Great to see Pete Bonnington interviewed after the race today - great guy!

Just seen the post-race interviews - whatever the right or wrongs of the incident Ocon has come out of this much better than Max.

 

Also, I've just realised how much I have missed Martin Brundle's intelligent analysis.

Edited 11 November, 20187 yr by tweenster

2019 has the potential to be the best F1 year for a very long time...

47 minutes ago, tweenster said:

Just seen the post-race interviews - whatever the right or wrongs of the incident Ocon has come out of this much better than Max.

 

Also, I've just realised how much I have missed Martin Brundle's intelligent analysis.

 

Yeah, Ocon is maturing rapidly after his crashes with Perez, Max is just constantly brattish (and indulged by his bosses)

 

Given fresh tyres and DRS gave him about a 30kmh advantage down the straight, Ocon easily blasted past the RBR, but into turn 2 Max just went straight for the apex even though the Force India was there - why didn't he just wait and DRS past down the next straight to turn 4? It was the sort of stupid crash Vettel has been having all year.

 

I watched the Sky coverage for a change too (on Canadian TSN2) and Brundle sure knows his stuff but Croft seems a bit amateur to me. 

 

Has 2018 not been one of the best years for ages? Ferrari genuinely competing with, and often beating Mercedes.

 

As for 2019? Will any of them stop making mistakes enough to challenge Hamilton? Maybe LeClerc will be the one.

 

 

Edited 11 November, 20187 yr by camelspyyder

16 hours ago, camelspyyder said:

Cant believe Max crashed into a backmarker and chucked the win away.

 

Still not hearing Renault moaning about it.

Max Vercrashen strikes again!

7 hours ago, KenONeill said:

Max Vercrashen strikes again!

 

Ironically, the last time a backmarker took the leader out in F1, that backmarker was none other than Jos Verstappen 

 

 

Edited 12 November, 20187 yr by camelspyyder

19 hours ago, camelspyyder said:

 

I watched the Sky coverage for a change too (on Canadian TSN2) and Brundle sure knows his stuff but Croft seems a bit amateur to me. 

 

 

Agree, Croft needs to mature but surely this will be a natural development working alongside Brundle.

1 minute ago, camelspyyder said:

 

Ironically, the last time a backmarker took the leader out in F1, that backmarker was none other than Jos Verstappen 

 

 

 

That was mentioned in race commentary. Same track as well! And didn't Williams put 'Keep your distance' on the rear wing for the next race?

Edited 12 November, 20187 yr by tweenster

2 minutes ago, tweenster said:

 

Agree, Croft needs to mature but surely this will be a natural development working alongside Brundle.

 

They should poach Ben Edwards from Channel 4 and dump Crofty IMO.

 

Ben is a natural. When he and John Watson did the F1 commentary on Eurosport, it was my preferred coverage. (except during the adverts when I switched over to RTL)

Edited 12 November, 20187 yr by camelspyyder

So Verstappen was publicly an arse, but did anyone notice his new team mate was too - refusing to accept team orders and blocking Hartley almost until the end of the race.

16 hours ago, tweenster said:

 

That was mentioned in race commentary. Same track as well! And didn't Williams put 'Keep your distance' on the rear wing for the next race?

Quick; Someone Tweet this to Claire Williams!

Not sure that Ocon did anything wrong. He was on fresher tyres and was going faster than the car in front of him. 

Reminded me of Eddie Irvine unlapping himself by passing Senna at Suzuka some years back. Senna came in to the Jordan area after the race and asked Irvine 'what the f*** did he think he was doing?' Irvine replied 'racing'. 

Senna punched him at that point 

Great news imo !

The only worry for me is that he was comprehensively burned off by Sirotkin in the run off for the 2018 seat.

 

However the Russians sponsors don't want to put any more money into Williams so Sergei's out.

 

Ocon apparently didn't get the seat because Merc wouldn't place him at Williams for any more than one year.

After they qualified only 5/6 (I mean 6/5 - Daniel in front for a change) I'm waiting for today's usual post qualifying RBR / Max Verstappen press release bitch about how much faster they will be next year with Honda engines.

 

The Honda engines that today went out in Q1 - qualified 16th and 17th? 

 

And over 3 seconds off the pole position pace?

 

I wonder how Red Bull will put a positive spin on that:

 

     Max - "Honda are making good progress..."

     Christian - "Honda are aware of their weaknesses..."

     Helmut - "Honda have sacrificed this year for next year..."

     Honda - "We are giving RBR free engines, they should be grateful..."

 

Will anyone not be happy if the most smug racing team in the world get taken down a peg or two in 2019?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited 24 November, 20187 yr by camelspyyder

Ha ha ha...Unbelievable Max - bigging up the Honda that blew up on Gasly twice in one weekend!

 

Max Verstappen says oil from Pierre Gasly's failing Honda Formula 1 engine left him with a "horrible" lack of vision in the closing laps of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

 

The Red Bull driver, whose team switches from Renault to Honda power for next year, was behind his 2019 team-mate Gasly's Toro Rosso as it started to smoke late in the race.

Verstappen had already used all his visor tear-offs by that stage, and so could do nothing to improve his visibility.

"It was a bit of oil, I don't know what happened there," Verstappen told Sky Sports.

"I already went through all my tear-offs and there was so much oil on my visor it was like driving through fog, it was horrible.

"I was [trying to wipe it with his glove] but it made it worse so I just stayed off it.

"I asked the team, 'Where is Daniel [Ricciardo, behind], I can't see him in the mirrors, nothing'."

 

Despite witnessing Gasly's failure up close, Verstappen added he was convinced Honda already has more power than Renault.

He praised the manufacturer's aggressive approach to development that has resulted in Toro Rosso taking several grid penalties for engine changes.

When asked about Honda's reliability, he said: "I think this year has already been pretty good, they have taken a lot of engines just because they could, because they were at the back or something happened.

"I prefer, sometimes, maybe to win a race and then blow up in one than always be consistently slow.

"It looks all very promising but I want to be realistic and just wait.

"First we need to build a great car, and then the engine should be reliable as well, and powerful.

"I think it will be there, but we first have to do the winter testing and then we'll see."

 

Has he been told to only say nice things about the currently slow and unreliable Oriental power unit?

 

Fernado would say " GP2 engine,GP2 engine, it's embarrassing!"

Edited 25 November, 20187 yr by camelspyyder

On ‎22‎/‎11‎/‎2018 at 19:33, camelspyyder said:

The only worry for me is that he was comprehensively burned off by Sirotkin in the run off for the 2018 seat.

 

WOW! I missed that story. I do think Kubica coming back is a good news story but hadn't realised Sirotkin had been quicker in the test.

19 minutes ago, tweenster said:

 

WOW! I missed that story. I do think Kubica coming back is a good news story but hadn't realised Sirotkin had been quicker in the test.

 

Last winter they both offered Williams similar amounts of sponsor cash for the seat. A back to back test was run and Sergei was significantly faster. This time Sirotkin has no cash as SMP don't believe in Williams, but Kubica has Polish sponsors again.

And Sirotkin has failed to beat Stroll on pretty much any objective measure. Given how highly rated Stroll isn't...

I'm surprised to find that Sirotkin actually out qualified Stroll 13-8 head to head. Impressive for a rookie in a very poor car.

Very close on race results too. 17 times they both finished, the more experienced Stroll ahead only 9-8.

Reasonable to expect that given a second year Sergei would have thrashed Lance.

Wtf has happened to Williams for the last couple of seasons it can’t be the engines.?

Massive errors in the basic 2018 design concept that couldn't be engineered out. Seems like their windtunnel work doesn't translate to the track very well and hasn't done for years, but the new aero concept on this years car accentuated the failing.  This has happened to other teams in the past. In 2011 Ferrari needed to rebuild their tunnel from scratch and decamped to Toyota's at Cologne for 3 years.

McLaren are in the same boat this year.

 

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/formula-1/2018/06/11/williams-analysing-f1-greats-struggles-2018/

 

At least we know Williams technical director was a big success at Mercedes, so he knows his stuff but the team needs to make big changes to progress, but lacks funding for next year. Martini, SMP and Daddy Stroll have all gone - so where will the cash come from?

Edited 27 November, 20187 yr by camelspyyder

Step forward, another Canadian billionaire. 

 

Williams 3rd driver next year will be Nicholas Latifi (whose bio claims he has been test driver at Renault, and has had a go in a Force India) whose old man already bought £200 million worth of McLaren earlier this year.

 

He has got 2 GP2 wins and 13 podiums under his belt, so maybe there's potential, but unlike Stroll he's never been a champion in anything, 5th being his best performance over a season. 

Horner says  "We had the best chassis in 2018 but out engine was crap"

 

Seem to remember a certain McLaren team making that exact claim that a year earlier