No, of course not. I'm speaking relatively. I think Bottas is as at least as quick as Kimi in equal equipment. I'd love to see him take on Vettel in the same car, too.
Hamilton and Ricciardo are as good as they get.
No, of course not. I'm speaking relatively. I think Bottas is as at least as quick as Kimi in equal equipment. I'd love to see him take on Vettel in the same car, too.
Hamilton and Ricciardo are as good as they get.
In reply to Keith Tanner :
I'd love to see them all do a race or two in the same cars. F1 IROC.
I think it would be close between Vettel, Hamilton and Verstappen.
Ricciardo is usually not the fastest guy in a Red Bull, so I would put him 4th out of the 6 in raw pace, but who knows.
Ricciardo may not be the fastest qualifier, but I'd hate to try to keep him behind me. I'd also hate to have Verstappen behind me but for different reasons 
Has anyone watched Formula 2? They're doing rolling starts due to clutch problems and it seems to make things a lot more interesting. Spec cars with DRS and a good amount of passing. Plus the Italian commentator is almost stereotypically enthusiastic, which adds to the fun. Turns out you can watch replays via the ESPN app on Apple TV and probably via their website as well.
This was a fun GP. Hamilton just didn't get the start he needed.
The implied intentional crashing by the Ferrari guys is not necessary but also not unusual. I don't think Kimi intended to hit Hamilton. And mostly just blew the braking in the intensity of the moment. Sucks! Hamilton's pace afterwards showed he would most likely have won if he had a good start. Hamilton will still win the WDC not sure if the constructors will happen for MB.
Ricciardo should have Bottas's seat but I guess Toto doesn't like something Ricciardo jokingly said in his first year with RB about the MB being lazy. So apparently an apology wouldn't be enough.
Watching the top four battle for the last sprint was fun.
I got used to a race every week. Going to seem like a long wait until GP Germany.
Just think of the engineering groups for the top four teams. To have such a tight field of cars after millions of dollars spent and months of chasing ideas. Just awesome.
I like to study how the cars are engineered and developed through the year. It isn't just Ricciardo vs Alonso vs Hamilton. It's engineer groups all across Europe. Getting them closer and closer giving them the tools to drive the fastest. They aren't all the same because the driver's aren't.
Spec series car may favor Erricson and he becomes WDC.
Grosjean back to his old ways, borked the race for himself (twice!) and KMag right at the beginning. Although, had it not been for the Ham/Rai interaction, the two Haas cars would have probably not collided (which is why neither got a steward penalty). Just frustrating, because Kevin and Romain had pace to be 6/7 today.
Also, I felt bad for Daniel, I thought for certain that he'd make up ground on the leaders coming to pit during the first SC. But the pitlane is much much shorter at Silverstone, so he circulated in the same order as before they went in.
Very interesting knee jerk reaction from Mercedes that Kimi purposely hit Hammy. Obviously everybody has backed down from that comment and accepted it as a bad start from Hamilton and a lock up from Kimi. Just goes to show how people become so emotional when a mic is stuck in front of their face immediately. Perhaps it should be standard to allow people to take a walk like Hammy did to calm down. On the otherhand the people of the internet will criticize no matter what obviously American hopeful Santino Ferrucci, has foot in mouth diseases. He might have worked himself out of European series, i can imagine that Nascar or Indycar might be in his future.
Just out of curiosity, what do we know about the teams' current engine layouts? As I understand it, Mercedes split turbo design proved to be a big packaging advantage without compromising turbo efficiency, and I'm assuming they're still using that design. Renault (and Ferrari?) had a more conventional design, with the turbo in front of the engine. Ferrari has seemed to make it work and appears to be close to Mercedes power now, but Renault is still lacking. And Honda has ditched their "compressor in the V" design as of 2017, but what is their current design? And is there any reason to think that Renault and Honda will be able to challenge Mercedes on power output next year?
McLaren's lack of pace uncovered.
In reply to Adrian_Thompson :
no worky for me.
wvumtnbkr said:In reply to Adrian_Thompson :
no worky for me.
Uploading rather than hotlinking, hope this works for you. 
well yea, they obviously need to spend some more time and efforts on that front wing design! Nose that low to the ground, a single element front wing... Geez, what are they thinking?
I totally understand this. I'm still pissed at a guy from a racing incident in 2006.
http://www.racefans.net/2018/07/19/hamilton-fia-screwed-spa-2008-f1-win/
Line at the bottom of the article has Lewis signing with Merc for another two years.
I am excited to see how GP Germany goes!
I hope Williams will get back into the fight before the summer break. I have a feeling that Lowe just isn't the right fit. He is a great engineer. It is quite difficult to learn more about the engineering teams. I just feel Lowe fits the culture of Williams but can't get them to the right place.
Andrew Green from Force India seemed a better choice. Just remembered an interview with him a couple years ago and think if he could bring some of the FI intensity over to Williams it might be good
With all the drama made from the press on driver changes, it is shaping out that 2019 line up is going to be the same as 2018 plus or minus a ride buyer.
trigun7469 said:With all the drama made from the press on driver changes, it is shaping out that 2019 line up is going to be the same as 2018 plus or minus a ride buyer.
Somebody needed to retire to start the dominoes. Had Kimi either retired, or gotten fired, things would have probably looked a lot different. Nobody else in a seat worth having moved.
Speaking of seats not worth having, I wonder when Alonzo will announce his move to Indycar? I see that as almost inevitable, but we shall see.
Danny Ric is kinda stuck. I think he is at the height of his value just now. We shall see what the future holds for Red Bull, and maybe the 2021 rules revamp will make him look like a rocket surgeon for staying where he is, like, but opposite to, when Lewis made the move from Maclaren to Merc. I seem to recall we had quite a discussion here about what an idiot he was for leaving that super good Maclaren seat...
Streetwiseguy said:Speaking of seats not worth having, I wonder when Alonzo will announce his move to Indycar? I see that as almost inevitable, but we shall see.
Apparently his contract with Toyota doesn't expire until June of 2019, so he wouldn't be able to go drive a Honda (or Chevy) in Indycar until then, so he probably won't make the move for another year.
In reply to Tom_Spangler : Marshall Pruett also reported that indycar talks with McLaren stalled. I am sure that will effect Alonso. Just wondering if Zac is next on the chopping block.
trigun7469 said:In reply to Tom_Spangler : Marshall Pruett also reported that indycar talks with McLaren stalled. I am sure that will effect Alonso. Just wondering if Zac is next on the chopping block.
It wouldn't surprise me. As much as I'd love to see them come to Indycar, F1 is their core business, and they should get that house in order before branching out into a new series.
So, 60% good management, 40% luck? The long soft stint at the start was the obvious choice. The gravel stuffing made the final order possible, but nicely managed for the winner, anyway
I hope that's not too many spoilers.
THAT was an interesting race. With just enough rain to make it really interesting, that was really cool.
Lewis did show how great he is in the wet, even though it was barely wet- but the combination of fresh soft tires and the rain let him close at a massive rate on everybody in front of him. Plus, he really did a great job of preserving his tires, so that the change would work and the tires had good life at the end.
Valteri had a great race, but for that last pit, which didn't matter much- since he was told to stay in place behind Lewis.
Kimi- well, was Kimi.
Seb- given how much whining you did to get past Kimi, the fact that you took yourself out of the race was potetic justice, to those of us who are not fans.
Haas- man, got a fast car, but not the best of strategies. I understood when the rear cars took a chance on the rain, but the commentators ALL thought that Hamilton was doing the exact right thing given the forecast- you should follow the front runners, not the ones behind you. You managed to get one car back well into the points, but you should have easily gotten both.
On the overall pace- it's interesting to see how much faster Mercedes, Ferrari, and Red Bull are vs the rest of the field. The 4 front runners were able to put huge distance between them and 5th pretty quickly. And Hamilton didn't spend too much time until he got to 5th. IMHO, Riccardio was going to do that, had he not lost yet another Renault engine. For sure, it will, again, raise the Haas process over the rest of the teams. Personally, I'm fine with what Haas does, and would hope that the rest of the field catches on- so that the back markers can make their money go a lot farther.
Who decided to send Gasly out on Extreme Wets?
Ah, if you don't want spoilers don't read an F1 discussion thread after a morning race
Hamilton did a heck of a job making those tires last, and a perfect call by Mercedes on the change. Red Bull's strategy with Ricciardo shows that the Mercedes strategy wasn't exactly obvious. Of course, Red Bull didn't have the best possible day from a strategy viewpoint!
It's a shame that Bottas got told to back off, but the last thing Mercedes wanted was for one of those guys to leave the track under very tricky conditions and that would have been really easy to do if they were duking it out. Imagine what it would have been like if the race had been three laps longer with that frog stranger of a rainstorm, though! Hamilton's fastest lap took place when he was racing the weather.
Poor Vettel. He did that to himself, but man what a heartbreaker.
Funniest part was the commentators saying that Max's decision not to crash on the first lap was "a different driving style" or something like that. Second funniest was Kimi forcing Ferrari to explicitly tell him to let Vettel past.
This race, more than most, illustrated the difference between the top six cars and the others. The lead group was dropping the rest of the pack by over a second a lap. There needs to be a separate podium ceremony for the second tier teams! (Edit - typed while Alfa was posting!)
red_stapler said:Who decided to send Gasly out on Extreme Wets?
I think that was a case of "what have we got to lose?" Had the skies opened up like at the end of the race, it would have looked like a genius move.
Hamilton has been called to the stewards office for violating pit lane regulations. I don't know if that means a time-penalty, a grid penalty, exclusion or exoneration.
You'll need to log in to post.
