F1 2020 Thread

[sammyg2]

[rfuerst911sc]

Ralf Schumacher was quoted on F1 news he thinks next year's Alfa Romeo driver lineup will be Hulkenberg and Mich Schumacher . He stated Ferrari is pushing for three of their junior drivers to be moved up to F1 . Mich Schumacher is one of those drivers . According to Ralf the other two junior drivers could end up at Haas . Will be interesting to see if any of this pans out .

[legion]

Personally, I'd rather see Hulk at Haas. I think Grosjean's time has passed. Hamilton will probably be the old man on the grid kicking everyone's butt. I could see him retiring after 8.

[Rtrorkt]

interesting article on Gasly. https://www.bbc.com/sport/formula1/53985873 Was driver of the day at Spa. His pass at Eau Rouge was one of big ones.

Put VER in the merc and BOT in the Red Bull and see what happens

[Noah930]

Originally Posted by legion

Their performance dropped a little after each of the "clarifications".

What was that Enzo Ferrari quote? "Aerodynamics are for people who can't build engines," or something like that?

[Rtrorkt]

https://www.bbc.com/sport/formula1/54014306

A bit of a sad day. Last of the old school, boot strap hard core racers. Frank Williams was one of a kind. Eddie Jordan, Hesketh, Williams, Chapman, Brabham, Gurney. All racers all gone from the sport. Maybe this is why vintage racing has such appeal to me

[javadog]

Well, that answers that question.

[yellowperil]

I hope they (FIA) let him race it this weekend.

[sammyg2]

Couple things sad about that:

Williams hit bottom and has started to improve, slowly. Claire will get blamed for the downturn but will not get any credit for turning it around.

And I won't get to see here on TV anymore

[javadog]

I'd rather watch 20 cars of that era race than what they have now.

[Geneman]

new twist to the wiiliams saga.. james mathews, husband of pippa named team president or something like that.... also. meistro Ecclestone might have brokered the deal and assume team principal? claire et. al. out totally after this weekend. "heres the door, whats yur hurry"

[Captain Ahab Jr]

Originally Posted by Geneman

new twist to the wiiliams saga.. james mathews, husband of pippa named team president or something like that.... also. meistro Ecclestone might have brokered the deal and assume team principal? claire et. al. out totally after this weekend. "heres the door, whats yur hurry"

keep up at the back there, posted a link to an article naming him 3 pages back

[rusnak]

what's he going to do, bring back Gordon Murray?

[Geneman]

crap.... sorry ahab !! my bad..... i am always late to the party with this crowd!!

[astrochex]

Originally Posted by sammyg2

Couple things sad about that:

Williams hit bottom and has started to improve, slowly. Claire will get blamed for the downturn but will not get any credit for turning it around.

And I won't get to see here on TV anymore

I agree that Claire will not get the credit she deserves at Williams. But at the same time, I realize I do not have a clue of what it took for her to do her job nor of the all the challenges she faced. So I take a low view of those that are harsh regarding her tenure. I wish her and the Williams family well.

[Zeke]

The guy in the video said exactly what I said, move the Williams out of the way. If they wanted to be old fashioned and somewhat principled then they weren't living in the current F1 environment.

Another observation of mine is F1 is dead. The world wide audience they have had over the decades has been largely supported by TV coverage making F1 accessible to almost anyone. In the US that isn't the case as the TV audience has moved away due to lack of interest. Individual brands and identity has everything to do with that.

For example, if a NASCAR team starts out with XYZ as a sponsor in a particular color scheme, they should stay that way as long as they can (years used to be the case). Why collect memorabilia if you don't even recognize the car? At least we know what a Penzoil or Tide car looks like even if the driver changes. Look at the Goodwrench brand. And where is it today? Where are the icons?

Same thing in F1. Ferrari's are red and Williams are white. Red Bull is blue. Keep it that way. Sports car racing is lost on me anymore and I haven't watched in years. I could pick Scott Pruett's car out any day, now I can't pick out a brand.

IndyCar suffers in this way as well. At least the racing is exciting. BTW, it has been said that IndyCar would benefit from more US drivers. Well we have them now. But, can you tell me where Spencer Pigot is from? Lack of marketing. (Answer: born in Los Angeles)

[javadog]

Originally Posted by astrochex

I agree that Claire will not get the credit she deserves at Williams. But at the same time, I realize I do not have a clue of what it took for her to do her job nor of the all the challenges she faced. So I take a low view of those that are harsh regarding her tenure. I wish her and the Williams family well.

Williams was successful when they had some of the big names in F1 design on their payroll and when it didn't take 2000 people to put a winning car on the grid. Not to mention the top drivers they had, too.

Funny how when they don't have either the top designers or drivers they run in the back half of the grid.

I wish the new owners well but I'm not optimistic about their chances.

[Jeff Higgins]

Originally Posted by javadog

Williams was successful when they had some of the big names in F1 design on their payroll and when it didn't take 2000 people to put a winning car on the grid. Not to mention the top drivers they had, too.

Funny how when they don't have either the top designers or drivers they run in the back half of the grid.

I wish the new owners well but I'm not optimistic about their chances.

I think that holds true for all teams today. Actually, I think it has always held true. Over the history of the sport, we used to see one particularly clever designer dominate the sport. The modern equivalent is a team of very competent engineers with endless resources, the one with the better (and highest paid) engineers and access to resources now dominates. And it seems in a somewhat "chicken or the egg" question that the clever designer (or team of engineers with endless resources) precedes the top drivers' arrivals on any given team. Williams were not attracting real driving talent until Patrick Head showed up. After he arrived, they pretty much had their choice of drivers.

I think the margins have gotten so slim these days that the "intuitive" geniuses like Patrick Head, and before him maybe Colin Chapman, are simply out-classed by sheer engineering "horsepower" - the ability of a team to employ many very good engineers and design, test, develop through countless (expensive) iterations. That process will eventually defeat the team that is relying upon a more "seat of the pants" intuitive approach.

And that is where Williams, I believe, fell behind. They simply never had the capital to take the "grind it out" approach, and were only good when clever intuition could give them a leg up. It's just too locked down today, both by the rules and also by the level of refinement the sport has now reached.

[javadog]

I tend to agree with that.

That's essentially why I no longer find the sport very interesting.

[Jeff Higgins]

The only thing I find interesting about the sport these days is the engineering. The problem with that kind of an interest, however, is that we really don't get to see much of it - it's all proprietary. The teams cannot share it with the fans because, well, they would also be sharing it with the other teams. I wish there were a way to provide us with a little more insight into what they are doing. From what we are allowed to see, it certainly seems quite interesting.

As far as the "racing", however - there just isn't any. The cars are too critical to follow one another long enough to set up an overtaking move. We see a lap, maybe a lap and a half of real racing at the start, after which they all settle into position and hope something goes wrong with the guy in front of them. The leader "controls" the pace, even at times (much of the time, actually) going far slower than he is able, knowing full well that if the car behind him closes the gap it will suffer a lack of downforce, it will overheat, and its tires will go off, rendering it impotent and unable to stay there for long.

This simply has to change. We were all excited that it might, under the 2021 rules, but now we have to wait another year. I'll wait and see what happens under the now 2022 rules. If it turns out to be more of the same, I'll probably follow Williams' lead and quit F1 - I've been watching about as long as they have been a team. I'm just one insignificant fan, but boy, there are an awful lot of us feeling this way right now.