Formula 1

[mbamber]

I have to say I never remember anybody so far out of his grid box as Vettal.

[Kim Jong Il]

4 minutes ago, mbamber said:

I have to say I never remember anybody so far out of his grid box as Vettal.

Yes, and no penalty for it! Never heard any explanation as to why no penalty or indeed what is the maximum you can be out of your box and still be okay.

[Edge]

On 4/5/2017 at 6:22 AM, Richie said:

.......................................

Verstappen is great, love his don't give a shit style and has bags of potential but he's not F1's best driver. He doesn't currently make the top 3.

He did today.....time will tell, but a blessing for F1 regardless.

[Kim Jong Il]

Round 3 - Bahrain.

Free practice was dominated by Vettel until the last minute when Verstappen pulled a fast one out of the bag.

Onto qualifying today. Couple of surprises in Q1....Perez dumped out and both Renaults in the top 10.

No surprises in Q2 with the two Mercs followed by the two Ferraris and then the two Redbulls.

Q3 ended up with Bottas taking his first ever pole from Hamilton, Vettel, Ricciardo and Raikonen.....well done to Bottas then.

So, what will the race tomorrow bring. Will Bottas manage to get his win or will he be outdone by his teammate or a Ferrari or will someone pull off a surprise win!!

Useless piece of information for this week....did you know the current Mercedes is one meter longer than it was 8 years ago.

[mbamber]

Mclaren & Honda just going from Bad to Worse.wonder how many engines they will use this year ?

Edited April 16, 2017 by mbamber

[Kim Jong Il]

So finishing order of Vettel, Hamilton and Bottas.

Lights out and Hamilton didn't get the best start dropping from second to third. Good start by Max though...up to 4th.

A mix of safety car, first stops and Hamilton picking up a 5 second penalty for driving too slow in the pit lane saw Vettel into a good position.

Verstappen came out quite hot from his first tyre change but that unfortunately only lasted a few before he ran out of brakes and then track to end his day.

Despite Hamilton's best efforts in the closing laps he couldn't get close enough to challenge for the lead. I wonder how much he is regretting the decision to drive slow in the pit lane now.

Next race Russia.

[Magic040]

Red Bull Racing Team should be ashamed of themself, why can't they just complete their car before the season starts? Why does it need to take 5 races?

[mbamber]

And a Mclaren Managed 54 laps. 

[mikeyboy]

5 hours ago, mbamber said:

And a Mclaren Managed 54 laps. 

Yes  , i bet Jenson's really looking forward to Monaco and the chance to race for 15 th position .

Honda have admitted they can't really understand why their Engines have been so shite for so long .

Mikeyboy

[Kim Jong Il]

10 hours ago, mikeyboy said:

Yes  , i bet Jenson's really looking forward to Monaco and the chance to race for 15 th position .

Honda have admitted they can't really understand why their Engines have been so shite for so long .

Mikeyboy

It could actually be a lot worse by Monaco.

In Bahrain Vandoorne had 3 failures of the MGU-H, two in practise and one just before the race hence he didn't start and Alonso had one failure hence he didn't run in Q2. Each driver is allowed four per season before they start getting grid penalties. Couple that with being about 120 hp down and you start to wonder whats going on with Honda. Shame really because the Mclaren seems to handle very well on the twisty bits.

[Kim Jong Il]

Round 4 see's the F1 circus in Russia this weekend.

The Sochi track is very easy on tyre wear but hard on brakes, is not the best for overtaking on and the undercut does not work as well here as it does on other circuits so grid position will be important.

The free practise sessions have been dominated by Ferrari who really seem in a different league to Mercedes here.

So Q1 see's Bottas being comfortably the quickest and this performance is repeated in Q2.

Q3 see's a different story though. The first runs have Bottas quickest followed by the Ferrari's then Hamilton. The final run of Q3 sees the Ferrari's revert back to free practise dominance giving us a Ferrari front row lock out for the first since......???? when!! Bottas takes 3rd and Hamilton 4th. with less than 1 tenth of a second separating the first 3. The Merc's seem to have it comfortably in the first two thirds of the lap but are losing a lot in the final third.

Once again a dismal weekend for Mclaren with Vandoorne starting at the back after a bad qualifying coupled with a lot of grid penalties for changing of more engine parts and Alonso down in 15th. I have to wonder how much more time and money are Mclaren prepared to throw at what is quickly becoming the Honda fiasco / disaster before they tear up the deal and buy a descent engine.

[Kim Jong Il]

Race 4 over with the finishing order being Bottas, Vettel, Raikonen then Hamilton.

The start was interesting, the last 3 laps were interesting but apart from that this must be the most procession like race of the season.....even Monaco has more overtaking !!

So the formation lap saw Alonso out before he had even finished the lap, which then meant a second formation lap.

At the green light for go it was Bottas who made a fantastic start getting in front of both Ferrari's on his way to leading every lap of the race.

The only 'fun' was at the first bend where Palmer and Grojean took each other off and we had a safety car until lap 4.

On lap 5 Ricciardo's brakes failed and that was the last 'incident' of the race. From then on it was basically a procession which only started to get a bit interesting with about 5 laps to go when it was looking like Vettel might challenge Bottas.

Got to say this is the first race I can remember watching where there was not one overtaking manoeuvre by anyone at any time for the full duration of the race.

Spain is next 12th to 14th May. 

Spanish Grand Prix is the place where the teams bring their major upgrades so it will be interesting see what transpires.

Hopefully we will see a lot more 'racing'.

Edited May 1, 2017 by Kim Jong Il
additional information

[mikeyboy]

6 hours ago, Kim Jong Il said:

Race 4 over with the finishing order being Bottas, Vettel, Raikonen then Hamilton.

The start was interesting, the last 3 laps were interesting but apart from that this must be the most procession like race of the season.....even Monaco has more overtaking !!

So the formation lap saw Alonso out before he had even finished the lap, which then meant a second formation lap.

At the green light for go it was Bottas who made a fantastic start getting in front of both Ferrari's on his way to leading every lap of the race.

The only 'fun' was at the first bend where Palmer and Grojean took each other off and we had a safety car until lap 4.

On lap 5 Ricciardo's brakes failed and that was the last 'incident' of the race. From then on it was basically a procession which only started to get a bit interesting with about 5 laps to go when it was looking like Vettel might challenge Bottas.

Got to say this is the first race I can remember watching where there was not one overtaking manoeuvre by anyone at any time for the full duration of the race.

Good appraisal of a tedious " race "    I wouldn't have minded some commercial breaks during it , to break up the boredom .

I feel the only person who will remember this "race " in a years time will be Valteri Bottas , who recorded his first ever F1 win .

Fernando seems resigned to his fate .  He can't even be bothered to get angry anymore !

Mikeyboy

 

[alphageek]

I suffer from chronic Insomnia. 

This race has cured me for 2 hrs. 

Edited April 30, 2017 by alphageek

[Edge]

Pleased to see Botas beat the German....first lap was good then..............

..........looking forward to MotoGP in Spain next week to see some racing action.

Edited May 1, 2017 by Edge
Error - %9519

[Kim Jong Il]

.

Edited May 1, 2017 by Kim Jong Il

[Kim Jong Il]

On 09/04/2017 at 10:10 AM, mbamber said:

I have to say I never remember anybody so far out of his grid box as Vettal.

I heard one of the commentators mention something about this yesterday.

Apparently the old grid marking lines have had to be relocated because the cars are a lot wider this year and the old lines were simply painted over. Vettel is of the view that the painted over section is slippery so he didn't want a wheel on the slippery bit hence he was so far over.

[mbamber]

1 hour ago, Kim Jong Il said:

I heard one of the commentators mention something about this yesterday.

Apparently the old grid marking lines have had to be relocated because the cars are a lot wider this year and the old lines were simply painted over. Vettel is of the view that the painted over section is slippery so he didn't want a wheel on the slippery bit hence he was so far over.

Unfortunately all the local bars had football on so had to watch it in my room on RTL.

[Edge]

Not so embarrassing to fall asleep in your room though.

Edited May 1, 2017 by Edge

[Kim Jong Il]

27 minutes ago, mbamber said:

Unfortunately all the local bars had football on so had to watch it in my room on RTL.

I watch all my sport on crichd        http://www.crichd.sc/sky-sports-1-live-stream-uk

If you try it then it should open up on skysports 1. Look on the left hand side vertical list of channels and you will see all the sky sports stuff plus BT sport etc. Click on the Skysports F1 HD logo (6th one down) and you will get F1 in English. Watch on your computer or connect computer to TV. Works well for me.

[misteregg]

We show it live at Le Pub from a True Visions box so no buffering just a clear, live HD picture.

[mikeyboy]

Barcelona Grand Prix this weekend and the top six seem to be a lot closer this time round , so perhaps we will see some proper racing for a change .

One team who won't be racing for the win is Maclaren  ,  Fernando's car nearly managed a whole lap in free practice before his Honda Engine gave up ! 

Mikeyboy

 

[mbamber]

Along 7th in qualifying wonder how many laps he will manage before engine failure ?

[Kim Jong Il]

Round 5 Barcelona, Spain.

This is the race where traditionally all the teams come armed with their upgrades and so it was this year too.

In free practise it seems like the Mercedes upgrades have done the job as they proved to be quickest in the fast runs as well as the race trim runs.

On to today and qualifying.

Vettel's car needs a late engine change which is completed in just less than 2 hours!!!

First drama appears early for Vettel in Q3 when he seems to have a problem with the car. Switch the car off say Ferrari, are you sure says Vettel. Okay, get it back to the pit says Ferrari. On the way back to the pit there is some kind of mode change or reset made and as if by magic the car is performing again. Q3 sees a surprise, at least for me, when Palmer gets eliminated after finishing 8th in free practise on Friday.

Onto Q2 and Hamilton seems to have it quite comfortably. Alonso springs a surprise by not only finishing a lap problem free but finishing 10th to put him into Q1. Two each of Merc's, Ferrari's, Red Bull's and Force India go through along with a Mclaren and a Williams.

Q1 see's Hamilton, Vettel, Bottas and Raikonen take the top 4 places....not bad for Vettel considering half an hour earlier he was told to stop the car! Pole lap was about 3 seconds faster than last year. Alonso starts 7th.

Useless piece of information for the week......88.8% of winners at this track have come from the front row.

 

[Magic040]

Was nice to see Bottas go out 16 rounds before the finish after taking out Raikkonen and Verstappen in the first turn.