Posts by neonfox65

So, here’s the deal with the new F1 bosses and what they're actually planning... It looks like Liberty Media is ready to shake things up—really shake things up. They aren't just sitting around waiting for things to happen, either. They're leaning heavily on insights from the teams to navigate this transition, hoping to pick up speed as they move forward. The big goal? Keeping things moving toward that Concorde Agreement at the end of 2020. It's all about finding that balance—trying to keep the teams' costs as low as possible by grouping those Grand Prix races into continental blocks. It makes sense, really—it saves a fortune on travel if you aren't bouncing from one side of the globe to the other every other week. If they pull this off, we might finally see a more logical calendar instead of the current madness... stay tuned.
NASCAR bosses' budget covers one year to sample...

Liberty Media is officially taking over F1. They’re starting small with the minor details—but trust me, they've got the massive shifts in mind... things like more equitable money distribution and setting up a solid cost cap.

There is something in The formula 1 Here goes to suitable products on Amazon.com! Liberty Media is finally starting to rebuild the royal class... The teams are actually allowed to film in the paddock and share those videos on social media now too. It's all about the fans—we're talking fan villages, driver interviews, pit lane access, autographs, playgrounds for the kids, even bus tours around the track. It’s getting much more interactive. Just look at that story about the little boy being brought right from the stands to meet his idol, Kimi Raikkonen—it's a perfect example of how things are becoming possible now that just weren't before...

The schedule is getting a total overhaul next year. The plan is to space out the races so they don't clash with the big ones—you know, things like Daytona, the Indy500, or NASCAR... just avoiding those massive overlaps. F1 chief Chase Carey actually told Autosport that we're looking at 21 Grand Prix for the upcoming season. Check out some gear on Amazon.com! I'll keep you guys posted...

That being said, they aren't totally ruling out adding more races down the road. To keep the teams' costs as low as possible, Liberty Media is expected to group the Grand Prix into regional blocks on different continents... basically, all this jumping around—like going from Monaco to Canada and then straight back to Azerbaijan—just won't happen anymore.
Liberty hopes things move a bit quicker—they're really leaning on the insights from the teams to make it happen...

The Americans are finally starting to overhaul the "royal class"... specifically regarding the Schmidt GP in Los Angeles—which is exactly why Mercedes is looking so nervous about Monaco! It all comes down to the basics. You have to figure out what actually matters and what’s just noise. The real heavy lifting hasn't even started yet... The new owners basically want the teams to weigh in on how to handle revenue distribution and that whole cost-cap situation. They've got until the Concorde Agreement wraps up at the end of 2020 to get it sorted, but Liberty Media is hoping to move much faster than that by leaning on the teams' own insights...

If the racing gets better, everything else follows suit. "A sport only thrives when the competition is tight. You've gotta give the underdogs a fighting chance," says Carey. He basically lays out the whole philosophy—on the track, everyone is a rival, but once we step off it, we’re all working together to build this sport up...

Liberty Media wants to lay out a plan for the teams this summer regarding what a budget cap might actually look like. It’s not just about slapping a simple cost ceiling on everyone—that's too easy. Instead, they're looking at a combination of things: limiting staff numbers, cutting down production costs, and even reigning in the sheer scope of the tools being used... it's going to be interesting.

Liberty Media wants to run a trial period for these cost controls—basically a one-year test run where nobody gets penalized if they miss the mark. It’s essentially a grace period... "We just need to see if the monitoring systems actually function," according to someone within the management at Schmidt GP Spain: That is why Mercedes is Afraid of Monaco!

Force India team leader Bob Fernley is suggesting a gradual way to trim the budget before the Concorde Agreement wraps up. His idea? Don't just swing the hammer at everyone all at once—that's not fair. He thinks if we start with a $250 million cap, it really only puts the squeeze on those top three powerhouses. From there, we could scale it down in $50 million increments every year... pretty logical, right? Same logic applies to the tech side of things, too. He’s proposing we cut wind tunnel model usage down to 40% initially, and eventually move toward banning wind tunnels entirely in favor of pure CFD. It forces everyone to adapt together... slowly but surely.
NASCAR rules hitting some serious pushback... just when you think things are settling down—it never stays simple for long.

The biggest hurdle for Liberty Media is going to be the money distribution—that’s where the real pushback happens. If they follow the playbook used by major US sports leagues, every team would end up with a more equal slice of the pie. But you know how it goes... Ferrari and Red Bull have already made it clear they aren't about to just hand over their special advantages. Schmidt GP Spain: that is why Mercedes is Afraid of Monaco!

Carey sees things differently: "Everyone realizes the sport only stays healthy if we give fans actual action and unpredictable racing. Toto Wolff actually said recently: 'If Ferrari wins right now, it’s good for the sport.' And he's right—it's all about the big picture. If one team dominates everything, they might win the immediate fight, but they lose the long game... because pretty soon, nobody's going to bother watching."

To level the playing field, the new rights holders are even looking into making teams show off their car designs and engines more openly—sort of like how NASCAR handles things—just to make sure no one gets a massive technical edge. The smaller teams aren't exactly thrilled about it, even though they'd actually end up benefiting in the long run.

Force India Sport Director Otmar Szafnauer is sounding the alarm: "Just because something works in other sports doesn't mean you can just transplant it into F1. This NASCAR-style approach just isn't in the DNA of F1. At its core, this is a competition between engineers. It's about who is..."

graniteharbor502 said:Should we read the article on... AutosportLook, we're going to end up reaching some pretty different conclusions...
It's just a FIA assessment...
They're looking closely at how those power units performed during the first three races...
And then you just project your performance onto some theoretical lap in Los Angeles...
The whole process for calculating these differences is incredibly complex—and honestly pretty tough to explain... at least according to Whiting.
Red Bull thinks those memory-related data points just aren't there—at least according to their own estimates, as reported... Amazon...So, the gap between those power units is sitting somewhere between 0.5 and 0.7 seconds... quite a margin, really.

"Part of the agreement between manufacturers last year was to equalize engine performance.

It’s been done. We delivered the results to the Strategic Group today, and engine parity has been achieved."

Whiting says the FIA will keep monitoring engine performance throughout the rest of the season just to make sure everything stays within that 0.3-second window.

stormybadger8 said:Not exactly for Red Bull either...
First they need to actually catch up to Ferrari, then maybe they can worry about Mercedes.
And just like that, they enter the development race. Honestly, though? It’s a massive question mark whether they can even finish this first stretch of the season, let alone pull off a second one.
There’s basically zero chance Ferrari and Mercedes are just going to sit there sleeping while Red Bull tries to hunt them down.

Where exactly are you getting that from, and why are you so damn sure? 🙂
Ricciardo barely scraped into fifth. And let's be real, he wasn't just fifth—he was about 40 seconds behind the winner and roughly 20 seconds behind a totally indifferent Kimi, who wasn't even in the conversation for a podium spot.

Sure, Max might have had a better race than Ricciardo, but I seriously doubt it would have been that much of a difference.
Based on how that whole mess unfolded, it looks like they might have actually been holding Max back with a three-stop strategy just because he pitted so early.
One stint at Homestead—10 laps.
Two stints on softs (he actually pulled it off) — ???
Three stints on softs? Yeah, he’d have to pull that off.
Maybe we're looking at a potential four-stint run at US Grand Prix...

And let’s not forget, unlike Sebastian Vettel, he ended up stuck behind a slow team and had to fight his way through a massive traffic jam.

Ricciardo burned through that first 14-lap stint, so his tires were shot by the end of both stints anyway. He barely had enough rubber left to even make a two-stop strategy work.
I'm not exactly holding my breath thinking Max's tires will hold up. Honestly, he'd probably be stuck out there even longer than Ricciardo was.

And then they actually enter the development race—though honestly, it's anyone's guess if they can even pull this first one off before the season ends, let alone anything else...
There’s just no way Ferrari and Mercedes are going to sit around sleeping while Red Bull is breathing down their necks to catch up...

Where's this coming from? And honestly—what makes you so sure about that... 🙂
Ricciardo only managed to grab 5th place—and not just any 5th, but he was about 40 seconds behind the winner. Plus, he was trailing Kimi Räikkönen by some 20 seconds, and honestly, Kimi wasn't even really in the hunt for a podium spot...

stormybadger8 said:We didn't write them off. They wrote themselves off with this year's car...

Right now, Red Bull Racing is just dreaming of a podium. A win isn't even on their radar, let alone the championship. They can forget about the title entirely.
Whatever happens in Canada doesn't mean much. Even if they somehow stumble into a podium or pull off a miracle win, they'll still be too far behind in the standings to care. And if they actually do improve enough to fight back, there will be way too many other contenders for those podium spots for them to grab them consistently.
Plus, I highly doubt Christian Horner is going to pick a favorite driver and bend everything to suit him. If anything, they'll just end up stealing points from each other. No chance at the title.

Red Bull Racing is practically living on the podium right now

silverviper44 said:I'm going with Vettel.

I also think if Vettel ends up winning the championship, Mercedes-Benz will absolutely crush Hamilton and kick him out of the team regardless of his contract just to bring in Fernando Alonso. I’d honestly bet ten bucks on it.

mellowtiger83 said:Who? Pascal or Gio

stormybadger8 said:No, you're the one who got beat...
If Sebastian Vettel had started third behind Valtteri Bottas or fourth behind Bottas and Kimi, he absolutely would have spent one stint glued to Lewis Hamilton's gearbox just to dive right past him during the pit stops.
Oh yeah, absolutely. He’d probably try to pull the whole thing off by asking that clown Christian Horner and Marko how to make it happen. 🤣

Where on earth did you get that information?
I bet that was straight from the mouths of the geniuses Christian Horner and Marko. 🙂

Marko, I’m pretty sure he would have finished ahead of Kimi, and Max wasn't even close to being on the track to block Hamilton...
http://en.mclarenf-1.com/index.php?p...x%20Verstappen
Is that a bit clearer now? 🍿

Did you catch that? Kimi was actually breathing down Max Verstappen's neck around lap 17 or 18, right when Lewis Hamilton was still stuck behind him.
It’s pretty obvious that Kimi could have easily dropped those two seconds and completely shut Lewis Hamilton down if he actually needed to. 🙂
He could have stalled out for as long as he wanted if he felt like it. Honestly, I almost feel bad that he didn't, because if he had, maybe Toto Wolff would be tossing tables around the garage instead of just slamming them. 🤣

Does it click for you now? Ferrari was sitting there ready to go. The second Hamilton had to pit because his tires were absolutely shot, they had a perfect checkmate strategy waiting on a silver platter if they actually decided to use it.
Max being where he is right now is pure luck. They didn't even need to pull that tactic, though they definitely could have.

It was obvious from the first few laps that Kimi didn't have the pace to catch Valtteri Bottas. Once Lewis Hamilton pitted, they could have easily messed with his rhythm using Kimi, and Kimi would still have ended up in the exact same spot. Honestly, even if Kimi had come out right behind Max Verstappen after the pit stops, Red Bull Racing wouldn't have stood a chance at holding him back.

Regarding Vettel's statement...

Get better at reading. 😵
And you even bold the most important part of that statement, yet you still haven't figured out what the writer actually meant. 🤦

Things were incredibly close. I already knew that. Max probably would have tried a move, but I just held my line and stayed right in front of him.

That was clearly a game-changer for our race.

I mean, I honestly don't get it. After all this back-and-forth, you still aren't grasping what Vettel was saying. He was making it clear that the whole race came down to one thing: his ability to hold him off from Max Verstappen.
Basically, the key thing is that Max didn't just blast past him right after exiting the pits... if you actually watched the race instead of just reading Horner's quotes, you'd see things got pretty intense and Max nearly overtook him at the very first turn after the pit exit.
Because once he stayed ahead of Max, he could just manage his pace without taking any risks or worrying about Hamilton ever catching up.

And obviously, Vettel would have trashed his tires just like Hamilton did if he'd finished right behind Max immediately after his pit stop.
In that scenario, Vettel's race would have been a totally different story, making a win way harder to pull off even if Hamilton had still ended up behind him at that moment...
Ferrari is notoriously gentle on their tires, which means they struggle to get them up to temp. I would've absolutely shredded them if he'd tried to pass Max during those opening laps when they weren't even at operating temperature—or god forbid, gotten a flat spot in all that fighting...

Yeah, then Max would definitely deserve some credit for Hamilton's win because he would've wrecked the Ferrari...
But for Ferrari, it wouldn't have mattered at all. All that matters is that Hamilton ruined his tires and had to pit. With those trashed tires in the first stint and Hamilton pitting, Max doesn't gain anything from it. ☕

jadeseal7 said:Hey Tib, how’s everything going with you? 😁

By the way, looking at those times you posted...

It’s actually pretty fascinating to me how Kimi handled that Formula 1 lap—he just breezed through it without any drama, totally nonchalant, and then just rolled right back into his rhythm for the next lap like it was nothing.

It’s clear he had the pace; it just seems like Ferrari wasn't particularly worried about Red Bull Racing, so they were likely just cruising and being extremely conservative with the engine.

stormybadger8 said:Listen, I know that quote by heart, whether it's in English or American.
So you still think it's an uphill battle for SF. 🤦

Amanda Kelly said:

neonfox65 kaže:

And you're still out here talking nonsense about how Sebastian Vettel was handed that win on Saturday. 🤣🤦

No, my mother.
Sebastian Vettel was faster at Ferrari than Lewis Hamilton was at Mercedes. Why is that so hard for people to just admit?
There’s no reason to start throwing a tantrum at Ferrari, but there is plenty of reason to celebrate. We got the opening win, the raw speed is clearly there, and even that German perfection isn't looking quite as flawless as everyone thought.

What was that whole deal with Lewis's Plan B? Why did they just scrap such a long shot of a strategy anyway?
Don't forget that Bottas ended up finishing just 1.3 seconds behind Lewis.

Did you guys leave Max out on track on purpose just to mess with Lewis Hamilton?

Marko: “We were running our own race and we were still fast at that moment. Mr. Wolff really needs to work on his tactics and keep an eye on where his car is going to pit. Honestly, Vettel should be thanking us... we helped him grab that victory.”