RaceFans Live: Formula 1

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1,291 comments on “RaceFans Live: Formula 1”

    1. Me too but Fred’s strongest suit was never qualifying. Let’s wait for tomorrow. A bit of rain might do the miracle, Fred is much better than the Fezzas in the wet. With the RBRs so far behind and a good bit of rain and changing conditions, Fred might just win this one, I am crossing my fingers.

      1. Guess they might take the extra time to think about how they can improve front end bit, if it is solid enough they could even think to start from pitlane, given they are so slow now that even a SC in all the best circumstances (think 2008 but presumably with luck and w/o cheating because they aren’t stupip) probably wouldn’t hand Verstappen a win.

    1. Those images from Verstappen’s car were pretty crazy there, who was it (before Verstappen had to move to the right to make space for flying Lawson?) that threaded in between the cars from the left to the outside of the final corner to get a good run to the end of the lap?

  1. Albon should have closed the door in same dirty style that Lewis did to Max in 2021. Utter disgust that Lewis once again gets away with hitting people, gain places and points doing so. Absolutely ridiculously

    1. (seriously, Verstappen has faith in his car, and has often played a patient game to stay safe at the start. If a gap doesn’t present itself, he may well wait a little. If he sees one, I suspect he’ll bite)

  2. So much easier for the race organisers when they can just drive a flat-bed truck to the car, load it up, and drive along the racetrack to the pits!

    I wonder how long it would have taken to clear mid-race under a yellow?

    1. He’s pulled up on the grass and says “engine failure” over team radio. Getting out of the car. Presume he gets DNF’d… there isn’t really time to recover and fix. Grid will do another formation lap

  3. Assuming Race Control had the all clear from the T1 repairs, and I don’t know if they did, but assuming that wasn’t the hold up I don’t see why we didn’t have a restart time 10 minutes ago…

    1. I also don’t really see a reason for a rolling start? We’ve done standing starts in the rain, especially on inters, for a long time now and the rules say you should have a standing restart, unless conditions don’t allow for it. I don’t see why the conditions require a rolling start…

  4. I’m gonna maybe play devil’s advocate here and say the red flag was definitely the right decision. We’ve got a car in the barriers at a point where at least 4 cars have already gone off, while cars are on tyres that are not suitable for the conditions (I am of the opinion that this should normally be the teams’ issue to sort out, however safety must take priority). Zhou’s car is in an inherently dangerous position, and there was a high likelihood other cars could have ended up in them. Any other incident from there wouldn’t be an accident, it would be negligence.

    I don’t like the fact that it’s a red flag, and I’m worried that this could once again get messy, but I think the RF is justified.

    1. Several people have already said it’s justified with today’s cars and tires. The frustration is that we have cars and tires where it’s necessary: how has that happened, and what’s being done to change it?

      1. I think the main issue today has been that the conditions were changing so quickly from lap to lap or even sector to sector, and thr forecasts have been very variable, that judging the conditions to fit the right tires was probably extremely difficult.

  5. Restart order seems fair – basically the order before people pitted to Wets. Better this than red flagging a lap later and having half the drivers penalised for having pitted.

    But they’ve got to figure out a way for 20 of the world’s best drivers to drive in the wet. We design car specs with overtaking in mind; we need to design car specs that can race safely in rain.

    1. Nah, this one needed a red. Cars aquaplaning at the same point is about as dangerous as it gets. Even Lewis taking it easy couldn’t manage. This was getting into Bianchi territory. I don’t really want to see cars ploughing into Zhou for the sake of entertainment.

        1. I agree that they should be punished, however I don’t think some of them, especially Perez, would have been able to understand that they needed wet tyres before they got to turn 1. The weather was changing so quickly that I think people may not have been able able keep up.

          And as Tommy C mentions, several cars aquaplaning at the same point as we saw happening, is about as dangerous as it gets. It was a key factor in Bianchi’s death. I agree with punishing teams for not being on the right tires, but I don’t think we should be putting drivers and marshalls at risk to do so.

  6. Bold of Verstappen and Alonso to turn down the wets. Most drivers would surely have lost time there.

    Russell’s driven brilliant today but was screwed over by the early strategy call. Interesting to see what he can do here from 9th with a fair run at last

  7. Norris 0.8 ahead of Piastri (so must have been quick), and Verstappen still 0.5 quicker than that. Probably a bit of the track coming to his car as it dried… but what a brilliant lap. Damnit: I wanted an upset

      1. To be fair to Perez, that’s less about a skill gap, and more about Verstappen refusing to play it safe or manage his tyres. One driver pushing flat-out, while the other played the percentages (as Leclerc and Alonso were doing behind him – not sure about Hamilton).

    1. Mexican president’s son was right though, Red Bull always manage to have 1 driver so far ahead, remember back in the day with Vettel compared to Webber, “He’ll get protection as per usual”. I don’t believe those cars are equal. They proved it back in 2010 when they took Mark’s wing away and gave it to Seb. They’re probably better keeping it quiet these days.

  8. Presumably Russell/Stroll/Gasly will jump as soon as it might be viable? That must have been the point of running their starting sets so long. Questions being ‘when’ and ‘can they make it work’…

    1. It isn’t even necessary. Verstappen on Perez – he lifted into La Source to line himself up perfectly for Eau Rouge; slipstreamed; was coming up anyway – without DRS, that might have been a really skilfull pass. With it, the skill was unnecessary.

  9. With everyone on fresh mediums (except Stroll/Russell/Gasly) and rain expected in 10 minutes, we could see people really let rip on these tyres here — should give us a good idea of everyone’s true pace. Interesting that Verstappen didn’t have any more to give once Perez went in

  10. Don’t know if it’s just me, but this year I find the decision making on the FOM feed to be atrocious. Just the latest example: rather than show Verstappen chasing down Hamilton, they give us like 2 or 3 full laps of Sainz being passed repeatedly when we already know he’s a sitting duck – then they switch to Verstappen passing Hamilton at the very last second. Aaaaaargh. But it’s been a slew of things like that all season I find. They’re addicted to showing supposed ‘battles’ down the field. It’s all the for the sake of adhd Americans.

  11. It’s frustrating as a fan when there is nothing a driver can do to defend. A lot of the overtakes are done with drs before they move even got to a corner. Absolutely nothing you can do to defend against it

    1. I get why DRS was originally reduced, but overtaking is a lot easier this year and last… even if they won’t get rid of it, they should be drastically reducing the zones. Half each one and the quality of passes would improve overnight.

  12. Not only did that 1st-corner collision eliminate Piastri and ruin Sainz’s race – having to overtake Sainz is spreading out the rest of the field and reducing the chance for racing. 8-second gap to Alonso, then 4-second to Tsunoda, then 3-second to Albon is a direct result of that holdup

    1. A lot depends on how Max approaches the start / whether he sees a clear opportunity. The start is the most dangerous moment for him, and he has a fast enough car to be patient, so it’s possible he’ll bide his time: he’s done that a couple of times this year. But if the door is wide open like last week, of course he’ll take i

  13. I think Red Bull probably made the right call to let Perez have the first stop (and get up from 8th to 4th) at the cost of Verstappen (who fell from 1st to 2nd). More points overall – plus every chance Verstappen can take it back

  14. Commentators saying you have to switch tyre, and I agree – but I wonder whether for teams like Red Bull and Mercedes who’d need to double-stack, it would still be better to do 1 extra lap on wets; let everyone else trip over each other; then switch. Basically pull an overcut, made more powerful by everyone else needing to leave gaps for spray

  15. The delay is down to concerns about visibility rather than actual track conditions.

    Especially after the fatal accident in the F4 race a few weeks ago there has been an agreement between Drivers, Teams, Liberty, The circuit & the FIA to not take any risks if there is any concern about visibility this weekend.

    They also took feedback after FP1 yesterday & asked drivers to try following another car at different parts of the track at different speeds & on different lines to get some data. After this they decided to be even more cautious than they were already planning to be because drivers said they were blind in the spray even when 3-4 seconds behind another car & even at slower speeds through the middle sector.

    Spray has clearly always been an issue & likely always will be but there is now a feeling that the ground effect era cars have made that issue worse as they throw up more spray from under the cars the diffuser. There is also a feeling that while modern tires are better at dealing with water on the track due to dispersing more water than used to be the case that they are also making spray worse due to throwing up more water.

    The test the FIA did after Silverstone with the spray guards wasn’t as effective as hoped so it’s not something they can introduce as soon as had been hoped as more work & testing needs to be done.

      1. That’s clearly the context, which is why I mentioned safety in my own comment, but for people watching the coverage + for commentators there in person, this was an overreaction.

        “Don’t make us race when we can’t see cars in front” is fair, but no-one said “please wait until we can barely see any spray at all”.

    1. Mystifying. I get that racing in active rain and spray can be dangerous – but once that rain’s stopped, and the only problem is a damp track, they should be straight out.

      Maybe the race personnel overslept and someone’s covering for them

  16. I’ve seen this before. They just keep delaying it until it gets worse. Why do I even bother with this still? Has anyone seen how efficient they are in the NASCAR cup series?

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  17. As so often this year… if Verstappen weren’t here, this would be an all-time classic. Intrigue about Perez getting Norris for 1st; now Hamilton closing on Perez for 2nd; while Russell overtakes Sainz for 6th then hunts Leclerc for 5th, all while Leclerc closes on Piastri for 4th.

    1. Piastri’s already 5 seconds behind Perez. I wonder whether he picked up dirt on his tyres / whether Hamilton will catch him as well? Perez isn’t going particularly quickly… Russell still has fastest lap

  18. Norris / Piastri / Perez / Leclerc / Sainz / Alonso will be hoping to go to the end on these tyres… any changes will need to come on the track. Verstappen / Hamilton (soon) / Russell still to stop

  19. Hamilton inching closer to Russell. Not clear whether there’s a raw pace difference, or if Russell’s managing those (older) tires more – but it looks like they’ll clash before the next round of stops

    1. No one has been able to touch Verstappen this season, why do you think McLaren should? Hamilton couldn’t even pass a McLaren on hard compound, he wasn’t going to cause Verstappen any issues either.

  20. Probably another pole for Max, but if rain affects qualifying, Checo might struggle again.
    Depending on track conditions, either the weekends fastest lap time or several seconds slower, difficult to envision this time.

  21. Both his driving and his behavior is pretty bad of Lewis in Austria.
    He is beaten by slower cars and can’t even keep it on the track, within 15 laps he already had his track limit penalty.

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  22. Nah, the first podium will be a sprint podium for Hulkenberg?
    How this would go down in history if it would be his only one? The first non-podiumist podiumist? Anyway, good luck to him!

  23. Ah, so close, would have been nice to see a Ferrari/Leclerc take pole from Verstappen. But, at least it seems the team is competitive on this track. Similar to McLaren/Norris (he’s been doing well here often!), which can’t be said for Mercedes I don’t think (how is it this keeps being a weak track for them for the last 10 or so years?).