In 2017 Hamilton won with 1 minute and 52 seconds in spain, most cars were 2 laps down. Today it was just 24 seconds, despite Lewis running behind Sainz in the 1st stint, it could be alot worse.
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F1 2023 Season
- Thread starter pauldyson1uk
- Start date
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Nik (@Rood) and Imran (@Annihilate Now!) discuss United's fantastic win away against Athletic Club in the semi-final of the Europa League.
They also pick out the positives of United's 4-3 loss away at Brentford, and Nik reviews a day out at Old Trafford watching Manchester United Women qualify for the Champions League.
Here is Russel's start.
In theory the FIAs sliding scales for development time should reign RedBull in eventually (they get less wind tunnel and CFD time than everyone else), but they do have one guy, who Martin Brundle, said during commentary today, should be the highest paid person in F1, Adrian Newey.
He might be enough to keep RB ahead till 2026, regardless of the sliding scales.
Question is, when is he going to bloody retire.
That'd be nice: help put out some forest fires, save me having to water our plants all the time.
Oh, and something about that race I suppose.
He's 65 this year, so I could see 2025 being a date where he retires with the new regs inbound for 2026.
He didn't gain anything tbf, just saved himself from potential accident. Good reaction at the start too.
I agree, there was no advantage gained there
Verstappens really on a different level at the moment much as it disgusts me to say it. Hes just making it look so effortless and hes not the kind of driver to make a mistake when hes not being challenged.
At least with Hamilton and Mercedes there was always the possibility of them doing something bonkers to put themselves at a disadvantage for the hell of it at times.
Reminds me of the Vettel era where it was more entertaining watching the midfield battle than it was seeing who would win the race. Cant say the same for when Hamilton was winning everything as I go for him so different viewpoint.
At least with Hamilton and Mercedes there was always the possibility of them doing something bonkers to put themselves at a disadvantage for the hell of it at times.
Reminds me of the Vettel era where it was more entertaining watching the midfield battle than it was seeing who would win the race. Cant say the same for when Hamilton was winning everything as I go for him so different viewpoint.
He’s some man, probably the greatest car designer ever, also with him being British why isn’t he knighted and called Sir Adrian newey
This is an example of why the current sliding scale rules for F1 dont and wont work. Williams recieve the most windtunnel CFD time of any team on the grid. However look at the floor they have produced. Its so basic, so simple.
For the rules to work as intended there are sum assumptions made.
1) All the teams have similar sized track side and factory side teams. Which is not the case. The big three are circa 700-800 person operation. Some of the smaller teams i.e. haas may only have 250 person operation.
2) They have similar sized operations at the factory and state of the art (current) wind tunnels
2) All the teams are using the maximum ceiling of the budget, which we know isnt the case.
So no matter how much wind tunnel time you give to say Williams and CFD time. If they are operating from a smaller budget, with a smaller total number of employees and not state of the art facilities, you end up with floors like Williams one.
How can F1 fix this? The only way is to 1) have manufactuers own the teams i.e. Audi buying Alfa Romeo or 2) a billionaire whos happy to back gis F1 team i.e. Dietrich Mateschitz.
Its no secret F1 want only manufacturer teams to join, the bar is so high now, that independent teams have little or no chance to disrupt the big three.
Just look at how much money stroll senior has pumped into AM. New state of the art facilities, huge recruitment drive to get AM upto the required 700-800 person operation size.
Lastly just to reinforce the gap, heres an imagine of the "work of art" floor of a RedBull compared to a "Williams".
For the rules to work as intended there are sum assumptions made.
1) All the teams have similar sized track side and factory side teams. Which is not the case. The big three are circa 700-800 person operation. Some of the smaller teams i.e. haas may only have 250 person operation.
2) They have similar sized operations at the factory and state of the art (current) wind tunnels
2) All the teams are using the maximum ceiling of the budget, which we know isnt the case.
So no matter how much wind tunnel time you give to say Williams and CFD time. If they are operating from a smaller budget, with a smaller total number of employees and not state of the art facilities, you end up with floors like Williams one.
How can F1 fix this? The only way is to 1) have manufactuers own the teams i.e. Audi buying Alfa Romeo or 2) a billionaire whos happy to back gis F1 team i.e. Dietrich Mateschitz.
Its no secret F1 want only manufacturer teams to join, the bar is so high now, that independent teams have little or no chance to disrupt the big three.
Just look at how much money stroll senior has pumped into AM. New state of the art facilities, huge recruitment drive to get AM upto the required 700-800 person operation size.
Lastly just to reinforce the gap, heres an imagine of the "work of art" floor of a RedBull compared to a "Williams".
That's really funny, almost sad 
Wondered what happened to my Renault Espace under engine cover.
Pretty enjoyable Spanish GP, decent amount of overtakes. Hopefully Merc have gone into positive direction now.
Pretty enjoyable Spanish GP, decent amount of overtakes. Hopefully Merc have gone into positive direction now.
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I don't think there's a chance they'll beat them on pure pace.
You can see across FPs that the Merc needs very specific conditions to work optimally.
The RBs looks great across all conditions.
Even if Mercedes can catch the RB by at least .3s a lap (very unlikely without a new chassis, and it is probably more than that given RB are seconds faster when they need to be), they still need to defend against the RBs DRS on the straights.
And that’s making the assumption that there will no new development from RB, who have the world's leading expert in ground effect cars. RB have significantly less aero time, and are developing at a similar rate to the others.
Without significant intervention, I doubt they'll be caught before 2025.
At the end Perez was catching at almost a second a lap. The truth is that Max didn't have to go faster.
Lots of overtaking yesterday, and I don't rember one that wasn't on finish straight with help of DRS?
Even Perez with much quicker car than anyone wasn't bothered to follow anyone through the corners and try somewhere else, the cars are shite when it comes to close racing.
Even Perez with much quicker car than anyone wasn't bothered to follow anyone through the corners and try somewhere else, the cars are shite when it comes to close racing.
Other than turn 1 and 10 (where there were a few overtakes) I'm curious where you think Perez should've tried to overtake?
Also, it's pretty obvious the close racing has improved a ton when you see 3-4 cars going lap after lap within a second of each other without ruining their tires, something that was unheard of with the previous regs.
I am sorry but I don't remember overtakes from turn 10(altough that could be completely down to me, anyone else?). He didn't need too, but people have overtaken in Monaco in different places when they needed, Barcelona is more than wide enough for Perez who's had more than 2 seconds quicker car than anyone else, especially those at the back.
3-4 cars going lap after lap after eachother is okay, I agree it's not ruining their tires, but I don't think the car behind is so easy to drive at the same time. There are many battles from the 2000s where the front two drivers went like crazy in each others gearbox and we simply don't see that, even if the tires management have improved with modern cars in those situations. I think the only time we saw that was Silverstone last year and that took around half a lap until someone overtook someone else with DRS.
The change to sector 3 and removal of the chicane has massively improved the spainish GP.
Also Perez should have caught russell and over taken him. If max was in perez situation on sunday, you can be sure he'd make it happen. Perez just isnt in that elite tier 1: max, alonso, hamilton or even tier 2: leclerc, russell.
It is possible to overtake elsewhere but why would you, unless the car in front is in a DRS chain.
It’s why DRS is so rubbish. It stops overtaking on other parts of the circuit, as cars know it is far less risky and more efficient to sit behind the car for half a lap and overtake on the longest straight.
Yeah, that's exactly my point regarding Perez.
Martin Brundle made a really good point, DRS should be limited to say a 80 second use maximum. The driver can decide where and when during the GP to use that 80 seconds. Deploy the whole lot or break it down into 10 second chunks etc.
Adds a strategic element to DRS.
Personally, I think it would make it even worse. Didn't we already had something similar with Kers, and now with battery anyway?
Well if it specifically has to be the front two drivers who are battling it out then we all know why that's not really happening, and it's not because the new regs hasn't worked as intended.
If it's just battles in general you want then I'm not sure how you can say we're not seeing that or what you're comparing it to really. I've been watching F1 since the early 90's and I can't remember a time when it was so much better than it is today with wheel-to-wheel battles with lots of overtakes all over the track, so I think there's some big rose tinted glasses being used looking back and maybe some unrealistic expectations about how these new regs were going to change things.
That's literally push to pass from Indycar but with a wing
Which tracks? Because I watch every race and I would say more than 95% of overtakes are just in DRS zones. Also, can you again point out which overtakes did we have in Spain apart from finish straight with help of DRS?
Here are two interesting and very good links, especially the first one:
https://www.keberz.com/amp/overtaking-in-formula-1-the-2022-season-update
https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/how-drs-has-skewed-formula-1s-overtaking-records-5026023/5026023/
This one from 2016. is interesting too for comparision.
I mean, I am enjoying the F1 after not watching it for so many years, I don't want to sound like I don't like it because I really do. But we cannot ignore that these are 7 minutes and 30 seconds finish line highlights, and what's funny is that it was actually a very good race.
Maybe I worded that a bit clumsily, I meant I can't remember a time when there were a lot more wheel-to-wheel battles with overtakes all over the track compared to today. I'd be incredibly surprised if 90%+ of the overtakes being made 20 years ago didn't take place in the exact same areas as they are today, i.e in a hard braking zone after a long straight. The only difference now is that the long straight also has a DRS zone that too often makes it too easy.
Charles catching strays
Perhaps the Ferrari F1 team can ask the Ferrari WEC for some tips? Come back after 50 years, win on the first try.
Perhaps F1 can ask endurance racing regulators how it’s more entertaining, watched a fair bit of it and it was better than anything I’ve seen this season from F1.
No Toto, no, that's so not right
Most of them were the F1 team. Looks like they shifted the wrong people across.
With a few safety car shaped exceptions the WEC stewards don't think they're part of the show.
Seems f1 reddits are now private? Any idea what happened there?
verstappen has been found guilty of 115 f1fp charges and the mods are scrambling around, trying to contain the news.
aa shite
And horner knew nothing about it yeah?
Endurance racing has a thing called Balance of Performance to make the cars in each class more evenly matched, for example yesterday in the Hypercar class Toyota had a 37kg weight penalty, Ferrari 24kg, Cadillac 11kg and Porsche 3kg. It does bring it's own problems though with teams sandbagging and everyone being annoyed their team is punished more than necessary etc.
But I don't know if endurance racing in general have been any better than F1 when it comes to entertainment, Audi, Porsche and Toyota have all dominated over the last 15 years just like RB and Merc has done in F1. Yesterday's race was the best one in absolute ages though and hopefully it will become even better with more manufacturers coming in over the next couple of years.
Le Man was fantastic but the adverts on Eurosport were absolutely infuriating. It seemed they would do 5 minutes of racing, 5 minutes of adverts, rinse and repeat.