I'm not thrilled. There's quite a bit of rain forecasted for the weekend, and Pirelli can't build a wet tire with a shit. The sooner that someone like Bridgestone can take over the better.

Good to see the Alfa back near the pointy end on FP2 quali sims. Split the Red Bulls, even if that's not likely in race trim.
If Bottas didn't have bad luck, he'd have no luck. I think I've read that almost all of his bad results this season have been the result of contact damage.

Not a bad race.
Bummer for George, he made a great recovery after dropping to last.

Bottas got Bottas'ed at the line. A reverse of Bake a few years ago when he pipped Stroll right at the line. Lando's penalty should put Bottas into 10th, so at least in the points after a string of bad results.

Perez. For a guy claiming to be ready to challenge for the championship four races ago, he didn't look so good. Not quick enough, bumps into things, and can't make the passes when needed.

You could say similar things about Stroll being the future at Aston and his performance. That doesn't consider the fact that Dad owns the team, providing job security. Without Alonso there you might think they had taken a step backwards from last year, based on the results.

Ferrari didn't look all that much improved, in spite of the claim they might be able to challenge the front. Poor strategy didn't help either. Tire wear didn't seem to be a problem this time compared to the others.

Alonso and Hamilton seem to be getting closer and are real pro's.
Russell was close too but tried too hard and paid for it. Nice recovery until the failure near the end. Amazing it still ran at all, considering the hit it took. That wall appears to be bare concrete too, not Techpro.
Other than the cars needing just a bit more speed, both of the the teams themselves executed well. In fact, Aston have really raised their operational game for new front-runners, calling their strategy well and executing pit stops without any serious mistakes.

I was sure GR had suspension damage after he bounced it off the wall, genuinely surprised he went as long as he did.

Aston, I agree, big improvement over past seasons. Fernando did well to keep Lewis behind. Not sure the small issue he had with the car, that was mentioned on the cooldown congrats, wasn't enough to hamper him from 2nd & another podium.

Boy, that was a snoozefest.

Alonso's Aston Martin car has been very competitive all season; is he that much better a driver than Stroll?

quote:

Originally posted by TMats:
Alonso's Aston Martin car has been very competitive all season; is he that much better a driver than Stroll?

I think, yes.
There was a graphic at the last race, prior to Canada, showing 'track dominance' between Alonso/Stoll & the entire graphic was Alonso.

quote:

Originally posted by TMats:
Boy, that was a snoozefest.

Alonso's Aston Martin car has been very competitive all season; is he that much better a driver than Stroll?

After 8 races, Alonso is 80 points ahead of Stroll. Right now, Stroll is costing AM second place in the Constructors championship to Mercedes, and at the current rate, that may still be true in the end.

Stroll has had a couple of good drives over the years, but he’s generally not regarded as a good driver. Almost everyone believes the only reason he has a drive is because his billionaire father owns the team.

quote:

Originally posted by TMats:

Alonso's Aston Martin car has been very competitive all season; is he that much better a driver than Stroll?

Alonso's been a half second or more faster than Stroll in pretty much every session this year.
The only exception was in Spain where he did damage to the new floor and the car seemed to stay off the pace from that point forward. I suspect they were short on spares for that update and had to do the best they could for the rest of the weekend.
Next race, new parts, and back to situation normal. Lots of subtle things make the difference. It's not that Stroll is terrible, he's just not exceptional.
Perez is in a similar situation but his dad doesn't own that team.

quote:

Right now, Stroll is costing AM second place in the Constructors championship to Mercedes, and at the current rate, that may still be true in the end.

The difference in money for that would probably allow them to pay Lance his current salary to be Social Help and Media Upload Chief King (SHMUCK) and the team still come out ahead.

I heard that Williams upgraded Albon's car but will not upgrade Sargeant's car until I think Silverstone? Can anyone fill me in on this? I'm trying to cheer on the American driver, but he hasn't had the best of luck lately.

^ I think it was just due to availability of the upgrade parts.
They won't have a 2nd set ready in time for Austria.

IMO, I'd give them to Albon first as well, the more experienced driver & more likely to give feedback/less likely to bin it.

Looking forward to the Austria event. That's a proper racetrack and a spectacularly beautiful setting for a race.
Several teams should be using update packages too so maybe some parts of the grid will be shuffled around a bit.

https://www.redbullring.com/en/red-bull-ring/

Once again, Lewis Hamilton proves himself to be a whiny little … punk.

What makes Hamilton think that he would be singled out by the track stewards for exceeding track limits and let others get away with it?

Toto Wolff even got in the radio to, basically, tell him to stop bitching and drive his own damn car.

The FIA didn't exactly cover themselves in glory either. Two events that were a mess.
The are clearly a bureaucratic, inflexible bunch that have a hard time following their own rules at times and unable to come up with workable solutions to obvious long term problems.
The Austria fiasco should have been solved overnight, or ideally sometime since last season.
Since it was a major problem in qualifying that wasn't always settled until after the session ended, the race problems should have been foreseen.
Less publicized was another incident at Spa killing a young driver that mirrored events there a few years ago. This one was due to a last lap restart in heavy rain, inexperienced drivers, and almost no visibility in a place with extremely high speeds and limited visibility in perfect weather.

The first half of the Austrian race was entertaining with all the chaos. Tempered down toward the end & was more or less business as usual.

Took a bit of searching to find the Spa incident. The brief descriptions sounds very much like the F2 crash a couple years ago.
Lose traction at Raidillon, bounce off the wall & come back on the track perpendicular to oncoming cars.

https://www.cbssports.com/moto...e-at-spa-in-belgium/

quote:

During the second race at the circuit in Belgium on Saturday morning, van't Hoff was collected in a multi-car crash that occurred on the long Kemmel straight -- a high speed section of the course -- during a restart in wet conditions. High spray and poor visibility appeared to be a contributing factor to the crash, which resulted in van't Hoff being hit broadside at high speed by another car.

quote:

Originally posted by mttaylor1066:
Once again, Lewis Hamilton proves himself to be a whiny little … punk.

What makes Hamilton think that he would be singled out by the track stewards for exceeding track limits and let others get away with it?

Toto Wolff even got in the radio to, basically, tell him to stop bitching and drive his own damn car.

What’s even funnier is that Lando ratted him out first on the radio. When McLaren asked him which corners Hammy was going over track limits, he said basically all of them, and he was too busy driving to call them all out.

quote:

Originally posted by 220-9er:
The FIA didn't exactly cover themselves in glory either. Two events that were a mess.
The are clearly a bureaucratic, inflexible bunch that have a hard time following their own rules at times and unable to come up with workable solutions to obvious long term problems.
The Austria fiasco should have been solved overnight, or ideally sometime since last season.
Since it was a major problem in qualifying that wasn't always settled until after the session ended, the race problems should have been foreseen.
Less publicized was another incident at Spa killing a young driver that mirrored events there a few years ago. This one was due to a last lap restart in heavy rain, inexperienced drivers, and almost no visibility in a place with extremely high speeds and limited visibility in perfect weather.

Of all of the inconsistent penalties that the FIA calls, track limits is pretty straightforward. Either all 4 wheels are over the white line, or they aren’t.

I have mixed feeling about the penalties. Handing them out hours after the race ended is pretty messed up, but I think the drivers themselves own most of it. You would think that getting lap times thrown out in qualifying would send the message that they need to stay within the lines, but some drives didn’t get the message. Who’s responsible for them going over the lines? It’s not the track’s fault, nor the FIA’s fault.

Russell and Alonso never went over the entire race. Max went over once, and Leclerc went over twice. In fact, half the field didn’t get a penalty, so it is possible to drive the track within limits and not get penalized. The drivers need to own their own performance, and not blame the FIA.

Crazy quali at Silverstone. A few surprises, for sure.

Now can the McClarens get to the podium?

If either or both do, it’s going make for an interesting rest of the season.