quote:

Originally posted by P250UA5:
Is it 8/27 yet....

The summer break seems long but what a great event for the start of the second half.
A classic track in a great historical setting and the Ardennes forest scenery.
Spa and Monza should be good tracks for Mercedes but you never know. Rain can happen anytime at Spa and Monza seems to make Ferrari pull out a little something extra.

True, the LWB on the MB cars should suit Spa, Monza & Suzuka.

I'm more excited for 10/22/17!

Counting down the last few days.
Time for Honda to pull a rabbit out of the hat. The penalties for upgrades don't matter at this point. Just bring some improvement to each race.

McHonda has made some real strides this season, by the end of the season, they may be more competitive, though I'm sure they'll suffer a bit at Monza & Spa with the long straights.

1 more day until we're back to racing!

Rain is in the forecast for qualifying and race day. Should make things interesting.

A bit of rain may lessen the deficit for McHonda, except in the straights.

Watching quali now. Looks like only a few teams running the rear T-wing this weekend? Mercedes, McLaren, Williams. Looked like a Sauber had the mount but no wing.

Anybody want to drive a pink car?

Storm knocked out the cable service, didn't get to watch

Will have to wait for the highlights.

Close race most of the way and the safety car made it a little closer.
Ocon and Perez are making Hulkenberg and Magnusson seem like best friends by comparison.
The Honda engines were shown to be way down, even by the Renaults on the long straights. Monza will likely be even worse for them.
Ferrari will have a newer spec engine at Monza and look like they need one for pure straight line speed.

Vettel was right on Hammy going up Eau Rouge at the start and after the safety car. With that tow, passes are more than common on the following straight, almost expected.

Hammy lifted slightly going up, he admitted as much, killing Seb's momentum. Some are calling it brilliant racecraft, it was good. SV deserves a little credit for not driving through Hammy, close as he was in both instances.

quote:

Originally posted by Ripley:
Vettel was right on Hammy going up Eau Rouge at the start and after the safety car. With that tow, passes are more than common on the following straight, almost expected.

Hammy lifted slightly going up, he admitted as much, killing Seb's momentum. Some are calling it brilliant racecraft, it was good. SV deserves a little credit for not driving through Hammy, close as he was in both instances.

Unlike Baku where Hamilton also didn't apply the brakes.
The rate of acceleration is such that a slight lift can be almost like a brake check to the guy behind that is hard on the gas. Very hard to respond by the following driver as all your momentum is lost.
Imagine the uproar if Vettel had bumped into the back of him there.

Hopefully, McLaren and Honda seem to be on the way to a divorce. Not only was Alonso too good that Honda's software couldn't deploy its battery power properly in qualifying, but it wasn't able to bring a full upgrade package for Spa. All it could do was give Vandoorne a "Spec 3.5" upgrade after a month off for a 65 place grid penalty.

This week, Honda is suppose to have a full "Spec 4" unit for Alonso to start at the very back. Pretty sure it won't be enough, but I wonder when it's Vandoorne's turn to get a massive tow for qualifying if Honda's "track map" programming can keep up.

I don't understand why Honda doesn't bring every upgrade possible to every race for the rest of the season and take any penalties.
The points don't matter at this point and showing a serious increase in performance before seasons end is all that matters. No matter where they qualify at these high speed tracks, they will go backwards under race conditions due to their lack of straightaway speed. Even the Renault of Palmer blew right past Alonzo at Spa.
The difference in response by a real racing team calling the shots and a corporate board is striking. Honda, Toyota, and BMW have all tried the corporate route and failed miserably, to varying degrees. The only thing they have done is to drop incredible amounts of cash to be embarrassed in public by their poor decisions.
Mercedes has taken a long time to get it right but they started out by buying the Brawn team and having Illmor build the engines for years to get them up to speed.
https://www.theverge.com/2016/...gn-specs-engineering

Our cable was still out as of 9pm last night. Hoping it's back up for Monza

Also saw where Ross Brawn is calling for the grid penalties to be eliminated or heavily revised.
And, that they're hoping to update the aero rules to allow for better racing, less aero degredation when following closely; with the end goal of eliminating DRS.

The grid penalties were really bad at this one and likely to get worse each race as most are reaching limits.
The rainy qualifying made it interesting too.
The results were mostly predictable so Vettel limited the damage. Should be closer due to the tracks from here on out.
Ricciardo just seems to make the best of any hand he is dealt.

Good race, don't recall the driver (Perez?) Qualified 11th, had a 5 grid penalty, other penalties on the grid had him start 10th.

Penalizing teams for innovation is the dumbest idea ever. AKA, Killing F1.

Hopefully Brawn gets his way & they eliminate or drastically revamp the penalty system.

Also saw that Porsche has expressed interest in being a non-works supplier. Possibly with the next formula revision (2021-22). Saw mention of twin turbo V6 with less of the hybrid tech.