since when are winners fair lol

the race should totally have restarted with 1/2 laps

There's absolutely nothing in the rules that allowed for a red flag in yesterday's race. Red flags are only deployed for serious safety concerns (driver safety, barrier damage, extreme debris on track). Ricciardo's Mclaren being there did not justify that and to throw a red just to stop the race for a restart would have broken those rules.

 

The safety car should have picked up Verstappen and probably waved Russell through earlier, as well as the lapped cars, but that still may not have been enough for a resumption of racing. Daniel pulled up on lap 47 and one lap ran under local yellows. once that proved insufficient the SC was deployed. All of which is by the book and it was clear then that Daniel's car would take too long to recover meaning the race was over as long as the SC rules were obeyed, and there was zero chance of a repeat of Abu Dhabi this time - which is right.

 

 

Safety car was definitely the right thing to do... it didn't even change the race result so I can't understand why people are grumbling about it. I don't like this new approach where people are expecting rules to get manipulated just to create extra drama, it shouldn't have happened at the end of last season and it correctly didn't happen yesterday.

Newly-crowned Formula 2 Champion Felipe Drugovich will kit out in green for Aston Martin before the end of the 2022 season…

 

Aston Martin have announced that the Brazilian racing driver will join their driver development programme, becoming their first signing.

Following his appendix operation on Saturday, Alex Albon suffered from respiratory failure and was submitted to intensive care. The complications may have been related to the anaesthetic. He came off intensive on Sunday and has returned to the general ward in Monza. He is expected to return home on Tuesday.

Hulkenberg in the running for an Haas seat??

of course they had to use the safety car, but not for 6 laps, the car was already out after 4

ridiculous imho

It took four laps to remove the car, then you need a lap for the lapped cars to resume their correct position on track, plus the mandatory additional lap after that. This meant that the four laps to remove Ricciardo's car left there no possibility of a restart and no point going through the restart procedure when there couldn't be one.

In what may be a sign of how keen Alpine are of getting Gasly for next year, they are preparing to run Alpha Tauri target Colton Herta in one of their cars at a test before the Singapore GP. This makes some sense as multiple tests look like the only way the young American driver can gather enough superlicence points in time for next year.

Hulkenberg in the running for an Haas seat??

 

Yes! Anything to bring the Hulk back to F1 for a final hurrah

Please no. The guy has had his time.

In the last few years F1 has definitely become more of an entertainment industry, with the prices to attend substantially increasing, as such I think there could absolutely be a conversation about race finishes and whether they should finish under the safety car. I also didn't think it was especially safe on Sunday to have cars driving past a crane moving in the opposite direction, even at safety car speeds, to definitively say a red flag was unnecessary.

The only option I think is viable is to extend the number of laps after a safety car. They do something similar in Formula E where you get back the time spent under a safety car as racing conditions. There's no reason why an F1 race *must* run 300KM (even that rule is ignored for Monaco).

I also didn't think it was especially safe on Sunday to have cars driving past a crane moving in the opposite direction, even at safety car speeds, to definitively say a red flag was unnecessary.

There's a debate to be had about that perhaps, but it has never been seen as worthy of a red flag in the past and should not be used as an excuse to throw them out for the puporses of creating an exciting finale. The marshalls were able to recover the car without obstructing the track and there was no immediate threat to life, nor any debris over the circuit so it's absolutely a yellow and a SC.

 

People quite fairly made a lot of complaints last year about bending rules to make things more exciting and ever since they've stuck quite rigidly to enforcing those that are clear cut and they did so again on Sunday.

 

As for the option of extending the race, it's certainly another debate worth having but it will inevitably have a knock on effect in other areas. Teams will have to fuel the cars for additional laps prior to the race start and there will be an increased cost for this fuel and because of expected additional wear to other parts on the cars (this may be a rare occurrence but you can bet the teams will ask for a further raise to the cost cap.

 

Personally, I think that having a rather flat finale to a race that was effectively commandingly won by Verstappen, with no other significant on track duels ongoing is far preferable to any driver having their hard earned win or points taken away from them because an official wanted to spice things up with a second standing start. Abu Dhabi last year was done for reasons of excitement and it left a very nasty taste in the mouth. The red flag at Baku was justified but I was and am in favour of ending the race at that point as only a few laps remained.

 

Liberty Media's desire to make things more about entertainment than sport (especially with Drive to Survive) is definitely making it more popular but I'm also finding a lot more ill informed, tribalistic and toxic fans on all sides, being very vocal, (especially on some websites that were previously high quality) which is concerning. I'm not talking about this site btw but I see repeated uses elsewhere of people hurling insults at certain drivers, mainly Max, Sebastian and Lewis, using silly nicknames, booing at circuits and boorish behaviour in some sections of crowds, conspiracy theories and insinuations of cheating week in week out with no basis in fact (Piquet has a lot to answer for there). It's disrespecting to the teams, marshalls, FIA and the drivers who put there lives at risk and I think this could be the sports biggest worry long term. There are a noticably growing number of extremely respectful, well informed, long term fans who no longer feel attending the circuits is right for them and that the sport is losing it's core traditions in favour of gimmicks like sprint races and the once again back on the table (according to Domenicali) idea of reverse grids

In what may be a sign of how keen Alpine are of getting Gasly for next year, they are preparing to run Alpha Tauri target Colton Herta in one of their cars at a test before the Singapore GP. This makes some sense as multiple tests look like the only way the young American driver can gather enough superlicence points in time for next year.

Assuming this also gets them through their young driver FP1 quota without having to let him behind the wheel. Piastri shouldn’t be driving the 2022 car to take info to McLaren. If his contract is non-existent then Alpine owe him nothing and as we have seen what he considers loyalty then he can expect the same in return.

 

Wonder if two sessions with Alpine would do the trick. Would also suggest a massive dethawing of relations between Renault and Red Bull

2023 calendar

 

1 Bahrain Grand Prix Mar 3-5

2 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix Mar 17-19

3 Australian Grand Prix Mar 31-Apr 2

4 Chinese Grand Prix Apr 14-16

5 Azerbaijan Grand Prix Apr 28-30

6 Miami Grand Prix May 5-7

7 Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix May 19-21

8 Monaco Grand Prix May 26-28

9 Spanish Grand Prix Jun 2-4

10 Canadian Grand Prix Jun 16-18

11 Austrian Grand Prix Jun 30-Jul 2

12 British Grand Prix Jul 7-9

13 Hungarian Grand Prix Jul 21-23

14 Belgian Grand Prix Jul 28-30

15 Dutch Grand Prix Aug 25-27

16 Italian Grand Prix Sep 1-3

17 Singapore Grand Prix Sep 15-17

18 Japanese Grand Prix Sep 22-24

19 Qatar Grand Prix Oct 6-8

20 United States Grand Prix Oct 20-22

21 Mexican Grand Prix Oct 27-29

22 Brazilian Grand Prix Nov 3-5

23 Las Vegas Grand Prix Nov 16-18

24 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix Nov 24-26

 

In other news -

 

Red Bull abandon attempts to get Herta in a car for next year.

Nyck De Vries likely to be at Alpine next year

Monaco on the calendar until 2025 at least

was reading now that Alpine is conducting "castings" this weekend like if it were X Factor ;D

A Hungarian shoot out that may result in a none of the above outcome. I’m here for this mess. They had the test set up for the disloyal one so why not make proper use of it

also read that Giovinazzi is pushing for a return!