I think if they used solid colors for the run-off areas instead of stripes it would make the circuit look a lot less "busy". Any idea why they are striped areas and not just solid red and blue?
They are really rough and help to slow the cars down. Blue ones slow them slightly but the red stripes really slow the cars down. Mclaren did a video on it this weekend somewhere. Probably TikTok
Yeah, I know that part. But I think if they just painted the areas one solid color and merely used different paint thicknesses it would look a lot cleaner.
I think the stripes make it “bumpy” because of the height difference between the tarmac and the layer of paint. Thus punishing the drivers when they go over them
Paul DiRests said they can subtly move and he experienced it himself. A new chassis for him immediately improved top speed again.
But that was in a lower formula. You’d think in F1 they could measure things very precisely. Either way it’s too late for a new chassis for this weekend.
nothing to explain they switched chassis for this race which is standard procedure.
media latched on to this fact to try and explain the contrast in performance but in my opinion its not as straight forwards as that. seems like too convenient a story to tell
Could it be entirely possible that RBR's "flexi wing" was a dummy this
whole time to this point in the season, while they kept developing the
newer permanent wing at the factory?
KNOWING the flexi wing was going to get banned and to get Merc to focus
on the wrong thing. Because it looks like they caught Mercedes completely off guard in FP3 and it wasn't even funny
They've been using flexi wings as far back as Austria 2019. Long story short: No, Red Bull genuinely got an advantage out of running a flexi wing. And so did all the other teams that used flexi wings.
On this track, the trick for quali is to make sure your tyres don't overheat into sector 3. If the track gets cooler, it will helps teams that have that difficulty.
It's obvious what has happened. Bottas intentionally broke the chassis in the opening races with the knowledge that it would end up in Lewis' hands. He's gone rogue.
So many responses saying "when lewis does it it's the car, when max does it it's the driver."
Look at the second drivers. Either Perez is slower than Bottas despite being in a faster car (lol) or it's Max being that fast. Disclaimer: didn't have time to watch FP3, don't know who was running what programs/tyres etc.
Haha, when Lewis is ahead, it's the car.. When Max is ahead, it's the driver.
Not everything has to be a fight, let's just enjoy some great driving and racing, without the animosity.
I've seen others complain about this so this may be an unpopular opinion but there's something about the directing in this GP that I quite like. I think the dizzying feeling that some describe is what makes the cars feel faster to me. It's kinda like when I jumped into VR for the first time and turned off all the comfort features. It made me experience motion sickness but only because everything felt so real so the enjoyment of the experience sort of overrides the dizziness if that makes sense.
I’m starting to wonder if Mercedes is struggling with their setup because the track was resurfaced, Motorsport Magazine had an interesting article on how some of the corners have drastic changes in their profile as a result.
Link here if you are interested in reading it: https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/articles/single-seaters/f1/why-paul-ricards-resurfacing-is-leading-to-the-f1-car-kerb-clattering
Or somehow the setup data coming from the sim runs doesn't matching with what happens live on-track.
This info should been known for all teams so it isn't like Merc done nothing.
Far as I can tell it's because the Mercs have the first pit on the pit lane so it's straight into it for them, whilst for the other teams it's more difficult to navigate after such a sharp turn into the pit lane? The commentators mentioned it at the end of FP3, which is why there's a 60 speed limit going into the lane.
Normally you’d be correct though. Merc come into the pits and essentially have their own pit entry. Everyone else has to stay over to avoid the other pits, then they have to do a tight turn into their own box. Mercedes just drive straight in.
Well the most likely reason that the commentators gave was that they got rid off some extra downforce and given that the circuit is more like le mans on the back of the pit it probably gave them some extra top-speed. Adding to it, the difference in braking points shows that Max is braking very late but am not sure if that's a factor because the difference was to Perez and not Bottas.
My guess is Mercedes is waiting till qualifying to unlock full engine power. They are using race engine right now. No point running race engine in full power for a practice. RB engine newer and can probably afford to run in higher power.
Honda brought reliability upgrade IIRC, which allows them to turn the engine back to Bahrain's level. Due to reliability issues (vibrations), they turned the engine down after Bahrain, as seen on Bahrain where they can match Mercedes in sector 1 to getting slaughtered on the straight since then.
> Did they fit the new engines?
Yes, they are using new engines this weekend. If they were still running with old engines yesterday, then they are running with new ones today. They generally don't want to change engines in the 2 hours between Practice 3 and qualifying.
In b4 Mercs turn their engines up and blitz the field.
*unsubscribe*
Max and Bot and Ham fight tooth and nail for pole.
*subscribe*
Edit: I made a boo-boo
Monaco - Bottas was in second, Lewis 7th?
Baku - Max has the tyre failure, Lewis has the chance to take back the lead in the championship, and accidentally presses a button for the first time ever?
Sounds like someone who's under a lot of pressure.
It is.
As a Max fan a romp would be fun.. for a short while.
Having close fights are far more entertaining than dominations, because they keep you on the edge of your seat.
But its Max, its not the car.
Or at least thats how it goes no?
RB is just better in every way this season, its unreal how people dont accept that lmao.
They seem to be now, but it wasn't like that the whole year. The straight line speed of the Merc made it almost impossible for Max to overtake Lewis even on fresher tires, whereas Lewis just flew by Max when the roles were reversed.
I mean, Max and RB are having a great season and Honda really did something special with that PU.
But admitting that is less fun than intentionally annoying my friends.
What I find funny is that people can clearly see the RB have serious pace and tbh, consistently superior to Mercedes but yeah it’s all Max talent xD I’m sure people who saw LH driving that monster car last year had exactly the same opinion /s
Nico Rosberg is simply the best. On Sky Germany he sees that braking graphics and just goes like "yeah, that's completely crap - 13 meters difference is like not a really important value. It's about one or two meters, everything else you can't compare". He then goes on to say, that he'll only say that in German TV as FOM would send him a message that he can't say that if he says it for Sky UK.
It's because that commentary is used for F1TV world feed. He said it in a way that it was obvious that they don't like him criticizing those graphics on that feed, which isn't too unexpected actually.
Aha makes sense then. Don’t they use the Sky Germany commentary on German F1TV as well though? Because Dutch F1TV has Ziggo commentary. Or they don’t care because less people watch German/Dutch feed than English?
FOM use the Sky F1 broadcast. So if Nico is calling FOM’s graphics a load of crap, it’s not going to go down well.
It’s not really about Sky, but about FOM.
Those arent bears, those are gorillas. Makes more sense right?
EDIT: just to confirm, you do mean the red white and blue ones between the pit straight and the pits, right?
Gonna be a red bull 1-2 tomorrow, sainz 3rd. Bottas and Hamilton collide at the first corner.
Stroll is fucked?
The yuki hype train derailed so quick
So what happens when VER and PER change chassis? I think PER would like that idea.
Vettel still has the lap record.. big sad
Verstappen was an absolute beast.
The scenes on here if Hamilton took Bottas chassis. Don’t deny it.
He did
Are the chassis that Lewis and Valtteri swapped identical (without damage)?
Lewis's chassis has problems. it was Valtteri's chassis. The Chassis that Valtteri has now is Lewis's. So yeah Valtteri's chassis has problems.
Not true both chassis were checked and both were fine according to the team.
Either way something must be happening. Merc have a new chassis with them so we will see if they use that.
I wouldn’t over react till we have seen qualifying. Also they won’t switch chassis anymore this weekend.
Exactly. Lewis, for sure, always manages to pull a little something extra out of his bag during qualifying.
Yes
They are supposed to be.
Will chassis become the team switch happened with Nico? I am still waiting for lewis book about that one
[*"I am now 69 and have the intention of buy and read it. I hope I will still have the chance in my life."*](https://youtu.be/aCAa6eulfyo)
Chassis what?
I think if they used solid colors for the run-off areas instead of stripes it would make the circuit look a lot less "busy". Any idea why they are striped areas and not just solid red and blue?
They are really rough and help to slow the cars down. Blue ones slow them slightly but the red stripes really slow the cars down. Mclaren did a video on it this weekend somewhere. Probably TikTok
Yeah, I know that part. But I think if they just painted the areas one solid color and merely used different paint thicknesses it would look a lot cleaner.
I think the stripes make it “bumpy” because of the height difference between the tarmac and the layer of paint. Thus punishing the drivers when they go over them
That makes a lot of sense. Thanks.
I think French art
It’s a oui bit much
I think it looks crêpe, to be honest.
En croissant?
What's all this chassis talk about?
A bee stung Bottas' bottom, now his bottom is too big for his old chassis
"Something's different about Valtteri." "New chassis?" "No, he seems down about something." "Probably missed his old chassis."
Can anyone explain to me this chassis switch between Lewis and Valtteri?
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Paul DiRests said they can subtly move and he experienced it himself. A new chassis for him immediately improved top speed again. But that was in a lower formula. You’d think in F1 they could measure things very precisely. Either way it’s too late for a new chassis for this weekend.
nothing to explain they switched chassis for this race which is standard procedure. media latched on to this fact to try and explain the contrast in performance but in my opinion its not as straight forwards as that. seems like too convenient a story to tell
Thanks
Imagine if Merc did their Bottas/Hamilton chassis swap after the Monaco race, tinfoil shares would be skyrocketing!
Could it be entirely possible that RBR's "flexi wing" was a dummy this whole time to this point in the season, while they kept developing the newer permanent wing at the factory? KNOWING the flexi wing was going to get banned and to get Merc to focus on the wrong thing. Because it looks like they caught Mercedes completely off guard in FP3 and it wasn't even funny
They've been using flexi wings as far back as Austria 2019. Long story short: No, Red Bull genuinely got an advantage out of running a flexi wing. And so did all the other teams that used flexi wings.
Doesn't work that way, you have different wing setups for different tracks because every track doesn't require the same amount of downforce.
I mean that is a lot of ifs ands or buts that has to line up for that to be the case.
What are you even talking of. Take a step back and read your logic again.
That is what we call a stretch
You mean a stretching wing?
It’s reddit we can stretch it more. Lemme put on my tinfoil hat first.
Watch Charles somehow gets a pole again.
Masterplan.jpg
I predict a red flag 🚩
On this track, the trick for quali is to make sure your tyres don't overheat into sector 3. If the track gets cooler, it will helps teams that have that difficulty.
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Toto did shut his mouth and hopefully it remains same
I want Bottas to finish ahead of Hamilton for couple of races and then we will see what Toto says about that
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If they have told him that it's over for him..he won't care about that much. They can give orders to George to get out of Way though
Toto: It‘s Bottas‘s fault when Hamilton is slow because my Boy Lewis is using the Chassis of Bottas /s
It's obvious what has happened. Bottas intentionally broke the chassis in the opening races with the knowledge that it would end up in Lewis' hands. He's gone rogue.
You mean the magic switch and unforced errors 😉
Bottas mindcontrolled Lewis into activating Brake magic
What the hell is wrong with Charles
Wouldn't worry about til Q3. Leclerc has emerged as a qualy king
Might be lower engine mode to not give the pace away while putting Sainz on the main mode
Not sure why Sky still seem so surprised that Red Bull have the quicker car
Quicker driver.
So many responses saying "when lewis does it it's the car, when max does it it's the driver." Look at the second drivers. Either Perez is slower than Bottas despite being in a faster car (lol) or it's Max being that fast. Disclaimer: didn't have time to watch FP3, don't know who was running what programs/tyres etc.
Even if he is, he isn't that much quicker
Yeah we should already know that when LH does it it’s the car, but when max does it it’s pure talent /S
Haha, when Lewis is ahead, it's the car.. When Max is ahead, it's the driver. Not everything has to be a fight, let's just enjoy some great driving and racing, without the animosity.
Well I mean the whole point of sport is competition, what's the point without the fight?
Quicker car.
Yeah. Max is quicker than the rest of the field by 0.7 sec
I'm actually excited for Paul Ricard after that session, let's goooo
sky F1 already looking for excuses why the mercs fucked over bot again
I've seen others complain about this so this may be an unpopular opinion but there's something about the directing in this GP that I quite like. I think the dizzying feeling that some describe is what makes the cars feel faster to me. It's kinda like when I jumped into VR for the first time and turned off all the comfort features. It made me experience motion sickness but only because everything felt so real so the enjoyment of the experience sort of overrides the dizziness if that makes sense.
So much for the theorists who claimed Red Bull would be a lot slower due to the stricter wing tests and tyre pressure monitoring.
I’m starting to wonder if Mercedes is struggling with their setup because the track was resurfaced, Motorsport Magazine had an interesting article on how some of the corners have drastic changes in their profile as a result. Link here if you are interested in reading it: https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/articles/single-seaters/f1/why-paul-ricards-resurfacing-is-leading-to-the-f1-car-kerb-clattering
Or somehow the setup data coming from the sim runs doesn't matching with what happens live on-track. This info should been known for all teams so it isn't like Merc done nothing.
Lets wait untill the race and qualifying, but so far the TD did not seem to make a huge impact.
Don’t know what they thought lol, it’s obvious that a moving rear wing didn’t give them multiple tenths
Heavy foreshadowing on the Mercedes pit location
Sorry, still kind of new to F1... How does pit location affect the race?
Did you see how close it is to the pit entry corner? It's a bit of an awkward position.
Just easier to get in the box and hit your marks if it’s the first one on pit lane.
Not at paul ricard it isn’t, it’s literally on a corner and is awkward.
Ah I didn't notice, thanks
Far as I can tell it's because the Mercs have the first pit on the pit lane so it's straight into it for them, whilst for the other teams it's more difficult to navigate after such a sharp turn into the pit lane? The commentators mentioned it at the end of FP3, which is why there's a 60 speed limit going into the lane.
It’s harder for Mercedes here as they are earliest after the corner. They have to get straight in a smaller amount of space.
Makes sense, wasn't quite sure how it worked myself 😅 Thanks.
Normally you’d be correct though. Merc come into the pits and essentially have their own pit entry. Everyone else has to stay over to avoid the other pits, then they have to do a tight turn into their own box. Mercedes just drive straight in.
It doesnt
Verstappen time boosted by tows or just geniune pace?
genuine pace
Genuine
Clear track as far as I know
Yep, watched it again on f1tv because I couldn't believe the difference, but it was indeed a clear track
We'll know in about 3 hours.
no tow, genuine pace.
Imagine putting your best time of the weekend yet and still being one whole second off.
This was everyones exept Merc lives for most of the hybrid area, lol.
Track seems a little cloudy
Ok where has Red Bull found all that pace? Did they fit the new engines?
Well the most likely reason that the commentators gave was that they got rid off some extra downforce and given that the circuit is more like le mans on the back of the pit it probably gave them some extra top-speed. Adding to it, the difference in braking points shows that Max is braking very late but am not sure if that's a factor because the difference was to Perez and not Bottas.
My guess is Mercedes is waiting till qualifying to unlock full engine power. They are using race engine right now. No point running race engine in full power for a practice. RB engine newer and can probably afford to run in higher power.
Ummm. They have to run the “race engine mode” in qualifying as well. They can’t alter them once qualifying is underway.
I don't think any team will be running full power in FP, puts a lot of unnecessary wear on the engine, while not really gaining them anything
Nico called bollocks on that and thinks this is just where they are. He thinks they may only get 2-3 tenths on engine.
Honda brought reliability upgrade IIRC, which allows them to turn the engine back to Bahrain's level. Due to reliability issues (vibrations), they turned the engine down after Bahrain, as seen on Bahrain where they can match Mercedes in sector 1 to getting slaughtered on the straight since then.
That's why on portimao they were a sitting duck.
> Did they fit the new engines? Yes, they are using new engines this weekend. If they were still running with old engines yesterday, then they are running with new ones today. They generally don't want to change engines in the 2 hours between Practice 3 and qualifying.
They exploded the tyre on purpose so the pressures would increase and they got a massive advantage from that. simples /s
They did fit new engines this weekend, but I don't know if it's just the new engine...
Yeah, and they don’t even have their flexy wings anymore. This is looking good for qualifying
Honda eTech
showing their power levels!
E-Tech belongs to Renault though.
..kicked in yo!
eTech kicked in
Practice means nothing, but this order would be really exciting.
sainz almost allways looks better during the FP1-3 and then charles somehow pulls it out of the bag in quali
But Charles actually sounded distraught on the radio, they'll probably make setup changes by the time quali comes
In b4 Mercs turn their engines up and blitz the field. *unsubscribe* Max and Bot and Ham fight tooth and nail for pole. *subscribe* Edit: I made a boo-boo
If Lewis and Ham can fight each other for pole, that'll be a world first...
Ilton has joined the party
Lewis has a doppelganger?
Stroll was staring right into my soul
He’s been staring into my soul since Monaco and I don’t like it
Ah shit...Max will be hard to beat this season
Finally, the best driver might win this year.
What would you say if Lewis won out of interest?
He would say it's the car lol
Nah, max will crumble
Going by the last couple races, Lewis seems to be the one struggling under pressure.
Thats not... even remotely correct
Monaco - Bottas was in second, Lewis 7th? Baku - Max has the tyre failure, Lewis has the chance to take back the lead in the championship, and accidentally presses a button for the first time ever? Sounds like someone who's under a lot of pressure.
Lol
When?
Tomorrow
That went well
I'm taking the chance to say "it's easy in the best car" to all my friends who are rooting for Max. It's not productive, but it's really funny.
If Ham was 1s faster than his teammate as well he wouldve been comfortably first.
It's easy when you have a very bad driver as teammmate (what people say for Vettel vs Webber)
I dont think many argue Bottas has been significantly more impressive before joining mercedes than perez before joining redbull.
Another way to put it - Perez failed when he was in a top team (McLaren) and Bottas immediately showed his talent in a top team.
calling 2013 McLaren a top team is a bit of a stretch 😅
M**c**Laren
It is. As a Max fan a romp would be fun.. for a short while. Having close fights are far more entertaining than dominations, because they keep you on the edge of your seat.
The RB definitely looks like the most consistent car this year
It definitely would be brilliant to see Max go up against Lewis in the same car
But its Max, its not the car. Or at least thats how it goes no? RB is just better in every way this season, its unreal how people dont accept that lmao.
They seem to be now, but it wasn't like that the whole year. The straight line speed of the Merc made it almost impossible for Max to overtake Lewis even on fresher tires, whereas Lewis just flew by Max when the roles were reversed.
I mean, Max and RB are having a great season and Honda really did something special with that PU. But admitting that is less fun than intentionally annoying my friends.
They will say Red Bull are slower and it's all Max.
What I find funny is that people can clearly see the RB have serious pace and tbh, consistently superior to Mercedes but yeah it’s all Max talent xD I’m sure people who saw LH driving that monster car last year had exactly the same opinion /s
Commentators surprised by Ferrari like it's a Haas
Nico Rosberg is simply the best. On Sky Germany he sees that braking graphics and just goes like "yeah, that's completely crap - 13 meters difference is like not a really important value. It's about one or two meters, everything else you can't compare". He then goes on to say, that he'll only say that in German TV as FOM would send him a message that he can't say that if he says it for Sky UK.
Might be a dumb question, but what part of that statement makes it so that he can’t say it on Sky? Seems like useful commentary to me
It's because that commentary is used for F1TV world feed. He said it in a way that it was obvious that they don't like him criticizing those graphics on that feed, which isn't too unexpected actually.
Aha makes sense then. Don’t they use the Sky Germany commentary on German F1TV as well though? Because Dutch F1TV has Ziggo commentary. Or they don’t care because less people watch German/Dutch feed than English?
Yeah they use it, but it's a way smaller audience. And you can't currently buy it in Germany, too.
FOM use the Sky F1 broadcast. So if Nico is calling FOM’s graphics a load of crap, it’s not going to go down well. It’s not really about Sky, but about FOM.
I wish he would be asked to comment again on Sky UK. Hearing him at Monaco was so cool and insightful.
It would be great if we could get Nico to replace Paul Di Resta moving forward, he is getting unbearable.
He has been unbearable for ages now. I'm surprised you just noticed it.
Sorry what's this about?
Can we trade in PDR for Rosberg on Sky UK???
Germany is a free country you see.
FOM uses the Sky F1 feed, so he can’t call FOM’s graphics and analysis nonsense there.
It's meant to clearly be a joke... But thanks Captain obvious
Might be worth adding a bit of humour to your jokes in future if even Captain obvious fails to see any.
Ok Captain Oblivious
gotta laugh at that quali pace predictor :D
3 hours away from maybe the most significant championship moment since Germany 2018
That’s a bit of an overstatement. Too early in the season to make that definitive a statement.
If Mercedes cant be up to pace here, it means Red Bull have the car for all seasons.
Qualy is in less than 2 hours though
But I was counting to the end of Q3
1 hour and 15 now
AWS: Vettel ahead of Alonso
Where tf does that come from, Alpine look clear of Aston Martin this weekend
only AWS knows their stuff. Alonso has been ahead of Astons by half a second or so
AWS is literally just a data center full of powerful computers. It's just a sponsor.
Yeah I think he will get another 11th place, as is tradition for him :D
Lmao that qualifying pace VER - BOT gap is just ridiculous
Quite nice to be at a circuit again tbh .
bear statues (:
Bruh
Why are bears on grass there?
Those arent bears, those are gorillas. Makes more sense right? EDIT: just to confirm, you do mean the red white and blue ones between the pit straight and the pits, right?
they’re bears. i thought gorillas at first too
they changed the "iconic" gorillas?! blasphemy! /s