Spa - 2016

[Ruslan 0]

Race this weekend, and Hamilton and Alonso are going to be at the back of the grid. Should be fun to watch them work their way up the field.

[Emmcee 0]

Yeah well I've spent my time arguing with some clown on another forum who claims no teams ran a diffuser in 2009 and that brawn and Byrne were not at Ferrari when Schumacher was there and joined after he left. Geez some have no idea.

[Ruslan 0]

Why bother?

[Emmcee 0]

Yeah well I've given up, it's like talking to a toddler lol, anyway, redbull look quick at spa don't they?

[Emmcee 0]

Well I didn't expect Ferrari to be so quick in fp3. We have had thee different cars head in times in all three practise sessions. Hope it means three cars have the possibility of winning.

[Emmcee 0]

I beleive that both Ricciardo and Vettel set there times on the soft tyre why everyone else used the super soft. These two could be the ones battling it out for the win as everyone is complaining of tyre deg.

[Ruslan 0]

Tires are weird....this could be a race that goes to someone other than Rosberg/Hamilton. Ferrari (read: Vettel) was definitely having tire problems, so I give the Red Bull cars an outside change of winning the race, especially if Rosberg gets a bad start. Could be very, very interesting.

Anyhow, how many engines did Hamilton pick up? Is he good for the rest of the season (I assume so)? Does this actually give him an advantage relative to Rosberg, as Rosberg might have to take an engine replacement penalty before the end of the season? Is this a new good strategy that everyone should adopt....about two thirds of the way through the season, replace multiple components in one race and take all your penalties, so you are good for the rest of the season?

 

[Emmcee 0]

What do you mean how many engines did Hamilton pick up? Every engine he replaces from here on out will incur a penalty.

[Ruslan 0]

What was the 55 grid place penalty for? Was he able to pick up only one new engine, or was (can) he able to pick up more than one engine?

[Emmcee 0]

As far as I know, the 55 place penalty was exceeding the allocated four engines for the season. No he can't pick anymore up so if he blows this one in this race, another penalty will occur at the next race. I also believe he is the first out of the entire field to use up all his engines. So Mercedes being as quick as they are, there not bulletproof.

[Publius Cornelius Scipio 0]

7 hours ago, Ruslan said:

What was the 55 grid place penalty for? Was he able to pick up only one new engine, or was (can) he able to pick up more than one engine?

yes, that's what exactly what I thought, I think that it was a brilliant idea, he has 3 engines now (if I'm not mistaken), and I personally think that they chose the right track for starting from the back of the grid, I believe that Hamilton has a (decent) chance of winning the race, he'll be on a much better strategy and on the Kemmel he'll make mincemeat of most of his rivals with those brand new hyper-engines

[Ruslan 0]

Yea, the U.S. TV broadcast said he picked up three engines. That is certainly enough for the last 8 races of the season. Good move on the part of Mercedes. The only problem is that when they do one last upgrade on the engine (which they are supposed to do), they cannot give that upgrade to Hamilton without a grid penalty. So we may end up with Rosberg with a stronger engine the last couple of races of the season. Could get weird. I gather Rosberg is in good shape on engines.

[Ruslan 0]

Well, as Scipio hasn't put up his race summary yet, I will make a few comments:

1. Usual good professional race from Rosberg. The distance between him and Hamilton on the podium ceremony could not have been more obvious. They both avoided talking to each other.

2. DR continues to demonstrate how good he is. Verstappen had an awful day. This is why putting teenagers in F1 cars may not be the best idea. As it is, I am not convinced yet that Verstappen is the next Senna.

3. Hamilton drove a good race, helped by both Ferrari and Verstappen disappearing from the front early in the race. He did get mesed up by the red flag as his original start on medium tires were working very well. As always, uptight about racing strategy and questioning strategy decisions after he changed tires (did it twice). A little late for that. 

4. Ferrari --- Vettel hit Raikkonen on the first corner of the first lap. This on top of a couple of questionable incidents in practice and qualifying. Vettel appears to think he is Moses, he just waves his hands and the cars magically move aside to let him through. He probably needs to account for other drivers and make some allowance for it.

5. Alonso -- the two best drivers for moving through a pack are Hamilton and Alonso, and I think Alonso is better at it than Hamilton. Watching them move up through the pack today was entertaining. Two masters at work.

6. Force India -- great day for what is now clearly the fourth best team in F1.

7. Williams -- I am sad.

8. Renault -- these guys are looking better. They now need to upgrade their drivers.

9. Ocan --- So far, Haryantos looks better. Ocan comes with the reputation, something that Haryantos did not have, so we shall see how he measures up over the next couple of races. Seemed like a good guy in the interviews.

10. Saintz -- sort of my impression that he was driving too fast for a blown tire. Needed to calm down. Kvyat remains invisible. Car development appears to be in decline. 

11. Team Haas -- Not sure what happened to them. They were looking good for a while, and just disappeared down into the pack.

 

 

[Publius Cornelius Scipio 0]

3 hours ago, Ruslan said:

Well, as Scipio hasn't put up his race summary yet, I will make a few comments:

 

 

 

I didn't see the race live, it was shown on free to air tv only at 9pm over here, it was an interesting race, tomorrow I'll write something more but I think that once again the standard of stewarding the race let us down: has anyone tried to explain them the meaning of the word "consistency"? I'd be happy to give them some advice on the subject, it won't be expensive.

Anyway Verstappen has to be stopped, on the one hand he's dangerous, on the other he's making himself a fool, saying that he made an effort to create problems for the Ferraris because they hit him on the first corner () isn't very smart. Ok, I know, now we have Heineken on board and so Verstappen is untouchable but is it really doing him any good? I personally don't think so. Today he was embarassing, he could develop into something very good but he has to learn from his mistakes, if rather than being punished when he does something wrong he thinks that he can get away with it AND go public with some very very silly quotes just because one of his backings has put a lot of money into the sport, then he doesn't understand what is at stake and someone has to explain this to him.

On top of that once again the FIA proved that the sport isn't very credible any longer (Verstappen and RBR, they had much more downforce that the others yet the were much faster than the Ferraris... I'd really love to see their fuel consumption data )

[Emmcee 0]

Yeah it's his attitude that rubs me the wrong way. He consistently claims drivers with a lot more experience are wrong. Turning into the second Massa lol.

[Ruslan 0]

6 hours ago, Publius Cornelius Scipio said:

....on the other he's making himself a fool, saying that he made an effort to create problems for the Ferraris because they hit him on the first corner () isn't very smart.

Missed that one. That is funny. Yea, the guy is starting to turn into a major league d#ck. Maybe he is more Senna-like than I give him credit for.

In his defense, his father is Jos the Boss....repeat offender wife beater. The apple may not have fallen far enough from the tree.

 

[Publius Cornelius Scipio 0]

1 hour ago, Ruslan said:

Missed that one. That is funny. Yea, the guy is starting to turn into a major league d#ck. Maybe he is more Senna-like than I give him credit for.

In his defense, his father is Jos the Boss....repeat offender wife beater. The apple may not have fallen far enough from the tree.

 

http://it.motorsport.com/f1/news/vendetta-verstappen-ho-difeso-duro-le-rosse-mi-hanno-rovinato-la-gara-811100/

I know it's in Italian but by now all of you guys are certainly perfectly fluent in Italian, there's just a little extract that I want to translate for you

"... after all that (the first turn accident) I didn't want to let them through because it's them who ruined my race in the first place"  I predict interesting times ahead with this kid, I just hope that he doesn't hurt anyone else 

[Publius Cornelius Scipio 0]

I missed the start of the race, I was out for dinner, so I had to watch the first 10 laps of the race this morning (I'm still on holiday), it was quite an eventful 10 laps

Rosberg - Ivan Capelli, the Italian state TV pundit, said that when hamilton is not around him Rosberg is untouchable, and yesterday he proved this point in a very convincing fashion, IMHO he drove very well. The point is another: why when Hamilton is around he constantly loses out? is it because he makes mistakes due to pressure or sometimes this is due to external factors?

Ricciardo - very solid race from him, he couldn't touch Rosberg but when he had Hamilton chasing him he kept his cool and his right foot down, securing his 2nd place

Hamilton - nice recovery from the bottom of the grid, it looked to me as if he missed some sparkle yesterday, he wasn't as strong as Rosberg. He was very lucky given the circumstances, and you need luck to become WDC

Hulkenberg - he drove well, I wonder if he could have been a little bit quicker considering how fast Perez fast catching up during the second half of the race. It must also be said that he had no chance against Hamilton so maybe he just cruised to the end happy with 4th

Perez - nice drive through traffic

Vettel - I think that all in all he drove quite well, I don't see how he could be to blame for what happened at the first conrer other than some are not very keen on him, but after that his race was very strong, despite the fact that his car was very very lively, especially at the rear end. The difference between him and his team mate yesterday was that Vettel managed to dispatch slower cars quite easily with his usual "take no prisoners" approach, whereas Kimi, despite what looked like a better sorted car, struggled

Alonso - my driver of the day, his car was 20 kphs slower than the others on the Kemmel and he managed to make up so many places, IMHO yesterday was further proof that had he got a decent car under him for the last couple of years the show might have been much better. Having said that I think that he should have been punished for unsafe release

Bottas - such a sad race from him, and made to look like a fool when his engineer told him to go and catch Alonso who was a "sitting duck" only for Bottas to fail miserably at this task  

Raikkonen - he drove well, no doubt about that, and showed a fiery spirit, a welcome sight after some less than inspired performances from him in the last few years, the point is that he's a very fair driver and if you behave fairly with someone like Max you're not going to have a chance of passing him. Max by now knows that he can get away with such behaviour with Kimi and, race in race out, he misbehaves towards him. IMHO Kimi has only one option left: kick Max hard, if there's a crash so be it, Max is not going to learn otherwise

Red Bull - what a farce, they had much more rear wing than anyone else, they were taking Eau Rouge like on railways (the contrast with Vettel's Ferrari was stark, for example) yet despite all this aerodinamical drag they managed to be very very fast on the straight... yeah right, can we see the fuel consumption data now? 

[Ruslan 0]

9 hours ago, Publius Cornelius Scipio said:

I know it's in Italian but by now all of you guys are certainly perfectly fluent in Italian, there's just a little extract that I want to translate for you 

Well, listening to a lot of Fabrizio de Andre lately, but still don't get most of what he says.

[Publius Cornelius Scipio 0]

35 minutes ago, Ruslan said:

Well, listening to a lot of Fabrizio de Andre lately, but still don't get most of what he says.

really? that's great! I didn't know that he was know in the US, I think that he's great, but the lyrics are the best bit

[Publius Cornelius Scipio 0]

http://autosprint.corrieredellosport.it/news/formula1/2016/08/29-430883/f1_spa_lauda_verstappen_da_visita_psichiatrica_/

it looks as if Niki Lauda isn't impressed with Max's antics and he thinks that Max should see a psychiatrist 

[Ruslan 0]

1 hour ago, Publius Cornelius Scipio said:

really? that's great! I didn't know that he was know in the US, I think that he's great, but the lyrics are the best bit

He is not. I don't anyone else in the states who knows him. I have a German friend who gave me a tape of his Indian album many years ago. I have pulled up a number of other albums since then.

[Ruslan 0]

1 hour ago, Publius Cornelius Scipio said:

it looks as if Niki Lauda isn't impressed with Max's antics and he thinks that Max should see a psychiatrist 

That is a little over the top....funny though.

Are they going to film and broadcast the next driver's meeting? I think it would be great show business.

[Publius Cornelius Scipio 0]

1 hour ago, Ruslan said:

Are they going to film and broadcast the next driver's meeting? I think it would be great show business.

it would be very interesting to see what happens at the drivers' briefing in Monza, I'm suprised that senior Mercedes staff have been so vocal about Verstappen

http://it.motorsport.com/f1/news/wolff-verstappen-e-un-grande-talento-ma-ora-e-pericoloso-811099/

[Publius Cornelius Scipio 0]

1 hour ago, Ruslan said:

He is not. I don't anyone else in the states who knows him. I have a German friend who gave me a tape of his Indian album many years ago. I have pulled up a number of other albums since then.

my favourite album is "Storia di un impiegato" and my favourite songs are "il bombarolo", "un giudice" and "ballata degli impiccati"!