Good quali
 

Very entertaining, Ham put down a very good lap in a car that looked very slidy to me at least.

Ferrari are tough on themselves, they better get it together sooner than later.

Ham: Two things; pull over and let Gasly through, and lose those cornrows AFAIC
they aren't doing it for you. Just my opinion.

Looking forward to tomorrows race, always a good race, no matter the outcome.

Another Ferrari F@!k show for qualifying, why wouldn’t you send him out?

I agree completely , if you think your driver was fast enough great . But if the team is seeing lap times coming down why not get back out there with three minutes to go ? Especially if you are at a track that is very very difficult to pass .

And what's with Vettel hitting the wall multiple times ? This isn't pool you don't bank the car around the track ! Ferrari has some soul searching to do .

Vettle is looking like a beginner driver. Mercedes looks unstoppable.

Likely a very boring race on Sunday.

With all due respect to guys like Captain and Won, who do this stuff for a living, but holy smokes, any of us could be the strategist at the Scuderia, and do a better job than the mangled mess they have for race strategy. Even if they felt kinda confident, unless they were 100% sure they were into Q3, they should have had Leclerc out there at least circulating for this just-in-case situation. I realize there's risk involved in merely circulating (accident, penalty from.impeding another driver, etc), but even Mercedes had their cars (or at least one of them) out there even though they were nearly bump-proof at P1 and P2 at that time.

This isn't just hindsight being 20-20. I watch these races (and qualifying sessions) and probably once every other race weekend I wonder to myself in real time (or at least DVRed "real time"--but either way before I know the end results) what the heck the red cars are doing. Whether it's Arrivabene or Binotto or whoever is running the show for them, they frequently seem to make errors in strategy.

Not including myself here but really, really clever guys do this stuff

I've sat in at the virtual garage back in Maranello, the volume of telemetry/data being crunched along with real time prediction logarithms is difficult to comprehend. Was impossible for me to keep up with :(

The engineers on the pitwall don't make many decisions but just pass on the numerous decisions to the driver made by the dozen plus engineers/strategists at the factory virtual garage

Nothing is easy in F1, if it was everyone on the internet would be doing it :D Monaco is especially not easy when trying to find a gap in traffic big enough to give a car enough space to warm up the tyres before doing a flying lap

Mercedes already had Q1 in the bag so to keep them put was just for data gathering purposes

Captain I am 100 percent sure your statement above is accurate . You live this stuff . But even the common race fan can see that Mercedes consistently gets qualifying and race strategy right while Ferrari gets it wrong . Both teams spend tons of money , have great people so why such drastic difference in results ?

I am honestly at a loss why it even matters this season. No amount of strategy is going to overcome the raw speed of the Mercedes cars. As I indicated several posts ago, a second rate F2 driver got in one and threw down a lap time that would put them on the front row.

Anyone can get in that car and win races, Mercedes will be 1-2 all season long, as long as they do not wreck each other out. Which is all we can hope for at this point in order to see a different result.

Ferrari could nail their strategy every weekend qualifying and race and will still be 3rd.

I suspect Red Bull are going to be 3rd today anyway. So it really does not matter where either of the Ferraris are on the grid today.

You are there to win and they are not winning. Unless Mercedes wreck each other out. Then you win by default. Which is as hollow of a win as all the Mercedes wins this season. Still amazed no one is yelling its the car and not the driver like all the Red Bull years.

I also think this season is a writeoff. I’m sure Mercedes will win again this weekend, probably Hambone. I forget who’s turn it is this weekend but he nailed it in qualifying and you can’t ever pass at Monaco.

You were 2 out 3 with your predictions. You can pass at Monaco, although LeClerc was not successful with all of them.

F1: 2019 thread
 

Well, at least Mercedes did not finish 1 - 2 for a change.

And Hamilton can whine more than anyone in F1. He was in the lead where it is virtually impossible to pass a Mercedes in the lead. Last year Ricardo was down 160 HP and still no one could pass him.
Hamilton was whining like a girl who had her candy taken away. And all he had to do was listen to the team and win. He did have Crashtappen run him off the road and risk a puncture, but the typical Hamilton luck kept him safe.

What I meant was, that a top car cannot pass another top car for the lead of Monaco. Yeah, if one of the top cars gets shuffled into the back of the field, it can pass some of the tail lenders but it’ll never make it all the way to the front.

Did they show any naked chicks sunbathing on a yacht? I haven’t watch the race yet, deciding if I need to or not.

Listening to Hamilton get out of the car and saying that he knew he couldn’t pit if he wanted to win, makes me think all his “whining” was for show.

In the new F1, its not PC to show hot wimmenz.

Well, call me hopeful that the less-repressed Brits would change that.

Big Yawn after watching Indy. Played out like a tire test for Pirelli.

Ferrari and their army of really, really clever engineers back in Maranello are really failing at their job. Even if Ferrari has the 2nd best car this season, they should at least aim to maximize their results and secure P3 and P4 every weekend. Anything less should be considered an embarrassment. Leclerc's DNF/P20 this weekend came as a result of the cascade of events that surrounded that really, really clever engineer's decision back in Maranello not to send him out a second time in Q1.

A couple races ago, some really, really clever engineer's decision to send Vettel out in the middle of a pack in a qualifying attempt also snowballed to a lackluster race finish. Regardless, too many silly mistakes to overcome the Silver Arrows, or even sometimes Verstappen in the Red Bull.

From the Brilliantly Obvious Department. Renault may build a qualifying car. Since where you qualify is pretty much where you're going to finish the race.

"The first is aero efficiency, and the second is how you balance qualifying and the race, because in modern F1 it is all about qualifying. All tracks are almost like Monaco now ... ", explained Abiteboul.

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/renault-considering-qualifying-car-2020/4416566/

On another note, there was an event at Sears Pt this w/e where they brought a F1 car. I've seen older F1s in person but never one of the current KERS/MGUK breed. It was a Hamilton spec Mercedes, not entirely sure what year - drive by Esteban Guttierrez from what I could see.. Either him or his clone, he looked familiar.

I was not impressed by the sound - barely better than Indycar - but I was shocked at the cornering speed. For reference in my vantage spot I'd seen 50-60s GT cars slowly pass by, then more modern cars like Audi R8 Le mans prototypes on rails... Impressive. Then the F1 came and *obliterated* that feeling of speed. All the while looking super controlled...

I think these cars are their worst enemies. They look planted, they don't make enough noise, it looks easy. It's almost like watching the VW electric prototype conquer Pikes peak. It looks kinda fast but without the cue from the sound it's hard to tell how fast.

Without the perspective of having just seen really fast Le mans prototypes before in the same spot and seeing how the F1 absolutely monstered them, I might have missed out on that car's amazing qualities... I used to think they should bring back screaming engines just for fun - but they really should do it for the spectacle... These things are amazing !

Charley La clerk was impressive, until last weekend. He acted like an impetuous child throwing a temper tantrum.

During the post-qualifying interview he showed his hand: I'm mad and I'm going to drive crazy, that'll show them!!!!!
As soon as I saw that interview I thought "this isn't going to end well".