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2021 Formula 1 Season Thread

The-Real-Deal82 said:
I am too generally to be honest and my support for drivers usually follows them when they leave, much like when Lewis went to Mercedes. I’ve read a lot of F1 books over the years though and am not too keen on how Ferrari have demanded preferential treatment in many of the eras. The governing bodies have usually buckled to demands and they’ve been threatening to leave the sport since the mid 1970’s. I don’t support any teams in particular though and support the British drivers first but more than anything enjoy seeing good competition :).
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yup

And Ferrari are the epitome of the, "I'm going to take my ball and go home unless I get my way", team.
 
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The damage to Bottas’ wheel nut was made clear post race.

The teeth were completely stripped and appears a mechanic pulled the trigger before the gun was engaged.

69f5db99ae3996bacfd56c82562893c4.jpg


I remember McLaren in the early 2000’s gained the edge in pit stops by designing a wheel gun that was quicker than every other team and it took a while for others to catch on. From why I understand the design we see today hasn’t changed much for quite a few years and this incident will definitely spur Mercedes to review the male and female interfaces on these nuts going forward.
 
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The-Real-Deal82 said:
The damage to Bottas’ wheel nut was made clear post race.

The teeth were completely stripped and appears a mechanic pulled the trigger before the gun was engaged.

69f5db99ae3996bacfd56c82562893c4.jpg


I remember McLaren in the early 2000’s gained the edge in pit stops by designing a wheel gun that was quicker than every other team and it took a while for others to catch on. From why I understand the design we see today hasn’t changed much for quite a few years and this incident will definitely spur Mercedes to review the male and female interfaces on these nuts going forward.
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I wonder if that mechanic will be on the crew next time out?
 
I know McLaren (and possibly other teams) have a system where if something like this happens, they can literally just smack it with a massive hammer and break it off. It's surprising a team like Mercedes don't have any Plan B for things like this.
 
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Glideslope said:
Thought I share this link. So sad Honda is leaving.

www.autosport.com

How Honda has turned its engine into a Mercedes beater

www.autosport.com www.autosport.com
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It’s not sad in my view because they are a manufacturer/engine supplier who have done this countless times in the history of F1. When it’s not suiting them they up sticks and leave and lots of people lose their jobs. Right now they have a really good engine but because it doesn’t suit them for whatever commercial reason they have, they pull out. Hopefully the program is taken over and made a success. I have no sympathy for Honda as a company though.
 
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Yup, manufacturers are in F1 primarily for marketing and once the returns do not outweigh the expenses, they call it and leave.

Not to take anything away from Honda's engineering (which the article mentioned has made some breakthroughs), but I believe Honda's success has a fair bit to do with RBR, as well. McLaren were said to have really tied Honda's hands on packaging and such (the engine must fit the chassis, not vice-versa, and McLaren wanted a tight packaging) which led to cooling issues which contributed to the poor performance and reliability.

I expect Newey's design genius allowed more flexibility in packaging which helped Honda implement the changes they needed to extract the performance we are seeing. Ironically, this has allowed Honda to shrink the size of the ICE and allow the packaging to be tighter, like McLaren demanded.
 
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CWallace said:
Yup, manufacturers are in F1 primarily for marketing and once the returns do not outweigh the expenses, they call it and leave.

Not to take anything away from Honda's engineering (which the article mentioned has made some breakthroughs), but I believe Honda's success has a fair bit to do with RBR, as well. McLaren were said to have really tied Honda's hands on packaging and such (the engine must fit the chassis, not vice-versa, and McLaren wanted a tight packaging) which led to cooling issues which contributed to the poor performance and reliability.

I expect Newey's design genius allowed more flexibility in packaging which helped Honda implement the changes they needed to extract the performance we are seeing. Ironically, this has allowed Honda to shrink the size of the ICE and allow the packaging to be tighter, like McLaren demanded.
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I agree that the RBR Chassis has had a significant contribution. I just thought the article was Technical Tour DeForce on the RA621H as AMG is always being praised. Chassis aside, IMO, the RA621H makes as much if not a bit more power than the AMG.

I'll admit I can be biased with Honda as I have owned so many over the past 40 years. I don't feel sympathy for them. It's just sad to me to see another manufacturer leave. I guess I have lasting memories of Senna and Prost with the RA168E. It was almost too potent.

Have a great day. :)
 
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Listening to a really interesting interview with Paddy Lowe where he shares his opinions on the World Champions he's worked with over the years, to which it is many (Piquet, Mansell, Prost, Hakkinen, Alonso, Hamilton etc). He touches on the common modern 'fan' opinion that Hamilton is only a 7 times world champion due to the car and he disagrees from a technical standpoint. Many drivers are given the fortunate position of sitting in a car capable of a world championship and few convert this opportunity into success in the consistent way Lewis does. I've read a lot about Lewis in his different years and one comment I often see in discussion is he can crack and is mentally weak. I have never read an opinion of anybody who has worked with him that this is the case and quite the contrary. Paddy mentions how mentally superior he was in his debut season compared to Fernando and how he adapted to the car so quickly. Marc Priestley echoes this view from his time inside McLaren and said it was very clear from the first tests that Lewis had a talent that shocked engineers up and down the pitlane.

Interesting to hear out of all the champions Paddy worked with, Mansell was the most rewarding from an engineering perspective. When that car produced the goods, you 'knew Nigel had absolutely rung its neck'.

A thought provoking interview.
 
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It's pretty clear that driver talent plays an enormous role in winning a WDC. If it was "all about the car/team", then we'd see much stronger inter-team battles between the two drivers (though this can also happen when you have a great team with two great drivers - witness Fernando and Lewis at McLaren).

That being said, just being a great driver is not enough - you need to have the car and team, as well. Michael Schumacher and Fernando Alonso are clearly great drivers, but once they were not in great cars/teams, they struggled.
 
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The-Real-Deal82 said:
Listening to a really interesting interview with Paddy Lowe where he shares his opinions on the World Champions he's worked with over the years, to which it is many (Piquet, Mansell, Prost, Hakkinen, Alonso, Hamilton etc). He touches on the common modern 'fan' opinion that Hamilton is only a 7 times world champion due to the car and he disagrees from a technical standpoint. Many drivers are given the fortunate position of sitting in a car capable of a world championship and few convert this opportunity into success in the consistent way Lewis does. I've read a lot about Lewis in his different years and one comment I often see in discussion is he can crack and is mentally weak. I have never read an opinion of anybody who has worked with him that this is the case and quite the contrary. Paddy mentions how mentally superior he was in his debut season compared to Fernando and how he adapted to the car so quickly. Marc Priestley echoes this view from his time inside McLaren and said it was very clear from the first tests that Lewis had a talent that shocked engineers up and down the pitlane.

Interesting to hear out of all the champions Paddy worked with, Mansell was the most rewarding from an engineering perspective. When that car produced the goods, you 'knew Nigel had absolutely rung its neck'.

A thought provoking interview.
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Thing is he’s a 7 time champion that had a team mate 7 times in a car that could have won but didn’t. That’s not coincidence. That’s consistency.
 
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BenTrovato said:
Everytime it happens I’m still surprised!

What pace by Leclerc & Gasly… First time in a while I’m excited for the final Q3 lap, let’s see who takes it…

Edit: Anti-climactic spoke to soon lol
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Absolutely. 👍. Great to see the prancing horse on P1. 😏

Good effort by Hamilton as well to get that Mercedes in P2. Looked like a struggle. Interesting that a low downforce wing set up was needed for Qualifying. I thought the Mercedes was lacking downforce on exit during P1-P3.

Charles has a good chance tomorrow if he keeps it out of the wall.
 
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michael9891 said:
Max needs to learn be calmer. Swearing on live TV and saying he doesn't care won't do him any favours.
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Yeah we see some very mature performances from him, much like the last race and the media write about how he’s growing up and becoming world championship material. Then he has an outburst like this. I think he’ll cringe a bit watching these back in a few years lol. Can’t fault his competitiveness though.
 
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