2018 Formula 1

I think you’ll find the leaders had passed the pit entry before the safety car was announced… Red Bull hadn’t, sheer luck rather than skill is playing more of a part in these opening races imo…

Iirc Bottas & Vettel were the only two who’d passed the entry…Kimi & Lewis could have been pitted, and they were the two who needed to roll the dice

Red Bull seem a bit more willing to throw the dice than Merc and Ferrari who seem happy to battle in qualifying and the start and then rely on others mistakes. Yet to see them change strategy in response to what is happening on the track (apart from covering others planned pit stops).

Great performance by RB pit crew too. two double stacked pit stops with really fast times is laudable.

A very enjoyable race. Some great passing for a change. It shows the benefit of opportunism and different tyre strategies.
Bring on a tyre war.

BTW Craig, I enjoyed the last one :+1:

Not too shabby

Thoroughly entertaining race yesterday, and a deserved win - tactics win races, and it does seem like performance of the top 3 is closer this year.

Tactics also lose races - as a baffled Hammy noticed as quickly as us armchair-experts when the team failed to whop fresh tyres on his car. Merc’s tactical game is weak AF and could well lose them the championship this year.


As for the tyre thing - I’m all in favour of it, though I’d chumble it up first by giving teams free-rein to use as many tyres as they like of whatever compound they choose and hand the cost back to the manufacturer. I’d make that worth their while by ensuring prominent sponsorship logos on cars, trackside, bumf & merch etc., such that their costs are recovered by advertising and promotion, levelling the costs for all racing teams.

If that works, then extend the deal to more than one manufacturer, and again leave choice to the teams.

Naturally this won’t please all interested parties - what the fuck ever would? - but it would increase the tactical scope of the sport considerably and help to level the playing-field across the teams. What’s good for viewing figures and attendance is good for everyone involved.

1 Like

My suggestion to improve racing would be one set of very wide tyres for the event, issued new for the race and then shipped in an FIA Parc Fermé truck to the next event for use in practice and qualifying.
Less tyre grip always gives better racing (like in wet conditions).
Wide tyres would screw the aero (at least 50% of the aero work on open wheeled cars is to reduce the negative effect of wheel wakes).
A tyre war may well be good if the tyres needed to last more than 50 miles, and the drivers could be on the limit all the time. I am not sure about the big diameter wheel low profile tyre thing, but don’t have a strong opinion about it, IMO it is more about styling than performance on road cars. The development of super sticky slicks can be shown by simulation to have had as much detriment to racing as the wings since, say 1969.

3 Likes

2 Likes

Frank - has there, in your experience, ever been a tyre that could hammered through an entire stint, or even a race? I can’t recall a time where drivers (in any category for that matter) could ever constantly light em up, but if anyone would know it’s you …

Interesting pic of the front of a McLaren post race…

https://scontent-lht6-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/30729395_10156090325731413_2258579466806624256_n.jpg?_nc_cat=0&oh=2c046c058fd0569b7986281dd3ea9f51&oe=5B703CB8

Yes, that’s tyre debris.

1 Like

Good to see Iceman looking a bit more racey these days.

I believe Jim Clark won two consecutive Grands Prix using the same set of tyres, less power though.
Back then there tyres were the same for every circuit too. It must have been very slippery at Monaco.
I remember when we were working out how to ban qualifying tyres at the FIA decades ago the Goodyear engineer pointed out that the race tyre in Monaco was a 1-lap qualifier in Austria (that old circuit was fantastic).
Anyway having tyres which can be abused more is just a question of making hard enough compounds. It would be quite easy to make slicks with the same grip level in the dry as Intermediates in the wet.

1 Like

On the question of power, the amount of momentum loss in the wake is entirely dependant on the power of the engine, so one way of making less aero disturbance would be 400bhp engines like the original DFV…

1 Like

Reality is starting to kick in at Woking…

1 Like

Just spotted this myself at lunch, I wonder who they will put in to ‘fix it all’? :slight_smile:

Is Peter Prodromou all he’s cracked up to be?

Wasn’t he with RB when Seb was winning?

He is not an Adrian Newey, but did work for Adrian at RBR as his number 2.

2 Likes

XIt’s quite an odd story, imho

They’re promising a huge update for Barca: odd time to bin him now before it’s run (unless the simulator blows up every time they run it with the updates). If it’s worth 8/10ths they’re gonna look bloody stupid having binned him.

I haven’t really the foggiest who takes over if not Prod, but I unquestionably think they’re going in a worrying direction with Fat Zak Brown starting to flex his new muscle quite soon, and Comical Ali Boullier looking all confused now he can’t blame Honda for everything.

2 Likes

It looks like a big mess to me.

The McLaren has poor performance due to the aero, so why get rid of the chassis engineer who has no impact on the aero, it is his job to get the car designed and keep the mass down (in simple terms).

I have no idea what Matt Morris is supposed to do as his background does not suggest he should have a role like this.

And then there is Boullier who has never had success…

So out of the 4 of them, Tim is the one that logically should have stayed.

1 Like

Sounds political to me. I guess Goss’s views don’t fit with the new regime.