2021 Discussion Thread

Jan Magnussen · Post by **Rob Dylan** » 28 Aug 2021, 20:13

Hell, if it rains tomorrow, Russell could be on for a really mega performance considering just how well he was doing.

dr-baker · Post by **dr-baker** » 28 Aug 2021, 22:46

Reminds me of Barrichello getting pole in Belgium in 1994. Here's hoping for a good result tomorrow.

Paul Hayes · Post by **Paul Hayes** » 29 Aug 2021, 13:49

Well... at least if the race does now happen I can watch it live after my shift at work, rather than on delay as I usually have to for the 2.10pm UK start times!

Post by **Londoner** » 29 Aug 2021, 14:53

Liberty Media will be battering down the doors of the FIA's headquarters tomorrow. I know the weather can't be helped, but the byzantine rulebook, three-hour rule and packed calendar effectively means they're losing an entire Grand Prix, and therefore part of their product This will be the last time the three-hour rule exists, mark my words.

Question, can we even award ROTR and IIDOTR for a race that never officially started?

It has led to some quality banter on social media and Discord though, what a glorious mess!

Paul Hayes · Post by **Paul Hayes** » 29 Aug 2021, 15:31

I quite like the way there's a regulation that seems to say you can make up the regulations as you go along to try and get some racing in!

Not sure they'll manage it, sadly.

dr-baker · Post by **dr-baker** » 29 Aug 2021, 16:24

I'm just glad that at this rate, Williams will get another double points finish!

Barbazza · Post by **Barbazza** » 29 Aug 2021, 16:26

It really doesn't look good this, though, does it?

Pootling around behind the SC in conditions no better than the previous attempt to get it going, seemingly just so they can award half points based on qualifying. Garbage.

Still, at least that made-up decision to let Perez back in ('cos Horner & Marko said so presumably?) is now meaningless.

Alextrax52 · Post by **Alextrax52** » 29 Aug 2021, 16:47

So having done two laps under safety car we can award half points which is quite ridiculous considering how long we’ve had to wait. That said imagine if Verstappen wins the championship after this result? Hamilton fanboys will go more nuclear than normal

While it’s nice to see George and Williams potentially get 2nd to me this is more hollow than Monteiro’s podium at Indianapolis. At least Thiago still to race 3 cars and complete 73 laps. But George still had to do the lap yesterday and you can’t take that from him

Paul Hayes · Post by **Paul Hayes** » 29 Aug 2021, 16:48

Damn. Well, I suppose they did their best in the circumstances.

Imagine if Verstappen hadn't pipped Russell yesterday!!

Barbazza · Post by **Barbazza** » 29 Aug 2021, 16:50

Let's start a campaign to get the winners trophy handed to Bernd Maylander for services to F1.....would be the only way to recover any dignity from something that is even more embarrassing than the 2005 US GP, and that's quite an achievement

Row Man Gross-Gene · Post by **Row Man Gross-Gene** » 29 Aug 2021, 16:52

Paul Hayes wrote:Damn. Well, I suppose they did their best in the circumstances.

Imagine if Verstappen hadn't pipped Russell yesterday!!

This!

That said, Spa is my favorite track to watch, so I’m disappointed, guess I’ll watch the 2019 race.

dr-baker · Post by **dr-baker** » 29 Aug 2021, 16:54

Barbazza wrote:Let's start a campaign to get the winners trophy handed to Bernd Maylander for services to F1.....would be the only way to recover any dignity from something that is even more embarrassing than the 2005 US GP, and that's quite an achievement

I believe Alan van der Merwe did more laps today in the medical car...

Jan Magnussen · Post by **Rob Dylan** » 29 Aug 2021, 20:39

That must be one of the strangest unrejectifications in modern F1, probably since Monteiro yeah. The "race" "finished" more than five hours ago, but I'm sill slowly processing what on earth happened.

Wallio · Post by **Wallio** » 29 Aug 2021, 21:37

I know no one can control the weather. And no, they certainly shouldn't have been racing out in that.

BUT

I don't want to hear anyone ever mention Indy 2005 ever again.

dinizintheoven · Post by **dinizintheoven** » 29 Aug 2021, 21:57

Rob Dylan wrote:That must be one of the strangest unrejectifications in modern F1, probably since Monteiro yeah. The "race" "finished" more than five hours ago, but I'm sill slowly processing what on earth happened.

At least Baby-Faced George will get a result that justifies unrejectification sooner rather than later. I wouldn't mind betting it'll happen in the first race of 2022, wherever that is (we all know it won't be Australia). Watching him on the podium it was almost as if he was saying to Lewis "see you next year, mate... get used to this!"

Tiago Monteiro, and not forgetting Narain Karthikeyan, are far better examples of unrejectification being blind to circumstances.

Francis23 · Post by **Francis23** » 30 Aug 2021, 09:17

I've had an idea...surely there could have been a call to the fans at Spa to volunteer to drive around the circuit for a bit to clear a lot of water, with some kind of disclaimer that it is at their own risk? I don't know...its a bit out there but imo worth a try

Wallio · Post by **Wallio** » 30 Aug 2021, 14:27

Francis23 wrote:I've had an idea...surely there could have been a call to the fans at Spa to volunteer to drive around the circuit for a bit to clear a lot of water, with some kind of disclaimer that it is at their own risk? I don't know...its a bit out there but imo worth a try

I don't know. I've worked at drag strips where we have done that, but roughly 3/4 of a mile all flat and straight is totally different to 4 1/2 twisty uphill miles. Plus the car parks were mud bogs, so all the cars would be dragging mud and gunk everywhere, plus the fans had been sitting for what? 5 hours at that point? I'm sure a few adult beverages would have been consumed (Lord knows I would have) so that would just be asking for an accident.

Post by **mario** » 30 Aug 2021, 19:50

Wallio wrote:
Francis23 wrote:I've had an idea...surely there could have been a call to the fans at Spa to volunteer to drive around the circuit for a bit to clear a lot of water, with some kind of disclaimer that it is at their own risk? I don't know...its a bit out there but imo worth a try

I don't know. I've worked at drag strips where we have done that, but roughly 3/4 of a mile all flat and straight is totally different to 4 1/2 twisty uphill miles. Plus the car parks were mud bogs, so all the cars would be dragging mud and gunk everywhere, plus the fans had been sitting for what? 5 hours at that point? I'm sure a few adult beverages would have been consumed (Lord knows I would have) so that would just be asking for an accident.

I believe that the organisers of the Turkish GP did try something similar back in 2020 - in that case, they got a number of hire cars and drove them round the circuit overnight to try and clean up the surface and reduce the amount of water on track.

However, it seems that didn't really make much of a difference for that race, suggesting it might not necessarily have made a lot of difference for Spa either.

SammiRei · Post by **SammiRei** » 04 Sep 2021, 08:47

Raikkonen will not take part tomorrow after testing positive for Covid-19, Robert Kubica will be taking his place.

dinizintheoven · Post by **dinizintheoven** » 04 Sep 2021, 09:45

At least he won't be in the slowest car by a country mile this time round...

Jan Magnussen · Post by **Rob Dylan** » 04 Sep 2021, 10:42

dinizintheoven wrote:At least he won't be in the slowest car by a country mile this time round...

He may still be the slowest car by a country mile though

Also when Kimi said he was retiring, I didn't think he was doing so this early!

IceG · Post by **IceG** » 04 Sep 2021, 16:56

So this is now the Netherlands GP discussion thread....

How did the stewards not give Mazepin a penalty for that move in front of Vettel? Regardless of the other cars trundling around, Mazepin chagged direction into the path of a much faster car on a hot lap.

Also it seems he may have been told that Hass have other options for next season judging by his diplomatic and carefully worded response to the incident https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/maze ... e/6660459/

Jan Magnussen · Post by **Rob Dylan** » 04 Sep 2021, 17:09

Terrible driving from both Haas drivers. It seems that they have a procedure which has apparently just completely broken down between the teammates. Perhaps they're getting on each others nerves.

Reject of the Qualifying for me has to be the Williams drivers. Both had a good chance at Q3 and both binned it and ruined each other's hotlaps. Absolutely crap :facepalm:

dr-baker · Post by **dr-baker** » 05 Sep 2021, 07:44

Rob Dylan wrote:Reject of the Qualifying for me has to be the Williams drivers. Both had a good chance at Q3 and both binned it and ruined each other's hotlaps. Absolutely crap

ROTQ goes to one of the slowest teams on the grid that still got both cars into Q2? Every cloud, silver lining etc.

Jan Magnussen · Post by **Rob Dylan** » 05 Sep 2021, 09:09

dr-baker wrote:
Rob Dylan wrote:Reject of the Qualifying for me has to be the Williams drivers. Both had a good chance at Q3 and both binned it and ruined each other's hotlaps. Absolutely crap

ROTQ goes to one of the slowest teams on the grid that still got both cars into Q2? Every cloud, silver lining etc.

Have Williams had such good races that I'm more than expecting them to get into Q2 these days? :shock:

times change quickly don't they

Paul Hayes · Post by **Paul Hayes** » 05 Sep 2021, 17:38

It was an amazing shot seeing the cars all go round the turn three banking together on the first lap - it looked like an IndyCar race!

UncreativeUsername37 · Post by **UncreativeUsername37** » 06 Sep 2021, 05:55

Paul Hayes wrote:It was an amazing shot seeing the cars all go round the turn three banking together on the first lap - it looked like an IndyCar race!

I got some IndyCar vibes (or I should say general open-wheel oval vibes) from the last corner. This turned out to just be a fun track to watch cars on, like Suzuka.

dr-baker · Post by **dr-baker** » 06 Sep 2021, 08:45

Rob Dylan wrote:
dr-baker wrote:
Rob Dylan wrote:Reject of the Qualifying for me has to be the Williams drivers. Both had a good chance at Q3 and both binned it and ruined each other's hotlaps. Absolutely crap

ROTQ goes to one of the slowest teams on the grid that still got both cars into Q2? Every cloud, silver lining etc.
Have Williams had such good races that I'm more than expecting them to get into Q2 these days? times change quickly don't they

I am a long-term Williams fan, I tone down my excitement for fear of disappointment.

IceG · Post by **IceG** » 10 Sep 2021, 17:31

So this is now the Italian GP discussion thread....

What are people's thoughts on the crowding in the pit lane, at the chicane, and before the last corner? This seems to be a problem specific to Monza because of the old circuit layout, the very high speeds and the pinch points,

The former f1 drivers are clearly concerned that a major accident will be caused by the dawdling and there were one or two very near misses during the SQ. But short of saying that the pit lane may be randomly closed after a given time or using a lottery to select qualy runs I cannot see any solution. At Zandvoort, Masi mandated queueing at the pit exit which seemed to have some effect...

Barbazza · Post by **Barbazza** » 10 Sep 2021, 19:14

I agree with what Martin Brundle said - it's going to take a massive accident before the problem is taken seriously, it seems.

The only thing I can see that would absolutely definitely work is that they resurrect the old style qualifying for Monza only - 1 car at a time does 1 flying lap. That would also reduce the factor of slipstreaming, though admittedly everybody does that so you would imagine that taking that away would still yield roughly the same result.

UncreativeUsername37 · Post by **UncreativeUsername37** » 19 Sep 2021, 09:35

I'm happy about the Monza title contender crash not just because it was an epic sporting moment, but because it evened up the championship in terms of them having the points gap they deserve. Let me explain....

Imola: When a safety car affects a result by changing pit strategies, I'm all over how unfair the world is, but when it just bunches people together, it doesn't bother me. Still, if you're going to talk about the luck each contender had, you can't leave this out.

Baku: This is another weird one. Without Verstappen's blowout it's +11 (he got FL) for him, that's easy. But the "standings of justice" depend on how you want to count Hamilton's mistake. I don't want to say it should actually be +25 to Verstappen when the mistake wouldn't have happened without the restart. And it's tempting to just say that because neither scored, we can comfortably call everything okay and move on. But when you step back, you see that with equal luck, Verstappen should have taken away more points. So +11 to Verstappen.

Silverstone: The crash was mostly Hamilton's fault, since he was the one who understeered, i.e., made a driving mistake. But through the corner, Verstappen wasn't going parallel to the track either, so I call it a racing incident. No compensation warranted.

Hungaroring: In the real world we had +16. If we take their qualifying spots to be the likely results of a "just" race, which I will, it should be +10. So that's +6 to Verstappen.

Spa-Francorchamps: Maybe it should've not been considered a race and Verstappen should lose points, but really, I'm fine with what this did to the championship. Brawn was happy to admit that yes, they did effectively give out points for qualifying, and he likes that. I'm more ambivalent than positive about it, but that's fine.

Monza: Verstappen did what he should've done if he wants to be champion, but the crash was still his fault. Hamilton was on the inside and had a right to the corner. I consider second the likely result for a finishing Hamilton, so that's +18 to Hamilton.

So that's a total of 1 point that Hamilton should have more of. But when you consider getting off easy at Imola and the unforced error at Baku, that 1 point doesn't bother me.

Also, yes, I'm not counting mechanical problems, slow pit stops, and other "team things". I don't think you should when the drivers in question are racing for different teams.

dr-baker · Post by **dr-baker** » 25 Sep 2021, 13:34

Well, this season is just getting more and more unpredictable, isn't it. And I like it!

dinizintheoven · Post by **dinizintheoven** » 25 Sep 2021, 18:15

McLaren, Ferrari and Williams in the top three? It's like being in the 1990s again.

All we need is Alpine to rename themselves back to Benetton...

Jan Magnussen · Post by **Rob Dylan** » 25 Sep 2021, 18:38

I'm almost really happy today when I missed quali. I wasn't frustrated because I'd missed "the only good quali session of the year" or anything like that - I've been really happy that basically every weekend has had something fun or memorable on Saturday or Sunday.

Alextrax52 · Post by **Alextrax52** » 25 Sep 2021, 21:01

dinizintheoven wrote:McLaren, Ferrari and Williams in the top three? It's like being in the 1990s again.

All we need is Alpine to rename themselves back to Benetton...

I’m personally drawn to the early 2000’s because we can have the Aston Martin’s as the new Jaguars and Alpine remind me of when Renault were more Blue than Yellow

Paul Hayes · Post by **Paul Hayes** » 26 Sep 2021, 22:01

Poor old Norris. Although it's difficult to say he was unlucky - it was as much to do with judgement, really. But I do think he could well have hung on had the rain not come. I hope he gets another opportunity someday.

dr-baker · Post by **dr-baker** » 24 Oct 2021, 21:14

I tuned into the US GP 15 minutes before the race start. Did I miss all the pomp and ceremony of the #WeRaceAsOne symbolic gesture and USA national anthem, or did that not happen this time?

Jan Magnussen · Post by **Rob Dylan** » 25 Oct 2021, 17:49

I hope you didn't miss 'murica

Or, on that note, the incredible Shaq bull-horn pimpmobile thing that drove down the pitlane after race-end

In fact, this is one of the all-time strangest pre- and post-race shows I can think of...

dr-baker · Post by **dr-baker** » 26 Oct 2021, 20:31

I didn't miss the pimped out car, but I did miss the pre race national anthem. How American can you get.

Paul Hayes · Post by **Paul Hayes** » 06 Nov 2021, 21:29

Well, what an unexpected result in Mexico qualifying! A direct swap with Austin - Mercedes and Red Bull being strong on tracks where the other was expected to dominate. But let's see what happened tomorrow!