Arena FIA Formula 1 Racing

Ricciardo is looking really good again in practice at Azerbaijan. Verstappen has already crashed once again. He pushes too hard, and is making mistakes. He needs too calm it down a bit. It does look like Red Bull have the best car for this race. Only the power of the Mercedes and Ferrari PU are keeping Mercedes and Ferrari close. There will be a big focus on slipstreaming on the long straights in qualifying, that's the only place Red Bull will be vulnerable.

 

Danny Ric. The man.


Im wearing the 2018 hoodie all day now

 

Anyone but Hamilton/Merc. Forza Ferrari.

 

At least Merc let their drivers race and give them both equal opportunity. I fully expect Ferrari to compromise Raikkonen's final qualifying by having him act as an air plow for Vettel on that ridiculously long straight.

 

Well I was wrong on that. Raikkonen compromised his qualifying by himself. Great performance by Ricciardo to get 4th on the grid. Mercedes and Ferrari were so much faster in the last sector with their qualifying engine modes. That moment with the Torro Rossos was scary, great reactions, to avoid a massive crash.

I hear it is going to be very windy in the race tomorrow which should make things interesting. Vettel will be difficult to beat but I think the Red Bulls will have the race pace to do it. I think Hamilton and Bottas will struggle to keep up without the Merc's highest power engine mode.

I'm looking forward to seeing Alonso gain places. I can't wait for McLaren's big update, I so want to see them fighting at the front with the current big three teams.

 

FINALLY! FINALLY!

We've been saying for two or three years, that Max's 'late moving in the braking zone' **** is dangerous.

Well, it happened with both Red Bulls.

Edit: correction of term.

PS. The amount of people who complained about the truck that Biancci smashed into, people will be flipping their **** over that one removing Grosjean's car, while cars weave past.

 

I blame Horner.

 

I get that, but like me, he was probably aware of how Max reacted to a team order, back in Toro Rosso - the full Anakin "NOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

But if you are referring to the absolute refusal to reign in his driver; as well as bringing him to do his learning in F1, rather than GP2, and basically rewarding him and Jos for destabilising the junior team, I could get on board with that too.

 

Absolutely agree about Max. That is exactly what I said as I saw it... "And it finally happened".

About the lorry on the track picking up Grosjean's car. No driver should have been warming their tyres as they drove past it. I didn't notice anybody do that at the time. And you have to believe an f1 driver can safely drive past obstacles and stewards on track at such a low speed. I mean its no more dangerous than us driving at 20mph in towns and cities.

 

@Blackhole E Snoke

Oh, I'm not suggesting anyone was weaving side to side, but weaving, as in driving, past a truck with good ground clearance (eg. the height of an F1 car chassis).

At least on the sites that I frequented, there was round condemnation of the Suzuka marshalls deploying a truck to rescue Sutil's car, without tyre barrier protection, to prevent a subsequent car - Biancci (sp?) - crashing into and under it; that having one on track with F1 cars coming through, would draw similar criticism.

The first Baku podcast that I watched this evening, didn't mention it, and you seem fine with it, so maybe I was mistaken.

 

The team order might've been resisted but a good team principal would just hold him 5s in the pits to send a message. That's what Ross Brawn would've done.

But the move wasn't entirely Max's fault. It was a 60/40 split, brewing over multiple laps that at race 4 had no business being this vigorously contested by Max. Having said that, the gap Ricciardo committed too was small to begin with.

But remember how Horner let Seb get away with Multi-21 in 2013? He's not a strong leader.

 

Also the BBC know how to make it better:

 

Hopefully Helmut Marko gets the message through if his own team principle can't. MV needs to adjust that behaviour IMO though.

As for Seb, hi risk hi reward situation but not sure if that was the smartest move at that point in the race with so few laps left. I would have tried to keep after VB and hind sight is 20/20 but Seb would have had the bleeping win. Ah well. At least the season is shaping up to be really competitive.

 

Yeah I think Vettel did what he had to do. The loss of the lead to SC was a bit of serendity for Merc after Melbourne, but he had to make the move on Valtteri at that point. He said that he couldn't judge the braking point, hence the lockup, but Ferrari can take comfort knowing how good their car is.

 

Yes the Suzuka situation was totally unacceptable and lessons have been learned from this. Having recovery vehicles anywhere near racing cars traveling at well over 100mph under just waved yellow flags will never happen again. But behind a safety car traveling past the incident area at a very slow and controlled speed has to be considered acceptable. Just like having mechanics in the pit lane around pit lane speed limited cars.

 

Yeah Lewis was being a bit precious but I suspect it's because he spent so much money on fake hair and a new haircut that he wanted to protect it. Grosjean baguetting into the wall was a brain fart moment (and hilarious) but that car needed to be moved and it's a street circuit. They could literally do nothing else but what they did.

 

I'm not sure if I heard Grosjean correctly, but I think he said in his interview after the race, that he had accidentally knocked a switch (brake balance or something?) during his aggressive tyre warming steering movements in the cockpit. It was funny how he, at first on the radio, thought Eriksson had hit him.

 

Yes; that's the excuse/story now. But, I loved how he threw his gloves at a techie by mistake then realised his mistake.

 

I don't think you can really blame either RB driver over the other.

Ricciardio often puts himself in the place where he correctly predicts the gap is going to open up, or where he knows he'll already be alongside by the time the car ahead can close it. There was no gap for him to claim. And his gamble on the door opening didn't pay off.

Verstappen's look at going to the outside was absolutely minimal by anyone's standards. It looks far worse from DR's point of view because he's already weaving around underneath MV's rear wing. In other words, Max might have got his wallet out but he never bought the dummy. Danny thought, prematurely, it was a done deal.

I seriously doubt that any other combination of drivers would have resulted in the same thing. Equal blame seems about right.

 

No, not equal. I agree with Niki Lauda; 70% Verstappen, 30% Ricciardo.

 

The DRS system and F1s current reliance on it for overtaking is mostly to blame. The closing speed of the car behind with DRS enabled is ridiculous on a long straight and with such a small braking zone due to the immense braking ability of these cars, means that the attacking driver has to react superhumanly fast to even the smallest defensive change of line from the car ahead. The fact is F1's racing is broken and DRS is an artificial racing crutch.

 

Oh.

 

Again, disagree. We saw passes all race long that weren't problematic. As per Hungary last year; Max hates being passed, but hates being passed by his teammate the most. We got some great racing and some too-spicy moments between the two. But if you watch the video in slow motion from a front on angle, Max buys the dummy and makes a change of direction right before going left and braking on Daniel. It was one of those things that had Horner managed it properly earlier would not be a talking point.

And I say this as an Australian of Dutch parentage who owns #3 and #33 hats and too much Red Bull kit.

 

I didn't mean that Max wasn't at fault. I agree that he was. But if the racing didn't rely on DRS and huge front wing down force then Max's multiple direction changes wouldn't be so dangerous or likely to cause crashes.

 

I don't know - there's that epic, famous battle between Hakkinen and Schumacher at Spa in 2000 which was only not a huge issue because ont he first attempt, Mika backed off and on the second a back marker protected him making the move.