F1 2021 Season

First topic message reminder :

The season opening Australian Grand Prix & the Chinese Grand Prix have been postponed.

Bahrain Grand Prix on the 28th March to be the first race of the 2021 season.

Formula 1 to revert to 2pm race start times at European races this year.

F1 practice sessions will be shortened to one hour during Fridays across the 2021 season.

Cognizant have been announced as Aston Martin’s new title sponsor. They will be called ‘Aston Martin Cognizant Formula One Team’.

Alex Albon will drive in DTM this season, on selected race weekends

Lando Norris has confirmed he has contracted Covid, while staying in, Dubai.

Max is a sporting breach, whereas Mercedes’ is a slam dunk technical breach. Max should get away with it, unless his actions have caused an element of doubt or uncertainty surrounding the wing. The fact it’s taken overnight to come to a conclusion, tells me they don’t really know what to do, and how it will effect the Championship.

Shame for the fans again though. Possibly another race we’ve been denied them going toe-to-toe, and another blow to the sprint race concept, having Hamilton possibly removed from the front row.

Possibly came too late to summon Max last night would be my guess. Seems the whole thing is based on a fan video.

But yeah, id guess Max gets a reprimand and Lewis is headed to the back

Anyway, it seems like Mercedes strategy now is just to turn the engine on Lewis' car up and burn through the power units in the remaining races. Bottas behind Max and roughly level with Perez suggests there really wasn't a major gap performance wise. If he gets a penalty though, that's potentially the performance gain of a fresh engine wasted I guess. Big opportunity now for RB in the constructors if Lewis does get dqed

‘Senior figures’ reported Verstappen and Red Bull after DRS failure on car #33 in the final run on Q3. It seems like the DRS activator failed on Verstappen’s car similar issue to Mexico City FP3.
FIA investigated the rear wing and it passed all parameters.

The parc ferme incident is still on the table as a potential penalty

Jeff Navarro wrote:‘Senior figures’ reported Verstappen and Red Bull after DRS failure on car #33 in the final run on Q3. It seems like the DRS activator failed on Verstappen’s car similar issue to Mexico City FP3.
FIA investigated the rear wing and it passed all parameters.

The parc ferme incident is still on the table as a potential penalty

I don't know if it is standard to inspect the DRS system for all cars in the top three when qualifying - maybe they inspected Hamilton's car only because they were called in to inspect Verstappen's car.  I wonder whether those "senior figures" reporting on Verstappen and Red Bull included a wolf.

It's in a published report, the FIA scrutinises a selection of cars post quali. Lewis and Max were both up

Still no outcome on either Hamilton or Verstappen as FP2 is about to start.
Hamilton rear wing remains with the fia

What a farce now. The longer it goes on, you can see this ending up with no penalties, for either. I think Max’s tampering has probably given Mercedes wriggle room to manoeuvre themselves out of this.

Alonso fastest in final practice as everyone focussed on long runs. Now we await a decision...

Max Verstappen €50,000 fine. No grid penalty.
Lewis Hamilton penalty can be announced 30 mins before sprint race, so 6.30pm UK

From the wording of Verstappens fine I wouldn't be holding for Hamilton to be on the front row...

Basically says Verstappen did it but it made no impact on Hamilton's wing

Mercedes could race under appeal if Hamilton gets penalty. But that risks potential DQ from entire event.

The wording is pretty black and white and based on Lewis' onboard so I'd be surprised.

Hamilton DQ from qualifying

I can really only assume they spent a day watching Hamilton's onboard to see if the wing moved. Because once you rule out Max affecting it, it's a formality

So last for today’s sprint, and a five place penalty for Sunday

Fat lady nearly singing now

It really felt like a desperation move from Mercedes to try and rope Max into this.

Great chance for RB now in the constructors. Wonder if they just tell Perez to send it at T1 on Bottas

Well thats it. Verstappen's heading into the last 3 races with a 40+ point lead.

Mercedes have to pin their hopes on Qatar and Saudi favouring their car, or else its season over.

Red Bull can potentially split strategy now. Max mediums and Checo softs in the sprint.

Jeff Navarro wrote:Max Verstappen €50,000 fine. No grid penalty. ....

€50,000 seems a large amount for the ordinary person.  However looking at what has been written the stewards had to spend a lot of time analyzing footage from the pit lane cameras and the cameras on all three cars to determine exactly where Verstappen touched the car to ensure they could rule out any possibility that he interfered with / affected the DRS system on Hamiltons car.  

"The stewards heard from the driver of car 33 (Max Verstappen) and team representative. The stewards also examined a fan video taken from across the track, CCTV video footage taken from pit lane and in car footage from car 14, car 33, car 44 and car 77.

"In all, these videos gave a clear picture of what occurred in parc fermé following the qualifying session.

"Verstappen exits the car, then moves to the rear of his car. He then takes his gloves off and puts his right hand at the slot-gap of the rear wing of his car. He then moves to car 44 and repeats the exercise, touching the rear wing in two places, once on either side of the DRS actuation device, but on the bottom rear side of the wing, in the area of the slot gap and never near the actuator or the end fixation points."

"Clear, high definition video from the rear facing roll-hoop camera on car 44 shows that there is absolutely no movement of any of the wing elements on car 44 when Verstappen touches the back of the wing and the stewards are satisfied, from watching all the videos, his body position and the video of the wing, that there was insignificant force when Verstappen touched the wing.

"It is clear to the stewards that it has become a habit of the drivers to touch cars after qualifying and the races. This was also the explanation of Verstappen, that it was simply habit to touch this area of the car which has been a point of speculation in recent races between both teams...

We don't know what will happen in the Sprint Race nor the Main Race.  The previous two sprint race weekends have taught us to expect the unexpected.  So far this third and final Sprint Race of the season has started off with a bang.

Mercedes might be stewing about this but at the end of the day Max gave them the chance to argue their way out of their own **** up. He didn't cause it

GSC wrote:Mercedes might be stewing about this but at the end of the day Max gave them the chance to argue their way out of their own **** up. He didn't cause it

You can't argue with a measuring device. Either the thing fits or it doesn't.

I have a feeling Adrian Newey grassed Merc up to the stewards, prompting the investigation in the first place. He was seen heading to their office some time before.

Also Merc didn't screw up. The stewards' report said they found nothing to indicate there had been any deliberate intent to design or build the wing out of spec. Basically there is no explanation as to why the wing failed the test. We don't even know how much by. Probably only has to be a fraction of a millimetre.

We know the wings flex a fair bit in normal operation, due to the huge aerodynamic loads placed on them. Could simply be it became a bit loose.

How much advantage did it give Merc yesterday? Likelihood is not much. We know they fitted new engines, which give a performance boost.

Nobody grassed up Merc. The car failed scrutineering

Good drives from both Mercedes boys. Woeful from Perez

Well that was a pretty interesting sprint race.

Drive of a multiple world champion by Lewis. If he can drive like that tomorrow he's got a chance of contesting the win. After going from 20th to 5th, 10th to 1st seems quite do-able.

Bottas got the job done and earned pole. Very surprised Verstappen couldn't get past...he was right on Valtteri's gearbox for a few laps, then just seemed to drop back out of DRS range.

Sainz did well to hold off Perez, with softs that were giving up. Probably won't stay 3rd very long though tomorrow. Norris looked pretty pacy - hope he can finish well up in the points.

Anyway, the main event seems well set to provide some entertainment.

GSC wrote:Nobody grassed up Merc. The car failed scrutineering

Way to miss the point.

What I was saying is if the stewards hadn't been alerted in the first place, the wing may never have been checked.

Even funnier when you consider no such checks took place when Red Bull were having their wing issues. Maybe they would have found something amiss when the RB engineers were having to patch Max's wing with duct tape?

The stewards have admitted they don't always police parc fermé as thoroughly as they should. So it would seem a little birdie told them to have a look at Merc's rear wing. Maybe this will lead to more frequent / thorough scrutineering?

If this wasn't picked up on and was only picked up on post race then Hamilton would have been disqualified without collecting any points from the entire weekend.   I assumed from a previous comment that Hamilton and Verstappen's cars were randomly selected for a post Friday Qualy check.

10 cars got checked and went through the exact same set of checks. Including Maxs car, its all documented.

There's no conspiracy theory to be had, or politicking, this was due process

Hamilton’s rear wing failed by 0.2mm as per Wolff interview

After the sprint race the whole landscape seems to have changed again.   The Mercedes, especially Hamilton, seem to be in a different league.  Verstappen is hoping the Mercedes performance advantage will fall away with the expected higher temperatures that will come into play in the main race, compared to the lower temperatures of the Sprint Race.  Christian Horner said they have been seeing Mercedes straight line speed increasing in recent races and they are suspecting something clever or suspect is being done with the Mercedes rear wing - hence the reason why Verstappen was inspecting Hamilton's rear wing after Friday's qualifying session.

That Hamilton's rear wing actually failed inspection seemed to be incidental to the Red Bulls suspicions / trying to find out where the Mercs extra speed is coming from.  The failure of the rear wing was only marginal it seems and the Sprint Race seemed to confirm that the Mercedes are pulling something out of the bag performance wise that will give the Red Bull issues in the remaining races.  I guess the performance advantage has to be a combination of the engine being driven harder and design changes to the rear wing including maybe the DRS system.  Added to this is I suppose is smart driving by Hamilton - a post race analysis of his sprint race indicated that Hamilton was varying his racing lines that improved his chances of overtaking including considerations such as positioning the car to avoid being in the worst of the dirty / turbulent air.

GSC wrote:10 cars got checked and went through the exact same set of checks. Including Maxs car, its all documented.

There's no conspiracy theory to be had, or politicking, this was due process

Nah definitely a Red Bull/FIA in cahoots led conspiracy I’m afraid

As for today’s race, think a 3/1 bet on a Hamilton win is decent value - clearly the quickest car and is able to pass easily, Perez won’t be much issue…just depends if Bottas can get ahead of Max and hold him up sufficiently so that Lewis can close in the latter stages

Of course, always a decent chance of a safety car at Brazil too which would help Lewis

Heading in today's race including points picked up in the Sprint race
Constructors Championship: Mercedes lead Red Bull by 2 points.
Drivers Championship: Verstappen leads Hamilton by 21 points.

Four races to go including Brazil.

It’s a lot warmer in São Paulo today compared to yesterday. Additionally the race starts 2.30hrs earlier compared to the sprint.
This could easily end up being a 2 stop race.
Will have to see if anyone is brave and goes - medium > hard > softs

Hamilton just needs to survive that first lap, and not undo all that hard work. Pretty vital that Bottas keeps the lead, otherwise Max will easily be a pit stop clear of Lewis, by the time he clears the field.

As a side note, did anyone else see the proposed new sprint format for 22’? Apparently, the six sprint races will no longer set grid for Sunday’s main race. Normal qualifying will take place on Friday, and set grid for Sunday. Sprint races will become their own championship on a Saturday, with separate points (10pts for a win, I think).

Guanyu Zhou also confirmed at Alfa

So the sprint race championship is separate from the main championship ? Or the points still carry over ?

The sprint races has to be at tracks where overtaking is ‘easier’
São Paulo
Austria
Bahrain
Azerbaijan
Belgium
Canada

That’s the ones I’d go for

I’d imagine the sprint championship points do count towards the main championship, otherwise it’s pretty pointless. I’m not certain though of that. Maybe it’s an isolated championship, but I think that’s a bit of a gimmick. I just wouldn’t really watch on a Saturday. I believe it’s reverse championship grid decides the grid order for the sprint race. So basically, it’s their way of trying to recreate the fast cars at the back, like Hamilton yesterday. I don’t mind the concept, it’s an improvement, and the grid for the Sunday is still decided by a normal qualifying on the Friday.

I’d imagine they will be at venues whereby they can sell most tickets for the entire weekend, instead of tracks suited for overtaking. Silverstone will be a definite.

I suspect Haas knew that the reverse grid was coming, otherwise why appoint Mazepin?  [Joke]

Reverse grid for sprint race - what could go wrong?  More crashes I suppose which given the cost cap and limited replacement parts could be problematic for the teams.

ps: Reverse grids would have their own dynamic.  For example you wouldn't see what we saw yesterday - Hamilton starting from the back carving through the field and finishing 5th.  

He will not be passing the slowest cars at the beginning - he would be behind the second fastest car and the second fastest car would be behind the third fastest car and so on.  This would create a repressed dynamic where it would take a lot longer to rise up the field during the sprint race.

There are enough changes occurring with the introduction of the new cars without all this added confusion.

I like that they’re experimenting with this sprint idea - albeit not sure that idea above nails it (and also not sure what exactly does!)

All getting a bit petty now between Mercedes and Red Bull. Wolff ‘wants clarification on rules regarding tape used on rear wings’.
In general regards using tape actually hinders performance rather than increase performance.

Red Bull has made changes to Verstappen rear wing for safety reasons

Verstappen leads, but Hamilton in 3rd after five laps

Yuki makes too many errors

Everything is going perfectly for Mercedes in terms of the safety car and VSC's here - Bottas gets Perez in one

Did Max turn the steering wheel there?

No surprise there from the stewards

Get in there, Lewis !!!!

GET IN THERE LEWIS!

What a move...finally gets past dirty cheating Max.