Formula 1 - F1 - Current Season Discussion

[sangiuseppe]



To be fair, Montezemolo went from being Enzo's assistant to running the team.

You are right, but Enzo was very often at the racetrack and directly involved in the team and so was Montezemolo. Have you ever heard of him? Speed and Nbc didn't even have a picture of him on their website

 

[sugarbutch]

I doubt that on-track operations are at the root of la Scuderia's performance deficit. My supposition is that they set themselves too conservative targets for engine and aero performance this year. That's not something that being on the pitwall last year would affect.

 

[sangiuseppe]

My concern is that he doesn't know anybody. How would you convince key people to jump ships if you have no reputation?

 

[sugarbutch]

I have no idea whether he will be successful, but I don't think that his previous position in the company is indicative of the possibility of success.

 

[sugarbutch]

FIA says, Suck it, Red Bull.

 

[idfnl]



FIA says, Suck it, Red Bull.

Rightly so. They cant allow that prescient.

 

[idfnl]

Wow, that's 3 of 4 races Vettel has been out-qualified. He's got his hands full.

 

[sugarbutch]

Yep. Did you read that RBR's flow sensors have been damaged by their Total fuel, and that they've modified the fittings? Totally the FIA's fault...

 

[idfnl]

Wow. We all thought the battle this season was between Alonso and Kimi, it appears its actually about Ricciardo and Vettel. Last year we had Multi21, this year it's "tough luck".

Drivers switching teams tells you a lot:

Grosjean is not as fast as I thought he was getting, Kimi looks outmatched now

Massa is quicker than I thought he was, and by proxy Bottas is quick

This Kvyat kid is outpacing Vergne

Ricciardo is quicker than Vettel right now. I think the old car really suited Vettel's style, or he is not that adaptable, or Ricciardo is much more adaptable or just simply a faster driver.

Rosberg is getting beat, he seemed angry in the waiting area, didn't talk to Lewis, blew the engineer off

This looks like Lewis's year. F1 drivers in general need to stop using the word "obviously".

 

[ianGP]

Yep, impressed with Massa again. Much like the 2008 Massa. His last push out of Q2 got me jumping up and down!

Hammy and Nico are having a nice battle up front, I just hope they don't take it too far *cross fingers*

EDIT: damn right it's Hammy's year! Let's just hope his immaturity doesn't get in the way.

 

[sugarbutch]

Let's not forget that had McLaren not asked him to stay out in China in 2007, he likely would be a two-time champ already. I was amused when he encouraged Rosberg to check out how heavy the winner's trophy was.

I'm shocked that neither Rosberg nor Bottas suffered a broken suspension. The Massa - Alonso contact was at least sidewall-to-sidewall.

RBR will point out to Vettel that he gained nothing from holding back Ricciardo, but that the team lost the constructor's points they almost certainly would have claimed when Ricciardo got the podium from Alonso.

 

[Dragon]



Wow. We all thought the battle this season was between Alonso and Kimi, it appears its actually about Ricciardo and Vettel. Last year we had Multi21, this year it's "tough luck".

Drivers switching teams tells you a lot:

Grosjean is not as fast as I thought he was getting, Kimi looks outmatched now

Massa is quicker than I thought he was, and by proxy Bottas is quick

This Kvyat kid is outpacing Vergne

Ricciardo is quicker than Vettel right now. I think the old car really suited Vettel's style, or he is not that adaptable, or Ricciardo is much more adaptable or just simply a faster driver.

Rosberg is getting beat, he seemed angry in the waiting area, didn't talk to Lewis, blew the engineer off

This looks like Lewis's year. F1 drivers in general need to stop using the word "obviously".

Like you said, it is definitely Lewis' year, but luck will also play a very important part. If it wasn't for Lewis' retirement, he would have been waaay ahead in the driver's championship, but now even after 3 straight wins he has just barely caught up. It seems a couple retirements throughout the season will be much more damaging than being slightly slower and coming in 2nd or 3rd place...we'll see.

The Red Bull driver lineup is very close. I think one of the commentators pointed out that it may be that Ricciardo is more used to driving low downforce cars while Vettel may be used to driving the high downforce, nice handling cars. I always thought these two drivers would be closely matched though, like Rosberg and Hamilton.

It's great to see Massa doing good. Massa has always been very quick when he was allowed to race freely. When matched against Shumacher he was often quicker towards the end of the season when team orders weren't into play. Same against Alonso...he frequently out qualified Alonso towards the end of the season when team orders were not in force.

Grojean has always been very quick IMO. The problem is he not as consistent as the best drivers yet. He often out qualified Kimi by large margins. Also Grojean has won the race of champions. Kimi, I always thought he would be slower than Alonso, but we'll see how it goes once the cars are sorted out more.

Seems like the focus towards mid season will be on how much the other teams can get their engines sorted out. The power difference between the Mercs and the rest is huge right now, but if Renault and Ferrari can catch up a bit, things should be more interesting. For example, it wouldn't have been so easy for Rosberg to get his 2nd place China finish if it wasn't for the huge power advantage and he would have probably been stuck in 4th/5th.

 

[idfnl]



Like you said, it is definitely Lewis' year, but luck will also play a very important part. If it wasn't for Lewis' retirement, he would have been waaay ahead in the driver's championship, but now even after 3 straight wins he has just barely caught up. It seems a couple retirements throughout the season will be much more damaging than being slightly slower and coming in 2nd or 3rd place...we'll see.

The Red Bull driver lineup is very close. I think one of the commentators pointed out that it may be that Ricciardo is more used to driving low downforce cars while Vettel may be used to driving the high downforce, nice handling cars. I always thought these two drivers would be closely matched though, like Rosberg and Hamilton.

It's great to see Massa doing good. Massa has always been very quick when he was allowed to race freely. When matched against Shumacher he was often quicker towards the end of the season when team orders weren't into play. Same against Alonso...he frequently out qualified Alonso towards the end of the season when team orders were not in force.

Grojean has always been very quick IMO. The problem is he not as consistent as the best drivers yet. He often out qualified Kimi by large margins. Also Grojean has won the race of champions. Kimi, I always thought he would be slower than Alonso, but we'll see how it goes once the cars are sorted out more.

Seems like the focus towards mid season will be on how much the other teams can get their engines sorted out. The power difference between the Mercs and the rest is huge right now, but if Renault and Ferrari can catch up a bit, things should be more interesting. For example, it wouldn't have been so easy for Rosberg to get his 2nd place China finish if it wasn't for the huge power advantage and he would have probably been stuck in 4th/5th.

I don't recall Prost, Schumacher, Senna, etc having problems adapting to cars or changing formulas. Senna was just as quick when the turbo era ended, the only time I ever recall him struggling was with the new Williams post active suspension era, but even that car was being sorted out very quickly until, unfortunately, he died. That car went on to win more world championships.

I thought Ricciardo was hired because RBR knew he was a tick slower and wouldn't challenge golden boy. I don't really believe the team expected this. Ricciardo didn't stand out that much at TRosso. I think the risk here is that we are seeing Vettel exposed pretty badly. Look at the history: just Bourdais and Webber. He destroyed both, but come one... Bourdais never did dick in F1 and I think we are seeing how unimpressive Mark Webber really was. He had an amazing car for 4 seasons. Now he's getting beaten. We may have another Damon Hill, everyone.

 

[sugarbutch]

It's a bit premature to compare him to Damon Hill. Different eras highlight various aptitudes/sensitivities. It may be that Vettel's driving style was well suited to the blown-diffuser era. Even as the other teams clawed back some of the performance differential of the blown diffuser, it appears that Vettel uniquely took advantage of it. Schumacher, in hindsight, was well suited to the era of unlimited testing (and driving for a team capable of providing him with a private test track). His lackluster comeback isn't completely down to that, but I think had he been given the opportunity to test until there was no more light, I bet we would have seen a different outcome.

Vettel did well before the RBR machine came together, and I suspect we haven't seen the last of him yet.

 

[Dragon]

^^ yeah, Vetttel was obviously very quick even before RBR. It's not that Vettel is slow, it's just that Ricciardo and Vettel are more evenly matched compared to former team mates. I think the time differences in this early stage are due to the cars...it depends on which car is working more at 100% vs which car may have a few small issues costing the driver some time.