Yep a real disappointment for Ferrari fans. Looks like Max is well on his way to his second title, and RB will clearly win the constructor's too.
Kudo's to Russell, all season he's managed to get into the right spot at the right time to take advantage of other team's failures.
If Mercedes and Ferrari continue on their current trajectories, MBZ could finish 2nd in the constructors
Hamilton doubtful for the Canadian GP
EDIT: the Telegraph article was behind a paywall
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/wolff-concerned-hamilton-back-pain-canada/10321239/amp/
In reply to 06HHR (Forum Supporter) :
That sucks. But it makes me stand behind my thought that Mercedes is not going to compete for a WC. If the car is STILL that bad, well, they have a long way to go.
Ugh, I am gutted for Ferrari. I hope they get their act together and mount a defense ASAP. The porpoising is causing a lot of problems but F1 has all these rules preventing technologies that could quickly cure the problem. If they allowed the mass damper or active suspension or even limited active aero, we could all get on with our lives.
In reply to loosecannon :
Problem is, the fastest car on the grid has next to no porpoising trouble.
Merc has gotten it desperately wrong, and needs to do whatever it can within the rules to move away from their failed experiment. The car sucks. It was 50 seconds back of the lead at the end, with zero traffic to worry them today.
In reply to Streetwiseguy :
Yep, you have to give this one to RB. They have built a heck of a car. Same for Ferrari. I really thought Merc was on to something when they came out with a radical design. I didn't believe they could get something so wrong. It's wrong, it's way wrong. Even though they sit in third on qualifying pace I think the cars race worse than that and if you've built a car that beats the driver so bad they can't even get out of the car it has to make you think it's time to cut and run. Not sure how easy that is but yikes.
In reply to NY Nick :
One could argue the Merc works a bit too well. It sucks down so hard that the air is stalled completely. But, if that were the case, you'd think they would show up with a bunch less wing and still kick ass, which does not seem to be the situation.
As far as any championships, they were toast after Australia at the latest.
In reply to Streetwiseguy :
I don't know of anybody (team or driver) is done yet. There are still 12 races to go or something like that. If teams start putting together 1-2's that's a gang of points in a hurry. That said maybe RB is the only one that's going to do that now?
In reply to NY Nick :
Constructors championship is Red Bull or Ferrari, and it's going to take real bad luck on RBs part to lose it. Not a hope in hell for both of them to fail badly enough for Merc to pass both. If the Ferrari engine continue to plug dumpsters at every track, they could get to second, but it wouldn't really have much to do with Merc.
WDC is surely down to the top three, and I'm being generous. Leclerc isn't out if they get the engines to live, and I can't see Segio beating Max consistently. It's Maxes to lose. If the top three are all kidnapped by aliens, George is on with a sniff.
Streetwiseguy said:If you'd have told me after the first three races that Red Bull would be this far ahead...
Four Ferrari plants in the dumpster. That can't be good. And no more Honda failures since the early ones. That's interesting, and odd. It seems obvious there was something going on that they figured out, and it was fixable.
Lewis looks beat to death.
I'd be curious to hear what exactly the Ferrari issue is. RB seemed like peripheries (fuel pumps and the like) which would explain why no issues since. Not sure how deep or fundamental the Ferrari PT issues are.
Streetwiseguy said:In reply to NY Nick :
One could argue the Merc works a bit too well. It sucks down so hard that the air is stalled completely. But, if that were the case, you'd think they would show up with a bunch less wing and still kick ass, which does not seem to be the situation.
As far as any championships, they were toast after Australia at the latest.
The problem is very few of the engineers were around the last time these cars used ground effects. In the past cars that porpoised had the center of downforce to far to the rear. Newey was around back then and Red Bull doesn't suffer... coincidence? I think not.
Streetwiseguy said:In reply to NY Nick :
One could argue the Merc works a bit too well. It sucks down so hard that the air is stalled completely. But, if that were the case, you'd think they would show up with a bunch less wing and still kick ass, which does not seem to be the situation.
As far as any championships, they were toast after Australia at the latest.
That's kind of how I think, too- the Merc has incredible amount of peak downforce. The problem is that it's operating window is that good. When the Mercedes has it's best downforce, the Red Bull has the best drag numbers. And the Mercedes has very poor low speed downforce- and you can see that where the car is a real handful in slow speed sections- and seems really hard to get balanced.
At least that's how it appears to me. Will it take an entire rethink? Dunno. But there's no real question that they don't have it figured out.
One thing- it seems that Red Bull got an idea to get the downforce to stall like Merc did last year to lower drag. And they can tune when that happens- thus the best top speeds.
Last year after the Austria Grand Prix, Max was leading by 32 points over Lewis. Currently Max has a 34 points lead over Lecrec, however Perez is a super #2 and is much better then Sainz in taking away points. I still think it could get close when Ferrari figures out reliability and race pace.
The Lewis Hamilton holding his back was a bit dramatic, I don't know if it amounts to anything but for sure got a lot of views and articles.
In reply to Streetwiseguy :
I see what you are saying but we just finished round 8 of 22. After round 4 of 22 people were already crowning Leclerc and Ferrari. I thought that was premature and I think it still is, there is still only a 51 point spread to the top 4, that is a couple of DNF's, a broken rear wing, a blown engine, a crash at Silverstone. Last year at this time everyone swore Max had it in the bag. Lewis came back to make it a toss up at the last race. Not trying to open that up just saying 14 is a lot of races to go.
In reply to trigun7469 :
When you add Lewis holding his back with Toto suggesting he won't be in Montreal, hard to think it wasn't real.
In reply to NY Nick :
Max doesn't have it locked up in any way. I'll will be very surprised if its someone other than the top two right now, though. And, a couple more dumpsters full of Ferrari parts and it's going to be very tough.
In reply to alfadriver :
"Lewis Hamilton says he will drive in Montreal and 'wouldn't miss it for the world'"
Hamilton is suppose to be the most fit, switched to a plant based diet in 18, and has the most recognizable personal trainer Angela Cullen. Still sounds political to me.
Anyone who's had back pain recognized how Hamilton was moving as he tried to get out of the car. That wasn't being faked.
I have to give props to Vettel for a beautiful half-spin to whip the car around after blowing turn 3. And to Alpha Tauri for showing that you can fix even an F1 car with duct tape.
Lewis' back has 13 years more of life and racing than George's. I think the pain was real not "soccer theater".
Lewis will be in Montreal unless he tests positive for Covid between now and then. Even Max talked about the bumps on the circuit as well claiming it should be repaved ahead of next years race so it was rough even in the least porpoising car (the cars are much stiffer and lower to the ground now).
I think the comments about the engineers not having any experience with ground effect cars as they weren't around in 1982 when it was last allowed in F1 is pretty funny. The cars now are so different to what was built and raced in 1982 that there is no comparison, in 82 they were still running skirts down the side of the cars which would give you a nice seal without dragging the car along the ground and the surface were so much simpler. I'd recommend watching some of Kyle Engineers videos on youtube detailing the new cars, especially the underside.
Keith Tanner said:I have to give props to Vettel for a beautiful half-spin to whip the car around after blowing turn 3. And to Alpha Tauri for showing that you can fix even an F1 car with duct tape.
Vettel's save in that corner was the most amazing feat of the whole race. I watched it four or five times- amazing car control. It's like those PGA commercials... "these guys are good".
The pain is real, and Lewis isn't the only one complaining https://www.thedrive.com/accelerator/f1-cars-are-really-hurting-drivers-backs
It's a problem, and I commend RB on anticipating the problem and getting a handle on it. Their cars are visibly more stable at speed, and are a rocketship on the straights.
The F1 blogs on this are borderline insane, one second he's the most incompetent 7-time world champion to ever hold a steering wheel because he's not beating Russel, the next he's superhuman and there's no way he could be suffering from driving what amounts to a paint shaker on wheels, he must be faking.. Which is it? It's can't be both, i'm simply gobsmacked..
I 100% believe that Lewis was in significant pain after that race. I also 100% believe that he made sure the whole world knew about it to try and get a regulation change that might help his team. This is F1, EVERYTHING is about getting an edge in any way you can.
trigun7469 said:In reply to alfadriver :
"Lewis Hamilton says he will drive in Montreal and 'wouldn't miss it for the world'"
Hamilton is suppose to be the most fit, switched to a plant based diet in 18, and has the most recognizable personal trainer Angela Cullen. Still sounds political to me.
Why would he fake it? How is that being political?
When you see the car bounce it's way down the track, and the bouncing sound is very much drowning out the engine sound- there's a massive and constant impact going on.
BTW, I was pointing out the suggestion, not the the actual facts. Toto did allude to the back pain being bad- and if Hamilton was being "poitical" to anyone, it would be his own team- given that Red Bull has this very much under control inside the current rules. So for Toto to highlight it as an issue along with Lewis- how can the two of them put together be "political"?
alfadriver said:So for Toto to highlight it as an issue along with Lewis- how can the two of them put together be "political"?
The "politics" argument is that some people are advocating for a rule change to address the porpoising on the basis of driver safety, so perhaps Hamilton is faking to make that look more dramatic.
The counter-argument to the rule change idea is that Red Bull has managed to make the car work without doing it, so clearly it's possible, so why should they be penalized? The other teams have the choice to raise the ride height and give up performance, after all.
The counter-counter argument is that the rules as they stand are forcing most of the teams to choose between driver safety and performance, and that is not how it's supposed to work. The incentives are wrong.
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