I wonder if Racing Point (Aston Martin) are re-considering their decision to let Perez go in favor of Vettel as he consistently finishes well in the points and WAY above his teammate, Stroll - who seems to have forgotten everything he learned about racing in the past year.

The McLarens looked pretty hot early on but seemed to fade back into their usual place although Sainz had a brilliant start and even led for a bit at the start, he finished 6thh......and Gasly is absolutely making a case to move back up to the varsity team while Albon's star is definitely fading.

[MiniDave]

No one else watched this race?

I mean the winner was pretty much a foregone conclusion, but the track sure is fun and the midfield battles were great!

[cstudep]

I don't have "regular" tv anymore so it's hard for me to watch much of anything like this anymore.

We have a subscription to stream Britbox, so old Brit TV shows is what we end up watching most of the time when we watch TV.

[BruceK]

I loved the start. Very exciting to see Lewis fall back, and Kimi come forward so far (9 places!) at the beginning. And Carlos pull into the lead. I was excited when raindrops started to fall and I thought it was going to be a wet race - the great equalizer.  Sadly didn't happen.  I agree the midfield racing was where all the excitement was today.   

I feel the same way about Lewis winning every race well ahead of the rest of the pack as I did about Michael Schumacher doing the same thing 20+ years ago; that is those types of super easy victories by virtue of having best the car doing most of the work - with no real racing out in front - should ring really hollow to a true competitor.  Sadly neither one of them thinks that way.

Do you realize it takes longer to say the short phrase "change the tires" than it does for the Red Bull team to change 4 tires and adjust the front wing?!  Just 1.8 seconds (!) for Albon's pit stop.  That is truly amazing.

[BruceK]

Here's Kimi's incredible run down through the field in the first lap.

[MiniDave]

I guess the reason no one is commenting on Hamilton beating Schumacher''s record win total is that it's just not really an achievement - when you have consistently better cars every season, it's almost expected?

Next race is at Imola, which hasn't seen an F1 race since Senna and Ratzenberg died there the same weekend?  I wonder how the commentators will address that.....

[BruceK]

I guess the reason no one is commenting on Hamilton beating Schumacher''s record win total is that it's just not really an achievement - when you have consistently better cars every season, it's almost expected?

Yup, expected. And boring. And almost always a "done deal".  And that's not real racing IMO.  That's why I posted above how those easy, non-competitive wins should ring hollow to a true racer.   When Hamilton does have to work hard it's exciting to watch but that's always tempered by him being a whiny little bitch and complaining about things.

The other reason is that to many people, myself included, both Hamilton and Schumaker are kind of jerks that are hard to genuinely like.  Think of the other world champions in the last 20 years and there are a lot of more likeable guys in that list:  Button, Kimi, Alonso, and Rosberg.   Vettel is somewhere in the middle.



.

[BruceK]

Red Bull's 1.8 second pit stop at the last race. Incredible.

[MiniDave]

They do so many things so well, it just seems like they're only a tiny bit from being right up Mercedes tailpipe. BUT, I'm hearing Mercedes isn't running at 10/10, but only about 8/10 so that they don't cause the FIA to do what they did to Ferrari and throttle them back somehow. Bottom line....they're going to win this year and next year - with pretty much whomever is driving.....

What do you all think of Red Bull going ahead with the Honda engines after Honda has officially ended their engine program next year? Red Bull is not an engine builder and it took Honda years to get to the point where they were competitive...can Red Bull do what no other team has in modern times and do a competitive engine program based on the ground Honda has already broken?

[gr8kornholio]

With as complicated as these power units are I seriously doubt it unless they've obtained some engineers from Honda.  What's crazy is Mercedes is not known for their hybrid cars so it's really surprising the dominance they've had with them.   Kind of surprised Porsche hasn't gotten into f1 engine as the whole vw/Audi/Porsche conglomerate has some pretty epic hybrids.

[MiniDave]

The financial commitment to do an engine program is huge, and I'm sure VW is still paying off the diesel snafu for a while yet....but I agree, F1 needs more engine mfr participation - since they've made the regs so complicated it just can't be done by a privateer now.

I'm thinking that what Red Bull will do is have Honda run the engine program for them, and just pay the freight - where Honda is paying for it right now. Since the engine regs aren't going to change for a while, there will only be incremental changes to the engine, so it shouldn't be that expensive - whether it will be competitive is the only real question. If all Mercedes has to do is turn up the wick a little more to run away with it again, that is.....

What else can Red Bull do?

They really don't want the Renault engine - which I think is a mistake because Renault have the financial backing to keep developing theirs and I think it's not far off the others now, if at all....except Mercedes. But it's also clear that the other teams using the Mercedes powerplant are NOT getting the same performance - and I d=really don't think it's just down to the chassis. the real answer to that will be next year when McLaren have Mercedes power - If they make a significant move up the grid then we'll know that Renault and Ferrari and Honda are not on the same HP level. likewise if they only make an incremental move we'll know Mercedes is holding back on their engines - not surprising but they're not supposed to do that.

[MiniDave]

So this weekend is Imola, and another 2 day weekend - I was surprised when I went to my DVR and found no practice sessions recorded!

Consequently they will really be ramping things up with a 90 min practice followed by qually 2 hours later. They haven't raced F1 here in 14 years so for some drivers it will be the first time they see this track - others will have driven here in lower formula, but they all have simulator time to help them learn the lay of the track, bump, braking zones and curbs.