GPWizard F1 Forum
F1 News & Discussions => General F1 Discussion => Topic started by: Jericoke on April 18, 2021, 05:11:59 PM
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Heroes
Lewis Hamilton. I've never seen anyone recover from a crash like that, in a gravel trap, and finish a solid second place. Even the people running live timing counted him out!
Max Verstappen. Fantastic start. Running in a commanding lead on a wet track can lead to inattention which could have easily lead to a DNF, so keeping his head the whole time, especially in his Fastest Lap duel with Hamilton at the end, that's a 'hero' to me.
Lando Norris. Put in a great race. Finishing third in a wet race is an accomplishment no matter who you are. Holding off Lewis Hamilton in a faster car for even a few laps is also about as heroic as a race car driver can do.
Ferrari. Looks like they've got things turned around from last year. Understanding they're not looking at wins, much less a championship, seems to have evened things out.
Yuki Tsunoda. He's driving like a rookie, taking chances that he really doesn't need to, but he's not endangering other racers, so he's taking SMART chances. Once he gets a feel for what it takes to race an F1 car, he's going to have a bright future.
Zeroes
George Russell. I know that an F1 race is a series of split second decisions, and a drying track makes things even harder, but expecting two Mercedes to take the wet line on the same lap just isn't good racecraft.
Alpine. Don't feel like they're ready to race with the big boys yet. Alonso is looking disappointingly average.
Honourable mention.
Mazepin has already finished more races than I expected this season.
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HEROS:
Lewis Hamilton. Okay, I will have to admit that he is a superior driver. Though Mercedes deserves some of the credit.
Max Verstappen. He kept the car on the track, that was important.
Lando Norris. Wow!
ZEROS:
Aston Martin. They should have kept Sergio Perez.
Fernando Alonso. How the mighty have fallen.
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HEROS:
Lewis Hamilton. Okay, I will have to admit that he is a superior driver. Though Mercedes deserves some of the credit.
Max Verstappen. He kept the car on the track, that was important.
Lando Norris. Wow!
ZEROS:
Aston Martin. They should have kept Sergio Perez.
Fernando Alonso. How the mighty have fallen.
I bet Papa Stroll is having some second thoughts too.
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Surely Alpine is pronounced Al-pine not Al-peen as Sky commentators keep doing.
Nothing to add to the above other than to say the Vettel, Alonso Mazepin have not surprised me!
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HEROS:
Lewis Hamilton. Okay, I will have to admit that he is a superior driver. Though Mercedes deserves some of the credit.
Max Verstappen. He kept the car on the track, that was important.
Lando Norris. Wow!
ZEROS:
Aston Martin. They should have kept Sergio Perez.
Fernando Alonso. How the mighty have fallen.
I bet Papa Stroll is having some second thoughts too.
And I bet Perez would have come at a fraction of the price of Vettel.
I often smile thinking about how dire Perez's options were this time last year and then he gets picked by perhaps the fastest team of 2021...too funny. He must pinch himself each morning as well.
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On the Bottas-Russell crash, I lay it at Russell's feet. First of all Bottas was on fresh slicks and didn't want (or need) to go off the dry line for anyone. Russell complaining that Bottas move was sudden is in his mind, but not video. Bottas gradually moved with the dry line towards the right. Russell still had room but probably wouldn't have been able to make the next corner. Simply bad judgement. The crash could have been avoided, but if Bottas had given up the dry line, he himself may have lost control going into the next corner.
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Sorry for Perez. I don't think he's ever been brilliant in rain, and he said he had difficulty getting heat into the tires. I expect him to settle into the car in the next couple of races and then show his stuff. Looking forward to a couple Perez/Verstappen battles toward the end of season.
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Strange race.
I know I want overtaking but I still do not like it when an overtake results in one driver pushing the other driver off the road; in my opinion that corner was clearly Hamilton's but Verstappen knew that he could push Hamilton off the track and take the place. No honour in that - IMHO.
Perez let himself down badly. At this rate he will be no better than Albon or Gasly before him.
I am starting to feel sorry for Vettel; a mixture of stupid mistakes and enormous bad luck is leaving him looking fairly awful.
Personally I think Bottas could have taken steps to avoid the accident but, to be fair, I don't think he realised Russel was coming until it was too late. Russel needs to do some growing up - even if he believed the fault was with Bottas, going to a crashed car for a 'handbags at dawn' confrontation is not the thing to do in F1.
My number one hero was Norris - fantastic qualifying (nearly :D) and then a great race.
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Surely Alpine is pronounced Al-pine not Al-peen as Sky commentators keep doing.
Nothing to add to the above other than to say the Vettel, Alonso Mazepin have not surprised me!
It's a French name, so I assume 'Alpeen' is how it's pronounced. They're putting enough money in the sport, I'm sure they'd correct anyone saying it wrong.
All the same, 'Ferrari' gets pronounced differently all around the world, and that doesn't seem to hurt their business.
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Most of it has already been covered, so just a couple of notes:
Heroes:
Lewis - He seems to do his best fighting back from impossible situations.
Zeroes:
Both Astons had overheating rear brakes on the way to the grid. They both later had gearbox problems. Sounds like their engineering staff has a busy couple of week ahead of them.
Honorable Mention:
Mazespin did his trademark pirouette on the last lap. In the Chat Room, we'd been speculating about how strange it would be if he were the only one in the race who didn't spin at least once. ;)
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Certainly an entertaining race, for me though a lot of the problems are caused by Imola not really being a track for these F1 monsters. There's only one real overtake opportunity and that's with DRS assistance, so everyone was relying on others to make mistakes. Rain saved the race from being a dull affair so that's biggest hero for me.
Feisty drive from Lewis back thru the field but it just emphasises the gulf between Merc/Red Bull and the rest of the field. Without DRS not sure Lewis could have made more than a couple of places.
Max deserved the win and I can't agree that he took Lewis corner away in first lap, Max was alongside and was on racing line. All drivers, and especially Lewis would have done same to any one else if they had Max's position.
Lando also showed fighting spirit and pretty good car control to end up 3rd so big thumbs up to him.
Zeros well take your pick, Perez for stupidity of getting penalties - he was hired for his experience, he showed little of that this time. Bottas for being mired in midfield in a front running car or Vettel/Aston Martin for the mess they both seem to be making this season. You can also add Al-peen & Haas for just having rubbish cars.
On the subject of Russell/Bottas shunt I favour the oft quoted phrase:- If you don't go for the gap you aren't racing!
There's also the other saying for young drivers who wreck cars:- You can teach fast young drivers to stop crashing but you can't teach average ones speed.
Makes no difference that they both have Merc contracts they're competitors and Like stewards I rate it a racing incident.
For me Bottas comes off worst from this as he should never have got into the position of George getting a run on him.
I believe if seats in cars reversed Valteri would have been 5 or 6 places behind George even on a bad Merc day.
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Pluses:
Lewis: Making it look like a master class. He can deliver when he needs too as did MS in his day, but Lewis does it and is a gentleman about it.
Verstappen: Smart move starting in 2nd to reduce wheel spin on the wet track. he deserved the win as he ran a great race from start to finish. I totally disliked his arrogant antics when he 1st came in but as he gains experience and wisdom he has settled down and I can now appreciate his talent.
Norris: great quali and race.
Minuses:
Alonso: should have kept trying to win Indy.
Russell: Young stupid move on Bottas and then poor sportsmanship from them both.
HASS: why bother?
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Both Astons had overheating rear brakes on the way to the grid. They both later had gearbox problems. Sounds like their engineering staff has a busy couple of week ahead of them.
When Stroll complained about his gears during cornering, his team radio’d back that he was bumping the gear paddle. Maybe they only had trouble with Vettel’s gearbox.
...but yeah, technically the race sucked for Aston.
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I see this morning, NZ time, that GR is apologising and taking blame for the crash and the altercation after.
Young, keen, learning and growing up.
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I see this morning, NZ time, that GR is apologising and taking blame for the crash and the altercation after.
Young, keen, learning and growing up.
Probably because Toto gave GR quite a telling off and GR is now worried about his chances to get a Mercedes drive next year. As Toto mentioned, the problem is the cost cap and writing off a car is expensive... and of course seeing the bigger picture and waiting a couple of laps to make an easier pass. Remind us of anyone from a few years back? Max... :D
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This race was proper fun!
Heroes
Hamilton - Great comeback from nearly marooned in a gravel trap, to halfway down the field, to 2nd.
Verstappen - Took all opportunities on the table to win - although some luck was also required (leaving the track a little bit harder could have resulted in no points at all).
Leclerc - 4th in qualifying was already good. Securing the same result despite a broken radio (he couldn't receive messages) and going to considerable lengths to ensure he didn't get a penalty from Verstappen's off was even more so. Verstappen is above him in the list because of that formation-lap excursion.
Zeroes
Russell - Not so much for the crash, which I think was due to Russell and Bottas having different interpretations of what was possible in the conditions that were both partially true... ...but for attacking Bottas afterwards, both physically and in the press. I appreciate Russell was furious, but this sort of thing got mocked in 1982 and the years have not been kind to driver fu. Thankfully, he's since apologised for bad handling of the whole incident.
Aston Martin - The car clearly has potential - Vettel had the fastest lap of the race partway through - but it's literally going up in smoke with those brake fires on both cars. (That Lance was able to start from the grid anyway is a point in its favour. But only a minor point, especially as the "solution" of "drive quickly" (on an installation lap!) usually makes brake fires worse). Weird strategies and a dodgy gearbox for both drivers (all mechanical for Vettel) compounded a horrible day.
Perez - No, Checo, you know better than to drive like that. The penalty for overtaking under the Safety Car was particularly surprising.
Dishonourable mention: Stroll - Yes, I'm counting him separately. Don't argue with your engineer who's providing solutions to terminal car problems (even if the solutions are weird). Hitting the gears at the wrong times may have caused gearbox damage, from what I could hear from the car, and overtaking two people by skipping an entire corner was never going to work (he's lucky he was only told to yield one place back).
(I wanted to give Mazepin a dishonourable mention for continuing to spin and be slow, but I've run out of space).
Surely Alpine is pronounced Al-pine not Al-peen as Sky commentators keep doing.
Nothing to add to the above other than to say the Vettel, Alonso Mazepin have not surprised me!
Al-peen is the French way to pronounce that word, and Alpine is a French company. Sky is correct (as is Channel 4).