F1 2022 Season

simonhch said:
Well, I’ll start out by saying a massive feck you to the entire Red Bull garage. Now that I’ve discouraged about 30% of readers from continuing with my post, I’ll continue with some perhaps more mature analysis.

The Ferrari looks very quick, the power unit is obviously exceptional, as you can see from the other teams they are supplying. Excellent drive from LeClerc too. The brief battle with Verstappen was excellent.

I don’t think Red Bull will be hampered for long, although it’ll be interesting to see how reliable the Honda PU is.

Great drives from Lewis and Russel. You could see the car porpoising and that just be a bitch to handle lap after lap. They were well off the pace overall but made the most of what they were given. To get 3rd and 4th is fantastic, even if it comes courtesy of two retirements. You still have to drive it through the finish line and the car wasn’t easy to handle today.

I think the Merc has tons of untapped potential. When they figure it out it’s going to rival Ferrari and RBR and we are going to have a humdinger of a season.

Zhou picked up a point on his debut in a very good car, albeit 7 seconds behind his experienced team mate. Massive shame the much superior Ilott wasn’t given the drive instead.

Massive result for Magnusson, who I couldn’t be happier for. Hugely outperformed Schumi Jr. The Haas looks quick this year.

Bitterly disappointing, but expected, from McLaren. Probably my favourite team. I think they are in big trouble. They are struggling for mechanical and aerodynamic grip, and the more needed downforce they are able to generate, they are going to face more porpoising. They just don’t have the test laps in the other teams do because of the brakes issue, which itself seems like a design flaw. I can see them picking up half a second, but that barely gets them to midfield. The second or so they need, is a long way off. At best I think it’s going to be a difficult few races for them. Massive shame because I was hoping we’d be looking at a 4 way battle with Merc, RBR, and Ferrari.
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Again, many Merc fans are going to be very dissapointed by this season. There's no "untapped" potential. The car just isn't that good/a bit of dog and they're massively hindered by development regs because of long term performance success. You dont make up 7+tenth a lap up over the course of a season unless you're 2009 teams chasing the Brawn double diffuser. Two Redbull DNF's and a safety car flattered Merc yesterday.



11101 said:
Yes, and it probably comes down to the E10 issue raised earlier. They can't get the power from it somehow but Mercedes has traditionally had the best engine department so they should be able to fix it quite quickly.
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Engine development is now forzen until 2026. Unless Merc manage to find something spectacular fuel wise with petronas, this is actually not a good sign. Perhaps 8 years of karma for having a clear engine performance advantage is catching up with them?
 
mariachi-19 said:
Engine development is now forzen until 2026. Unless Merc manage to find something spectacular fuel wise with petronas, this is actually not a good sign. Perhaps 8 years of karma for having a clear engine performance advantage is catching up with them?
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How is it karma? They've done a far better job than the rest these past few years and now seem to have done a worse job than the others this year...

(Also it's the age old tale of regulations always being made to weaken the dominant team. It's happened to Ferrari post Schumacher, to Wiliams post Mansell etc.).
 
Zarlak said:
276134581_10160089535546228_5770231226766881302_n.jpg
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:lol: this is quality
 
mariachi-19 said:
Again, many Merc fans are going to be very dissapointed by this season. There's no "untapped" potential. The car just isn't that good/a bit of dog and they're massively hindered by development regs because of long term performance success. You dont make up 7+tenth a lap up over the course of a season unless you're 2009 teams chasing the Brawn double diffuser. Two Redbull DNF's and a safety car flattered Merc yesterday.





Engine development is now forzen until 2026. Unless Merc manage to find something spectacular fuel wise with petronas, this is actually not a good sign. Perhaps 8 years of karma for having a clear engine performance advantage is catching up with them?
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:lol:
 
OK so I was laughing at Red Bull yesterday, but Horner and Max were pretty calm in the interviews after, I was expecting something more tetchy.
Red Bulls problems I have no doubt they will solve quickly and Sunday they will be back at the front.
Mercedes is another matter, they are clearly the 3rd team at the moment and a good why behind, until the safety car and the Red Bull DNF's, Lewis and Russell were happy with 5th and 6th, their problems will take longer to solve, the question is can they solve them in time to challenge for the title, only time will tell.
The fact that I think 6 of the bottom 8 were Mercedes engine, has to be a cause of concern, its not all aero is it ?
 
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mariachi-19 said:
Again, many Merc fans are going to be very dissapointed by this season. There's no "untapped" potential. The car just isn't that good/a bit of dog and they're massively hindered by development regs because of long term performance success. You dont make up 7+tenth a lap up over the course of a season unless you're 2009 teams chasing the Brawn double diffuser. Two Redbull DNF's and a safety car flattered Merc yesterday.





Engine development is now forzen until 2026. Unless Merc manage to find something spectacular fuel wise with petronas, this is actually not a good sign. Perhaps 8 years of karma for having a clear engine performance advantage is catching up with them?
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without a doubt.
 
mariachi-19 said:
Engine development is now forzen until 2026. Unless Merc manage to find something spectacular fuel wise with petronas, this is actually not a good sign. Perhaps 8 years of karma for having a clear engine performance advantage is catching up with them?
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The engine isn't forzen completely yet. Its staggered.



1.44m onwards on the schedule
 
senorgregster said:
On Mercedes power. Toto said they had the most drag of any team yesterday. Could that be why speeds are so low?
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pauldyson1uk said:
Drag will hurt straight-line speed I would think.
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Drag will hold back their speed, yes. The only thing that makes me doubt that is that all the Mercedes powered cars performed poorly (I think all the bottom 6 were all Mercedes powered?) but that could just be a coincidence more than anything else.
 
I was shocked by how far Max was able to close and overtake Leclerc from - that was impressive speed advantage from slipstream, drs, battery and top speed

No one else seemed to have anywhere near that speed. Seemed leclerc saved battery for next drs as seemed easy for him to get back past there compared to others.

Is going to be interesting to see if/how quickly Mercedes can catch up, would be great to have three teams competing at the top, with 4/5 drivers capable of pole and/or win each weekend.

The new cars were definitely better for following closely, definitely more able, but still needed DRS to make overtakes. Looks like following closely will have greater impact on brake temps, probably tire degradation as well
 
mitChley said:
Drag will hold back their speed, yes. The only thing that makes me doubt that is that all the Mercedes powered cars performed poorly (I think all the bottom 6 were all Mercedes powered?) but that could just be a coincidence more than anything else.
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They are running lots of drag to push the car down to limit the porpoising. Once they sort that, they can dial back the drag and improve the speed.
 
40th out of 11,300 teams in the F1 fantasy league

Thought I was doing amazingly

Some dude in our league is 1st :lol:
 
EdWeatherall said:
I was shocked by how far Max was able to close and overtake Leclerc from - that was impressive speed advantage from slipstream, drs, battery and top speed

No one else seemed to have anywhere near that speed. Seemed leclerc saved battery for next drs as seemed easy for him to get back past there compared to others.

Is going to be interesting to see if/how quickly Mercedes can catch up, would be great to have three teams competing at the top, with 4/5 drivers capable of pole and/or win each weekend.

The new cars were definitely better for following closely, definitely more able, but still needed DRS to make overtakes. Looks like following closely will have greater impact on brake temps, probably tire degradation as well
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DRS I think will almost always be needed now. Even though they can follow more closely, the cars and drivers are so evenly matched that the more traditional overtakes are less likely.
 
mariachi-19 said:
Again, many Merc fans are going to be very dissapointed by this season. There's no "untapped" potential. The car just isn't that good/a bit of dog and they're massively hindered by development regs because of long term performance success. You dont make up 7+tenth a lap up over the course of a season unless you're 2009 teams chasing the Brawn double diffuser. Two Redbull DNF's and a safety car flattered Merc yesterday.
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Making up 7/10s over the first season of new regs is absolutely possible. Last season Merc were down by about half that at the start and made it up at by the end of a season. Last year had the rules chages regarding the floor which hit them hard and they managed to develop over the season to become slightly ahead of the RB.

Why do you think there's no potential out of interest? What features of the car do you think are 'dog like'. Because there's two options really here over what the team who have won 8 constructors titles in a row (and arguably the greatest team in F1 history) have done:
  1. Made a dog (its still the 3rd best car btw)
  2. Made a car with a couple of problems
Purely from an Occam's razor standpoint, number 2 is clearly more probable, so its what I'm assuming until we see evidence otherwise.
 
pauldyson1uk said:
E10 petrol is shite, in my 1.8 Toyota Avensis, I am noticing a drop in MPG.
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It burns hotter so you'll see a drop in MPG. Its also horrendous for older engines that aren't designed with that fuel in mind. You'll find alot of carbon build up issues potentially leading to detination problems or fouling plugs.

In saying that, 98 is equally as bad for your engine if you don't use it that often. Absolute scam that crap made to sell to yuppies. The additives are horrible for injectors if not running hot. Ducati recomend for its bikes 95 ron only unless you're on track for that reason.

Not to be seen as advice, but if you lot want race fuel. 4 parts 95 to 1 part E85 (if you can find it).
 
antsmithmk said:
They are running lots of drag to push the car down to limit the porpoising. Once they sort that, they can dial back the drag and improve the speed.
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I've not listened or watched anything post race yet so you're maybe right but pushing the car down to limit porpoising seems counter intuitive no? When the 'easy' fix is to rise ride height why would you want to push/pull your car further towards the ground?
 
mitChley said:
I've not listened or watched anything post race yet so you're maybe right but pushing the car down to limit porpoising seems counter intuitive no? When the 'easy' fix is to rise ride height why would you want to push/pull your car further towards the ground?
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It's the compression and then decompression of the chassis, so if you increase drag you get less decompression as more load is going through the suspension etc.
 
Gringo said:
You know Carlos beat LeClerc last season... He was only 1tenth off Charles in quali. Yes I'd put LeClerc as the naturally quicker driver but Sainz is very good, he'll be there or there abouts. I hope. Especially with these tyres, Sainz tyre management could be huge over the season.
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Leclerc beat Sainz in 14 of 21 races he started in.
Sainz grabbed big points when leclerc didn't start or retired.
 
pacifictheme said:
All the Mercedes powered cars are aerodynamically a mess so it's a bit more complicated than saying the engine is the problem just yet. Mercedes speed trap times were not too bad either despite the issues they are facing.
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This. There isnt anything wrong with the engine in terms of power. Aston Martin had to raise the ride height of the car and lost 3/4 of a second a lap in downforce. Other teams who were struggling with porposing did the same. That results in a lower top speed.

IF and its a big if the Mercedes engine was down on power compared to the RB or Ferarri engine, Mercedes would be allowed to upgrade the engine to bring it inline with the other engines. That is allowed by the rules.

Interesting totto said over a single lap on softs, they can match the RB and Ferrari for pace. But not further than that due to degradation of the tyre. Give it a few races and Mercedes will be up there with the leaders on race pace. He also said Mercedes are syff3ering from a parts shortage, which makes me think, there are more upgrades on the way but they arent ready yet.

Will be interesting to see if the ferrari engine map works as well at Saudi Arabia track.

Bigger concern for RB will be that they had three engine failures from the four cars runnig RB engines.
 
It's also worth noting that they've spent a few weeks in Bahrain now. This could just be some teams acing the setup better, or some cars particularly working well in the hotter desert temperatures.

You might find the cars that work well in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia might not be so hot once the colder climate races start to happen.

It's strange how Mclaren looked so capable in Barcelona in colder temperatures but then the brakes set on fire at Bahrain etc.

It'll be interesting to see how it all plays out, but a decent first race that's for sure. The Leclerc/Verstappen battle was great.
 
Buster15 said:
Yes I understand that. But all of the engine manufacturers have been aware of this for some time and should have done the necessary work to manage the different fuel. Mercedes especially have a significant partner in Petronas that they keep reminding us of.
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It's not going to be uniform, some engines will perform better than others. Engines need to run hotter which changes the viscosity of the oil, so wear goes up, and there is increased fuel residue (could have been a factor with the Red Bull failures). All those things are a balance that Mercedes appear to have gotten a bit wrong though I'm not sure how much of their speed problems actually come from having to run the car too high rather than the engine. Anyway, the goal was to have a fairly even performance across the engine manufacturers, which leads on to the next point...

mariachi-19 said:
Engine development is now forzen until 2026. Unless Merc manage to find something spectacular fuel wise with petronas, this is actually not a good sign. Perhaps 8 years of karma for having a clear engine performance advantage is catching up with them?
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It's not completely frozen. There are certain areas especially around fuel where manufacturers can make updates, and the organisers left themselves a get out of jail free card to allow any kind of development if one engine is way behind the others.
 
EdWeatherall said:
I was shocked by how far Max was able to close and overtake Leclerc from - that was impressive speed advantage from slipstream, drs, battery and top speed
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It was impressive, though I did think he made some odd tactical decisions. I think he could have potentially held off Leclerc if overtook down the straight rather than dive bombing at turn 1. It made it pretty easy for Leclerc to overtake again down the straight both times.
 
It's worth remembering that this Merc engine has been designed specifically for the needs of the chassis and as we've seen that's a very unusual design this year. That in itself may mean that performance comes on more than normal when they learn more about its weight distribution and how to get the most of its design.

Mercedes have already commented on this "We might want to rearrange the installation slightly or change the PU layout to get more flexibility in those lap time sensitive areas"
 
WeePat said:
It was impressive, though I did think he made some odd tactical decisions. I think he could have potentially held off Leclerc if overtook down the straight rather than dive bombing at turn 1. It made it pretty easy for Leclerc to overtake again down the straight both times.
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Agreed. I thought after Leclerc did it the first time he'd just get close down the start straight, keep behind him for the 2nd DRS point and sail off into the sunset.

You have to say that was a tactical mistake allowing Leclerc to do him twice.
 
WeePat said:
It was impressive, though I did think he made some odd tactical decisions. I think he could have potentially held off Leclerc if overtook down the straight rather than dive bombing at turn 1. It made it pretty easy for Leclerc to overtake again down the straight both times.
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Max was quite erratic wasn't he. Especially with that late breaking into T1 when he was carrying so much overspeed, braked way too late and messed up his tyres. And his positioning on the restart was so bizarre for a driver who's so tactically aware.
 
Adam-Utd said:
Agreed. I thought after Leclerc did it the first time he'd just get close down the start straight, keep behind him for the 2nd DRS point and sail off into the sunset.

You have to say that was a tactical mistake allowing Leclerc to do him twice.
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I actually hope they get rid of DRS if the cars are easier to follow, and based off Bahrain it looks like they are. I want to see the best drivers using skill to close the gap enough to slipstream and overtake, not just sit somewhere near and press a boost button to sail past.
 
11101 said:
I actually hope they get rid of DRS if the cars are easier to follow, and based off Bahrain it looks like they are. I want to see the best drivers using skill to close the gap enough to slipstream and overtake, not just sit somewhere near and press a boost button to sail past.
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It's tricky because the cars accelerate so well and brake so late now, passing safely can be very difficult.

You've pretty much got to be alongside somebody coming into the braking zone. Especially with the lack of vision they have on current cars too.

I don't think the DRS worked that strongly this weekend, only really Verstappen came from a long way back and used all his battery power. Leclerc then countered using his own on the next straight.

I think without it we'd be getting a lot more stalemates in races personally. I'd rather have way more overtaking than non possible at all.
 
Adam-Utd said:
It's tricky because the cars accelerate so well and brake so late now, passing safely can be very difficult.

You've pretty much got to be alongside somebody coming into the braking zone. Especially with the lack of vision they have on current cars too.

I don't think the DRS worked that strongly this weekend, only really Verstappen came from a long way back and used all his battery power. Leclerc then countered using his own on the next straight.

I think without it we'd be getting a lot more stalemates in races personally. I'd rather have way more overtaking than non possible at all.
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The more tech and barriers the FIA introduce each year the more sterile it becomes for the front, mid and rear portions during the race. It would almost be better to return to no tech, a huge engine, no safety devices, and a big petrol tank behind the driver and let's see who can brake last and hardest.
 
oates said:
The more tech and barriers the FIA introduce each year the more sterile it becomes for the front, mid and rear portions during the race. It would almost be better to return to no tech, a huge engine, no safety devices, and a big petrol tank behind the driver and let's see who can brake last and hardest.
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Unfortunately I think those days are gone. Safety is paramount now and the cars are only getting bigger and heavier.

The only way that could happen is slow them down, but the there's plenty of other formulas for that.

I personally enjoy watching the GP2 support series - slower cars but smaller and able to have some fantastic battles. Cars are also identical with only setup changes.
 
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