As Mercedes pulled every strategy trick they could imagine, they were at no point a threat to Red Bull's Max Verstappen, resulting in a composed victory in front of the very pleased "orange army". Hamilton and Bottas ended up second and third.
Would be awesome to have his maiden victory in red!
Hard to be honest, he usually fails in Q3 attempts, but Ferrari have the chance to do pole tomorrow, but Charles or Carlos need to do perfect lap for that, and in race they will need luck...
It does sort of feel from today that they shouldn't really be running an F1 weekend at this facility. It wouldn't even be in consideration if not for Verstappen. I know they've made a lot of improvements but it feels slightly unfit for purpose so far.
Or... Other circuits (or rather "facilities") like Abu Dhabi, Shanghai and the like are excessive?
Those kinds of convention centres with a piece of (six-wide lane) race track around them are really not the kind of places that the Team Lotus or Scuderia Ferrari transporter would have rolled up to in 1965.
It's called the pit paddock for a reason, after all. It's still a literal paddock in other categories of motorsport and as late as the 1990's, McLaren and the other F1 teams were still using Indycar-like fold-out extensions to the transporters in the pit paddock which fans could freely wander between as this home movie shows...
Oh, I think some of them definitely are! Abu Dhabi immediately springs to mind. I guess the issue is the circus is so massive now that unless you have a massive or purpose built facility it's not very easy, hence some of these facilities. Also they are 100% built for a luxury VIP/corporate experience.
Monaco absolutely is the same for me in the 'fit for purpose' stakes. Only it's history saves it. Singapore surely is all about money and nothing else. The actual circuit at Interlagos is good, but boy did those facilities need an upgrade. Clearly the footprint of Zandvoort is so small that it's a struggle and the sport has moved on massively. It feels a bit Brands Hatch. Still if the race is good then some of that stuff can be overlooked.
Hamilton loss of power. Don't see that too often! Hopefully it's not an engine change.
He turned it off himself after the team told him to. No fluids or anything.
With the season underway so far, they will use old PU’s for Friday, which are very end of life.
Gearboxes maybe, but not the engines surely? Although as this isn't a power circuit, it might be an older engine anyway as they have to manage them effectively to complete the season.
It was his first specification PU from the start of the season.
Hamilton loss of power. Don't see that too often! Hopefully it's not an engine change.
He turned it off himself after the team told him to. No fluids or anything.
With the season underway so far, they will use old PU’s for Friday, which are very end of life.
Gearboxes maybe, but not the engines surely? Although as this isn't a power circuit, it might be an older engine anyway as they have to manage them effectively to complete the season.
They all use old engines and gearboxes on Friday (unless they are installing a new PU for the weekend, in which case they use Friday for installation checks)… No reason to add mileage to the racing engine
About the track. It looks fun to drive and interesting to set up the car, but will it deliever a good race? We must wait until sunday or even next year. From the layout alone you can never tell. Austria look really boring but bring always good races.
About the track. It looks fun to drive and interesting to set up the car, but will it deliever a good race? We must wait until sunday or even next year. From the layout alone you can never tell. Austria look really boring but bring always good races.
I think we’ve learned over the last twenty plus years that almost none of the tracks produce good racing without some sort of external wild card factor (human error, weather, etc).
With the season underway so far, they will use old PU’s for Friday, which are very end of life.
Gearboxes maybe, but not the engines surely? Although as this isn't a power circuit, it might be an older engine anyway as they have to manage them effectively to complete the season.
It was his first specification PU from the start of the season.
That engine must have done nearly 6.000 km by now with 5 whole race weekends and 6 fridays (5×800km + 6x300km). Only downside for LH is that from now on his 2nd engine will have to be used as friday engine and rack up miles there instead of spare race engine. Can't imagine his nr. 3 engine holding on from Spa to last race..
About the track. It looks fun to drive and interesting to set up the car, but will it deliever a good race?
Formula Ford produces good races everywhere. It's really more of an F1 problem -- cars with downforce, instead of cars with no downforce (and relatively little power) that are constantly slipstreaming each other.
Last edited by JordanMugen on 03 Sep 2021, 19:02, edited 1 time in total.
About the track. It looks fun to drive and interesting to set up the car, but will it deliever a good race? We must wait until sunday or even next year. From the layout alone you can never tell. Austria look really boring but bring always good races.
I think we’ve learned over the last twenty plus years that almost none of the tracks produce good racing without some sort of external wild card factor (human error, weather, etc).
That's what Verstappen said as well about an interesting race or not: you need chaos otherwise it's probably a long parade.