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Formula One 2020


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8 hours ago, Huckleberry said:

Russell passed Bottas at the start, quickly pushed the lead past DRS, and extended the lead on him consistently throughout the race until the epic team screwup. He was dominating the race, there's no other way to put it.

He also cut through the field after the double pit stop way better than Bottas does in a Mercedes car but to be fair this track layout was fairly unique.

You mean after Russell had fresh medium tires (first Bottas', then his own) and Bottas got put on the same used hard tires with his brakes on fire due to the extended stop...

"You have a massive tyre advantage"

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12 hours ago, 52-80 said:

You mean after Russell had fresh medium tires (first Bottas', then his own) and Bottas got put on the same used hard tires with his brakes on fire due to the extended stop...

"You have a massive tyre advantage"

I was talking about other opportunities for Bottas this year and before. Hence "better than Bottas does" instead of "better than bottas did." Bottas has been set back in multiple races and has never passed as many cars as quickly as Russell did yesterday. 

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44 minutes ago, Huckleberry said:

I was talking about other opportunities for Bottas this year and before. Hence "better than Bottas does" instead of "better than bottas did." Bottas has been set back in multiple races and has never passed as many cars as quickly as Russell did yesterday. 

I wonder if that is depressing for the other drivers. Dude who has never scored a point jumps in lewis car and should have won, definitely podiumed and still gets points after a puncture with 8 laps left or whatever. 

Clearly lewis is great. But clearly merc has the best car by far as everyone knows. 

I also know the Williams is a steaming pile of shit. Could Riccardo or leclerc or max just jump in lewis' car and win as easily as he does?  Would Bottas be a backmarker in any other car?

I thought this race was pretty fucking fascinating. 

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15 minutes ago, pops said:

I wonder if that is depressing for the other drivers. Dude who has never scored a point jumps in lewis car and should have won, definitely podiumed and still gets points after a puncture with 8 laps left or whatever. 

Clearly lewis is great. But clearly merc has the best car by far as everyone knows. 

I also know the Williams is a steaming pile of shit. Could Riccardo or leclerc or max just jump in lewis' car and win as easily as he does?  Would Bottas be a backmarker in any other car?

I thought this race was pretty fucking fascinating. 

It's already happened multiple times in the season when either of the Mercs has some sort of issue, ends up at the back, and bulldogs its way all the way to the front.  Same for the FauxMerx of Perez.  The consistent pairing of vehicles in qualifying results show it's far more indicative of car than of driver, and Merc took every single pole this year except for 1.

The question to the second and third question is Yes, and No.  

It's a bit fuzzier to compare drivers across teams, but their performance vs teammates, and race finish vs qualifying, gives a good indication of absolute skillset.

Hamilton established since 2 years ago that he's clearly just that 1 small step ahead of everyone else.

Tier 1 is Ricciardo, Max, LeClerc.  Put any of them in a Merc, and Lewis is still better, but they'd put up a fight like Nico Rosberg did.

Tier 2 is Sainz, Norris, Perez, Ocon, and Russell.  I'd float Bottas in here.  He's proven himself vs Massa in the past, and performed well last year.  Just probably had mind issues this year.

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On 12/3/2020 at 10:40 AM, PittsburghTiger said:

Emerson Fittipaldi is as cool as a dude can get. He is the best interview I have ever done in all my racing coverage. At the end he said to me, "Chow Baby". Cool as fuck!

Very cool. I met him at the Paramount Theater world premier of 'Senna'. It was a good night, surrounded by F1 royalty.

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On 12/4/2020 at 2:02 PM, Goofyboy said:

Russel has always been fast. The question becomes can he put a whole race together. Bottas seems to be an average F1 driver in a great car.

You're too kind. He's quick in Q, but my opinion of him as a racer goes down a bit almost every race. He's just not very good.

George pushed Bottas's shit in in his first weekend in the car. Bottas sucks. George was gonna win even after the team screwed him on the tires. Then the puncture ...

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On 12/6/2020 at 3:48 PM, 52-80 said:

Russell got a draft from Bottas during qualifying. It wasn’t reciprocated. 

Russell’s late pass on Bottas was with Mediums, and Bottas had Used Hards (sue to pit fuckup). 
 

Both Russell and Bottas would have been 1-2 (either order) if the team didn’t fuck up.

 

So all we know - which we already knew - is that (1) merc is the fastest car and (2) Hamilton is the belle of the ball and (3) he’s got the personality of a doorknob

Russell would have stayed ahead of Bottas had the team not fucked up. He shouldn't have had to pass Bottas back in the first place, regardless of the condition of Bottas's tires. And Bottas defending against him just cost Russell time and some of his tire wear. No matter, he blew by him eventually and then was catching Perez & likely would have passed him too if not for the puncture. Bottas fucked up the start of that like he almost always does - not just for himself, but for the team and for most of the people behind him. Dude is a rolling chicane during the race. Unreal.

Sorry not sorry for the string of posts. Been busy and got way behind for the first Bahrain race, then just caught up on the second one last night ... and I've been having so much fun in the Urban or Bust thread. Cannot look away.

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On 12/6/2020 at 4:03 PM, McCroskey said:

http://

Buxton is a joke, but I (and pretty much everyone else) agree with this at least.

On 12/6/2020 at 5:31 PM, texas08 said:

Yep. And in formula 1 they fuck around less with making decisions quick? Not like UT athletics (see urban)

RBR should have confirmed Perez as soon as it came out that RP was stupidly letting him go. That was a long time before this latest TH saga started. RBR has been slow AF.

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On 12/7/2020 at 2:39 AM, 52-80 said:

You mean after Russell had fresh medium tires (first Bottas', then his own) and Bottas got put on the same used hard tires with his brakes on fire due to the extended stop...

"You have a massive tyre advantage"

Like Huck said, that's Bottas's typical performance. Bottas is shit making up ground after his typically shitty starts. 

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17 hours ago, mcbrisket said:

Let's just set up a draft lottery on Friday morning that determines the Mercedes driver line up for that weekend? They'd still win the WCC.

Indeed. The car is and has been dominant.

Quote

Hamilton established since 2 years ago that he's clearly just that 1 small step ahead of everyone else.

Yeah I disagree with that. The car is utterly dominant. It's very difficult to see Lewis doing anything so much better than everyone else, and that's actually a problem for him, imho. Lewis is doing a great job putting it where it should be, but all that really requires is beating Bottas, and that's something several drivers on the grid can do. Lewis's biggest improvements in the last few years have come in his consistency, but there are others who are very consistent as well. This is going to sound to some like a knock on Lewis, but it isn't: It would have been interesting to see what had happened if Schumi had stayed at Merc one more year as I've read he considered doing. That would have meant Lewis likely would have signed elsewhere at the end of his McLaren run, and someone else would have likely run off the same string of WDCs, maybe even not losing to Rosberg. Or maybe Rosberg wins them all, or some combination thereof. What is pretty certain is that Merc would have won all of those, just as they have with Lewis and Nico, and Lewis would still be a 1x WDC, frustrated in a slower car just like everyone else.

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12 hours ago, McCroskey said:

Supposedly Russell removed references to Williams on his social media profiles today and Bottas did the same by removing Merc from his.

Now they both just say F1 “drivers.”

Hmmm.

 

10 hours ago, Anton Chigurh said:

Russell removed his last month looks like, but still, hmmmm.

Checo’s brother also had a photo of Red Bull cans on his Instagram.

Good. A bit of fresh/new perspectives will help spice things up a bit. Bottas has had his chance. He's not the man, step aside.

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Valtteri's actually been the perfect man for Hamilton - he blocks the front of the grid and keeps P2 P3 busy while Hamilton cruises off in the distance.  Merc takes home a WCC and he won't risk crashes like when Hamilton had to fight with Rosberg.

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18 hours ago, pops said:

I wonder if that is depressing for the other drivers. Dude who has never scored a point jumps in lewis car and should have won, definitely podiumed and still gets points after a puncture with 8 laps left or whatever. 

Clearly lewis is great. But clearly merc has the best car by far as everyone knows. 

I also know the Williams is a steaming pile of shit. Could Riccardo or leclerc or max just jump in lewis' car and win as easily as he does?  Would Bottas be a backmarker in any other car?

I thought this race was pretty fucking fascinating. 

I think it's the opposite of depressing for the other drivers. This weekend proved what they've been trying to get people to understand for years. "It's the car, stupid."

Don't get me wrong, Hamilton is very good. But now there is absolutely nobody in the world that doesn't realize the difference in cars dwarfs the difference in drivers on the grid. Hamilton in a Williams gets eliminated in Q1 and might score points twice in a long season if he's lucky. Probably not. Russell in a Mercedes battles for the championship and probably wins it. 

But this was the nightmare scenario for Bottas. Now everyone has seen that it's not just Hamilton. There are lots of drivers better than he is. Perfect comment above that Bottas is the best teammate Hamilton could ever ask for. Decent in qualifying so the car gets him on the front row and terrible in the race so holds up everyone else while Hamilton rides off to a comfortable lead in a car whose only weakness is being in traffic. 

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On 12/4/2020 at 1:06 PM, TonyTexas said:

Russell also records the fastest lap in P2. I’m not sure what these results say about Russell, Hamilton and Bottas. I’m leaning that it is more an indictment of Bottas than anything else. 

 

50 minutes ago, Huckleberry said:

I think it's the opposite of depressing for the other drivers. This weekend proved what they've been trying to get people to understand for years. "It's the car, stupid."

Don't get me wrong, Hamilton is very good. But now there is absolutely nobody in the world that doesn't realize the difference in cars dwarfs the difference in drivers on the grid. Hamilton in a Williams gets eliminated in Q1 and might score points twice in a long season if he's lucky. Probably not. Russell in a Mercedes battles for the championship and probably wins it. 

But this was the nightmare scenario for Bottas. Now everyone has seen that it's not just Hamilton. There are lots of drivers better than he is. Perfect comment above that Bottas is the best teammate Hamilton could ever ask for. Decent in qualifying so the car gets him on the front row and terrible in the race so holds up everyone else while Hamilton rides off to a comfortable lead in a car whose only weakness is being in traffic. 

Yep

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4 hours ago, wood said:

Yeah I disagree with that. The car is utterly dominant. It's very difficult to see Lewis doing anything so much better than everyone else, and that's actually a problem for him, imho. Lewis is doing a great job putting it where it should be, but all that really requires is beating Bottas, and that's something several drivers on the grid can do. Lewis's biggest improvements in the last few years have come in his consistency, but there are others who are very consistent as well. This is going to sound to some like a knock on Lewis, but it isn't: 

It's not that Lewis is particularly "so much better" than everyone else at any one thing, it's that he's a tiny bit better than most people at everything. 

Others have clear strength in some areas (Bottas for 1-lap pace, Magnussen for starts, Ricciardo for race craft, Verstappen for overtaking and rain, etc).  Lewis has shown over the year that he excels in the rain, tire management, race craft, accident/mistake avoidance, the other intangible like commitment to the race even after an errors, and that weird ability where he always seems to find an extra 0.1s when needed at the last second of qualififying.  

If it happens a few time, you chalk it up to luck -- being in the right car, on the right team (which he has been) -- but then you see he's a consistent winner in his entire career.  He's like Bill Russell or Tom Brady.  It can't have all been a coincidence.

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24 minutes ago, 52-80 said:

 

It's not that Lewis is particularly "so much better" than everyone else at any one thing, it's that he's a tiny bit better than most people at everything. 

I'm not saying he isn't, necessarily. I'm just saying there's really no way we can actually confirm that he is. He's in a dominant car for his 7th straight year. He had competition early from Nico, who beat him once and from the sound of it nearly pushed Lewis over the edge. Then Merc brought in Bottas, who everyone knew was going to be a mere shadow of the challenge that Rosberg was, and all we can really tell is how much better Lewis has been than him.

Another way to look at it is that most people tend to believe that Lewis and Alonso are on a tier above the rest of the field in terms of the 'complete driver'. The last few years Alonso has utterly annihilated his teammates and is considered one of the best in F1 in every key area. Without a good car, though, none of that really mattered. He's not the only guy out there that would be a good example, either. There are numerous elite F1 drivers who rarely got a car to match their abilities.

Re: Being a consistent winner ... he should be. He was brought up by McLaren and was in a top 2 car there 4 years and a top 3 car the other 2 years. His first year at Merc the car was top 2. He's been in a championship-capable car arguably 10 or 11 of his 14 years in F1, and his worst cars have been 3rd best. Still, from 2007 through 2013, he won 1 WDC, on the last lap of the season in Brazil. Since then, his cars have been dominant, and that's where the huge run of WDCs started. Had it been another elite driver in that car, we'd likely be having the same discussion about them and not Lewis..

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It's not that Lewis is particularly "so much better" than everyone else at any one thing, it's that he's a tiny bit better than most people at everything. 
Others have clear strength in some areas (Bottas for 1-lap pace, Magnussen for starts, Ricciardo for race craft, Verstappen for overtaking and rain, etc).  Lewis has shown over the year that he excels in the rain, tire management, race craft, accident/mistake avoidance, the other intangible like commitment to the race even after an errors, and that weird ability where he always seems to find an extra 0.1s when needed at the last second of qualififying.  
If it happens a few time, you chalk it up to luck -- being in the right car, on the right team (which he has been) -- but then you see he's a consistent winner in his entire career.  He's like Bill Russell or Tom Brady.  It can't have all been a coincidence.


Yep. Just see the answer other drivers give, such as this one.

If you have 40 minutes to spare, this is a great watch. He was still so raw here but it’s abundantly clear the talent he had at the time. Beating a reigning world champion in the same car the next year, then doing it again to another reigning champion in 2010. I think there’s too much recency bias going around. Since he went to Mercedes, he’s only honed himself further. He has addressed any driving weakness he had previously. Some of that is how the team operates, too. Lewis himself said (translated interview here ) that he tried to get McLaren to change how they approached things like tire temperatures/pressures/setup, but they didn’t really care to listen. Mercedes has a much more holistic approach to things, and are open to feedback that might directly go against what the computer says is best.



Also, why do none of these arguments ever get applied to any other driver? Does Lewis not deserve any of what he’s worked toward? Any other driver could have won with Schumacher’s Ferraris, too. Does he not deserve those titles?

I think time will be kind to Lewis, just as it has been to Michael.
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25 minutes ago, Anton Chigurh said:

Also, why do none of these arguments ever get applied to any other driver? Does Lewis not deserve any of what he’s worked toward? Any other driver could have won with Schumacher’s Ferraris, too. Does he not deserve those titles?

These arguments have been applied to other drivers throughout the history of F1. It's the nature of the beast. It's nothing new. Everyone knows that in F1, the best cars win championships.

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Yep.

Expanding on the point about the cars, look at 2013. Lewis was in the 2nd quickest car. He had 5 podiums, including 1 win. Moving into the new formula in 2014, he had 16 podiums. Every race he finished, he was on the podium. He won 11 of those, had 3 P2s, and 2 P3s.

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8 minutes ago, Anton Chigurh said:

That car was super fast on single lap pace, but had serious tire life problems (8 poles but only 3 wins).

That was also the year that Pirelli later changed tire spec and Seb rattled off 9 wins in a row to finish the season.

He would’ve won Silverstone if not for tire-explosion gate! Womp womp.

dec8746f9db7238d052048b706dfbdf5.jpg

When I said "quickest" or "top 2 - 3" above, what meant was overall, not in terms of raw one-lap pace. Poor word choice. The tire change helped RBR, but Lewis still had 2 of his 5 podiums after the change, including his only win.

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When I said "quickest" or "top 2 - 3" above, what meant was overall, not in terms of raw one-lap pace. Poor word choice. The tire change helped RBR, but Lewis still had 2 of his 5 podiums after the change, including his only win.

Right. I’m not disagreeing with you.

Without those tire issues it would have challenged Red Bull.
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2 hours ago, wood said:

I'm not saying he isn't, necessarily. I'm just saying there's really no way we can actually confirm that he is....

Another way to look at it is that most people tend to believe that Lewis and Alonso are on a tier above the rest of the field in terms of the 'complete driver'. The last few years Alonso has utterly annihilated his teammates and is considered one of the best in F1 in every key area. Without a good car, though, none of that really mattered. He's not the only guy out there that would be a good example, either. There are numerous elite F1 drivers who rarely got a car to match their abilities.

...Had it been another elite driver in that car, we'd likely be having the same discussion about them and not Lewis..

Since there's no even playing field like with spec-racing, the preponderance of evidence that tells us Alonso is great, also tells us that Lewis is great.  i.e. it's much easier to argue that he is, than to argue he isn't.  

Given the same car as Alonso, absolutely they'd split many wins.  But given his body of work -- races such as last year's Monaco -- it's hard to say he hasn't proven himself in all possible circumstances over the current crop of drivers.  

Yes, if he swapped cars with Ricciardo, Ricciardo would have a few WDC in his trophy case.

The question is, if he and Ricciardo were in the same car for 9 races, who would you put money on for winning 5 of them?

 

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25 minutes ago, 52-80 said:

Since there's no even playing field like with spec-racing, the preponderance of evidence that tells us Alonso is great, also tells us that Lewis is great.  i.e. it's much easier to argue that he is, than to argue he isn't.  

Given the same car as Alonso, absolutely they'd split many wins.  But given his body of work -- races such as last year's Monaco -- it's hard to say he hasn't proven himself in all possible circumstances over the current crop of drivers.  

Yes, if he swapped cars with Ricciardo, Ricciardo would have a few WDC in his trophy case.

The question is, if he and Ricciardo were in the same car for 9 races, who would you put money on for winning 5 of them?

That's a purely subjective take from where we sit, and I'd say the same with Alonso sitting in that seat or anyone else sitting in that seat. Just like every other driver, the main thing we really know about them is how he's fared against his teammates, and his most recent one is a pretty poor yardstick.

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On 12/8/2020 at 9:38 AM, wood said:

Indeed. The car is and has been dominant.

Yeah I disagree with that. The car is utterly dominant. It's very difficult to see Lewis doing anything so much better than everyone else, and that's actually a problem for him, imho. Lewis is doing a great job putting it where it should be, but all that really requires is beating Bottas, and that's something several drivers on the grid can do. Lewis's biggest improvements in the last few years have come in his consistency, but there are others who are very consistent as well. This is going to sound to some like a knock on Lewis, but it isn't: It would have been interesting to see what had happened if Schumi had stayed at Merc one more year as I've read he considered doing. That would have meant Lewis likely would have signed elsewhere at the end of his McLaren run, and someone else would have likely run off the same string of WDCs, maybe even not losing to Rosberg. Or maybe Rosberg wins them all, or some combination thereof. What is pretty certain is that Merc would have won all of those, just as they have with Lewis and Nico, and Lewis would still be a 1x WDC, frustrated in a slower car just like everyone else.

My German cousins have said for years that Schumacher did not get enough credit for helping develop the team. I don't know if I agree totally with that but, I was a huge fan of Schumacher and I would like to believe that.

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