FOM seriously needs to drag itself out of the bloody Dark Ages.
Remember when tyre stops were good 10-15 second affairs back in the Senna/Prost/Mansell days? It's amazing to me that they've got it down to the point where 3 seconds is considered slow, even with modern tech.
I found the 2007 season review DVD (yay Kimi!) in a charity shop the other day. Hopefully there's some good refuelling pit stop footage in that. (EDIT: There is, and the tyre changes are downright leisurely compared to what we see now, since the tyre guys can take their time as the refuelling always takes longer. In other trivia, I'd forgotten 2007 was the first year F1 footage was shot in anamorphic 16:9. How times change.)
Refueling is a terrible idea, both from a cost and from a safety standpoint. I hope it doesn't actually come back. The rest of the changes I don't particularly care about either way, especially since 5 or 6 seconds faster isn't even aiming that much higher than where they would likely be at in 2 years anyway. Notably missing from the strategy group plans is, once again, any serious attempt to keep costs under control.
In non-F1 news, the 24h race at the Nürburgring is happening right now, there is a live stream available here. 151 cars.
What I would like to see though is a removal of the fuel flow limit. That would allow cars to push hard for a few laps if needed. And would give some more strategy, as your still limited by the fuel tank sizes, so do you burn more at the start to get a lead? save some fuel in reserve to go for it all out at the end, slowly increase fuel rate as your tires degrade to compensate until the next pit, etc.
Oh, forgot to mention - apparently they won't be going ahead with the idea of raising this year's engine allowance to five instead of four.
Given that the Red Bulls have already chewed through four ICEs this year, and Christian Horner (who just married Geri Halliwell) has been on the record saying they might need as many as ten each to get through the year, I forsee much gnashing of teeth in Milton Keynes.
How the hell have Renault actually managed to take such a huge step backwards this year?
Verstappen. Bloody hell. Second fastest, 0.149 seconds off Hamilton, on his first drive of the track ever.
Hopefully this is going to be a good one. Red Bulls looking like they might actually be in the mix (!), but not sure yet if they're going on to their fifth engines with the ensuing penalties.
I suspect Kimi would just retire if Ferrari wanted to replace him and in that case I could see it done gracefully enough that he remains part of the overall organization.
Question is, who would replace him? Bottas has been rumoured already - a solid pick, has shown talent in Williams but doesn't have that race win yet. There's also Hulkenberg, who has been rumoured for Ferrari in the past, but has seen his form fade a bit.
That's a bummer for Sainz, that was a damn solid qualifying position. Still, the lad clearly has chops. Might make for some entertaining passes down the back half of the field; hopefully he can avoid stuffing it into another car on the run down to the chicane.
That puts Button into the top ten but still with choice of tyres. The "McLaren finally scoring points at Monaco" prediction is looking a lot more likely now. Doubly so if another Renault engine goes bang, and there's three of them ahead of him.
Hamilton knows Rosberg's had the measure of him at Monaco the last couple of years. If he wins this one it'll be another whopping great stamp of authority over this year's championship. Having grabbed pole will give him a huge advantage tomorrow if he gets a good start and around Ste Devote still in the lead. I'm sure Rosberg will make it as hard as possible for him.
It'd be amazing if they took each other out there. Very unlikely, I know, but imagine the resulting fallout. And at Monaco of all places...
So, we just looked at general admission ticket prices for the race here in Austin, and they are only $99 this year. Last year they were ~$150, so it looks like I may actually be able to go again!
I suspect that the attendance last year waso down, as that pricing for sitting on the grass was ridiculous.
I'm just going to throw out the general concept of a boozy sitting in grass watching F1 meetup sort of event at the Circuit of The Americas.
cause.... I would be down. And I would be very very very down if ride sharing was involved cause apparently the 7 miles from my back porch to there is going to take hours.
I'm just going to throw out the general concept of a boozy sitting in grass watching F1 meetup sort of event at the Circuit of The Americas.
cause.... I would be down. And I would be very very very down if ride sharing was involved cause apparently the 7 miles from my back porch to there is going to take hours.
Took us an hour and a half (maybe two hours) two years ago, and we're on 38th (very central). And that was parking at the exterior lot and having to bus in.
If people are going to end up going, I would be down for a meetup and drinks.
That's the UK release date/format, so July 10th. July 21st in North America.
A big pile of screenshots over at Codies Blog, too. Podiums, interviews, crowded pre-race grid, more stuff in the garages, it's looking good (even if some of the driver faces look slightly odd).
BeNarwhalThe Work Left UnfinishedRegistered Userregular
That was a surprisingly entertaining finish to the race! And I'll have to watch back and see exactly how Sainz ended up in the points at the end of the day, but I'm pleased to see it!
Rosberg did not deserve that. Hamilton drove a perfect race only for Mercedes to fuck it up on him. There was literally no reason to make the pit call.
It's rather telling that after the race had settled after the start, the BBC "extended highlights" show cut out practically everything until lap 30.
I had a friend who used to watch F1 and got out of it for years. She'd felt like trying to get back into it and watched this race, her first in years, and was watching it live on Sky, and found it so dull she switched off around lap 50-something, I think she said. Couldn't honestly have blamed her, although as we now know that meant she missed all the good bits. It was only when Verstappen got the bit between his teeth that stuff started happening.
Those two sneaky passes he made under blue flags were amazing. I don't think I've ever quite seen that before, let alone twice in one lap. He was hounding the others so well until that stupid crash as well. Glad he was alright, that was an almighty hit. It wasn't so long ago that he'd have likely been seriously hurt in something like that.
Merc have explained until they're blue in the face what happened with that pit call but it still seems batshit to me. It also completely overshadowed something else; that was the first time the virtual safety car has been used in a race and we barely got to see how it works in practice.
Credit to Rosberg for saying pretty much straight-out that Hamilton deserved it and by rights he shouldn't have won. I do wonder if, had Vettel not been chasing him at that point, if he might've backed off to give it to Lewis. It's easy to say "hell no, why would he" but Ricciardo very honourably gave Kvyat his place back on the last lap and, even under team orders, he didn't have to do that. I thought that was a really cool and honourable gesture from one of the nicest guys on the track, regardless of whether he'd been asked/ordered to do it. When things like that happen, racing karma tends to remember; and even looking at it slightly more cynically, that's a favour he could call in later in the season should the need arise, too.
I'm going to try and get my friend to give it another shot come Canada in a couple of weeks. That's usually a properly entertaining race.
What do we think of the Grosjean/Verstappen crash? I got the sense that Grosjean braked unusually early, but I don't know if that's the effect of it having happened when the BBC happened to be on Verstappen's onboard camera.
What do we think of the Grosjean/Verstappen crash? I got the sense that Grosjean braked unusually early, but I don't know if that's the effect of it having happened when the BBC happened to be on Verstappen's onboard camera.
Verstappen was insistent that Grosjean braked 10-15 metres earlier on that lap than the lap before. Given that the stewards ultimately penalised Verstappen and not Grosjean, I can only assume the data they saw didn't back that up. Something like that is a pretty open and shut case if the telemetry is working properly.
What do we think of the Grosjean/Verstappen crash? I got the sense that Grosjean braked unusually early, but I don't know if that's the effect of it having happened when the BBC happened to be on Verstappen's onboard camera.
Verstappen was insistent that Grosjean braked 10-15 metres earlier on that lap than the lap before. Given that the stewards ultimately penalised Verstappen and not Grosjean, I can only assume the data they saw didn't back that up. Something like that is a pretty open and shut case if the telemetry is working properly.
Ah, I didn't know he'd been penalised.
I just watched the replay a couple of times on the Sky Sports site. Can't shake the feeling that Grosjean was on the brakes weirdly early.
What do we think of the Grosjean/Verstappen crash? I got the sense that Grosjean braked unusually early, but I don't know if that's the effect of it having happened when the BBC happened to be on Verstappen's onboard camera.
Verstappen was insistent that Grosjean braked 10-15 metres earlier on that lap than the lap before. Given that the stewards ultimately penalised Verstappen and not Grosjean, I can only assume the data they saw didn't back that up. Something like that is a pretty open and shut case if the telemetry is working properly.
Ah, I didn't know he'd been penalised.
I just watched the replay a couple of times on the Sky Sports site. Can't shake the feeling that Grosjean was on the brakes weirdly early.
Yeah, Verstappen got two penalty points on his license and a five-place grid penalty for Canada.
What do we think of the Grosjean/Verstappen crash? I got the sense that Grosjean braked unusually early, but I don't know if that's the effect of it having happened when the BBC happened to be on Verstappen's onboard camera.
Verstappen was insistent that Grosjean braked 10-15 metres earlier on that lap than the lap before. Given that the stewards ultimately penalised Verstappen and not Grosjean, I can only assume the data they saw didn't back that up. Something like that is a pretty open and shut case if the telemetry is working properly.
Ah, I didn't know he'd been penalised.
I just watched the replay a couple of times on the Sky Sports site. Can't shake the feeling that Grosjean was on the brakes weirdly early.
Yeah, Verstappen got two penalty points on his license and a five-place grid penalty for Canada.
It was definitely earlier but Grosjean's tires were getting pretty shit, he probably didn't have much choice in braking earlier.
Seemed to me it was a bit of Grosjean having no tyres left and Max going for a slightly too ambitious move. It wasn't really that ludicrous a dive, definitely a bit of bad luck in there
Pole with style, drive a perfect race, still get 3rd.
This almost makes me feel unhappy that Hamilton didn't win. Which takes a lot
The real victim here is his third place sign though.
Also, Man, Verstappens blue flag overtakes were magnificent. What a great strategy.
I wonder if he'd thought about just bailing altogether when he parked up at Portier on the slowing-down lap. I bet he was thinking of Senna in 1988. Then he got going again, trundled round as slowly as he could, and then whacked that third place sign with just sheer frustration. Body language as translated by a racing car.
Verstappen's blue flag overtakes were just extraordinary. Loved them.
Highlights include a reporter telling Lewis that he needs to "complain less" on the radio.
Also Lewis basically saying "Yo everyone shut up about Monaco already"
I'm excited to actually be able to watch the race live again.
1. L Hamilton Mercedes 1:15.988
2. S Vettel Ferrari 1:16.304
3. K Raikkonen Ferrari 1:16.310
4. N Rosberg Mercedes 1:16.440
5. P Maldonado Lotus 1:16.600
6. V Bottas Williams 1:16.849
7. R Grosjean Lotus 1:16.864
8. F Massa Williams 1:17.041
9. D Kvyat Red Bull 1:17.092
10. D Ricciardo Red Bull 1:17.111
11. N Hulkenberg Force India 1:17.120
12. M Ericsson Sauber 1:17.261
13. C Sainz Toro Rosso 1:17.318
14. S Perez Force India 1:17.367
15. F Alonso McLaren 1:17.627
16. M Verstappen Toro Rosso 1:17.657
17. F Nasr Sauber 1:17.751
18. J Button McLaren 1:18.135
19. R Merhi Manor 1:19.531
20. W Stevens Manor 1:19.734
FP2 was interrupted a bit by the rain(Followed by a Hamilton crash in water) But before that it looked like people were pretty much doing reasonably quali runs. Ferrari's new engine is certainly putting in some work, so we'll see.
And FP3 results(which are a little crazy and don't really mean as much as the FP2 results)
1. N Rosberg, Mercedes, 1:15.660
2. K Raikkonen, Ferrari, 1:16.233
3. R Grosjean, Lotus, 1:16.772
4. V Bottas, Williams, 1:16.914
5. S Perez, Force India, 1:16.993
6. D Kvyat, Red Bull, 1:17.021
7. F Massa, Williams, 1:17.122
8. S Vettel, Ferrari, 1:17.197
9. C Sainz, Toro Rosso, 1:17.396
10. P Maldonado, Lotus, 1:17.573
11. M Ericsson, Sauber, 1:17.578
12. N Hulkenberg, Force India, 1:17.876
13. D Ricciardo, Red Bull, 1:17.892
14. F Nasr, Sauber, 1:18.446
15. J Button, McLaren, 1:18.473
16. M Verstappen, Toro Rosso, 1:18.492
17. W Stevens, Manor, 1:19.822
18. F Alonso, McLaren, 1:19.874
19. R Merhi, Manor, 1:20.231
20. L Hamilton, Mercedes, 1:21.492
Incidents include Nasr crashing while trying to warm his tyres(big gif), Both McLarens having some big problems(Button stopped mid-practice, Alonso required a PU change)
Vettel was having KERS issues, and Hamilton couldn't get a good lap in.
Other news!
Verstappen has changed to a 5th PU, giving him an extra 10-place grid penalty, with Monaco's 5-place grid penalty making it up to 15, meaning if he qualifies anything under 4th he'll start in last place and most likely also receive a stop-go penalty during the race to make up for the difference in position.
Button's car won't be ready for Qualifying, as an ERS problem required him to change PUs.
Q1 starts in about an hour!
Though I'm going to miss out on watching it live, since I've got a doggie training class to go to
Random thoughts on qualifying: Good to see Grosjean and Hülkenberg so far up the grid, I hope they can score some good points tomorrow. Also quite happy to see Sainz outqualify Verstappen again. Massa and Vettel working their way through the field should be pretty entertaining. I doubt we'll see much action between the first 4, though.
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Remember when tyre stops were good 10-15 second affairs back in the Senna/Prost/Mansell days? It's amazing to me that they've got it down to the point where 3 seconds is considered slow, even with modern tech.
I found the 2007 season review DVD (yay Kimi!) in a charity shop the other day. Hopefully there's some good refuelling pit stop footage in that. (EDIT: There is, and the tyre changes are downright leisurely compared to what we see now, since the tyre guys can take their time as the refuelling always takes longer. In other trivia, I'd forgotten 2007 was the first year F1 footage was shot in anamorphic 16:9. How times change.)
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In non-F1 news, the 24h race at the Nürburgring is happening right now, there is a live stream available here. 151 cars.
What I would like to see though is a removal of the fuel flow limit. That would allow cars to push hard for a few laps if needed. And would give some more strategy, as your still limited by the fuel tank sizes, so do you burn more at the start to get a lead? save some fuel in reserve to go for it all out at the end, slowly increase fuel rate as your tires degrade to compensate until the next pit, etc.
Given that the Red Bulls have already chewed through four ICEs this year, and Christian Horner (who just married Geri Halliwell) has been on the record saying they might need as many as ten each to get through the year, I forsee much gnashing of teeth in Milton Keynes.
How the hell have Renault actually managed to take such a huge step backwards this year?
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Hopefully this is going to be a good one. Red Bulls looking like they might actually be in the mix (!), but not sure yet if they're going on to their fifth engines with the ensuing penalties.
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How many safety cars will we get, and how many of them will be caused by Pastor Maldonado?
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That looks a little more as expected.
Kind of surprising to see Williams so down, but I guess when straight line speed is meaningless....
Which puts the squeeze on early for the driver's market next year. All eyes on Kimi, I think.
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Question is, who would replace him? Bottas has been rumoured already - a solid pick, has shown talent in Williams but doesn't have that race win yet. There's also Hulkenberg, who has been rumoured for Ferrari in the past, but has seen his form fade a bit.
Grosjean and Hulkenberg both deserve a good car.
Although I'm starting to wonder if I should make "deserve" past tense. I wonder if the moment is passed for both of them. It might well be. Shame.
I've got a feeling Kimi will stay on for (at least) one more year anyway. He's got the bit between his teeth again.
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Grosjean will have a five-place grid penalty for an unscheduled gearbox change.
Bad day for the Saubers and Bottas; nice to see the Red Bulls maybe in with a shot of doing something.
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Hope Hamilton has a good race tomorrow, would be nice to see him take a second Monaco win.
That puts Button into the top ten but still with choice of tyres. The "McLaren finally scoring points at Monaco" prediction is looking a lot more likely now. Doubly so if another Renault engine goes bang, and there's three of them ahead of him.
Hamilton knows Rosberg's had the measure of him at Monaco the last couple of years. If he wins this one it'll be another whopping great stamp of authority over this year's championship. Having grabbed pole will give him a huge advantage tomorrow if he gets a good start and around Ste Devote still in the lead. I'm sure Rosberg will make it as hard as possible for him.
It'd be amazing if they took each other out there. Very unlikely, I know, but imagine the resulting fallout. And at Monaco of all places...
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I suspect that the attendance last year waso down, as that pricing for sitting on the grass was ridiculous.
cause.... I would be down. And I would be very very very down if ride sharing was involved cause apparently the 7 miles from my back porch to there is going to take hours.
Took us an hour and a half (maybe two hours) two years ago, and we're on 38th (very central). And that was parking at the exterior lot and having to bus in.
If people are going to end up going, I would be down for a meetup and drinks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6_nAZq24vE
That's the UK release date/format, so July 10th. July 21st in North America.
A big pile of screenshots over at Codies Blog, too. Podiums, interviews, crowded pre-race grid, more stuff in the garages, it's looking good (even if some of the driver faces look slightly odd).
Trailer and release dates now in the OP.
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Also, SUPER fuck-up by Hamilton's people.
I had a friend who used to watch F1 and got out of it for years. She'd felt like trying to get back into it and watched this race, her first in years, and was watching it live on Sky, and found it so dull she switched off around lap 50-something, I think she said. Couldn't honestly have blamed her, although as we now know that meant she missed all the good bits. It was only when Verstappen got the bit between his teeth that stuff started happening.
Those two sneaky passes he made under blue flags were amazing. I don't think I've ever quite seen that before, let alone twice in one lap. He was hounding the others so well until that stupid crash as well. Glad he was alright, that was an almighty hit. It wasn't so long ago that he'd have likely been seriously hurt in something like that.
Merc have explained until they're blue in the face what happened with that pit call but it still seems batshit to me. It also completely overshadowed something else; that was the first time the virtual safety car has been used in a race and we barely got to see how it works in practice.
Credit to Rosberg for saying pretty much straight-out that Hamilton deserved it and by rights he shouldn't have won. I do wonder if, had Vettel not been chasing him at that point, if he might've backed off to give it to Lewis. It's easy to say "hell no, why would he" but Ricciardo very honourably gave Kvyat his place back on the last lap and, even under team orders, he didn't have to do that. I thought that was a really cool and honourable gesture from one of the nicest guys on the track, regardless of whether he'd been asked/ordered to do it. When things like that happen, racing karma tends to remember; and even looking at it slightly more cynically, that's a favour he could call in later in the season should the need arise, too.
I'm going to try and get my friend to give it another shot come Canada in a couple of weeks. That's usually a properly entertaining race.
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I just watched the replay a couple of times on the Sky Sports site. Can't shake the feeling that Grosjean was on the brakes weirdly early.
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Pole with style, drive a perfect race, still get 3rd.
This almost makes me feel unhappy that Hamilton didn't win. Which takes a lot
The real victim here is his third place sign though.
Also, Man, Verstappens blue flag overtakes were magnificent. What a great strategy.
Verstappen's blue flag overtakes were just extraordinary. Loved them.
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Highlights include a reporter telling Lewis that he needs to "complain less" on the radio.
Also Lewis basically saying "Yo everyone shut up about Monaco already"
I'm excited to actually be able to watch the race live again.
Canada's always good, looking forward to this one.
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2. S Vettel Ferrari 1:16.304
3. K Raikkonen Ferrari 1:16.310
4. N Rosberg Mercedes 1:16.440
5. P Maldonado Lotus 1:16.600
6. V Bottas Williams 1:16.849
7. R Grosjean Lotus 1:16.864
8. F Massa Williams 1:17.041
9. D Kvyat Red Bull 1:17.092
10. D Ricciardo Red Bull 1:17.111
11. N Hulkenberg Force India 1:17.120
12. M Ericsson Sauber 1:17.261
13. C Sainz Toro Rosso 1:17.318
14. S Perez Force India 1:17.367
15. F Alonso McLaren 1:17.627
16. M Verstappen Toro Rosso 1:17.657
17. F Nasr Sauber 1:17.751
18. J Button McLaren 1:18.135
19. R Merhi Manor 1:19.531
20. W Stevens Manor 1:19.734
FP2 was interrupted a bit by the rain(Followed by a Hamilton crash in water) But before that it looked like people were pretty much doing reasonably quali runs. Ferrari's new engine is certainly putting in some work, so we'll see.
And FP3 results(which are a little crazy and don't really mean as much as the FP2 results)
2. K Raikkonen, Ferrari, 1:16.233
3. R Grosjean, Lotus, 1:16.772
4. V Bottas, Williams, 1:16.914
5. S Perez, Force India, 1:16.993
6. D Kvyat, Red Bull, 1:17.021
7. F Massa, Williams, 1:17.122
8. S Vettel, Ferrari, 1:17.197
9. C Sainz, Toro Rosso, 1:17.396
10. P Maldonado, Lotus, 1:17.573
11. M Ericsson, Sauber, 1:17.578
12. N Hulkenberg, Force India, 1:17.876
13. D Ricciardo, Red Bull, 1:17.892
14. F Nasr, Sauber, 1:18.446
15. J Button, McLaren, 1:18.473
16. M Verstappen, Toro Rosso, 1:18.492
17. W Stevens, Manor, 1:19.822
18. F Alonso, McLaren, 1:19.874
19. R Merhi, Manor, 1:20.231
20. L Hamilton, Mercedes, 1:21.492
Incidents include Nasr crashing while trying to warm his tyres(big gif), Both McLarens having some big problems(Button stopped mid-practice, Alonso required a PU change)
Vettel was having KERS issues, and Hamilton couldn't get a good lap in.
Other news!
Button's car won't be ready for Qualifying, as an ERS problem required him to change PUs.
Q1 starts in about an hour!
Though I'm going to miss out on watching it live, since I've got a doggie training class to go to
Although I'm excited to see what he manages in the race. Could be some good action tomorrow further back in the field
The incident in question.
Random thoughts on qualifying: Good to see Grosjean and Hülkenberg so far up the grid, I hope they can score some good points tomorrow. Also quite happy to see Sainz outqualify Verstappen again. Massa and Vettel working their way through the field should be pretty entertaining. I doubt we'll see much action between the first 4, though.
EDIT: Stewards have decided:
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