The 2018 Unforgotten Grand Prix Thread

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Rob Dylan
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The 2018 Unforgotten Grand Prix Thread

Post by Rob Dylan »

Opening this thread a solid three days before practice, let's get down to business.

So we start off the upcoming weekend and subsequent summer break with the news that Lawrence Stroll might be buying Force India: https://www.planetf1.com/news/lawrence-stroll-set-to-buy-force-india-report/.

So that would basically guarantee Lance Stroll a seat at the team as long as the relationship existed. Get used to the Cunning Canadian, people - it looks like he's going to be around for a long time :chilton:
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Re: The 2018 Unforgotten Grand Prix Thread

Post by sswishbone »

Force India in Administration

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/13768 ... nistration

Does this affect their ability to compete this weekend?
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Ciaran
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Re: The 2018 Unforgotten Grand Prix Thread

Post by Ciaran »

What a coincidence that when Brabham used pink in their livery, they had their last race in Hungary.
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Re: The 2018 Unforgotten Grand Prix Thread

Post by sswishbone »

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/44990884

How does this work? Perez instigates court action for unpaid salary but drives in Hungary? **Does not compute!!**
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mario
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Re: The 2018 Unforgotten Grand Prix Thread

Post by mario »

sswishbone wrote:https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/44990884

How does this work? Perez instigates court action for unpaid salary but drives in Hungary? **Does not compute!!**

One suggestion that has been put forward is that Perez and his backers have done this because it ultimately forces Mallya to have to cede control of the team to the administrators during this process, and ultimately pushes him towards selling the team. In that situation, it's a case of using the administration proceedings as a way of achieving their main aim, which is forcing a change in management. https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/why- ... a-1064955/
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Re: The 2018 Unforgotten Grand Prix Thread

Post by good_Ralf »

Who would've thought that Toro Rosso would outqualify Red Bull, on a track and in conditions that should've suited the latter to near perfection? Verstappen's lucky not to get a penalty for blocking Grosjean too. Who knows, Red Bull might've blown their last chance at victory this year. [cynic alert!]
Another underperformer was Leclerc, he certainly hasn't shown the same form since Sauber sent him out on three wheels at Silverstone (not saying the two are connected).

And Mercedes locking out the front row is definitely throwing a curveball, since Ferrari are meant to have the better race package, and especially given it'll be at least 32C tomorrow afternoon.
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mario
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Re: The 2018 Unforgotten Grand Prix Thread

Post by mario »

good_Ralf wrote:Who would've thought that Toro Rosso would outqualify Red Bull, on a track and in conditions that should've suited the latter to near perfection? Verstappen's lucky not to get a penalty for blocking Grosjean too. Who knows, Red Bull might've blown their last chance at victory this year. [cynic alert!]
Another underperformer was Leclerc, he certainly hasn't shown the same form since Sauber sent him out on three wheels at Silverstone (not saying the two are connected).

And Mercedes locking out the front row is definitely throwing a curveball, since Ferrari are meant to have the better race package, and especially given it'll be at least 32C tomorrow afternoon.

Red Bull were surprisingly poor in qualifying, and they made some rather strange strategy calls as well. I still cannot understand what they were trying to do with Ricciardo in Q1 since it was clear that, with the track conditions improving more rapidly than the tyres were degrading, going for the ultra softs was a fairly obvious choice (they'd already seen multiple drivers switch to the ultras and watched them make improvements over successive laps).

Equally, with the session being predominantly wet, there wasn't really any benefit in saving tyres given most teams would probably have at least one set each of fresh slicks of all compounds. There seems to have been no upside and only downsides in taking such a strange risk with Ricciardo - he was visibly struggling and they seemingly ran the risk of getting knocked out and stuck at the back of the grid for no clear gain. They then compounded that with another late call in Q2 that left Ricciardo struggling round in ever worsening conditions on track - it was very sloppy on their part.

In general, Red Bull put in a surprisingly poor performance in the sort of conditions which they had been hoping for - whilst Verstappen looked reasonable in the slightly wet conditions, he seemed to lose out when the track became wetter (complaining that he couldn't get the wets up to temperature). He had some rather scruffy laps as well, reportedly going off track at least twice, so he wasn't without blame himself.

Toro Rosso's strong form, meanwhile, is a bit of a surprise, but whether they can hold onto that is another matter - I wonder whether the car was able to heat the tyres up fairly rapidly, hence their strong pace in the wetter conditions? If so, their pace on race day might not be quite so promising if it is very hot.

The situation with Mercedes is interesting too - they seemed ill at ease on the ultrasofts, with the rear sliding around quite a bit in the practise sessions, but the unexpected windfall of a 1-2 lockout when they were probably expecting to be behind Ferrari, and probably the two Red Bull cars as well, does now give them an opportunity to control the pace to manage their tyres (they did seem more comfortable on the soft tyres though).

It's a strange situation where Mercedes probably entered this weekend hoping to limit the damage, given the risk of Red Bull taking more points from then than they would from Ferrari, but are now in a much better position than first anticipated.
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Re: The 2018 Unforgotten Grand Prix Thread

Post by AdrianBelmonte_ »

The Mercs are having the luck of the champions, this will be the 5th title for Louie Louie
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Rob Dylan
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Re: The 2018 Unforgotten Grand Prix Thread

Post by Rob Dylan »

It is certainly really surreal to see an all-Mercedes lockout after all that rain. I was hoping for a repeat of Brazil 2010, and kept hoping that Sainz would somehow get himself onto the front row. It was not to be unfortunately, and we actually ended up with a really boring grid, all things considered (Ricciardo being the exception).
Murray Walker at the 1997 Austrian Grand Prix wrote:The other [Stewart] driver, who nobody's been paying attention to, because he's disappointing, is Jan Magnussen.
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Re: The 2018 Unforgotten Grand Prix Thread

Post by Fetzie »

Bottas got a 10 second penalty and two points on his super license for his collision with Ricciardo:
Image

Didn't change the result of the race because he was more than 10 seconds in front of the following car.
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Re: The 2018 Unforgotten Grand Prix Thread

Post by yannicksamlad »

two points on Bottas licence - seems a bit harsh to me. It wasnt a big mistake . But it was his fault . I wonder if they gave the points on the licence because the 10 seconds didnt make a difference ( although I don't think that's really right)
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Re: The 2018 Unforgotten Grand Prix Thread

Post by Barbazza »

The time penalty I get, the points on licence I don't really as it was dumb but not malicious especially as he probably didn't know the extent of damage on his car. Personally, I would've loved a DQ but only because it would have got Brendon (who was unlucky again, cheers McLaren) in the points, ha ha!
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Re: The 2018 Unforgotten Grand Prix Thread

Post by Forester »

Barbazza wrote:The time penalty I get, the points on licence I don't really as it was dumb but not malicious especially as he probably didn't know the extent of damage on his car.


Cynically, I suspect he did: he was multiple seconds per lap slower following the incident with Vettel, which, to uninformed me, would appear to go beyond any issues with tyre life given that his times only exhibited moderate increases (relative to each other) before and then after the first crash. Beyond that, the damage was visible and, given radio messages in the past, the team would reasonably have been expected to inform their driver if such damage was not known about.

I say this mainly because it is the only possible justification for DC's claim during commentary that Ricciardo should have known about the damage to Bottas' car (through Red Bull informing him or... telepathy, presumably) and therefore allowed more room / left the track entirely to avoid a collision / not bothered to challenge at all, all glory to Mercedes.
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