The official Formula 1 and general motorsport thread for 2019

Le Mans this weekend :toot:

currently watching qualifying.

Anyone else planning to watch any of it?

Yep i will watch what i can. Toyota will get a 1-2 though in a way be cool if they got problems and one of the privateer teams won overall or LMP2 won overall

Toyota will definitely get a 1-2 barring mechanical issues, can’t remember which year it was (maybe 2016?) when Jackie Chan racing finished 2nd or 3rd overall, think that was the closest I can remember to seeing a non manufacturer winning the race while I’ve been watching it.

I’ll be trying to watch as much as I can, think the most I’ve managed to watch has been about 16 hours though.

As expected Toyota are running away with LMP1, good fights in LMP2 and GT Pro though. Shame Aston Martin have been shafted, not sure 100% why their performance has been neutered when they only got pole in their class by 0.1 seconds which over such a long lap is nothing. Sure I read they’ve had to turn their boost down on the turbo and run with some ballast or some form of weight penalty.

meanwhile Bernie is at the Spice Girls gig tonight

This is a bit gutting for the no 7 Toyota, leading for the majority of the race and got a puncture in the last hour forcing another stop and giving the no 8 car the lead. Alonso may not have had much luck in F1 over the past few years but I’d say he’s had plenty in the WEC with by far the best car and not much competition other than the sister car, plus having a slower pace compared to no 7 over the 24 hours.

Oh well, no where near as gutting as the end of the 2017 race.

I see that a new class is being allowed with hypercars and the Aston Martin Valkyrie is already signed up.

https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/moto ... -mans-2021

It’d definitely be a good thing if it does bring a lot of manufacturers into it, we’ll have to wait and see if it does help or not. Hopefully it does as only having Toyota challenging for the wins/championship hasn’t produced a stellar season.

Late to the party but going back to the Vettel party, I disagree with the GR consensus that it was a shocking decision by the stewards, it was the right decision given the current regulations, it's just that the regulations are wrong. I agree with Wurz on this, whose fault is it that we are in this mess? Let's just say that the current crop of teams and drivers are not blameless. I didn't see Vettel complaining when it happened to Verstappen in Japan last year, wouldn't be surprised to learn he thought it was the right decision. If the drivers keep banging on about consistency then this is what they will get, no sympathy.

F1's loss is Le Mans' gain.

He still likes crashing then? Great stuff. Can't believe he won a GP.

Pancake wrote:Late to the party but going back to the Vettel party, I disagree with the GR consensus that it was a shocking decision by the stewards, it was the right decision given the current regulations, it's just that the regulations are wrong. I agree with Wurz on this, whose fault is it that we are in this mess? Let's just say that the current crop of teams and drivers are not blameless. I didn't see Vettel complaining when it happened to Verstappen in Japan last year, wouldn't be surprised to learn he thought it was the right decision. If the drivers keep banging on about consistency then this is what they will get, no sympathy.

As I’ve had more time to think about it I’d have merely put it down as a racing incident, as I would have at the time. Sure Vettel could have immediately moved to the left to let Hamilton through but likewise Hamilton could have easily veered left and got him on that side? I still think it looks a lot worse in slow motion, as any incidents in any sports do, this was all over and done with in a matter of seconds. There is an awful lot of ‘blame culture’ going on in F1 currently as well, as soon as anything marginal happens its passed on by the teams to race control or whoever needs to know about it.

So while Vettel made an error there wasn’t any contact between the two, I’d say this is the kind of hard and fair (ish? Vettel did go off the track to cause the incident after all) racing people want to see? They’re then penalised for fighting on the limit which is going to put people off potentially in the future. They’ve also dismissed the review by Ferrari as well (unsurprisingly), https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/ferr ... d/4478955/

Anyway another set of free practice sessions and another pair of Mercedes 1-2, everyone did seem to be struggling today though so maybe it won’t end up the same in qualifying and the race? I have a gut feeling it probably will though :lol:

McLaren did well today, certainly their best season since switching to Honda power in 2015.

Another bit of good news for fans of the F1 game series, drivers will be able to move around the grid. Doesn’t sound like much but this is the first time its been in any F1 game I believe :toot:

Not that I’ll be getting the 2019 game mind. https://www.motorsport.com/esports/news ... s/4478608/

Curls wrote:He still likes crashing then? Great stuff. Can't believe he won a GP.

Credit where credits due, he deserved that win, he was on it all weekend (granted Hamilton would have probably won if he hadn’t run out of fuel in qualifying but still he’d have probably finished in 2nd), the start to the 2012 season is still crazy to think about, 7 different winners in 7 different races and a lot of it was due to which team could get the tyres working the best.

This track is absolute gooseberry fool.

Great seeing McLaren ahead of both a Red Bull and Ferrari for the first time in years.

To be fair to Ferrari they have got reserve driver Vettel in the car so he can be forgiven for being a bit gooseberry fool.

a proper race is taking place 24 hours of Nurburgring the craziest race of the year

The speed the GT3 cars blast around the Nordschleife are insane :datass:

Utter clusterfuck in Formula E right now. :lol:

These narrow tracks with ridiculous chicanes keep resulting in massive pileups.

Only just finished qualifying, unsurprisingly another Mercedes 1-2 :roll:

I find this track immensely boring though, the abrasive run offs painted blue and red really don’t help differentiate different corners from overhead either in my opinion. Vettel had a shocker, McLaren had a great session. Giovinazzi had a very good session as well.

Put the Formula E on now, looks like it’s only just getting going again.

I watched the Blancpain 6 hours at Paul Ricard and that was a chore to watch, the track is just plain boring and comes across awful on TV there are no redeeming factors about it. The stupid clusterfuck of multiple layouts down the main straight is a joke especially with the blue and red paint everywhere. Does not help that there is no decent scenery or elevation changes either

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