F1 2024 - 24 Rounds of Street Circuit Thrillers

[Ben]

It is but they’re shutting it down and becoming a Mercedes customer.

Recent performances are in spite of the Renault engine.

[Waffdon]

Leclerc looks absolutely rapid. Being able to use a brand new car after the nightmare in quali was probably a blessing

[Pepe]

It is but they’re shutting it down and becoming a Mercedes customer.

Lol.

[Waffdon]

McLaren should have just pitted first. 2 seconds taken out of his lead with an epic pit stop

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

Max is such a fucking baby.

[Waffdon]

Verstappen :D

[SincereTheRebel]

Can we just go with these exact cars for next year with the driver changes please?

[Waffdon]

If McLaren fix their straight line speed next year they will absolutely piss it

[Adramelch]

McLaren should have just pitted first. 2 seconds taken out of his lead with an epic pit stop

You have to factor in where he would end up had he pitted earlier. He had time to give in order to come into clean air and avoid any potential collision/safety car shenanigans.

[Waffdon]

There’s definitely some 2021 shenanigans going to happen here. Magnussen has already wiped the fastest lap from Norris and he’s probably been told to cause a safety car at some point

[Adramelch]

Surely Piastri has to be told to play it safe at this point?

[Waffdon]

Trying to make it about Lewis Hamilton :D

[Gray Fox]

It is all about Lewis Hamilton.

[Waffdon]

Forever in Max’s shadow

[Gray Fox]

Literally the greatest driver of all time by almost every metric, but okay sure.

[Jimmy Floyd]

How did the French figure out how to build a car all of a sudden?

When the Englishman took over mid season.

[Pepe]

I thought that the car had been built in the UK for a while.

[Ben]

Renault have always worked out of the Enstone factory.

Jim is referring to Oakes taking over as TP in August.

[7om]

Can we just go with these exact cars for next year with the driver changes please?

Next season has got the potential to be an all-time great. The teams are finding the final bits of performance for these regulations so the field is going to become even tighter if anything.

[phonics]

The f1 podcast I listen to has me wondering whether they’re being overly woke or I’m wrong. They keep pushing Tsunoda for Red Bull like he wouldn’t be an even shittier Perez. Has the guy ever done anything impressive ever?

[Jimmy Floyd]

The Tsunoda love is just odd weeb stuff. He's alright over one lap but nothing special and ultimately just a Honda stooge.

[John Arne]

He's also a massive fanny.

[Clunge]

I miss Kobayashi. He was properly mad. And actually a decent driver.

[Ben]

Tsunoda would be a disaster.

Whether he does or doesn't get the seat will tell you how much sway Honda still have.

[Shindig]

He's no Takuma Sato.

[Ben]

Perez out, Lawson in.

The amount of support for Tsunoda is baffling.

Probably Hadjar up from F2 into the RB seat I guess.

[Waffdon]

That’s an aggressive driving line up.

I’d love to see K Mag in a big seat just for the madness that follows

[SincereTheRebel]

Would have preferred to see a driver with even less experience but we cant have it all.

[John Arne]

Spa removed from the '28 and '30 calender to allow potential new races in Argentina, Thailand, Rwanda or, and get this .. another Saudi race.

[Pepe]

Oh well. It was good while it lasted.

[niko_cee]

I'm not sure it has ever really been good on a consistent basis, but the trend towards it being all a massive wealth flaunting endeavour twinned with modern reliability, increased complexity and billions of races has somewhat dulled the mystique and allure of it all.

That said, they should probably cancel Spa indefinitely until they can provide a usable extreme wet tyre.

[Ben]

The cars being the size of cruise liners is the main reason extreme wets don't work. Something of that size and weight creates an insane amount of spray. We even have drivers complaining about it when they're on inters now.

[Shindig]

Aye, all the torque to the rear just doesn't help. I'd go back to MotoGP but I'm not ready for a Honda without a Repsol livery.

The drivers keep me onboard with F1, anyway. The grid's got so much talent in it.

[Gray Fox]

To be fair to Pirelli here, the wet tyre actually works exceptionally well, which is itself the problem. It removes a crazy amount of water from the surface. The downside is that gets chucked all over the car behind you. The cars being ground effect and getting loads of water into the gubbins there is what I think is the bigger problem and why there is just no running in the full wets.

[SincereTheRebel]

If they clip a mud flap on the rear wing that deflects the water back onto the racing line. Problem solved.

[Ben]

To be fair to Pirelli here, the wet tyre actually works exceptionally well, which is itself the problem. It removes a crazy amount of water from the surface. The downside is that gets chucked all over the car behind you. The cars being ground effect and getting loads of water into the gubbins there is what I think is the bigger problem and why there is just no running in the full wets.

Yeah that's my point. It's the cars that are the problem, not the tyres.

The 2026 mockups are quite noticeably smaller than the current cars. Which you'd think is a good thing, but they're still bigger/heavier than 2021. So this wet tyre issue isn't going away. But they're binning off Spa for Saudi II so who cares.

[SincereTheRebel]

1881300328592949476

[Ben]

We all overdress in our first day on a job. Working class hero.

[Pepe]

He looks great as does the F40. :drool:

[Ben]

Speaking of F40s...

https://www.motor1.com/news/747812/ferrari-f40-owned-lando-norris-crash/

[niko_cee]

He's just missing the MAGA hat, oh wait, different event.

[Gray Fox]

I'm getting Bond villain vibes.

His terrifying plan is to force the world into a plant based diet.

[Jimmy Floyd]

It is funny how he and Nernando are still hanging out with what is otherwise a grid full of AI generated children.

[Lewis]

Speaking of F40s...

https://www.motor1.com/news/747812/ferrari-f40-owned-lando-norris-crash/

Some 'mechanic' obliterated one the other day in this country, and one did likewise in Germany a while back. What other two million quid thing would you not securely transport over even a short distance?

[Shindig]

It is funny how he and Nernando are still hanging out with what is otherwise a grid full of AI generated children.

Ah, now you've ruined it for me. All I'll see is a regen face pack.

[Giggles]

Only looking through the lineups now, didn't realise there were so many changes like Zhou gone. Never heard of Bortoleto or Hadjar.

[Ben]

I was just thinking yesterday it's getting close to the time to make a 2025 thread. Get your subtitle suggestions in now. It's the exact same 24 races as last season so I'm struggling for inspiration.

[niko_cee]

The exact same thing over and over again is probably a good epithet for Formula One.

[Shindig]

F1 2025 - It's Just Going Round in Circles.

[SincereTheRebel]

It is funny how he and Nernando are still hanging out with what is otherwise a grid full of AI generated children.

a full set of regens

[Disco]

I was just thinking yesterday it's getting close to the time to make a 2025 thread. Get your subtitle suggestions in now. It's the exact same 24 races as last season so I'm struggling for inspiration.

Arabian Shites.

Works for circuits and personnel, given todays announcement.

[phonics]

I had a thought about this season recently. Current regulations mean that the worst teams get more time in Wind Tunnels/Testing etc. Would it not be beneficial with 2026 having massive rules/aero/performance changes to tank this season specifically to get more time in the lab. For a Ferrari/Red Bull/Mercedes, is it worth taking a 50 million quid bath so that you could then rule the first couple years under the new regs?

[Disco]

The same team has won every single year since it was introduced so I'd love to be in the meeting where someone suggested taking a £50m hit as a strategy for success.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/articles/c78x03252mpo

Lol if they actually dock someone (especially Max) championship points for swearing too much.

[phonics]

The same team has won every single year since it was introduced so I'd love to be in the meeting where someone suggested taking a £50m hit as a strategy for success.
Didn't Brawn basically win a title on his own last time they made these changes?

[niko_cee]

Yeah, but they had the regulation cheat code. You don't get that from more time in the tunnel alone. Does that testing time difference even carry over between regulation changes?

If you were tanking wouldn't you also just dedicate all of your current season testing allowance to that as well? Which would all be spectacularly lol when you role out some big brain zero pods in Bahrain in 2026.

[phonics]

I went to art school. I'm not even sure how much tunnel time even matters. I was just trying to big brain it.

However, now James Vaal or whatever his name is has revealed it, when a friend of mine who worked on their aero told me that the entire Williams factory and engineering worked off a single excel spreadsheet I'm not sure unlimited tunnel time would make up for that level of inbuilt inefficiency.

[Disco]

Didn't Brawn basically win a title on his own last time they made these changes?

Honda invested hundreds of millions of pounds into the team first, then left after 2008 not knowing they'd built an absolute rocket ship, sold the team to Ross Brawn for a quid and presumably all jumped out a window when Jenson Button lolled his way through the first half of the season and won the title. Long time before any kind of cost cap of course, they won in 09 for the same reason anyone else has: spending a dickload of money the year before.

[Shindig]

Brawn weren't the only ones with double-diffusers either. Fellow big spenders Toyota had them ready for the season, as did Williams.

[Giggles]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/articles/c78x03252mpo

Lol if they actually dock someone (especially Max) championship points for swearing too much.

The divers should be striking over that one, especially the no criticism bit.

[Jimmy Floyd]

No question they should. The idiot's got to go.

[Luke Emia]

Aye, the top drivers especially hold all the power here. You going to have an F1 championship l without Verstappen, Leclerc, Hamilton and the like?

[Giggles]

Doesn't sound like they're all that happy about it either.