2018 F1 General Discussion Topic

[lol-lol]

Oops.  Mercedes Virtual Safety car software was wrong and help Hamilton back.  

 

Also Lewis's "Hammer" time to try and catch Vettel during the race was more the "kid's plastic mallet" time.  

 

Great to see McLaren so quick now with their Renault engines and good to see Renault showing reliability and getting closer with pace with Renault engined cars making up six of the ten point scoring places. 

 

Perhaps this season will be the closest of the second turbo era?

 

[camelspyyder]

When did McLaren go so quick? They will surely be gutted by the reality check of being 28 seconds slower than Vettel in the 26 laps after the safety car came in - they were the only 2 cars in clean air too.  Not even in the same ballpark really.

 

Seb And Fernando are clearly the 2 most tactically astute drivers though, both managing to make up places during the VSC lottery - without that the McLaren result wouldn't have looked half as good.

 

I do agree the top 3 teams are going to be really close. In fact Daniel's RBR-TAG Heuer was the fastest thing in the place today. On this pace, Haas should have 4th nailed on too.

 

Renault and McLaren look to be 5th and 6th fastest, so they'll be unlikely to get all 4 cars in the points again on this form.

 

Force India and STR got serious bad news too.

 

Impressed with LeClerc but not with Stroll.

 

Vettel must be the happiest bloke around though; He only had the pace for 3rd place all weekend but scooped the 25 points  -  It was just like the random winners you get in the Indycar series.

 

 

 

 

Edited 25 March, 2018 by camelspyyder

[camelspyyder]

36 hours later, in a new feature over there, the Autosport readers poll rate the top 6 drivers of the weekend as:

 

K-Mag,

Hamilton,

Grosjean,

Alonso,

Kimi,

Ricciardo

 

and the worst 6 drivers were:

Bo77as,

Sirotkin,

Stroll,

Gasly,

Verstappen,

Hartley

[KenONeill]

WTF!!? One of the 2 drivers who made up most places from his grid slot is one of the worst performing of the weekend!

[camelspyyder]

Public opinion eh?

 

Judged over the whole weekend, Bottas was the worst there.

 

Not really fast in FP, crashed a car that was easy top 4 for qually and the race, smashed his gearbox for a penalty and lost two of the limited for the year powertrain items.

 

Then he couldn't make any real progress in the race in one of the fastest cars - most of the positions he made up were retirements.

 

Without the Haas breakdowns Verstappen was on for a self-inflicted 8th and Bottas 10th.

 

Both very poor.

 

 

 

Edited 27 March, 2018 by camelspyyder

[camelspyyder]

Helmut Marko at it again - moaning about engines.

 

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/135115/red-bull-calls-for-party-modes-to-be-abolished

 

If RBR hadn't proved to be such a truculent partner (who give their engine suppliers zero credit for their success) just maybe one of the other manufacturers would have cut a deal with them by now. I remember that Renault led the field and did all the work on off-throttle exhaust blowing that made the RB cars near-invincible from 2010-2013.

Did they get any credit from Mateschitz, Marko and Horner?  Did they 8o11ocks!

 

 

Edited 31 March, 2018 by camelspyyder

[camelspyyder]

Toro Rosso finding out all about Honda reliability already.

 

Gasly has new Engine, MGU-H and Turbo for race 2!  Only 1 spare left of each now for the rest of the season.

 

Hartley will have new MGU-H and Turbo.

 

Grid penalties soon then.

[gadgetman]

Axel, the F1 mascot? 

 

WTF? 

Edited 4 April, 2018 by gadgetman

[Robjon]

1 hour ago, gadgetman said:

Axel, the F1 mascot? 

 

Called ‘Axel’, apparently the mascot “will elevate the atmosphere of the F1 Festivals through edgy entertainment and impressive urban dance skills to engage with the audience. Axel will also have some gaming experience and will join guests on the various games around the Festival.”

 

 

Please let this be an April 1st prank...

Edited 4 April, 2018 by Robjon

[mac11irl]

Yanks love mascots for everything...

[lol-lol]

https://www.formula1.com/en/results.html/2018/races/980/bahrain/practice-1.html

 

More problem for Verstappen with somebody not wiring in the throttle it seems so no time set ....

POS	NO	DRIVER	CAR	TIME	GAP	LAPS
1	3	Daniel Ricciardo	RED BULL RACING TAG HEUER	1:31.060		14
2	77	Valtteri Bottas	MERCEDES	1:31.364	+0.304s	24
3	7	Kimi Räikkönen	FERRARI	1:31.458	+0.398s	18
4	5	Sebastian Vettel	FERRARI	1:31.470	+0.410s	17
5	44	Lewis Hamilton	MERCEDES	1:32.272	+1.212s	21
6	8	Romain Grosjean	HAAS FERRARI	1:32.516	+1.456s	23
7	10	Pierre Gasly	SCUDERIA TORO ROSSO HONDA	1:32.779	+1.719s	26
8	55	Carlos Sainz	RENAULT	1:32.885	+1.825s	21
9	20	Kevin Magnussen	HAAS FERRARI	1:32.971	+1.911s	19
10	27	Nico Hulkenberg	RENAULT	1:33.104	+2.044s	18
11	14	Fernando Alonso	MCLAREN RENAULT	1:33.223	+2.163s	24
12	16	Charles Leclerc	SAUBER FERRARI	1:33.278	+2.218s	20
13	2	Stoffel Vandoorne	MCLAREN RENAULT	1:33.364	+2.304s	25
14	18	Lance Stroll	WILLIAMS MERCEDES	1:33.379	+2.319s	22
15	35	Sergey Sirotkin	WILLIAMS MERCEDES	1:33.467	+2.407s	29

Edited 6 April, 2018 by lol-lol

[camelspyyder]

That RB is quick though. Fastest lap in Melbourne (may have been DRS assisted being behind Raikkonen but who knows)

 

Haas still best of the rest - previous b.o.t.r. Force India nowhere.

Edited 6 April, 2018 by camelspyyder

[camelspyyder]

McLaren slower than STR today

 

[moley]

Gearbox change for Hamilton and a five place grid penalty.

[camelspyyder]

Ferrari will love that.

[camelspyyder]

Messy crash by Max - out in Q1 then?

 

Just like Bottas last time.

 

Grosjean out.

 

Sauber outqualify Williams.

 

 

 

Edited 7 April, 2018 by camelspyyder

[camelspyyder]

Honda out-qualify McLaren

 

 

 

Edited 7 April, 2018 by camelspyyder

[camelspyyder]

Horner denies Verstappen is pushing too hard.

 

Fact recap:

 

1. Spin during the Melbourne race

2. Spin and crash out of Bahrain Q1

 

The amount of from his engineers after the crash said it all...

[moley]

22 hours ago, camelspyyder said:

Horner denies Verstappen is pushing too hard.

Verstappen accuses Hamilton of driving into his rear tyre. While Max is a good up and coming exciting driver he should look at the replay to see how far he had squeezed Hamilton to the kerbs and does he really think Hamilton is going to deliberately risk damaging his own car on lap 1?  

[wonkyewok]

1 hour ago, moley said:

Verstappen accuses Hamilton of driving into his rear tyre. While Max is a good up and coming exciting driver he should look at the replay to see how far he had squeezed Hamilton to the kerbs and does he really think Hamilton is going to deliberately risk damaging his own car on lap 1?  

It looked a bit like Hamilton was taking it safe in the lap 1 madness, backing off and losing places near the first corner too.

Edited 8 April, 2018 by wonkyewok

[moley]

5 minutes ago, wonkyewok said:

It looked a bit like Hamilton was taking it safe in the lap 1 madness, backing off and losing places near the first corner too.

He was probably using those well known racing terms:

To finish first, first you have to finish.

You can't win a race in the first corner, but you sure can lose it.

[camelspyyder]

Hamilton made a mega start but Magnussen chopped him before turn 1 and he backed out and lost all his gains.

 

Verstappen is close to having his season unravel before it gets going at all. Not only is he becoming the #1 crasher on the grid, but the RB isn't perfectly reliable either.

[camelspyyder]

Just heard about the world feed "d1ckhead" comment from Lewis before the podium. 

 

When Dutch journos jumped on him at the post race press conference Vettel told them where to get off too!

 

And Max has been driving like a d1ckhead this year - fact.

 

 

Edited 10 April, 2018 by camelspyyder

[camelspyyder]

On 4/7/2018 at 19:43, camelspyyder said:

Horner denies Verstappen is pushing too hard.

 

Fact recap:

 

1. Spin during the Melbourne race

2. Spin and crash out of Bahrain Q1

 

The amount of from his engineers after the crash said it all...

 

Horner now says the cause of the crash was Vertappen's right foot!

 

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/135371/verstappen-right-foot-caused-bahrain-crash

 

Other news, Renault have allowed all 3 teams to turn up the wick this weekend .

 

 

Edited 13 April, 2018 by camelspyyder

[magic62]

What to believe?

 

A lot is said. At first they had the same explanation, software fault. Now they say the opposite.

Why? Not to have another clash with Renault?

 

Questions, questions. Who to believe?