Posts by stormybadger8

Joshua Newman2 said:Whoops:

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/82153

The messy relationship between Vettel's Red Bull and the Renault engine powering him just keeps going.

That Renault is done for. 🤦

They should have just gone with Cosworth. For crying out loud, at this rate, another title is just going to vanish into thin air.👎

Roger Wright94 said:I don't think the track is the issue here.
Rule changes have basically forced everyone into the exact same strategy.
In the past, you could actually play around with tire management or fuel loads. Pit stops used to be where the drama happened. Not anymore.

Drivers are just churning out laps, and today’s finish is a perfect snapshot of the actual performance gap between cars and drivers.
Take the tenths of a second lost per lap, multiply by the total laps, and there you have it.
The gaps are massive, which doesn't exactly give us much to cheer about if we were hoping for excitement.

They were driving like they were afraid to scratch the paint, probably just testing the waters to see how the tires reacted.🤷

Both the Ferrari and Vettel were just following the guy in front until Vettel's car started falling off. I think both had more pace left, but they weren't willing to burn through their tires. At the end of the day:

Alonso race - 1:58.287 - Q3 1:54.608😉
Vettel race - 2:00.218 - Q3 1:54.101😉

That puts Vettel 6 seconds off the pace (and yeah, he didn't even get a shot at a fast time), but even Alonso is 4 seconds back. There is zero chance that's real racing speed. This was just a glorified testing session; we haven't seen a real race at full tilt yet.

Just for comparison, look at Bahrain 2009:

Vettel - race 1:34.756 - Q3 1:34.015
Jenson Button (putting him in since he won) race 1:34.588 - Q3 1:34.044

It’s a shame Mark Webber didn't try diving for softs in the last 10 laps. If he could, he probably would have been dropping 1.5 to 1.6 seconds per lap. Based on qualifying, he should have been 5 or 6 seconds faster than anyone ahead of him on track at that stage. Even with a 22-25 second pit stop and losing 40-50 seconds over 10 laps, including some fast ones, he realistically had a shot at gaining 2 or 3 spots. Wouldn't surprise me if someone tries a gamble like that in future races.

If nothing else, they should have gone for those 4 points because they weren't getting them anyway. He likely would have fought back to 9th or 10th. Christian Horner simply lacks the guts to pull the trigger on a risky move.👎

Michael Lee4 said:MDA... so much overtaking... Bernie will definitely find a way to stop complaining that the race was boring just because the stats show plenty of passing—even if none of it actually mattered or anyone even saw it happen.☕

Exactly.🤣

Watch them start hyping up these new rules, acting like there was some massive battle for the podium.😂

Go ahead, crunch the numbers:

Overtakes:
Fernando Alonso 3 - Felipe Massa 2
Fernando Alonso 2 - Sebastian Vettel 1
Felipe Massa 3 - Sebastian Vettel 2
Lewis Hamilton 4 - Sebastian Vettel 3

Four overtakes fighting for the podium? When was the last time we saw that? I can already hear Bernie's press releases coming.🤣

velvetdrifter15 said:I’ve been following Formula 1 for about ten years (well, I'm actually 20), and this race was easily one of the most boring ones yet.
We spend the whole off-season counting down the hours until the start, and then... nothing. Total letdown. I honestly miss the old refueling days—that was the only way we actually saw any action. Now? If we see one or two overtakes, we’re supposed to be thrilled.

Actually, there were plenty of overtakes. I think there might have even been 30 during the race. Statistically, this could have been better than any race from last year.🤣
But the director was a complete idiot and totally trashed the broadcast.🙄

only Kubica and Adrian Sutil had about 15-20 overtakes on track.🙏

Michael Lee4 said:Yeah, Kubica drove a great race, but he just can't catch a break... it’s a real shame to see talent like his wasted on teams like that. If they put him in RB instead of Mark Webber, we'd actually see what real racing looks like.

🙏 I agree. It's tragic he isn't in Red Bull. At this point, Webber is basically just there to steal points from Sebastian Vettel and mess with their championship run 😳 but expecting him to actually win it is pure science fiction. Seriously, it sucks that RB doesn't have a better second driver. 😢

Kubica, Nick Heidfeld, Adrian Sutil, Sebastien Buemi, Nico Rosberg—any of those guys would be better, and they could've snagged them for relatively cheap.😢

Jason Campbell70 said:Webber basically just produced a lot of smoke... nothing else. 😁

Honestly, I’m worried. It looked like his RB6 was having exhaust issues too. To me, it seems like this whole role swap ended up doing more harm than good. 🤷

Total snooze fest, honestly. 👎
Even if Sebastian Vettel actually had a car that worked properly, this race would’ve been even more mind-numbing.

The start was a complete nothingburger. I was bracing for chaos, but instead? Absolute silence. 👎
Instead of actually racing, these new drivers just keep driving off track. 🤣

Overall, it sucks. I’ve got a bad feeling that all these Adrian Newey tracks are going to be exactly like this. Maybe the old-school circuits will show some life, but based on what we're seeing, this season is going to be painfully boring. 😢
I mean, Rosberg was two seconds faster per lap than Vettel and still couldn't make anything happen. Ferrari was four or five seconds back and basically had to wait until the straightaways just to have a shot. I don't think we're seeing any real overtaking this year.

Red Bull cruises to pole in qualifying, then everyone spends the entire race just waiting for Adrian Newey's fragile masterpiece to fall apart. 🤣 We'll see if they actually scrape together a win or if they just crumble. 😬

Basically, a waste of time.

Bradley Nelson2 said:Wait, where did Mark Webber end up? 🙄

I mean, what's even the point? 🤣

Personally, I don't think Webber was anything special. He's basically in the same league as Jenson Button—just nothing to write home about.

Vettel 👍

Red Bull, Renault, and the F1 Teams 🤦

Mercedes GP 🤣😂😂😂 Look, you've got a whole crew and a 7-time world champ who can't even touch Red Bull, even when they're having a total meltdown. 🤣😂

Bradley Nelson2 said:Todt is running the show at the FIA, so clearly it's all just one big conspiracy to you. ☕

Oh yeah, I forgot—Schumacher isn't at Ferrari anymore, so now everyone’s just spinning these mindless conspiracy theories instead. ☕

I don't care about that. Honestly, I haven't noticed any actual difference for this season yet. 🤷

Morgan Murphy7 said:final race standings

1. Fernando Alonso
2. Felipe Massa
3. Sebastian Vettel

who cares about the rest

🙂 at the finish line

1. Sebastian Vettel
2. Robert Kubica
3. Kamui Kobayashi

Alonso, Lewis Hamilton, Jenson Button, Nico Rosberg, and Michael Schumacher are all going to magically get younger in the pits🤣

while Felipe Massa heads straight to the carnival with Mark Webber🤣

Arthur Roberts12 said:Felipe Massa swapped his engine

As for the order after Turn 1:

1. Sebastian Vettel
2. Fernando Alonso
3. Felipe Massa

Where'd you get that rule from? Since when is there no penalty for an engine change? 😕

Arthur Roberts12 said:Red Bull took 1st and 6th.
Ferrari grabbed 2nd and 3rd.

Enough logic for one day.☕

Standings after Lap 1😬

1 Sebastian Vettel
2 Mark Webber
3 Lewis Hamilton
4 Felipe Massa
5 Fernando Alonso

Standings after Lap 1

1 Sebastian Vettel
2 Mark Webber
3 Lewis Hamilton
4 Nico Rosberg
5 Robert Kubica
6 Felipe Massa
7 Massa 7 Button

Post-Las Vegas Grand Prix: a new spying scandal and chaos at Ferrari.😬

by vidovit TBF 🤣

Quote: The Best F1 driver

briskhound76 said:For crying out loud!🤣😂

Like I said, "allegedly." This whole thing was basically lifted straight from an auto racing site anyway, so it's not like it's some groundbreaking scoop from Yahoo.🤣

Jason Campbell70 said:When someone says "about 4 seconds," they're talking about a window between 3 and 5 seconds. ☕

Word is Red Bull is actually 1.8 seconds faster 🤷

Michael Lee4 said:It makes sense. Not everyone is going to handle an extra 440 pounds the same way. Tire wear isn't one-size-fits-all, and since driving styles vary wildly, tire degradation won't be uniform either...

How many pit stops are we even looking at? One or two? Before the season started, everyone was predicting just a single stop...

Logic says at least two. 🤷

Last year, it was actually pretty rare to see both tire compounds hold up well enough to last half the race. Add this extra weight into the mix, and I wouldn't be shocked if we see three or four stops. 🤔

Though, let's be real: they probably don't have a clue. They'll likely just react on the fly. Most teams probably haven't even fully locked down a strategy for this yet. 🤷

Jason Campbell70 said:Downforce levels, suspension setup (mainly camber), aero balance, brake bias... there's a whole list. 😉

Okay, sure, but how much would any of that actually swing qualifying times? 🤷

Also, does the rulebook even say you can't tweak all that stuff after qualifying? 🤷

And even if they did forbid it, who's actually checking, and how?

Unless they lock every single car down until right before the race starts. 🤣

briskhound76 said:Yeah, but we really need to wait for the race to see who actually has a fast car and who just showed up to flash their headlights during qualifying.😉

What would you even do? 😕

Everyone’s running qualifying on minimum fuel now. Since they banned refueling, there’s no more clever fuel strategy to play with—everyone just goes straight for the fastest lap. 😁

Honestly, all this talk about qualifying versus race Setup? I’m not buying it. How much speed could you actually gain during qualifying to make that kind of trade-off even worth considering? It feels like a stretch. 🤷

Mark Webber (6th, Q3 - 1m 55.284s)
“I absolutely choked my best lap right when it mattered most. Everything felt solid until I hit Turn 16, then it just fell apart. Seb crushed it for pole, though—honestly, we had more pace than what we showed for sixth. It sucks, but it's not over yet. We've still got a long race ahead of us tomorrow.
”
👋 Red Bull is hands down the fastest car on this track. There's zero doubt about it. 🙂

shadowstag10 said:Tomorrow’s start is going to be brutal. Alonso’s on the clean side of the grid, and let's face it, he's itching to snatch that number one spot at Scuderia Ferrari. I highly doubt Massa is just going to hand it over, either.
Plus, they both absolutely adore Vettel. 🙂
I can't wait. ☕

Lewis Hamilton would probably blow both of them away before they even get settled. 😉
The straight is long, and McLaren Racing is way faster there. I wouldn't be surprised if things get messy at turn one—Lewis could make a serious move, and Mark Webber isn't exactly known for staying calm. 😬