Formula 1, Moto GP, WSB, 2021 Season

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The person who writes press releases for Pirelli has a great future in writing press releases for pretty much any political party he/she chooses .
 
Mercedes whingeing about the cost of repairing VB's car after he damaged it on rumble strips. I can think of an easy way of avoiding such problems in the future.
 
FP1 Mercedes look good so far out of the box.

Ocon has signed a new 3 year deal with Alpine until end of 2024. He is still a Mercedes junior however he must have seen that he is not in the race for the Mercedes seat in the same way Russell is

Hamilton's 'Magic' button is still in the same place. They have added a shroud around it as a temp fix until they redesign it (probably for next year)

There have been a lot more rumours that Russell will be announced for 2022 in the Mercedes. Bottas has denied that he has been told anything regarding leaving the team after this year
 
Mercedes turn to be less than stellar on the pit wall with both drivers being played offside. Solid drive from Max notwithstanding the first corner. Sergio again demonstrating why he’s sat in the Red Bull. Lando Norris, outstanding again.

Game on for the rest of the season. Anybody still think MB have the best car?
 
. Anybody still think MB have the best car?
Red Bull will still say that Mercedes have the best car.

Lewis did what he could with the strategy and seeing how far they were on Friday, it was a big step. Bottas was understandably unhappy at the 1 stop, the team debrief should be interesting when they upload it.

Mercedes could have really done with the win here to keep the gap tight. They should have tried the undercut seeing as it was so powerful.
 
Red Bull will still say that Mercedes have the best car.

Lewis did what he could with the strategy and seeing how far they were on Friday, it was a big step. Bottas was understandably unhappy at the 1 stop, the team debrief should be interesting when they upload it.

Mercedes could have really done with the win here to keep the gap tight. They should have tried the undercut seeing as it was so powerful.
Windbag said “If we (Red Bull) can beat them here, we can beat them anywhere”. So don‘t see how he can now say with a straight face that their car isn’t as good as the Merc.
 
....And the best bit? With rear wing test revisions, some inevitable changes by Pirelli and all teams and drivers having to press the 'reset' button, would anyone like to predict the outcome of the 'Battle of Paul Ricard' in less than 2 weeks time?:dk:

I will predict that Pirelli will blame FOD (Foreign Object Damage) as the cause of the Baku tyre failures, but increase the start pressures anyway for the next race.
The banning of 'Limbo' wings will have less effect than imagined.
The 'reset' of the drivers will be almost instant, the teams may take a little longer.
I was wrong about what Pirelli blamed the tyre failures on, but their ‘fix’ was predictable. Obviously Red Bull really suffered with the ‘Limbo wing’ ban.…like slug on the straights :dk:
Who guessed the right result at half distance?
I think it’s ‘game on‘ for the rest of the season😎
 
Marc Marquez wins in Germany for about the 10th time, his first MotoGP win since 2019 and his crashes in winter testing 2019/20 (and subsequent right shoulder rebuild) the right humerus break in first race of 2020. What a race - fantastic performance by Marc!!

As for F1 - RB strategists 1, MB strategists 0! Well done Lewis for hanging on to 2nd despite tyres well past their sell by date, but kudos to RB strategists for correctly getting MV and Checo onto better tyres for the 1-3. Bet the flies on the wall at the MB debrief will have singed wings!!
 
After Max’s issue at the first turn I was dreading another boring procession of a race, but how wrong I was.

Despite a “clean” race with no safety car intervention, it turned into a real nail biting finish with great performances from Maclaren and Vettel.

Red Bull produced the goods and have really set the championship alight, long may this level of uncertainty continue.
 
FIA to force F1 teams to slow down their pit stops
The FIA will introduce new rules forcing F1 teams to slow down their rapid, two-second tyre changes during races.

An updated technical directive will come into force from the Hungarian Grand Prix in August to add a series of delays at different stages of the pit stop process. This is being done to reduce the chance of a car returning to the track before all its wheels have been fully fastened to the car


The new directive, TD22A, refers to article 12.8.4 of the technical regulations which imposes restrictions on teams’ pit equipment. It is understood to target the clause which states: “Any sensor systems may only act passively.”

The purpose of the directive is to ensure wheels nuts are fully tightened onto cars during pit stops and to prevent mechanics anticipating the completion of different stages of the pit stop process in order to save time.

As part of the directive the FIA has defined in greater detail when the signal can be given that the wheel nut has been fully tightened, RaceFans has learned. Once this is done, the team can proceed with releasing the car from the pit box.

Under the new directive, mechanics’ reactions must also be above a minimum time. If a mechanic reacts to the completion of a stage of the pit stop process in less than 0.15 seconds, the sensor must register this as invalid, and require them to repeat their action to ensure it has been completed.

more in Racefans article
 
Red Bull produced the goods and have really set the championship alight, long may this level of uncertainty continue.

It looks like the 'investment' in Sergio Perez is going to pay off. He gives the team the facility to construct split strategies and box in MB.

This is particularly important because of the of Sir Lewis Hamilton's overall race ability. He isn't just brutally fast - he is also flexible in the way he can apply it with strategy and race management.
 
It looks like the 'investment' in Sergio Perez is going to pay off. He gives the team the facility to construct split strategies and box in MB.

This is particularly important because of the of Sir Lewis Hamilton's overall race ability. He isn't just brutally fast - he is also flexible in the way he can apply it with strategy and race management.
Indeed. There are a lot of people that seem to only see the car and overlook/forget/downplay just how good a racing driver Lewis is.
 
Honda power fastest down the straight at Paul Ricard - not a prediction many would have made until very very recently. The barn door of a rear wing Mercedes towed must have helped the Red Bull be fastest. Why does the MB need so much wing? A consequence of the new aero regs hitting low rake cars harder?

Not in total agreement that the two-stop strategy was absolutely the better one. LH finished ahead of SP - enough said.
Spell binding race. Watching each of the top (finishing) pair deliver their best to best exploit their individual strategy without knowing the outcome until the penultimate lap. Is this Pirelli's finest achievement - delivering tyres where winning is viable on different strategies with the driver making the difference?
 
Honda power fastest down the straight at Paul Ricard - not a prediction many would have made until very very recently. The barn door of a rear wing Mercedes towed must have helped the Red Bull be fastest. Why does the MB need so much wing? A consequence of the new aero regs hitting low rake cars harder?

Not in total agreement that the two-stop strategy was absolutely the better one. LH finished ahead of SP - enough said.
Spell binding race. Watching each of the top (finishing) pair deliver their best to best exploit their individual strategy without knowing the outcome until the penultimate lap. Is this Pirelli's finest achievement - delivering tyres where winning is viable on different strategies with the driver making the difference?
It certainly looks as if Mercedes (and perhaps other low rake cars) have lost more downforce under the revised regulations than the Red Bull. I also think banning DAS also affected the Mercedes on front tyre temperature management.

For Bottas, two-stops would probably have been better as he doesn’t manage tyres as well as Lewis. Had they been able to run a longer first stint, Lewis might have had enough tyre to hang on at the end. But, it’s great to see some uncertainty of result with both Red Bull and Mercedes challenging. I would love to see a closer gap to the rest of the field.
 
It certainly looks as if Mercedes (and perhaps other low rake cars) have lost more downforce under the revised regulations than the Red Bull. I also think banning DAS also affected the Mercedes on front tyre temperature management.
I've wondered about them losing DAS also. Presumably they wouldn't have gone to that effort for no on-track benefit. Unless the old trick of leading the competition up a blind alley was the ploy (probably not).
For Bottas, two-stops would probably have been better as he doesn’t manage tyres as well as Lewis. Had they been able to run a longer first stint, Lewis might have had enough tyre to hang on at the end. But, it’s great to see some uncertainty of result with both Red Bull and Mercedes challenging. I would love to see a closer gap to the rest of the field.
For all that the new regs have 'hurt' MB, the gap that MB and RB have over the rest does imply that RB has elevated its performance more than MB's has been degraded. Agreed, the rest being closer would be welcome. To us - but maybe not so much for MB and RB race strategists seeking gaps in the traffic to exploit an undercut.
 
Just seen a piece on Sky with Ant Davidson analysing the Mercedes (Lewis’) pit stop at Paul Ricar. Due to Mercedes’ pit layout and some wheel spin from Lewis, even with a slightly quicker ‘stop’ they lost 0.8s to Max which would otherwise have been enough to retain the lead in the race and probably get the win.
 
Just seen a piece on Sky with Ant Davidson analysing the Mercedes (Lewis’) pit stop at Paul Ricar. Due to Mercedes’ pit layout and some wheel spin from Lewis, even with a slightly quicker ‘stop’ they lost 0.8s to Max which would otherwise have been enough to retain the lead in the race and probably get the win.
It contributed to making Verstappen's outlap look stunning.
I wonder (had LH retained his lead) how both teams would have ran the rest of the race.
 
It contributed to making Verstappen's outlap look stunning.
I wonder (had LH retained his lead) how both teams would have ran the rest of the race.
Indeed it did. What they said was, Lewis was having to push hard catch and put pressure on Max and yet still had tyres under him until the end (well almost). Without having to do that, he may well have won the race on a one stopper.
 

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