2024 GULF AIR BAHRAIN GRAND PRIX 29 FEB - 02 MAR

[MonteCristo]

Bottom post of the previous page:

Look, i can imagine that, Max winning the race with some 20 seconds, is not very inviting when it happens every race. But i really wonder what in Formula 1, does attract you all? Domination is not unique. Everyone raves about great drivers like Fangio, Clark, Stewart, Senna, Prost, Mansell, Schumacher, Hamilton, Alonso...
When Clark was around, no one could defeat him, but his car. Fangio won some 50% of all races he competed in.
I can remember years like 1992, or 2002, 2004... that was also domination.

The lack of attrition is what nowadays makes the difference. Not the pace of the cars.

Well, you say Fangio won half.

In 2002 Chin won 64%.

In 2023 Max won 72%. And 68% in 2022.

Clark did win a huge 70% in 1963. But, I think that importantly, that was his first title. It was novel - new.

The pace of the cars is about the only thing you could say is exciting. It certainly isn't the competition. And given the lack of innovation, you can't say that the technology is exciting either.

Yes, the (lack of un)reliability is a problem. But even in 2002, Chin finished every race. And at least in 2002 the cars looked cool, and they still looked hard to drive - they used to dart around. Now they're just planted to the road.

Another problem is the sheer number of races. We're now bored out of our minds for an extra 5-6 races per season than when I started watching as a kid. A huge problem with constantly having more of the same is having ... EVEN MORE of the same.

Max already has one hand on his fourth title in a row, without any competition from his teammate. At least Clark had Hill. Hamilton had Rosberg put up a fight. Vettel had to deal with Webber from time to time.

This season will almost certainly be dire.

[SBan83]

And we are now faced with repeated periods of extended domination

Exactly. Some people always bring up the "Oh, but dominations have always happened in F1" argument, but the trend over the past 10 years has been about one team and their No. 1 driver having a near-uninterrupted run of close to 100% domination in almost every race of every season during that period.

Basically, now it's gotten to a point where every season is like Schumacher's 2002 run; first Hamilton, and now Verstappen, it's become almost a running joke to people who don't follow F1 or even those who follow other motorsport series where they are used to seeing at least 3-4 win contenders in any given race.

No matter how much of a purist one may be, everyone wants to see an actual fight for the top prize at the end of the day, not a procession leading up to a foregone conclusion.

Note I'm not faulting either driver or their teams, as they are merely doing their jobs perfectly, but something has to change in terms of the regulations.

[Aty]

On the question of a teammate, I am not on board with claims that Sergio is an inadequate competitor to Max. I don't want to anger anyone, but no one on the grid is at Max's level (IMHO). Not youngsters, not those two grandfathers. Sergio is pretty good on his day, but Max is just the very best, no one can hold a candle to him, and we have ti live with that. I've advised my friends to watch midfield, if they like racing and don't care if #44 is wining and winning and winning (or losing, and losing, and losing). Ignore him, and watch others is the solution.

Car developments are atrocious for more then a decade. I am tired of my own copious complaining about it. Problem is, old times with a T-car, development driver, etc. unfortunately will not return, and we can blame teams like Williams and alike who insisted on continuing with expensive racing, while short on money. FiA launched era of "false economics". Late Sergio Marchionne said once, with all those new rules on savings, we (at Ferrari F1) haven't saved a one €. (Understand expenses were spent for zigzagging regulations.)

Today we need to wait for 2026, but I don't hold my breath. FiA has proved to us many times already what they can do to make us miserable.

[DoubleFart]

Bahrain is not representative of the remaining races.

Red Bull will win no more than 20 races this year.

[Aty]

Internet

Whether it was a calculated move by Sainz or something he did in the heat of the moment once the visor went down, the soon-to-be-former Ferrari driver took no prisoners under the lights in Bahrain.

In previous years, Sainz accepted his pleas to be allowed past team-mate Charles Leclerc being ignored but in Sakhir, he was not waiting for permission.
Once a suggestive comment that he had more pace was ignored by race engineer Riccardo Adami, Sainz took matters into his own hands.

With Leclerc struggling for grip, Sainz made his move going into Turn 1 and it was not the kind of move we are used to seeing between two team-mates.

Ferrari gave Leclerc a helping hand by pitting him first, utilising the powerful undercut, but even that did not disturb Sainz. Soon he was back in front and also past George Russell into the podium spots.

Bravo Carlos

[Star]

Well I've just seen the race here are my thoughts about it.

Looks like we're in for a repeat in 2024, we just carried right on where we left off in 2023 didn't we? Wow, it's going to be a long season!

Max looked like he'd barely been away and it was the best possible start for him. His teammate Perez had some work to do for his 2nd place but he made it look fairly easy. Sainz battled really hard for his podium with two big passes on his own teammate who apparently wasn't happy with his car. Based on that performance, if I was Ferrari I'd be wondering if I'd signed the correct driver to continue on after this season.

Russell went very well, much better than his teammate it seemed before he had car issues. A great recovery drive by Stroll after he was nerfed off the track at the start by Hulkenberg. Bottas had the pit stop from hell, he sat there so long it was insane.

Tsunoda wasn't at all happy with the team order to let Ricciardo through, he did it grudgingly then made that bizarre lunge at him in the slow down lap. He was one unhappy Tsunoda I'd say! I'm guessing some words were had in the team garage after that little episode.

So yeah, Max is once again the man to beat and Red Bull look like they don't have a care in the world right now, apart from the whole ongoing Christian Horner fiasco which isn't about to die any time soon it would seem.

I'll have some of what Carlos Sainz was on please, he was on fire out there with a point to prove. As far as I'm concerned, he proved it too!

[erwin greven]

Well I've just seen the race here are my thoughts about it.

.....


I'll have some of what Carlos Sainz was on please, he was on fire out there with a point to prove. As far as I'm concerned, he proved it too!

[Ruslan]

And we are now faced with repeated periods of extended domination

Exactly. Some people always bring up the "Oh, but dominations have always happened in F1" argument, but the trend over the past 10 years has been about one team and their No. 1 driver having a near-uninterrupted run of close to 100% domination in almost every race of every season during that period.

Basically, now it's gotten to a point where every season is like Schumacher's 2002 run; first Hamilton, and now Verstappen, it's become almost a running joke to people who don't follow F1 or even those who follow other motorsport series where they are used to seeing at least 3-4 win contenders in any given race.

No matter how much of a purist one may be, everyone wants to see an actual fight for the top prize at the end of the day, not a procession leading up to a foregone conclusion.

Note I'm not faulting either driver or their teams, as they are merely doing their jobs perfectly, but something has to change in terms of the regulations.

Yes, from 1950 to 1999 one driver won the championship four seasons in a row but drove for three different teams. One team won the championship four times in a row but with two drivers. No driver/team combo has ever won the world championship more than two times in a row. That is over 50 years of F1.

In the last 24 years we have seen one driver win the championship with the same team five times in a row, then one driver win the championship with the same team four times in the row, then one diver win the championship with the same team 6 out of 7 seasons in a row, and now one driver win the championship with the same team at least 4 times in a row (is there any doubt about 2024?). Team Domination is the norm for 19 out of the last 24 seasons and has been the only story from 2010 on.

[PTRACER]

Agree with everything that has been said so far. Like @Ruslan said, F1 is stale. It's not the F1 I fell in love with either. I can't really understand the kind of person who enjoys the predictability of having the same driver winning over and over again seemingly without challenge.

As for my view of the race, I don't think it was all that bad, but the timing wasn't good for me with the race start at midnight. I put my phone down when I physically couldn't keep my eyes open anymore thinking I could listen to it, next thing I knew they were doing the post-race interviews.

It seems that Ferrari and Mercedes still have a few technical issues to resolve before their cars are 100%.

[Ruslan]

Agree with everything that has been said so far. Like @Ruslan said, F1 is stale. It's not the F1 I fell in love with either. I can't really understand the kind of person who enjoys the predictability of having the same driver winning over and over again seemingly without challenge.

As for my view of the race, I don't think it was all that bad, but the timing wasn't good for me with the race start at midnight. I put my phone down when I physically couldn't keep my eyes open anymore thinking I could listen to it, next thing I knew they were doing the post-race interviews.

It seems that Ferrari and Mercedes still have a few technical issues to resolve before their cars are 100%.

Yea, I hate to be one of these old farts saying everything in the past was better, but in this case, I think the statistics bear me out.

In my defense, I was objecting on various F1 forums to Bernie's and Max's policies to make formula one more exclusive. I objected to their restricting entries back in the early 2000s when Max first put those policies in place. I objected to them using only one tire manufacturer (Max also). I have not been sold on their engine formula or car formulas. We now have engine designs frozen and car development limited to aerodynamics that very few people understand. The only positive development in recent times has been the budget cap, but they need to fully sort it out, free up testing, free up car design and development, and extend the budget caps to engines. My most radical proposals are that we need to ban wings and ground effects and require the cars to be physically smaller.

[P. Cornelius Scipio]

Agree with everything that has been said so far. Like @Ruslan said, F1 is stale. It's not the F1 I fell in love with either. I can't really understand the kind of person who enjoys the predictability of having the same driver winning over and over again seemingly without challenge.

As for my view of the race, I don't think it was all that bad, but the timing wasn't good for me with the race start at midnight. I put my phone down when I physically couldn't keep my eyes open anymore thinking I could listen to it, next thing I knew they were doing the post-race interviews.

It seems that Ferrari and Mercedes still have a few technical issues to resolve before their cars are 100%.

Yea, I hate to be one of these old farts saying everything in the past was better, but in this case, I think the statistics bear me out.

In my defense, I was objecting on various F1 forums to Bernie's and Max's policies to make formula one more exclusive. I objected to their restricting entries back in the early 2000s when Max first put those policies in place. I objected to them using only one tire manufacturer (Max also). I have not been sold on their engine formula or car formulas. We now have engine designs frozen and car development limited to aerodynamics that very few people understand. The only positive development in recent times has been the budget cap, but they need to fully sort it out, free up testing, free up car design and development, and extend the budget caps to engines. My most radical proposals are that we need to ban wings and ground effects and require the cars to be physically smaller.

totally agree, I would also add that the rules should not be changed all the time, time allows backmarkers to close the gap, changing them very often, as has been the case in the last 20 years, only goes to the advantage of the team with more resources

[caneparo]

It seems that the brakes overheating on leclerc ferrari could have been caused by a sensor failure or a bad maintenance of the brake pedals. I don’t know how this could be possible technically. Charles was really in a bad mood and I am sure this issues affected his performance sensibly

[PTRACER]

Agree with everything that has been said so far. Like @Ruslan said, F1 is stale. It's not the F1 I fell in love with either. I can't really understand the kind of person who enjoys the predictability of having the same driver winning over and over again seemingly without challenge.

As for my view of the race, I don't think it was all that bad, but the timing wasn't good for me with the race start at midnight. I put my phone down when I physically couldn't keep my eyes open anymore thinking I could listen to it, next thing I knew they were doing the post-race interviews.

It seems that Ferrari and Mercedes still have a few technical issues to resolve before their cars are 100%.

My most radical proposals are that we need to ban wings and ground effects and require the cars to be physically smaller.

Ground effects were brought in to help overtaking, but it made no difference because the wings (and the cars) are still huge.

Actually did anyone hear Martin Brundle's comment during the race? He plainly said "I think these cars are too big and switching to these kinds of engines was a mistake".

[Michael Ferner]

Bahrain is not representative of the remaining races.

Red Bull will win no more than 20 races this year.

** huge relief **

[Aty]

It seems that the brakes overheating on leclerc ferrari could have been caused by a sensor failure or a bad maintenance of the brake pedals. I don’t know how this could be possible technically. Charles was really in a bad mood and I am sure this issues affected his performance sensibly

Carlos said that he was suffering from identical technical problems.

[Ruslan]

Agree with everything that has been said so far. Like @Ruslan said, F1 is stale. It's not the F1 I fell in love with either. I can't really understand the kind of person who enjoys the predictability of having the same driver winning over and over again seemingly without challenge.

As for my view of the race, I don't think it was all that bad, but the timing wasn't good for me with the race start at midnight. I put my phone down when I physically couldn't keep my eyes open anymore thinking I could listen to it, next thing I knew they were doing the post-race interviews.

It seems that Ferrari and Mercedes still have a few technical issues to resolve before their cars are 100%.

My most radical proposals are that we need to ban wings and ground effects and require the cars to be physically smaller.

Ground effects were brought in to help overtaking, but it made no difference because the wings (and the cars) are still huge.

Actually did anyone hear Martin Brundle's comment during the race? He plainly said "I think these cars are too big and switching to these kinds of engines was a mistake".

Yes, FIA brought in a new (old) problem (solution) to fix the problem caused by wings. This was a backwards way of fixing things. And we ended up with porpoise-ing cars (that should have been no surprise). Did not hear Martin Brundle's comments, but the cars are too big. That is an easy one to fix. I have always been neutral about the engine regulations. We obviously really don't want to go back to NASCAR-like old normally aspirated engines (although a lot of people have recommended this). F1 does need to move forward and electric does appear to be the future.