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Formula 1, 2020


Andrew P
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22 minutes ago, Andrew P said:

 

I think he's being hard on himself, he is what he is, an excellent number two driver, better than most but not quite the best. There's been plenty of similar drivers over the years and there's no disgrace in being such a driver, they are the ones that help teams and the best by winning races and scoring points on a consistent basis. George would seem, from that performance, to be at the higher level but only time will tell. 

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3 minutes ago, Pete the Elaner said:

 

Hence its common name: the Daily Fail.

 

It's no better and no worse than any of the other rags, but as the top seller it gets most of the flack... Now where have we heard that before? ;)

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7 minutes ago, Hobby said:

 

I think he's being hard on himself, he is what he is, an excellent number two driver, better than most but not quite the best. There's been plenty of similar drivers over the years and there's no disgrace in being such a driver, they are the ones that help teams and the best by winning races and scoring points on a consistent basis. George would seem, from that performance, to be at the higher level but only time will tell. 

 

To many in the industry, the manufacturers' championship is more important than the drivers' championship.

 

You can't win the manufacturers' championship without a good second driver. 

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24 minutes ago, Hobby said:

 

I think he's being hard on himself, he is what he is, an excellent number two driver, better than most but not quite the best. There's been plenty of similar drivers over the years and there's no disgrace in being such a driver, they are the ones that help teams and the best by winning races and scoring points on a consistent basis. George would seem, from that performance, to be at the higher level but only time will tell. 

 

I agree with that.

Bottas has helped Merc become team champions & given them a 1-2 in the drivers standings, which is as much as he could do.

 

Alonso & Rosberg were closer to Hamilton but both caused friction within the team which cost points, which was probably more to do with their rivalry than their personalities.

Button was also close but neither driver was in contention for the championship at the time. This allowed them to race with rather than against each other.

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1 hour ago, gismorail said:

Just as a matter of interest next years Aston Martin team who is actually building the engine is it a true home built Aston Martin power plant and is the right team managing it ......thought provoking maybe :smoke:

Merc engine again Martin.

 

The only Teams with what might be classed as a NEW Engine could be Red Bull and Alpha Touri, with their own brand of the Honda Power Unit under a different name and supply.

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Daimler Benz have a stake in Aston Martin (5%, to be increased to 20% according to Wikipedia), so the Mercedes engine could be said to be AM if you want to look at it that way.

 

Ultimately they're the ones made at Brixworth, which presently has Mercedes AMG above the door, but really that's just about branding...

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Crisis Rail

First an apology for the rather crass comment on you enthusiasm and experience. I will put it down to a senior moment as I normally do not respond to prosts in that manner.

I have had similar experience to you. Karting as a Junior, normally top 3 at club level until I ran out of money at Uni. Then I track marshalled all the way up to Grand Prix level. Being able to walk through the paddock pre Bernie with an access all areas pass with my girlfriend (now wife) was unbelievable looking back on it. From there I went to circuit racing and F750 where I designed built and raced reasonably successfully my own cars. The driver was always the limitation, but I could run top 6. Family meant racing had to cease but I built another car for a friend later on and continued helping out at the odd race meetings and running the local club centre. These days I am a design Judge with the IMechE Formula Student competition where I have the privilege to work alongside and learn from F1 engineering staff. My specialist subjects in this competition are chassis structures, suspension design and aerodynamics.

I am interested in why people think that the car is the overriding factor in success. Yes the car has an incredible effect on whether you at the front or the back of the grid, George has proved that. But you still need to have the best driver to get the best out of it. In Formula Ford which Crisis Rail has some experience of there are multiple cars ostensibly the same. Given reliability and a bit of luck the best drivers have always prevailed (Senna dominated his year in Formula Ford but one). Outright raw pace is not the be all, you need race craft and edge that others don’t have. Schumacher had it, he was not always the fastest driver but he was the most complete of his time. Other to consider would be Fangio, Moss, Clark, Stewart. Lewis also has that edge he is not necessarily the fastest driver out there today, that is probably Max, but he is the most complete. Lewis has always had an edge over his team mates possibly with the exception in the early day of Alonso. At Mercedes yes it has been the dominant car but It took everything Rosberg could muster and more, plus some bad luck to beat Lewis to one championship, he then sensibly retired knowing he could never do it again. The best car allowed them to win the championship but the best driver prevailed.

Sorry for rambling, I am know going to make lots of swarf in the garage. The 5" gauge loco beckons.

 

Keep safe all

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23 minutes ago, Andrew P said:

 

Did you follow that to view his self-recorded post on Instagram?

Although he says he feels a lot better, he looks a little dazed. It reminded me of how I felt when I had it back in April. I spent 8 days wondering when I would stop shivering, then 1 morning I woke up feeling fine.

It took a further week before I could taste anything properly though: absolutely everything tasted metallic, like the way a steel can used to taint drinks...only a lot stronger.

Tests were very limited back then so I don't know at what point it returns a negative & it is just your body reacting to it.

I hope he does start feeling back to his old self very quickly.

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4 minutes ago, kipford said:

Outright raw pace is not the be all, you need race craft and edge that others don’t have.

 

Have you seen interviews with Niki Lauda about the latter years of his driving career?

He viewed the '84 McLaren as 'his car' & was a little annoyed when a young Frenchman named Prost started beating him on raw pace, especially in qualifying. During the season, he decided that the needed to call on other assets to win; the race craft & edge you describe.

It was a close call, but he ended up as the top driver that year.

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Thing is Seb’s four year domination was with a car that was the best, the margins are so tiny in F1 now that it’s impossible to judge the drivers without the car, it’s a team sport! Lewis has shown his class in how he drives in the rain, on greasy tracks like Turkey and when he just leaves Valterri standing when we know he’s a good F1 driver. Lewis has pace, consistency and patience which means he can wait out most and is willing to take a gamble when he needs to. George showed pace and patience, the consistency we will know later but he’s certainly added a bit more excitement and passion to last weekend and that’s why I’m back watching F1 every race as it’s nearly as good as the WRC. 2020 has ironically been the most exciting season for me since Mansell did his loony all out drives to the championship and you could say that was won by balls and the car ;) 

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58 minutes ago, Pete the Elaner said:

 

Did you follow that to view his self-recorded post on Instagram?

Although he says he feels a lot better, he looks a little dazed. It reminded me of how I felt when I had it back in April. I spent 8 days wondering when I would stop shivering, then 1 morning I woke up feeling fine.

It took a further week before I could taste anything properly though: absolutely everything tasted metallic, like the way a steel can used to taint drinks...only a lot stronger.

Tests were very limited back then so I don't know at what point it returns a negative & it is just your body reacting to it.

I hope he does start feeling back to his old self very quickly.

I didn't watch the instagram as I'm not on it, but thanks for the info. Look how long it takes most normal people to recover, we know he is fit, but it will still affect many things I'm sure.

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1 hour ago, David Bell said:

Andy,

In your model thread you said your interest in f1 started with the older cars, Vanwall and the like. I thought these would interest you. I took them at the Goodwood Revival in 2019. 

Cheers

David

20190915_163120.jpg

20190915_163059.jpg

Yes indeed David, beautiful images indeed. I remember building kits of many of these, but still never took an interest in F1 until the Mansell era. Thanks for posting on here.:good:

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3 minutes ago, Andrew P said:

I didn't watch the instagram as I'm not on it, but thanks for the info. Look how long it takes most normal people to recover, we know he is fit, but it will still affect many things I'm sure.

They’ve been saying it can hit the elite athletes hard because they push their body so much it can lower the immune response.  

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1 hour ago, Andrew P said:

I didn't watch the instagram as I'm not on it, but thanks for the info. Look how long it takes most normal people to recover, we know he is fit, but it will still affect many things I'm sure.

 

Neither am I but it seems to work anyway if you click on it.

It is on YouTube as well now.

He just looks a bit washed out to me. Hopefully some sleep & good eating will help (It made me too tired to eat on some days).

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From the Autosport website. Here are Mercedes Trackside Engineering Director Andrew Shovlin's comments about Georges weekend. For those who may not know 'Shov' was Jenson Buttons Race Engineer during his 2009 championship winning season.

 

Shovlin says Mercedes tried not to "overwhelm" Russell with information ahead of his debut, and while he admits the W11 will be "easier" than the Williams, he notes Russell had to understand the greater window of performance it possessed.

"We were just trying to feed the information to him in a way that wasn't going to overwhelm him," he said.

"We weren't telling him things on Thursday night that he didn't need to know until Sunday morning.

"In some ways our car will be easier than the Williams that he normally drives because it's quite a nice handling car, there aren't any major vices, it's got good grip.

"So, in some ways that direction is easier. But the fact is the performance envelope of our car is much bigger.

"And you can brake later, you can get on the throttle sooner, you can be more aggressive with it, and the car will look after you and, and not catch you out as much as some others, and you can carry much more speed into corners.

"And it's just sort of understanding that. And it takes more than one race to really build up a sort of full appreciation of what the car can do.

"He's done a good job, he's approached that methodically."

Shovlin also concedes Russell's tall frame (he had to wear racing boots a size smaller than normal to fit into the W11's cockpit) meant driving the Mercedes would have been "painful", but he was "determined" to race the car.

 

What it confirms is that 'easier to drive' is a relative term and brings it own challenges from the hike in car performance. 

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