Grand Prix thread Ooredoo Qatar Grand Prix 2021

I think they key thing is that Ham was avoiding those kerbs, and with his pace advantage could afford not to put himself anywhere near them.

 

I'm starting to believe! Come on Lewis.

 

100% both cars avoided kerbs.

verstappen took off after Hamilton for about 2 laps then was on about his wing and then the gaps started to grow and grow. 100% hamilton was controlling it at 7-10 seconds without difficulty.

overall an easy day at the office that could have gone worse for both men.

 

I'd say:

hamilton favourite to win both races coming. Verstappen capable of second places. thats a 14 point swing.

verstappen needs something to run this round in one race. 8 point lead with 52 to play for.

theres zero room for error by either TEAM (as in mercedes messing this up strategically) or driver.

As i said the temptation for two cars to take each other off here is massive. if Hamilton and Verstappen happened to DNF then even with a fastest lap point hamilton couldn't win if verstappen gets a 2nd in the other race.

Only probelm is hamilton has 2 engines taken and verstappen only 1 so if he happened to damage said car somehow he would be having to charge through the grid. this unt off is likely to be the final race of season as a result.

Schumacher Villeneuve
schumacher hill
Senna prosto
prost senna

 

Abu Dhabi is 50 50 race, Verstappen walked it last season even when Mercedes was much the faster car. New track favours the Mercedes and there engine

 

Does it? That's a massive assumption based on nothing.

 

It appears Horner was a little worried by his trip to the stewards. “He offered to participate in the 2022 FIA International Stewards Programme in early February. The Stewards unreservedly accept Mr Horner’s offer.”
So looks like he will go through the motions of being taught how to marshal in Feb - what's the betting that doesn't happen????
Didn't Max get a similar punishment a few years ago - was it for assaulting Occon? Did he ever receive his 'punishment'?

 

We shall see but looks likely

 

Abu Dhabi was Lewis's first race after COVID. As could be seen, he was suffering from Long Covid for the first half of this year. Before you cast doubt, yes, I am confident in this statement after my daughter's experience. What Lewis described mirrored some of the symptoms my daughter experienced. Don't judge Abu Dhabi based on the performance last year.
That said, nothing is a given and I am sure there will be a few tense moments before it is finally decided.

 

Yes, it was for his pushing around Ocon. Yes he did do his 'punishment'. Did it make a difference, doubtful.

 

Cheers.

 

Hamilton has spoken on the theme of verstappen hitting him and punting them both off to win this.

Very smart thing to do from a political point of view. Get the scrutiny ramped up now.

 

Yes, Verstappen has little to lose in both going off. He would, in my opinion, do it too. Hence the furore about the hard racing decision in Brazil. The FIA were short sighted in their handling of this in my opinion.

 

I see it as playing every card personally. It raises the stakes on verstappen that bit more that means he has to find the means to win the race not just get a send and punt for a coming together if he sees the chance.

 

It's not like he has already tried very recently.

 

If Mercedes can push RBR into 3rd at the next race then Verstappen has to finish ahead of Lewis in the last. Not convinced Bottas can execute a second place at the next race, of course assumes Lewis is in first place, again not a given.

 

I'm pretty sure his car is not the same as Hamiltons as this point. But maybe there is some hand me downs for the next 2 races that could help

 

I am sure that I read Bottas's car is not the same but the article said that they could not find out what the differences were!!
I guess this might be where the budget cap comes in as having too many spares is a waste of budget - too few and you will lose performance or not be able to race!!!
They do have masses of data from previous years to estimate track and crash damage but I bet it has given them some headaches!!!!
I can see Haas, Williams and maybe Alfa being very low on spares at this stage. In fact Red Bull have been saying they need to repair some of their rear wings to stop them failing yet again. In years gone by they would have probably redesigned and made new ones but budget cap may be changing things?

 

Would this red bull rear wing stuff not be related to chasing marc performance rather than a mechanical failure point that's reworkable

 

Red Bull's argument is (I think) that fixing the DRS mechanism requires a development token, which they don't have available. So they aren't allowed to change the design and instead have to repair it.

Nevertheless, it wasn't a problem in the first half of the season, and it's a part carried over from last season where I don't remember it being particularly problematic either. I can't believe Red Bull have no solution other than to patch up the wing every session and request to change it before every race, unless doing so was providing them a performance advantage.

I can't find a source for this, but I remember Matthew Carter (who briefly lead Lotus-Renault) saying their team discovered that when the front mount for the T-tray broke, so the leading edge of the tray dragged on the ground, they saw a massive performance benefit.

So they designed a front mount that was deliberately very weak, so the first time the driver hit a kerb, the mount would break and release the floor. The new floor position was illegal, but as it was the result of clear damage (the mount breaking) they'd be in the clear with the scrutineers.

I can't remember if they ran it or not, but they were stopped because scrutineers/FIA took a pretty dim view on performance benefits arising from part failure.

Not that I'm expecting the FIA to be consistent with a decision made around 2013, but it could be argued that by not having to have a correctly functional DRS flap, Red Bull are gaining a performance benefit by being able to run a lighter part knowing they can patch it up and replace it before the race with no penalty.