Poll: Official 2024 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix Thread - Corniche Circuit, Jeddah - Round 2

[jaybee]

Nice of sky to tell me the result straight after the Arsenal football match with no warning at all, blurting out the winner. Absolute spoilers. Oh well. Did me a favour as I then decided to watch just the YouTube highlights. Dull AF.
A sad time for F1. The life has been sucked out of it. I've held on through 22 and 23 but I can't waste my life watching anymore live races with this level of action and competitivity.

 

[cuke2u]

Re Norris

Apparently they can only give a jump start penalty if the transponder reports it. It didn't report it so even though everyone can quite clearly see with their eyes that he moved before the lights went out (which I don't believe they are allowed to do), they can't penalise him.

It doesn't matter that he moved before the lights went out, he stopped before triggering the transponder. There is another example of this happening before:
"Sebastian Vettel during the start of the 2019 Japanese Grand Prix moved too early. While the red lights were still on, the Ferrari move forward by 10 cm and then stop again before restarting when the lights went out.

If this movement is prohibited by the regulations, the race stewards will ultimately not impose any penalty, as the Ferrari driver did indeed move, but within the tolerance threshold of the sensor.

« Although the video shows a movement, this movement was within the acceptable tolerance of the system, as defined in accordance with article 36.13(a) of the FIA Formula 1 Sporting Regulations regarding jump starts."

 

[jonneymendoza]

Nice of sky to tell me the result straight after the Arsenal football match with no warning at all, blurting out the winner. Absolute spoilers. Oh well. Did me a favour as I then decided to watch just the YouTube highlights. Dull AF.
A sad time for F1. The life has been sucked out of it. I've held on through 22 and 23 but I can't waste my life watching anymore live races with this level of action and competitivity.

What spoilers?

Was you generally shocked and surprised about the race results lol

 

[cuke2u]

What the teams said – Race day at the 2024 Saudi Arabia Grand Prix | Formula 1®

The drivers and teams report back on all the action at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit for the of the Formula 1 stc Saudi Arabian Grand Prix 2024.

www.formula1.com

 

[TheGamingGeneral]

I wonder what the FIA etc is thinking at the moment, are they just going to hope/pray that they don't haemorrhage too much of the audience they have built before the 2026 season? There was action taken against blown diffusers, F-duct and mass dampers etc, presumably as the current regs are so much about the floor it's very difficult to isolate any particular component to rein them (Redbull) in. A whole season of this and again likely the same for 2025 doesn't bear thinking about .

 

[jonneymendoza]

I wonder what the FIA etc is thinking at the moment, are they just going to hope/pray that they don't haemorrhage too much of the audience they have built before the 2026 season? There was action taken against blown diffusers, F-duct and mass dampers etc, presumably as the current regs are so much about the floor it's very difficult to isolate any particular component to rein them (Redbull) in. A whole season of this and again likely the same for 2025 doesn't bear thinking about .

Yup. The audience levels will plummet

 

[GR63]

If the Red Bull was transported to a different dimension this might have been an OK race.. had some moments of interest... but F1 is a snoozefest right now.... which saddens baby Jesus....

Thank god for Conor Moore videos

 

[Jono8]

I wonder what the FIA etc is thinking at the moment, are they just going to hope/pray that they don't haemorrhage too much of the audience they have built before the 2026 season? There was action taken against blown diffusers, F-duct and mass dampers etc, presumably as the current regs are so much about the floor it's very difficult to isolate any particular component to rein them (Redbull) in. A whole season of this and again likely the same for 2025 doesn't bear thinking about .

It seems like no one has yet been able to work out what the RB secret sauce is. They must be doing something better/quite differently to the rest to be this far ahead but no one seems to know what.

 

[MassiveJim]

It seems like no one has yet been able to work out what the RB secret sauce is. They must be doing something better/quite differently to the rest to be this far ahead but no one seems to know what.

yeh they have a chief technical engineer who specialised in ground effect

 

[koolpc]

They have the complete, working package. Simples.

 

[KiNgPiN83]

They have the complete, working package. Simples.

Exactly. They used to make up a lot in pure aero and now the Honda/RB engine is on par with the rest they are now smoking everyone.

I am surprised there’s been no nerfs though. Mercedes were hit by bans on their fancy suspension, banned their odd steering wheel, ride height changes too? Can’t quite remember. There was also the fuel composition change but to be fair everyone had to deal with that.

 

[Kenai]

Exactly. They used to make up a lot in pure aero and now the Honda/RB engine is on par with the rest they are now smoking everyone.

I am surprised there’s been no nerfs though. Mercedes were hit by bans on their fancy suspension, banned their odd steering wheel, ride height changes too? Can’t quite remember. There was also the fuel composition change but to be fair everyone had to deal with that.

Those sort of things were obvious, if someone could see something obvious with the Red Bull you can bet they'd all be at the FIAs door complaining but I think that's what frustrates everyone the most - they can't see any specific reason the car is so much better.

 

[Mesai]

Exactly. They used to make up a lot in pure aero and now the Honda/RB engine is on par with the rest they are now smoking everyone.

I am surprised there’s been no nerfs though. Mercedes were hit by bans on their fancy suspension, banned their odd steering wheel, ride height changes too? Can’t quite remember. There was also the fuel composition change but to be fair everyone had to deal with that.

Probably anything they nerf RBR on would hurt the rest of the grid more. I think the only unique thing they had last year was the double rear beam wing, which many teams have copied since.

Merc had a huge engine advantage for most of the previous era. If RBR and Ferrari had started 2014 with similar engine performance and quality, we’d probably have had a much more interesting run.

 

[KiNgPiN83]

Those sort of things were obvious, if someone could see something obvious with the Red Bull you can bet they'd all be at the FIAs door complaining but I think that's what frustrates everyone the most - they can't see any specific reason the car is so much better.

True. I fully expected Mercedes front wing to get aggro but as soon as it turned out they were slow, nothing happened.. Haha!

Probably anything they nerf RBR on would hurt the rest of the grid more. I think the only unique thing they had last year was the double rear beam wing, which many teams have copied since.

Merc had a huge engine advantage for most of the previous era. If RBR and Ferrari had started 2014 with similar engine performance and quality, we’d probably have had a much more interesting run.

Youre probably right there with regards to nerfing. Max and Russell were moaning about the ride heights and that they are too low so if anything they may jack the cars up? I can’t see it changing the order too much though..

Yeah, the engine definitely hid their aero weaknesses. Which is why other cars got more of a look in at some tracks.

I don’t know what the answer is but 2 years of this won’t be exciting. #bringback2021cars

 

[Mesai]

I don’t know what the answer is but 2 years of this won’t be exciting. #bringback2021cars

It'll be sheer luck if we ever get multiple teams consistently competitive at the front - simplifying the cars might help but that probably takes aware from the spirit of F1 being the pinnacle.

I wonder what would happen if teams could have 4 cars/driver. RBR absorbs RB, Merc takes Williams, etc. - then even if 1 team is dominant, you at least have 4 drivers potentially in the mix.

 

[Jono8]

It'll be sheer luck if we ever get multiple teams consistently competitive at the front - simplifying the cars might help but that probably takes aware from the spirit of F1 being the pinnacle.

It is weird how this so often works, because it is quite common for teams below the leader to be fairly equal/having a good fight for constructors positions.

I mean, if you take out Red Bull from the last few seasons, we would have had an absolutely cracking few seasons in terms of the title fight.

I wonder what it is about the development process in F1 that so often means one team makes a car that i clearly better than the rest.

 

[Grim5]

Max Verstappen is just that good, him driving the Redbull gives the car +100hp

 

[Mesai]

I mean, if you take out Red Bull from the last few seasons, we would have had an absolutely cracking few seasons in terms of the title fight.

It's funny thinking about it in retrospect and how that could have been the case for any season if one team had gone down a slightly different path.

If you remove RBR from last year you'd have thought that Ferrari did an incredible job with their car, and a WCC title fight against Merc coming down to the final race.

 

[cuke2u]

It's funny thinking about it in retrospect and how that could have been the case for any season if one team had gone down a slightly different path.

If you remove RBR from last year you'd have thought that Ferrari did an incredible job with their car, and a WCC title fight against Merc coming down to the final race.

Same goes for Mercedes when they were dominant then the Ferrari's with MS. Even if the regs were change to clip Red Bull's wings another dominant team would rise up after a while. The history of F1 has always been the same.

 

[koolpc]

RB will be changing engine supplier though in 2027? Maybes things will change then. And then Max will go to Merc!