In reply to adam525i :
Just watched my favorite former F1 mechanic do his "review" of the race, and he was kind of surprised that Chuck wasn't called in for a broken wing. The amount it flexed was so far past what it was probably tested at that it could have easily been considered broken and unsafe.
Which brings up the RB and Yuki's wing failure- that was kind of crazy to see. Many times that happens and there is an immediate accident thanks to the massive loss of downforce.
I feel bad for Liam but I saw this coming when he didn't beat Yuki last year. I really wished he could finish the year, but doesn't seem like the case. The rumors of Yuki to RB and Liam out, with Calipinto taking shape at RBjr., as soon as Japan. While Yuki wants to move to RB, Hadjar out qualified him on the main. I think the RB car is not great and Max is just that good. I wouldn't be surprised if their are rumors of Max moving to AM at some point this year.
Typically AM has a good start but this year both the car and Alonso look terrible. Newey has a lot of work to do.
Ferrari, I was really surprised that they let Lerclerc pass Hamilton in the main, I bet there is a lot of internal politics that are clashing today. I know that Hamilton is one of the most popular drivers in the most popular teams, but Bearman is really impressive, hopefully Hamilton doesn't hang on to long and allows a younger driver like him get the ride next.
Race recap from me.
Some stuff happened on the first lap.
Ferrari did Ferrari things.
Snoozer.
alfadriver said:In reply to adam525i :
Just watched my favorite former F1 mechanic do his "review" of the race, and he was kind of surprised that Chuck wasn't called in for a broken wing. The amount it flexed was so far past what it was probably tested at that it could have easily been considered broken and unsafe.
Which brings up the RB and Yuki's wing failure- that was kind of crazy to see. Many times that happens and there is an immediate accident thanks to the massive loss of downforce.
What's funny is if they had black flagged him, he would've come in early to get a new wing and tires and that would have forced them into the two stop which would've kept him from being DQ'd at the end for not making weight.
I can't help but think anyone who gets a call from Red Bull for the second seat needs to hang that phone up and stay where they are for their own good.
Asphalt_Gundam said:I can't help but think anyone who gets a call from Red Bull for the second seat needs to hang that phone up and stay where they are for their own good.
I'd love to see Yuki in that car.
In reply to crankwalk (Forum Supporter) :
But what if Yuki is better off and faster in the current car........
In reply to Asphalt_Gundam :
Agreed. Until it's time for Max to retire and them start adjusting the cars for someone else, GTFO. I feel bad for Lawson being so under the gun so early in the freaking season.
Side note - even though he's been given grief for years for only having the seat because of daddy's money, Lance is showing up pretty well this year! I'll confess I was on that bandwagon earlier, but he's definitely got some decent skills. Curious as to what one of the other hot shoes might get out of it, but he's not Logan Sargent by a long shot.
HoserRacing said:Side note - even though he's been given grief for years for only having the seat because of daddy's money, Lance is showing up pretty well this year! I'll confess I was on that bandwagon earlier, but he's definitely got some decent skills. Curious as to what one of the other hot shoes might get out of it, but he's not Logan Sargent by a long shot.
Two things can be true at once. He's a thoroughly decent F1 driver who has had flashes of pretty good results over the years. Not a superstar, but not some moving chicane, either. But also, he would not be in that seat, or probably in F1 at all, if it wasn't for his father's money. Let's face it, if he was completely hopeless, Lawrence would have trouble justifying keeping him to his sponsors.
Tom_Spangler (Forum Supporter) said:So, last week Ferrari completely blew the tire strategy, and this week both cars got DQ'd. It really doesn't seem to matter who's running that team, they continue to step on their own feet, despite having a quick car and two really good drivers.
This was my biggest negative thought about Hamilton's choice to go to Ferrari. While it appeared that Vasseur had moved Ferrari to being an actual competent F1 team, it appears that there are still several failure points. LeClerc and Sainz sounded so aggressive last year on team radio because maybe they had to be in order to get the team to actually do what was best for their races. Hamilton may have to find some similar balance of forging his own strategy during the race similar to what LeClerc and Sainz have learned to do.
What may be good to say is that McLaren last season also showed how hard it may be to shift from accepting yourself as a mid level team to fighting at the front.
Hope they do better in Suzuka. (wow weird to be cheering on Ferrari......)
Asphalt_Gundam said:In reply to crankwalk (Forum Supporter) :
But what if Yuki is better off and faster in the current car........
I think it is quite possible that the racing bulls cars will be faster at suzuka. So if they swap Tsunoda and Lawson for the Japanese GP, Lawson and Hadjar might beat both RBRs! Then again, similar to McLaren and Ferrari, the RBs team calls during the races have destroyed Tsunoda's season so far. So long term for Tsunoda, the strategy experience of RBR versus the very good pace of the RB this year makes this swap not as easy for Tsunoda to be happy about this year versus last.
adam525i said:We've seen before that a lack of end plate hasn't had a large effect on performance of the car with this generation of car. You could see the left side of the wing flexing down on the straight, it seems like he ended up with the banned flexi wing and it worked.
I also find this situation fascinating as sometimes losing a fin on the front wing destroys a race for some one then at another race they lose a whole end plate and they have no apparent issues.
My analysis of the Chinese GP was that the majority of the teams got the track evolution and track surface temp guesstimates wrong. This led to completely off base tire strategy plans. Thus the shift from all the teams and online analysts assuming a guaranteed 2 stop and maybe even a 3 stop all of a sudden became a 1 stop. It is likely that Leclerc having overall less downforce on a cooler track allowed him keep slide the front more and transition through the graining period of the fronts quicker while also not causing overheating or extreme wear.
Maybe also why Russell came alive they seem to have a wider window of performance this year.
Looks like they are gonna feed Yuki to the RB wood chipper for Japan. Not sure what Lawson is doing, if it's a seat swap, or he's gone.
News sites are saying it's a driver swap. Liam will get to benchmark against Hadjar. Should be an interesting weekend!
The question I keep asking is how long Helmut Marko can keep being wrong about (everything?) while throwing his weight around, without getting the boot.
Seriously, how many quite good drivers has Marko misplaced and expelled now? Sainz, Ricciardo, Gasly, Albion, Tsunoda, Perez, Lawson ... damn.
In reply to DaewooOfDeath :
I was thinking about the same question the other day,he's abrasive,arrogant AND wrong.....exactly what a billion dollar business needs lol.
DaewooOfDeath said:The question I keep asking is how long Helmut Marko can keep being wrong about (everything?) while throwing his weight around, without getting the boot.
Seriously, how many quite good drivers has Marko misplaced and expelled now? Sainz, Ricciardo, Gasly, Albion, Tsunoda, Perez, Lawson ... damn.
RedBull wanted to keep Ricciardo but he chose to leave. I don't think it's anyone at RedBull's fault that he left. Perez worked out well for quite a while (4th, 3rd, and 2nd in the championship) before really falling apart last year.
In reply to CrashDummy :
Ricciardo left for a reason. I think it was very much RBR's fault he left. He was the senior driver to Max, and got the shaft pretty quickly.
Some more details of the swap- Honda is a strong participant in this, as they want Tsunoda in the RBR for the race in Japan. Helps when you know the team you are working with treats drivers like batteries. But what also is interesting to me is that Honda is done with RBR after this season- they make their own powertrains with "help" from Ford for the hybrid part. So this deal is JUST for this season, and no longer.
In addition to Honda trying to move the needle for Yuki, there was a picture of RB brass talking to Flavio in China. I wonder if there is concern of Liam's performance with RBjr, with Yuki probably being able to score more points then Liam and Calpinto in the frame. Obviously the worst scenario for RB as a whole is Yuki not doing much and RBjr and Liam doing worse then Yuki. Hadjar who out qualfied Yuki the last GP. This is crazy, netflix is going to love this drama...
alfadriver said:Some more details of the swap- Honda is a strong participant in this, as they want Tsunoda in the RBR for the race in Japan. Helps when you know the team you are working with treats drivers like batteries. But what also is interesting to me is that Honda is done with RBR after this season- they make their own powertrains with "help" from Ford for the hybrid part. So this deal is JUST for this season, and no longer.
Instead of editing that- I'm quoting my message- I'm hearing that Honda will support Tsunoda even when RBR changes powertrains in 2026. Assuming he lasts that long.
In reply to alfadriver :
Assuming he lasts that long.
The 2nd RB seat is like the equivalent of a Jets or CLE Browns QB position
I hope some how, some way Yuki can actually drive the Red Bull and does OK.....finishing in the points would count as a win if he does!
But I fear like all the others he's going to find the thing crazy weird to drive and crash out early on. He's worked long and hard to get the chance to drive for the varsity team, if he can mange to do well it will justify their belief in him, and prove that they should not have overlooked him at the start of this season. I hope he gets a decent salary bump too....
Yuki can only do better than Liam has so far this season, as there's nowhere to go but up. And Liam can only do better at VCARB.
The fact that Yuki is jumping into a car that's notoriously hard to drive with zero practice or seat time is going to be a big, big challenge.
alfadriver said:In reply to CrashDummy :
Ricciardo left for a reason. I think it was very much RBR's fault he left. He was the senior driver to Max, and got the shaft pretty quickly.
I don't think it's RBR's fault that Ricciardo couldn't compete with someone better than him. If he was faster, you bet he would have stayed and enjoyed a championship or a few. I do think it was a smart career (and mental) move of his, being honest with himself and knowing he wouldn't last long being #2 driver at RBR, so he'd rather be #1 driver at a worse team and keep driving.
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