F1 - 2017

Yet another early flying Finn has died. Kinnunen was first Finn in F1 in '74 but without much success. He drove Porsches in early seventies having much better results including Daytona 24H, Brands Hatch 1000 km and Monza 1000 km wins in 1970 together with Pedro Rodríguez on Wyer's Gulf 917K. He won Interserie in 1971 with AAW racing 917 Spyder and 1972-73 with 917-10. Many consider him to be best ever Finnish racer. He was 73.

I see Renault have finally found something to stop Danny Ric from smiling.

I suspect Max will be a little put out too...

Should be funny if Honda started producing results with Red Bull though. 

Is Briatore still Alonso's manager? What a combination! Renault, Alonso and Briatore. Deja  vu! I heard Piquet Jr is considering a return to F1. 

That was a bit of a shocker.  But maybe we should have seen it coming;  the McL/Renault deal has been a good bet ever since the rumoured Mercedes deal did not come through     What I don't understand is RB (& TR) being so keen on Honda,  years of embarrassing performance & reliability,  they would need to go some with a brand new engine to convince me.  I expect Mercedes & Ferrari might be taking a bit of Danny's smile to bed with them tonite.     I guess more of the story together with the driver moves will be public by the weekend.  Then I'm sure Eddy will also know something else that no one else does.  

The fog has cleared on the engine changes:   

McLaren are ending their Honda partnership & will change to Renault engines starting from 2018.   

Toro Rosso will move from Renault to Honda for the 2018 season.

Unconfirmed but emerging news is Red Bull will split with Renault at the end of 2018 - the rumour is this is a Renault decision.  The speculation is for RB/Honda in 2019,  but I expect it will all depend on how Honda perform in the TR's,  at least they will get to know first hand.

Rumour is Alonso is close to agreeing to stay at McLaren in light of the move to Renault for 2018

And here it's me, Flávio, And Bernie in the good old days at Renault.

Just seen GM:F1 challenge on C4. Guy is a top man with an immense  passion for anything with a nut and bolt and great to see that passion in his yes.  We keep forgetting this is a team sport. Total commitment. 

Tony2011 posted:

Just seen GM:F1 challenge on C4. Guy is a top man with an immense  passion for anything with a nut and bolt and great to see that passion in his yes.  We keep forgetting this is a team sport. Total commitment. 

Tony2011,see if you can find the programme where he was involved in rebuilding a Spitfire his commitment and passion is quite astonishing.

Congratulations Lewis Hamilton for winning Singapore GP and for conversion to veganism in an attempt to save the planet.

I suppose he will no longer be spraying champagne, asking 10 guys to change his tyres every 20 laps, and will now consider switching to formula E to save some petrol too.

Pcd posted:

Tony2011 posted:

Just seen GM:F1 challenge on C4. Guy is a top man with an immense  passion for anything with a nut and bolt and great to see that passion in his eyes.  We keep forgetting this is a team sport. Total commitment. 

Tony2011,see if you can find the programme where he was involved in rebuilding a Spitfire his commitment and passion is quite astonishing.

I saw the programme. No denying his passion for anything mechanic although the world or F1 and quantum mechanics, if dug deeper, could prove to be a little  too much for him to chew up.  No denying though his passion and commitment. 

The Singapore 'incident' seems to have settled;   but it looks like it's left a lot of knowing nods & finger pointing at Vettel.    The stewards decided that no one driver was wholly responsible.  OK maybe a safe non controversial way to sum up a 'racing accident' but there remains lots of differing opinions about that.  For me it was primarily caused by Vettel diving to the left to defend against Verstappen & not realising Raikkonen had made a super start was squeezing Verstappen from the other side.  Verstappen was probably focused only on Raikkonen as he had just jumped him in the start,  maybe he could have backed out of it, maybe he did & the RB telemetry will show that,   however my guess is the silence from RB (so far) indicates he didn't. 

In the end, the stewards were probably right,  but Vettel & everybody else knows he pushed his luck too far.   

I completely agree Mike. 

I've always wondered why many of the tracks are designed with tight 1st corners? (Spa comes to mind) - which just invite incidents like this, made worse by the wider cars and the conditions in this latest case. 

They may as well move to rolling starts but that would make many of the races an even greater procession given the very limited over-taking opportunities afforded by the design of some of the circuits (in the context of F1 cars).

I now focus on the MotoGP racing - and I would wager there's probably more pure on-track overtaking ( i.e. not pit stops) during 2 Moto3 races (may even be one) than there is in an entire F1 season. 

Happy Listener posted:

I've always wondered why many of the tracks are designed with tight 1st corners? (Spa comes to mind) - which just invite incidents like this, made worse by the wider cars and the conditions in this latest case. 

They may as well move to rolling starts but that would make many of the races an even greater procession given the very limited over-taking opportunities afforded by the design of some of the circuits (in the context of F1 cars).

I now focus on the MotoGP racing - and I would wager there's probably more pure on-track overtaking ( i.e. not pit stops) during 2 Moto3 races (may even be one) than there is in an entire F1 season. 

I can only think of two circuits with limited overtaking, Singapore and Monaco. So not really an issue.

The carnage from the starting grid, is part and parcel of formula 1, it makes it exciting.....

Wenger -  perhaps it does but for RB (MV) too many races have been over at the 1st corner. I thought F1 was supposed to be a racing championship not a 1st corner lottery (a bit dramatic but you get my gist). Kinda suggests that a large % of the action in an F1 race takes place in the 1st lap - leaving a lot of time to make the tea, before tuning back in!  

That little Schumacher moment may have cost him the WDC and Ferrari their gong in the process. Wouldn't that be both ironic and fitting? After the babyish and petulant Lewis, Vettel has been the next most disappointing World Champion in the last decade for attitude and conduct.  Can't argue with the skill levels though. - when they're not crashing into eachother!

Harry posted:

That little Schumacher moment may have cost him the WDC and Ferrari their gong in the process. Wouldn't that be both ironic and fitting? After the babyish and petulant Lewis, Vettel has been the next most disappointing World Champion in the last decade for attitude and conduct.  Can't argue with the skill levels though. - when they're not crashing into eachother!

I watched the video many times. Certainly not MV's fault, but he could perhaps have prevented it by backing out. Problem is that this would have "rewarded" SV for what was a pretty aggressive move. MV should perhaps have just let SV hit him, rather than be squeezed into KR. Same outcome for him, but the innocent KR may have got away clean. No telling what the subsequent carnage might have looked like.

I'd agree that censure of SV would have been a step too far (this time). He likely didn't know that MV had nowhere to go, and was simply planning to leave him with a slow line as his only option. Better to keep him to the inside and slower going in, than to "chop" him at the apex.

I don't think SV made the best start. To compensate for it by blocking first and doing the mental permutations second may have seemed like expediency. For about 1.5 seconds.  Still, looked good on the telly didn't it.

It was fortunate that nothing severe happened. I see a serious danger here …

After all there are people inside of these …

SV made a poor start, he knew that MV often makes good starts, so he acted first without looking and tried to close the door on MV thinking he'd still be ahead.  Like Schumacker, SV also relies heavily on bully boy tactics expecting MV to back off when he started moving across, but forgot to allow for the fact that MV doesn't allow himself to be bullied off the track.

In SV's mind it wasn't his fault, he blamed it on being on the "dirty" side of the track.  Interestingly LH was on the same "dirty" side of the track and still made a pretty good start, so it couldn't have been due to the track, thus proving that SV's start was poor.  He knew his start wasn't good enough and was "rolling the dice" to try and make up for that by disrupting everyone else around him.

I agree on "no further action" as taking out his own car and that of Raikonen will result in enough grief for what was basically poor judgement.  It was unfortunate for MV though, but on the other hand he also often pushes it a bit too far at the starts.

In terms of narrow first corners, that causes fewer dangerous accidents than tracks with open first corners which just defers the problems to turns 2 and 3 when speeds are higher (e.g. China).

SV was not on the dirty side of the track, the racing line is on the right when coming into a left turn.   All F1 circuits have pole on the racing line & the clean side of the track.  

Irrespective, that's what SV claimed; and that's the excuse he gave for the whole incident, explaining that it wasn't his fault.

And you are correct which is why I used the inverted commas!  In fact if the track was dirty MV and KR shouldn't have been able to make such good starts.

Happy Listener posted:

Wenger -  perhaps it does but for RB (MV) too many races have been over at the 1st corner. I thought F1 was supposed to be a racing championship not a 1st corner lottery (a bit dramatic but you get my gist). Kinda suggests that a large % of the action in an F1 race takes place in the 1st lap - leaving a lot of time to make the tea, before tuning back in!  

 

 

 

Yes, fair analogy...but at least it's not a one horse (team) race anymore, with the much more competitive Ferrari team, Red Bull competitive...

I do often make tea after the first round of pit stops..

Nothing is ever SV fault - simples.    I'm tempted to say if it was another driver & especially if in another coloured car,  the stewards might have judged it differently,  but I'll just leave that as a point to ponder.    

The sad part is that it didn't take out Hamilton instead of Alonso.