The Formula One Thread

Absolutely, but one could argue that it was in response to Ferrari doing it first. They basically started what will be standard policy for the rest of the season.

 

Yes but you have to love Kimi being Kimi and making them explicitly tell him to pull over and let Seabass through. He knew damn well what they wanted and was clearly having fun at their expense.

 

Ferrari will always be synonymous with team orders, but I love the hypocrisy coming from the other teams. Wasn't it a few weeks ago that Toto and Lauda were commending Ferrari for not using team orders to move Vettle in front of Kimi late in a race?

 

All that time, money, and effort spent on race strategy, and teams looks like they just went with a coinflip.

 

Telling a racer to hold station is just as bad IMO especially when the second place car has way more pace. I think the biggest risk to an incident wouldn't have been Bottas making the move, but an over aggressive defense by Lulu which he's known to do.

Having said that, I can see it from the angle of Lulu being the recipient of a strategy that put him at the right place at the right time. His tires were newer than Bottas', so giving him track position and allowing Bottas to use new tires to defend against the others makes sense. I would like to assume that Mercedes would make the same call if the roles were reversed, but I don't think that would happen.

 

Online chatter had the (unconfirmed) statement that at one point yesterday during the race, all five Pirelli compounds for the race, to include full wets and intermediate tires, were in use, at the same time. A first.

 

I've always wondered if the customer or jr. teams get requests by the factories to run a specific compound to assist the factory team with strategy.

Although that still doesn't explain why Gasley went onto wets

 

Clarkson made a joke that Williams went out on snow tires on that lap...........

 

TR had a driver out on Mediums and Wets, talk about hedging bets.

 

Marchionne RIP

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/ferrari-sergio-marchionne-dies-aged-66-1063782/

 

Seems inherently dangerous to me to to be on the pit lane and then re-enter the race course. How many track and race days have we all been to where the rule is once you have signaled you are getting off the track, get off the track. Do not re-enter. What makes it a more egregious violation is that he had to cross the grass to re-enter the race track.

Bottas deserved that win.

 

Miami in trouble?
https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/24/motorsport/formula-one-miami-grand-prix-2019-spt-intl/

 

Shoulder surgery?! Damn!

 

According to here, plan is for 2020.
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/miami-gp-postponed-at-least-until-2020-1063206/

 

It should get shitcanned. The course looks stupid as hell, and why do a shitty temporary street course anyway when there are other race tracks in the US?

 

Would love to see one at VIR.

 

Prolly true (no to mention lack of garage on the pit).

There were some spots I saw last week in Germany that looked pretty darn narrow as well.