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Racing point has pace.

mikeyg123 wrote:Not a great race from Bottas is it? It shouldn't be marginal in regards to beat Verstappen.

I was just about to ask, why is he so slow? Mercedes should be a couple of tenths faster than RB regardless of the difference in freshness of tyres.

mikeyg123 wrote:Not a great race from Bottas is it? It shouldn't be marginal in regards to beat Verstappen.

Same would have happened last weekend if Hamilton was in front, Bottas needs pole because it's so hard to overtake and you get number 1 on strategy.

Schumacher forever#1 wrote:

mikeyg123 wrote:Not a great race from Bottas is it? It shouldn't be marginal in regards to beat Verstappen.

I was just about to ask, why is he so slow? Mercedes should be a couple of tenths faster than RB regardless of the difference in freshness of tyres.

Plus Verstappen has damage

bottas vs max coming up

With the dirty air, I don't think Bottas will manage to get past Verstappen. But Verstappen is not the easiest to fight with. It may end in a mess.

That was really impressive defending from max. And it was very clean!

I do almoast wonder that as mercedes and Bottas may both know that he tends to struggle towards the end of his stints that he could have looked very slow initially because he was managing them to help him out at the end.

The difference between Hamilton and Bottas is pretty big, but nothing like as big as Verstappen and Albon. Despite running in clean air, Albon has dropped well over a pit stop behind. makes sense for Verstappen to pit.

TheGiantHogweed wrote:I do almoast wonder that as mercedes and Bottas may both know that he tends to struggle towards the end of his stints that he could have looked very slow initially because he was managing them to help him out at the end.

The difference between Hamilton and Bottas is pretty big, but nothing like as big as Verstappen and Albon. Despite running in clean air, Albon has dropped well over a pit stop behind. makes sense for Verstappen to pit.

His just slower on race pace and Hamilton was in relax mode ages ago.

Nice one Norris...

Redbull pit Max too early.

I would question Stroll's more on Ricciardo as well as Perez's earlier on. I also am surprised Perez didn't get any warnign for driving with such a big loose part on his car. That to me looked as risky or worse than what Leclerc was forced to pit for in Japan. It would have been harsh for any penalty, but safety at any point shouldn't be treated differently.

Nonetheless, 1 of Checo's best drives yet.

Leclerc looks to generally have more pace than Vettel, but they both still make stupid mistakes. Their team has two drivers that can either be great, or dreadful, but they tend to be one or the other.

Bottas and hamilton i think is a significently better line up. Mainly due to Hamilton of cource, But Bottas vertually never makes big mistakes or has terrible races. He often lacks pace, but also often looks decent. Overall would say he is very solid, which just can't be said about the Ferrari pair. Despite me thinking that Bottas doesn't have the true pace that Vettel and Leclerc have (more so Leclerc) Until Leclerc improves more, I still think Bottas has a slight edge over them both, especially in terms of being well suited to the team.

Sainz was a bit unlucky this race and Noris made a really silly judgement in practice. But again, Norris outperformed him in the race. I do think the McLaren is excellent now and am coming closer and closer to thinking that Sainz is simply average at best really, despite his qualifying yesterday. We will see, but Sainz and Leclerc both will need to improve a lot to make the team a very strong driver line up next year IMO.

This may be the weekend where Red Bull decide that they will go with Vettel for next season. The car clearly wasn't as quick as the Mercedes, but it is totally unacceptable that Albon was having to defend for his life against Perez at the end and was running so far behind Max.

Last week the fact that Albon got taken out after a bit of a fluke scenario enabled him to be near the front masked the fact that his pace was generally poor. This week there was no hiding place.

UnlikeUday wrote:Nonetheless, 1 of Checo's best drives yet.

I personally think his overtakes were very impressive (other than the last one), but I think the pace advantage the car had over others as well as Stroll's weak pace on race day somewhat flattered him. Him doing such a bad job in qualifying made his race look better than if he'd qualified where he should if I'm honest.

TheGiantHogweed wrote:I would question Stroll's more on Ricciardo as well as Perez's earlier on. I also am surprised Perez didn't get any warnign for driving with such a big loose part on his car. That to me looked as risky or worse than what Leclerc was forced to pit for in Japan. It would have been harsh for any penalty, but safety at any point shouldn't be treated differently.

Stroll should get a penalty because he overtook Ricciardo off track.

Nothing wrong with Perez. Can't compare to Leclerc in Japan. Leclerc had loads of front wing hanging loose and dragging on the ground.

Perez's loose bits just fell off so no harm in continuing. It was more like Leclerc continuing with a damaged floor here really.

Hamilton got the job done yesterday and it was very easy it seems. While Bottas' still leads the championship, any prospect of him getting a Rosberg style 40 point head start seems to be long gone. Hamilton woke up big time this weekend. I hope he can compete but I suspect same old same old.

It was a game effort from Ricciardo, Norris looks to be improving steadily and that was another excellent effort. McLaren also showed exceptional strategy and teamwork relative to Renault whose dilly dallying when Ricciardo was being held up by Ocon cost them a few more points.

Hamilton was pretty unchallenged and didn't put a foot wrong. His excellent qualifying allowed him that luxury.

Enjoyed Verstappen fighting back on Bottas towards the end but ultimately Bottas had too much pace/tyres for him.

Excellent from Perez, would like to see him and Albon though to see what happened. I thought he nailed on for DOTD but possibly not now.

Last season I thought a few people got a bit carried away with how good Norris is but happy to admit that I am now wrong. He's done an excellent job again here.

A good drive from Ricciardo, he should get the place back from Stroll as I think that was penalty worthy.

Ferrari, oh dear. Stupid from Chuck.

I hope this race proves that the hass drivers can race cleanly. For the ability of their car, they both did well and looked to have identical pace vertually the whole race. If I am corect, I think they both overtook eachother cleanly 2 or 3 times. Grosjean at laest had the safety car to allow him to close up his pit lane start, but he still had to gain the positions to his team mate, which he managed. Given that Grosjean had an issue in qualifying and started last in the pit lane, the fact that they were both fighting the whole race showed that they were pretty much equal, despite magnussen finishing 1 place ahead in the end.

Looks like Mercedes will cruise to 1-2 once again in the championship. Though RP, Mclaren and Renault look competitive on this track and seems to be in Ferrari level in the midfield so far. Albon is pretty slow.

Fair play to Mercedes, they just keep building great cars. The difference between Hamilton and Bottas in race pace has been pretty clear in the last week. 3 good grand prixs coming up for Hamilton.

So it would seem that Renault have lodged a complaint about Racing Point cars being illegal. No other info yet...

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/arti ... qqzPb.html

Paragraph 1, article 2 (a) says: “A competitor shall, in respect of the Listed Parts to be used in its cars in Formula One, only use Listed Parts which are designed by it.” Article 2 (c) adds: “In the case of the Outsourcing of design, such third party shall not be a competitor or a party that directly or indirectly designs Listed Parts for any competitor.”

As it’s been dubbed the pink merc, Renault are claiming as such and have filed accordingly.

Personally I don’t see anything coming from it. The wrapping may be pretty similar if not identical but underneath won’t be the same. Renault are just trying to divert attention away from egg on their face for not allowing riccardo past ocon sooner.

Racing Point claim it was reverse engineered.

Seeing as they didn't protest it last week, maybe Renault have evidence that Racing Point purchased it from Mercedes

BMWSauber84 wrote:Verstappen might be in luck today (reliability pending). I suspect Hamilton may have quite a draggy setup.

...to explain his wet pole lap?

TheGiantHogweed wrote:

tootsie323 wrote:No action on the Ferrari incident.I know it was a first lap thing but wasn't that just clumsy from Leclerc? COnsidering Hamilton's penalty from last week...

remember that first lap clashes are often not punished as harshly. Plus think about Hamilton vs Rosberg spain 2016, Verstappen vs Ricciardo Baku 2018, Vettel vs Leclerc brazil 2019. Team mate collisions so rarely get investigated further.

It seems to me though that with the other incidents they can get away with saying its 50/50, you can't with what Leclerc did though, a certain inconsistency shines through.

pokerman wrote:

BMWSauber84 wrote:Verstappen might be in luck today (reliability pending). I suspect Hamilton may have quite a draggy setup.

...to explain his wet pole lap?

Yes, although that theory was pretty conclusively negated by the race.

BMWSauber84 wrote:

pokerman wrote:

BMWSauber84 wrote:Verstappen might be in luck today (reliability pending). I suspect Hamilton may have quite a draggy setup.

...to explain his wet pole lap?

Yes, although that theory was pretty conclusively negated by the race.

Fair enough, so now you're a believer?

I'm just going to tune in for the last 5 laps from now on to see Lando Norris charge through the field! I'm not sure how or why but on low fuel that McLaren goes like a little rocket, what will they be like with a Merc engine in there?

The protest from Renault will be heard at a later date once the evidence is gathered: https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/15054 ... point-cars

I’m a bit out of my depth on the technical side of things, but as with DAS why don’t the rules allow this to be protested outside of a race weekend (I.e pre season testing)?

pokerman wrote:

BMWSauber84 wrote:

pokerman wrote:

BMWSauber84 wrote:Verstappen might be in luck today (reliability pending). I suspect Hamilton may have quite a draggy setup.

...to explain his wet pole lap?

Yes, although that theory was pretty conclusively negated by the race.

Fair enough, so now you're a believer?

Haha, always have been. But that gap to Bottas' was astronomical.

TheGiantHogweed wrote:Leclerc looks to generally have more pace than Vettel, but they both still make stupid mistakes. Their team has two drivers that can either be great, or dreadful, but they tend to be one or the other.

Bottas and hamilton i think is a significently better line up. Mainly due to Hamilton of cource, But Bottas vertually never makes big mistakes or has terrible races. He often lacks pace, but also often looks decent. Overall would say he is very solid, which just can't be said about the Ferrari pair. Despite me thinking that Bottas doesn't have the true pace that Vettel and Leclerc have (more so Leclerc) Until Leclerc improves more, I still think Bottas has a slight edge over them both, especially in terms of being well suited to the team.

Sainz was a bit unlucky this race and Noris made a really silly judgement in practice. But again, Norris outperformed him in the race. I do think the McLaren is excellent now and am coming closer and closer to thinking that Sainz is simply average at best really, despite his qualifying yesterday. We will see, but Sainz and Leclerc both will need to improve a lot to make the team a very strong driver line up next year IMO.

I think it has more to do with the car than the drivers. Some mistakes are down to inexperience, but a good number are due to a driver being under pressure to perform (either exerted by the team or on himself) You won't find many people who would say that Mark Webber did not have the true pace of Hamilton and Button, but Mark had a slight edge over them in 2010+ years because he was better suited to Red Bull than either Lewis or Jenson. Rather, I think it came down to the cards that the drivers were dealt - meaning, the car they were given and had to contend with. For that reason, I think it is difficult to compare across teams. Bottas has the better car and generally he should, with Hamilton, beat everyone else in the field. That is pretty much the case.

I don't think it is reasonable to expect either Leclerc or Sainz to perform like Bottas or Hamilton in the Ferrari next season, if the car is performing the way it is this year.

Mayhem wrote:https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/arti ... qqzPb.html

Paragraph 1, article 2 (a) says: “A competitor shall, in respect of the Listed Parts to be used in its cars in Formula One, only use Listed Parts which are designed by it.” Article 2 (c) adds: “In the case of the Outsourcing of design, such third party shall not be a competitor or a party that directly or indirectly designs Listed Parts for any competitor.”

As it’s been dubbed the pink merc, Renault are claiming as such and have filed accordingly.

Personally I don’t see anything coming from it. The wrapping may be pretty similar if not identical but underneath won’t be the same. Renault are just trying to divert attention away from egg on their face for not allowing riccardo past ocon sooner.

I think it very cheeky of Racing Point to copy the round, upper surface of the nose cone from the Mercedes to it's car. Mercedes have this styling cue to create a round surface sporting the Mercedes Tri-Star logo. Racing Point have no such reason whatsoever -- and no excuse -- to duplicate this feature on their car, and no "listed" aerodynamic part can be more prominent than this nose cone.


https://a1.espncdn.com/combiner/i?img=% ... format=jpg


https://a.espncdn.com/combiner/i?img=%2 ... format=jpg

DFWdude wrote:

Mayhem wrote:https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/arti ... qqzPb.html

Paragraph 1, article 2 (a) says: “A competitor shall, in respect of the Listed Parts to be used in its cars in Formula One, only use Listed Parts which are designed by it.” Article 2 (c) adds: “In the case of the Outsourcing of design, such third party shall not be a competitor or a party that directly or indirectly designs Listed Parts for any competitor.”

As it’s been dubbed the pink merc, Renault are claiming as such and have filed accordingly.

Personally I don’t see anything coming from it. The wrapping may be pretty similar if not identical but underneath won’t be the same. Renault are just trying to divert attention away from egg on their face for not allowing riccardo past ocon sooner.

I think it very cheeky of Racing Point to copy the round, upper surface of the nose cone from the Mercedes to it's car. Mercedes have this styling cue to create a round surface sporting the Mercedes Tri-Star logo. Racing Point have no such reason whatsoever -- and no excuse -- to duplicate this feature on their car, and no "listed" aerodynamic part can be more prominent than this nose cone.

The problem is that they've openly admitted they copied the car. That's not illegal. The burden of proof is to demonstrate that they copied it with inside help from Mercedes, which would be illegal. Something as visible as the nose would be quite trivial for a team to copy, so I'm sure the protest rests on the internal components that would be difficult or impossible to reproduce exactly without Mercedes help.

bourbon19 wrote:

TheGiantHogweed wrote:Leclerc looks to generally have more pace than Vettel, but they both still make stupid mistakes. Their team has two drivers that can either be great, or dreadful, but they tend to be one or the other.

Bottas and hamilton i think is a significently better line up. Mainly due to Hamilton of cource, But Bottas vertually never makes big mistakes or has terrible races. He often lacks pace, but also often looks decent. Overall would say he is very solid, which just can't be said about the Ferrari pair. Despite me thinking that Bottas doesn't have the true pace that Vettel and Leclerc have (more so Leclerc) Until Leclerc improves more, I still think Bottas has a slight edge over them both, especially in terms of being well suited to the team.

Sainz was a bit unlucky this race and Noris made a really silly judgement in practice. But again, Norris outperformed him in the race. I do think the McLaren is excellent now and am coming closer and closer to thinking that Sainz is simply average at best really, despite his qualifying yesterday. We will see, but Sainz and Leclerc both will need to improve a lot to make the team a very strong driver line up next year IMO.

I think it has more to do with the car than the drivers. Some mistakes are down to inexperience, but a good number are due to a driver being under pressure to perform (either exerted by the team or on himself) You won't find many people who would say that Mark Webber did not have the true pace of Hamilton and Button, but Mark had a slight edge over them in 2010+ years because he was better suited to Red Bull than either Lewis or Jenson. Rather, I think it came down to the cards that the drivers were dealt - meaning, the car they were given and had to contend with. For that reason, I think it is difficult to compare across teams. Bottas has the better car and generally he should, with Hamilton, beat everyone else in the field. That is pretty much the case.

I don't think it is reasonable to expect either Leclerc or Sainz to perform like Bottas or Hamilton in the Ferrari next season, if the car is performing the way it is this year.

I think Sainz will be good for Ferrari. From what I've heard and read he is a very strong in helping the development of cars, and you can see the proof in that with the improvement Mclaren made from the beginning of last year to the end, and then to now. He is also a fierce racer, even though his pace is never blistering fast.But he doesn't have to be the superman at Ferrari, they already have one in Leclerc, who does need to mature and refine his driving style, but he has the raw talent. As soon as the car becomes good, and it will, I think Sainz will be a factor in winning races and generally will be a better number 2 than Raikonnen was at Ferrari.

DFWdude wrote:

Mayhem wrote:https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/arti ... qqzPb.html

Paragraph 1, article 2 (a) says: “A competitor shall, in respect of the Listed Parts to be used in its cars in Formula One, only use Listed Parts which are designed by it.” Article 2 (c) adds: “In the case of the Outsourcing of design, such third party shall not be a competitor or a party that directly or indirectly designs Listed Parts for any competitor.”

As it’s been dubbed the pink merc, Renault are claiming as such and have filed accordingly.

Personally I don’t see anything coming from it. The wrapping may be pretty similar if not identical but underneath won’t be the same. Renault are just trying to divert attention away from egg on their face for not allowing riccardo past ocon sooner.

I think it very cheeky of Racing Point to copy the round, upper surface of the nose cone from the Mercedes to it's car. Mercedes have this styling cue to create a round surface sporting the Mercedes Tri-Star logo. Racing Point have no such reason whatsoever -- and no excuse -- to duplicate this feature on their car, and no "listed" aerodynamic part can be more prominent than this nose cone.



https://a1.espncdn.com/combiner/i?img=% ... format=jpg


https://a.espncdn.com/combiner/i?img=%2 ... format=jpg

Not sure whether this is tongue in cheek, but I don't think for a second that this is circular area at the tip to the nose is for styling purposes only.

This is usually combined with another aero feature dubbed 'the cape' which sit on each side of the none cone

This race wasn't the best race unfortunately. We can conclude Mercedes will win the title again in 2020. The drivers are good but the team is so good that the drivers don't matter that much anymore. Put Russel in the car and he will challenge Hamilton for that Mercedes championship. It is a great drive from Hamilton but havibg the best car makes all the difference. No need to push the car beyond it's capabilities like the rest of the field has to do in order to gain a posistion but risking a lot while doing so. It's a mechanical sport of course but it's starting to be a bit silly hearing Toto talk. That car can gain more speed when needed. They are light years ahead. So good job from Mercedes. I guess the two drivers don't care. They have their mini championship. Hamilton knows he can beat Bottas. (He wasn't that much of a fight for Massa at Williams) so another title to his name.

He is of course the best. If you win you are.
But would he really think he is the best knowing other young guy's would challenge / beat him in different cars?
If all the cars he drove were championship cars, it's hard to imagine he will not think he is the best even though the material was the best.


Something needs to change big time.

Hamilton is clearly the best driver in the best car. Which makes the main difference. Bottas as no 1 wouldn't win all the races in a season.

Hamilton's qualifying in the wet was a lesson to the other drivers, Horner saying Max would have been 0.3 sec of if he hadn't spun was a joke.
Even 0.3 sec is a big margin but why didn't he set that time then, because he was going backwards.

I was warming to Max but I'm getting a bit fed up of the moaning now. As for Horner why couldn't he just recognise a stunning lap?