All-purpose open-wheel (F1, IRL) racing thread

So if they combine fuel in one tank, it's 100 percent ethanol?

 

What looked temporarily like it was going to be a boring 1-2 Mercedes finish turned into a pretty fun race during the final 20 laps today. Hamilton blew a podium by wiping out Albon. I haven't seen any Albon interviews, but he's got to be pissed about missing out on his first podium after making a move that should have put him on it (or least given him a damn good shot at it).

A lot of trouble with reliability today with nine DNFs (and the two MB cars trying to play it safe over gearbox worries). Were the curbs higher at RedBull Ring than usual? It seemed they were the cause of many of the issues.

I thought LeClerc had a hell of a race and Norris did well to make that podium after kind of a sluggish start.

 

I think two lost wheels. Both appeared to be snapped spindles. One of them snapped when rounding a corner (I think it was Kimi?), so it wasn't the rumble strips and was not the curbing that they apparently slam-dance against off Turn 1.

Others seemed to be tires separating from wheels. Was Pirelli's new proposal that was turned down supposed to be an improvement on this, or would the new tire/tyre design have been worse?

One was a brake failure ... usually one of the simplest mechanisms on these machines. This is the Red Bull Ring, not Martinsville in a stock sled weighing more than twice as much over 500 laps.

Not sure what Lewis Hamilton was thinking ... that wasn't a difficult call.

Keep in mind that since it was the first race of the season, that gives some of the reliability issues a pass. Also note that we didn't get any radio feeds from Max Verstappen, who has a better handle on profanity in English than most of this board.

A McLaren finishing that high? Is their slump ending?

 

Hamilton has tried to do that twice to the same guy, and got hit with the 5-second penalty both times.

 

As you noted, a few of those DNFs obviously weren't track related, but a bunch appeared to be a result of the curbs vibrating various sensors loose, according to the broadcast. I'm just curious if that's common at Red Bull Ring or if anything has changed this year?

Hamilton really blew it on that one. He's arguably my favorite driver, but that was obvious and stupid. My guess is that, after the stewards changed their approach to contact during the Canadian Grand Prix last year, he was banking on them letting it go. But, even with the relaxed approach to contact rules, I don't think that was ever going to get by without a penalty.

As for McLaren, wow, hard to tell. Ferrari looked a bit out of sorts and, obviously, it was a disastrous day for Red Bull. But regardless of Ferrari or Red Bull's struggles, McLaren looked markedly better than the rest of the field. Vettel, after a poor finish to 2019, was bad today. If he can't get right, it could drag Ferrari down. I think Red Bull will be OK. I don't think anyone can touch Mercedes.

 

That turned into a far more interesting race than I was expecting.

Regarding Kimi's lost wheel: that was simply the team failing to fully secure it during his pitstop. The wheel nut fell off as soon as the car went up to racing speed and the wheel flew on the first full-speed corner. The team got a fine for that.

The curb issue is kind of a recurring thing in Austria. Every year they push too wide and every year someone breaks their car on the yellow curbing.

I could go either way on the Lewis ruling. Technically Albon had the corner because he was ahead of Lewis when they collided, but Lewis had the lead on entry and probably didn't expect that run from Albon. Ultimately the penalty was fair but I would have been OK with them writing it off as a racing incident.

I realize LeClerc got second but Ferrari has to be really worried. That car looks like it's pretty damn slow. Red Bull, McLaren and maybe even Racing Point look better right now.

 

I think Vettel is done. Put him under any pressure and he just folds up and makes a terrible mistake. I suspect he's done after this season. If I were another team I'd want no part of him.

 

Will he be bad enough to drag Ferrari down to fourth in the Constructor Standings? It seems very possible. We don't know how many races and points will even be available for this season at this point. Could McLaren take advantage of Red Bull's terrible day and Ferrari's so-so day?

 

No kidding. Far too many errors the last 2-3 years from Vettel.

 

Maybe, yeah. Ordinarily I would think Ferrari could pour enough resources into improving the car that they could pull themselves up above the others by the end of the season, but this is a strange year. They're going to be racing damn near every weekend so development will be tricky.

I suspect they'll pull out all the stops early to improve it, though. They have back-to-back races at Monza and then the rumor is the following race will be at Mugello in Italy. That would be Ferrari's 1000th race in F1 and they own the track at Mugello. They do not want to get their ass kicked at Mugello at a landmark race.

I think third is probably best case scenario but I'd love to see McLaren and Racing Point sneak ahead of them.

 

Fernando Alonso returns to F1 next season to take Danny Ric's spot at Renault. If nothing else we will get a glorious year of him bitching multiple times a weekend about what a piece of shit his car is.

 

Meanwhile, in Iowa …