800th Anniversary Mongol GP - Round 5 of 2020

[John]

Bottom post of the previous page:

I honestly believe that Racing Point would be better served by a Perez/Hulk lineup in 2021 than a Perez/Vettel or Stroll/Vettel.

[DoubleFart]

I honestly believe that Racing Point would be better served by a Perez/Hulk lineup in 2021 than a Perez/Vettel or Stroll/Vettel.

Absolutely agreed on this one. It's a pity that family will come before business and the sport.

[Everso Biggyballies]

I honestly believe that Racing Point would be better served by a Perez/Hulk lineup in 2021 than a Perez/Vettel or Stroll/Vettel.

Yes, but Stroll Senior then has to deal with a pouting spoilt brat foot stomping billionaires son who the team was bought for to give him a drive.... and as for the talk that Stroll did not buy the team for his son, but as a business investment my question is that on top of the near hundred mill the team cost to buy, it has actually lost a further $120 million plus in just trading losses in less than a year.

Admittedly some of those losses were to cover Force India debts and wages but they are a long long way from even getting close to breaking even, let alone return any meaningful profit.

And the talk of it being a business consortium is just a polite way of disguising the fact Stroll bought the team for Lance to get a drive.... the rest of the consortium own a very minor share of the business (Stroll himself owns 75% of the shares IIRC.)

As I have said before Stroll junior aint going anywhere. Regardless of what might be the strongest option for the team.

[Everso Biggyballies]

Lol, just seen that Lewis took off from the podium with the 1st place trophy (by mistake?) Not used to not winning

[MonteCristo]

and as for the talk that Stroll did not buy the team for his son, but as a business investment

Yeah... If it were, your first act wouldn't be to put your inexperienced son in the car!

[Everso Biggyballies]

Sort of interesting little graphic re racewinners through the years

[Ruslan]

Interesting race, not a great one.

1. Verstappen - drove a great race and the team had good strategy. The critical element was when he was ordered to back off and conserve tires and he openly defied the pit instructions and pushed the Mercedes. Turns out he was right. The kid was impressive yesterday, but...not sure he could have won it if Mercedes did not have blistering tire problems.

2-3. Hamilton/Bottas - Tires blistered. Not sure why it was such a problem for them, but it opened the door for a Red Bull win. Not sure of the finishing order was due to luck or if the team favored Hamilton on pit stop strategy.

4. Leclerc - again, got everything he could out of that car. While I was impressed with him last season, I was not sold that he was really the next great driver. He is beginning to convince me, with consistently good race results in a poor car. I also watched him the virtual racing season.

5. Albon - looked good during the race after sucking in qualifying. Did a number of impressive outside passes. He is very "racy." The driver is better than his results. Red Bull seems to bring out the worst in their #2 drivers.

6. Stroll - not bad.

7. Hulkenberg - shame he had to pit towards the end of the race. I gather that was a legitimate need. Still point was made, Hulkenberg (and Perez) are real F1 drivers. Stroll, in his 4th year, really is not.

8. Ocon - Has had a poor and inconsistent start to the season. Still, good race. I was expecting him to regularly challenge Ricciardo. So far, he has not done that.

9. Norris - good as always. Beat his Ferrari-bound teammate.

10. Kvyat - on a good day, this is a good driver.

11. Gasly - Spent most of the weekend ahead of Ablon. Not sure what happened during the race to drop him back to 11th.

12. Vettel - "you know that you messed up."


Not a whole lot more to say about this race. Red Bull can win a race when Mercedes has a bad day. It does look like Ferrari, even with its problems, is solidifying its status as the third best team. Racing Point appears to be the 4th best team, unless it is crippled by protests.

Actually looking forward to Barcelona. This is a track they know well because of testing. Will be interesting to see how everyone matches up.

[jimclark]

I was hoping Seb was just needing a change.......I'm not so sure about that anymore.

Methinks it may be his time to "hang up the helmet" before he hurts himself (or/and someone else, of course).

[erwin greven]

Vettel needs a team that delivers him a car he can handle. Not this piece of shit he has now. He hates loose cars, give him a car that has a stable rear. Every spin he had in the last couple of years are in slow corners when the car has to rely on mechanical grip at the rear. The only spin i can remember in a medium speed corner was at Monza last year.

[jimclark]

Grrip always comes down to mechanical (always the friction 'twixt rubber and tarmac).....and one knows where that is. That's why there's practice.

I'm afraid Seb's had enuff......the focus just ain't there. And I don't believe, anymore, it's just being fed up with Ferrari. It happens to everyone, sooner or later.....


'Scene from "Grand Prix"; Yves Montand and James Garner, "truer" than most of the movie:

Jean-Pierre Sarti: Pete, do you ever get tired, of the driving?

Pete Aron: No.

Jean-Pierre Sarti: Lately, I sometimes get very tired, you know? Very tired........

[PTRACER]

Vettel needs a team that delivers him a car he can handle. Not this piece of shit he has now. He hates loose cars, give him a car that has a stable rear. Every spin he had in the last couple of years are in slow corners when the car has to rely on mechanical grip at the rear. The only spin i can remember in a medium speed corner was at Monza last year.

A bad driver always blames his car, especially considering his team mate has had 2 podiums and a 4th place this year, compared to Vettel's 6th and two 10th places.

[MonteCristo]

Vettel needs a team that delivers him a car he can handle. Not this piece of shit he has now. He hates loose cars, give him a car that has a stable rear. Every spin he had in the last couple of years are in slow corners when the car has to rely on mechanical grip at the rear. The only spin i can remember in a medium speed corner was at Monza last year.

A bad driver always blames his car, especially considering his team mate has had 2 podiums and a 4th place this year, compared to Vettel's 6th and two 10th places.

A top driver can work around problems with a car (but only to a certain extent, naturally).

Clearly CLAP is getting more out of it - whether that's because it suits him more, or he can work around it more, or both.

Either way, Vettel is underperforming. If he's a great driver and the car didn't suit him, he'd still be closer to CLAP regardless of how good CLAP is or how much it suits him.

And if CLAP didn't have his car problems last year, we would have totally wiped the floor of Vettel in 2019 as well. As it was, he still beat him in only his second year in F1. Sounds similar to what happened in 2014 with Ricciardo, eh?

[erwin greven]

A bad driver always blames his car, especially considering his team mate has had 2 podiums and a 4th place this year, compared to Vettel's 6th and two 10th places.

A driver who feels that a team is not giving him a car he can work with, gets demotivated. And yes, this Leclerc is extraordinary good. In particular when he gets a car he can work with.

[PTRACER]

A bad driver always blames his car, especially considering his team mate has had 2 podiums and a 4th place this year, compared to Vettel's 6th and two 10th places.

A driver who feels that a team is not giving him a car he can work with, gets demotivated. And yes, this Leclerc is extraordinary good. In particular when he gets a car he can work with.

Perhaps, but he has been under-performing and making mistakes for about 3 or 4 seasons now. He doesn't seem hungry enough and he is not really concentrating much on his driving, you can tell that by the way he has silly spins or crashes, e.g. like with Verstappen at Silverstone last year.

[Everso Biggyballies]

....you can tell that by the way he has silly spins or crashes, e.g. like with Verstappen at Silverstone last year.

or with Leclerc at Brazil, where he was on a different strategy to Leclerc who was on fresher tyres, was caught and passed by Leclerc and then immediately tried to DRS back past Leclerc, ending up with both out of the race

[jimclark]

"None so blind than as those that will not see....."

(Even I've come around on this one....and it's not like me to change horses.....)