I am looking forward to your rundown @Purple88.  I don't ever remember a F1 season anything like this at all.  I can't believe what is happening but I do think it is great for the sport. 

46 minutes ago, theguru said:

I am looking forward to your rundown @Purple88.  I don't ever remember a F1 season anything like this at all.  I can't believe what is happening but I do think it is great for the sport. 

G, what an unexpected turn as it seems right this minute the F1 season is "The Magic 8 Ball" and you shake it week to week to see what comes out!  Ha!

But as the season has changed SO drastically, that right now I just feel anything can happen and with a different track and circumstances it's anyone's game.  Another vantage point that I really value is practice data and momentum to tell me who I think is primed to be really good in Qualifying and then ultimately the race.  Well just for this example, the Ferrari's were awful in practice by top team standards, and it showed in Qualifying 6th (LeClerc) and 10th (Sainz), which is below all the other big team drivers but Lewis Hamilton, who had an off qualifying.  But Ferrari ended 3rd and 5th in the race!  That is a HUGE rise on the sharp end of the grid.

Where could they have possibly found that pace from Saturday to Sunday?  You tell me as I have no idea, but just an example of how topsy-turvy this F1 year is.

Red Bull was DOMINANT!  I mean no questions asked dominant and now they have lost their top aero-engineer (Newey) and kinda lost their mojo and the rest of the teams have really found traction and considerable fight to bring the competition back to Red Bull.  Case in point, McLaren have been driven ever since the demotion or more specifically moving Andrea Stella into the Team Principal Director chair from the Executive Director chair; meaning he has more direct influence on what to work on when and he does that better than most and it is really starting to show.  I think Red Bull has lost the 3rd spoke in their team stool with Team Principal Christian Horner; director Helmut Marko but they lost Adrian Newey, perhaps the most brilliant aero-engineer ever.  And that loss in the wind tunnels is starting to show.

Today's Dutch Grand Prix is located by the coast at Zandvoort in the Neitherlands.  It's basically on the beach and would be SUCH a great event to attend.  Need to continue to save up for all these F1 trips on my bucket list @theguru  Ha!

Norris took pole followed by hometown hero Verstappen with Red Bull second; McLaren/Norris teammate Piastri in 3rd and top Mercedes driver George Russell in 4th.  Verstappen absolutely SMOKED Norris off the line in the standing start and easily got away at the beginning of the race.  Norris is such a talented driver, but he has a mental block of starts and must continue to improve there.  He spun his wheels so much at the start that he affected his teammate behind him to slow up and Russell passed Piastri into the first turn.  That turned out to be big as it kept Piastri down in 4th unable to "get loose" and chase the leaders.  Pit strategy played here too as LeClerc pitted "a little" early, but McLaren stayed out with Verstappen.  They ran about 5-7 more laps then Verstappen came in; then Norris and then Piastri.  This kinda hung Piastri out to dry and when he came back onto track he was behind both Russell and LeClerc.  He passed Russell but lost too much in his tyres by the time he caught up to LeClerc to pass him and LeClerc took 3rd.  Verstappen looked good early extending his lead on Norris by over a second and DRS, but he couldn't leave Norris in the dust like early on in the season.  In reality, as Verstappen's typres degraded Norris got stronger and on lap 18 Norris used his DRS boost to pass the Dutchman cleanly.  It did take him several laps to break the 1 second DRS barrier, but once he did that it was pretty much game over as Norris extended his lead to over 22 seconds - the most all season.  WOW.

So 1 Norris - McLaren, 2 Verstappen - Red Bull, and 3 LeClerc - Ferrari

Really awesome podium.

Which team don't you see?  Mercedes.  What happened to them?  I don't know, they were the darlings in Belgium the race before.  So that's why this season is so great!  Anything can happen and is happening.

Now on to a GREAT Track - Monza - The Temple of Speed!  And one of 2 home tracks for Ferrari.  I look for the red cars to be strong, but can they keep up with McLaren?  We will see.  I'm also cognizant to the fact that any other driver than Max Verstappen and Red Bull is mid pack right now.  He is single-handedly keeping them on the podium right now.  How long can that last?  Not sure, but will be fun to watch!

Tune in next week!  It's a lot of fun!  Oh and McLaren keeps chipping away at Red Bulls Team Constructor competition.  I think it's down to 31 points.  And it's a 10 million dollar hit if you drop down to second place and these guys are really competitive as you'd imagine.  Also Lando Norris cut the drivers championship to 71 points there-abouts.  Still a large lead for Verstappen, but long way to go too.

Plus I'm now up 350 points in my Fantasy League!  Trying to make it 1,000 before season end!  Ha!

 

Amazing @Purple88 and those guys have no chance in your fantasy league.

I am not asking you to look at this but it would be interesting to know Max's times from the last couple of years vs. the second half of this year.  Then take all those numbers and compare then to the other top teams.  My gut says something is up with Red Bull and it is negative like you suggested above because of their team losses.  Either way, it makes it interesting. 

Thanks for all of that!

12 hours ago, theguru said:

Amazing @Purple88 and those guys have no chance in your fantasy league.

I am not asking you to look at this but it would be interesting to know Max's times from the last couple of years vs. the second half of this year.  Then take all those numbers and compare then to the other top teams.  My gut says something is up with Red Bull and it is negative like you suggested above because of their team losses.  Either way, it makes it interesting. 

Thanks for all of that!

Martin Brundle shares Max Verstappen conspiracy theory over huge pace gap to McLaren (msn.com)

Above is a really interesting article on Verstappen saying he coasted a bit in the middle of the race knowing he wasn't threatened behind him and knowing he couldn't catch Norris to light a fire under the team back at the factory to catch up to McLaren.  Just not sure they can do that that easily.

Going to be interesting to find out though!

I love these!

On 8/29/2024 at 11:47 PM, theguru said:

I love these!

I hadn't seen that!  It's pretty funny, but wouldn't be if you had to pay that bill and for the life of me I can't see how Red Bull stays with Perez after this season.  They could have had Carlos Sainz, the departing Ferrari driver, but barely a sniff out of RB.  Well, it's your bed, sleep in it.  And don't look now, but McLaren is now 8 points back and Ferrari is less than 40 points back.

Just now, Purple88 said:

I hadn't seen that!  It's pretty funny, but wouldn't be if you had to pay that bill and for the life of me I can't see how Red Bull stays with Perez after this season.  They could have had Carlos Sainz, the departing Ferrari driver, but barely a sniff out of RB.  Well, it's your bed, sleep in it.  And don't look now, but McLaren is now 8 points back and Ferrari is less than 40 points back.

I know you are going to have a lot to say, wow what another surprise race!

Tremendous race yesterday in Monza Italy!  To me it really replaces Monaco as the true gem on the calendar as it is actually a race on Sunday.  Its been around since the beginning in 1950.  And the people are SO passionate about it.  Awesome!  At Monaco which is just a breathtaking scene located right on the coast with iconic turns to one of the best casino's and harbors in the world, BUT you race for pole on Saturday and it's been a LONG time since anyone won Monaco that didn't win pole.  The cars have changed and the track hasn't.

Before we dive into Monza, I wanted to reflect one of the key differences in F1 vs other popular racing (NASCAR, IndyCar, etc.) and that has to do with teammates.  It is the MOST dynamic part of life as an F1 racer I think.  The 10 F1 teams support 2 drivers each, who are yes teammates, BUT all the announcers talk about is how Driver A has or has not out-qualified or delivered more results than his teammate Driver B.  In my time watching F1, this is a considerable weight on these drivers, and I've seen some ugly interchanges between teammates that you really can't take back.  YET, at the SAME Time, these teams ask the teammate driver to sacrifice during races for their teammate.  How is that right?  In one minute you demand they out perform their team mate and the next you ask them to sacrifice for them.  I don't get that, but it does make it very intriguing to keep up with.

On to the Temple of Speed!  Mclaren had a lock out of the first row after qualifying with Lando Norris on Pole and teammate Piastri in second. George Russell led the home team Ferraris with Lewis Hamilton down in 6th.  Who's left out?  Red Bull, the constructor leader and championship leader Max Verstappen.  The Red Bull just didn't have the right setup in Monza and they really weren't in contention all day Sunday.  I'm sure Verstappen was a lot of fun to be around on Sunday evening.

But the teammate dynamics above played out to McLaren's displeasure.  Off the line, pole setter Lando Norris led the field with his teammate Piastri diving to the outside; punking George Russell who had to take evasive actions to avoid a big accident, but more importantly it damaged his front wing that he really never recovered from finishing a respectable 7th considering, but probably disappointingly so as well.

Going into the second set of chicanes on Lap 1, I think Piastri really took Norris by surprise and wedged his way around the leader.  This caused Norris to have to break significantly to not hit his teammate.  This resulted in Ferrari driver Charles LeClerc to cleverly pass a limited Norris and AGAIN Norris does not lead a Grand Prix after Lap 1 when he was on Pole.  BUT, this time, I don't think he thought he had to defend from his teammate.  But alas, with these F1 mindsets, do you blame Piastri from going for the win?  I don't, BUT for McLaren it caused difficulties for them.  How so?  Well with LeClerc in between the Papaya cars they sort of drug him along with them.  Whereas, if the McLarens were together out front IMO they would have checked out from the field and built a nice lead out front.  BUT, that did not materialize.  Concerning an important piece of strategy, the team strategist didn't have much tyre degradation data on this newly re-asphalted track, so both a one pit stop strategy (where you negate a 25 second pit stop, but you do so on old tyres) or 2 pit stop strategy (sacrificing 25 seconds on track for new tyres) would really play out.

Ferrari would pit LeClerc on Lap 15 changing from medium to hard compound tyres.  But Lando Norris would already pit ahead of LeClerc and undercut him to lead in the overall strategy.  Piastri then pitted and stayed ahead of both of them due to excellent McLaren pit work.  With about 15 laps to go Norris who had made a few uncharacteristic mistakes that cost him time on the leader Piastri pitted a second time and he filed back in the pack.  Piastri didn't want to be undercut by his teammate so he pitted a few laps later.  But as the final laps started to tick down, it became apparent that Ferrari would go for the 1 stop strategy and both LeClerc and Sainz ahead of McLaren.  Although Sainz didn't have the pace to be on the podium, he did a good job helping his teammate stay out front by battling both McLarens hard and by the final flag Charles LeClerc hung on to win by less than 3 seconds, which was really BALLSY for the prancing ponys to pull that off!  It was a WILD scene at the podium celebrations with what seems like all of Italy there supporting another Ferrrari win at Monza.  Really cool to see!  When they played the Italian National Anthem (for the manufacturer Ferrari) it was one of the most iconic scenes I can remember watching this sport.

For McLaren, what might have been.  BOTH drivers were really despondent and almost without words, either seething with anger or just a loss of words.

But that's what makes this sport so entertaining right now.  McLaren should have won this race with a 1-2 finish, but they didn't, and it was fun to watch.

On to Baku in 2 weeks!

As we await Race 17 of 24 in this Great F1 Season to take place in Azerbaijan (AZ-er-ba-zaun) this weekend.  Oh, don't know where the heck Azerbaijan is?  Well you're not alone!!!!

It is nestled along the Caspian Sea where Russian and Iran come together.  They actually race in the City of Baku, which is a really old town but really cool for racing.  Although, it is hard to pass, so Qualifying will be a little more important on Saturday.

Moving on!

There was a really significant development recently in F1 circles.  Adrian Newey is a 65 year old racing engineer/designer who has spent nearly the last 20 years perfecting the impressive car Red Bull has enjoyed unprecedented success with.  For reasons, not fully known to me, Newey decided it was time for new challenges and decided to step away from Red Bull.  He has been relaxing and taking in numerous "wooing" attempts from basically all F1 teams.  You see Newey is the greatest F1 car designer of all time.  And to have that within touching distance is a game changer honestly.

Well, Newey has decided to join the fashion tycoon and Billionaire Lawrence Stroll at Aston Martin.  JUST WOW!  If you don't care about F1, I understand; see you at Christmas.  But if you do care at least the little bit about F1, this is MONUMENTAL News.  Why?

First, with Newey on board with Red Bull, the 2024 F1 season was "in the bag" for Red Bull.  I mean they were killing everyone.  It wasn't who was going to win, it was by how much time.  Well, when Newey left, McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes have been inching back and have now overtaken the strong team from Milton Keynes (Red Bull).  Is it just happen-stance?  Heck no.  It IS Adrian Newey's departure that has allowed this non-Red Bull comeback and quite frankly much better racing!

Why did Newey go to Aston Martin?  I mean the green team is likely 5th at best right now?

Newey's words: Lawrence Stroll.  Newey said it was Stroll's "passion, commitment and enthusiasm, alongside Aston Martin's mightily impressive facilities" as the reason he chose Aston Martin.

He also mentioned wanting to work with 2 drivers before he retired.  Those were Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton.  Well, he couldn't do both, so he picked the best package for himself.  There was a time not too long ago that Aston Martin was racing at the sharp end of the grid.  Those times my friends are about to be commonplace!

Newey is the best addition any F1 team can make with Stroll saying "it was a bargain" as he referenced Newey's new $1 million pounds deal, which includes stock options and a partnership role.  Impressive.

You give Fernando Alonso a better car and Look Out!

This will be fun to watch!

 

PS.  No word from Red Bull, but I'm sure they are drinking more high dollar scotch these days to calm their nerves.  And don't look now but Max Verstappen isn't exactly the happiest driver on the grid even though he has a 60+ points lead in the championship.  Could he make a move?  Unlikely, but never say never.  If $1 million pounds is a bargain, who knows.......

Man, the races just keep getting better!  At least for me anyway!

Yesterday was a great race in Baku, Azerbaijan (located on the Caspian Sea where Iran and Russian come together).  But a quick word on Saturday's qualifying.  The big story was Lando Norris the strong McLaren driver was out in Q1 (the first of 3 stages of qualifying) due to an extremely unlucky very short yellow flag on his final Q1 lap.  He was near Ocon who had a problem, and the stewards brought out the yellow flag for about 15-30 seconds, but unfortunately for Norris, he was the next driver on the track and had to lift off the gas to avoid penalty.  This caused him to end up 17th on the grid.  A real blow to McLaren.  Further review of the incident was critical of the stewards as many said a white flag, which means all other drivers are to exercise caution, but DON'T have to lift if they deem it not necessary.  I like Norris and he's on my Fantasy Team, but I can't fault the stewards for erring on the side of caution here.  Just an unfortunate break for Norris and McLaren.

The Ferrari's were strong with LeClerc on Pole and Sainz in 3rd with Norris's teammate Piastri in 2nd.  Red Bull was 4th and 6th, but Perez outqualified Verstappen for maybe the first time of the year.  Mercedes definitely on the back foot in 5th and 7th.

On to the race!  Pole sitter Charles LeClerc with Ferrari got off the line well and led the field through the first few corners and eventually broke the 1 second barrier to get out of the DRS (drag reduction system) support for a driver following within 1 second.  A real important task and he extended the lead to as much as 6 seconds.  But when Piastri (in second place) chose to pit on Lap 15, the races strategy with car set up would play out.  Leclerc and Ferrari had to cover Piastri's pit to not get undercut (a strategy a trailing car will implement to try to pass a car in front by pitting a lap or two before the car in front.  This takes place because you exit the pit on new tyres and can go faster is the theory behind it.).  LeClerc covered the undercut and did not get passed, but a couple things were going on behind the scenes:

1. McLaren opted to set their car up with less downforce.  Downforce is the rate at which the angle of your wings (both front and rear) are set to push the car downward.  The more downforce the less speed on the straights, but the better speed you can carry into the corners.  CRITICAL!

This meant that the McLaren's had more speed on the straights and Ferrari has more speed in and out of the corners.

2.  Tyre wear is ALWAY critical for F1 competitions, so car and car setups are more advantageous for a particular compound vs another compound.  In F1, all team have 3 tyre compounds available to them and all teams MUST use at least 2 compounds for EVERY race.  So, strategy is key here.

All teams near the front of this Grand Prix chose the Medium compound tyre to start.  Ferrari were flying on that compound, which McLaren did fine, but not as well as Ferrari.  So, guess what, when they changed tyres, this switched and McLaren was really flying on the hard compound tyre, while Ferrari struggled just a bit.

A key moment in the race happened on lap 20 when Piastri used DRS along the long straight stretch (one of the only places to pass in Azerbaijan) and dove inside of Leclerc to pass for the lead.  Leclerc really didn't defend very much at all here.  I think it surprised him a bit and he thought he could just pass Piastri on the straights next go around.  But what happened was #1 and #2 above came into play and he just couldn't get it done.  This plus Piastri defended much better than Leclerc a few times to hold the Ferrari off.

Behind the 2 leaders Serio Perez, the maligned #2 Red Bull had a great day and lurked in 3rd position about a second off the leaders just hoping for a chance.  Well, with Piastri and LeClerc battling as hard out as they did; they sort of fell back into Perez's lap with about 5 laps to go and he was in the mix as well.  Additionally, Leclerc's teammate Sainz was charging to this group in 4th.  And when Leclerc's rear tyres lost substantial grip, Piastri's lead started to grow and the second through 4th drivers would have an epic battle on the next to last lap.  Perez tried desperately to pass LeClerc on the long straight stretch going into turn 1, actually got ahead of the Ferrari, but was positioned off the racing line.  So, he had to hit the brakes, and when he did Sainz jumped on the chance and vaulted to 3rd.  He had so much momentum, he tried to overtake his teammate in second.  He got alongside Leclerc, but he too had to break.  On the ensuing straight, Sainz instinctively followed his teammates patch (which vered slightly to the left towards the middle of the track) trying to get his tow down the stretch, but Perez was coming back and alongside Sainz at the same time and they made contact, and both hit the wall.  The race stewards made the decision that it was simply a racing incident, and I agree with them.  The race finished under yellow.

It was a shame because both those drivers (Perez and Sainz) drove very good races.

So, the podium was Piastri in first; Leclerc in second and George Russell in 3rd (a clear benefactor of the crash).  Lando Norris who started all the way back in 15th made it up to 4th place and he passed his championship rival Verstappen to do it.  It was a great day for Williams as well as Alex Albon and Franco Colapinto both earned points.  Colapinto took over for American Logan Sargent and has done a phenomenal job.  Just like Oliver Bearman in Kevin Magnussen's Haas who came home in 10th and in the points.

Man, there was a lot in there! 

On to Singapore!

One of the coolest (not literally, it's so hot there right now, they have to run at night) venues of the season with the night race being a visual spectacle to see - lights and all!  Check it out next week!

 

 

Today's Singapore Grand Prix was just a medium race really.  

McLaren's Lando Norris was easily the best car on track and he was on pole for this race followed by Red Bull's Max Verstappen.  Off the standing start, Norris had his best start of the season and easily held off Verstappen who was busy holding off Lewis Hamilton (from Mercedes).  Russell (other Mercedes) and Piastri (other McLaren) were behind the leaders.  Who's out of this picture?  The Ferrari's of Charles LeClerc and Carlos Sainz, who spit the bit on Qualifying Saturday and LeClerc had track limit issues and Sainz crashed.  So they were at the bottom of the sharp end of the grid.

They did battle on Sunday and LeClerc did end up 5, which is a heck of a drive really.  Sainz ending 7th and also a good drive.

Norris had the field covered today though as he won by nearly 21 seconds over Verstappen in second.

Piastri drove well to make the podium in 3rd place.  Russell did well to hold Leclerc off and he finished 4th with Lewis Hamilton in 6th.

Of the rest, new Williams driver Franco Colipinto is driving the rubber off his Williams and showing that drivers make a HUGE HUGE difference in car performance in F1.  He is way YONDER a better driver than American Logan Sargent.  He finished 11th but is definitely in conversation of the best drivers not on the top teams and that is really impressive to me.

The next race is not for nearly a month (26 days) with race in Austin, Texas.  That will be a fun race and better than Singapore, I think.

McLaren widens their lead in the constructor's championship and Verstappen still has a 59-point lead on Norris at this time.

Formula 1® Racing came back to America this past weekend to race at the Circuit of the Americas (COTA) and Ferrari took first and second with Charles Leclerc winning and Carlos Sainz coming in second, over 8 seconds behind Leclerc.  Max Verstappen finished third.  Lando Norris did finish 4th. Here are the standings from Formula 1® and on to Mexico City this weekend for the 2024 Mexico City Grand Prix.

The Circuit of the America's (COTA) in Austin, Texas is a great track.  Yes, there were some shots being taken as it is bouncy in sections, but man the ups and downs over the track is really cool.

This past weekend was also one of the last Sprint races on the calendar, which means they ran a shorter race on Saturday before qualifying, which I think makes the weekend more enjoyable.

It also makes it harder on the teams as they only get 1 true practice session.  So this race was especially tough as they haven't raced in nearly a month and then get one 1 hour practice and they were qualifying for the Sprint Race.

The Red Bull of Max Verstappen ran really well, and I'd say better than expected.  Both Ferreri's ran really well too.  As the weeks roll along, the teams bring "upgrades" to the track to try to improve their cars.  Sometimes they work great and sometimes they scrap those "upgrades" and go with what they had before.  But the red Ferrari's were flying.

McLaren didn't do great.  Lando Norris quailfied 4th for the sprint, but Piastri spit the bit all the way down in 16th!  The Mercedes George Russell ran an awesome lap and got second to Verstappen on pole.  But Lewis Hamilton could only muster 7th.

The Sprint was pretty good entertainment with the Ferrari's first battling each other and then later in the 19 lap event battling the guys at the top.  They would end up 2nd and 4th in the Sprint with Verstappen maintaining a comfortable lead throughout.  Lando Norris would pip George Russell who really didn't have the car to win the Sprint, but was still a good effort to come in 5th.

So they then waited a good couple hours and fired them up again to qualify for the grand prix.  Lots of action with Norris being the benefactor of George Russell crashing in the last turn to stop the final qualifying rounds of Verstappen and both Ferrari's.  So the grid ended with Norris on Pole with Verstappen 2nd.  The Ferrari's in 3rd and 4th.  Piastri (McLaren) in 5th and George Russell still in 6th.  But Russell would have to fix his car and required him to start from the pit lane.  A very tough brake for him.  His teammate, 7 time world Champion Lewis Hamilton couldn't get out of Q1 so he chose to take a new engine here and started way down in 19th place.  

The Grand Prix was fun to watch especially at the beginning.  Charles Leclerc got the dream start as he was in the right place at the right time to overtake 3 cars in front of him in the first turn and led the race from there on out.  But it wasn't totally easy.  And his teammate Carlos Sainz drove a great race and gave Ferrari their first 1-2 in the USA since 2006.  Verstappen was in 3rd most of the race, but he had a great battle with Lando Norris who tried to overtake him for about 10 laps and really just couldn't do it, which speaks to the quality of driver he is.  As Norris applied a LOT of pressure on him.  Norris did pass him outside track limits and the Stewards assessed a 5 second penalty to Norris, which unfortunately as the rules are written is the right call.  I would like to see more leeway though. As for Norris to be able to pass and then perhaps Verstappen later pass him back is what I'd really like to see.  But still a great race for the both championship leaders.

So McLaren finished 5th and 6th with George Russell finishing back in 6th place, which is really a remarkable drive considering he started in the pit lane behind every driver who started.  He was also assessed a very harsh IMO 5 second penalty when he passed a scrappy Fernando Alonso.  I just felt Russell was in the right to make the moves he made in that sequence.  Russell's boss Toto Wolff was pretty upset about it and I don't blame him.

Mexico is next and should be a good race.  The majority of fans will be for Sergio Perez, the second Red Bull.  Enjoy this one Checo Fans as it might be the last one in a Red Bull for him.  How can Red Bull keep this up?  Why they didn't choose to go sign Carlos Sainz is beyond me.  But hey each their own.

But I'm 80 points in my fantasy league from lapping the entire field, so I feel pretty good about that!