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

[Neo Cortex]

I read it as Hamilton hit the 'superheat brakes' button that noone knew about until now

[Vermilion]

(Bottas has had an awful weekend, as some of the commentary speculated, did Mercedes only have one of the superiority rear wings? Or was Bottas genuinely happier his qualy and race pace was woeful, I hope for Bottas it was the former as he was nowhere throughout the whole weekend.

Bottas had an absolute shocker of a weekend, he's not normally that bad so maybe it was something to do with not having the right parts on the car?

[Victor Mildew]

I read it as Hamilton hit the 'superheat brakes' button that noone knew about until now

It's exactly that. Seems to be something that holds some brake pressure on the front, with the rears off, independent of what the driver is doing (which isn't allowed). Using it on the formation lap allows them to do burnouts and weave, spinning the rears up while the front also then get heat.

[captain red dog]

Bizarre that such a crucial button is so easy to hit by accident. Not sure if I buy that explanation, I wonder if Hamilton actually forgot to turn it off. Either way, it was a freakish error really. But good for the championship as Hamilton would likely have won that race and it would have been bitter luck for Max going back to more Mercedes suited circuits and a huge points gap.

As it is, it's nicely poised and all equal pretty much in the drivers championship. It makes the French GP nicely poised which is good, as that is normally a crap race.

[Vermilion]

Remember also, that even on the tracks where Merc have had the edge, Max has still been pretty close, and none of Lewis' wins so far this season have been easy, he's been made to work hard for all of them.

[Victor Mildew]

It's just the car!!!

[captain red dog]

Yes, although if Hamilton wins in France with Max in second, he would retake the championship lead. Not sure what street style tracks are left, but if Abu Dhabi is the finale then that's a Red Bull track which is a good advantage.

Not to mention Red Bull are usually fantastic in development wars so it could go right to the wire. I've no idea how the drivers have the energy to fight so close for such a long season!

[Robbo-92]

I really do wonder how much teams are willing to develop their 2021 cars, Red Bull have brought quite a few updates already while Mercedes and other teams have just made minor tweaks to their typical car spec. I can still see Mercedes putting on one relatively major upgrade despite what the team say about not really bringing anything in the hope they’ll be at the front come 2022, it’s not like the overall package is constantly behind the Red Bull but I doubt the Mercedes team will have thought of nothing to improve this years car in the hope of 8 double title wins. Likewise all teams will have to call time on this years cars soon, I imagine everyone apart from the top 2 teams will more or less be fully focused on next year, with this year being very minor tweaks and upgrades they’ve already had in the pipeline.

[Vermilion]

Bearing in mind though, just because a team puts all their effort into the next car as there's a change in regs coming, doesn't always mean it's going to work.

BMW Sauber did just that in 2008, they failed to develop their front running car to focus on their 2009 effort, and in the end, the new car was crap.

On a separate note, what is it with Honda and their uncanny ability to bail out of F1 just as soon as they become competitive? They pretty much threw away a possible championship in 2009, and now that they're winning again with Red Bull, they're gonna pack it in again.

[Robbo-92]

I feel it’s a much more viable option if you’re not fighting for either of the championships though, I have no idea why BMW stopped their 2008 campaign, Kubica was leading post Canada too wasn’t he? Or very near the top anyway so much like Mercedes and Red Bull this season, it makes sense but for the rest of them not so much in my opinion as barring slightly crazier races like yesterday, the likes of Aston Martin probably won’t get another podium this year for example so why not go all in on 2022?

Re Honda, I understand why they want to move away from F1, as they’re very keen to get as much of their car range fully electric as possible, so a hybrid F1 engine doesn’t make loads of sense really. It’s have been good if they kept their name to it though, maybe shifted the IP of the power unit to Red Bull for updates and the like but still actually made the units and had some association with it. I wonder how many teams will rock up to the last race (if both championships are wrapped up) with a brand new power unit, with some potentially bold ideas on it with the engine freeze coming into play from next year as if it works then it could be a strong start for them while the others are allowed to catch up to a similar power level.

[Lotus]

Enjoyed the race yesterday. Disappointed that Max couldn't get the win, but at least Hamilton didn't get any points either. Think it was Mark Webber who squealed when Lewis went off

[Robbo-92]

Yeah it was Webber who made that noise as Hamilton steamed off the track Sadly with F1 going to France next, I can’t see us having a race that is even half as exciting as Baku, luckily we have 2 rounds in Austria after though.

[Vermilion]

France is quite an odd circuit, it's fun to drive in the F1 games, yet seems to always produce dull races.

[Roonmastor]

Fully agree, in the games its a top tier track. To spectate it is tricky to follow where the track is and the races aren't great.

[captain red dog]

I think it is a feature of a lot of these tracks with long sweeping corners, it means the current cars can't follow closely which means they all have to back out to protect the tyres. I will say I'm not a huge fan of Baku as a track as the middle section just gets ridiculously narrow meaning all the overtakes end up being through KERs and DRS on the main straight.

It's also not great that teams can one stop at certain circuits. It inevitably leads to a lot of races being run far under the optimal speed as they just don't want to ruin the tyres. It needs some kind of mandated 2 pit stop rule. But personally I think I'd bring back refuelling although I guess that isn't going to happen as F1 trys to become more green in terms of the power units.

[Vermilion]

One way to improve overtaking at the French track might be to remove the chicane on the back straight and extend the DRS zone, it would also make the following corner insanely fast (though that's probably why there's a chicane to begin with lol).

[andretmzt]

Paul Ricard is a terrible track. I'd say bring back Magny Cours but I'm not sure that'd be much better with the way the cars can get round the corners these days.

[Imrahil]

If the cars can stay a lot closer in theory next season, which is yet to be proven, I wonder what effect it'll have at Paul Ricard? Could transform a few circuits possibly.

Not sure if it'll save Paul Ricard though.

[floydfreak]

If you watch too many races at Paul Ricard this is the effect

[floydfreak]