Sure but they literally didn't even run the fastest race they could have with Norris.
They pitted for the last stint too soon
F1 2024 Season
- Thread starter pauldyson1uk
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Sure but they literally didn't even run the fastest race they could have with Norris.
They pitted for the last stint too soon
Far too easy.
Just got around to watching the highlights. So bored that I'm watching while surfing on my phone. Got to lap 11.
A mega strategy by McLaren would have made no difference tbh. McLaren seemed to be a bit cautious on their calls but Norris' lap times vs Leclerc's for the race were pretty even, which given the strategy that Leclerc was on highlights Ferrari's advantage on tyre wear vs McLaren.
C'mon it was a pretty good race. For the first time in a while strategy ended up making a big difference in where the teams ended up bc of how close some of them stayed on track. Felt a lot like a 90s race. McLaren and Merc just goofed theirs again, Lewis sounds like he was also unfortunate to pick up damage from getting hit by Charles, and Aston had their usual inexplicable performance drop. Probably the most entertaining one of the season so far.
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I binned it off after lap 18. Maybe im just too tired after a long day with the kids.
Maybe try again tomorrow to watch it.
Not a bad race but too often there's big gaps between each driver for long parts this and last season, the few overtakes in the top 6-8 cars were just very simple DRS, car unable to fight. The cars are too on edge at each track with differing tyre deg. For strategy we had much better races up to 2021 seeing how it would unfold with genuine pace and cars going at it for the last 10 laps.
Piastri seems to be really struggling to keep the tyres alive.
I can only come away appreciating how good Alonso is and it's a shame he hasn't had a top team despite so much talk in the last 10-15 years now about him being one of the best.
Piastri seems to be really struggling to keep the tyres alive.
I can only come away appreciating how good Alonso is and it's a shame he hasn't had a top team despite so much talk in the last 10-15 years now about him being one of the best.
Understandable. I'm paying the price today for it so u're the smarter person.
Formula 1’s tyre supplier Pirelli wants to hold talks with the teams and governing body FIA over the wet-tyre ruling which it appears sparked an alarming lack of action at Suzuka.
Light rain made for a greasy track during the second hour of practice ahead of the Japanese Grand Prix, but despite the threat of rain still lingering for the rest of the race weekend, there was a serious lack of drivers out on the track.
An FIA rule from the 2023 regulations – which granted drivers an extra set of intermediate tyres should they have used a set in a wet FP1 or FP2, or if FP3 carried a high risk of being wet – has been removed, which is therefore being blamed for the lack of running during the FP2 session at Suzuka with teams trying to preserve the tyres they have.
Pirelli’s chief engineer Simone Berra is confident that this was indeed the situation which unfolded, as he called for discussions with the FIA and teams to ensure that there is no repeat.
“This [rule change] was obviously voted by all the teams together with FIA and F1,” said Berra.
“Obviously nowadays a team doesn’t have to return one set of intermediates after it is used in free practice, like it was last year.
“So especially at this circuit, where you have, let’s say, a high level of degradation, and considering that we could have some rain on Sunday, most of them decided to keep the five sets unused apart from RB and other teams that did an out and in-lap.
Light rain made for a greasy track during the second hour of practice ahead of the Japanese Grand Prix, but despite the threat of rain still lingering for the rest of the race weekend, there was a serious lack of drivers out on the track.
An FIA rule from the 2023 regulations – which granted drivers an extra set of intermediate tyres should they have used a set in a wet FP1 or FP2, or if FP3 carried a high risk of being wet – has been removed, which is therefore being blamed for the lack of running during the FP2 session at Suzuka with teams trying to preserve the tyres they have.
Pirelli’s chief engineer Simone Berra is confident that this was indeed the situation which unfolded, as he called for discussions with the FIA and teams to ensure that there is no repeat.
“This [rule change] was obviously voted by all the teams together with FIA and F1,” said Berra.
“Obviously nowadays a team doesn’t have to return one set of intermediates after it is used in free practice, like it was last year.
“So especially at this circuit, where you have, let’s say, a high level of degradation, and considering that we could have some rain on Sunday, most of them decided to keep the five sets unused apart from RB and other teams that did an out and in-lap.
Mercedes are a shambles. Apparently the car is actually producing the "missing" 70 points of downforce that the CFD/Wind Tunnel predict it should (they added more sensors to the car for this specifically). BUT its not resulting in any faster laptime through the highspeed corners. So they now think there is a mis-correlation in the mechanics of the car rather than the aero.
IF and its a big if they figure this out and get the 70p of rear downforce to actual work properly, they should be properly competative (i.e ferrari level).
Just shows that the cars are way too complex if boffins and Mercedes and Ferrari (last season) struggle so much with rear downforce etv.
https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/m...nse-offers-clues-to-w15s-real-fault/10596365/
On a sidenote, the Mercedes of previous seasons (zero sidepods) had 150p of downforce removed which never went back on the car as they were getting extreme porposing. Its mental how much downforce they have been throwing away for past few seasons with these rules.
* 1 point of downforce = 0.01 second (an approximation varies from team to team).
IF and its a big if they figure this out and get the 70p of rear downforce to actual work properly, they should be properly competative (i.e ferrari level).
Just shows that the cars are way too complex if boffins and Mercedes and Ferrari (last season) struggle so much with rear downforce etv.
https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/m...nse-offers-clues-to-w15s-real-fault/10596365/
On a sidenote, the Mercedes of previous seasons (zero sidepods) had 150p of downforce removed which never went back on the car as they were getting extreme porposing. Its mental how much downforce they have been throwing away for past few seasons with these rules.
* 1 point of downforce = 0.01 second (an approximation varies from team to team).
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I wouldn't bother.
Alex Albon feared for his chassis as soon as he realized he was heading into Suzuka’s tyre barrier, and his concerns were justified as Williams has revealed that it will need to send its damaged tub back to Grove for repairs ahead of the Chinese GP.
I know F1 is the pinnacle and all that, but would you be risking your life in a chassis that has been and crashed and repaired twice
I know F1 is the pinnacle and all that, but would you be risking your life in a chassis that has been and crashed and repaired twice
Cost cap strikes again. The gift that keeps on giving.
Is another chasis even that expensive, in grand scheme of things? I am sure they spend more on catering(ask Red Bull).
It's significant, around $1m.
Really not that much if the cost cap is around 140m?
Once you take into accounts of operational costs and salaries, then it’s a significant value for the cars budget.
Yeah, but it's also very important. I doubt there is single team apart from Williams that doesn't have reserve chasis. Frankly, I find it ridiculous.
It has feck all to do with cost cap. It’s been explained why they don’t have a spare tub and it’s to do with modernising Williams factory.
Perhaps Albon shouldn’t be an idiot for two weekends in a row and just take it fecking easy. He was going to achieve feck all being where he was on Sunday.
Perhaps Albon shouldn’t be an idiot for two weekends in a row and just take it fecking easy. He was going to achieve feck all being where he was on Sunday.
Which unlike AMs new facilities or Mclarens new wind tunnel, comes out of Williams cost cap. James Vowles said it was unfair that Williams have to compromise so much on the race car to upgrade facilities.
Doesn't Williams operate well below the cost cap though?
I thought that also, but a post on here said they were updating their factory.
It's not a straightforward clear cut issue. The bit I've highlighted below is a big part of the issue. CapEx is limited to $45mil a season, so it will take Williams many many years to get their infrastructure up to par as the rest.
What the bigger teams did before the cost cap came in, was to spend like mad on infrastructure so they have a built in advantage that smaller teams will struggle to catch.
The older your facilities are, the slower and less economic the processes are. It costs you more more. Therefore something has to give. So you don't produce spare chassis's and concentrate on other areas.
It ends up being a vicious circle. Which is why I think smaller teams should be allowed to break the cost cap ceiling for CapEx so they can bring their infrastructure up to the same standard as the big boys and not have to spend 10+ years trying to do it within a cost cap.
https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/williams-f1-crash-cost-chassis-albon-sargeant/
"...Williams ended up well behind schedule due to a combination of outdated processes and systems, limited facilities, and a big change in the composition and management of its car build.
That gave it more work to do and far more hassle with a lot of the same infrastructure restrictions, so something had to give.
Williams needed to sacrifice spare parts, performance updates, or the back-up chassis for its pre-season focus. It chose to go ahead with only two chassis, hoping it could deal with any damage on-site, with F1’s ultra-competitive midfield demanding more performance focus...."
"...Unsurprisingly the cost is enormous. The repairs, the replacement floors and wings and suspension components, at least two new gearboxes, the unexpected need to transport the chassis - it all adds up, and the three accidents are likely to cost Williams well over $2million once the full extent of Albon’s Suzuka crash is understood.
Williams is no longer in the financial grave it was in a few years ago, but F1’s a budget-capped world now. And all of these costs will come out of that allowance.
Every team does build a crash allowance into its budget cap projections for the season. But we think Williams is going to be pushing up close to that limit if not past it already. That means, more likely than not, Williams’s development budget will take a hit this season at some point.
It’s problematic given Williams is already behind the curve this year thanks to the winter problems which meant some development items that should have been there for the launch spec still aren’t on the car now. That’s partly why its car is only eight-fastest and yet to score a point this season.
The work is going to be either paused or diluted for the second time in a couple of weeks because the focus at the factory will have to be on repairs..."
Cheers for this.
Think it's widely agreed, even by the stewards, that the incident was more Ricciardo's fault but lap one etc prevented him getting a penalty.
When asked about his defense in Suzuka, Alonso replied ...
"I don't know what to say anymore after Australia, let's see if I get disqualified for the rest of the championship,” he smiled.
"I don't know what to say anymore after Australia, let's see if I get disqualified for the rest of the championship,” he smiled.
Looks like F1 can't actually do anything right? They've fecked up the 2026 active aero (that no one wanted). Cars are spinning out in straights and need to take corners so slowly that laptimes are slower than F2.
https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/f...e-after-alarming-simulator-findings/10596701/
How fecking hard is it to do the basics correctly? Or fix what needs fixing instead of creating crap no one wanted?
Here's an idea, make tyres last the entire race so drivers can go flat out all of the time. But introduce rule for using all 3 compounds in a race weekend. Add ballast for current WC for the entire season and top 6 drivers of the current season. Give smaller teams a chance at points and maybe race wins. Add tyre covers to control tyre wake. So and so on. Loads of things they can fix
But no, let's add movable aero, which one team will nail (no prizes for guessing who) and add more cost and complexity to F1 cars.
Sport run by idiots, who are destroying what F1 used to be.
https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/f...e-after-alarming-simulator-findings/10596701/
How fecking hard is it to do the basics correctly? Or fix what needs fixing instead of creating crap no one wanted?
Here's an idea, make tyres last the entire race so drivers can go flat out all of the time. But introduce rule for using all 3 compounds in a race weekend. Add ballast for current WC for the entire season and top 6 drivers of the current season. Give smaller teams a chance at points and maybe race wins. Add tyre covers to control tyre wake. So and so on. Loads of things they can fix
But no, let's add movable aero, which one team will nail (no prizes for guessing who) and add more cost and complexity to F1 cars.
Sport run by idiots, who are destroying what F1 used to be.
RedBull playing 4d chess, while rest of grid trying to learn the basics of chess.
https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/red-bulls-inner-f1-cooling-secrets-explained/10596781/
https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/gary-anderson-explains-red-bulls-first-major-2024-f1-upgrade/
https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/red-bulls-inner-f1-cooling-secrets-explained/10596781/
https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/gary-anderson-explains-red-bulls-first-major-2024-f1-upgrade/
Rumours of Alpine sale.
https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/a...9950.425683886.1712836823-27554265.1680424543
According to Motorsport.com there are multiple parties looking at the possibility of taking over Alpine, including a major car manufacturer
The biggest hurdle would be that Viry would also have to be part of the deal to assure that the engineers there are guaranteed their job till at least 2029.
Funny texts at the end of the article
https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/a...9950.425683886.1712836823-27554265.1680424543
According to Motorsport.com there are multiple parties looking at the possibility of taking over Alpine, including a major car manufacturer
The biggest hurdle would be that Viry would also have to be part of the deal to assure that the engineers there are guaranteed their job till at least 2029.
Funny texts at the end of the article
Was re watching some old broadcasts of F1 weekends from the 90s and early 2000s and as was discussed in here a page or two ago: it's wild to see all the talk about quali engines vs race engines being mounted rather than needing to use the same for both like these days. Its funny how quickly you forget some things.
The other thing that stood out to me is how insanely large the gaps were in quali especially compared to today. We literally had people only two or three spots down from pole already being well over a second behind, with gaps increasing to as much as 5 seconds or even more the further down you go(!!). In a way it gave me more appreciation for today as putting in a pole lap these days is so much more about the finest of margins.
The other thing that stood out to me is how insanely large the gaps were in quali especially compared to today. We literally had people only two or three spots down from pole already being well over a second behind, with gaps increasing to as much as 5 seconds or even more the further down you go(!!). In a way it gave me more appreciation for today as putting in a pole lap these days is so much more about the finest of margins.
Interesting you mention that. Thierry Boutsen has been quoted in a recent interview.
The shame about Formula 1 today is that it all depends on the technology and the car,” he said, speaking from his office in Monaco.
“The driver, in my days, was responsible for something like 70 to 80 percent of the victory.
“The car was to bring the driver to victory, but it was counting for about 20 to 25 percent. Today, it is totally the opposite. If you don’t have the best car, you can’t win, there’s nothing you can do."
He also said some other stuff. Interesting interview.
https://www.planetf1.com/news/thierry-boutsen-how-modern-f1-differs
What l find most interesting is that Chandok Sainz, Verstappen have all recently spoken out against "moveable aero" and other gimmicks. Smaller, lighter cars with "driver skill" (Verstappen said) making the difference instead. Shame F1/FIA won't listen.
Funny that this is timed exactly as andretti announced their new Silverstone HQ. But who wants crappy Renault engines till 2029? Who's gonna take that deal?
Yeah it's funny how scary YT recommendations work but I had to pop up on my feed again yesterday - from last year with Max talking about the same things you mentioned:
Just seems like we re too uncomfortably close to 26 now if they re only just now listening to those comments and still have to make some major changes to the regs. Not very encouraging as you basically said.
Just read that Alpine has denied these rumours.
Alonso signs multi year deal to stay with AM
Alonso committing to Honda - there's something I didn't think I'd say ever say again.
No way he does that unless he knows 100% that he cant get a drive at RedBull or Mercedes. After all, no customer team has ever delivered a WDC over Works team.
For once I hope he has made a correct decision.