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Well Mercedes just converted a 1-3 to a 2-4. Hope they're pleased with that
A win was only on the cards without any safety cars. As soon as we got the first one of those it was over as the gap was closed and the option of doing a one stop went out of the window.
They threw away a 2-3 though.
Even with Russell on softs at the end Max was so much faster.
Good to see three future world champions on the podium. Great race for the strategists. What happened to Sainz???
slow pit stop 12 sec and an unsafe pit stop release 5 sec time penalty
poor chap cant get a break .. when it rains as they say
Sainz was Ferraried!!! 🤣🤣🤣
What happened to Sainz???
He drives for Ferrari. They couldn't find one of his wheels for the pitstop.
A win was only on the cards without any safety cars
I disagree, Zandvoort is a hard track to overtake on so track position is king- if they had left Verstappen in P3 behind Russell and Hamilton for those last few laps then it would have given Hamilton time to get up to speed while Verstappen tried to get past Russell. All a bit of a mess tbh
He drives for Ferrari. They couldn’t find one of his wheels for the pitstop
Lols!
it does show again Russell making decent calls for tyres and going for the win. He deserved the podium place
I disagree, Zandvoort is a hard track to overtake on so track position is king- if they had left Verstappen in P3 behind Russell and Hamilton for those last few laps then it would have given Hamilton time to get up to speed while Verstappen tried to get past Russell. All a bit of a mess tbh
Max on softs at the end would have sailed past two Mercs on mediums. We saw earlier in the race how fast Max was on the straight. There were 20+ laps left so loads of time to pick them off.
Toto agrees!! 🤣🤣
So fuelling the conspiracy theories should B Teams be banned?
As well as the ‘seatbelts’ issue today there has been talk that AT have been doing R&D for Red Bull to get around cost cap.
The SC/VSC always seems to screw over the leader of the race, should tyre changes be banned during these periods?
I bet Merc wish they had a B team to accidentally not have any wheel issue and then brake down over 3 or 4 laps
So fuelling the conspiracy theories should B Teams be banned?
Tyre changes under a SC/VSC should be banned. I said as much last season. It's a 10-15 second bonus lottery. Under a red? No issue.
Tyre changes under a SC/VSC should be banned. It’s a 10-15 second bonus lottery.
It does seem to introduce a large element of luck, which spoils the competition. The closing up of the field is bad enough. Rather than ban it, and and risk the possibility that a car keeps driving on unsafe tyres (although they won't be pushed under as SC) introduce a time penalty, ie, keep the car waiting 10s in the pit after the change is complete.
Could the record for champion-to-runner up points gap end up getting broken this year? Think it's still 155 points from 2013, isn't it?
Kind of hard to bet against it with MV's current run of form 🤔
That was a bloody strange race! 😮
Tyre changes under a SC/VSC should be banned
Never gonna happen - SC & VSC are often needed after a crash when there's debris and bits of carbon all over the place. Changing tyres under those conditions is a safety matter, not performance.
Jeez. Is it just me or does the C4 highlights program need renaming to the F1 Red Bull/Max Verstappen Brown-Nose Love-In Show?
Great race, weird at times though. Yeah the C4 highlights are RB bias, but better than nowt and I'm too tight for sky. Regardless of VSC/SC shenanigans MV would have won today, he's another level at the moment. Where the hell was Danny Ric too!?
Never gonna happen – SC & VSC are often needed after a crash when there’s debris and bits of carbon all over the place. Changing tyres under those conditions is a safety matter, not performance.
In addition, if you can’t pit under an SC but need to, then you’re forced to pit after the field has bunched up. That’ll take you from the front of the field to the back, which is a bit more of drastic lottery than a 10 second gain.
Anyway, once the SC dropped I think Merc had no hope of holding Max off. If they’d pitted both they’d have lost track position to Max and I don’t think they had the pace to pass and stay ahead. They were looking mighty fine at one stage, though, so an uneventful race could well have got them the win—which they’ll be pretty upbeat about.
I can’t see them being on the pace at Monza, though. They’ll be down with Norris and the Alpines I suspect. Maybe even behind. Frankly I almost expect Max to lap everyone except the Ferraris, though I’m sure the Ferrari strategists are working on another comedy sketch right as we speak.
As for junior teams, I’ve never liked the idea anyway. By definition they’re teams whose goal is to come second at best, which just isn’t racing. Never mind the potential ways they could be used to the parent team’s advantage on track.
Didn’t realise that Hamilton had mucked up the restart after the SC. So it wasn’t just the team that made mistakes.
Yep, wrong power setting, the only thing Hamilton hates more than his team messing things up is when he messes things up, reality is it didn't really do anything for the result though, just meant Verstappen passed him with ease.
As it was happening, my reaction was, "WTF are they doing." However, after seeing Toto's explanation that they didn't care about coming second or third if a win was possible, I can see why they gambled. The Merc was not going to pass Verstappen on track, so keeping track position was the only way they had any realistic chance of victory.
Never gonna happen – SC & VSC are often needed after a crash when there’s debris and bits of carbon all over the place.
Often is doing a lot of lifting there. Really? Often? I’ve seen a lot of strategic tyre changes but few for bits of carbon all over the road. If it’s that bad, just red flag.
Or add a random Nintendo boost button to the steering wheel to gift people 10 seconds.
I don’t think yesterday change the result hugely, soft tyres were a winner but then it did change a world championship.
I was wondering who the work experience youth was sitting with Toto before his name flashed up.
Never gonna happen – SC & VSC are often needed after a crash when there’s debris and bits of carbon all over the place
Maybe.... But cars dive in for new tyres immediately before the track has been cleaned up and can still get a puncture in the new tyres when they come out, so it makes no difference safety-wise.
it looked a bit odd to me yesterday with pit stops happening while the field were running through the pit lane behind the SC, doesn't seem like the safest thing to be doing. If cars have to use the pit lane behind an SC then it should be cleared of personnel, surely?
Never mind the potential ways they could be used to the parent team’s advantage on track.
RB are what? A million points ahead of their nearest rival and are going to win both constructors and drivers championships at a canter. Why do some dodgy “tactics” with their B team? Makes zero sense
Makes zero sense
Have you heard of Christian Horner before?
RB are what? A million points ahead of their nearest rival and are going to win both constructors and drivers championships at a canter. Why do some dodgy “tactics” with their B team? Makes zero sense
Oh, I completely agree. I wasn’t trying to imply that they were used that way here. The only incentive would be to ensure a home win and I’m not quite cynical enough to believe that would be enough to warrant binning an Alpha Tauri for a safety car, especially in such a bizarre way. But there’s no denying that in the general sense, there’s the potential for a B team to be used to the advantage of the A team.
Maybe…. But cars dive in for new tyres immediately before the track has been cleaned up and can still get a puncture in the new tyres when they come out, so it makes no difference safety-wise.
Excellent point. As far as I'm concerned, tyre changes should be banned under VSC/SC conditions. If it's a genuine safety concern so that can't be enforced, drivers should be forced to put on a used set of tyres of the same compound as they are currently running.
In indy cars iirc when a safety car is deployed tyre changes are not allowed until the field has bunched up to prevent the unfair advantage you can get
Has anyone seen if Alpine have booted Piastri out yet? Would be an odd decision if they kept him in the SIM now and so close to the team.
He’ll basically be on gardening leave at the moment. Expect that there’s a deal being worked out with McLaren, probably to the tune of the legal fees Alpine lost
No slim chance of a win for Lewis this weekend...
https://the-race.com/formula-1/hamilton-to-start-italian-gp-from-back-after-spa-clash-damage/
...I do hope he gets one before season end. That record needs to stand! 🙂
I doubt we will see Lewis win for some time. Like a few others have said, we are entering into a new RB era of dominance just like the Vettel days. The season started promising with the new regs, but has resorted to a bit of a snore fest again, bar a couple of spells.
Oh, and I think Lewis will retire at the end of the season. Just a hunch.
So do I.
Has anyone else even got an 'every season season bar one' aim for to equal?
I think Schumacher has wins in the highest number of seasons?
Looking at the WCC points and the current form it's quite possible that Merc could take 2nd place overall, dropping Ferrari to 3rd - but is that in their long term interests? Of the top teams Merc undoubtedly need to do the most development, but if they scrape past a poorly performing Ferrari they'll lose a chunk of their CFD/wind tunnel allocation. Sure they'll gain a few (million) dollars but they're not exactly on a tight budget and right now I'd expect they'd trade the cash for a faster car. So by performing better for the rest of the season they could hamper their chances for next season, handing more of an advantage to RedBull. Tricky!
Good shout - I'd say wind tunnel/CFD time is far more valuable than the money.
Has anyone else even got an ‘every season season bar one’ aim for to equal?
I think Schumacher has wins in the highest number of seasons?
It's generally tough for a rookie to start with a competitive car. For example, Alonso started with Minardi, as I recall. Senna's best result in his first season was 2nd. He won races in every season after than, except 1994, when he was killed in the third race.
Prost did not win a race in his first season and in 1991 with Ferrari.
Schumacher didn't win a race in his first season and didn't win any after his comeback.
Scott Dixon is in his 20th season of Indycars. He won a race in 2003, but didn't win a race in 2004, and has now won races for 18 years straight. He has never had a dominant car, plus multiple first-class teammates and competitors.
Dont think that’s really a surprise now. RB don’t seem to need Porsche (or at least believe they don’t), so I can see why they’d not want to give away a a big chunk of their very successful empire. Also sounds like Horner did a good job of lobbying, fair play
What are the odds that Honda come back as a engine supplier for Red Bull? Possibly buying in to RBPT in the process?
I'm also surprised that there appears to be nothing about Stellantis wantign to maintainan F1 Presence, with it's Souber sponserdhip (Alfa Romeo) seemingly coming to an end with the Audi buy-in. I wonder if there are some very hush-hush background negotiations to bring them in with one of their other brands - Peugeot???
****s sake, no bbc coverage, not even text. Just a shitty leader board
eta; live text here
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/live-text/f1-italian-gp-live-commentary-and-updates-fp1-fp2/1116646/
What are the odds that Honda come back as a engine supplier for Red Bull?
I'd say pretty high!
**** sake, no bbc coverage, not even text. Just a shitty leader board
Best coverage i can find:
https://the-race.com/
Their Bring Back V10s podcasts are excellent
https://cms.megaphone.fm/channel/TAMC5764466416
Leaderboard
Leclerc, Ferrari
Sainz, Ferrari
Russell, Mercedes
Hamilton, Mercedes
Verstappen, Red Bull
Ocon, Alpine
Alonso, Alpine
Tsunoda, AlphaTauri
Bottas, Alfa Romeo
Ricciardo, McLaren
Chew
Best coverage i can find:
👍
Porsche probably looked back at the years when Renault supplied RB engines and got cold feet. The only time RB management mentioned the engines was when something went wrong, gave them zero credit for the success.
You know the engine is a Red Bull engine so unlikely they would moan the same way they did in Renault days (not entirely unjustified either)
The deal has fallen through because Porsche wanted half the team and Red Bull weren't prepared to give it up.
Nothing to do with Horner et al being worried about their jobs either.
I imagine there are enough people still there that remember the shit show when Ford bought Stewart GP. And then pretty much any OEM backed team (Honda as a classic example) the board get bored or as per Ford don't have the first idea about the sport (they're just bean counters) and walk away (Toyota/BMW etc)
Re: Red Bull & Porsche
Can someone explain this to me? I thought Red Bull had inherited all the engine tech (& IP?) from Honda, plus a chunk of their staff and were (are?) building their own factory to maintain/develop the ex-Honda engine.
So why would Porsche be interested in partnering Red Bull? Surely they'd be known as "Porsche by Honda"? And surely Honda wouldn't want their IP leaking to Porsche...?
Are the new 2026 engine regs that different that everyone will be starting from scratch?
(I'm aware that, ultimately, RB didn't want cede management control to Porsche but, presumably, that was always going to be on the cards)
RB had planned to lease the IP in effect but I think that changed and the Honda engines are still run out of Sakura, by Honda as they were before.
2026 engine is completely new and I would imagine there are a lot of protocols in place to prevent transfer of IP.
It's not like the engines are left lying around to be picked over, no more chance of RB pulling a Honda engine apart than there is of them stripping a Merc or Ferrari.
The staff that moved over were Honda trackside personnel and the ERS (battery) division.
It will be interesting to see what happens now, will Porsche partner someone else or buy another team, if so what engine would they use. It's probably too late to start a project for a new engine from scratch now.
RB claim to have never needed a partner for the powertrain project. I guess someone will want to badge it if it's a good one.
will Porsche partner someone else or buy another team, if so what engine would they use.
Mind that Porsche were only ever interested in the fem fine side of things, it’s Audi going the whole hog.
In many respects it looks like the timing is just all off. If Porsche were coming in just as Honda were saying they were leaving (and RB Powertrains wasnt a thing yet) then it may well have had a better chance of succeeding
Per the BBC, seems a bunch of drivers have grid penalties already
Verstappen (again!)
Sainz
Hamilton
Bottas
Tsunoda
No idea why MV has penalties again but I guess it's one way of spicing up the race...
Does anyone know whether C4s TV coverage is still as originally scheduled?
Wonder if it’s a tactical penalty from Red Bull. Take a new gear box / engine so you have a fresh one in rotation but with the hope you do another Spa and storm through the field with no issue. Ferrari are so behind on points that even if you don’t win it’s not a huge loss?
Hasn't Checo got a penalty too?
Russell for the win after Ferrari screw up LeClerc's race at the last minute?
How big a parachute are Merc dragging behind them this weekend?
Max Verstappen - 5 places
Sergio Perez - 10 places
Valtteri Bottas - 15 places
Carlos Sainz - 20 places + 5 places (gearbox)
Yuki Tsunoda - Back of the grid
Lewis Hamilton - Back of the grid
Porsche and Audi are both owned by VAG, so why would they want competition between their own brands? Seems a bit strange. But I suppose Ferrari and Alfa are owned by the same company too. Will VAG have a two-tier team system like that? 'High end' and 'consumer'F1 brands? Skoda to come in as new back markers?
DeVries in for Albon - wonder if he can beat Latifi like he did yesterday?
I’ve got a lot of time for Alex Albon
https://twitter.com/alex_albon/status/1568549779319279617?s=20&t=pOiCcioEx0tYw0redQkN3Q
Porsche and Audi are both owned by VAG, so why would they want competition between their own brands?
They did this in the WEC for a few years until the diesel scandal made Audi pull out
Williams deserve so much better than Latiffi.
Porsche and Audi are both owned by VAG, so why would they want competition between their own brands?
AFAIK Porsche's plan was to buy into Red Bull's engine tech base, as inherited from Honda. Audi is proposing to build it's own F1 engine from the ground up. Who knows, we might even see McLaren TAG Porsche again at this rate.
Interesting grid though, what with the penalties and all.
How come verstappen has ended up behind Danny ric (who iirc qualified 8th)?
It'll be the order in which the penalties we're given out as so many had them. Max, Sainz, Perez, Hamilton all demoted so Ric leapt up the order.
Never mind, this vid explains it
https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/comments/xazoz3/how_the_grid_penalties_were_applied/
Red Bull aided by race direction's decisions? What a surprise.
Red Bull aided by race direction’s decisions? What a surprise.
I enjoyed the race but man that ending sucked
red bull were always going to win the race and covered everything Ferrari threw at them. De vries should get a seat next year, must be a few drivers getting a bit uncomfortable.
De Vries should get Lafiti's seat now.
What a shit show
Nope.
The Red Bull Engine base has nothing to do with Honda other than the staff that moved across.
And there are probably staff there that have worked for every other team on the grid.
Kryton57
Full Member
De Vries should get Lafiti’s seat now.
Absolutely!
The very nanosecond Alex Albon is fit to drive again Lattifi should be out on his lug!
What a shambles
OK, I take it back, Ferrari did not screw that one up...🤣🙈