quote:

Originally posted by TMats:
Never understood Ferrari replacing Raikkonen with Gasley. I think Bottas has a silver bullet for at least one more year.

They replaces Raikkonen with LeClair who happens to do better than Vettel if Ferrari doesn’t screw him. Gasley got the Red Bull seat because there was no one else in the Red Bull pool. It makes me wonder if Red Bull would try to buy out Riccardo’s Renault contract as both of them are underperforming and I can’t see them promoting Kyvat or Albon after one year.

I’m not sure if I should be cheering for Verstappen or Hamilton because both need an attitude adjustment.

quote:

Originally posted by smithnsig:
Max should have pitted right after Hamilton. No way his tires could have lasted. He wanted to come in but they shut him down. He would have been behind but had a chance to race. Horner blew that one.

Max wanted to pit after Hammy did, Horner told him he'd have come out behind the Merc. CH stuck to that assertion after the race. The one hole card Red Bull had was their lightning pit stops, we'll never know what may have been but Red Bull were between a rock and a hard place. Hammy had fresher tires, what 6 or 7 laps, so Max pitting first would just have put him behind a guy with life in his tires and still turning fast laps.

Merc made the perfect call at the near perfect time.

quote:

Originally posted by HuskySig:

quote:

Originally posted by TMats:
Never understood Ferrari replacing Raikkonen with Gasley.

Wut?

No, I was confused, LeClerc, but my comment, with respect to Raikkonen remains. I’m sorry that Ricciardo doesn’t have a competitive car as well; he’s fun to watch when he can run with the leaders.

quote:

Max should have pitted right after Hamilton

This was exactly the right answer and they had less than 40 seconds to make it. Normally Christian would nail that, but missed this time. Human I guess.

I think even after another lap or two it was still the right answer since MV seemed to have pace to maybe overtake if a second or two behind. Or after running another few laps pit for softs since everybody on the planet can see what's coming.

Either way, it was a really good race. Best of all they have some good footage to share with KMag and Grosjean of how NOT to run into teammates. The battles between Ferrari and STR were great, and even Kvyat managed not to torpedo someone.

quote:

Originally posted by DanH:

quote:

Originally posted by TMats:
Never understood Ferrari replacing Raikkonen with Gasley. I think Bottas has a silver bullet for at least one more year.

They replaces Raikkonen with LeClair who happens to do better than Vettel if Ferrari doesn’t screw him. Gasley got the Red Bull seat because there was no one else in the Red Bull pool. It makes me wonder if Red Bull would try to buy out Riccardo’s Renault contract as both of them are underperforming and I can’t see them promoting Kyvat or Albon after one year.

I’m not sure if I should be cheering for Verstappen or Hamilton because both need an attitude adjustment.

Barring a miracle, I bet Gasly out at the end of the season, probably demoted to STR if he's lucky.
Odds are, Kvyat gets the promotion, but Albon has been driving very well for a rookie.
Getting lapped by your teammate with no problems in your race is not a good thing.

I'm thinking Kubica is out at the end of the season as well.
Grosjean will be lucky to keep his seat with the bad run of races he's had.

I think Bottas keeps his seat, he's put in a great season so far with Silverstone being his only real mistake thus far.
Fingers crossed, as a Bottas fan, Ocon gets a seat with one of the departing drivers & takes that pressure off Bottas.
I think Bottas has done quite well against a teammate that is on peak form, and a challenge for pretty much anyone to compete against.

I hope Strolls father gets out of the game, sad to see Lance Stroll still racing. Also, so sad to see what Williams has become.

To make things a little more interesting:

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/...ed-bull-spa/4512520/

Albon replaces Gasly starting at Spa.
Now what are Red Bull doing for next year as they have no Junior drivers that are good enough to be at the front.

A bit surprised that Albon got the seat over Kvyat, but for a rookie he's been driving well.

Better to have both RBR cars finishing will, than to have Max carry the team.

Pretty bad to get lapped by your teammate when you've had a clean race.

I'm surprised Kvyat didn't get the call to support Verstappen for the second half of the season while they watched Albon and Gasly, and let them mature for the rest of the year. That way they could evaluate Albon against Gasly without all the pressure.
In any case they are clearly weighing their options and brought Gasly up too soon due to Riccardo leaving unexpectedly.
After the early days of the team they have stuck with promoting from within. Albon seems to have a good friendly attitude and has shown promise. It'll be interesting to see how he looks by the end of the season.

Albon does seem pretty level-headed, could play well for him at a top team.

Bottas & Leclerc similarly, don't seem to get hot-headed when things don't go their way.

quote:

Originally posted by 220-9er:
I'm surprised Kvyat didn't get the call to support Verstappen for the second half of the season while they watched Albon and Gasly, and let them mature for the rest of the year. That way they could evaluate Albon against Gasly without all the pressure.
In any case they are clearly weighing their options and brought Gasly up too soon due to Riccardo leaving unexpectedly.
After the early days of the team they have stuck with promoting from within. Albon seems to have a good friendly attitude and has shown promise. It'll be interesting to see how he looks by the end of the season.

Even though he’s driving a lot better, I don’t think RBR is quite ready to bring “The Torpedo” back yet.

Saw a pretty good point on another forum.

Albon gets promoted to RBR, if he performs really well, RBR = genius.
If his performance is lackluster, they can flip him back to STR & bring Kvyat up to RBR; cite Albon's relative inexperience for the lack of RBR performance.

Eikther way, win-win.

I really doubt they're ready for another run with "The Torpedo." His new ride screams "We had no one else left" to the rafters. Another point mentioned is that with Gasly, Red Bull has a 0% chance to overhaul Ferrari in the points because Gasly only has 35% the points Verstappen has compared with 75% for Bottas/Hamilton and 80% for LeClair/Vettel.

Even if Albon could hit 50%, Red Bull could probably overhaul Ferrari at the rate they're screwing LeClair and getting shot in the back by Vettel at every race. Of course, if Red Bull opened the checkbook to Daniel Riccardo, we'd have a serious fight for the Constructor's Title.

If the stories are true, Ricciardo is getting $49AU million (Australian dollars= .68USD) X two years at Renault (which makes him twice the price of Max) so he's an unlikely replacement for the 2nd seat.
Red Bull will test Albon out this season and even has one more spin of the wheel with Kvyat by watching him against Gasly at Toro Roso or even at Red Bull in later races if Albon flames out.

https://www.news.com.au/sport/...168b8421a963fe1af9e9

quote:

Originally posted by 220-9er:
If the stories are true, Ricciardo is getting $49AU million (Australian dollars= .68USD) X two years at Renault (which makes him twice the price of Max) so he's an unlikely replacement for the 2nd seat.
Red Bull will test Albon out this season and even has one more spin of the wheel with Kvyat by watching him against Gasly at Toro Roso or even at Red Bull in later races if Albon flames out.

https://www.news.com.au/sport/...168b8421a963fe1af9e9

I for one was not surprised that Riccardo left Red Bull. The offer I read last year was they they were only willing to pay him $9mm USD a year, and he was set to make $20MM (USD/ year) with Renault. He knew they (RBR) had zero chance to win a championship, so why get treated like a pile of shit at RBR (they had already said that Max had priority), and not get paid and be on a one year contract. No thanks. RBR and and that dipshit Helmut Head Marko got what they deserved.

On a side note, I have to say how wrong I was at the performance of the Honda this year. That said, neither RBR or STR have any engine, transmission, or turbo, MGU-K or MGU-h components left, and will being incurring grid penalties starting after current components begin being replaced. Both teams, and each driver have already used three of each so far this year as of the last race.

quote:

Originally posted by 280nosler:
.

On a side note, I have to say how wrong I was at the performance of the Honda this year. That said, neither RBR or STR have any engine, transmission, or turbo, MGU-K or MGU-h components left, and will being incurring grid penalties starting after current components begin being replaced. Both teams, and each driver have already used three of each so far this year as of the last race.

Maybe they're betting on taking the penalty hits this year, when they k ow MBZ/FER have dominance & do the development. While still performing amazingly well so far, I might add.
I'm not a big Max fan, but the kid can drive & has matured quite a bit.

The roundtable of silly season is underway.

Bottas will remain at Merc
Ocon to Renault - Hulkenberg is currently out of a seat.

The rumor is that Hulk has been in talks with Hass for Grosean's seat. For those with short memories - Magnussen and Hulk have had their fair share of run ins on the tarmac.

quote:

Originally posted by 280nosler:
The roundtable of silly season is underway.

Bottas will remain at Merc
Ocon to Renault - Hulkenberg is currently out of a seat.

The rumor is that Hulk has been in talks with Hass for Grosean's seat. For those with short memories - Magnussen and Hulk have had their fair share of run ins on the tarmac.

As a Bottas fan, I'm hopeful. Having his MBZ seat secured for 2020 pulls a but of pressure off of him & maybe he'll step it up a bit more in the 2nd half of the season.

2021 Scale Wind Tunnel Model




Link to original video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vsBPDsAlm0

I saw the video and the rake was showing that downforce is reduced only 5-10%, which is amazing. Two years ago it was North of 75%, this year it is supposedly 45% reduced, and if they get it to 5-10% for 2021, racing should be excellent.