F1 2021 - Covid 2: Viral Boogaloo

[Disco]

It's back next year isn't it?

Just in time for Alpine to have made their great leap forward and put Zhou on the podium.

[Disco]

No it is not April 1st, Aston Martin really have appointed Mike Krack as their new team principal. Presumably to work alongside Jacques Strap as head of aero and new press officer Hugh Jarse.

[Jimmy Floyd]

He looks alarmingly like Mark Rylance's tech weirdo in Don't Look Up.

[Disco]

I enjoyed the photo they used in the press release, which is just him in a BMW shirt with the logos shopped out.

[Disco]

In more Alpine based photo fun, they told outgoing TP Marcin Budkowski that was 'outgoing' on the same day they took their team photo. If you look closely there's a subtle clue as to his mood.

https://i.imgur.com/1F0kWZ8.png

[Shindig]

I'm going to assume white shirt man and baldy are best buddies.

[Giggles]

I hadn't realised until I seen it on Twitter this morning that Hamilton was still having his 'taking my ball and going home' strop. Is there a real chance he doesn't drive in 2022?

[Ben]

Nah. Mercedes are too clever to be this close to pre-season without two drivers. Last year was the same situation (albeit different circumstances), where Lewis wasn't signed yet but he was 100% going to be there.

I feel like out of everyone at Mercedes, Lewis handled the fiasco the best in the immediate aftermath. While he probably is pouting still, his "strop" is a bit of an act (fully supported by Mercedes) to strongarm the FIA into sorting their shit out. If he committed right away, the FIA would probably think it vindicated their circus a bit.

[Gray Fox]

I'd say there's a reasonable chance of it. Mercedes will have their back up plan well in hand(Nyck de Vries) at this point.

As mentioned above though they are trying to use this to push the FIA into making some changes. Hamilton has star power the rest of the grid can only dream of, but I do think that itch to get the title wins outright will see him back for one last crack at it.

[Disco]

I don't believe for a second that he won't be there, but it will be interesting to see what his attitude is. The FIA investigation is clearly bollocks (it ends on the first day of the season) so we'll see if they actually bother doing anything.

[Jimmy Floyd]

Shades of Senna having a paddy in winter 89/90, although this time the driver has all the power rather than some French bond villain.

[Shindig]

It's the same kind of timeframe to that. All sorted one day prior and McLaren had submitted a potential driver line-up of Berger and Palmer.

[SincereTheRebel]

I dont think Hamilton will retire. He still has to have a go in the Williams.

[SincereTheRebel]

Aston Martin

https://youtu.be/VLfbm5ViYfs?t=927

[Jimmy Floyd]

Is that a better shade of green? Last year's car looked (and performed) dreadful.

[Ben]

Interesting sidepod inlet concept, although it's probably just an early idea. At least they didn't just throw the livery on the stock concept car like Red Bull.

I think the AMR21 looked the same colour in promotional material as well. Complete opposite of Alpine, which just popped in real life.

Speaking of Alpine, there's a lot of buzz they might be frontrunners.

[Jimmy Floyd]

Is that a better shade of green?


Interesting sidepod inlet concept

This is the north-south divide.

[Ben]

The North :cool:

[Ben]

Lando Norris £20m per year for four years. That puts him third highest on the grid.

I guess McLaren's money concerns are well and truly behind them. Zak Brown could blag me a sponsorship.

[Gray Fox]

I suspect there’s a lot of bullshitting going on with these reveals. That Red Bull for example looks remarkably like the concept/show car the FIA dragged out.

[Ben]

The Red Bull is the concept car. They just did a livery reveal.

That's why Aston Martin made a point on Twitter to say that they'll be revealing their actual car. Which to be fair looks like they did to a large degree (front wing, sidepods are different) but I would expect it will still change a lot before Bahrain.

[Jimmy Floyd]

Alpeen as a front runner would be funny, especially if Ocon shades it.

[Waffdon]

The Aston Martin car looks beautiful

[Disco]

It's clear now where the real work has been done over the last year.


https://i.imgur.com/US7yHk0.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/t4HReyE.png

[Ben]

Looking like 2008 Seb :drool:

[niko_cee]

He's on a full Prince William style trajectory so fighting it is a bit sad.

[Shindig]

There's been worse hairlines in F1.

[Jimmy Floyd]

Late career Denny Hulme had F1's finest. Bald, greying, long hair and bushy mutton chops, all mixed into one glorious getup.

[Disco]

Teo Fabi, king of the combover.

[Shindig]

Ah, that's the name I was after. Kubica's hair seemed to vanish with that potential Ferrari drive.

[Ben]

McLaren car reveal 7pm tonight. Rumours they, like Aston Martin, will actually reveal a working version of their 2022 car rather than just a livery like Red Bull, not least because they - and Alfa, I believe, who will not reveal anything until first test - were the only teams not to purchase concept cars from FIA so whatever they parade tonight will have to be built from scratch.

[Ben]

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FLUHuh4XIAkK_5a?format=jpg&name=large

First image of a 2022 car going out on track. My word they look nice, even if the wheel covers make it look like the hubcaps have been nicked off the wheel.

[Pepe]

That's a lovely looking car.

[phonics]

Thats lovely, imagine it without all the logos desperately shoved all over it.

[Giggles]

The real cars don’t look near as good as the stock photos of the slick shape that were put out last year.

[Gray Fox]

After time your eyes just stop seeing those.

The McLaren looks decent with a bit of that blue from the Monaco edition last season sprinkled in.

[Ben]

The real cars don’t look near as good as the stock photos of the slick shape that were put out last year.

The stock car was designed entirely for aesthetics and didn’t push the regulations to the limit to maximise performance, so that’s to be expected. And really, we should be thankful that’s the case because if they weren’t then it would be a sign the regulations don’t allow innovation and it’d be a glorified IndyCar.

[Jimmy Floyd]

I see on twitter that #VoidLap58 is trending and they are all deadly serious about it. I mean, I'm a very pro-Hamilton man but Jesus wept I stopped seething about an hour after the race, to still be going two months later is a fine effort.

All the DTS effect I suppose and people being heavily invested in it who have no idea about sport more widely.

[Gray Fox]

I expected to see a few tweets when I looked, but that's some seethe right there.

I'll be happy when we get to the point where every driver is no longer being asked about it in every interview.

[Giggles]

When they’re done I want them to get on rescinding every international soccer result since Thierry Henry’s handball, and also crown Louth as 2010 Leinster champions.

[Lewis]

Idiot at work nearly had a breakdown over it, and was still responding to fuck ups and the like with 'Is Michael Masi doing that/working there...' well into January. It got so boring that I felt compelled to throw job security to the wind and stick this (https://imgur.com/7eiHYrX) on my side of the plastic covid screen.

[Disco]

It was over the moment they set the fireworks off and anyone expecting any sweeping changes has never watched a sport before.

On the new cars, they look fine but I'll reserve judgement until we've actually seen the proper ones. The new wheels look shit though, like someone stole the hubcaps.

[Pepe]

They should just go with Enkei RPF1s, aerodynamics be damned.

[Gray Fox]

It's good to see a variance of ideas in the cars seen so far. The Aston, McLaren and Haas all seem reasonably different. I think the Alpha Tauri looks a little more as the Aston does, but good we dont have the same car 10 times over.

[Ben]

AlphaTauri seems very much an early prototype. Telling that they only released renders rather than showing the physical car. I would expect the wings at least will be quite different come the first test.

[SincereTheRebel]

The last time I was excited, was around 12 years old and my dad bought me a blue diamondback BMX. Stunt pegs on the front and back which I had to convince him to get. I'm looking forward to this season with the new changes and all. The Aston Martin looks great :drool:

[Shindig]

Okay, so the furore about Abu Dhabi is still rolling on because the Rich Energy bloke 'spoke to a number of F1 engineers' who reckon Max should be stripped of the title and Masi fired. Move along, folks.

[Jimmy Floyd]

The Rich Energy bloke? Good to see he's still not found another sport to try and defraud.

[Ben]

How is that charlatan still getting involved?

[SincereTheRebel]

1493574146843987968?s=20&t=ppLezz6QGD24kkX3QnN1Dw

Hard

[Ben]

Twitter shitting all over the Williams livery so naturally I like it. It's just a livery reveal though, that's the exact same show car Red Bull used.

Also Alfa just did a shakedown in a camo livery :drool:
1493546064703537156

[Gray Fox]

I wish they'd try and even pretend it's the 2022 car. The Williams/Red bull don't even have DRS on them ffs.

It's very Toro Rosso. Might be a grower.

[Clunge]

Williams and Alpine are going to be borderline indistinguishable unless Alpine go for a major departure with their livery.

[Ben]

I wish they'd try and even pretend it's the 2022 car. The Williams/Red bull don't even have DRS on them ffs.

It's very Toro Rosso. Might be a grower.

There’s a photo of the actual FW44 from the shakedown. They’ve took a different approach it seems; a very early 90’s style nose and a VERY tightly packaged engine, the side pods are almost non-existent.

It’s brilliant to see so many different approaches and we haven’t even seen the Red Bull, Mercedes or Ferrari yet!

1493616271748997126

[Pepe]

That looks incredible.

[Ben]

I’m absolutely loving that retro nose. Just realised Williams have gone with no fin whereas Alfa have gone with a large fin. No doubt they’ll all begin to converge on design later in the season as a particular approach proves itself as dominant but the early rounds at least are going to be pretty mental.

[Ben]

Alfa are saying their car is one second faster than last year’s car. FIA were (at least to start with) expecting slower cars so either they’ve all nailed ground effect already and no regulation can hold back these mad men, or the Alfa is an absolute rocket and Bottas will be champion.

[Gray Fox]

I feel like someone is going to Brawn 2009 the start of this year.

As for the cars being faster, I'm sure the original expectation was 4 seconds slower off a moderate time lap. Then cut to midway through last year they thought the loss was down to less than a second per lap, so it seems faesable that they could have found the way to make the cars even faster.

Although I think Hulkenberg said that from his simulator work, those who expect this change to lead to much closer racing will be disappointed.

[Shindig]

Pushing it back a year probably give them an extra year to really think about it.

[Ben]

Yeah I definitely feel the better they make the cars (ie. increased downforce), the worse the racing will be. Best we can hope for is someone out of left field taking it by storm.

[7om]

Williams and Alpine are going to be borderline indistinguishable unless Alpine go for a major departure with their livery.

Hoping for a pink Alpine after they announced BWT as their title sponsor.

[Ben]

They changed from Renault to Alpine to promote the brand and their main colour is French Blue so it will still dominate. Pink trim could either be really good or really bad.

[Shindig]

Some of the concepts I've seen have an all black car with a pink stripe on the engine cover/suspension. The wildest has been a weird pink/blue cuttlefish looking nightmare.

[Jimmy Floyd]

Tricolour I think. Blue for liberté, white for fraternité, pink for légalité at least to the letter of the technical regulations if not necessarily the spirit.

[Gray Fox]

Some leaks of the Ferrari about. They at least seem to have a real car to show us:

https://i.redd.it/dafw692y97i81.jpg

[thommo]

https://c.tenor.com/4FkzvgN5olAAAAAd/gif.gif

[Shindig]

Not a fan of the black trim/wing but I approve of whatever is going on with grill thing on the side.

The grid's looking like a proper mish mash of ideas.

[Pepe]

I like the red/black liveries usually. Not too sure about this one, will need more images.

[Gray Fox]

HD images from the front and diagonal would be nice, but we'll get them soon. Some pretty looking cars coming to the grid.

[niko_cee]

The sidepods, or lack thereof, are blowing my mind this year. Hopefully one of the lesser lights have nailed it.

[niko_cee]

Also, are the new cars absolutely massive? Because the bigger wheels don't look all that out of place, and the cockpits/halo look tiny, or at least out of proportion.

[Disco]

Still almost 5m long.

[Ben]

Ferrari going the Aston route of big sidepods and grill. The airflow over the top of the pods on this Ferrari is unique so far.

Williams (and purportedly Alpine) going with next to no sidepods. Amazing that with regulations supposedly so tight, they're all coming up with wildly different concepts.

Mercedes tomorrow.

[thommo]

That Ferrari looked stunning in the reveal video.

Seeing tweets from a lot of sources that Masi has been removed from the race director position. Wittich and Freitas to alternate.

[Ben]

The sidepods are wild.

Good riddance to Masi. Charlie's shoes are very difficult to fill but there was just too much chaos (even disregarding Abu Dhabi).

[Jimmy Floyd]

I'm not sure Masi himself was necessarily the problem (although he made life difficult for himself I suppose), but I do like this as a solution:


In addition, as part of a wider restructure of race control aimed at providing a calmer environment, direct radio communications between the teams and the race director will no longer be allowed.

[Pepe]

That is a good idea. If you don't like a decision, appeal it formally later. You don't need 'Toto' and co. telling the directors what to do.

[niko_cee]

Charlie's shoes are very difficult to fill

Nigh on impossible really, he had so much built-over-time gravitas that he could basically pronounce on anything and it became the law, but, as you also say, it was too much of a farce last year.

[Ben]

Masi fucked himself by letting Wheatley tell him exactly what to do. Only letting the cars between Lewis and Max un-lap themselves was such complete nonsense that it should have seen him off long before today.

[Shindig]

It's not like it's hard to set a proper rule for things like track limits, either. "Okay, you can exceed limits at these corners but ONLY in Saturday practice." You can't run a sport with moving goalposts like that.

[Pepe]

Two wheels on track at all times is not that hard to follow, really.

[Shindig]

Aye and I think I have a foolproof solution for late safety cars:

Release lapped cars immediately so they can queue up. Put up double-yellows and let them crawl through the incident areas. If it's not getting cleared before the flag, tough shit.

[niko_cee]

With the way they'd run the rest of the season chucking the red flag would probably have been the best decision [for 'let's go racing'] but the fall out from that would have been just as epic [as it would have been just as wrong a decision]. There was no good way out of it really, the right decision leads to the most boring [albeit fairest] outcome.

Can't wait for Merc to release something that looks completely unlike all the other cars tomorrow.

[Pepe]

I think that having a rule that if there are only x amount of laps left then the lapped cars are not allowed through would be ok. Letting them through is some Nascar level bs, anyway.

[Gray Fox]

While it was clear he did it for the show, got to have that soundbite of the champion winning after all, red flagging it would almost certainly have led to a collision between the front 2.

He was damned if he did, damned if he didn't in that situation Mr Masi. The one thing he couldn't do though is make his mind up, then change it immediately after one of the teams calls him with a demand. To exactly that demand no less.

He wasn't a bad race director in general, but he was pretty slow to react to safety issues through a lot of the season. Also the farce we got in Spa. Ultimately if him going leads to Hamilton returning for the year, then that's what the FIA will do. They want the star driver back.

[Shindig]

Honestly, with the lapped cars in the way, Max still would've probably just pipped it.

[Ben]

Two wheels on track at all times is not that hard to follow, really.

Apart from the times they decide the kerb is the boundary and not the white line.

Absolutely farce is the whole track limits bollocks.

[niko_cee]

Honestly, with the lapped cars in the way, Max still would've probably just pipped it.

No chance.

[Jimmy Floyd]

Verstappen had two corners of one lap, the only way he could have won it was exactly the way it happened. Which is why Red Bull pushed specifically for that to happen.

Masi lost his credibility more I would say with the ridiculous grid 'offers' to RB in Jeddah - and if Verstappen wasn't going to be black flagged in that race then you shouldn't have a black flag, because clearly you will never use it.

[Shindig]

Hear me out, fellas. Who wants to be the backmarker that influences a title race? You've seen what happened to Latifi in the aftermath. They'll let Max by on the straight and then gun it as soon as they get the chance.

[niko_cee]

Hamilton could probably have fucked about enough at the restart to get himself insurmountably ahead. The lapped cars weren't going to be on him like Verstappen was, pinch half a second and it's as good as done.

[Gray Fox]

You have to be X car lengths behind right? Given there were about 5 cars in-between, you've got enough buffer there to stop Max for one lap.

Perhaps Bottas accidentally on purpose having a spin, exactly where Latifi dumped it, with a lap to go was the only way Mercedes could have fought back.

[Ben]

Merc have been proper cunts and released two cars. The one on their stream (top in image below) is likely the real one whilst the one in the nice pictures on social media (bottom) likely not. Silver is back baby.


https://i.imgur.com/qM4mdtY.jpeg

[niko_cee]

Looking at the nose in the pic the BBC have [angled] it looks like they've very much gone down the silver arrow route.

[Gray Fox]

Bottom one doesn’t have DRS so is just a show car. The livery doesn’t pop as well on the top car, but it is great to see the silver arrows back.

[Gray Fox]

Okay that looks lovely on track.

1494672319406608384

[Pepe]

I don't care if the racing is better or worse. Having low noses again make the new regulations a complete success.

[Lewis]

I like the old school wheels, but the idea of any of these cars (or any Formula 1 cars since what 1983?) being nice looking things is reaching a bit.

[Jimmy Floyd]

They are good, aren't they. Remind me of the 1993 cars. Shame about the halos I guess, I'll take a few deaths for smooth aesthetics.

[Pepe]

The halo does suck, but what can we do about the pussified society we live in, right?


I like the old school wheels, but the idea of any of these cars (or any Formula 1 cars since what 1983?) being nice looking things is reaching a bit.

90s cars were very nice too.

EDIT:

Example:

https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fi.ytimg.com%2Fvi%2FD52QJE_5NJg%2F maxresdefault.jpg&f=1&nofb=1

:drool:

[Jimmy Floyd]

Taking into account only looks and sound, the 1994 Ferrari was probably the peak of F1 history.

1991 Jordan also a humdinger.

[Shindig]

I still can't believe the Arrows A3 is a 1980 car.

https://www.ultimatecarpage.com/images/car/5932/Arrows-A3-Cosworth-49650.jpg

And I love the A18.

https://f1tcdn.net/f1db/cars/images/1997/arrows-a18.jpg

And any of the Jaguars.

[niko_cee]

Is that Penthouse [as in the magazine?] on the side of that car?

[Shindig]

Of course. Surtees had his cars sponsored by Durex.

[Gray Fox]

I see Andretti has finally officially applied to have a team in the 2024 season.

[Ben]

Alpine with the last car reveal today before the first test begins in Barcelona on Wednesday (Alfa Romeo chose not to do an official unveiling). Rumours they'll just reveal their livery on the stock concept car like Red Bull did, because the actual car is already in Barcelona for its planned shakedown tomorrow morning. There's conflicting reports out of Renault that their radical approach to the engine upgrade they've been developing a few years now is either a rocket (although possibly somewhat unreliable) or they're struggling with E10 and it'll be a tractor.

This Barcelona test will be fairly low key with none of it being televised, and probably some of the teams holding back revolutionary features (Mercedes have a tendency to do this, even running an entirely different car). The second test in Bahrain in a couple of weeks will be when things start to spice up and we see cars something close to their Race 1 configuration.

[Gray Fox]

The Q2 qualifying tyre rule has been dumped.

Could make it better with teams not knowing what their rivals will start on until they get to the Sunday grid.

[Ben]

Yeah it's about time. It was nice when it allowed Russell or someone to sneak into Q3 on a set of softs when some of them were trying to be clever and qualify on mediums (Ferrari) but ultimately it made P11 a powerful position, which is silly.

[Gray Fox]

They’re also introducing a show and tell session each GP.

Each team is required to inform the Director on a Friday before practice of any upgrades or changes being brought to the car. Then for an hour before practice begins each team must wheel both of their cars out in full trim so that anyone can come and freely look at them.

I don’t like that one very much.

[Ben]

That'll result in a few redundancies at Red Bull for the full-time diffuser blockers.

[Ben]

1495817498201145350

Interesting.

Even more interesting that they'll invert the blue and pink in the first two races...

[7om]

Love it.

[Shindig]

Those concepts weren't far off. Sweet.

[Jimmy Floyd]

Looks crap, but can be differentiated from the Williams and that's all that matters.

French cars haven't been bettered since the Ligier JS39.

[Pepe]

I like the looks.

[thommo]

Much preferred last year's car to this. It's still quite nice but middling compared to some of the other liveries.

[7om]

Looks crap, but can be differentiated from the Williams and that's all that matters.

French cars haven't been bettered since the Ligier JS39.

I see your JS39 and I raise you a Prost AP03

[Ben]

In other car news, the real Haas saw daylight today and looks quite radical.

Alpine have gone shockingly conventional it seems, although they've now joined the 21st century and got a split turbo engine so El Plan is very much alive.

[Jimmy Floyd]

I see your JS39 and I raise you a Prost AP03

That was an absolutely horrible shitbox though, whereas the JS39 powered Eric Bernard to a much-deserved F1 podium finish.

[Ben]

And that was the end of Peugeot in F1. Tractor engine in that Prost.

[Shindig]

I've never forgiven that engine for Austria 1997. Synchronised blowups.

[Ben]

https://ibb.co/4RdWQ0f

:alan: