I want Haas to succeed as much as anyone and I am not a fan of either current driver. They both have displayed red mist stupidity especially this year . But the bigger issue is the car , there is something wrong with it. When the team principal admits he is baffled that is bad . To me that means there is no consensus within the engineering group. When you have to go back to the original chassis that you started with in Melbourne that is a very bad sign . I hope they can figure out the chassis Dynamics then they can work on replacement drivers .

The Honda PU simply didn't have the legs to outrun the Merc machine. Too much firepower and grip in the German car. There is no way Honda will close the gap under the current engine regs. As Binoto says, this season the circuits flatter some designs and penalize others due to the tire construction. It changes circuit to circuit. RBR may not finish ahead of Ferrari in Belgium. It's interesting to see how McLaren have developed their car, even finishing ahead of Gasly's Red Bull. The two most consistent teams are Merc and McLaren. Well, you can say Williams too, but that's only because they are last.

Agreed... This race was a perfect reflection of that. Grosjean using the australia spec car (zero updates) blitzed MAG in qualifying, and put in a great first stint that had him way in the top 10. Then he went to hard tires and the car was nowhere... Conversely Magnussen's (new car) came to life after the first pit stop. They've gotten lost in development, that happens ! Usually at Williams...

Wow what a race.

Love him or hate him Hamilton drove like a demon.

It’s not so much McLaren had a good strategy, as Red Bull dropped the ball.

But really lapping that many cars has to make you question the regulations, teams are now farther apart technologically than they’ve ever been...

As soon as they pitted Hamilton I looked at the amount of laps left, I announced to my wife (who did not care :D ) as Sir Hamilton exited the pits that Mercedes just won the race, Max would not be able to answer, unless he pits too. Even then that was doubtful. Sir Hamilton seemed to be toying with him all race.

Sky was interviewing Horner at that moment who said they were hoping Sir Hamilton would run out of time.

RBR knew they could not go head to head with Mercedes otherwise they would have covered that stop.

The silver arrow is too fast to deal with. Speaking of which, where the hell did Bottas go? He should be finishing second every race is there is a driver on the grid that has lost their mojo, it is Bottas. Not sure what happened to him.

Competitive races! Thank you RBR.

Hamilton is what happened. This is a confidence and ego game. Rarely do you have 2 equal teammates performing at their best, unless they were both established before (like Prost/Senna). I bet Bottas is mentally destroyed by having to pull himself up by the chinstraps every other weekend... He does his best and "party boy" shows up with a fresh tatoo and beats him to pole by 0.2 sec and then disappears in the race. Ask Rosberg how much effort it took him to beat Hamilton over one season, in 4 (?) attempts. It was so intense he did it and retired. He was quoted then as not wanting to do that ever again, took too much work and scheming to destabilize Ham...

That's why I like the Ocon idea, assuming he's as good as he looked at Force India, having him learn next to the master and be a good #2 with no illusions while the boss matches Schumacher's records, and when he retires, hopefully you have someone good - by then pair him with a ricciardo or something. I like Bottas way way more than Hamilton, but he should have had 3x more wins by now in that car - he's decent, not "Hamilton good" though. Few are... Best driver in best car, thank goodness for Max or I'd turn the TV off...

The real bottom line, Ferrari just falls flat again. They just start to look competitive, and then they just fall apart. Mercedes is a simply dominate car and as little as I like Hamilton for his antics, no one can say he is not one of the best drivers out there. He will soon have every record for wins and poles, and it is just not all the car, but the car is for sure a major part of his domination.

Some potential news during the longbreak - not confirmed by good sources:

Bottas stays at Mercedes - Ocon will return to Renault, replacing a Haas-bound Nico Hulkenberg (Bye grosjean, presumably)
Not sure I believe it - Esp the hulk @ Haas with his best friend Magnussen ? Talk about more wheel banging !

I would welcome that change for Haas. Can Nico-Kevin be much worse than Roman-Kevin? Nico would be as fast as and hopefully less error prone than the Frenchman.

I think that Romain did much for Haas to get them up and running, but Hulkenberg would take them to the next level.

2021 F1 concept looks good to me :cool:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sn2eisHLwwk&feature=youtu.be&app=desktop

Most of the FIA guys working to improve the show are ex-colleagues from my past, poachers turned gamekeepers ;)

All extremely good at what they do and have decades of experience so I'm expecting the new generation of F1 car to be the much needed step forward to improving the racing

Looks good to me. Getting rid of all those winglets and barge boards is a winner!

^I don’t know if it was intentional, but the three-element front wing and the sidepods are very similar to those in the current Indycar chassis.

Now confirmed in France, Ocon back at Renault... That means Bottas stays put... (And presumably Hulk with with best friend at Haas ??? that I did not read )

Today was a good day, just seen the first 2020 manufactured part I've designed and it came out right first time, phew, might just get away with it (again) :eek:

Think I've still got it :confused: but never assume I have as a good, old fashioned, a$$ whooping is always lurking in the shadows

F1 whoopings come at you from any direction and at anytime, trick is trying to see them before they see you, worst type of whooping will cause a race DNF :(

I don't like being the weakest link so my approach is 'how many ways can this f**k up' and 'what do I need to do to make this work'

What sort of widget are we talking about?

A complicated, composite, carbon fibre flavoured ninja, black belt widget :eek:

Would love to do a show and I'm afraid that can't happen

A very unimpressive part viewed from the outside, all the complication is unseen and mostly inside my head ;)

I'm still liking the 2021 F1 concept, looks great with a livery, I'm hoping the real cars are not hit with ugly stick before they reach the track

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1566860910.jpg

Can you give a teeny tiny hint about the parts function? Is it aero, suspension, cooling, all of the above, etc? :D

Cute Ricciardo skit for infiniti

https://youtu.be/JFXRRbEwA-E

None of the above, it's just a box, I wasn't lying when I said it's unimpressive :D

Stroll's car stripped away after part of the bodywork blew off

Thought you guys would like to see how busy everything is packaged under all the sponsorship logos


http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1567194156.jpg

The best part of F1 BY FAR is the technology and the logistical infrastructure.

This backmarker totally exemplifies my belief. The cars are butt-fuggin ugly, and the racing is [usually] a barely watchable procession, but peel back the layers and it's like I'm 12 again, and I can't come up with enough superlatives to describe my astonishment at what has been built here.

https://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images...20/799/57a.jpg

Thought it would go down well, not a view often shown, almost looks like an artistic, photo shopped cutaway

Front of the grid teams cars will look similar but with much less wasted space under the bodywork and a lot more attention to detail lavished on every component

Think I've mentioned this before, apologies if I have but I spent much of my time over a couple of seasons pouring over 1000's photos from the track to see what the competition was doing. Learnt a huge amount about F1 car design during that time

I'd compile a technical intelligence report with a page or more for every competitor after each race and test highlighting what caught my eye ie what and why

A picture is worth more than a thousand words, can also be worth milliseconds too :cool:

Might be just me...
 

but seemed to me the start of that race was a bit "rushed", the flagman at the back still mid track. Plus it seemed to catch a lot of cars off guard.

Also I hate the "let him pass, this lap" nonsense

Congrats to the winner.

The knucklehead was up to his usual antics and paid the price and wrecked Kimi’s race.

I was disappointed with the Verstappen/Raikonen crash as they both had a chance at good results . There was some good mid pack racing was nice to see Hulkenberg get a good result . I am now convinced that the Haas chassis is possessed !!! Sad to see Kubica being a regular back marker . Albon had a solid race . Good thing the race wasn't two laps longer as Hamilton would have caught LeClerq .

Looks like he ran over a piano key board. I think I see middle "C"

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article.pastor-maldonado-on-reputations-racing-hard-and-that-win-in-spain.2E2J6BD7I3ir8kVkQ2U7tW.html

Podcast from Maldonado... It's brilliant... he's got fun opinions and some interesting takes on other drivers.

A Mercedes video showing a little bit of the European pit setup and a few of the less than secret logistics. They just hit some of the high points, but it's still mighty impressive. Penske ain't got nuthin' on these guys.

Even with Ferrari helping out, I just can't even imagine someone like Gene Haas touring the paddock, seeing how the heavy hitters are doing things and then thinking "Hey, I've got this!"

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

The pitwall, or somebody, managed to ruin quali. Could have been a thriller.

That was some chicken $hit Q3 qualifying strategy today , is everyone too smart for their own good ? Pretty pathetic I thought.

^Great video!

I appreciate Mercedes giving a peak into their massive and massively successful operations. From the outside, they make it look easy.

F1: 2019 thread
 

Totally. Everyone wants to see some racing for the pole, not a cluster fudge. They need to hand out very expensive penalties to the teams. All the fans were there to see a race for pole, not a parade lap.

I agree to that, some big mother-f'ing fines are in order.

Give them all 10 place grid penalties to create a reversed grid.

And of course NOTHING has been done. Reprimands for three drivers. It should have been so much more.

So ridiculous. Such an embarrassment for F1.

On what basis would they hand out penalties? That would be stupider than how the teams looked for cocking up Q3.

Looked to me like Ferrari were backing everyone up to preserve their pole. Notice that the one person that cut around the Ferraris was able to set a time.