GPWizard F1 Forum
F1 News & Discussions => General F1 Discussion => Topic started by: Scott on April 05, 2017, 09:01:06 PM
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The longest straight in F1. Not sure if the 2017 cars will shine on that or not. The last few races with DRS were ridiculous in that as long as a car made it into DRS range, the long straight was like shooting ducks in a barrel - a pass was all but guaranteed unless you were following Verstappen. Losing downforce through so many sweeping turns may turn it into an even longer procession than Australia and even less chance of making DRS zones...but that is all speculation based on what I heard Bottas say.
5.4km long and built in 2004 at a cost of $240m at the time making it the most expensive F1 track ever built, it's layout is quite unusual and has hosted some interesting races over the years with some great racing.
4 current drivers have won it, Lewis (4x), Alonso (2x), Kimi and Vettel. I wonder who the hungriest Ferrari driver will be this year. My heart says Kimi, but my head says Lewis again. Lewis will want that coveted 5th win, especially after he probably thought it was his to lose last year, which he finished 7th.
Nico won it last year, followed by Vettel and possibly Kvyat's best race in ages if not his life. Hulkenberg owns 2016's fast lap at 1:39.824 so we'll see how practice times show against that. Nico's pole position was a 1:37.669, so that might be an even better benchmark so see how the new cars are performing.
I wonder if we'll get to see Joe Verstappen's black eye in the RBR pits during the race...watch for him to be wearing large sunglasses and baseball hat. Jos the goon.
Here are a couple of links for you. I know I said I could do the preview for the first few races, but this week has been really hectic. I need a cook, a kitchen helper and a server...in the mean time I am doing all three.
I'll try and devote more time to Bahrain.
http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2017/04/04/2017-chinese-grand-prix-stats-preview/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Grand_Prix
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For those of you making grid game predictions, forecast for Sunday is RAIN, ans much cooler.
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Can't wait to see Mclaren on the straight. Hoping for
a good race but not holding my breath
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FP1 red flagged 4 minutes into the session. medical helicopter unable to land at hospital. Session has been stopped for 30 minutes so far.
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Well not much information to gather from FP1 and FP2 for the predictions!
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Should move it to Switzerland for the weekend...
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Should move it to Switzerland for the weekend...
Possibility of some good track elevation changes too :yahoo:
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Who was fastest in FP1? I think it was a blue and red car, well I think it was a car, something in the grey mist went over the timing line, in fact it is rumored that a few cars went over the timing line more than once ... but it is hard to be sure!
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It does make me feel better about not getting up at 3:00 am to watch FP2.
The reason given for most of the red flags was that the weather was too bad at the hospital for the medical helo to land there.
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The forecast for tomorrow is dry, so there could be a lot more running in FP3 than usual, given the lack of track time thus far. It could also mean a slightly mixed up grid, which could make for an exciting race, especially if it does rain. I just hope that the visibility is good enough, otherwise it could be a delayed start.
Another Hamilton versus Vettel battle looks to be on the cards to me, although Red Bull will have more pace in the damp conditions, so Ricciardo and Verstappen could get themselves into contention as well.
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AutoWeek is reporting that it wasn't the rain that caused the problems with the helicopter. The smog around the hospital was too dense to allow proper visibility for landing.
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Wiz, it wouldn't let me predict race so I Pm'd you.
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Bottas's Mercedes lost its T-wing during FP3. I'll bet both the Merc mecanics & Charlie's people will be having a close look at that!
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Giovinazzi did well until he threw his Sauber at the scenery in the final moments of Q1. His red flag also ruined Grosjean's qualifying.
Hamilton joined Senna & Schumi as the only drivers to have 6 poles at more than one circuit. He also turned the fastest lap ever at the Shanghai circuit.
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Bad luck for Sauber - costly crash for a team low on cash.
Bad luck for Grosjean who was headed for Q2.
The times & the grid:
1. Hamilton Mercedes 1m 31.678
2. Vettel Ferrari 1m 31.864
3. Bottas Mercedes 1m 31.865
4. Raikkonen Ferrari 1m 32.140
5. Ricciardo Red Bull 1m 33.033
6. Massa Williams 1m 33.507
7. Hulkenberg Renault 1m 33.580
8. Perez Force India 1m 33.706
9. Kvyat Toro Rosso 1m 33.719
10. Stroll Williams 1m 34.220
11. Sainz Toro Rosso 1m 34.150
12. Magnussen Haas 1m 34.164
13. Alonso McLaren 1m 34.372
14. Ericsson Sauber 1m 35.046
15. Giovinazzi Sauber No Q2 Time
16. Vandoorne McLaren 1m 35.023
17. Grosjean Haas 1m 35.223 *
18. Palmer Renault 1m 35.279 *
19. Verstappen Red Bull 1m 35.433
20. Ocon Force India 1m 35.496
* to take additional five-place grid penalty for not slowing sufficiently for yellow flags
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In an attempt to find anything that will improve the performance of their Honda (under)powered cars, McLaren has replaced their T-Wing with a 1967 Channel Master TV antenna.
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:DD :DD :DD Hilarious Cos...I remember seeing one of those.
Nice to finish a race in the top rank for a change...too bad Dare is also there...he's pulling away quickly, we should throw some fake F1 news his way and make him think Sauber is on the way to the top next race. 8) 8)
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:DD :DD :DD Hilarious Cos...I remember seeing one of those.
Nice to finish a race in the top rank for a change...too bad Dare is also there...he's pulling away quickly, we should throw some fake F1 news his way and make him think Sauber is on the way to the top next race. 8) 8)
I'm not falling for that one.Last year you told me
Manor was the car of the future.
The end of the race particularly the closing few
laps were pretty good.Thought the RB's might take
each other out for awile
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It won't be a good week for the Sauber crew. 5 days to repair Giovinazzi's car while moving everything to Bahrain. Parts may be in short supply, too. I wonder who will be driving the car next week-end.
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It won't be a good week for the Sauber crew. 5 days to repair Giovinazzi's car while moving everything to Bahrain. Parts may be in short supply, too. I wonder who will be driving the car next week-end.
Maybe they'll ask the safety car driver to stand in!
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Heroes
Verstappen - those of you who have known me a while will know that I am Not a Fan of young Max. So if I tell you he did the drive of the race, with scintillating overtakes and lots of class...
Alonso - for getting into 7th (for a while) with a bright orange wheeled slug. And putting a brave face on it when McLaren's 25% reliability record showed up.
Sainz - super strategy, which would have been really easy to mess up (Palmer). Would have been 10-20 seconds further up the road had he not had the worst first lap I've ever seen that didn't result in a damaged car or DNF. (You know the rest of Carlos' race is good when even this doesn't disqualify him from the "heroes" category when the competition for it is so strong).
Honourable mention:
Hamilton - smooth running, good strategy, excellent fan interaction throughout the weekend.
Zeroes
The FIA - for deciding the best way of solving the weather problem was to shift a neurosurgery unit to a hospital not cleared for FIA neurosurgery use, without enough time to do the tests necessary to check whether this was viable. Gary Hartstein said that it is not possible to move a full neurosurgical unit in the 24 hours cited - it would have to have been a partial unit. Driver insurance requires the race provisions legislated for in series requirements to be present.
As such, this rushed move would have invalidated every driver's insurance, preventing the F1 race from happening at all, were it not for the fact that the clouds left shortly before the race. (At least in the previous situation, the race could have happened when the weather improved - once insurance is revoked for a race, it stays revoked until the next one). That is, unless the neurosurgical unit that was moved was the one at the FIA's original designated hospital, in which case the insurance was invalidated anyway. It is difficult to emphasise how much of a blooper this was. The FIA is extremely lucky this didn't blow up in their faces (my lawyers advised me not to continue this rant)...
Bottas - double-spinning is great if you are in the ballet. It is less great when you are in a potentially race-winning car and you've got lots of rivals eager to make more spaces.
Giovanazzi - two crashes in two days at almost the same place (albeit for different reasons) is never going to make for a good weekend. I hope he doesn't take it too much to heart, as from what I gather he's one of the more sensitive drivers to join F1.
Dishonourable mention:
Perez - what was that overtake on Stroll about? It was never going to work. The lack of regulatory or mechanical consequences surely earned Sergio the Jammy Dodger award of the race.
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No love for Vettel? I'm not a Seb fan, but he made some quality passes as well.
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No love for Vettel? I'm not a Seb fan, but he made some quality passes as well.
This is very true. Should have included him in the "honourable mentions" list. It was a high-quality race :)
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For me a great point was made on commentary. On this track it appeared that DRS had a negligible effect in terms of overtaking. However, to me this had a positive effect as the DRS possibly got them a little closer on the straights but forced drivers to then think more about considering their overtaking opportunities. The number of overtakes was less in the race but the quality of pass was much more exciting.
Personally, I'm all for seeing dives on the inside / outside etc instead of constant straight line passing purely because one car has less drag at a moment in time.
Looking forward to Bahrain already :D
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Lost in translation...
I missed the whole whine fest of Verstappen in the closing laps. What was the problem?
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He wanted Charlie to order Grosjean to move over, despite the fact that he was never within a second of Romain. He claimed that the wash off the Haas was causing the R/B to understeer and allowing Ricciardo to catch him. Daniel had the heat on Max dialled up to high in the closing laps. Stupidest thing I've ever seen, Grosjean was easily maintaining a gap.
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He wanted Charlie to order Grosjean to move over, despite the fact that he was never within a second of Romain. He claimed that the wash off the Haas was causing the R/B to understeer and allowing Ricciardo to catch him. Daniel had the heat on Max dialled up to high in the closing laps. Stupidest thing I've ever seen, Grosjean was easily maintaining a gap.
If Max is right, then that is one interesting side benefit of the new aero rules. Makes it difficult for leading cars to close to blue flag distance on back markers, giving the pursuing cars a chance to catch up.
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According to Steve Matchett on NBC, you start to feel the wash around 1.3 to 1.6 seconds back. I think Max's real problem was that his tires were older or at least in worse condition than Romain's. He has a reputation for being hard on his tires when he is in full attack mode; which he was for most of this race.Whatever. It's not reasonable to expect Charlie to order a car to move over when you can't even get close to it. Just Max being the spoiled, entitled, immature child that he is.
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According to Steve Matchett on NBC, you start to feel the wash around 1.3 to 1.6 seconds back. I think Max's real problem was that his tires were older or at least in worse condition than Romain's. He has a reputation for being hard on his tires when he is in full attack mode; which he was for most of this race.Whatever. It's not reasonable to expect Charlie to order a car to move over when you can't even get close to it. Just Max being the spoiled, entitled, immature child that he is.
I suppose it depends on the 'spirit' of the blue flag rules. If a backmarker 1.6 seconds up the road really is interfering with a car trying to lap them, then it is a legitimate complaint.
On the other hand, if a blue flag is seen as a safety feature indicating a faster car you're not competing with is approaching so keep clear, then Max is just whining.
I'm with the 'Max whining' spirit of blue flags, but if the FIA wants to let the leaders get on with it, they may have to look into when a blue flag should be used.
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I think a Blue Flag should only be used if the slower car is deliberately blocking. Otherwise, traffic is a part of racing, deal with it. If aero wash is a real problem change the rules, but Max had little problem passing faster cars than the Haas earlier in the race.
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With Ricciardo so close behind Max without whinging I cannot justify Max's problem! If the slower car in front was stopping him from passing I could understand it but it was not so I hope he's not going to spoil his exciting racing by whinging when he's struggling a bit.
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According to Steve Matchett on NBC, you start to feel the wash around 1.3 to 1.6 seconds back. I think Max's real problem was that his tires were older or at least in worse condition than Romain's. He has a reputation for being hard on his tires when he is in full attack mode; which he was for most of this race.Whatever. It's not reasonable to expect Charlie to order a car to move over when you can't even get close to it. Just Max being the spoiled, entitled, immature child that he is.
Max was causing me another session of high blood pressure while shouting at the TV screen!! As said ^^^ the wash from cars is 'noticeable' at anything up to a 2second gap but mainly on very fast straights; not in corners, certainly not in a series of corners. Another fact is that two cars create more than twice the wash. Ricciardo was following Grosjean and Verstappen and keeping right on the tail of the whinging brat. I do not agree with all the praise being heaped on Verstappen, at best he was brave (bordering on reckless) and very lucky. The fact that he couldn't shake-off Ricciardo shows how equally matched they are. The reason that he got in front of Ricciardo earlier is because he chucked the car up the inside of Ricciardo knowing that Mr Nice Guy wouldn't shut the door. I think we are going to see him cause a lot more accidents this year but, even worse, I fear we are going to hear a lot more radio traffic with him whinging ("Hamilton is 40seconds ahead of me and he is causing me to get understeer - tell Charlie to get him to pull over....")
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I'm with you Monty...MV is going to create more drama and danger than we need. Both are good for F1, but not at the expense of the other drivers.
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According to Steve Matchett on NBC, you start to feel the wash around 1.3 to 1.6 seconds back. I think Max's real problem was that his tires were older or at least in worse condition than Romain's. He has a reputation for being hard on his tires when he is in full attack mode; which he was for most of this race.Whatever. It's not reasonable to expect Charlie to order a car to move over when you can't even get close to it. Just Max being the spoiled, entitled, immature child that he is.
I suppose it depends on the 'spirit' of the blue flag rules. If a backmarker 1.6 seconds up the road really is interfering with a car trying to lap them, then it is a legitimate complaint.
On the other hand, if a blue flag is seen as a safety feature indicating a faster car you're not competing with is approaching so keep clear, then Max is just whining.
In F1, blue flags are supposed to be used when - and only when - a car is in lapping range, so that imminent lapping is allowed through without resistance, but the race is otherwise unaffected. Had the gap been, say, 1 second (DRS range), then a blue flag would have been legitimate. Beyond that, it doesn't matter how much backwash there is - if the following car cannot immediately overtake given a plausible level of co-operation from the car they are trying to lap, then there is no call for a blue flag.
In other series, blue flags are strictly advisory, so nobody is expected to artificially jump out of the way of another car.
I would also add that in all cases, marshals have absolute discretion to decide if a blue flag is legitimate or not (within the scope of any advice given in training - Herbie Blash does that job for F1 marshals nowadays). So if a marshal decides that two cars aren't close enough for a blue flag to reasonably enable a lapped move/be useful advice to the potentially-lapped driver, the marshal is perfectly free to give their wrist a rest until a more appropriate situation presents itself. And if a marshal thinks a blue flag is merited, nobody can gainsay it - even that time in 2001 that one Monaco marshal kept blue-flagging Enrique Bernoldi even though everyone else realised that David Coulthard was behind him on merit and had been for the previous 42 laps...
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I'm with you Monty...MV is going to create more drama and danger than we need. Both are good for F1, but not at the expense of the other drivers.
My thoughts too.
Hell he even used his favoured trick of moving under braking to give the Honey Badger a real problem a few corners from the end of the race. Are we heading for Vettel over Webber team sanctioned bullying again or will Danny Ric start to make life as hard for Max as he makes it for him?
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Marko appears to love those who behave entitled, so I suspect he will continue to support MV and all his little tantrums and dangerous driving.
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Marko appears to love those who behave entitled, so I suspect he will continue to support MV and all his little tantrums and dangerous driving.
So Vettel seems more mellow at Maranello because there's no reward for being a brat? Certainly puts a different set of optics on his behaviour at RBR if he was encouraged to be the villain.
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No, I think Vettel is not behaving like a spoiled brat because there is nobody around at Ferrari who would spoil him. He's probably been yelled at a few times at Maranello.
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Maybe Max has played too many F1 games growing up where there's no
consequences for reckless driving.
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It was a strange race. It offered flickers of excitement, but it didn't all quite come together. An impressive drive from Hamilton to beat Vettel. Mercedes and Ferrari remain evenly matched, and while Red Bull did get that third spot on the podium, that was down to a lacklustre performance from Raikkonen and Bottas.
The rest of the finishing positions were decided by who could get their tyres working and who could not. I was disappointed for Alonso, who should have finished in the points had his car not broken down, and for Giovinazzi, who I think has received too much criticism from some quarters. The cars are harder to drive this year and need to be pushed harder in the races too, so the rookies will make more mistakes than during the 'cruise to protect the tyres' period, and he'd never seen the track before. He has clearly got pace, so I hope he will return to Formula 1 in the near future.
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"and for Giovinazzi, who I think has received too much criticism from some quarters."
I think the criticism was justified as he wrecked the car two days running and was his opportunity to shine and maybe put himself in the running for a more permanent roll but he blew it.
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A crash in wet conditions can happen to anybody.He
probably blew a chance for a ride this year
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A crash in wet conditions can happen to anybody.He
probably blew a chance for a ride this year
You're right Dare it could but two days running and in the same place was abusing the privilege of getting the drive.
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Maybe it's the Max Factor..Other up and coming drivers see being reckless has
rewards and figure let's go for it.
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Maybe it's the Max Factor..Other up and coming drivers see being reckless has
rewards and figure let's go for it.
That could very well be true although I doubt Sauber without a major sponsor would agree, does anyone know the cost of a front wing let alone the damage done on race day?
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Maybe it's the Max Factor..Other up and coming drivers see being reckless has
rewards and figure let's go for it.
That could very well be true although I doubt Sauber without a major sponsor would agree, does anyone know the cost of a front wing let alone the damage done on race day?
An entire F1 car is $2.5 million, and Antonio didn't write off an entire car at any point. At a guess, Antonio's total damage quota for the weekend would be in the $100,000-$200,000 category. He's probably worth free engines to Sauber if hired full-time, which is around $10 million.
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I think the criticism was justified as he wrecked the car two days running and was his opportunity to shine and maybe put himself in the running for a more permanent roll but he blew it.
This year's cars are more challenging to drive and he hasn't had the same level of preparation as the other drivers. It's also worth noting that he demonstrated very promising speed, so that has to be offset against those crashes as well.
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By the standard shown by Max and Lance, he's already nearly too old. He's in danger of being a never was.