Ferrari look like they’re in a death spiral. They have a bad mix of a horrific strategy team, questionable reliability, a clearly favored driver that makes unforced errors on a regular basis, and a driver that has too much passion and competitiveness to be counted on in a support role. Unless something massive changes over the break, Mercedes have already passed themPutting Charles onto the hard tire, especially after it was clear from the Alpines that the hard tires had no grip in those conditions, might be the most baffling strategy blunder yet. In other instances you could at least kind of see what Ferrari was thinking but this one is completely inexplicable.
The championship race is over - now the battle to watch is Mercedes vs Ferrari for second place.
Agreed - this weekend Ferrari was sort of boxed into a corner on tire strategy. Mercedes started Russell on the soft tire because they wanted him to get a good jump on the start and they have trouble building tire temperature on the harder compounds. Ferrari has no such problem this season, so the medium was a better choice for them. I doubt they figured they could finish the race running medium-soft-medium, but in hindsight the cooler temperature might have allowed it. Obviously several other cars were able to pull that off. Also I could be wrong here, but I believe Merc had new softs for Hamilton, while Ferrari only had used sets left for Leclerc. Ultimately it seems the cooler temperatures were Ferrari's undoing as they couldn't get the hard tires to work.as far as the strategy is concerned, I do feel they get more shit than they deserve. Today for example, the whole discussion about the hards obscures the fact they weren’t doing well on the sorts either.
My Austrian friend sent this to me. It seems perfect.F1's official channel had a video explaining what a strategist does. Interesting stuff.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CFkltWIc8o
Even in Jan of 2020, comment section was filled with snide remarks about Ferrari's lack of strategic abilities.
For those that have F1TV and haven't seen it this is an awesome episode of Inside Story as well. https://f1tv.formula1.com/detail/1000004316/inside-story-mercedes-strategic-masterclassF1's official channel had a video explaining what a strategist does. Interesting stuff.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CFkltWIc8o
Even in Jan of 2020, comment section was filled with snide remarks about Ferrari's lack of strategic abilities.
Snakebit maybe because the engines are unreliable? I would associate being snakebitten more with, say, Stroll and Max losing tires at Baku because Pirelli honked up the simulations (I really suspect the race was on the verge of a catastrophe if things were just a bit worse). LeClerc is snakebit in the sense that Ferrari Analysts make the worst possible choice at every turn. The decisions look bad at the moment and worsen with every minute of hindsight.Season break over, in case you guys hadn't noticed. 1-2 finish for Red Bull at Spa; Charles Leclerc still the most snakebitten guy in auto racing.
Whether information overload or just plain incompetence, this is the key. Ferrari make objectively wrong calls on such a regular basis that it’s staggering they haven’t blown up the strategy team.The decisions look bad at the moment and worsen with every minute of hindsight.
I've been to the Barcelona track (spent 2 days driving it, actually) - it's pretty far from the city and I don't think there's any public transit option. The driving event I did took us on shuttle buses from the city and I feel like it was a 45 minute drive each morning (without any race traffic!). Barcelona is an amazing city, the race there is often boring though - no good overtakes, track is "too familiar" for the drivers/teams because it's the pre-season test track.With the knowledge of this forum, I wonder if folks can recommend a race to attend? I read an Autoweek article that referenced a complation of costs which provides some insight on which to avoid on a budget. My newly minted F1 fanatic wife is thinking an International Race, likely outside the America’s. Reasonably easy access to the course via public transportation seems like a good minimum? For those that have attended a race, is a Jumbotron necessary for enjoyment of the race?
In passing, we have mentioned to each other Barcelona, Suzuka, Baku, and Zandvoort. The leading contender so far seems to be Barcelona.
He had a great burn for Lewis when they cut to the live team radios…this guy only knows how to drive and start in first place.
On post race show they showed the team basically asking Leclerc if he wanted to change tires, which tires they should use, etc. He was asking what is the plan, etc.Whether information overload or just plain incompetence, this is the key. Ferrari make objectively wrong calls on such a regular basis that it’s staggering they haven’t blown up the strategy team.
looks like his big problem is he won't have a seat next year.
To me, it seems Williams would be better off sitting Latifi immediately. He can’t/won’t bring anything more to the table and eight races would season DV.The fact this thread hasn’t been topped recently speaks to how uncompetitive this season now is. At least Latifi is going to become too much of an embarrassment to continue next year.
I'm actually really interested in the Ferrari-Mercedes / McLaren-Renault constructor battles, but yea, the driver championship has felt inevitable for a good while now.The fact this thread hasn’t been topped recently speaks to how uncompetitive this season now is. At least Latifi is going to become too much of an embarrassment to continue next year.
Cars getting to bunch up under a caution flag is something that happens in all forms of racing. It has to happen this way for safety reasons - the entire idea behind a safety car is to get the field to much up so that the marshalls/track workers have a prolonged period when no cars are in the area of the track where the accident was so they can pick up debris, clear a crashed car, etc. (For less serious accidents, F1 uses the “virtual” safety car rule, which is essentially what you are proposing - the cars have to slow down but don’t bunch up in the same way.)Sorry to bring up the end of 2021 again….
I watched the end of the latest Drive to Survive season and I’m no less confused now than I was watching the final race in real time. I don’t follow 1) what should have been done under the rules, and 2) the best way to handle the situation irrespective of the rules.
As a relatively new fan, the safety car rules seem pretty dumb. It’s really dumb when a race ends under a safety car or early. But even during a race, I don’t understand why a safety car allows cars to close gaps so long as they stay in proper order. It’s the equivalent of NBA teams getting to advance the ball to half court rather than under the hoop after a timeout which is also one of the dumbest rules in sports.
Then there was discussion of “unlapping” cars. I guess I understand the theory. If you get the lapped cars out of the way, the cars actually competing are in the proper order with less congestion in their way. But similar to freely closing gaps, cars are given the benefit of not needing to deal with and overtake lapped cars in front of them.
So this all seems like dumb rule on top of dumb rule. But where they really lost me was the argument over only letting the 5 cars between Max and Lewis unlap. It wouldn’t have mattered if they let only those 5 or all the lapped cars unlap. Either way, it would have put Max right next to Lewis so long as he stayed an inch behind. The show portrayed that the issue was which cars were unlapping, rather than whether to let cars unlap or not, and I don’t see the material difference.
Cars getting to bunch up under a caution flag is something that happens in all forms of racing. It has to happen this way for safety reasons - the entire idea behind a safety car is to get the field to much up so that the marshalls/track workers have a prolonged period when no cars are in the area of the track where the accident was so they can pick up debris, clear a crashed car, etc. (For less serious accidents, F1 uses the “virtual” safety car rule, which is essentially what you are proposing - the cars have to slow down but don’t bunch up in the same way.)
Putting aside the safety issues, though, bunching up the field is generally considered a “good” thing by the powers that be in motor sport because it makes things more exciting. In NASCAR now they actually do this 2 times a race or something even if there is no accident, just to increase the drama. It is certainly “unfair” in some sense, but no more so than if, say, a driver gets taken out by another driver through no fault of his own, which also routinely happens. The fact that “shit happens” during a race is, IMO, one of the reasons it’s so enjoyable.
As for last year’s finale, the issue was that if all the lapped cars were allowed to unlap themselves, it probably would have eaten up the whole remaining time and the race would have ended under safety car (lapped cars are generally not allowed to unlap until the incident has been cleared, for the reasons noted above). Masi could have let NO lapped cars unlap, which would have allowed a final lap of racing but basically eliminated a chance of Max overtaking Lewis. Or, he could have allowed ALL lapped cars to unlap, which would likely have resulted in the race ending under safety car. Instead, he fudged the rules to get the best of both worlds- you can kind of see where he was coming from, but you can’t really have a race director just changing rules on the fly to improve entertainment value.
That said, you are not wrong that ending a race under safety car is kinda lame and there have been many calls to think about rule changes to fix this. The problem is that F1 cars don’t refuel during the race and are fueled to complete exactly the number of laps the race has, meaning you can’t just add on laps to the end of the race because everyone would run out of fuel. You could throw a red flag and have everyone park in the pits and restart, but that creates its own set of issues and would be “unfair” in its own right.
Thanks. That is quite helpful. That was my guess…there wasn’t time to unlap everyone. To me, then, it seems the most fair way to do it would have been no unlaps and just race once the wreck was cleared.Once the decision was made to let the cars unlap themselves, all of them must do so. They couldn't all have made it before the end of the race. The objective error in rule application was to only allow the cars between Lewis and Max to unlap. That shouldn't have happened.
There are definitely rumors they went over the cap, they asked Horner about it during qualifying (or maybe it was one of the practice sessions). I don't see how you could take a championship away, though - would think they would just get a big fine.I caught something this week that Red Bull may have gone over the budget cap and they are in danger of being sanctioned, potentially even losing the championship.
I would be absolutely shocked if they took away a championship, but if they went over the cap by more than 5%, it would be a massive cheating scandal, since it would have given Red Bull a multi-season advantage due to the ability to accelerate development at the precise time when significant changes in the cars were being introduced.There are definitely rumors they went over the cap, they asked Horner about it during qualifying (or maybe it was one of the practice sessions). I don't see how you could take a championship away, though - would think they would just get a big fine.
Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto and Mercedes boss Toto Wolff argue the use of the word “minor” to describe a Formula 1 cost cap regulations breach of less than 5% of the permitted budget is misleading given the size of the advantage that can be gained by such an overspend.
With the FIA expected to announce two teams – believed to be Red Bull and Aston Martin – breached F1’s cost cap rules in 2021 when the formal certification of teams is completed on Wednesday, F1’s financial regulations have been the subject of intense discussion in the Singapore Grand Prix paddock.
Infringements of F1’s cost cap regulations are split into two categories: ‘minor overspend breach’ and ‘material overspend breach’.
Both involve exceeding the cost cap, but if the overspend is less than 5% of the cost cap it is classified as minor. It is expected that both the 2021 breaches will fall into the minor category.
The delineation between a minor and material overspend breach is significant because the range of potential penalties available is restricted. For a minor breach, this can be a financial penalty and/or a sporting penalty.
The range of sporting penalties available for a minor breach are a public reprimand, deduction of constructors’ championship points, deduction of drivers’ championship points, suspension from one or more stages of a competition (but not the race, only other sessions), limitations to aerodynamic or other testing and reduction of the cost cap.
But in the case of a material breach, the penalties are effectively limitless, stretching all the way to race bans and exclusion from the championship.
Wolf:“Apart from implications on last year’s championship there are also implications for the current one,” Binotto told Sky Italia.
“Let’s wait until Wednesday before making a judgement, but whatever amount we are talking about it’s important to understand that even if it is four million, which falls into the category of what is considered a ‘minor breach’, four million is not minor.
“For us, four million represents the development parts for an entire season. Four million means 70 people in a technical department who can come up with and produce solutions that could be worth up to half-a-second a lap.
“So even if we are looking at something considered a ‘minor breach’, it’s not peanuts. We are talking of half-a-second and that advantage is carried forward into subsequent seasons, because while it began in 2021 it still gives a competitive advantage in 2022 and 2023.
“So this is clearly an important matter
https://the-race.com/formula-1/ferrari-and-mercedes-minor-cap-breach-can-have-huge-impact/“We know exactly that we’re spending three-and-a-half million a year in parts that we bring to the car. And then you can see what difference it makes to spend another 500,000. It would be a big difference.
“We haven’t produced lightweight parts for the car in order to bring us down from a double digit [kg] overweight because we simply haven’t got the money, so we need to do it for next year’s car.
“We can’t homologate a lightweight chassis and bring it in because it’s just two million that we would be over the cap. So you can see every spend more has a performance advantage.