2022 - Race 8 Baku

[F1nKS]

Azerbaijan Grand Prix coming up next. F1 seems to be taking it slow this week with really no news except discussion about how Ferrari screwed the pooch.

[airshifter]

Azerbaijan Grand Prix coming up next. F1 seems to be taking it slow this week with really no news except discussion about how Ferrari screwed the pooch.

Not really one of my favorite tracks, but overall we have had a lot of surprising results there, and a lot of dramatic offs and such as well.

Perez is probably pumped, as he has done well at this track a number of times and coming off a Monaco win in a strong car is surely keeping him positive.

With Merc having sorted out their porposing issues some, they might be in the hunt with the front of the pack here. It seems that Ferrari still have some bounce on the higher speed stuff, and that might lead them to compromise setup to deal with that long Baku straight. I hope I'm wrong, and a number of cars can stay in the hunt.

I guess we will see in a few days. Until then all we can do it hope the spammers get tired of spamming.

[F1nKS]

Not really one of my favorite tracks, but overall we have had a lot of surprising results there, and a lot of dramatic offs and such as well.

Perez is probably pumped, as he has done well at this track a number of times and coming off a Monaco win in a strong car is surely keeping him positive.

With Merc having sorted out their porposing issues some, they might be in the hunt with the front of the pack here. It seems that Ferrari still have some bounce on the higher speed stuff, and that might lead them to compromise setup to deal with that long Baku straight. I hope I'm wrong, and a number of cars can stay in the hunt.

I guess we will see in a few days. Until then all we can do it hope the spammers get tired of spamming.

Baku seems to be one of those tracks that dish up mostly a boring race and then something happens to throw it into total chaos.

Just think if Max didn't have the blowout or Hamilton hadn't had his "magic" mishap how the season turns out.

[F1nKS]

LOL, Stroll crashes on his outlap and 1st qualifying lap...

[truefan72]

LOL, Stroll crashes on his outlap and 1st qualifying lap...

typical...
Stroll and Latifi are the absolute worst and neither deserves a seat. MSC is close behind.
If papa stroll didn't own the team, lance would have been ejected from F1 by now.

[Tazio]

'troll! :dork:

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[truefan72]

Alonso doing his best rosberg/schumi monaco move. He should get investigated imo


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[truefan72]

Funny how the stewards want to investigate hamilton for slow driving when he moved over to let cars pass as he wanted to do a second warm up lap but nothing on Alonso who purposely drove slow and then triggered a yellow deliberately. With no time remaining fir others behind him. Laughable


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[Tazio]

Alonso doing his best rosberg/schumi monaco move. He should get investigated imo


Sent from my iPhone using TapatalkSorrrrrrrrrrrry, it's the Boss that gets popped!

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[Bagwan]

typical...
Stroll and Latifi are the absolute worst and neither deserves a seat. MSC is close behind.
If papa stroll didn't own the team, lance would have been ejected from F1 by now.

And then , his team mate , the 4 time champ , does exactly the same thing .
Perhaps the car needs to be ejected .

[Bagwan]

LOL, Stroll crashes on his outlap and 1st qualifying lap...

No "LOL" for Seb ?

[airshifter]

Funny how the stewards want to investigate hamilton for slow driving when he moved over to let cars pass as he wanted to do a second warm up lap but nothing on Alonso who purposely drove slow and then triggered a yellow deliberately. With no time remaining fir others behind him. Laughable


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In the case of Hamilton I thought it was more just Norris playing games making sure to get the tow. But I saw no valid reason why Hamilton should be investigated other than the mention of the delta. At least he was cleared.

Alonso was shady as hell with that move and it should have been investigated. I've heard rumors there might have been a rear axle issue but they could easily confirm or deny that with telemetry.


Brilliant lap by Charles. And Max gets punked by Checo. I have a feeling the first few laps might be pretty intense.

[airshifter]

No "LOL" for Seb ?

Well, at least he didn't screw it up twice in one lap of the track.

[truefan72]

In the case of Hamilton I thought it was more just Norris playing games making sure to get the tow. But I saw no valid reason why Hamilton should be investigated other than the mention of the delta. At least he was cleared.

Alonso was shady as hell with that move and it should have been investigated. I've heard rumors there might have been a rear axle issue but they could easily confirm or deny that with telemetry.


Brilliant lap by Charles. And Max gets punked by Checo. I have a feeling the first few laps might be pretty intense.

I'm surprised Jos hasn't said anything yet. Perez is proving his absolute worth to RBR. We shall see how The golden boy and marko respond

[F1nKS]

No "LOL" for Seb ?

Vettel qualified 9th, where was Stroll?

[gm99]

Strange that Red Bull didn't pit at least one of their cars under the VSC.

[truefan72]

Yup. RBR are messing with Perez. They held him for 2 seconds for no reason in the pits. Shameful


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[gm99]

Appalling reliability from Ferrari.

[Tazio]

Ba bye checco!

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[gm99]

That Mercedes is bouncing like a racquetball. No wonder Hamilton is complaining of back pain.

EDIT: The Ferrari-engined cars are dropping like flies...

[truefan72]

Lol. Sky asking what happened to Perez pace. Easy…RBR curbed his performance and purposely had 2 slow stops, then told him that they want to hold station. SMH that is what happened


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[Tazio]

'tifi

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[F1nKS]

This was the most boring race of the year so far. Ferrari reliability is just ending the drama of having a competitive season.

Hamilton looked very bad off. If he is really that bad off, don't see how he can race next week. Back problems are tricky.

Gasly and Vettel each had a nice finish.

It is interesting that Mercedes's solution to their porpoising problem is for them to want the FIA to change the rules and mandate a ride height.

[N. Jones]

Yup. RBR are messing with Perez. They held him for 2 seconds for no reason in the pits. Shameful


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Everyone knows Max is #1 at RB. Christian can say he doesn't care who wins the title all he wants, he knows who the powers at RB want to win.

[F1nKS]

Everyone knows Max is #1 at RB. Christian can say he doesn't care who wins the title all he wants, he knows who the powers at RB want to win.

I don't know why anybody is so put off. Perez had a chance to make his 1st place stick, but couldn't with his tire degradation. Perez did not have the grip to hold of Max either.

Regardless RBR's position is not any different than what has been Mercedes when Hamilton was winning championships.

[airshifter]

A mostly boring race at the front. Other than Checo getting Lecerc into turn one and then Max getting Checo after tires, there wasn't really much going on until the Ferrari's retired.

The midfield was a bit more fun to watch as the various strategies due to the VSC periods played out. Some clean racing and nothing really unexpected but at least some action to keep it from being too boring. The mind games at McLaren ae real, with first Daniel saying he had pace then later in the race Lando trying to push the same issue, even though he never got that close. Good to see both cars in the points though, and for a change Ricciardo comes out on top.

Gutted for Yuki, he was having a strong race until that flap broke. That's the first time I remember seeing such a thing, and I was shocked at how stable the wing still seemed to be when they showed that first shot. It looked as though the left side was already gone when DRS was open. Though always a hard call, probably a good thing they made him come in to fix it but it sure sucked to pull that second car for the team out of the points.

All things considered, a weekend that ended up with decent points for Merc, and pulling them closer to Ferrari. If the trend continues, they might still be in for a shot at 2nd in the WDC points. Once again George manages to get on the podium and stay in front of Lewis. Seb doing his thing and bringing home Baku points, and both Alpines took advantage of the massive straight line speed and some decent defending to keep both cars up there in the top ten. I thought KMag might have a shot at a point until things went south for him as well.



On to Canada

[denkimi]

I'm surprised Jos hasn't said anything yet.

Jos wasn't there. He was rallying in belgium.

[The Black Knight]

A boring race from start to finish. Worst Baku race yet and people seem to think the rule changes have worked? The rules changes haven't worked all they have done is move the ability to overtake from certain parts of the track to others. DRS is still needed to overtake so the rules are a failure.

As for the discussions around rule changes to fix the pospoising, I get RBR's point that teams shouldn't be punished for doing a good job, however, I can't help but feel F1 owes Mercedes one, after all, they banned altering engine modes mid season a couple of years back to deliberately reign in Mercedes and Mercedes could have kicked up a lot more stink than they did about it. Now Mercedes needs the favour returned.

[airshifter]

F1 doesn't owe Merc anything. They've won 8 consecutive WCC's, and there have been plenty of changes during seasons that impacted them and other teams as well. Is RB owed a favor due to the pit stop changes? Is Renault owes favors because the mass damper ban hurt them?

Merc and every other team on the grid understand how to quit beating the drivers to death, it's as simply as raising ride height. But Merc have chosen to try to stay in the hunt by trashing their drivers, and I'm assuming the drivers are getting paid enough to tolerate it. They aren't alone, but in the end it's no fault but the teams that let it ride. Being only 8 races in, it's kind of early to start crying for rules changes.


As for the rules being a failure, I don't agree. Much more extended close racing through the field, and overtakes still aren't usually easy unless it's the setup differences combined with DRS. But at least now a driver can follow in the wake and keep applying pressure without major issue, and do it for much longer usually.

[The Black Knight]

F1 doesn't owe Merc anything. They've won 8 consecutive WCC's, and there have been plenty of changes during seasons that impacted them and other teams as well. Is RB owed a favor due to the pit stop changes? Is Renault owes favors because the mass damper ban hurt them?

Merc and every other team on the grid understand how to quit beating the drivers to death, it's as simply as raising ride height. But Merc have chosen to try to stay in the hunt by trashing their drivers, and I'm assuming the drivers are getting paid enough to tolerate it. They aren't alone, but in the end it's no fault but the teams that let it ride. Being only 8 races in, it's kind of early to start crying for rules changes.


As for the rules being a failure, I don't agree. Much more extended close racing through the field, and overtakes still aren't usually easy unless it's the setup differences combined with DRS. But at least now a driver can follow in the wake and keep applying pressure without major issue, and do it for much longer usually.

RBR aren't owed a thing by the sport. The pit stops were a genuine safety concern and absolutely had to be done. And you'll notice far less balls up in pit stops since they came in.

On the other hand, Mercedes were robbed point blank in Abu Dhabi of a drivers championship last year and after years of investing in engine qualifying mode they were told mid season they could not use it anymore and there were zero safety concerns with it. It was nothing other than a blatant attempt to real in a team that had done a better job. Yes, Renault is owed one by the sport. The mass damper ban mid season was ridiculous. I think Mercedes are definitely owed one. Even the wind tunnel rules were designed to hurt them more than others.

As for the current rule changes, they are not a success while DRS is still needed. In fact, it looks harder to overtake now without DRS than it used to be because the cars have less drag. Being able to follow close is no use if you've no drag to get you by.

[F1nKS]

As for the current rule changes, they are not a success while DRS is still needed.

Rule changes were made to allow closer following. Last year whenever somebody tried to pull up behind somebody they immediately started losing down force and degrading their tires because of the turbulent airflow behind the cars. Max able to stay on Charles tail lap after lap showed the difference.

You would have not seen that last year. Last year you either attacked and go around your opponent or dropped back into the clear air. Otherwise you tires would quickly degrade and you would lose any ability to attack.


As for the current rule changes, they are not a success while DRS is still needed. In fact, it looks harder to overtake now without DRS than it used to be because the cars have less drag. Being able to follow close is no use if you've no drag to get you by.

Physics says that if you have two equal cars, then there has to be a differentiator that will allow another car to have delta performance to pass. That comes from either tire strategy, driver/team strategy or DRS.

I do think the FIA is struggling to find the balance to DRS so it is powerful enough for good racing versus it being an automatic pass.

[airshifter]

RBR aren't owed a thing by the sport. The pit stops were a genuine safety concern and absolutely had to be done. And you'll notice far less balls up in pit stops since they came in.

On the other hand, Mercedes were robbed point blank in Abu Dhabi of a drivers championship last year and after years of investing in engine qualifying mode they were told mid season they could not use it anymore and there were zero safety concerns with it. It was nothing other than a blatant attempt to real in a team that had done a better job. Yes, Renault is owed one by the sport. The mass damper ban mid season was ridiculous. I think Mercedes are definitely owed one. Even the wind tunnel rules were designed to hurt them more than others.

As for the current rule changes, they are not a success while DRS is still needed. In fact, it looks harder to overtake now without DRS than it used to be because the cars have less drag. Being able to follow close is no use if you've no drag to get you by.


Ahhh... only certain teams have been targets of rules changes, and it really comes down to the WDC.

Merc got the exact same wind tunnel time as RB did last year. Honda joined Mercedes in trying to push back against the engine mode requirements changes.

Though I often don't agree with the mid season changes especially, sometimes clarification of gray areas is needed. They always help certain teams more than others, and usually it's the lesser teams that have more to gain. As long as racing is taking place, there will be changes based on events or freak accidents. It's not going to change any time soon most likely, so I just roll with it.



As for the new regs, we'll just have to disagree. I think they have made it possible to attack much better, but at the same time not made passing easy. To me the DRS fly by passes that required little to no skill were boring. Though they still happen at times, much less frequent overall. The cars are running closer, not toasting their tires when they go to attack or follow closely, and seem to be a little harder to set up for any given track.

Regs changes pretty much always slow the cars down, and these changes are no exception. But as with past changes, they will just claw the time back as they come to grips with the cars.

[Bagwan]

At least we don't have stupid grooved tires any more .

But , we do still have DRS .
And , we still have tire warmers .


It's perhaps a little early to call this formula a failure , though , Mr. Knight .