Pretty impressive from Leclerc here. Just about the only excitement in the race.
F1 2024 Season
- Thread starter pauldyson1uk
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Good point.
Did not seem so and a slowish pit stop.
Mercedes one stop strategy, misses the mark by a long way 
Leclerc driver of the day IMHO
Yup - what’s happened to this team - crazy! Can’t blame Lewis for switching. Ferrari seem to be the only team remotely challenging RB.Mercedes one stop strategy, misses the mark by a long way
I’m
The one stop hard hard was worth a shout, but both Mercedes now on new mediums look better.
Russell divebomb on Piastri
That’s was better but a mistake let Russell though
Not a dreadful race, but not a classic
Easy 1/2 for Red Bull
Easy 1/2 for Red Bull
Great result for Tsunoda
Great drive be Leclerc. Annoyed by Piastri’s mistake, he was 7th in my Superbru!
9 out of the top 10 correct, but only 2 in the right place
Happy Leclerc getting driver of day. Merc‘s strategy cost them a couple of places I think.
Yeah for sure
9/10 as well.9 out of the top 10 correct, but only 2 in the right place
But exact podium + Leclerc correct!
Agree with this
Nice, I had Sainz and Leclerc the wrong way round
Crazy that even commentators hardly talk about RB and 1/2 spots. They focus on the more exciting second race behind RB. When will we see a true fight for the win again?
Shanghai next and it’s a sprint weekend.
19th-21sr April
19th-21sr April
- PRACTICE 1 FRI 04:30 – 05:30
- SPRINT QUALIFYING FRI 08:30 – 09:14
- SPRINT SAT 04:00 – 05:00
- QUALIFYING SAT 08:00 – 09:00
- RACE SUN 08:00
Sorry, I'm playing the Superbru thing for the first time this season. Do we also predict the sprint or just the quali and the main race as always?
Thought I'd done well with 17 super bru points - clearly not!!
Decent race, finally some excitement with strategies, I guess rain in practices can make it more interesting because they didn't do a proper test of dry tires.
Just qualifying
McLaren really fecked it up by pitting Norris at same time as Leclerc. Had the potential to fight for a better spot but threw it away
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McLarens were no where near Ferrari's pace this weekend, 5th was the best they could hope for with Norris. McLaren just can't compete with Ferrari or Red Bull on tyre degradation.
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).