Re: 2024 Season Grand Prix Megathread

@ScarDuck14 Yes, I agree Ferrari are making a mistake letting Sainz go. I know they are getting Hamilton, but you are giving up a driver in his Prime who seems to finally be hitting his stride for a driver turning 40 who (probably) won't have won a race in 3 years. But leave it to Ferrari to always make bad decisions.

Also, I agree the hype train around Rusell has magically disappeared. Once anointed the next great multi-time world champion I'm not sure he's even #1 driver material anymore. That said, I want to say two things to be fair. 1. His internship at Williams ended just in time for Mercedes to fall from grace. 2. He, like Sainz has time to grow, mature, and improve. Even though I just finished singing his praises, I was scratching my head a bit when Ferrari decided to sign Sainz a few years back.

Ferrari/Hamilton/Sainz: Honestly I think it is just the media shenanigans making it seem like Ferrari is trying to upgrade their driver line up looking to positively improve their performance.

They're trying to bank on this move, yes, but on star power.

I believe they already had in mind how much of a good driver Sainz had become, and how much past his prime (while still being a great driver) Hamilton is. Their LEC+SAI lineup has always been one of the best out there in my opinion. They're trading Carlos for a potential of a similar or straight out lower points haul per event in the near term for brand power and car development in the medium and long term.

It should never be understated how Hamilton moving there brings a significant net brain gain as well, as he's not going alone. Besides his own experience, there's a number of Merc engineers loyal to him jumping boats as well.

Alonso/Russell: cheeky crafty mastermind Alonso had a great plan, borderline dangerous but still a tool in every good racing driver's toolbox (parking on the apex), but it blew back on his face for not accounting for how much of a single-minded driver George is.

Even if Russell had recognized the tactic for what it is, he'd still go all-in for a heroic overtake. Heh, perhaps Russell did indeed recognize the parking for what it was and still went all-in for a dangerous overtake 🤷

It is risky business though. For both sides, always. So Alonso getting the penalty does not rub me off the wrong way. If the parking had worked, there would be no penalty or drama - barring George's - and just two smiling Spaniards in social media for a week.

Parking in the apex. It's always a tall order delineating when it is good racecraft and when it is breaking the rules. Anything but a slight delay in picking up the throttle on corner exit is probably a big gamble on good defence vs penalty.

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@TotosHeadphones wrote:
I think his problem at the moment though is that he's so focused on beating Hamilton he's not driving the team forward nor improving his own deficiencies to reach that next level. His impulsive nature based on the what his teammate is doing has caused him to make really stupid decisions or force the team to go with nonsensical mid race strategy changes.

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Yep. I'd just change the implied "Russell's at the moment is..." to a "Russell is..." 🙃

I think that's always been Russell's "here's a PowerPoint presentation of the reasons why you should hire me" nature, and not a temporary fad. There's always a single target in front of him and the all-in attitude to beckon bad decisions. 

I'm not going to put it past him to improve on that, but I don't it's just a small quirk he can sand down and polish. He sees red and goes all-in, either rooted in an unfounded belief in his own skills or in sheer recklessness.

I do love having him around and genuinely like the guy though! He's like the cousin we love to pick on due to his proclivity to sit on grandma's lap and go on and on about how he and only he loves her so much and deserves all the treats haha

On the incident, I should have added that the end result was probably the next-worst outcome possible and I feel for Russell. Being topped over in a live track with F1 cars around is terrifying and no one should have to ever experience that.

Did you guys read the stewards decision on the incident? I thought it was quite accurate and correct:

The telemetry for Alonso:

The arrow points to the speed trace but all the telemetry channels should be taken into account. Throttle, brake, RPM and Gear on that vertical slice shows his inputs.

Usual caveat that brake telemetry here is binary (either any brake or no brake) and thus not at all representative of the real application. As per the stewards own words on reviewing the full resolution telemetry, Alonso was very light on the brakes.

@mariohomoh "It should never be understated how Hamilton moving there brings a significant net brain gain as well, as he's not going alone. Besides his own experience, there's a number of Merc engineers loyal to him jumping boats as well."

Are there? This always gets kicked about as one of these reasons Ferrari's struggled for the past decade plus is that it is tough to recruit top engineering talent who don't want to relocate to Maranello because most of the other teams are located in or around London and let's face it London > Kinda-sort of middle of nowhere Italy (aka Modena).

Plus you have the language barrier, most people don't become world class engineers without learning at least some degree of English, if not full fluency, even if they weren't born in an English-speaking country. Italian, not so much.

@TheRagebeard Mostly rumours as of now, but Loïc Serra was poached by Ferrari last year and Riccardo Musconi has been linked to a potential move to Ferrari following Hamilton.

You'll notice a distinct lack of Englishness to their names - as it quite common with top performing staff in all of F1 teams, multiculturaled as they are.

There are gardening leaves and no-poaching clauses to defend from those things, but I would not downplay this possibility based on a "who wants to work in backwater Italy countryside for Ferrari".
It is Ferrari, for all the good and bad that that name entails in F1. And it is Italy, a EU country in a multinational sport brimming with international talent.

UK is indeed the motorsports engineering stable of talent, it is no coincidence that (German) Mercedes is based on Brackley. But the talent is international and Ferrari has long since pushed for a multicultural staff as well for those exact reasons - talent being bred and groomed in the UK.

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@ScarDuck14 wrote:

Just makes  my original opinion that Ferrari are making a huge mistake signing Hamilton so so much worse or funnier if like me and support other teams.   So now not only do I think that Ferrari should have chose Sainz over  Lewis.   But  peak Sainz only driver to beat Red bulls to win 2 races.   They may have well picked the wrong driver to replace.   🤷🏻‍♂️😂. 

Sainz will be alright. I can see him taking Perez seat and consistently beating both  Ferraris next year 😂

I used to have opinion which wax massively helped by pundits that Russell was ice cold real dea future world champion.   But i when I think back it was a lot to do with alway. Getting the Williams over finish line and getting an occasional  banging hot lap.    But it appears hard  chasing  isn’t a strength 😂  Yes Alonso  was given a penalty because you’re not allowed to race in F1 anymore.  My take  is Alonso was infront   And effectively using his know how to keep Russell behind him.   Shouldn’t be penalised.   Russell should be able to react to little surprises and not los his *  in the process.    Afterall part of being a top tier driver is knowing your enemy and even us fans know Alonso won’t just let Russell pass him with a lap to go 😂.    

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🔥🔥🔥

@TotosHeadphones  Alonso did the same thing to Hamilton last year I think at Abu Dhabi.  What happened? Nothing because Lewis is a champion. He didn’t lose his it.  He just whinged he got brake tested.  

If Russell hadn’t crashed nothing would have been said.   Obviously I’ve never driven at those speeds.  But I know plenty from experience.  driving high speed. Driving fast you have to register every potential havard such as othe road users and pedestrians and correctly anticipate peoples random actions.  As you escalate speed you then have to anticipate every potential danger  you can’t see so blind corners or tight unseen side roads.    Over the years it become muscle  memory and despite thousands off close calls I never once shunted into anyone I wasn’t aiming for 😇  Some calls were so close  I still can’t believe I’m alive.  But I reacted and took appropriate action to avoid death.   Without even realising just how close until reviewing the footage.  Even I am amazed of my awesomeness at times.   

So I would assume F1 drivers that have a high opinion off their own abilities and are more touted as future champions shouldn’t have been taken by surprise to the point he obviously got a fright and lost control.   Imola and Singapore both unforced shuntages that were his fault,  Legit F1 world champions don’t make mistakes he does.    Many times you seen them them go wide  when they are pushing beyond the limits.  But majority of the time in replay they simply open the steering and no fuss no muss carry on attacking.   Yes they have all had huge shunts. But not because of being brake tested by the GOAT of F1 dark arts.  It’s Alonso doing Alonso things  and not Lando do Lando things.  

Plus rules off road are it’s the driver  behind responsibility not to crash reacting to what the car infront is doing.  As far as I’m aware and i may be wrong. But I believe that’s also the rules apply with many race series. Although as F1 cars don’t have brake lights and Alonso unfairly getting a penalty points that it doesn’t apply in F1 

@mariohomoh Your right, I'm sure all of the top teams have international staff at the top levels. Ignore the standings as they're a bit skewed atm due to Max's DNF and Perez doing Perez things and not getting the Super Bull on the podium, but I feel like Ferrari are more than a 40 year old Hamilton and 2 engineers away from dominating F1.

Plus it's not like they're poaching engineers from the all-conquering Mercedes era. They're poaching engineers who helped design the porpoising zero side pod Mercedes who apparently has an evil twin sister. Also if Hamilton takes engineers with him than I'm sure Vettel and Alonso did too back in the day and that didn't exactly pay dividends.

I'm just saying it seems like Ferarri is trending in the right direction, other than Aston sticking their nose in their last spring and Mclaren doing the same last summer, Ferrari seem like the one most likely to catch Red Bull and now seems like a bad time to roll the dice and shake things up.

@mariohomoh Well hopefully you are correct as I would like to see Ferrari give the bulls a proper run for their money, But I'm afraid I must remain skeptical until I see some solid dividends being paid out.

@ScarDuck14Idon't know, so was it a fair racing? Understandable to say it's the car behind to react but it's all within reason. Surely if that wasn't the case, weaving in braking zones is totally acceptable?

Stewards looked at the Hamilton case and was likely deemed fine because the scenario was different in terms of Alonso leaving the pit lane exit onto the track and being on cold tyres braking in a heavy braking zone rather than the faster zone the Russell incident was in.

The argument that Alonso wouldn't have been investigated if Russell hadn't crashed, I think he would have been investigated squarely for erratic driving, because. it was that, no matter how you dress it up. Alonso just about admitted to it. However, the severity of the punishment? I don't know.

@TotosHeadphones The Race just did a video on the incident - and they used F1 Tempo's telemetry just as I posted on the previous page haha

I don't agree with the take they make on the second half of the video though.

I'm practically in full accordance with what Alonso said earlier about how it was part of racing. But I also agree with the penalty 🤷

As I said, parking in the apex is a tool in every racing driver's toolbox. And it is not against the rules. You purposely lag on the corner to compromise the attacking driver's line, and that's fine. But Alonso took a gamble here with how hard he went.

Just as he said, if there wasn't as grim of an outcome his actions would probably not be punished, no matter what the decision says.

He went hard on it, and now it is being viewed basically as brake checking dressed up as erratic driving to fit the bill, with the slowing down and speeding up just to then finally slow down again for corner.

Had he overslowed a bit later or just delayed getting back on throttle, he'd probably get away scot-free. Even with Russell crying foul or crashing altogether, Alonso would probably get away with it.

Russell would probably still bin it though as he's always on blinders when under pressure.

Thank you to those that voted in the polls. Noone guessed Sainz as getting P2. As for the podium, the closest to a correct podium was @P4st3l1ak and @Hempyjr guessing both Ferrari drivers on the podium

i will post the links for the Japanese GP in a weeks time but if I forget… you all get a doughnut 

100% with @mariohomoh in this.

But what really caught my attention can be summarized in the image below.

@dancrodrigues I agree with most of that, but I don't think they should have fired LeClerc either, also I think his contract made that cost prohibitive. If you go all the way back to when the new regs started in 2022 he has 3 wins just like Sainz... just all of his came in 2022.

I know Mercedes managed to pip them for P2 in the constructors last year but for the most part they've been the second best team under the 2022 regs. They've just been forced to suffer through the Super Bull era and haven't gotten the recognition they probably would have gotten otherwise.

@TheRagebeardHonestly, I think that Leclerc is fast af but he's his own worst enemy - whenever he's under pressure he crashes or lose the car. Much like Russell.
Sainz, on the other hand, even though not being as fast as Leclerc is in Qualifying, delivers consistently lap after lap and very rarely commits any mistake.
On long term I think Sainz can bring more to any team than Leclerc would (or Russell or Norris...)

@dancrodrigues 

I agree with your assessment of LeClerc I just don't know that binning him off for Hamilton was the solution either. Also, I double checked on his contract. Didn't see a value, but it runs through 2029 so that would have been a spicy going away present they had to give him.

@TheRagebeardAhhh but this is an entirely different matter. I also would'nt hire Hamilton, I'd keep both Leclerc and Sainz which I regard as the most strong duo in F1 along with Norris and Piastri.

@mariohomohI remember mostly France 2022 when he lost completely the rear while pushing and I tend to think that his fight with Sainz in Monza was a little over the edge - perhaps had he been more conservative in these 2 or 3 laps battling Sainz he could've overtaken him. But this is just a "perhaps".

edit: agreed with Russell. I liked him more at Wiliams! haha

@dancrodrigues France 2022 was the downfall of LeClerc, he hasn't really seemed the same in race trim since. He still seems to do fine in Qualifying. But for whatever reason his race results have fallen off. I feel like he's gotten the "yips" a bit and he's afraid of throwing away a good result due to a silly error from to pushing too hard.

I agree with the most probably Hamilton move has not been the smartest Ferrari's choice for the future, Sainz is performing at his best right now but there is no comparison with Leclerc, at all.

Imho with the right car Charles is a potential World Champion, Carlos is not (because he would be beaten by - I can't say 'many'- but I think 'some' in the grid, and as we know a WC car always runs with a very strong driver), nothing to add or I would have much to add:

- Australia like Mexico and few others is a Carlos track (performance very close with Charles anyway)

- in the most of the tracks there is no match both in Q and in race pace

- Leclerc won 3 like Sainz? Yes. in 2022 he was dominating in Spain, P1 in Baku. He was winning in Monaco and Silverstone (no comment in both cases, just thanks Binotto). Lost Jeddah just because of VSC in the very last laps. Etc.

- France 2022 mistake? True, it was a mistake, but he was pushing very hard because he was slightly slower in pace than Verstappen and was trying to keep position

I'm sorry but I'm not a Carlos fun for two reasons mainly: 1) he is always very aggressive with Charles, while he is not with the others. He is a 'false' team player. I still remember his "please, please" in the radio in Silverstone 2022. There he died sportingly in my eyes; 2) I don't think Ferrari could win the championship with him if they start to match Red Bull.

No chance to change about 1), I would be happy to be wrong about 2), also because Ferrari is still not matching Red Bull, I don't expect Australia to be replaced, I fear Suzuka they risk to be also behind McLaren...

Let's see 😉