Miraculous in pretty much every sense. Big fire, survival cell went straight through the barrier, and the sudden stop afterwards. Any one of those factors could’ve easily made it a fatal accident, but somehow Grosjean got out of that conscious. Big kudos to those who have strived so hard to keep improving safety in motorsport, even if it doesn’t seem like it’s needed sometimes. Also, all of the training that the marshals, doctors and medical car drivers go through contributed to such an astonishing result. A bit of luck always helps as well, but F1 were prepared for the extremely unlikely scenario of this kind of accident happening. Its been a long, long time since I’ve seen any F1 car erupt like that.
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Russell proves I could win in that car.
While its undoubtedly “easier”, I don’t agree with the statement behind your comment. Russell is a very talented young driver and handsomely smacked Norris and Albon in 2018 while they were all in F2, which probably had the toughest field up the front end that I can remember. He definitely deserves an opportunity at a top team after showing some pretty good speed throughout the season. He’s no Pedro Diniz or Luca Badoer, that’s for sure.
Such an obviously light hearted comment. Chill out.
Fmd how unlucky can you get.
Fantastic race but you’ve got to feel for Russell (And Bottas)
mercedes didn’t have the best day in the pits
Apparently the Netflix doco was focusing on Merc again this weekend… 
at least they weren’t in old-timey outfits this time
The issue was caused by Russell coming on the radio over the top of the message to the tyre guys (seems weird they wouldn’t use separate channels for that?). No penalty beyond a fine, but what an anticlimactic way to finally get his first points
https://twitter.com/andrewbensonf1/status/1335693691806212098
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I’m assuming Mercedes just found a way to stop Russell embarrassing Bottas?
Russell was leading by over 8 seconds at one point. I think Bottas was embarrassed enough.
I’d say that Russell has secured a seat with Mercedes for 2022. Save for the bad luck with the pitstop and the puncture, things went pretty much as I expected for Russell. Bottas will have to be worried about getting the other seat for 2022, even if Hamilton retires (which I think is a pretty high chance of happening before 2022). I wonder if Mercedes will go with Ocon instead.
Any thoughts on why Hamilton hasn’t signed for next year? Surely he wants an eighth title before he retires?
Has Ocon done enough though? Although he finished ahead of Ricciardo this morning that was more due to Renault botching Ricciardo’s 2 pit stops rather than him being better on the track. He’s also been consistently out qualified by Ricciardo for 2 seasons.
Perez would be the better option for mine. His experience and performance would be far more beneficial to Mercedes with the new regulations than Ocon’s “potential”.
I agree that Perez deserves a top drive, but as F1 followers have seen over the years, politics plays a bigger part than it should in driver decisions. I guess we are a long way away from 2022 still, and maybe Hamilton will even still be driving. I’m almost certain Russell will be in one of the Mercedes, though.
Problem is is that there’s only 2 cars that will win, 1 car with an outside shot and the next 7 depend on getting pit strategy right in a race that Bottas, Hamilton and the dutch fuck all fuck up in.
I guess the timing of races doesn’t help either, but I really switched off for the last few races. I know COVID has really screwed with the world, but 17 races in just over 5 months is way too many. Its also a preview for how its going to work going forward, seeing Chase Carey wants as many as 25 races on future calendars. It’s also funny that they want to go ahead with a stringent cost cap at the same time as increasing the amount of races, and any transportation/accommodation that goes with it.
I truly feel like Formula 1 will be gone within my lifetime, and they will have only themselves to blame for it.
Last nights race was rubbish but the 2 in Bahrain were quite good and overall the season itself had a lot going on until the final race.
Sure the title was long decided but the battle for 3rd in the constructors championship shows how close those midfield teams are. If you took out the 2 Mercedes and Max then we’d be talking about one of the most exciting seasons ever but that’s where the issue lies.
F1’s biggest problem is it has long been dominated by one team whether that be Mercedes in the recent era, Red Bull before that or Ferrari before that and that is where the boredom stems from. The budget cap isn’t the answer to that though, in fact I think it will make the problem worse. If a car begins the 2022 era well off the pace it will be even harder to close the gap as they have less money to throw at development.
The answer to closing the gap lies somewhere between customer cars and being able to clone all parts of a car. Why shouldn’t Racing Point be able to use last seasons Mercedes and purchase or develop new parts for it? Why shouldn’t Williams be able to build a frankenstein car if the manufacturers are happy to sell them parts? It would mean that the manufacturers continue to throw money at development with a means of recouping some of that investment while the independent teams save money by not having to develop an entire car.
As for the death of F1, while ever there are still road cars there will be Formula 1. It’s the pinnacle of automotive development and its history of evolution will ensure its survival.
Marc Marques getting injured in the first race of the year certainly helped MotoGP this year and threw up an unexpected Champion who only won one race.
MotoGP also benefits from satellite teams and hand me down bikes.
Ducati had 4 factory bikes with the factory team and Pramac running 2020 bikes. Zarco ran a 2019 bike in the third team that uses Ducatis.
Ducati, three teams.
Yamaha, two teams.
Honda, Two teams.
KTM, two teams.
Suzuki, one team.
Aprillia, one team.
Test riders can also race in about 4 races a year as wildcards.
Racing Point running 2020 Merc in 2021 would make things more interesting.
How does the Torro Rosso/Red Bull relationship work?
I don’t it’s as close as the Mercedes/Racing Point or Ferrari/Alfa Romeo.
I would assume they share data on the power unit but Toro Rosso has a brand new factory down the road from their old Minardi one where they make everything. There was a behind the scenes there on Sky F1 around the time of the GP at Imola that showed that they at least look independent from Red Bull.
It certainly made the start of this season interesting when they were running the 2019 version.
Obviously they’re both owned by the sugar drink manufacturer but the two team’s relationship is roughly analogous to a big football club having a feeder team. They’re independent from each other but swap drivers back and forth as they have with Pierre Gasly and Alex Albon. As far as I’m aware they do swap some data but the rules in formula one restrict this and it’s worth baring in mind that the cars are entirely different and use different engines.
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Yeah. Motogp does it better.
I guess what you’re wanting Hilly is a return to formula one in the 1950’s when any Joe could buy a Maserati or Cooper-Climax and compete, which is sort of what MotoGP does. I guess cost and manufacturing prevents this. Although a MotoGP bike is not exactly cheap, a modern F1 car is insanely expensive and produced in tiny numbers.