3rd in WCC will go to?

[UnlikeUday]

Source - Imgur

The battle for claiming 3rd in the WCC table is ridiculously close. Wish this was the case with the top teams.

Renault lead by 1 point due to Ricciardo's 2 podiums in 3 races. McLaren with 1 point behind are holding on & can turn the tables around. Racing Point were 3rd before Imola but a strategic mistake cost them big time. They too are 1 point behind Renault.

Renault - are strong due to Ricciardo's tenacity but are struggling with reliability as seen with Ocon's string of retirements.
McLaren - seem to be the strongest when it comes to the lineup. Norris & Sainz are both capable of scoring good points if things go their way.
Racing Point- have been a 1 man show in the form of Perez as Stroll hasn't scored in 5 races. This is hurting the team too.

All 3 teams seem evenly matched. What will help decide is which 2nd driver can also score well. Reliability too will play a big factor as we're in the closing stages of the season.

[Banana Man]

Renault have the momentum and seem to have developed the best car but only Dan regularly gets the best out of it. McLaren have the best driver pairing but probably weakest on race pace. RP have a fast car but rarely get the best out of it on a Sunday.

On balance I’m going to say Renault.

[Exediron]

Hard call, mostly because of the drivers.

I think Racing Point has the best car out of the three, and as such their organic position is 3rd. But they don't have the strongest driver lineup, and at the moment they're losing a lot of points due to driver error and sometimes just plain bad luck.

Renault is looking like they have the best car, but I think that's just because they have the best single driver. Ricciardo can make a difference over the others, but he can't outscore two drivers alone...

McLaren seems to have the weakest car of the three at the moment, but the best total driver package. They've also lost a fair bit of points to unreliability and bad luck.

This one is too close for me to forecast a clear winner, and that makes it exciting (much more so than the actual championship). The partisan in me thinks McLaren, but the realist thinks Racing Point has the best car and the best car usually wins.

[Schumacher forever#1]

Don't forget Racing Point have a 15 point penalty.

I think Renault will finish third, much to Alonso's delight!

I think for the next couple of races, Ricciardo could pull away and dominate F1.5 (perhaps with Leclerc his biggest rival). I also see Ocon improving as the season comes to a close. Because Racing Point and McLaren will be taking points off each other, I think as long as Ricciardo regularly comes out on top, he could do enough on his own to take Renault to third.

[mikeyg123]

I think Racing Point is the third best car but in a tight midfield Ricciardo is making the difference in a car that may still be slower than the McLaren's. If they stop making bad strategy calls on Perez's car and Lance chips in a bit then Racing Point should secure third.

[Banana Man]

A couple of thoroughly substandard weekends for Renault recently. As a McLaren fan I’m basically hoping for a couple of dull Ham-Ver-Bot races to end the season, so there are no big podium points left for RP to catch them.

[tootsie323]

Bringing this back up. A 10-point gap between RP and Macca which Macca's qualifying result relative to RP (albeit with Perez's starting position through an engine penalty) potentially overturning that deficit.It's going to be a heck of a race from that perspective tomorrow.
I'm assuming that Renault don't pull off a minor miracle.

[BMWSauber84]

Really, Racing Point should have wrapped this third place up by now, and credit has to go to McLaren for keeping it interesting. If McLaren do pinch third, than RP will have to reflect on the fact that since he stood on the podium at Monza, Stroll has amassed 17 points to Perez's 91 (yes 91. That's more than Verstappen or Bottas and an engine failure chucked away 15 more) over the same period albeit with Stroll missing a race.

Yes in that time Stroll got a pole position, and he's had some poor luck, but his pace has fairly often not been there. It's the second season running where Perez has won a stack of points in the second half of the season while Stroll has fizzled out.

[tootsie323]

Sadly ironic that Perez, with a new engine, should retire from the race. It didn't help that Stroll didn't pass Vettel quickly after that first round of stops and that put RP firmly on the back foot. Meanwhile, the Macca drivers did what they needed to - best of the rest in the race, resulting in the same in the WCC.

[Banana Man]

On balance I’m going to say Renault.

Boom! Nailed it!

[mikeyg123]

I'm really pleased that Racing Point's rule breaking cost them something and McLaren gained from employing two good drivers rather than Zak Brown's son.

McLaren probably had the 5th fastest car on average.

Racing Point had easily the 3rd best car but got side tracked focussing on the weaker driver. The stronger driver kept getting duff strategies and thus they lost enough points that would have see them 3rd even with Stroll in one car.

[JN23]

I'm really pleased that Racing Point's rule breaking cost them something and McLaren gained from employing two good drivers rather than Zak Brown's son.

McLaren probably had the 5th fastest car on average.

Racing Point had easily the 3rd best car but got side tracked focussing on the weaker driver. The stronger driver kept getting duff strategies and thus they lost enough points that would have see them 3rd even with Stroll in one car.

[Exediron]

I sure didn't expect that, but I'm over the moon with the result!

[Mort Canard]

I am hoping for another round of this battle next year. McLaren will have a bit more advantage with the Merc engine although there may be some teething problems with fitting a new engine into the chasis. Alpine (Renault) and Aston Marting (Racing Point) should be back as strong as ever. Hopefully we can add Alpha Tauri and maybe Ferrari to the mix in midfield runners.

[mikeyg123]

Question - Do RP get the 2020 Mercedes now or do they have to keep developing the current car?

[Siao7]

Question - Do RP get the 2020 Mercedes now or do they have to keep developing the current car?

Will they get the DAS?

[JN23]

Question - Do RP get the 2020 Mercedes now or do they have to keep developing the current car?

Will they get the DAS?

No and no.

Ted Kravitz said on his notebook that they’ll be building their own car (assume this means an evolution of their current car).

DAS is now banned.

[mikeyg123]

Question - Do RP get the 2020 Mercedes now or do they have to keep developing the current car?

Will they get the DAS?

No and no.

Ted Kravitz said on his notebook that they’ll be building their own car (assume this means an evolution of their current car).

DAS is now banned.

Thanks.

In that case the battle for 3rd next year will be epic. Aston Martin starting from the best base but with less head room to improve. McLaren have a very strong line up next year, Renault have the Alonso factor and Ferrari should be coming back.

[Siao7]

Question - Do RP get the 2020 Mercedes now or do they have to keep developing the current car?

Will they get the DAS?

No and no.

Ted Kravitz said on his notebook that they’ll be building their own car (assume this means an evolution of their current car).

DAS is now banned.

Oh yeah, I forgot about the ban on DAS! Thanks JN23

[MistaVega23]

Hopefully we can add Alpha Tauri and maybe Ferrari to the mix in midfield runners.

Wow. This is definitely something I didn't expect to read after the end of last season.

Maybe we'll get a Williams/Ferrari battle for 9th in the constructors in 2021?

[UnlikeUday]

Aston Martin are surely serious about their '21 campaign!


Source - Imgur

[JN23]

Question - Do RP get the 2020 Mercedes now or do they have to keep developing the current car?

Will they get the DAS?

No and no.

Ted Kravitz said on his notebook that they’ll be building their own car (assume this means an evolution of their current car).

DAS is now banned.

Thanks.

In that case the battle for 3rd next year will be epic. Aston Martin starting from the best base but with less head room to improve. McLaren have a very strong line up next year, Renault have the Alonso factor and Ferrari should be coming back.

Yep agreed, I think Ferrari are quite a big unknown quantity right now as they’ll have a new engine next year but the question is how much better. Wouldn’t be surprised if they’re challenging Red Bull for second but also wouldn’t be surprised if they’re still firmly in the midfield and struggling at power tracks like this year.

[Mort Canard]

Hopefully we can add Alpha Tauri and maybe Ferrari to the mix in midfield runners.

Wow. This is definitely something I didn't expect to read after the end of last season.

Maybe we'll get a Williams/Ferrari battle for 9th in the constructors in 2021?

With Ferrari and Alpha Tauri running a distant sixth and seventh this year, I would hope that both teams can find their way back into competition in the midfield.

3 McLaren 202
4 Racing Point 195
5 Renault 181
6 Ferrari 131
7 AlphaTauri 107

[BMWSauber84]

There's absolutely no doubt in my mind that a Perez/Hulkenberg team all season for Racing Point would have seen then comfortably third in the WCC. Over an entire season, Stroll jnr just isn't going to deliver consistently week in, week out.

The truly worrying thing is that he got weaker as the season went on (with the wet pole position a significant outlier). 2019 and 2020 have provided similar stories in that Perez had a slightly off the pace start, then switched it on to outscore Stroll by an enormous percentage in the second half of the season.

If Aston Martin have ambitions of being championship challengers after 2021 (or even in 2021) then the decision to jettison Perez and maintain a third rate driver just doesn't make sense. It's not sustainable in the long term.

[tootsie323]

If you look at where RP lost that 3rd position, there are a number of factors:
- points deduction for the Merc lookalike brake components
- drivers missing races for Covid (though Hulk did a great job standing in)
- reliability and no-fault collisions (Russia and Bahrain, both for Stroll as I recall)
- strategy calls (Eifel and Imola denying Perez more podiums)
- tyre management (I'm thinking Stroll going backwards after a tyre change , more than once)
I don't doubt that Perez would be a better bet than Stroll partnering Vettel next year. However, I do think that Stroll can further improve - as I've mentioned above, he does not appear to have gotten a handle on getting tyres switched on mid-race, after pitting, complaining about grip and unable to progress. He has certainly shown that he is capable of putting in a good race; I think that he needs more experience and may well learn a lot from Vettel. I'm not prepared to write him off just yet.