2021 Azerbaijan Grand Prix - Baku, June 04 - 06

[PlatinumZealot]

My favourite F1 car EVER (that I can recall watching) is the Williams FW07 (Alan Jones, Silverstone GP).

How long have you been watching?
Do you remember the furore around rule interpretation caused by the translation into English (from the original French)? I do.

Yeah, those DVDs were good. The box set?

I remember the first F1 race like I watched it yesterday. Can't remember if it was DVD or live stream though.

Oh wow….

I know you are the "old guy" from a previous thread. Don't worry about it. i knew you would like the "new to the sport" bit.


It's not 40 years old but it's still a genuine tactic. Tin foil is stretching I would say. It's legit if the chance is there.

[PlatinumZealot]

Abu Dhabi 2016... Check it.

[politburo]

Looking back on Gasly pit stop immediately after Hamilton. This has been an unspoken tactic over the years that teams use to stall their opponents in the pits. RedBull however are fortunate to have four cars. I hate what they did, but it is a proper tactic.

Wow! That is an extra layer of tinfoil right there (are you deliberately looking for conspiracy theories?), a few races ago GR was “a Mercedes driver, and should have behaved as such”, in the same race later LH made a miraculous recovery, easily overtaking several Mercedes-engined runners (Imola). That also had conspiracy written all over it (the quote is Toto, I thought that GR drove for Williams and was racing for position???). Another mad-arsed conspiracy there for you.


If you step back from the mirror you get a much better view of everything that is happening.

Shake my darned head... sigh.. Everything is tin foil hat this or that. New to the sport?

Your post was and still is tinfoil. You were suggesting some grand conspiracy without providing any evidence, no images or onboard radio perhaps. You zoomed past any of the logical explanations available and went straight to "RedBull has 4 cars" and "It is a proper tactic", somehow implying they blocked Hamilton by design.

[PlatinumZealot]

Yes. It's a fair move that has been done before. It's an opportunitistic thing of course. So no consipiracy obviously.

[langedweil]

Come on PZ, just own up .. and call it ridicule. Nothing wrong in dropping a weird line-of-thought, but holding on to it just for the sake of it only feasts on credibility. I'd say unnecessarily.

[e30ernest]

I'm rather surprised people seem offended by that thought. I would have thought it would be genius if it were true.

[langedweil]

It's amazing how perceptions change these days in a matter of weeks. Till pre-season, I was being irked by "Verstappen will never beat Hamilton over a year because he's too aggressive and makes too many mistakes." Now I am being irked by "Hamilton is 37 and obviously not at his best!"

They are humans and both will always make mistakes FFS! Hamilton has won half the races in the season and people are just so dismissive these days it is unbelievable. Vettel went from "he should retire" to "could he replace Bottas next year?" and that is because "Russell doesn't have the experience of racing at the front."

It is mind numbing!!

This. Hamilton has lost nothing of his skills. That’s BS. I think Russell will get that second seat and he is ready for it too. Vettel has gone through a rough time, but so has been the criticism received. Overly rough. That year he “lost” to Hamilton he wasn’t so bad, the car just wasn’t there overall and imho Hamilton is also better than Vettel. Vettel is very good, but Hamilton is in my book exceptionally good.

Siep, it's plain simple .. with equal equipment there'd be at least 6/7 guys on the current grid that would fight every week for the podiums and wdc over a whole year; everyone of them being outstanding on their best/favorite track. There is no goat driver, there are very good driver/car/team/track/weather combo's with a random dumb-luck/bad-luck factor. The true top 6/7 are overall equally good.

[ispano6]

I'm rather surprised people seem offended by that thought. I would have thought it would be genius if it were true.

Nah, they didn't need to resort to such tactics to beat Mercedes.

[e30ernest]

I'm rather surprised people seem offended by that thought. I would have thought it would be genius if it were true.

Nah, they didn't need to resort to such tactics to beat Mercedes.

No they don't, but it wouldn't surprise me if they did, or thought about doing it. It's just the nature of F1 teams and their competitiveness IMO.

Anyway... on a lighter note... I will never grow old of this:





I love how Nico Rosberg is now saying that Mark no longer has the right to call him Britney.

[sosic2121]

Looking back on Gasly pit stop immediately after Hamilton. This has been an unspoken tactic over the years that teams use to stall their opponents in the pits. RedBull however are fortunate to have four cars. I hate what they did, but it is a proper tactic.

You remember when Ocon moved aside to let Hamilton pass in Monaco.

[sosic2121]

Do you remember the furore around rule interpretation caused by the translation into English (from the original French)? I do.

Would you like to tell this story. It sounds interesting

[carisi2k]

And actually, since strolls tires blew after like 31 laps? And Max 34? Was almost everyone at danger at that point? We have seen it last year as well, at Silverstone.

The problem was also a bit that everyone was taken hostage by the Stroll blowout. They all lost their pit window. If Max would have pitted he would likely just have thrown the victory away. Even if after that they all stayed out and someone else would be the first to have his tires let go.

Or was it a 1 stopper anyway? Pirelli did advice so.

My take is that Max and Perez stopped way too early on lap 11 and 12 I think it was. If they had managed to take it out to lap 18 like Vettel then max wins the race and it's a red bull 1-2. Red Bull was faster and would still have been as fast on the softs as Hamilton was on the hard for several laps and especially with the long Merc pit stop they should have done a double take and kept them out longer because tyre life was always going to be a defining factor as we have seen in previous years with bottas late failure in a race.

I also think that pitting Max under the safety car for safety reasons and making this obvious by stating as such might have moved many others to also pit. If Merc don't pit Lewis but everybody behind him does then he would have been a sitting duck with old tyres. If he does then he is still behind Max with tyres able to go the distance and it is game over. The tricky item in this tactic would be what do you do with Sergio?

[taperoo2k]

When did I say Mercedes was the only team to make changes? Never. Don't be one of those people who put words in other people's mouth.

Hamiliton's front wing had clear damage, under the rules teams can change parts like for like on safety grounds under red flag conditions. I'm enjoying the battle between Hamilton and Verstappen, whoever wins the title will have earned it. Lewis will likely be berating himself for making an error that could cost him the title in the end. Max wasn't robbed of anything. He was just unlucky that his tyre went, it's not cost him the championship lead. Lance Stroll did a good job to keep his car out of the way after his tyre blow out. I'm a bit concerned that if debris cutting the tyre was the cause that they'd give way like that without any warning signs.

I'm looking forward to the sprint races, we'll see if shaking the grid up makes a difference to the main race.

Yeah, so what? Everyone knows this rule about red flags. Lewis had a perfectly good car to win the race and he blew it with flicking on his brake magic with Perez's move toward him. That was a pressure induced MISTAKE. Call it accident or whatever you want, but the fact is his own actions caused him to turn off his normal brakes and he couldn't stop the car. He could have potentially taken out Perez as well but Perez managed somehow to avoid Lewis streaking across in front of him!

Mistakes happen in racing, I've seen Max make plenty of them in the past. Lewis will probably be beating himself up over the brake magic more than anyone else. Perez could have been taken out by Lewis or his failing power unit.

Max wasn't robbed of anything? A win perhaps? Max was in the lead by a comfortable margin and sure to win. To add insult to injury, if it was debris who's debris was it? Track wasn't cleaned properly? Failure on the part of the stewards to not red flag the race after Strolls crash and do a clean sweep of the circuit? Max deserved to win and it was taken away from him. Obviously a lot of people here aren't going to see this way and think that it's fair because Lewis didn't score any points. The circumstances in which both didn't score points are COMPLETELY different.

That's F1, over the last few decades of watching F1 I've seen drivers who should have got good results end up not getting them due to car failures or other drivers making mistakes. Max is lucky that Lewis made his error at the restart, otherwise you'd have a lot more to complain about. I have no doubt Max will put his head down and get on with the racing. Not bellyache about things that are out of his control.

As for the stewards ? They stopped the race after Max's tyre exploded at the behest of Red Bull. What we don't know at this point is if the tyre carcass failed of it's own accord or if cuts caused by debris caused it.

[Juzh]

Max is lucky that Lewis made his error at the restart, otherwise you'd have a lot more to complain about.

No, it's the other way around. Hamilton is lucky Verstappen was taken out despite the eventual lock up and no points. That way Hamilton still comes out net victorious by not losing additional 11 or 12 points in WDC.

[Just_a_fan]

Max is lucky that Lewis made his error at the restart, otherwise you'd have a lot more to complain about.

No, it's the other way around. Hamilton is lucky Verstappen was taken out despite the eventual lock up and no points. That way Hamilton still comes out net victorious by not losing additional 11 or 12 points in WDC.

But the lock up occurred because of Max's tyre failure. Without that, there would have been no restart, no magic button, etc.. Yes, Max would have ended up with a bigger points gap had he not had the tyre failure, but if Hamilton hadn't had the button issue, Max would have lost his title lead.

They were both lucky and unlucky in the race. Both of them is lucky that both came out of the race with no change in the points between them - assuming they are the two most likely to be fighting for the title.