2018 Canadian Grand Prix, Montreal June 8-10

[PlatinumZealot]

The new cars are so awfully hard to overtake. I just can't believe how boring this race was. Gosh. Canada of all circuits. What the hell man.

[foxmulder_ms]

I am sorry but you guys all missing the point with the reason about the "boring" race.

This race was "boring" because cars were in order of their potential speed. Ferrari was the slightly faster car followed by closely matched Redbull and Mercedes. There was no pass because cars which were behind were slower or almost identical speed to the car front. Top 3 cars are very closely matched and that is that. Qualifying and mistakes are critical factors this season. When everything goes according to plan in a sunny weekend, this is expected.

There was only one thing unexpected and that was Merc's mistake with Lewis pitstop which cost him one place.

Also, I am glad to see Mclaren suffering I've used to find their complaining of Honda childish, very unprofessional and I am glad this season proved me "right". Although I hope RedBull doesn't win with Honda, that will be too much

[Brenton]

The tires are a big problem. Why can't they make a tire that like in most auto racing has been for decades, the driver is able to push the car hard for many laps continuously? Maybe not extremely hard but hard enough to be considered going close to maximum possible limit. With these tires it seems the optimal fastest race strategy is to baby them. What kind of auto racing is this where the best driver is the one who knows how to baby tires the most? People said it was like that when Perelli had the 3-4 pit stop race tires. Why do other tires manufacturers like in Nascar manage to make tires that can be raced hard that still drop off linearly, unlike these weird F1 tires that have to stay in this narrow temp window?

On the subject of the cars being too big... there was a great post on this forum in one of the car design sub-forums about how car weight limit bloat happens, with a cycle of teams complaining about needing a higher weight limit. But I can't find it at the moment. Seemingly another case of how in F1, the inmates run the asylum - the teams make the rules, even if those rules are to the detriment of the racing (and ultimately to the teams bottom line!)

I am sorry but you guys all missing the point with the reason about the "boring" race.

This race was "boring" because cars were in order of their potential speed. Ferrari was the slightly faster car followed by closely matched Redbull and Mercedes. There was no pass because cars which were behind were slower or almost identical speed to the car front. Top 3 cars are very closely matched and that is that. Qualifying and mistakes are critical factors this season. When everything goes according to plan in a sunny weekend, this is expected.

There was only one thing unexpected and that was Merc's mistake with Lewis pitstop which cost him one place.

Also, I am glad to see Mclaren suffering I've used to find their complaining of Honda childish, very unprofessional and I am glad this season proved me "right". Although I hope RedBull doesn't win with Honda, that will be too much

I don't know what race you were watching. There were plenty of instances in this race where a slightly faster car was stuck behind a slightly slower one. Good racing involves slightly faster cars being able to pass slightly slower ones if the driver does a good overtaking move... but in this race there was no chance, no matter how good the driver performed it was impossible to pass unless they were much faster than the car in front of them.

[Brenton]

Engine freeze. From 2006 until 2013 the engines remained essentially the same. And they could use like 8 in a season.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formula_O ... %80%932013

But why then is there such a big gap between Red Bull to the damn works-Renault team and the other Renault team? And the same with the Mercedes customers and Ferrari customers. If it's due to PU differences, why are the top three all in different PU's, the three PUs that are used by 9 of the 10 teams, all almost equal in performance?

First of all, you talk about parity in 2008-2012, but I don't think it was as level as you suggest. In '08, Ferrari and McLaren were way ahead of everybody else. Thanks to clever exploitation of a loophole in the regulations, Brawn managed to dominate the first half of '09. From '10 to '12, RedBull reigned supreme, although Ferrari and McLaren were able to compete at some level.

I strongly disagree. You give 2012 as an example because it was a particularly dominant year for one team. Yet five different teams won the first five races, and 7 drivers won the first 7 races that year! Six different teams won races in 2012. The WDC won only 5 races, compared to 9 last year. So IMO it was far more competitive F1 back then compared to today. Could you imagine 6 teams winning races this season? Imagine Renault, Mclaren, and Force India all capable of winning races this year. They all have PU's that have won races this year but they're miles behind the leaders.

[strad]

no matter how good the driver performed it was impossible to pass unless they were much faster than the car in front of them.

And that is F1 2018.

[PlatinumZealot]

The tires are a big problem. Why can't they make a tire that like in most auto racing has been for decades, the driver is able to push the car hard for many laps continuously? Maybe not extremely hard but hard enough to be considered going close to maximum possible limit. With these tires it seems the optimal fastest race strategy is to baby them.

I dont necessarily agree because these Pirellies are by no means the "cheese tyres" of 2011. When a super soft lasts 50 laps! That doesn't say the tyres are being babied because they will die, its saying the tyres are being babied because the teams understand the tyres better and there is all this simulation technology nowadays that tells the teams: hey mate! One extra stop is not worth the trouble! Just cruise around for fifty laps. The follwing car needs to be three seconds faster to pass you anyway!
Harder tyres that you can push on would make the situation even worse because lets not forget the cars are over 700kgs and there is a fuel limit. There is no incentive to burn tyres faster to go faster.
In fact thinking about it now, if we had the 2011 pirelli cheese tyres i think we would see more passing. That infamous cliff was fun when it popped up.

[foxmulder_ms]

The tires are a big problem. Why can't they make a tire that like in most auto racing has been for decades, the driver is able to push the car hard for many laps continuously? Maybe not extremely hard but hard enough to be considered going close to maximum possible limit. With these tires it seems the optimal fastest race strategy is to baby them. What kind of auto racing is this where the best driver is the one who knows how to baby tires the most? People said it was like that when Perelli had the 3-4 pit stop race tires. Why do other tires manufacturers like in Nascar manage to make tires that can be raced hard that still drop off linearly, unlike these weird F1 tires that have to stay in this narrow temp window?

On the subject of the cars being too big... there was a great post on this forum in one of the car design sub-forums about how car weight limit bloat happens, with a cycle of teams complaining about needing a higher weight limit. But I can't find it at the moment. Seemingly another case of how in F1, the inmates run the asylum - the teams make the rules, even if those rules are to the detriment of the racing (and ultimately to the teams bottom line!)

I am sorry but you guys all missing the point with the reason about the "boring" race.

This race was "boring" because cars were in order of their potential speed. Ferrari was the slightly faster car followed by closely matched Redbull and Mercedes. There was no pass because cars which were behind were slower or almost identical speed to the car front. Top 3 cars are very closely matched and that is that. Qualifying and mistakes are critical factors this season. When everything goes according to plan in a sunny weekend, this is expected.

There was only one thing unexpected and that was Merc's mistake with Lewis pitstop which cost him one place.

Also, I am glad to see Mclaren suffering I've used to find their complaining of Honda childish, very unprofessional and I am glad this season proved me "right". Although I hope RedBull doesn't win with Honda, that will be too much

I don't know what race you were watching. There were plenty of instances in this race where a slightly faster car was stuck behind a slightly slower one. Good racing involves slightly faster cars being able to pass slightly slower ones if the driver does a good overtaking move... but in this race there was no chance, no matter how good the driver performed it was impossible to pass unless they were much faster than the car in front of them.

Yep, we watched different races I didn't see anyone stucked. sorry. maybe hulkenberg for couple of laps but that is because force india is just fast on straights

[djos]

Verstappen butchered Ricciardo once again on pure merit.

Verstappen had a brand new latest spec engine, Ricciardo was clearly driving his old mongrel PU only as fast as he had to go get home. Proof is he set the fastest lap of the race once the team let him of the hook.

[Sevach]

The tires are a big problem. Why can't they make a tire that like in most auto racing has been for decades, the driver is able to push the car hard for many laps continuously? Maybe not extremely hard but hard enough to be considered going close to maximum possible limit. With these tires it seems the optimal fastest race strategy is to baby them.

I dont necessarily agree because these Pirellies are by no means the "cheese tyres" of 2011. When a super soft lasts 50 laps! That doesn't say the tyres are being babied because they will die, its saying the tyres are being babied because the teams understand the tyres better and there is all this simulation technology nowadays that tells the teams: hey mate! One extra stop is not worth the trouble! Just cruise around for fifty laps. The follwing car needs to be three seconds faster to pass you anyway!
Harder tyres that you can push on would make the situation even worse because lets not forget the cars are over 700kgs and there is a fuel limit. There is no incentive to burn tyres faster to go faster.
In fact thinking about it now, if we had the 2011 pirelli cheese tyres i think we would see more passing. That infamous cliff was fun when it popped up.

With the cheese tires at least you could get an offset and attack, today we saw Verstappen catching Bottas on older tires and Raikkonen failing to do much of anything because the supersofts were so consistent and durable.

[Cannonballer]

The end of the race might have seemed a bit more exciting if they’d actually showed Max closing on Bottas! 0.1s so must have been very close to the naked eye - if only we could have seen it!

https://streamable.com/1qtl9

Didn’t realise it was that close. But VES did a solid job. It does seem he is a bit more cautious like he backed out of the move with Bottas at the start. It does strengthen the negative correlation between Jos Verstappen being on the paddock and Max results, so I don’t expect to see him back soon.

Television coverage was pretty poor. Another thing which was interesting which was completely missed by TV was Gastly getting close to Alonso. That would be a sight to behold, A mclaren being chased by a TR with a GP2 engine.

Can you elaborate on that correlation? What are the stats?

The television coverage was awful. Like someone cut costs and had the local high school A/V club to film and edit . . .

[marvin78]

I for one think, that this race was not boring. Most of the F1 "fans" don't get that non boring races are not defined by the count of overtakes. We had some pretty boring Canada races with very many overtakes which in fact where just drive-bys. With DRS it was way to easy to overtake here until 2016. Drive-bys are boring and that's what you get with unpredictable tires and a working DRS (children's game) system. This race was defined by cars that were lined up by their race potential which did not very much differ from the qualifying pace. I liked to see some details in this race. It was not the best race to wach but it was interesting.

[kalinka]

F1 and Pirelli just needs to look at Indycar regarding tyres. We don't need so many tyre types. We just need a hard and a soft with a wide performance gap, and neither of them lasting for a whole race. Yes, on some tracks one of them will be shitty, on other tracks the other one. But with a mandatory pit stop, you have to use both, and it will be the same for all. Ban tyre heaters too. Let's see them struggling with grip, and let the more skilled ones win. It can happen that on some tracks everyone will go and change tyres on lap5, but then you have to give up track position and that's a no-no on some places, and we would have a pitstop chaos too. Wouldn't mind refueling too. It seems that F1 and Pirelli is nursing the drivers too much and they are afraid of wear related punctures and even graining(!?). They have changed compounds just because of graining..who cared about these things back in GoodYear/Michelin days? You can't handle graining? Who cares...

[GPR-A duplicate2]

Verstappen butchered Ricciardo once again on pure merit.

Verstappen had a brand new latest spec engine, Ricciardo was clearly driving his old mongrel PU only as fast as he had to go get home. Proof is he set the fastest lap of the race once the team let him of the hook.

If that is how the reasoning works, then Verstappen's car failures of early last year should give him the benefits and that can easily make him the better driver.

I see people become selective in judging. It has been clear in the last two years that, whenever they both have an incident free race, its Verstappen who finishes ahead.

[siskue2005]

...Ultimately I think the missing link is refueling...

No matter how many variables there are, all teams will do the same calculations, and all teams will end up with same strategy.

If we want racing, then we need to reward racing. Awarding points based only on position does not encourage racing. The gap to the driver in front and the gap to the driver in back should be taken into consideration.

I don’t think refueling would help by having different drivers on different strategies. I think it would help in racing flat out, from lights to flag. There would be no need to babysit the tyres if you had to stop for fuel anyway. That in addition to not having to baby the drivetrain over 7 races and DRS, AT LEAST you might have drivers driving balls to the wall for 99% of the Grand Prix. Today, drivers raced for the first 5 laps and the last... 5-10 laps. That’s how the tyres, and the PU/gearbox regs force drivers to race.

Refuelling will help in the sense that people can at least try different strategies, they can undefuel to the next pit stop and run flat out or fill up and run half the race. That would allow them to pit more and eventually lead to better racing. This also allows them to reduce the car length and be more nimble. Back then they did not have DRS or the aero efficency to overtake in such a situation, that is why it didn't work back then.
Now with DRS and relatively better aero they can overtake with a fuel variable...it will be much better now.
But the rock hard tyre now all are stuck in just the same strategy

[turbof1]

Verstappen butchered Ricciardo once again on pure merit.

Verstappen had a brand new latest spec engine, Ricciardo was clearly driving his old mongrel PU only as fast as he had to go get home. Proof is he set the fastest lap of the race once the team let him of the hook.

If that is how the reasoning works, then Verstappen's car failures of early last year should give him the benefits and that can easily make him the better driver.

I see people become selective in judging. It has been clear in the last two years that, whenever they both have an incident free race, its Verstappen who finishes ahead.

Ricciardo did have an old MGU-K of which they had to break the seal, legally, to make repairs to. I am not sure by how much that older component affected his performance, but certainly it's worth not ignoring it. Often times an older MGU-K is not optimized for a newer ICE.

I'm not going to speak about events outside this race. That's not relevant to the thread. Note this does nothing away for the brilliant performance by Verstappen this race. He drove well, even making Bottas' life difficult at the end of the race.