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OldBerkshireBoy

By OldBerkshireBoy
in The Broadscot Lounge

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Paul
Paul

I didn't see the start of the race yesterday, being on holiday the family were not going to let me stay in and watch the TV, fair enough. I saw the restart while we were stopped at Fritton and the las

Mouldy
Mouldy

You can say what you like and defend Verstappen’s win as much as you like, but changing the rules when they did, clearly favoured Verstappen.  Masi and his gangs  interference in so many races this se

CeePee1952
CeePee1952

I used to enjoy listening to Christian Horner but his comments on Sunday haven’t held substance with me. I got the feeling that he was trying to minimise any comeback from the team’s sponsors and part

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ScrumpyCheddar

ScrumpyCheddar

Posted
Posted

First season of no live Sky F1 ... It’s been painful not watching Live practice and qualifying..  I’ve watched the highlights earlier but not the same buzz as watching live... I’m not being tight but I find it disgusting that Sky can justify charging £18 month...  When Last year and and the years before was Only £10 month.. 

This season hopefully will be an exciting one.. It’s great to see Fernando Alonso back behind the wheel... 
Must admit love the New Aston Martin team colours... Be interesting how Vettel can improve on his failure at Ferrari... Not sure how Perez will get on playing 2nd driver at Redbull.. George Russell drove his heart out again in qualifying...Shame that Williams is lacking... Well done to Lando 5th on the grid fingers crossed he can splice the pack tomorrow when it’s lights out.. Max to win .... Hopefully 🤪🤪 

 

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Paul

Paul

Posted
Posted

It could be an interesting season ahead, it is pretty clear that Mercedes don't have the fastest car this year, though were I a betting man I would still be hesitant to put my thruppence each way on anyone else. They have not always had the fastest car in recent years but usually come out on top, though in the past the faster car tended to be a Ferrari in the hands of Sebastien Vettel and due to the the many fold errors of team and driver they have always managed to throw any edge away. I suspect Red Bull will not be so quick to waste any advantage they might have, though I still have doubts about Verstappen's ability to maximise the cars performance week in week out over a whole race weekend. He very nearly threw it away yesterday hitting a kerb too hard which could easily have damaged his car and lost the performance advantage he has over the Mercedes. And make no mistake, if he is to win this years title his car must maintain it's speed advantage. In equal cars Hamilton will have him for breakfast every time. Even in a car just a couple of tenths slower Hamilton will still beat him nine times out of ten. I a not having a go at Max, but Hamilton is a class above anyone else. 

In many respects I am not surprised at the apparent running order we see at present and if you look back at the end of last season you will see I did rather predict such or at least warned of the rise of Newey's Red Bull. With the reduced limits of track testing, CFD and wind tunnel testing introduced this year aerodynamicists are now the key men in the team, and Red Bull's Aidrian Newey is the best, the GOAT, nobody else comes near him or probably ever will. He is so far superior to anyone else he seems to be able to look at something and visualise the airflow over it, he knows if it will work even before committing increasingly precious wind tunnel time to testing it. The additional restrictions placed on Mercedes as 2020 champions the rest of the field have a significant edge in the development of this years car, increasingly so the lower they finished last year. In that respect Ferrari, who managed only 6th last term had a huge advantage in terms of testing. 

Whilst these new restrictions might appear to have served their purpose and reigned in the dominance of one particular team my dislike and distrust of rules which treat competitors differently in terms of past performance is absolute. I cannot accept than a sports person or team should be punished because of their success, and these rules which curtail the success of individuals are too easily manipulated to suits the ends of the rule makers. Just my opinion of course. Nobody suggested such things when Michael Schumacher was demonstrating this kind of dominance with Ferrari, or Sebastian Vettel with his Red Bull. Why? I'll leave you to form your own opinions. 

If we follow this example should we make Manchester City play premiership games with ten men or perhaps attack a goal smaller than that which they defend? Should Phil Taylor whilst winning his 16 world titles have been made to throw at a smaller dart board? Usain Bolt made to run 110 meters as opposed to everyone else running 100? Perhaps Michael Phelps should have had one hand tied behind his back?

I am all for a level playing field, but you cannot create one by treating competitors differently. Instead you make sure they all have the same starting point. Access to the same budget would be a good start. This season sees the introduction of a budget cap, talked about for years but finally introduced due to the massive financial loss the sport suffered due to COVID-19 however the difference between the spending of the top and bottom teams is still massive, and we are already seeing suggestions that those manufacturers with automotive divisions may be hiding some of their F1 costs in their road car companies. The way to increase competition within Formula One and to reduce costs, allowing a lower financial cap and more equal spending would be the introduction of common components although such a thought would horrify many F1 purists. But, once upon a time those same F1 purists would have been horrified at the thought of one team buying engines from another, now that is commonplace. We even see one team running a thinly veiled version of another's previous car. There are already a number of common components. Martin Brundle bless his socks made quite a faux pas yesterday on commentary during qualifying which was not picked up, perhaps a subconscious tilt of his hat the late great MW when he suggested the only compatible parts of two different cars lapping the track within hundredths of a second of each other were the tyres and rear warning light. Not true Mr B, they also have the same floor plank to control ground clearance and more pertinently the same engine management computers, made by McLaren which supply EMU's to all F1 teams. So whoever is first to the chequered flag this afternoon, a little bit of McLaren will have gotten them there. 

I am not suggesting anything as sweeping as whole engines, or complete wing assemblies but a good starting point might be steering wheels. This is one area where the spending difference is most extreme with those teams with the biggest budgets spending millions of dollars developing new steering wheels whilst those on the tightest shoestrings spending relatively nothing (relatively nothing whilst acknowledging that each new wheel costs around $100,000 and teams might use as many as twenty in a season). Other key areas might be engine components. Many series around the world use common restrictor plates limiting the flow between turbo and engine, common turbos might be a good start, common pistons and rings, even common ICE blocks. 

There are lots of things that can be done to balance the playing field that don't specifically impact one team. It will be interesting to see if the F1 authorities are as keen to keep these restrictions in place if, come the end of the season a team other than Mercedes, a team with benefactors who are also very "supportive" of the FIA and Liberty Media are on the top step of the podium?

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Paul

Paul

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14 hours ago, ScrumpyCheddar said:

First season of no live Sky F1 ... It’s been painful not watching Live practice and qualifying..  I’ve watched the highlights earlier but not the same buzz as watching live... I’m not being tight but I find it disgusting that Sky can justify charging £18 month...  When Last year and and the years before was Only £10 month.. 

Agreed, £216 per year for what is in effect 23 live races each season compared with the number of Premier League football matches for the same price seems a bit harsh. I wonder how many other people will feel the same way and either lose interest in F1 altogether, settle for free to air highlights or find other dubious methods of watching the racing. The way Sky price their sports packages now means it is either all or nothing, picking a particular channel of interest is just not viable.

11 hours ago, floydraser said:

Ben Edwards has moved on from Channel 4

Hooray, was never a fan. We used to have to have to suffer him on the US PPG Cart and Indy Series broadcasts as well as BTCC. Always sounded like his pants were on fire. 

16 hours ago, OldBerkshireBoy said:

Is Vettel a spent force?

Was Vettel ever a force? He lucked in on a car which due to technical advantages, fair or otherwise, was so far clear of the field for four years that all he had to beat was a mediocre team mate. A little bit like Jenson's championship winning season at Brawn it has to be said, as much as I like him and was pleased for him claiming a word title. Take Vettel out of that superior car and he is nothing special and never was.

13 hours ago, Chelsea14Ian said:

sad that Murray Walker is no longer with us

Amen to that, a master of his craft and a voice which will forever be the standard of motorsport commentary. In years to come when I am gone to dust, when motor sport and combustion engines are considered deviant in a polished white world, men with oily hands somewhere in the darkness will whisper, "did you ever hear of Murray Walker, boy was he good ...."

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ScrumpyCheddar

ScrumpyCheddar

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Well I wouldn’t of called that an exciting race.. Hopefully the rest of the season will be better than today’s efforts...

Let’s see what happens in Italy 🇮🇹 next month ...

I managed to Listen to the commentary on Radio 5 live extra and watched on Facebook as someone was live streaming it from Spain 🇪🇸 Muchas Gracias  to them for that...  Well that’s way of watching the F1 live free of charge now..  👍👍

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oldgregg

oldgregg

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I hope Red Bull are genuinely quicker but I'm not convinced yet. Lewis is capable of pulling something special out of a rubbish car but I'm not convinced Bottas is. And yet he still finished third, ahead of some very talented drivers.

As for the cost of watching, the UK price is ridiculous. The price of F1 TV (which we can't buy in the UK because of the deal with Sky) is around 65 euros for the whole season and that covers multiple devices. And it works on most VPN services.

 

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Polly

Polly

Posted
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I only just found the Netflix series on F1! It’s a fascinating alternative look at how F1 operates, not unlike an adrenaline filled soap opera! 
 

I thought the race was good on Sunday, but miss the live presentation.

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oldgregg

oldgregg

Posted
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2 hours ago, Polly said:

I only just found the Netflix series on F1! It’s a fascinating alternative look at how F1 operates, not unlike an adrenaline filled soap opera! 
 

I thought the race was good on Sunday, but miss the live presentation.

Yeah it's brilliant and Guenther Steiner is just hilarious.

TV audience is the biggest issue F1 has at the moment. The racing has mostly not been very interesting for the past few seasons and it's now only on pay TV.

Quite a few of my friends are (or were) diehard F1 fans but most of us are just really bored with it now and don't have the enthusiasm to pay to subscribe and definitely not to spend lots of money and drive half way across Europe (even before COVID) to go to races like we used to.

When it was free-to-air people were much more likely to watch and feel interested by it, but Bernie did the sport no favours with the Sky deal. I know Liberty would prefer it to be on terrestrial TV in the UK but the contract was signed before they came aboard and they couldn't get out of it. I think it runs until the end of the 2023 season, at which point Liberty will probably be begging the BBC to take it.

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BroadAmbition

BroadAmbition

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Posted

Quite a few of my friends are (or were) diehard F1 fans but most of us are just really bored with it now and don't have the enthusiasm to pay to subscribe and definitely not to spend lots of money and drive half way across Europe (even before COVID) to go to races like we used to.

That sums me up perfectly.  In years gone by I would plan my life ahead around watching live F1. 

Nowadays I have to make the effort to watch the highlights and don't loose any sleep if I miss it.  Pay per view and Sky in particular is killing F1 off imho

Griff

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