Norris: Points deficit to Sainz largely due to “reliability problems and strategy mistakes”

22 comments on “Norris: Points deficit to Sainz largely due to “reliability problems and strategy mistakes””

1. 

   Charles
   16th February 2020, 3:23

   He’ll get there. Norris is a first class driver compared with Sainz who is in the Fissi, Barrichello category.

   Called it last year, once he gets his confidence he’ll leave average carlos for dust!
   1. 

      Sensord4notbeingafanboi (@peartree)
      16th February 2020, 6:30

      I hope so, if only for fans to actually realise sainz jr is a pay driver, rb dumped him, rb/str sold him for honda, renault dumped him and mclaren only signed him for the money and because you dont get to choose when you are a backmarker.
      1. 

         anon
         16th February 2020, 7:37

         @peartree, you seem to like trying to provoke trouble with the assertion that Sainz Jr is a pay driver, only to then run away when people challenge you on that point – why don’t you finally put your money where your mouth is and actually try and offer some proof for that?
         1. 

            ColdFly (@)
            16th February 2020, 8:16

            @peartree has a point anon.
            Sainz jr has a personal sponsor who moves with him from team to team.
            Therefore, we can consider him a pay driver just like Senna, Schumacher, Alonso, and Verstappen.
            1. 

               Shimks (@shimks)
               16th February 2020, 9:40

               Nicely put, @coldfly.
            2. 

               bob (@riptide)
               16th February 2020, 10:35

               Not forgetting the biggest pay driver of all. Hamilton. Just the Hilfiger contract; which he was key in landing, is worth $50 million dollars to the Mercedes.
         2. 

            Sensord4notbeingafanboi (@peartree)
            17th February 2020, 7:57

            I didn’t get the notification from the very brave anon because you left a comma after the tag… genius.
            @coldfly fair point, I was being provocative and a bit over the top, like any sainz fan. It is still true that his beer sponsor estrella galicia takes more prominance on sainzs cars than most other drivers sponsors do.
            @balue I agree. It is just that sainz is way overrated, and I have no idea why.
   2. 

      Balue (@balue)
      16th February 2020, 7:39

      @peartree Yes but somehow he is still rated the 3rd best driver in the field despite being matched in qualifying by a rookie, and if true what’s said here, more even in race performance as well.

      So I don’t know if anything would change even if Norris was to straight outdo him in his second season with the type of fans Sainz’ got.
2. 

   Jere (@jerejj)
   16th February 2020, 7:46

   Regarding the AlphaTauri YT-upload: As I expected, the two far-left green shift-lights are still lit throughout every lap around a given circuit except for the races itself, to indicate that DRS will be available within the activation zones, which is redundant in my view as the lights that appear when entering a zone already tell that, so that’s enough for me. I respect differing team (sometimes driver) preferences on these, though, even if I don’t share the same preference.
   Nice helmet-designs BTW.
3. 

   bosyber (@bosyber)
   16th February 2020, 9:47

   Abiteboul,Prost – Renault future safe and clear now(Motorsport)

   I didn’t see this in the round-up above, have to say, reading the article reads somewhat like Toto Wolff explaining how it is great for the company to be in F1, but things like what Prost says:

   Alain Prost, who is a non-executive director of Renault, admitted he had ‘concern’ last year about the company’s commitment to F1, but he sees more positive signs now.

   “It is always a concern for sure, especially being a big constructor and also we cannot hide all the problems with the president who left, and the organisation changed completely,” said the four-time F1 champion.

   “We had new people. But in a way, it’s also very good to have. We have different meetings scheduled now, we have a new president of Renault coming in July, and since we really have a lot of new people, and they are all very concerned on one side and very motivated on the other side about F1.”

   He added: “Still with a big constructor like Renault, you cannot be too far [off]. Where we were last year was not acceptable, that is for sure. You cannot stay in this position, so we had to show that we can improve.”
   1. 

      anon
      16th February 2020, 11:41

      @bosyber, to be honest, I would have thought that Renault’s current financial problems would be increasing the chance of Renault leaving the sport, not less.

      Right now, both Renault and Nissan are doing extremely poorly – Renault recently announced their first quarterly loss for a decade at the end of last year, whilst Nissan also reported a quarterly loss as well. Both of them have been heavily cutting their profit forecasts for 2010, with Renault now cutting their operating profit margin forecast from just under 5% to 3-4%, whilst cutting their dividend payments by 70% in 2020.

      Clotilde Delbos is moving rapidly to cut at least €2 billion in costs from the group in 2020, whilst Nissan are planning to cut at least 10% of their global workforce and wants to cut their production output by 10% to save costs (as well as changing several positions on the board of directors).

      The Renault-Nissan alliance was already strained, and the upcoming cost cutting may put it under even more strain, whilst Renault is now reactivating their search for a new partner to merge with in the hope of cutting costs. Although they’ve previously indicated they are committed to F1, Delbos has stated that it is now being brought back under review as they seek to make those deeper budgetary cuts.

      Now, Abiteboul has highlighted that Luca de Meo is coming across from VW to join Renault, but I can’t see any indication that he’s shown much interest in getting involved with F1 in the past. With the company financially stressed and the further loss of customers in F1 (with McLaren switching to Mercedes in the longer term), I would have thought that the chances of the company pulling back from F1 would be increasing instead of decreasing.
4. 

   Mashiat (@mashiat)
   16th February 2020, 12:20

   To be fair, nobody called the Toro Rossos the Toros. So we’ll have to call them Alpha Tauris.
5. 

   Jim Sharpe (@jms90h5)
   16th February 2020, 14:12

   Is it just me, or did the slightly high position of the driver’s eye POV camera make you want to keep lowering your head throughout the entire video? IMO great idea but the execution put the thick part of the halo right in the middle of the view. Drove me nuts trying to “look around it”.
   1. 

      Jere (@jerejj)
      16th February 2020, 16:38

      @jms90h5 The way FE does it is my favorite.
   2. 

      Craig
      17th February 2020, 16:35

      I think the camera’s on top of the helmet rather then at the driver’s actual eye level like in Formula E
6. 

   RB13
   16th February 2020, 14:13

   COTD is well off the mark. The new team name has come with a completely revised livery, the critical mistake that led to Racing Point rarely being addressed as anything other than Force India. They will just be addressed as Alpha Tauri simple as that.

   It’s like saying if Max Chilton was still in F1 now people would have trouble distinguishing him from Verstappen, no.
   1. 

      Only Facts!
      16th February 2020, 14:55

      Well, I think we will survive that. As we survived through Felipe Massa / Felipe Nasr, Brundle/Blundell, Mika Hakkinen / Kimi Raikkonen (assuming you’re not Nordic…).

      Are we excused if we call them Alpha Toro?
      1. 

         RB13
         16th February 2020, 19:43

         Crofty will probably call them some combination of Alpha Torro, Torro Alphas, Rosso Torro’s and a few others anyway. 😂
   2. 

      anon
      16th February 2020, 23:23

      RB13, the thing is, that predominantly white livery that the Alpha Tauri team are using, if anything, makes the situation worse.

      Not only do you have two teams where the first part of the name sounds quite similar, if Alfa Romeo use a livery that is similar to what they used in 2019, then you have two cars with a predominantly white livery that has dark coloured secondary stripes. If you were looking at the car from a front on angle where you cannot use the difference in engine cover colour to tell the cars apart easily, and looking at a relatively fast moving car which might only be briefly flashed up on screen, I could see people being confused if they’re trying to make a snap judgement to work out which car is which.
   3. 

      Alianora La Canta (@alianora-la-canta)
      17th February 2020, 19:24

      “Alfa” has been used a fair number of times for the Alfa Romeos by the Channel 4 team this year. They can’t continue to do that – a homophonous nickname exists for Alpha Tauri – and expect people to understand. So they’re going to need to start using either “Tauri/Romeo” or the respective teams’ full names. The probability of their successfully doing so for the entire 2020 season is remote, given that they had trouble remembering to call the Racing Points something other than Force India.

      Commetary teams that handled the Alfa Romeo switchover smoother will doubtless have less difficulty, if any, with the AlphaTauri change.

      (I would argue the big problems in Force India/Racing Point’s case were a combination of the former name being used for 10 years to significant success, the team arguing it was the same team unusually loudly because of a court case suggesting this wasn’t literally true and the fact it all happened mid-season with little warning of the new name. Credit to Red Bull for at least trying to make sure none of those are a factor here).
7. 

   F1oSaurus (@)
   16th February 2020, 17:58

   Torro Rosso was usually called STR, maybe they can be called SAT now?
   1. 

      Alianora La Canta (@alianora-la-canta)
      17th February 2020, 19:24

      Is this a test?

      (SAT is a type of exam in the UK and USA, but a different test in each country).

Comments are closed.