The official Formula 1 and general motorsport thread for 2019

Race orders on race 3 of the championship is just bloody stupid.
Maybe they should just ban them outright again.

Ferrari should have just let Leclerc get on with it, instead he lost several seconds dropping behind Vettel, then lost even more time stuck behind Seb.

The team cost him at the very least a podium finish.

Jam-Master Jay wrote:I fell asleep during the race and can't be arsed to watch my recording as I know Hamilton won yet another Mercedes 1-2 snoozefest. It's hard to get behind Ferrari as they often compromise one car with dodgy strategy calls and team orders. Let Vettel through by all means if he had the pace, but he clearly didn't so what do Ferrari do? Leave Leclerc out on a long stint which enables Verstappen to build a gap.

I'm just going to follow the midfield battle as I've had enough of the big 3, though I suppose it's really the big 2 + Verstappen right now as Gasly is completely out of his depth.

That’s pretty much what I’m doing now, I’d love for Ferrari or Red Bull to actually challenge Mercedes and win (whether by team error or driver error), but they just seem incapable of doing so for a season and it’s annoying for the fans of the sport. Still I maintain that I have no issues with Mercedes doing such an all around fantastic job, whatever issues that arise they just sort them out and seem to become a stronger team because of it, its not like Ferrari and Red Bull operate on small budgets either. As you said Gasly does seem massively out of his depth, even on low fuel and new soft tyres he only just got the point for fastest lap today. Sounds massively unfair but how long will they give him? I reckon he’ll get at least the full season, who can say for 2020 though, if he continues as is (consistently behind Verstappen in qualifying and the races) then why keep him on, should have given him a second year at Toro Rosso and gave someone else a shot in my opinion.

The Formula 1.5 championship is a lot more exciting, the midfield is generally very close and the racing is often very good, as well as not being as focused on the pit stops (like todays race, Verstappen only posed a threat to Vettel for a lap, once Vettel was clear that was that), when their car works it looks like Renault would have this championship sown up though, seems to break down quite a bit though and its only been 3 races :roll:

jiggles wrote:
Mini E wrote:I think I've officially lost interest in this sport now.

I'd recommend giving MotoGP a shot if you haven't already. Incredible racing. Overtaking everywhere, no "pit strategy" or "team orders", super exciting, races are less than an hour long.

3rd Grand Prix of the season is at 8pm this evening, and the team on BT Sport have good chemistry. It's brilliant.

I tried MotoGP last year and just couldn’t get into it, thankfully I’ve been loving the other 4 wheeled variants so far this year, WRC and Formula E mainly. The WEC’s next round is in early May at Spa before concluding in June at the 24H Le Mans, both of which I should be able to watch (last year I watched about 2/3 of the 24 hours).

Peter Crisp wrote:Race orders on race 3 of the championship is just bloody stupid.
Maybe they should just ban them outright again.

While I don’t think they should be banned out right (asin some cases they work out quite well, like when Ocon and Perez were (stupidly) crashing into each other a lot, the only way they could stop them was to say no racing each other), I do think they should limit them. Maybe in circumstances above like the Force India’s in 2017 or when only one driver can mathematically win the WDC in a team or at least only allowed after the mid season break when a team might start to focus on one driver anyway. At this stage its just daft.

Vermilion wrote:Ferrari should have just let Leclerc get on with it, instead he lost several seconds dropping behind Vettel, then lost even more time stuck behind Seb.

The team cost him at the very least a podium finish.

The thing is they couldn’t even implement them properly, they just kind of half heartedly imposed them without saying if Vettel doesn’t pull a gap they’ll swap back or for Leclerc to drop back and wait and see. Then they messed up Leclerc’s strategy by doing a Kimi and leaving him out far too long. I have no idea why a team such as Ferrari currently seems incapable of getting strategy calls right.

Well you always have good races and bad races. It happens in all sports. Bahrain was decent, this race much less so as it looks to me like Ferrari turned down the engines again.

It will swing about a bit and I'm sure we will get some really exciting races as well as a few duds.

Merc are becoming a team similar to Ferrari in the early 2000s. That double stack pitstop was massively impressive. I just hope F1 doesn't follow what happened in the mid 2000s where the rules got totally rewritten to stop Ferrari dominance. The other teams need to do a better job, Ferrari don't have much of an excuse. Red Bull can be excused as it is their first season with Honda.

I hate the situation where teams just give up development mid season hoping they get their "turn" the following year if they get a jump with the new regulations.

floydfreak wrote:

I remember watching that live on TV, it was really quite something.

Incredible scenes at FP1 at Azerbaijan :lol:

- loose manhole cover ruins one of the Williams, then the recovery truck crashes into a bridge and starts dripping hydraulic fluid onto the broken Williams. FP1 is cancelled. What a shit-show :lol:

Mini E wrote:Incredible scenes at FP1 at Azerbaijan - loose manhole cover ruins one of the Williams, then the recovery truck crashes into a bridge and starts dripping hydraulic fluid onto the broken Williams. FP1 is cancelled. What a shit-show

Just watched that :fp:

When we were sat on the start finish line for the Canadian grand prix, during one of the support races an ambulance smacked in to the box that Charlie whiting would start the race from. Probably moved it a good 3 feet.

The last 10 years of Williams summed up in 1 gif

Vermilion wrote:
floydfreak wrote:

I remember watching that live on TV, it was really quite something.

Proper F1

Don't get battles like that anymore thanks to DRS

Yes you do. It wasn’t really a battle anyway, because he was never going to overtake.

LOLbert KubLOLca

I didn't think Crofty could get more annoying and then the mic starts echoing.

"THANK YOU VERY MUCH I'LL HAVE SOME OF THAT AND PERHAPS KICK BACK WITH A GLASS OR TWO OF CHAMPAGNE WHILE LISTENING TO MUSIC AND READING THE LOCAL NEWSPAPER, thinks Lewis hamilton as he rounds the hairpin!!"

Charles LOLclerc

As much as I like the lad, gotta say LOLclerc.

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