GPWizard F1 Forum
F1 News & Discussions => General F1 Discussion => Topic started by: Scott on March 24, 2018, 11:06:10 AM
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No preview post I guess, but now that I've seen Q, some comments...
The Halo's. Big and ugly, especially when looking head on at the car. I do find that the teams that have integrated it into their colour scheme (in particular Ferrari) make it much easier on the eyes. That said, it could go 3 ways. Either it saves someone as a tire bounces off it, it fails in a crash and parts of it become weaponised and well...let's hope not. Or it has no impact or effect on anything and just remains annoying to look at.
Funny how Ferrari did the back of their mirrors in see-through carbon. What is the point? At first I thought it was a hole, but close up looked just see-through.
Renault had an interesting front wing. Might be because I didn't really get a good look at others.
Bottas accident - wow. Glad he is ok. Looked like quite a hit. 5 place grid drop for gearbox change...stupid, stupid, stupid FIA. 10th would have been enough of a penalty.
Ferrari's 2-3. Good to see. I enjoy it when Kimi does most of his talking with the car after all the moaning about why is he even still in F1 after his ho-hum practice sessions. He's here because he can still put a car on the front row. Sorry DR isn't showing stronger, but he might bring it to the race.
Haas in top 10 - impressive. I thought Grosjean might get a penalty for his right lane pass in the pits on the Renault, but I guess it was technically legal if not a bit dangerous (unlike a gear change which is not the least bit dangerous, but gets a 5 place grid penalty!).
Who is the guy with the F1 mic at the end? Should I know him? Is there a reason he has a fistful of esoteric bracelets rammed on his mic hand? Maybe he should be doing the Yoga Championship or leave the jewellery behind for the F1 race. Seb reached out to shake his hand when his turn came and the guy blew it off - something frowned on in Switzerland...if you greet someone you even have a passing acquaintance with, you shake hands, just normal. Again, who IS this guy?
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I was not surprised to see Lewis on Pole, but I was surprised to see how huge his margin was back to the Ferraris. Interesting that Red Bull were not quite able to be as quick as they showed in winter testing, although I don't doubt their car will be there or thereabouts in the race. Haas were fast, but the car has some 'heritage' from Ferrari so it is not too unexpected. Still both drivers had to deliver and did.
Bottas showed uncharacteristic clumsiness with his crash, at least he is okay though and given the speed advantage of that Mercedes, you would still say he has a great shot at a podium finish.
McLaren will be pleased not to have blown up but not getting into Q3 I am sure will have been a kicker for them. Williams and Force India seem set to struggle this weekend which is a pity. Pleased for Stroll to get into Q2 and I thought Sirotkin did okay on a track he had never raced and in a car that is still a bit rough around the edges.
Hoping for a good race, expecting total Hamilton domination.
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The high point of quali for me Haas being "Best of the Rest." I hope Romain & K-Mag can keep it up in the race.
The low point was the lack of pace from the Saubers. I'd hoped for better.
McLaren gave a good account of themselves in Quali, too.
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If I wake up early enough to try to find a stream I'll see the faithful in chat, but I ain't setting an alarm on the offchance as over here they've killed 5 of the streams, fingers crossed.
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I'll probably wake up early enough, but no way on earth am I getting up to watch it live. I record these early morning races and watch them at a more palatable 7am. However a delayed start means missing the chat or else I'll get the race spoilt.
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The low part for me was the gym not showing the qualifying rerun due to "important news about Brexit" (What? For a whole hour?!?) and my internet picking today to be extremely slow, preventing seeing it on catch-up. So I've yet to see qualifying, and have resigned myself to not doing so.
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So I've yet to see qualifying, and have resigned myself to not doing so.
Whatever the reasons, I would get to a Doctor quickly with comments like that!! :(
Granted, I opted to miss Practice 2,3 ... as I simply want a look at Practice 1 to see the cars out on track as a warm-up to Qualy for the first weekend of the season.
All the best,
Cal :)
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I don't need a doctor to diagnose broadbanditis, I need my broadband provider to fix that. I think I'm #28719 in the queue; every provider's been having problems in this area all week.
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Just watched highlights on Channel 4, flaming ad breaks and the length of them drove me round the bend, completely lost interest, not that there was much to get excited about anyway. >:D
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Sorry I missed the Chat Room. Ongoing internet issues. Hopefully they'll be sorted no later than Baku. At least I could watch the race on TV.
Haas threw it all away. Running 4th & 5th with the Red Bulls unable to pass. Then to botch a lugnut on two consecutive pit stops! Unbelievable!
I'm still trying to figure out how it was legal for Seb to pass Lewis during a VSC by ducking through the pits. Red Car Rules, I guess.
ESPN's coverage was terrible. Sky's feed doesn't have commercial breaks so ESPN just sticks them in whenever, with no regard to what's happening in the race. For example, they were in breaks during both of Haas's pit disasters. A bit later, DC said, "Here's another look at what happened with the two Haas cars." I didn't get to see it. Instead, I was treated to:
1. An advert for a bankruptcy lawyer,
2. An advert for a porno adult book shop,
3. A repeat of the bankruptcy lawyer's ad,
4. A string of ESPN in-house ads.
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I enjoyed the race, even if only a few of us were in chat (we called it a wet race by the way, just because of the lack of attendance, and we can do what we want when there are only three of us ;) :D )
There wasn’t a flurry of overtaking, but it was interesting to see how the teams shook out during the first race. So sad to see both Haas cars DNF after dominating the mid pack (including Bottas and Verstappen) for the first half of the race. Pit error was really awful for them.
For a change it was nice to see a god-like strategic move from Ferrari, and to hear (and see) the utter confusion at Merc. Really glad Vettel was able to hold onto it to the end even though it probably should have been Kimi’s.
Verstappen made his own bed by spinning across a kerb, so having to listen to “it was the car’s fault I couldn’t go faster” was annoying.
Fantastic job of McLaren to give Alonso a car capable of 5th. Nice to see him look confident and happy for a change.
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I thought it was a pretty awful race if I am honest. For the last 16-20 laps I believe there was no overtake and not one change of position. There were some peaks, the 'Haas' incidents, Max being Max etc, but I just couldn't get into it. I think maybe being the first race of the season I was perhaps 'over hyped' but to me it was a snooze fest. But then Melbourne doesn't lend itself to overtaking with current F1 cars, not that many places to overtake and the dirty air problem was really highlighted, especially by Bottas being unable to charge through the field.
The less said about Williams, the better as well. :'(
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Max not impressed either!
https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/135037/verstappen-would-have-switched-off-worthless-gp (https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/135037/verstappen-would-have-switched-off-worthless-gp)
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He could not make a move and eventually suffered what he and the team reckoned was a damage-induced spin at Turn 1.
That's true, in a way. The car was fine. Max's ego was severely damaged when K-Mag blew his doors off on the start & then was able to hold him off. :yahoo:
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I thought his car was damaged IN the spin, not that it spun due to damage...seems there is more spin in this story than meets the eye.
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Mercedes is now saying a glitch in their strategy software caused them to let Hamilton allow too big a gap between himself and Vettel opening the door to the pitstop pass under the VSC that gave Vettel the win. Strategy software?? :o
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Hehe...Hamilton will of course from now on be sceptical of pit wall instructions regarding strategy. Strategy software indeed...hilarious.
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Mercedes is now saying a glitch in their strategy software caused them to let Hamilton allow too big a gap between himself and Vettel opening the door to the pitstop pass under the VSC that gave Vettel the win. Strategy software?? :o
The idea isn't that hard really. They manually calculate speed deltas to figure out over/undercuts. Software to do that SHOULD be fairly trivial.
I assume as a German car company they've made things far more complicated than necessary.
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Mercedes is now saying a glitch in their strategy software caused them to let Hamilton allow too big a gap between himself and Vettel opening the door to the pitstop pass under the VSC that gave Vettel the win. Strategy software?? :o
The idea isn't that hard really. They manually calculate speed deltas to figure out over/undercuts. Software to do that SHOULD be fairly trivial.
I assume as a German car company they've made things far more complicated than necessary.
In this case, from what I've seen, the glitch was "they forgot to take into account that pit-lane exiters aren't bound by the Safety Car delta time restrictions between the safety car line and the pit exit line".
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YEP! :good:
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In this case, from what I've seen, the glitch was "they forgot to take into account that pit-lane exiters aren't bound by the Safety Car delta time restrictions between the safety car line and the pit exit line".
It's as simple as that!!! .. and as F1 is "top of the technical tree" ... we are all amazed that they didn't figure this out, 30 seconds after it happened (we did!!!). It's not rocket science after all.
All the best,
Cal :)
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In this case, from what I've seen, the glitch was "they forgot to take into account that pit-lane exiters aren't bound by the Safety Car delta time restrictions between the safety car line and the pit exit line".
It's as simple as that!!! .. and as F1 is "top of the technical tree" ... we are all amazed that they didn't figure this out, 30 seconds after it happened (we did!!!). It's not rocket science after all.
All the best,
Cal :)
Probably someone in Brackley did figure it out; it just took the best part of a week to get their opinion through the layers of technocracy and PR clearance for this to be officially declared the real reason. Only leaders get direct commenting access to the public, Toto Wolff is always cautious when it comes to admitting weaknesses and Niki Lauda prefers to talk about people rather than computers (which in this context would be too much like shooting the messenger or lecturing staff in public - something even Niki reserves for people who can argue back equally publically).
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Wow, but before we throw a genius crown on Ferrari, do you think THEY actually knew it or was it just a gamble?
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Wow, but before we throw a genius crown on Ferrari, do you think THEY actually knew it or was it just a gamble?
I personally think it was a complete fluke, but one which Ferrari are glad that current rules allow!
All the best,
Cal :)
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Of course you can't plan a VSC, but when it happened Ferrari recognized the situation and took advantage. Merc failed to plan for it and got caught out.
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That's pretty much it, so can we now expect a "new rule" for setting a delta, while trickling down the pit lane during a VSC period?
All the best
Cal :)
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Of course you can't plan a VSC, but when it happened Ferrari recognized the situation and took advantage. Merc failed to plan for it and got caught out.
Pick your saying, "Luck favours the prepared" or "You make your own luck".
In F1 it's not enough to be lucky, but to be ready to seize that moment of luck.
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That's pretty much it, so can we now expect a "new rule" for setting a delta, while trickling down the pit lane during a VSC period?
All the best
Cal :)
If McLaren had hopped over Ferrari using this loophole, they'd already be fined back to the stone age. :tease:
As long as it favours Ferrari, I don't see the FIA changing anything.
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Of course you can't plan a VSC, but when it happened Ferrari recognized the situation and took advantage. Merc failed to plan for it and got caught out.
Bit harsh Lonny, Merc will have planned for it - they just got their sums wrong.
Hey wait a minute that's worse, at this level, than not planning at all. :confused:
Looks like fair comment after all. ;)
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Bit harsh Lonny, Merc will have planned for it - they just got their sums wrong.
What gives you that idea? To me it seemed like Ferrari did something that Merc didn’t anticipate and they really were quite surprised as if they hadn’t included that eventuality (that Ferrari would be allowed to run above the VCR delta during the pit in and out bits) in their calculations. It didn’t seem like they just had their numbers wrong, it was more like they hadn’t realized Vettel could speed up on the way into and out of the pits.
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ANY Safety Car rule, actual or virtual, that allows a car to go faster down the pits than on the track, is fundamentally flawed & needs fixed.
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ANY Safety Car rule, actual or virtual, that allows a car to go faster down the pits than on the track, is fundamentally flawed & needs fixed.
As the VSC rule has been explained numerous times, particularly in accommodating newcomers to F1 or armchair fans, it has always been simplified by Pundits with the 'Scalextric' approach ... so in paralleling with that example, EVERY CAR should be "set" to the same speed, track, pit lane .. maybe even Fernando's Deck Chair!!!
All the best,
Cal :)
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ANY Safety Car rule, actual or virtual, that allows a car to go faster down the pits than on the track, is fundamentally flawed & needs fixed.
Cars going slowly in the pit lane would lead to congestion and more danger, wouldn't it? Especially if cars are stacking up to pit under a safety car?
I'm not really opposed to the idea, just so long as they ensure they're changing it for safety reasons.
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Just to clarify things can it really be true that cars on track during VSC are running below the pit lane speed limit? IMHO that's clearly not true, for evidence I offer the example of the actual safety car which goes faster than the pit limit speed but leaves us and the drivers with the impression it's a carnival procession.
The question therefore is how could Merc make such a fundamental error? My suggestion is human error not an algorythym - crap data in crap data out.
I think on the safety in the actual pitlane element the speed doesn't need changes, any advantage to a car pitting under VSC can only come on the pit in & pit out track sections, after or before the safety lines.
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They were two of the funniest things I've seen in F1 Cal, Fernando's deck chair and Fernando on the camera at the Brazilian GP(I think) :DD
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We are now in the era of no refuelling during a race and although this may sound a little stupid, what about enforcing "Pit Lane Closed" during any VSC period, where only cars with visible damage or safety related issues were permitted to enter the pits ... or have I missed a mammoth flaw in this thought?
All the best,
Cal :)
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We are now in the era of no refuelling during a race and although this may sound a little stupid, what about enforcing "Pit Lane Closed" during any VSC period, where only cars with visible damage or safety related issues were permitted to enter the pits ... or have I missed a mammoth flaw in this thought?
All the best,
Cal :)
The moment you allow a judgement call on which car can pit, and which one can't, you're opening up to controversy. Unless you're talking about only letting in cars that have black flagged, the lane should be closed to all.
Now, of course, with the designed to be destroyed Pirellis, forcing a car to restart on tires that are three laps past their use by date would be dangerous, in which case banning them from the pits will just lead to more caution periods.
I think the current rule is fine. Someone was bound to exploit the loophole once. Now that we know it's there, it will be part of the team planning and strategy software. As long as we don't have any Briatore style 'planned safety cars', I wouldn't worry about it.
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Just to clarify things can it really be true that cars on track during VSC are running below the pit lane speed limit? IMHO that's clearly not true, for evidence I offer the example of the actual safety car which goes faster than the pit limit speed but leaves us and the drivers with the impression it's a carnival procession.
The question therefore is how could Merc make such a fundamental error? My suggestion is human error not an algorythym - crap data in crap data out.
I think on the safety in the actual pitlane element the speed doesn't need changes, any advantage to a car pitting under VSC can only come on the pit in & pit out track sections, after or before the safety lines.
To break it down, the pit in and pit exit sections, after the safety line, have NO speed limit...at any time. That was where Ferrari got their advantage and managed to pass Lewis.
Used to be that teams used to cover each other's pit stops to prevent any advantage on new vs old tires, even during SC sections.
The fact that there is a distinct advantage during a VSC because there is no SC touring around that is forbidden to overtake while in the pit lane means teams now have a new strategic element. You know what? I love new strategic elements that bring excitement or shake up the proceedings (processions?). Why all the rush to prevent something like that from happening again? From lap 2 it was a Hamilton win unless his car broke. Ferrari found a way to change that outcome, and I am pleased it surprised everyone, especially Hamilton and Merc. They could have prevented it by either pitting with Vettel or the very next lap might have even put them back in front (I don't recall if the VSC went for a further lap after Vettel pitted, but if it did, clever minds at Merc might have called in Hamilton to leap frog Vettel right back).
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No the leap frog wouldn't work Scott. Lewis would have to be 15 secs in front of SEB to pull that trick, and if Hammy was in front no need to pit.
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Well, on reflection, it's probably best that everything surrounding VSC periods are left well alone. As you say, everyone has knowledge of the loophole and should be able to do their sums properly in future.
Regardless, I have every faith in Liberty Media to come up with an amicable solution, bringing satisfaction to the heads of every driver and smiles to the faces of every Team Principle, like daisies and buttercups!! *dripping with sarcasm smiley goes here*
All the best,
Cal :)
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Oh Calman - You youngsters get bored so easily. ;)
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Oh Calman - You youngsters get bored so easily. ;)
I don't follow?
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Oh Calman - You youngsters get bored so easily. ;)
I don't follow?
Seems to me you were seeking to close the discussion down, so I figured you may be a little bored.
No disrespect intended.
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I deliberately did not log in to post my comments in the days after the race because I was initially too angry and then far too disappointed. I'm still very disappointed, but at least I am in a more calm frame of mind.
To put it diplomatically, that was the worst race I have ever seen in twenty-three years of watching Formula 1. I have absolutely no positive comments to make about any aspect of it. It was boring from start to finish. There was no tension, no excitement, and even the commentary was flat and lifeless.
The cars look absolutely hideous. The halo is a massive problem from an aesthetic point of view and also may cause unintended safety issues. The cars all look even more similar than they usually do and they are ugly. The awful engine covers, combined with the halo, and chunky noses and front wings make them look more like converted sports cars than Formula 1 cars. They also look slow and do not give any impression of speed when viewed on the television. They are also far too easy to drive.
The whole race was like an endurance race. Drivers trundling around, well within their limits, looking after tyres and then just trying to undercut each other. Add in the need to conserve engines and gearboxes, the usual contemporary problem of excessive reliability, and the age old problem of the aero dependency effect and the whole even was insipid. Boring, processional, and totally uninspiring is my summation, and that's being generous.
I have not followed any developments or news until today, when I finally summoned up the motivation to look at the free practice results, and I don't even know whether the race is live on Channel 4 this weekend, whether it's highlights, or even what time it is.
I really don't care any more and it makes me really sad to type that, but it's how I feel. Unless they totally change the rules I see no way in which Formula 1 races are ever going be exciting again. I stick around because I like interacting with you guys and playing the grid game with you all, but that's it. This season is, after just one race, a write-off, in my opinion. I only hope that something miraculous happens to prove me wrong.
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Seems to me you were seeking to close the discussion down, so I figured you may be a little bored.
No disrespect intended.
Not sure what gave you that impression, but nothing could be further from the truth John! ... just everyday F1 discussion as far as I can see?
All the best,
Cal :)
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To put it diplomatically, that was the worst race I have ever seen in twenty-three years of watching Formula 1.
So you didn't like it then? :(
I agree, it was a million miles from action packed, but I think there have been worse races in the last 20+ years. However, I was pretty disappointed also, as being a brand new season, you do expect something a little special first time out. I knew the Halo would be an UGLY distraction, but expected the racing to be the main focus of entertainment .... and yes, it wasn't.
It's a worry, as it's a struggle to say anything positive about F1 lately, especially as the focus is now on 2021 and hearing comments that Lewis "may" not stick around, Kimi "will be gone before any changes affect him" ... of course, Alonso will likely call it a day by that point. We will be left with a grid of "robots" and run by Liberty Media with a lot more glam and glitter by 2021. The rules will still likely be in a familiar mess, with little reward to fans/teams/drivers ongoing wishes and concerns.
Anyone who grew up watching F1 in the 60s/70s will no longer recognise the sport.
All the best,
Cal :)
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Anyone who saw F1 in the 60's and 70's barely recognizes F1 now. It is almost unimaginably different.
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I'd say it's almost unrecognizable from the 80s & 90s as well Lonny, all this fuel management and preserving engine life kills balls out racing.