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.

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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