F1 2015

[baldgye]

Just because you can't race anymore dosnt mean you're life isn't worth living.

[Lord of Narwhals]

Just because you can't race anymore dosnt mean you're life isn't worth living.

"We had talked about it. He told us that if he were to have an accident similar to Michael Schumacher's, if he were even just not to be able to drive anymore, it would be very hard for him to accept it. Because it was his life."
- Jules' father in an interview earlier this year.

[baldgye]

Amazing use of a quote.

[katushkin]

Well, Kimi's season goes from bad to worse, and his front wing just dropped off in FP1 and he drove over it, red flagging the session.

And Perez rolled at low speed 

[baldgye]

Yeah sorry boys I would be doing a proper weekend post but I'm on holiday on 3G ATM so posting images etc is pretty difficult, just super glad Rai1 has full live coverage for the race

[katushkin]

Looks like he had a rear right total suspension failure while going over the red and white kerbs.

http://www.gfycat.com/NewMeagerBighornsheep

Regular footage: http://www.gfycat.com/DecimalZanyBasenji

[baldgye]

The times are pretty impressive and looks like Lewis is bossing it

[katushkin]

The times are pretty impressive and looks like Lewis is bossing it

He's basically one upping Nico on every lap, which is good.

[katushkin]

Alonso broke down in Q2 causing another red flag, ended up getting out and trying to push himself rounf the track before the marshals came, people screaming past him

http://www.gfycat.com/ScrawnyRealisticGoldenretriever

Pretty standard front 3, but Daniel Riccardo qualified 4th and Kimi 5th which is nice

[baldgye]

Lewis bosses the whole weekend thus far; fastest in every sector in every session, and half a second on his team mate. Boss.

[bazh]

DAMMIT


I feel bad for Kimi, and Rosberg


**** Hamilton

[baldgye]

Why do you feel bad for Kimi and Nico? Both were slow, massively compared to there team mates, and Nico 'did a Lewis' and drove into Ric...
It was a great race, it's a shame Lewis has some sort of stroke before the race as he had two very good chances of winning the race that he totally ****ed up. It was though a great race for Alonso with p5, which almost seemed like a possible podium with the amount of madness going on after the restart!

[Lord of Narwhals]

That was a great race!
Points for McHonda and Ericsson 
It's a shame that Kimi's car screwed up  He was doing so well

[bazh]

Why do you feel bad for Kimi and Nico? Both were slow, massively compared to there team mates, and Nico 'did a Lewis' and drove into Ric...
It was a great race, it's a shame Lewis has some sort of stroke before the race as he had two very good chances of winning the race that he totally ****ed up. It was though a great race for Alonso with p5, which almost seemed like a possible podium with the amount of madness going on after the restart!

Kimi deserved the race, he just got bad luck, again

Nico, well he got on the mid tires all the time, I don't know why but I felt he must've gotten better if they go with soft after the 2nd pit, and it was bad because he lost the chance to chasing after HAM in the championship race. It's not everyday you see HAM **** up his race himself.


It was sad for me to watch this, but it was the best race in 2015 so far.


And don't forget about Maldonado )

[Oobly]

Wow, carbon fibre everywhere. What carnage! Lots of fiddly aero bits broken off during the race, either through impacts or just coming off on their own, including two front wing failures during the weekend with the car driving over the wing.

Quite an interesting race, although I'm disappointed for Kimi and Valtteri, both out of the points through no fault of their own. Nice for Ricciardo to get a podium. And Alonso AND Button both in the points! I do feel Hamilton was a bit "pushy" in some corner exits and did a spot of "ungentlemanly" driving, but that only stands out for me as an exception to his normal style and no more than other drivers were doing.

[baldgye]

Why do you feel bad for Kimi and Nico? Both were slow, massively compared to there team mates, and Nico 'did a Lewis' and drove into Ric...
It was a great race, it's a shame Lewis has some sort of stroke before the race as he had two very good chances of winning the race that he totally ****ed up. It was though a great race for Alonso with p5, which almost seemed like a possible podium with the amount of madness going on after the restart!

Kimi deserved the race, he just got bad luck, again

Nico, well he got on the mid tires all the time, I don't know why but I felt he must've gotten better if they go with soft after the 2nd pit, and it was bad because he lost the chance to chasing after HAM in the championship race. It's not everyday you see HAM **** up his race himself.


It was sad for me to watch this, but it was the best race in 2015 so far.


And don't forget about Maldonado )

What did Kimi deserve? Vettel pulled out a massive lead over him in the same car and managed the gap, without the sc and without kimi's problem the best he could have ever hoped for was p2... He was slow. I feel the same about Nico really, Lewis (despite his best efforts) was faster than Nico at every stage of the weekend. As far as Nico and Kimi go I feel like they had horrible races, worse so than Lewis (which is something in its self).

I'm still gutted about Lewis ****ing the restart, he would have won that race, but he got lucky with Nico and retains his lead as we venture into ANOTHER huge break...

Really starting to feel like following the WEC series with a bloody two month gap between races...

[bazh]

Why do you feel bad for Kimi and Nico? Both were slow, massively compared to there team mates, and Nico 'did a Lewis' and drove into Ric...
It was a great race, it's a shame Lewis has some sort of stroke before the race as he had two very good chances of winning the race that he totally ****ed up. It was though a great race for Alonso with p5, which almost seemed like a possible podium with the amount of madness going on after the restart!

Kimi deserved the race, he just got bad luck, again

Nico, well he got on the mid tires all the time, I don't know why but I felt he must've gotten better if they go with soft after the 2nd pit, and it was bad because he lost the chance to chasing after HAM in the championship race. It's not everyday you see HAM **** up his race himself.


It was sad for me to watch this, but it was the best race in 2015 so far.


And don't forget about Maldonado )

What did Kimi deserve? Vettel pulled out a massive lead over him in the same car and managed the gap, without the sc and without kimi's problem the best he could have ever hoped for was p2... He was slow. I feel the same about Nico really, Lewis (despite his best efforts) was faster than Nico at every stage of the weekend. As far as Nico and Kimi go I feel like they had horrible races, worse so than Lewis (which is something in its self).

I'm still gutted about Lewis ****ing the restart, he would have won that race, but he got lucky with Nico and retains his lead as we venture into ANOTHER huge break...

Really starting to feel like following the WEC series with a bloody two month gap between races...

So Kimi didn't deserve podium? Man he sure cant win because clearly Vettel was brilliant the whole time, but podium, no? He managed the gap with Nico quite well before  SC and some error happened to his car, I don't think it's Kimi's fault the car broke, I remember his engineer team keep sorry him repeatedly over the radio.

As for Nico, it was a terrible few last lap and terrible tires strategy, he clearly would lost 2nd place to Ric, Ric on soft is just simply faster than him, but 3rd is still a good place.

And now top 3 is all 21 points from eachother

[baldgye]

A mean a podium is fine, but 2nd place is only the first looser and it's not like Kimi is battling Seb for the title. Kimi was able to manage the gap because Nico was slow.
Vettel did a good job, better than most this weekend but he wasn't particularly brilliant, if anything it was more of the old Vettel most people hated (when he drove for RB).

but as for Kimi, he's a been a joke and Vettel has made him look a rank amateur. If you compare them to what people say about Nico and Lewis, soon as Nico gets a couple of worse results to Lewis everyone or a large portion of people say "he's had it" etc but he comes back, Kimi never had it, hell he's only a world champion because Ron Denis couldn't control a rookie and a Alonso and prevent them from taking on track revenge against each other.
I think and hope Kimi is done, he had some good performances at Lotus since his return but other than that he's been totally average. His team mates at Ferrari (both Alonso and Vettel) have made him look incompetent and weekend after weekend he further proves that he can't adapt to the new cars and can't help Ferrari in the constructors much.

[Oobly]

A mean a podium is fine, but 2nd place is only the first looser and it's not like Kimi is battling Seb for the title. Kimi was able to manage the gap because Nico was slow.
Vettel did a good job, better than most this weekend but he wasn't particularly brilliant, if anything it was more of the old Vettel most people hated (when he drove for RB).

but as for Kimi, he's a been a joke and Vettel has made him look a rank amateur. If you compare them to what people say about Nico and Lewis, soon as Nico gets a couple of worse results to Lewis everyone or a large portion of people say "he's had it" etc but he comes back, Kimi never had it, hell he's only a world champion because Ron Denis couldn't control a rookie and a Alonso and prevent them from taking on track revenge against each other.
I think and hope Kimi is done, he had some good performances at Lotus since his return but other than that he's been totally average. His team mates at Ferrari (both Alonso and Vettel) have made him look incompetent and weekend after weekend he further proves that he can't adapt to the new cars and can't help Ferrari in the constructors much.

Geez, whatever did Kimi do to you? That's some pretty nasty stuff to say.

Consider for instance Suzuka 2005 (starts 17th finishes 2nd), Spa 2009 (great racing, great win), Spa 2012 (awesome overtake on Schumi), Abu Dhabi 2012 ("shut up, I know what I'm doing" and wins the race in a Lotus), etc. He's a great driver who's driven almost flawlessly all season and has had a whole lot of bad luck (mechanical failures, other drivers hitting him, etc). Can you name one race he has truly driven poorly on? He certainly doesn't deserve to be insulted like that.

[baldgye]

I'm at the beach at the moment on holiday so I can't go diving around for specific examples, but like I said, this season Vettel has bossed him, last season Alonso bossed him. The only specific example of him driving horribly that I can think of from this year would be Canada where he managed to spin all by himself in the same place he did the same thing last year.

I'm not trying to personally insult him, but he's been horrible for someone racing at the apex of Motorsport and at one of the top teams. He should be a match for Vettel, instead he looks like an amateur

[baldgye]

Maybe I was a little harsh haha but I get fed up of Kimi fans and excuses for his poor performance. His year at Lotus in 2012 was a strong performance but given his team mate it's not really clear if he was sitting on some brilliant car or not.
Last year and this he's been teamed up against the top of the line drivers: Alonso, widely regarded as the best driver of this generation and Vettel, a 4x world champion who's proven himself against most of his haters. And instead of rising to the challenge (like Nico did vs Schumy and Lewis) he's fallen apart.

I mostly hope he goes because Bottas or someone of similar ability would do a much better job and would provide far more exciting races.

[Oobly]

Okay, no worries. I do get that. And I am happy that Bottas is ahead of him in points, I really think he's a future champ. I'd be even happier if Bottas got ahead of Vettel, too, but that's not likely considering the points difference

Kimi has quite a different style to Vettel, he tends to put less input in, both in steering and throttle, which is good for tyre wear and efficiency of the car, but not for keeping heat in the tires. This bit him in Austria where he just had no grip. And yes, his spin in Canada was his own fault... That's the one I forgot to watch, so it didn't come to mind.

[baldgye]

Yeah Austria is a good example actually, everyone would be struggling for grip off the start and for reasons known only to him he dropped it coming out of t3.

I was trying to think of a better way to compare the Ferrari drivers to the Merc ones and Austria is a good example. Lewis was slower than Nico all weekend bar that one lap in quali and in the race Nico's pace showed as Lewis was unable to match him. This would be considered by most people to be a bad weekend for Lewis, to finish second to his team mate, yet for Kimi to do the same is considered a good effort. It's double standards for a second rate driver.

[baldgye]

Canal+ Onboard race recap!

Not a valid vimeo URL

[baldgye]

AND WE ARE BACK FOR THE BUILD UP TO THE GREATEST RACE OF THEM ALL
THE SPA FRANCORCHAMPS GRAND PRIX

Already the news is that Kimi is to stay at Ferrari for 2016, thus ending silly season.

Also Nico's got a jet on standby for the possible birth of his child which was due on Tues, wonder if he would skip the race to be with his wife...

[katushkin]

AND WE ARE BACK FOR THE BUILD UP TO THE GREATEST RACE OF THEM ALL
THE SPA FRANCORCHAMPS GRAND PRIX

Already the news is that Kimi is to stay at Ferrari for 2016, thus ending silly season.

Also Nico's got a jet on standby for the possible birth of his child which was due on Tues, wonder if he would skip the race to be with his wife...

I don't think he would do that. Although who knows what the Ferrari, Williams and McLaren engineers have got up to over the last few weeks. I think if he gets a podium, he will stay for that then disappear. But I don't think he will skip any part of the race weekend to be with her.

I don't think I'm going to be able to watch it because my gf hates it and it's one of the only weekends I have with her this month. I may have to watch it on Monday if it's on the BBC...

[baldgye]

gf hates it

[katushkin]

gf hates it

Show Image

And she thinks my beard is bad. Wait until she sees Will Stevens's...

[baldgye]

Sucks you'll miss the race though. My gf isn't s fan but dosnt mind me taking a few hours every other Sunday or what ever it is to watch it, I think you need to have words haha

[katushkin]

Sucks you'll miss the race though. My gf isn't s fan but dosnt mind me taking a few hours every other Sunday or what ever it is to watch it, I think you need to have words haha

Yeah, I've said that to her before, that I don't watch much sport, and it's only a couple of hours like 10 Sundays a year, but I only get two weekends a month that I'm free, and she spends a lot of time during the week away, so I take her point, but it is a bit annoying having to steer clear of the news until I watch the race.

[baldgye]

Sucks you'll miss the race though. My gf isn't s fan but dosnt mind me taking a few hours every other Sunday or what ever it is to watch it, I think you need to have words haha

Yeah, I've said that to her before, that I don't watch much sport, and it's only a couple of hours like 10 Sundays a year, but I only get two weekends a month that I'm free, and she spends a lot of time during the week away, so I take her point, but it is a bit annoying having to steer clear of the news until I watch the race.

Yeah that sucks, but it sucks to have to work weekends so I guess yeah lol.. anyway Practice 1 is just about to start!

[baldgye]

Oh and Kat I'll hide spoilers for Quali and the race in this thread


Watching practice 1, holy **** I had forgotten how fast these things are! It's like watching a normal prototype in fastforward god damn

[katushkin]

Oh and Kat I'll hide spoilers for Quali and the race in this thread


Watching practice 1, holy **** I had forgotten how fast these things are! It's like watching a normal prototype in fastforward god damn

Thanks dude

I'm watching the practice session now, the new rear wing for Mercedes is pretty crazy. Also Maldonado is single handedly bankrupting the Lotus team.

I forgot how pretty a track Spa was.

[Oobly]

Sucks you'll miss the race though. My gf isn't s fan but dosnt mind me taking a few hours every other Sunday or what ever it is to watch it, I think you need to have words haha

Yeah, I've said that to her before, that I don't watch much sport, and it's only a couple of hours like 10 Sundays a year, but I only get two weekends a month that I'm free, and she spends a lot of time during the week away, so I take her point, but it is a bit annoying having to steer clear of the news until I watch the race.

I feel for you. I have a problem when I want to watch the higlights packages on the normal tv channels. They tend to put them on immediately after showing the sports news, so I have to time it perfectly or I end up seeing the results immediately before the race or I miss the start...

Spa is a great track Let's see how the cars have developed over the break.

[baldgye]

I crash

[katushkin]

I crash

Show Image

I don't even know what went on there. It looked like his rear left hit the astroturf, but that's about all I could see.

[baldgye]

I crash

Show Image

I don't even know what went on there. It looked like his rear left hit the astroturf, but that's about all I could see.

From what I could tell, he put too much throttle in and got massive wheel spin on corner entry and then didn't back out soon enough. Bearing in mind he was in 5th gear, and still got wheel spin... these cars lol

FP1 Results

[katushkin]

And this is why I watch practice. Lots of crashes!

[baldgye]

>went to get lunch at the start of FP2
>well not much will happen given that FP1 was fairly mundane, I can go now and wait for the long run times at the end
>get back
>fffuuuuu

[katushkin]

>went to get lunch at the start of FP2
>well not much will happen given that FP1 was fairly mundane, I can go now and wait for the long run times at the end
>get back
>fffuuuuu

This isn't going to be good for Pirelli if the tires give up. Did they give any indication on how long Nico had been running on those tires?

[baldgye]

FP2 Results

[baldgye]

Quali spoilers;

More

HOLY ****ING **** THE PACE OF THE MERCS GOD DAMN



Lewis barebacked Nico holy ****

[baldgye]

Race spoilers;

More

Well it was a pretty dull race with an exciting end, super happy for Roman to get a second podium, he had a great race and the team did a good job. Shame the rain didn't come and make it a bit more fun to watch, but holy **** the Merc's are in a class of there own

[Oobly]

Was very happily surprised with Bottas's 3rd place start, but not very surprised with his race result, considering the overall pace of the Williams cars throughout the weekend. I thought Kimi did well to get his points after the quali disaster, but I bet both drivers are at least a little upset with Ferrari after this weekend, with the team telling Vettel "your tyres are good to the end" and then what happened...

Holy smokes, Grosjean was on fire, though, and Kvyat was driving aggressively. Overall a good race in my book, especially at the end with a stream of cars battling for 4th to 9th positions.

Hats off to Grosjean, Kvyat and Perez for their performance. Disappointed for Hülkenberg, looked like he had good pace was destined for some points before his "non-start".

[katushkin]

Not too bad, but overall I'm not really that happy I waited to watch the race in it's entirety. The start was good as ever, funny to see Rosberg down in 5th, I honestly thought it would make for an interesting podium, but that wasn't really the case. Yeah Grosjean was good, but if Ferrari had gone for a two stop with Seb, I think he would have been an easy third.

[baldgye]

Not too bad, but overall I'm not really that happy I waited to watch the race in it's entirety. The start was good as ever, funny to see Rosberg down in 5th, I honestly thought it would make for an interesting podium, but that wasn't really the case. Yeah Grosjean was good, but if Ferrari had gone for a two stop with Seb, I think he would have been an easy third.

Apparently if they had done another stop they wouldn't have gotten a podium.
What was apparent though was that the Merc's are in a class of one at the moment. Nico dropped to 5th, struggled to come back through the field on track, but in the stops made it back up to 2nd on raw pace, madness.
Also near the end of the race both Merc's had some power issues, yet were still lapping faster than anyone else.

[engicoder]

Apparently if they had done another stop they wouldn't have gotten a podium.
What was apparent though was that the Merc's are in a class of one at the moment. Nico dropped to 5th, struggled to come back through the field on track, but in the stops made it back up to 2nd on raw pace, madness.
Also near the end of the race both Merc's had some power issues, yet were still lapping faster than anyone else.

This is F1's continual problem, The car factor outweighs the driver factor, making it a manufacturers competition and not a drivers competition. Its rooted in the concept that F1 should be at the pinnacle of motorsport technology, which leads to the arms race we have now. The percentage diffference in car performance out weighs the percentage difference in driver skill. There is no easy answer, and its a problem that isn't isolated to F1, but with F1's audience it garners a lot of attention. I still watch F1 on and off, but its to see the what happens in the middle of the field, because the winner is really not in play unless something unforseen happens. Even TV coverage acknowledges this. The only time you see the leaders is when there is a pit stop or a problem.

[baldgye]

Apparently if they had done another stop they wouldn't have gotten a podium.
What was apparent though was that the Merc's are in a class of one at the moment. Nico dropped to 5th, struggled to come back through the field on track, but in the stops made it back up to 2nd on raw pace, madness.
Also near the end of the race both Merc's had some power issues, yet were still lapping faster than anyone else.

This is F1's continual problem, The car factor outweighs the driver factor, making it a manufacturers competition and not a drivers competition. Its rooted in the concept that F1 should be at the pinnacle of motorsport technology, which leads to the arms race we have now. The percentage diffference in car performance out weighs the percentage difference in driver skill. There is no easy answer, and its a problem that isn't isolated to F1, but with F1's audience it garners a lot of attention. I still watch F1 on and off, but its to see the what happens in the middle of the field, because the winner is really not in play unless something unforseen happens. Even TV coverage acknowledges this. The only time you see the leaders is when there is a pit stop or a problem.

What you said though, is largely bollocks. The last time a team was as dominating as Merc are being at the moment was in the 1980's with McLaren.

F1 is a team sport, but to say the drivers make little difference is either you not understanding the drivers/sport or talking nonsense again. The end of the V8 era saw this year after year with Ferrari and Alonso. Alonso was able to take the ****box that was pretty much every Ferrari post 2010 and challenge for the title with it. His performances in 2011/2012 are some of the most impressive examples of a driver out-driving the car you're ever likely to find.

[katushkin]

Nico is not as good a driver as Lewis. That much is very apparent. If the skill of the driver made no impact, Lewis and Nico would be a lot closer than they are at the moment, and there wouldn't be half a second between them in the final sessions of qualifying.

Ferrari are being plagued with small issues on most weekends, like the poor choice in strategy this race, power failures and things in previous races, but Seb is obviously a much better driver than Kimi, even if they are very close in points. Seb has been getting more top 5 finishes, but Kimi has been more consistent as of late.

Without going through every team like this, it is clear if you actually look back through the results of the last few races, that while Mercedes have been on top, the rest of the spots have been pretty much up for grabs for anyone. Red Bull, Lotus, Williams, Ferrari, all getting podiums. Renault powered, Ferrari powered and Mercedes powered cars are littered across the field, and below the top two, you can't make predictions how things are going to end before the race weekend starts.

I think F1 is currently very unpredictable. There are a great many things that can change the structure we have at the moment, and a lot of things that can impact the firm footing Mercedes has at the top. But to say that the skill of the drivers has no impact on the final race standings, is largely false.

[baldgye]

Also Ferrari are bringing new Power Units to Monza, so expect them to be stronger there than they where at Spa