What a great race. Gutted for P9.

Gutted for Russell. This was his day. Inexcusable mistake.

Yeah Mercedes really screwed up . Russell scored the first points in his F1 career and he may lose them via penalty because of the tire swap error . Congratulations to Perez a well earned victory . I think RP will end up regretting letting Perez go . But he still has a shot with Red Bull .

I think Toto wolf summed it up perfectly but I can’t quote that here ��

Great for Perez. I’m a big Albon fan especially with my wife being Thai, but I won’t be surprised if RB goes for Perez.

I think Mercedes has a system in place for a quick, unexpected pit stop for one driver. I don't think they have a good system in place for quick, stacked pit stops for both drivers. This being Mercedes, I expect they will have a system devised by next race and it will become part of their regular pit stop practice from now on.

Not a fan of Perez. Once again he takes someone out (two if you count Max). Who else would not go for the giant gap tha Perez left open. He cuts across from the other side of the track and into Charles.

Gutted for Russell. How rare for Mercedes to make pit errors on both cars.

It looked to me like LeClerc understeered and ran into Perez, unfortunately damaging his own car the most. LeClerc himself admitted as much. Could Perez have given him more room? Yes. Did he give him a car's width? Yes.

Hamilton must be the Mercedes good luck charm. He never gets punctures, and they make perfect pit stops. His car get a puncture to keep it from winning only with Russell in the seat.

My impression was you could have been watching Lewis. He took the lead from his team mate, increased his lead and was set to win. When his team screwed up, he was fighting for the lead again within a few laps. Picking up a puncture he fought back into the points.
Claire William's was right. He is the real deal.
Best
Les

Russell keeps the points he earned , F1 has fined the team twenty thousand Euro's for the calamity pit stop . In a way I hope Hamilton can't make it to the last race so Russell gets another shot .

Makes you wonder if Lewis is the only one at Mercedes that was out with the Covid. They looked like Keystone Cops out there.

Ditto. I heard the announcers talking about how people are saying, "its the car" and they tried to play it off like it is Hammy more than the car.

But if you look at what Russell did today, crushing it up through the field after 2 issues, yes it took gutsy driving, but without that car it would be another non-points finish for him.

I think GR is the real deal. Here's hoping he gets the seat next weekend!!!

Colossal indeed TOTO

ESPN just sucks!

I was just watching the post race interviews while eating dinner. They were doing the sitdown interview with Russell and PDR and the other Sky dude. George is literally getting ready to say what Toto or his father said and they shut off the coverage and off to whatever sport.

I know we have all discussed this before but I still find it infuriating.

Sounds like there was an intercom malfunction that caused Bottas' tires to be brought out but not Russell's. I imagine some kind of quick double-check will remedy this in the future.

Bottas though? I like the guy, but for GR to do what he did on his first time out, it really makes Bottas look weak... Sure there's always an excuse or a technical reason but at some point you get rid of the black cat, he's cursed. As Chris Harris hilariously said, "if Bottas fell in a bucket of tits, he'd manage to come out sucking his thumb."

I am gonna steal that line. I like it. :D

For those who didn't follow WRC, they concluded the championship at and around Monza ! Partially on the F1 track, partially around the grounds, the roads in the area, and also on the old banking !!! I had no idea that was still in use...

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1607369035.jpg


http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1607369046.jpg

I think you need a rallycar long travail set up for all the bumps/slabseams on the banking

btw I would like to see russell in a redbull NEXT YEAR

That is no in the cards, he's a Mercedes driver - it's Mercedes / racing point or Williams... Will be hard for him to step in a williams again next race, unless HAM is not recovered.

Hope LH is ok but I am hoping GR gets another race in the car. LH doesn’t need to be there so rest up and let the countryman take another turn. He was robbed of the win. On the other hand, if he looks that good ....

Perez is upset to lose his ride but is sounding sour grapes. Sometimes nothing needs to be said and point taken from his actions only. He drove great but had the luck too.

GR is the real deal as has been said but I think half the grid, maybe more, could do well in that car.

A lot of speculation and rumors in F1 at the moment . I read this morning that Bottas has removed from his Instagram page any reference to Mercedes . At the same time Russell has removed from his Instagram page any reference to Williams . I don't have a Instagram account so I can't verify if true .

Hamilton has to be sweating his position of power in regards to contract negotiations . Nothing erases what he has done for the team but every athlete reaches a sell by date 😁 . If I am Mercedes and I am looking at paying Lewis 50 million per year in a future contract or 1 million a year for Russell that has to come into play , Mercedes is not stupid .

I am in no way saying Russell is equal to Hamilton , but he is definitely in the ballpark of being a great driver with years ahead of him . Here's a crazy theory : Hamilton signs a two year contract ( or longer ) but Mercedes send Bottas to Williams for the final year of his contract and switch Russell into the second Mercedes .

Lewis gets what he wants and Mercedes gets Russell in house to groom to be the successor . Russell is the future and can't fine tune his skillet in the Williams . Personally I think after last week's race Bottas is mentally damaged goods . I like the guy and feel bad for him on his luck or lack of . But just like Albon the excuses have to stop at some point .

I thought GR had a great weekend, he did everything asked of him - PLUS!!! What I thought was really special was how he reacted to the problems he had, he got over it and drove to the front, Hammy could do that, we've seen it before but could Max or any other driver in the field do what GR did, I don't think so. Perez drove from the back of the field but the trouble he had was nothing compared to what GR had to deal with.
I hope Louis recovers quickly but I'd really like to see GR in the Merc for the last race, I think we all do. I think this past race could change things and Bottas and Albon could be on the outside looking in.
Will Williams release Russell, or does he have an out in his contract? Would Louis or Max say no to their possible new team mates?
To have George in a Williams next year and Sergio without a ride would be criminal IMO.

Finn

This is the first I've heard much radio transmission from GR and he's certainly a cool customer. Funny how they said he talks a lot more the LH so they were getting used to that.

The Mercedes position just shifted 180 degrees to Mercedes side from Hamilton. It is easy, just ask Hamilton, do you really want to race for a 8th title and break all the records, or do you want to run at the mid pack or the back of the pack with some other team?

Mercedes has a pretty much solid lock on a 8th championship next year. Does Hamilton want that seat or do they hire GR for a million bucks? It is not just his talent, it is that car that makes it the winner.

Gotta think that Mercedes is considering a driver switch as others have stated. However, I think they will consider how horrible things were when they had two Number 1's in Hammy and Rossberg. Do they really want that stress again? It may just be easier to let LH go, pay less to GR, and have a solid #2 in Bottas. If it is GR and Bottas it will be like Weber and Vettel when Weber thought he should be the #1. Also like when Rubens thought he should be #1 at Brawn

We all know Russel would happily accept a #2 seat at Mercedes for now. "All" he has to do is outperform Bottas. That is not an easy task, but if he can do that for 2021 he can be the #1.

Again, no one can deny Hamilton is not a top driver, but the car alone is 1/2 of that. To impress me that he is the true equal or better than Schumacher he needs to go to Ferrari, and use his talents to help them develop the Ferrari into a top performer. That will never happen of course.

Couldn't disagree more. Ferrari is a stinking cesspool of internal politics where careers go to die. (Raikkonen, Alonso, Vettel, for example.) Ferrari screwed Hamilton (using off-track politics) out of a WDC his first season in F1 and almost did it again his second season. The best revenge he can get on them is to never help them.

He did that with Mercedes, was quite a gamble leaving McLaren a multiple world champion winning team to join a team that hadn't won anything

Only after Michael had been there to teach them how to build a winning car. Steve Matchett talked about how Michael would go out and drive the car, and return and like a computer tell them just what needed changing. They would change it, and MS went out and could go faster.

So you are saying that Schumacher, whom in three years and a top finish of 3rd with the Mercedes team, is the reason why Hamilton's move to Mercedes was not a risk because Schumacher taught the team how to build a car and win?

Tend to agree with this. Hammy started with a team that didn't need development. Once they started struggling in '09 and later he became a bigger than normal complainer on the radio. Then the move to a team that had done its development with Michael and Ross Brawn, and he steps right in to a winning car.

Remember about 5 years ago when he was getting dusted at each and every start when the FIA made some rules about the clutch at the start. I believe it was down to the driver to get it right and get off the line. Hammy really struggled with that until the rules got changed in his favor.

Not that he isn't a great driver, you just don't ever hear that he is the kind of driver that develops a car.

And don't forget how Mercedes took the field by storm when the engine changed to hybrid. They had figured out some stuff that the other teams had not and they went straight to the top. That was a design thing not a driver development thing as I recall.

It's true. Damn ! Valteri's says Driver, Russell's: F1 driver. Very non-committal.

Think you're viewing MS's input into Mercedes WC wins with rose tinted glasses as back then and in today's F1 no driver can teach a team how to build a winning car. The cars are just too complicated for that sort of simplistic approach

Would have been very little of MS's DNA/influence in Hamilton's 1st WC winning Mercedes. Engine went from V8 to V6 Hybrid and 2yrs is an eternity in F1 development timescales.

Ross Brawn and Bob Bell could rightfully take far more credit than MS for Hamilton's 1st Mercedes WC

On another note, I saw a post on F1 social media that was a video message from LH discussing his health.

He was talking about wanting to get to Abu Dhabi this weekend to race. But his eyes and voice said otherwise. He looked like you do when you get the flu or a bad cold; eyes at half mast, and a voice that gives away how you really feel.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/AAeQHfwtr5s" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

This animation showed up on youtube. Thoughts?

The animation appears to accurately show the before, during, and after of the accident when shown at speed. If the animation is accurate, it shows a few things:

1) The posts on the Armco were not spaced too far apart. The car simply obliterated one of them.
2) Armco barriers, by themselves, are not safe to take the full impact of a modern F1 car.
3) The halo saved Grosjean's life. I still don't like the look of the halo and I think the aeroscreen (which incorporates a halo) both looks better and protects against debris-accident's like Massa's. That said, this was going to be worse than Bianchi's accident without the halo. (Grosjean was likely to be either killed instantly or knocked unconscious then cooked.)

^^^They replayed that WAY too many times! :rolleyes::D

Jeez, don't tell Seb or Danny Ric. They may need counseling