Formula 1 STC Saudi Arabian Grand Prix 2023Formula 1 

  • Thread starter Jimlaad43
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Race is looking like it might not be a complete snooze fest....Alonso might have the edge on Perez even in that red bull so that should be an interesting race and see how fast Max can get up to the front and crush everyone's party!
 
Got excited from Stroll getting a purple S1 for a moment there. Lewis gets his last lap deleted.

Imo it's safe to say that Astons speed at this point is no fluke. Now the question will be how well do they maintain it over the whole season?
 
Imo it's safe to say that Astons speed at this point is no fluke. Now the question will be how well do they maintain it over the whole season?
Normally one of Team Silverstones strengths. Last year was good after the horrible start.

For tomorrow and Alonso quiet bad that there are high chances of SC for Max gaining time without effort.
 
For tomorrow and Alonso quiet bad that there are high chances of SC for Max gaining time without effort.
Big chance De Vries will cause that SC as he doesn’t have any real life racing experience here yet. 😅 He spun out during quali already as well.
 
The season will be boring as far as champion goes.

But if the producers are able to point the camera at the cars down in the field we will have a super exciting season..
 
The season will be boring as far as champion goes.

But if the producers are able to point the camera at the cars down in the field we will have a super exciting season..
Don’t agree with that first statement at all for this start of the 2023 season. Or maybe you missed the snore-fest Red Bull/Vettel and Mercedes/Hamilton years between 2010-2020, now that was some boring F1 in regards to the fight for the championship.

As far as the second point goes, the producers did an excellent job in Bahrain! We barely saw Verstappen on TV (which was a good thing). The spectacle of the race without a doubt were Alonso’s overtakes and they were in the picture when they happened. So judging from Bahrain, the TV guys did an excellent job IMO.
 
A big crash is just waiting to happen here. This is the only track that makes me wince a bit when watching it on tv.

It’s also soooo unfortunate that the dominant car had issues in qualy, I just cannot contain my disappointment. Now we can see what that car can really do in the race. I’m thinking he’s in the top 6 by lap 10.
 
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Don’t agree with that first statement at all for this start of the 2023 season. Or maybe you missed the snore-fest Red Bull/Vettel and Mercedes/Hamilton years between 2010-2020, now that was some boring F1 in regards to the fight for the championship.

As far as the second point goes, the producers did an excellent job in Bahrain! We barely saw Verstappen on TV (which was a good thing). The spectacle of the race without a doubt were Alonso’s overtakes and they were in the picture when they happened. So judging from Bahrain, the TV guys did an excellent job IMO.
What? 2010, 2012, 2014, 2016 were all seasons which went down to the last race - we had fantastic fights between the drivers those years??? 2015, 2017 and 2018 we had title fights between equal machinery almost all season long. Sounds like you're just parroting others and didn't watch those seasons yourself. The years which had 1 dominant driver/ car were 2011, 2013, 2020.
 
What? 2010, 2012, 2014, 2016 were all seasons which went down to the last race - we had fantastic fights between the drivers those years??? 2015, 2017 and 2018 we had title fights between equal machinery almost all season long. Sounds like you're just parroting others and didn't watch those seasons yourself. The years which had 1 dominant driver/ car were 2011, 2013, 2020.
I should have known there would be at least 1 eager forum nitpicker out here that would not be satisfied with the generalisation of “2010-2020”. So especially for you, let me add a bit more detail :

2011, 2013 : dominated by Vettel in his Red Bull
2014, 2015, 2017, 2019, 2020 : dominated by Hamilton in his Mercedes
2016 : Dominated by Mercedes (Rosberg vs Hamilton sure was exciting, the other teams were nowhere near close)
2018 : First half of the year was a nice Hamilton vs Vettel battle, second half of that year it all tipped over towards Mercedes.

So yeah, the majority of that decennia was a snore-fest.
 
During the era of Mercedes domination they won 74% of all races for 7 years, in the new RB era (2 years so far) they've won 64% of races, in the last RB era they won 53% of races for 4 years, the Ferrari era in the early 2000's saw them win 69% of all races across 5 years.

Not to say there hasn't been some good racing over the last 20 years, but the Mercedes period of dominance was absolutely the least exciting in terms of the championship unless you're either a Mercedes fan or a Lewis fan. 2006-2010 saw 5 different teams win the championship, with 8 teams winning at least one race, with Ferrari being the most dominant team in that period, but only winning 36% of the races. As someone who has not had a horse in the race since 2009, if we got back to that level variety I might start watching regularly again.
 
"2023 will be boring" =/= 2010-19 weren't boring.

Come on... Is it possible that all periods of dominance are boring?
 
"2023 will be boring" =/= 2010-19 weren't boring.

Come on... Is it possible that all periods of dominance are boring?
Some are more boring than others. The Mercedes era was particularly bad not only because of their dominance, but also because of the advantage the big 3 had over the rest of the field. A podium from a smaller team became very rare, meanwhile HAM VER BOT podiums became a meme.
 
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Some are more boring than others. The Mercedes era was particularly bad not only because of their dominance, but also because of the advantage the big 3 had over the rest of the field. A podium from a smaller team became very rare, meanwhile HAM VER BOT podiums became a meme.
None of that really disproves nor runs contrary to what @kjeldsen said.
 
Some are more boring than others. The Mercedes era was particularly bad not only because of their dominance, but also because of the advantage the big 3 had over the rest of the field. A podium from a smaller team became very rare, meanwhile HAM VER BOT podiums became a meme.
Didn't you enjoy Hamilton vs Rosberg and Hamilton vs Vettel? Unless you watch F1 for the constructors championship of course. There was some fantastic racing and Mercedes allowed their driver to race freely and fairly. That doesn't occur with Red Bull.

I should have known there would be at least 1 eager forum nitpicker out here that would not be satisfied with the generalisation of “2010-2020”. So especially for you, let me add a bit more detail :

2011, 2013 : dominated by Vettel in his Red Bull
2014, 2015, 2017, 2019, 2020 : dominated by Hamilton in his Mercedes
2016 : Dominated by Mercedes (Rosberg vs Hamilton sure was exciting, the other teams were nowhere near close)
2018 : First half of the year was a nice Hamilton vs Vettel battle, second half of that year it all tipped over towards Mercedes.

So yeah, the majority of that decennia was a snore-fest.
2014 , 2015, 2017 and 2018 were NOT dominated by Hamilton. There were cars driven by Rosberg and Vettel that were of equal speed, just seems you have forgotton? I have no idea why you thought 17 and 18 were boring? Both teams had even cars throughout the season. Even in 2019 The Ferrari was a very fast car, just that their drivers weren't up to the task. The decade before had far more domination - 2000, 2001, 2002, 2004, 2005, 2009 all won in cars that were significantally better than their rivals and with teammates that were not allowed to challenge.

I should have known there are still people pedalling this nonsense of a boring decade of F1. Unless of course you watch F1 for the contructors championship only? If so I apologize.
 
Didn't you enjoy Hamilton vs Rosberg and Hamilton vs Vettel? Unless you watch F1 for the constructors championship of course. There was some fantastic racing and Mercedes allowed their driver to race freely and fairly. That doesn't occur with Red Bull.
It was not enjoyable coming off of 9 straight wins for RBR to Mercedes being even more dominant than RBR ever was. The drama between Nico and Lewis was entertaining, but you always knew Lewis was likely going to finish ahead as long as he didn't have bad luck. When Lewis had a clean season he absolutely smoked Nico and got the title with 3 races left.
 
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It was not enjoyable coming off of 9 straight wins for RBR to Mercedes being even more dominant than RBR ever was. The drama between Nico and Lewis was entertaining, but you always knew Lewis was likely going to finish ahead as long as he didn't have bad luck. When Lewis had a clean season he absolutely smoked Nico and got the title with 3 races left.
Malaysia, 2016.
 
It was not enjoyable coming off of 9 straight wins for RBR to Mercedes being even more dominant than RBR ever was. The drama between Nico and Lewis was entertaining, but you always knew Lewis was likely going to finish ahead as long as he didn't have bad luck. When Lewis had a clean season he absolutely smoked Nico and got the title with 3 races left.
Whilst it's true that Hamilton was likely to finish ahead barring bad luck, that's more down to him being the best driver on the grid at the time. It's just the difference between Mercedes and Red Bull is one allows their drivers to race and the other doesn't. That's what made those years fun to watch. With Red Bull currently with a car 1sec per lap faster and a strict no1/no2 heirarchy, this is going to be exactly the same as 2011 and 2013 again.
 
Got excited from Stroll getting a purple S1 for a moment there. Lewis gets his last lap deleted.

Imo it's safe to say that Astons speed at this point is no fluke. Now the question will be how well do they maintain it over the whole season?
I've read that Aston really is investing heavily on their upgrade trajectory throughout the season.

Apparently they already have major upgrades coming for Imola.
 
I'm somewhat looking forward to when Mercedes redoes their concept and to see where they are at. I don't know about Ferrari. They just do Ferrari things.
 
If Webber hadn’t been completely inept at standing starts, the 2010-13 years would have been much more competitive.
Multi-21 didn’t help things either and arguably set the tone for the RB complete one-sided approach to drivers we have today.
 
Don’t agree with that first statement at all for this start of the 2023 season. Or maybe you missed the snore-fest Red Bull/Vettel and Mercedes/Hamilton years between 2010-2020, now that was some boring F1 in regards to the fight for the championship.

As far as the second point goes, the producers did an excellent job in Bahrain! We barely saw Verstappen on TV (which was a good thing). The spectacle of the race without a doubt were Alonso’s overtakes and they were in the picture when they happened. So judging from Bahrain, the TV guys did an excellent job IMO.
I did actually miss some of those years because life had more important stuff for me.

But I was there before DRS so I dare say, don't tell me about boring, I was there, watching a race that didn't have anything but pitstop action 🤠
 
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I've read that Aston really is investing heavily on their upgrade trajectory throughout the season.

Apparently they already have major upgrades coming for Imola.
they’re already fast and have a hungry experienced Alonso. They’ll have more wind tunnel allowance than the top teams around them since they finished 7th last year. They should be strong at the front all season.
 
I'm not convinced that any of the players of the anthem had ever seen a music instrument before today
I'm convinced the anthem was hurriedly scribbled on the back of a napkin when someone realized they needed one to appear more like Western countries during sporting events.
 
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