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Formula One

I have heard the Albon to Williams rumour as well, and I would be really happy with that outcome.

The other interesting rumour I have heard is about the engines.

Mercedes and Williams have some sort of deal with the engine and Russell driving for them, so its unlikely Williams will want to pay full price for a Mercedes engine, so could Albon driving for Williams be a similar deal for the RedBull Branded Engine next season? I can see pros and cons for this, but would be interesting development. I think that for 2022 it is probably to late to change engines for next season, so could Mercedes Veto Albon move to Williams? Would Mercedes want a Red Bull driver having access to a Mercedes engine?

If Williams did switch engines though, it then opens the option up for Alfa Romeo to switch to a Mercedes engine? The challange with this is Alfa Fomeo is considered the Ferrari junior team, so would they stick with Ferrari engines? Again, I am not sure as Ferrari I would want a Mercedes driver having access to a Ferrari Engine.

Maybe the engine changes for 2022 is too soon, but who knows what could happen in 2023.

I wonder if the Albon to Williams rumour is just some sort of bluff or noise to try and help the Williams team reduce how much they are going to pay Bottas. In my head, I cant see Bottas driving for a non-mercedes engine team, and I cant see Williams being able to afford the Mercedes engine without some sort of deal with them, although maybe the extra points, and higher championship prize money will cover it.

F3 is now underway at Zandvoort and the track is looking lots of fun, and the crowd is looking like its going to be really big.
 
IanB said:
F3 is now underway at Zandvoort and the track is looking lots of fun, and the crowd is looking like its going to be really big.
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I was having a look at some track guides last night and it does seem to be a fun and interesting track. The banking is really cool! Hopefully there will be overtaking opportunities on the track, although it is all rather tight and twisty.
 
Rob said:
I was having a look at some track guides last night and it does seem to be a fun and interesting track. The banking is really cool! Hopefully there will be overtaking opportunities on the track, although it is all rather tight and twisty.
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I’ve driven it on F1 2020, and it’s a delightful track. Due to the changes in direction in the first sector, it could be tricky for cars to follow each other in the race, but we’ll see what happens.
 
Jonathan said:
I’ve driven it on F1 2020, and it’s a delightful track. Due to the changes in direction in the first sector, it could be tricky for cars to follow each other in the race, but we’ll see what happens.
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I wish the F1 games supported cross platform play, if anyone has it on the PC, and fancies some fun races, let me know. I would not say Zandvoort is one of my top tracks, its just okay for me but tracks I like tend to depend on how good I am at them.

I would say that at Silverstone, I have found myself much better that this track after walking around it in real life, so maybe I need to get out there and walk around more tracks.
 
Id quite like to see Albon go back to Alpha Tauri as im not impressed with Tsunoda at all, but they will give him another year to see what he can do
 
Tibble said:
Id quite like to see Albon go back to Alpha Tauri as im not impressed with Tsunoda at all, but they will give him another year to see what he can do
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Tsunoda was a sweetener on the Honda deal wasn't he? Can't see them dropping him sadly, they need to keep that relationship good for a few years to come.

I'm not sure why everyone assumes that Mercedes/Red Bull will naturally be the top teams next year when the regs change dramatically. It's anyone's game, as far as I can tell.

I just hope Williams spend some money on their wind tunnel as their aero has really let them down historically.
 
Yuki is a difficult one, I quite enjoyed watching him in F2, but he does have Gasly as his team mate, who drove a solid race today.

If you put another rookie in the Alpha Tauri, would Yuki look so bad? Maybe not. I hope he does keep his seat for a second season, and he finds some pace. I do agree the only reason he has that seat is due to the Honda engine deal but he does also have a lot of talent, just needs help unlocking it at this level.


The perfect race for Max and RedBull, pushed all the way by Lewis (Who had a fantastic qualifying and race considering his Q2 issues).

Max getting past Bottas so quickly won him the race. A fairly easy pass, due to tyre difference but the most important overtake of the race.

For a car which was much quicker, and with a fresh engine, Perez may of had the most overtakes, but he can not be happy with 8th place. Max lapped every car apart from the two Mercedes so both those cars had a clear advantage on the rest of the field. I was surprised Lando got away with the contact with Perez with what we have seen in the past with penalties, but glad that was considered a racing incident, lucky it did not cause a bigger shunt.

How the Haas drivers avoided punishment in qualifying amazes me, but some of the driving by a Haas driver was just dangerous and maybe needed a look at by the stewards. There is no need to be so aggressive defending against faster cars, although Perez probably needs to take some blame for such a big lockup.

Gasly had another solid drive finishing in 4th place, and going mostly unnoticed.

I did not realise until just know that Alonso sneaked past Carlos at the end, but Charles had a solid race 30 seconds ahead of the battle for 6th.

Lando had a solid drive to 10th place, but I thought they might of switched the two cars back when Perez got past, since Ricardo let Lando through earlier.

Great to see Kubica back racing, although sorry Kimi missed out, and hope he is recovering well. I don't think the Cameras caught it, but he had a great battle with Latifi, just getting ahead on the last few laps to finish 15th.

A weekend to forget for Aston Martin, with Stroll and Vettel both finishing two laps down.

Same for Williams really as well, bad Q2 for them, and Russell was running a solid 12th until he had to retire.

Biggest surprise of the race for me was no safety car, as from the previous sessions, I thought it was a certain. First lap at the front was a bit of a anti-climax with Max making such a good start, although there was plenty of chaos in the midfield. The F3 and W Series might of had more action and passing, but there is something about F1 that just makes it special.

I thought the fans were great as well, Silverstone fans are fantastic, but such a mix of support it did not have the same feel. Even Monza, home of the Tifosi did not have the same feel. Just a shame they could not pour on to the track to cheer them on after the race.


Next weekend we are back racing again, and we have the awful sprint qualifying returning. Monza has seen interesting qualifying sessions with everyone backing up to make a space, so the grid for Sprint Qualifying might be a little mixed up, but we will see in a few days.
 
An incredibly dull race, unfortunately. If those were the highlights I'm glad I didn't have to sit through the lowlights as well.
 
Wasn't the best race, but it is really cool to watch the cars around the track, especially on the banked corners. A little more overtaking than expected perhaps, but it seemed like you needed to have a pretty big pace advantage or be on much fresher tyres.

Biggest shock was no safety car or red flag in the race!
 
In news that will surprise absolutely nobody, it's been confirmed that Bottas will move to Alfa Romeo next season on a multi-year deal. French TV channel Canal+ said a day or two back that this would happen today, and if their sources are correct, George will be confirmed at Mercedes tomorrow.
 
Alpha Tauri have announced Gasly an Tsunoda have been signed for another year - feel bad for Gasly - he's had another great season at Alpha and deserves to get that second red bull seat soon.

If not they may just lose him
 
Tsunoda will have to improve next year, as he has done very little this year. Can't help but feel for Gasly, but I suppose the worry for Red Bull is that they give him their second seat and suddenly he drops off again.
 
I think they have kept Perez for stability. I wonder if there is a second driver clause activated in the new contract with ability for RedBull to terminate if he does not follow team orders.

Gasly had a shocking first half of a season with RedBull, so it just shows you need to have patience’s with the young drivers coming through. Hopefully Yuki can settle a bit now and find some form, as he has the pace from his F2 days.

I really hope Albon gets a drive next season, he was just a little unlucky but was slowly finding his feet.

Good news for George and it will be interesting to see how he gets on at a top team. How much is Bottas going to want to help Lewis? Dispute what we saw at Zandvoort in the last few laps, I think Bottas will help where possible.

All the excitement this week, and we have Monza this weekend, which should be really interesting and see a bit more overtaking.
 
In other F1 news, Vettel's been interviewed for the BBC's LGBT Sport podcast, alongside Matt Bishop (Aston Martin's F1 comms chief). Well worth a listen, and it's given me a bit of a random idea for when I go to Silverstone again next year.
 
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Not that there was, but another example of why the introduction of the Halo device is so important, and saved a driver from a serious injury today.

As unlucky as I feel Max was, it is my view that its the overtaking cars responsibility to do it without causing contact. Therefore, when the Stewards deem Max to be more at fault for this contact I can not disagree with it. But this is what I do like about Max, and what makes him the driver he is, and why we have such a exciting battle for the title. If you take away Max's aggressiveness, he would not be the driver he is, and Lewis would be running away and easily winning his Eight title.

As I said about the Lewis incident, it could have been intentional, but with the Silverstone incident I think it was a genuine mistake from Lewis that caused the contact, and I think in this case, it was a genuine feeling that he could make the overtake work. To be clear, I don't think either driver did this on purpose.

I think both drivers knew they would not be able to get past one or the other, so Lewis knew he had to stay ahead, and Max had to get past. We learnt that in the Sprint race when Max could not get past Bottas, and Hamilton could not get past Lando. And it was only in the race when Lando's tyres had gone that Lewis finally got past.

Its a little ironic, that the FIA trying to make pit stops safer, inadvertently lead to the incident in turn one. Red Bull used to have sensors in the guns which automatically sent a signal when the wheel was on, but the FIA made the teams add buttons to the gun which are pressed to confirm its on. Sadly, the Red Bull Mechanic forgot to press the button (muscle memory of not going it I guess), which was way Max was not released. I am unsure what the issue was Lewis stop was, but that was two seconds longer than usual.

Next year when the cars can follow each other, and the there should be a potential for more overtaking, its going to be very interesting to see if the stewards are more or less busy. I also wonder if its time for those kerbs to disappear, we have the technology to police the cars cutting the track, and if they prevent or make overtaking harder, why keep them?

As much as I dislike McLaren, its hard not to like them when they have Zak and Andreas running the team, and two drivers who you cant help but enjoy watching, Denial and Lando. It was a fantastic result for them, and it was not just because of the incident that they won, they were there on Merit, and if anything, the incident made it even harder for them, although Norris deserved pass of the day for his move on Leclerc after the restart.

Bottas had a brilliant weekend, and you do wonder if he had shown this sort of performance five/six races ago, would he have lost his seat.

A great drive today from Perez, and a bad call from the RedBull pit wall cost him third place today. He made a great move on Sainz and held Bottas off well, lets hope that continues in Russia.

As for the team principals, it was the opposite of Silverstone with Toto saying that Max had taken Lewis out on purpose, while Christian was just calling it a racing incident. I am really enjoying the teams going for it, and would not have it any other way :)

Anyone who is a fan of F1 is a winner today, and this season we should make the most of it, because its great to have several different teams who can win races, and a decent title championship where two drivers from two different teams could win it.
 
On the incident I think it was a complete racing incident and it is very harsh on Max to get the penalty. He was alongside into turn two and wasn’t given a cars width but all drivers know that space is going to disappear at the apex. Ironically it was Max trying to avoid contact by taking to the curb which eventually led to the accident, if he’d taken contact earlier in the corner then it would have banged wheels and nothing else. Max was still raging about the botched pit stop and was never going to back down in the moment with Lewis but looking at his onboard he was more than enough alongside Lewis to earn the right to go for it into turn 2. I would be surprised if that sausage curb is there next season. The outcome of a car on top of the other makes the incident look worse than it actually was, and any overtake requires both drivers to act in a way to avoid contact and I think it was equally Lewis knowing if Max went for it there would be contact with his positioning of his car at turn 2, so I think very harsh to give Max a penalty for it - at the end of the day fans want to see drivers go for it and try and overtake. Penalties should only be given for reckless and dangerous driving and I don’t think this was either in the actual moment, the way the Red Bull mounted was just unlucky after effect. In many ways Lewis trying to reverse onto the track in a damaged car with Max trying to get out of the car on top of his was more dangerous. So I just think it was a racing incident, both had some blame, but the F1 race stewards love dishing out penalties for everything - the steward system worked far better before it was up to former drivers, they are meant to have more understanding but one look on Twitter shows majority think this was racing incident.
 
geo4chg said:
On the incident I think it was a complete racing incident and it is very harsh on Max to get the penalty. He was alongside into turn two and wasn’t given a cars width but all drivers know that space is going to disappear at the apex. Ironically it was Max trying to avoid contact by taking to the curb which eventually led to the accident, if he’d taken contact earlier in the corner then it would have banged wheels and nothing else. Max was still raging about the botched pit stop and was never going to back down in the moment with Lewis but looking at his onboard he was more than enough alongside Lewis to earn the right to go for it into turn 2. I would be surprised if that sausage curb is there next season. The outcome of a car on top of the other makes the incident look worse than it actually was, and any overtake requires both drivers to act in a way to avoid contact and I think it was equally Lewis knowing if Max went for it there would be contact with his positioning of his car at turn 2, so I think very harsh to give Max a penalty for it - at the end of the day fans want to see drivers go for it and try and overtake. Penalties should only be given for reckless and dangerous driving and I don’t think this was either in the actual moment, the way the Red Bull mounted was just unlucky after effect. In many ways Lewis trying to reverse onto the track in a damaged car with Max trying to get out of the car on top of his was more dangerous. So I just think it was a racing incident, both had some blame, but the F1 race stewards love dishing out penalties for everything - the steward system worked far better before it was up to former drivers, they are meant to have more understanding but one look on Twitter shows majority think this was racing incident.
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The stewards, with access to a lot more data than you or I, disagree with you on both points that he was sufficiently alongside or that Hamilton should have positioned his car any differently.

The clearest comparison is lap 1 of the same race in near exact same circumstances with the roles reversed. Hamilton shows how it should be done, Max shows how it shouldn't.

Max was driving with the red mist, drove badly, and the penalty is absolutely just.
 
pluk said:
The stewards, with access to a lot more data than you or I, disagree with you on both points that he was sufficiently alongside or that Hamilton should have positioned his car any differently.

The clearest comparison is lap 1 of the same race in near exact same circumstances with the roles reversed. Hamilton shows how it should be done, Max shows how it shouldn't.

Max was driving with the red mist, drove badly, and the penalty is absolutely just.
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The stewards' explanation is farcical though and makes no sense if you read what it says and view the footage. Down the main straight Verstappen was at full racing speed whereas Hamilton was accelerating coming out of the pits so of course Verstappen came from a long way back to make the move. Secondly, the incident happened at turn 2, Verstappen was around the outside of Hamilton throughout turn 1 and alongside thereafter until the incident. To suggest Verstappen was not alongside is ridiculous - from Hamilton's onboard you can even see Verstappen's front wing before the incident, and from off board they are clearly alongside. The stewards even say that car 44 (HAM) positioning was the cause of car 33 (VER) going onto the curb and that Hamilton could have done more to avoid a collision.

Many, including ex-F1 drivers and commentators called it a 50/50, many said more blame was at Lewis' door if anything, so at most it was a 60-40 one way or the other. At the end of the day fans want to see drivers go for it, and giving this sort of penalty discourages that. And now, it means we may not see the battle everyone wants between Hamilton and Max at the next race because of this penalty - F1 knows how to shoot itself in the foot.

And the lap 1 incident at a completely different corner with a completely different profile in a completely different scenario is not nearly the same and bears no comparison.

However, as I said in my original post, it is just my take on the incident. I rarely agree with the stewards these days I'm afraid - didn't at Silverstone and don't here.
 
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