The official Formula One and General Motorsport thread for the 2021 season! Season finale live on Sky & Ch4 Dec 12th 1pm

[Vermilion]

twitter.com/LBC/status/1421944161440256000

He didn't look well at all after the race, i didn't realise he'd been struggling with it all year though.

[Robbo-92]

Aston Martin are looking to appeal the DQ for Vettel, cars now in the hands of the FIA. They think there’s another 1.44 litres of fuel in the car according to their calculations so I guess it could be overturned yet again if they can get a litre of fuel out of it.

[Tomous]

How the strawberry float is Lewis Hamilton racing with a long covid

[Robbo-92]

How the strawberry float is Lewis Hamilton racing with a long covid

I have no idea how long Covid affects different people but in Hamilton’s case, he’s either supremely good at hiding the ill effects of it or it’s just come on recently? In the opening race he looked really up for a fight and that was back in March. It’s a bit of an odd one it just springing up now, or as I said he’s been doing a stellar job at hiding it all season.

twitter.com/autosport/status/1422140008127942656

Ferrari being Ferrari strangely enough, I don’t see the other teams going for this

I get that crashes cost money, but wouldn’t a better option be that teams get the first £5, £10, £whatever million free from the constraints of the cost cap and then it basically only becomes a major issue for the teams respective cap if they have a lot of heavy crashes?

[Memento Mori]

They need unanimous consent from all teams for that to go through and Haas employ Mazespin.

[jiggles]

Just insure the cars. Get on GoCompare.

[Victor Mildew]

Horner to Ferrari confirmed

[Cuttooth]

Just insure the cars. Get on GoCompare.

Every team tempted by really good no claims bonuses that don't last half a season.

[captain red dog]

I was thinking about this yesterday. Surely all the teams have to have some kind of insurance on such expensive assets? Or is the issue that even if the insurance pays out, they can't then spend that money again?

It must be an easy fix. Crash damage is exempt from the cost cap as long as teams prove through audit trail that they are replacing with like for like assets. That's all they need to do.

Edit: Also I watched the replay of the start several times and still couldn't work out why Perez retired. He didn't seem to get hit any harder than Max, but had lost his wing. I couldn't find anything to say why he had to stop the car. Both Red Bulls were damaged, but they didn't seem to be the most damaged cars in that crash.

[Robbo-92]

Perez was told to stop to further the case for a red flag to help try and repair some of the damages to Verstappen’s car

The crash damage was always going to be a tricky to manage aspect of the cost cap, how can a team leave X amount for crashes if they only use a tenth of it for the season? They’ll have wasted money that could have been spent elsewhere, then next season they’ll allocate less for crash damage and then go well over.

[Vermilion]

Perez was told to stop to further the case for a red flag to help try and repair some of the damages to Verstappen’s car

That makes little sense, but then, at the last race Perez was in the points yet was pitted just before the end for fastest lap even though it meant losing them.

[Jam-Master Jay]

I was thinking about this yesterday. Surely all the teams have to have some kind of insurance on such expensive assets? Or is the issue that even if the insurance pays out, they can't then spend that money again?

It must be an easy fix. Crash damage is exempt from the cost cap as long as teams prove through audit trail that they are replacing with like for like assets. That's all they need to do.

Edit: Also I watched the replay of the start several times and still couldn't work out why Perez retired. He didn't seem to get hit any harder than Max, but had lost his wing. I couldn't find anything to say why he had to stop the car. Both Red Bulls were damaged, but they didn't seem to be the most damaged cars in that crash.

It wasn't too noticeable from the trackside camera angles but that's the state his car was in.

[Victor Mildew]

Him parking the car with half of it on the track was definitely an attempt to force a red flag. No way on earth he couldn't get the car all the way on the grass.

[False]

mad race and if vettel is dq’d it’s politics for the pride stuff

cant deny the performance of Hamilton

and bottas expertly taking out both team rivals and his individual points rival for 3rd wdc, very smooth moves

[Robbo-92]

Vettel has been DQ’d, Aston are just appealing the DQ saying there was fuel in the car, they just couldn’t get it out in the normal fashion, so either way I think it’ll stay as a DQ for Vettel, which is a shame but rules are rules. The rules could probably do with updating mind, no way do they need a litre of fuel to test these days and as long as they don’t have 20 cars to collect that have run out of fuel what’s the issue as long as they’ve got back to the pit lane under their own power? Unless they actually break down on the in lap of course.

Edit, so he was DQ’d for a technical infringement, think the T-shirt went down as a reprimand and nothing more at the moment.

[floydfreak]

[Lotus]

Really enjoyed the race at the weekend. Ocon seems like a nice kid, so don't mind him winning, but part of me would've liked Vettel to win too. Alonso defending from Hamilton was probably the best part of the race, although there were quite a few other highlights and bits of drama, so it was pretty entertaining overall.

The main C4 commentator is getting on my nerves a bit though. I know it's a difficult job, and you have to be talking constantly, but he comes out with some really stupid stuff. McNish seemed decent, and I don't mind Billy Monger, but it makes me wish Ben Edwards was back.

[captain red dog]

Yeah the Alonso/Hamilton battle reminded me a lot of Schumacher/Alonso at Imola in 05 and 06. Could have done without Hamilton whinging on the radio though. The battle was totally fair.

I've always liked Ben Edwards. He has an encyclopedic knowledge of motor racing, and for my money should have been the guy to succeed Murray Walker. I did miss Brundle again this weekend, but Nico was good as a bit of a gooseberry fool stirrer!

[Pancake]

Yeah the Alonso/Hamilton battle reminded me a lot of Schumacher/Alonso at Imola in 05 and 06. Could have done without Hamilton whinging on the radio though. The battle was totally fair.

Aye the whinge annoyed me too, it was all fair.

[Return_of_the_STAR]

Yeah the Alonso/Hamilton battle reminded me a lot of Schumacher/Alonso at Imola in 05 and 06. Could have done without Hamilton whinging on the radio though. The battle was totally fair.

Aye the whinge annoyed me too, it was all fair.

It was fair yes buy unfortunately all the drivers now seem to whinge about everything.