Don
According to channel 4 it was actual McLaren who complained.
Hamilton/Mercedes are still complaining about the "new" Honda engine though
Poll: Styrian Grand Prix 2021, Spielberg - Race 8/23
- Thread starter Shimmy
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Hamilton/Mercedes are still complaining about the "new" Honda engine though
Soldato
An interesting race if at worst boring (at the front anyhow), glad to see Redbull have taken the fight to Merc finally. For all Bottas's failings he's a solid number 2 and now RB have a solid number 2, its really opened the constructors championship.
Max&Red Bull are really punishing the faltering's in the Mercedes camp at the moment. Hamilton is not going to take this lying down so im looking forward to the rest of the season for sure. even if the racing can get somewhat of a snoozefest.
gotta feel for George, the chap just cant get a break at the moment. His points tally really doesn't reflect his talent
Max&Red Bull are really punishing the faltering's in the Mercedes camp at the moment. Hamilton is not going to take this lying down so im looking forward to the rest of the season for sure. even if the racing can get somewhat of a snoozefest.
gotta feel for George, the chap just cant get a break at the moment. His points tally really doesn't reflect his talent
Soldato
Red Bull getting a slap on the wrist for that extremely dangerous, reckless and downright yobbish burnout Verstappen pulled.
Quite right too. We can't just have drivers out there celebrating, showing a bit of emotion, and doing things that look cool.
Quite right too. We can't just have drivers out there celebrating, showing a bit of emotion, and doing things that look cool.
Was it dangerous, he was parallel to the pit wall out the way?
Soldato
Voted it a 5, 4 points of which were purely for LeClerc’s recovery drive.
Other wise dull AF.
Other wise dull AF.
Soldato
Yeah, wasn't he beaten by Kubica in the championship? I wouldn't put it past Laftifi to pick up a random point in some crazy race. Looking forward to seeing him at a different team in the future.
Man of Honour
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A fair challenge would have been great, but when the rules get changed to suit your rivals design philosophy whilst hindering your own, one can understand their grumbles. It isn’t like Red Bull haven’t run to the fia at every opportunity - hence party modes went, DAS went etc.
If Mercedes have stopped development then it’ll be a pretty hollow red bull victory. It’s becoming more and more like WWE since Liberty took over. I’m trying not to moan, instead I’ve just stopped following and will tune in if I happen to remember. I just have my fingers crossed that next year will be better.
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Soldato
I love F1, used to defend even the boring races.. Theres been a lot of rubbish races this year. Its made it worse to watch after watching the touring cars + support races as well.. Its just annoying watching cars sit behind each other .6xx tenths and they cant pass!! Irritating!
The FIA have been doing this for decades, if someone has a trick that's perceived to be a little too good, they will often ban it.
If Mercedes are letting this one slide in favour of next year, I personally think they're being bloody stupid!
Major regulation changes tend to shuffle the pack. They have a competitive car now, this could easily be the last year that's true for a long while.
Soldato
If thats true (I doubt it) then thats on them. Whats more likely it's that RB just have better upgrades and Toto/Hamil are trying to deflect some of the blame away from them.
Mercedes have had it good for so long they don't know what to do with themselves when they actually have a decent contender to fight against. I fully expect more BS from Hamilton and Toto as the losses keep pilling up.
And the rest of F1 can bask in the glory of finally not having a championship in the hands of one man anymore.
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If they have stopped development like Toto said in an interview yesterday then this season will probably fizzle out or end up coming down to reliability. They probably thought the car would be enough and took a gamble. Fair play to RB though as they have obviously put a lot of work in with their development for this years car.
Soldato
I very much doubt Mercedes stopped developlement completely. But sounds like a good line to use as an excuse for their drop in performance.
It's quite interesting to compare (dry) qualifying times from last year to this year at Austria to see how performance has been impacted by the inter season rule changes.
Rough figures but Red Bull have lost 0.3s whilst Mercedes have lost 1.1s
Mercedes are clearly struggling massively (relatively speaking) with the change compared to Red Bull and it wouldn't surprise me if they've abandoned the season's development beyond minor upgrades if they've assessed that they simply won't be able to make the car's design philosophy work properly again with this years restrictions.
Rough figures but Red Bull have lost 0.3s whilst Mercedes have lost 1.1s
Mercedes are clearly struggling massively (relatively speaking) with the change compared to Red Bull and it wouldn't surprise me if they've abandoned the season's development beyond minor upgrades if they've assessed that they simply won't be able to make the car's design philosophy work properly again with this years restrictions.
Caporegime
This is the fundamental problem with F1 though. You will pretty much always have one team and probably one driver dominating the competition because he has a better car. Is it any better having Max walk to a victory this year instead of Lewis. They were selling the idea of an epic battle between Lewis and Max this year and its just going to be played out in the points if at all.
There is simply very little excitement to be had in F1 when overtakes are reliant on having DRS, ERS and simply being on much fresher tyres. There are 20 cars on the grid and probably about 10 remotely interesting overtakes per race with the rest being utterly predictable driver by numbers speed advantages. The statistics and analysis are so good now that they can predict when driver A will overtake driver B 15 laps in advance.
The most exciting part of most races is the first 30s when 20 cars are in the same area on track and its a bit of carnage.
I'm not going to lie I've got high(Hopefully not misplaced) hopes for next years cars if they can deliver what the rule designers/makers say they can. However, there will always be the case of a team making a car that's the best interpretation of the rules. I.e. Mercede's engine at one end of the scale and Honda's engine with a turbo in the V at the other... Which brings me to my other point. If there is a big deficit to the top team will other teams even be able to catch up with cost caps/less resources? That's the part I'm not looking forward to.
Yup, and dull next week unless we get rain
really hoping he doesn't... but each to their own...
Really hoping George gets that Merc seat next year
Soldato
Nah, I don't think it was dangerous at all. There was heavy dose of salt in my post.
It's just classic FIA though. Ignore the issues and focus on complete non-issues.
Pirelli should go one tyre step softer next week again otherwise, unless it rains, it’s going to be more of the same. Verstappen lapped everyone up to 4th place. I know it’s a shorter lap than most tracks but still that’s a terrible statistic for what’s supposed to be the closest field in F1 history.
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Soldato
And from what I've watched (tbh I'm not that interested this year) they don't seem to be mentioning this all while bigging up the performance of the red bull.... got to love the 'for the show' mentality, where casual viewers would have no idea of the amount of things that have been done to nerf the performance of the team that had done the best over the previous 7 seasons.
Also (turned off before the end) feel that verstappen should have got more than a slap on the wrist for his end of race burn out, which was fortunate not to end badly. It just seems a little inconsistent when you get a 3 place grid drop for (unintentionally) blocking another driver due to miscommunication (tsunoda) and 3 points and 3 place drop for losing control in the pitlane (bottas) and it being dangerous (bit excessive imo).... but then the stewards have only been one thing this season, totally inconsistent.
Generally as regulations develop the teams get closer as the top team reaches a development peak and have smaller and smaller increments they can take advantage of. This allows the teams below to keep making those big steps Mercedes have made and the field becomes tighter and more even. It’s the perfect time to introduce new regulations according to the FIA. Sure it resets the field but the bigger teams will still likely be towards the front with the odd surprise a possibility. One team could really hit the ground running like Mercedes did in 2014. Everyone knew they were ahead, but it wasn’t until Bahrain when Rosberg and Hamilton went at each other that everyone else realised quite how embarrassingly far behind they were. I think they pulled a ten second gap in two laps. The same possibility exists for next season too.