[Formula One & motorsport] Round 16, Russia: In Soviet Russia, V12 drives you!

Jazz

Welcome one, welcome all, to a thread for discussion of Formula One, past, present and future. (And feel free to discuss other motorsport as well, should you feel like it - any is welcome!)

Discussion of the 2019 pre-season starts on page 62, if you're joining us for the first time. And if you are, please say hi! We don't bite.



Who are the teams and drivers, and where will they be racing?

The 2019 teams and their starting line-up of drivers are:

• Alfa Romeo - Kimi Raikkonen (Finland), Antonio Giovinazzi (Italy)
• Ferrari - Sebastian Vettel (Germany), Charles Leclerc (Monaco)
• Haas - Romain Grosjean (France), Kevin Magnussen (Denmark)
• McLaren - Lando Norris (United Kingdom), Carlos Sainz Jr (Spain)
• Mercedes - Lewis Hamilton (United Kingdom), Valtteri Bottas (Finland)
• Racing Point - Sergio Perez (Mexico), Lance Stroll (Canada)
• Red Bull - Pierre Gasly (France), Max Verstappen (Netherlands)
• Renault - Daniel Ricciardo (Australia), Nico Hulkenberg (Germany)
• Toro Rosso - Alexander Albon (Thailand), Daniil Kvyat (Russia)
• Williams - George Russell (United Kingdom), Robert Kubica (Poland)

Two teams have changed their names from last year; Sauber is now Alfa Romeo, and Force India has become Racing Point.

New drivers this year include former F3 champion Lando Norris (who insists his name has nothing to do with Star Wars) at McLaren, reigning F2 champion George Russell at Williams, and F2 driver Alexander Albon at Toro Rosso. Daniil Kvyat returns to Toro Rosso for his third stint with the team after a year as development driver for Ferrari, and Antonio Giovinazzi gains a full race seat after two years as test driver for Haas and Sauber, for whom he also competed in two races in 2017. Following successful test drives for Williams in 2018, Robert Kubica makes his welcome return to F1 for his first full season since 2010, following his near-fatal rally crash in early 2011.

Other changes this year include Kimi Raikkonen and Charles Leclerc swapping places between Ferrari and Sauber/Alfa Romeo, Carlos Sainz moving from Renault to McLaren, Daniel Ricciardo moving from Red Bull to Renault, Lance Stroll moving from Williams to Racing Point, and Pierre Gasly moving from Toro Rosso to Red Bull.


The 2019 World Championship is taking place over 21 Grand Prix races:

• Melbourne, Australia - 17 March
• Sakhir, Bahrain (night race) - 31 March
• Shanghai, China - 14 April
• Baku, Azerbaijan (street race) - 28 April
• Barcelona, Spain - 12 May
• Monte Carlo, Monaco (street race) - 26 May
• Montreal, Canada - 9 June
• Le Castellet, France - 23 June
• Spielberg, Austria - 30 June
• Silverstone, Great Britain - 14 July
• Hockenheim, Germany - 28 July
• Budapest, Hungary - 4 August
• Spa-Francorchamps, Belgium - 1 September
• Monza, Italy - 8 September
• Marina Bay, Singapore (night/street race) - 22 September
• Sochi, Russia - 29 September
• Suzuka, Japan - 13 October
• Mexico City, Mexico - 27 October
• Austin, United States - 3 November
• Interlagos, Brazil - 17 November
• Yas Marina, Abu Dhabi (evening race) - 1 December

There are no new circuits on the calendar this year, but Mexico and USA have switched places in the order.



Will there be an F1 2019 video game?

Yes, and it's awesome (as has been the way for a few years now). It offers an expanded career mode, F2 (2018 season; 2019 will be a free update), revamped multiplayer with league support and custom liveries, an expanded garage of classic cars, Senna vs Prost mode and bonuses (as DLC or included in the Legends edition), and more. It's out now on PC, PS4 and Xbox One.

https://youtu.be/9iEaH5cj-Bw
https://youtu.be/iz7AMaJarQ8

Are there any good movies about F1?

Yes, and there was a flurry of brilliant ones a few years ago. All of these are essential viewing even if you only have a passing interest in F1:

Senna (2010) is a documentary history of arguably the sport's greatest-ever driver, triple world champion Ayrton Senna, who started in F1 in 1984 and died tragically in 1994.
Rush (2013) is a biopic of the rivalry between James Hunt and Niki Lauda in the 1970s, starring Chris Hemsworth and Daniel Brühl as Hunt and Lauda respectively, and culminating in their titanic battle for the 1976 world championship.
Grand Prix: The Killer Years (2011) is a BBC documentary that tells the story of F1 in the 1960s and 70s where mechanical failure, lethal track design, fire and incompetence led to the deaths of many young drivers. Among the interviewees contributing to the film are world champions Jackie Stewart, Emerson Fittipaldi, and John Surtees.
And if you like older movies too, Grand Prix (1966) is a film that follows several drivers through a fictionalised 1966 season. It stars James Garner and features some astonishing footage captured at the real races, which won it three Oscars.

Drovek

In China, as far as I've read, Mercs have the performance advantage, but it seems Ferrari still seem to have their tires hold on longer. Still, I don't think it'll be a repeat of last race with putting all their eggs in one tire compound, so it's Merc's race to lose.

As far as the first (possibly) half of this season, I don't see Ferrari as an actual challenger for the title. Later on, we'll see.

Also, still sad to see Button and Alonso on the rear end of the field and/or abandoning.

Jazz

Ferrari are playing down their chances a bit (James Allison is denying they'll be in the title hunt, even), but Raikkonen still was "best of the rest" behind Hamilton in FP2. It's so nice to have Kimi back at the sharp end again! But yeah, as you say, most seem to agree it's Merc's race to lose.

I'm a little sad to hear Alsonso saying he'll see out his career at McLaren. True, that could still be years down the line, but frankly I think he deserves a third title (he was so unlucky to miss out in 2012). He's been tootling around in sub-par cars for far too long and I'm unconvinced by this Honda business. Remember how well Williams-Renault's short-lived re-partnering went a few years ago. As it turned out with how the hybrids have turned out, Williams dodged a huge bullet getting out of that.

Drovek

The Honda deal could just be growing pains. Everyone but Mercedes got it wrong last year, and in an impressive feat, Renault got it even more wrong this year. I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt for this season.

*Takes a sip of coffee from his MP4-13 mug*

OK, so that might be fanboyish wishful thinking. :P

In other news, Red Bull throwing a fit over not being competitive, and Bernie threatens to not renew the Italian Grand Prix after next year. Fun times ahead.

Jazz

*looks over at MP4/4 model kit* Yeah, I feel ya. I'd love to see them recapture former glories. But it's a mountain to climb. They should never have bailed in '08... but of course they know they would've had the goddamn world championship winning car in '09 if they hadn't, so you know they feel there's serious unfinished business in F1. (I'd love to see if the Brawn BGP001 has any stray Honda logos hidden in it.)

Bernie's been so instrumental in successes F1's had... and now it seems like he's desperately trying to tear the whole motherfucker down before he croaks. Between Germany, various dumb shit he's said like not wanting to attract a younger audience because young people don't buy Rolexes and shit, shuffling as much coverage in as many countries as possible off free-to-air TV and on to pay TV, and threats to goddamn Monza of all places, I've lost my patience with him and I want him gone. His fees are fucking insane, they're crippling the race hosts, and the revenue sharing is a joke. And he throws his hands up and says "what can I do, I'm so powerless, poor little me" while counting his billions and creating reality show fodder of his offspring. Fuck him.

At least if Red Bull (aka Mateschitz) take their ball and go home, someone will buy that team and carry them on under new branding. That might be good for them, actually. Especially as manufacturers are sniffing around F1 again. Audi have made interested noises (in general, not at Red Bull specifically), and buying up a top team would save them starting from scratch. There's already talk of Toro Rosso becoming a Renault works team. Although that'd be weird when they go up against Lotus, aka the Enstone team, aka what used to be... Renault.

It'll be interesting to see what happens. Just so long as Bernie doesn't burn the whole shithouse to the ground first.

Jazz

Going to spoiler this because there was the odd complaint in the last F1 thread. (Also with regard to this, I will endeavour to keep actual spoilers out of the thread titles.)

Chinese GP thoughts

Nice to see Grosjean in the points again and wearing his almost-as-famous-as-Ricciardo's smile. God day for Lotus, would've been better if Crashtor Maldonado hadn't gone out... although it wasn't his fault this time. Rare to see Button punting someone off the track!

Raikkonen did enough to keep Vettel (and the Mercs, to be fair) honest, but can we see him climb that little bit higher? If he gets on the podium - or even the top step - he might not be able to skip out of post-race interviews...

Ericsson impressed again. Great racing between him and Ricciardo. Nice mid-race scrap between the Red Bulls and McLarens, too, albeit for the ignominy of 13th place. How the mighty have... well, not fallen so much as are struggling. McLaren are continuing to steadily improve, gnawing on the arse-end of the midfield is definitely good progress from dead last, especially in the span of two races.

The Renault engine continues to be a joke, significantly further back than last year (I fully expect more threats to pack up and go home from Mateschitz in the press before Bahrain) but it's interesting to see how some cars are seemingly out of place compared to their engines. The Force Indias in particular are being very disappointing for Merc-powered cars. Ferrari's step forward with the engines has given Sauber a hell of a boost but Ericsson and Nasr are also delivering when it counts there too.

And finally... did Hamilton back Rosberg into the Ferraris? Hamilton is not good at acting so I'm inclined to believe his denials, which seemed very honest. Rosberg seemed like he was clutching at straws, to me. Maybe a reversal of the Monaco incident from last year. It'll be fun to see how this affects their dynamic this year, I'm sure it'll escalate a bit.

jimb213

So it's not strictly F1, but this happened at the Circuit of the Americas yesterday, so it's sorta related, and I think y'all would appreciate this. During qualifying for MotoGP yesterday, Marquez' bike was having problems near the end of the session. He didn't have time to go all the way around the track and come back into the pit, so he parked on the front straight at the end of the pit, jumped the wall, and ran back to his pit to grab his spare bike, and made it around the track just in time for one more hot lap, where he grabbed the pole and set a track record! It was definitely the most exciting qualifying round I've ever seen in any Motorsport!

http://youtu.be/15axxMvpAp0

http://youtu.be/831lOyOH4xw

tinwhiskers

So China...

Kinda a boring race over all minus

Kvyat's car catching on fire, witch apparently was a break issue.

Which leads me to question WTF did Red Bull do over the summer. I mean their cars are worse than last year, and not even just vs the competition. They are just fucking worse over all.


What's threads rules on race spoilers?


Also need to get some movie recommendations in the OP. Senna and Rush obviously, Also the BBC doc Grand Prix- The Killing Years, which is easily the best of the 3.


Also, If you have a giantbomb premium membership and you don't listen to their alt F1 podcast already, start immediately.

oldmanken

After Malaysia, China was a bit of a let down. That said, I've never been that fond of the track.

On another note, this Verstappen kid looks pretty good.

Jazz

I'm thinking two days after the race is spoiler territory. At that point people should've caught up, I think (I'm happy to consider longer if anyone needs, just ask). General commentary is fine, just keep specifics behind spoiler tags. I'm just guesstimating based on reactions in the last F1 thread (which was actually in G&T as it was supposed to be the F1 2014 game thread, but it swiftly became general F1 because there was nothing to talk about regarding that game).

Verstappen seems like the real deal. His dad was always a cool guy, and will forever be burned (sorry) into the memory with that infamous fireball at Hockenheim in '94. Honestly it's kind of a nice throwback for me to see Jos the Boss in the paddock again.

Not really spoilery, but erring on the side of caution:

I wonder if Red Bull are really feeling the bite of Adrian Newey no longer heading up the design team. The car does seem pretty mediocre this year; the fact that they're often finding themselves behind their smaller, lower-budgeted sister team, Toro Rosso, has to be intensely worrying for them. At least Daniel Ricciardo is still being as racey as ever; if anyone can drag that car up the field a bit, it's him. Shame he had such an abominable start. Kvyat seems like he's still finding his feet, but it's early days for him in the big team.

Also, note regarding spoilers and movie suggestions added to the OP. Cheers, @tinwhiskers

Xrdd

In case anybody hasn't seen it yet, Ferrari are doing a cool thing on their website for each of the races this year:

http://formula1.ferrari.com/en/inforacing

It's a useful summary of what happened on which lap in the race and the presentation is brilliant.

Drovek

Just caught up with the race (avoided thread in the meantime :P )

That Ferrari website is awesome!

On to the race:

As I expected, Mercedes pulled ahead quite a lead in front of Ferrari this time, leaving nothing to chance. They're still not quite there, but they're the only ones with an actual shot. I, too, want some more from Räikkönen because it now seems quite closer to Vettel than last year to Alonso. Should make for some fun races there. As for Rossberg, I would expect a bit more from him, but he seems firmly stuck in second for some reason.

I almost screamed at the screen for that Button/Maldonado contact. There was no need for that.

As far as the Force India not being up to pace, well, it was to be expected. They did very little winter testing and VJ almost runs out of money in there for development. They're testing as they go, kind of like McLaren. The sooner we get Bernie out and share the wealth more equally, the quicker we'll get out of this multi-class races with Mercedes + everyone else struggling for money.

Also, you can feel Christian Horner's frustration in everything he mutters, and with the amount of explosive Renault engines around this past race, I believe they just got more ammo for more bitter complaints.

Meanwhile, in front of Toro Rosso's garage...

Jazz

That Button/Maldonado incident was so out of character for Jenson. I mean, I expect Pastor to routinely bin it in a humourous but underwhelming fashion almost every race, but I do not expect Jenson to be kludgy enough to drive into the back of someone for no apparent reason.

Foomy

I think the FIA should hand out some more engine tokens to teams weighted to how low you finish in a race, maybe not every race, but every 4-5 would be ok.

Renault just needs the ability to do a complete reset on the engine. little early to judge Honda, but they don't have very many to spend, and are obviously down in power.

altid

Hey, didn't know the board had a F1 thread!

Despite Ferrari's efforts I can't see Merc being troubled often enough to have a real threat to the WDC/WCC. For that matter I can't see Rosberg challenging Hamilton for the title - he didn't really challenge Hamilton last year after all. Must say I'm a bit disappointed with Williams so far this season. I was hoping they'd basically be in the position Ferrari are in, but they seem a solid third best car.

Jazz

Foomy wrote: »

I think the FIA should hand out some more engine tokens to teams weighted to how low you finish in a race, maybe not every race, but every 4-5 would be ok.

Renault just needs the ability to do a complete reset on the engine. little early to judge Honda, but they don't have very many to spend, and are obviously down in power.

The whole token system is asinine and byzantine anyway. The FIA would have you believe it's so development costs don't spiral out of control, but the dev costs so far on the hybrids have been around triple the previous gen V8s. But yeah, Renault and Honda need a helping hand. All credit to Merc for doing a great job but we need the engines to have less of a performance spread, to put it nicely.

altid wrote: »

Hey, didn't know the board had a F1 thread!

Despite Ferrari's efforts I can't see Merc being troubled often enough to have a real threat to the WDC/WCC. For that matter I can't see Rosberg challenging Hamilton for the title - he didn't really challenge Hamilton last year after all. Must say I'm a bit disappointed with Williams so far this season. I was hoping they'd basically be in the position Ferrari are in, but they seem a solid third best car.

It does now

Hamilton's likely to walk away with it; Rosberg already looks flustered and defeated. Looks like the difference between a great driver and a good one. Next year will probably be the acid test for the whole sport. Hopefully Williams can make some gains this season, although development isn't their strongest point, and hopefully Ferrari can keep hassling Merc enough to keep them honest and us watching.

Foomy

the whole token system would make sense like 3-4 years from now when all the engines are hopefully close in performance. But introducing it on brand new engines, running bleeding edge tech was just not a good idea.

Uncle_Balsamic

China was your average race. All in all alright, and even though Merc won comfortably it was nice to at least see some other cars in the frame when they were leading. So even if Malaysia was a blip in terms of Ferrari's performance, I'm still feeling more hopeful about the season after these two races. Could be some good things to come. Also nice to see Kimi have a clean race, quali performance aside.

Jazz

Let's see if Bahrain can recapture last year's magic. Historically, the chances are low, but at least it looks great under the lights at night.

Always a track I've enjoyed in the games, though. Except F1 2010 where they had the horrible extended layout.

Uncle_Balsamic

I've never much minded Bahrain as a circuit, except that longer version which seemed to work way less well. There's always some decent stuff that happens there even aside from last year.

Overall I'm enjoying this season a lot more now it seems to be opening up a bit at the front. Would be nice to see Williams stepping up, because I can't see anyone else (looking at you Red Bull) doing much to close to the gap to Ferrari let alone the Mercs.

Jazz

Nice little infographic from the BBC about the Bahrain GP:

altid

A bit odd that they're quoting the lap record as 1:31.447 for de la Rosa when Schumacher did a 1:30.252 in the 2004 race (and there have been faster quali times, not sure if they count though). Configuration change perhaps? Doesn't seem like anything major changed though.

Have to admit I find it a bit disappointing that the lap records are still generally held by the ~2004 cars.

Xrdd

Only racing laps count for lap records, that's normal. Not sure what's going on with the lap record, though. The official F1 website has de la Rosa's 2005 time as the fastest lap, most other sources I can find including Wikipedia have Schumacher's 2004 time. I don't think there were any layout changes between the 2 races.

EDIT: Found it:

The offcial lap record for the Bahrain International Circuit is 1:31.447, set by McLaren’s Pedro de la Rosa at the 2005 Bahrain Grand Prix. This is over a second slower than the fastest lap of the 2004 Bahrain Grand Prix, where Michael Schumacher, driving for Ferrari, posted a time of 1:30.252. While the overall confguration of the circuit did not change between 2004 and 2005, the discrepancy is caused by the track being realigned at Turn Four, creating a different racing line.

Source.

Jazz

FP1 results very probably not representative. But nice to see

Kimi

topping the timesheets regardless.

Xrdd

Further evidence of just how much the culture at Ferrari has changed over the past few months:

https://twitter.com/ScuderiaFerrari/status/589083497438040065

Someone there has a sense of humor now!

altid

Could possibly be a good race this weekend!

I get the impression that Merc are still ahead - just. High temperatures and an abrasive surface are making life difficult for the tyres, and Ferrari are better at tyre management than Merc. Might lead to the two being close.

jimb213

That would be awesome. I'm a huge Hamilton fan, but I still want competitive racing. AMG Petronas easily walking away with each race gets pretty boring pretty quickly.

altid

Quali:

Hamilton is just crushing it at the minute. Vettel and Hamilton are clearly the men to beat this season, and I'd argue Kimi is closer to Vettel than Rosberg to Hamilton.

Williams looked dangerous for a while in Q1 and Q2, but Ferrari upped their pace quite a bit in Q3.

Glad to see McLaren get a car out of Q1, even if it's balanced out by Button barely getting out of the pit lane for the third or fourth time this weekend.

Xrdd

Qualifying results:

Great laps by Hamilton and Vettel. Rosberg seems hopelessly outmatched this season and Räikkönen keeps underperforming in qualifying. I hope Ferrari's long run pace will allow them to at least put some pressure on Hamilton tomorrow but I suspect we'll get a HAM - VET - ROS podium with very little action at the front of the field.

Hülkenberg dragged that FI higher up the grid than it belongs, so him trying to keep the Saubers etc behind should at least provide some nice racing in the midfield.

Uncle_Balsamic

I'll spoiler this to be safe?

Blinder of a lap by Hammy. Nice to see Vettel there to keep him honest. Has the potential to be a decent race tomorrow, especially cause some of Ferrari's long runs looked pretty decent again (although China v2 is definitely more than possible).

Also Ricciardo did a real good job I thought, and Kvyat did a pretty awful one that I can only guess was due to technical issues. Williams meanwhile don't look any closer to Ferrari, but no further away really either.

oldmanken

My happiest moment was seeing Verstappen post his time in Q1, and see Maldonado drop down the list and out.

evilbob

That first lap was mental

altid

Here's to the race director - showing anything but the live race.

jimb213

altid wrote: »

Here's to the race director - showing anything but the live race.

I do some live event video production and I get kinda shocked by the F1 broadcast from time to time. I've seen a director ignore a really exciting battle for the podium in favor of like 5th/6th, to the point that the commentators actually said something on air.

At Bahrain earlier today one of the cameras totally mis-matched all the others. Way too much green. There's a person called the shader who's job is to keep an eye on all the cameras and fine tune the color balance. (there are probably multiple shaders for a big broadcast like this one)

Mostly I'm just happy to be watching a race live at a reasonable time, rather than a replay or at 3am!

evilbob

Hahaha fucking Renault.

altid

Always nice to hear from people who do stuff like this in practice. When I wrote that I was mostly annoyed that they missed Rosberg on Kimi and Vettel almost getting Hamilton because they were playing about 6 start replays followed by a group of celebs staring into the distance.
And totally agreed on the start time!

As for the race:

KIMI!
Honestly, I could have sworn that Kimi's strategy was crap when watching him lose seconds per lap and still not be called in. Now I'm not sure if it was madness or genius. That said, it probably wouldn't have worked if Vettel hadn't messed up.

Hamilton had a good race, but I did notice that it's the second race in a row where they've given Rosberg the undercut due to Ferrari. This time he was very close to Hamilton after the pit stops as a direct result of it. Makes me wonder if they'd have used team orders to keep him behind or just hoped that Hamilton got the jump at the next stop?

Worth noting that Hamilton now has a race victory in hand over Rosberg (and everyone else)

Jazz

KIMI!

On the BBC, Eddie Jordan asked James Allison (Ferrari Technical Director) if they'd messed up Kimi's strategy. Allison said "we have a pretty good bit of software to work that out"! It looked to us that Kimi was being left out too long, but they got it spot on in the end. If Rosberg's brakes hadn't had their issue I think Kimi would've still taken Rosberg, either with DRS into turn 1 or in turn 4 on the final lap.

Great job to Bottas for keeping Vettel behind him too. A shame for Massa but he did a great, great job of damage limitation, especially with a wounded car. He said afterwards it was really hard to drive after he got pranged by Maldonado.

Biggest cloud of smoke for a long time courtesy of that Renault engine in Ricciardo's car. Perfect time for it to go pop!

oldmanken

Very entertaining race, but I'm watching the MotoGP right now, and god damn, what a finish!

Jazz

Before the GP was on I was flipping through channels and discovered that I'd totally forgotten that ITV4 has the British Touring Car Championship. It was at Donington Park today (in F1, of course, the scene of one of Senna's most memorable drives, in 1993; one that was sadly almost absent from the Senna movie). I was just in time to catch the last half of the first race.

Holy balls. The BTCC still provides some jaw-dropping, incredible racing. And of course by its nature it has a magnificent selection of circuits. I'm going to have to make a point of watching it more.

(Also, many years ago, it gave us TOCA 2: Touring Cars - apparently aka Touring Car Challenge for it Stateside release - which, despite its age, in my opinion remains one of the best racing sims ever made, ever.)

Veevee

I would pay to watch BTCC in the states. Is there a good place to get full race replays or, better yet, watch it live?

Jazz

Oh yeah, and:

with regard to Ricciardo's grenading engine, Christian Horner says they're already through three engines of their allocated four, and I think that's for Kvyat too. Now, I seem to recall the limit of four had been bumped back up to five this year, same as last year... but either way, Red Bull are staring down some serious grid penalties soon. The last thing they need.

(FAKE EDIT: Wikipedia says: "The number of power units that a driver may use in a season was to be reduced from five in 2014 to four in 2015. However, at the Malaysian Grand Prix weekend teams agreed to increase the limit back to five for the 2015 season pending FIA approval." So still four until further notice.)

Horner also says the intention is not to leave, but that's up to Mateschitz, not him. If Mateschitz decides to take his ball and go home I still cannot believe that team will close down; it'll get saved and rebranded by someone. Lest we forget, it used to be Jaguar; and before that, Stewart.

Speaking of which, nice to see the legend that is Jackie Stewart doing the interviews. He's mad as a brush in his tartan trousers but I love him. Few people have achieved more both off and on the track as him and behind his bonkers facade he seriously knows his shit.