The Official Motorsport thread

[Froggy]

Boom Danny Ric what a drive!

[Peppermint Lounge]

Vettel potentially gone from F1. Daniel Riccardo confirmed at McLaren for 2021 after Carlos Sainz replaces Vettel at Ferrari. McLaren back to Mercedes power from next year too.

[stanard]

And rumours that Nando might be back!

And as much as I still hate Vettel I would love to see him at Mercedes next to Lewis.

[Peppermint Lounge]

Will miss Kimi. Also,

[stanard]

[Peppermint Lounge]

He actually posted a warm farewell on his Insta that does appear to be him (vs someone from his team).

[stanard]

I know Alonso is there still representing the early 2000s gang, but it's so weird that Vettel and Hamilton are the other elder statesmen on the grid. Hell Ricciardo and Perez are in their 11th years now!

[Peppermint Lounge]

Ricciardo stitched up by a poor attempt at strategy last night. Annoying race.

For those who didn't watch Ricciardo directed by team to let Lando through then to hold up quicker traffic to maximise Norris' race which wasn't really worth doing anyway. Raced ended with Lando P10, Daniel P11. Should've been Daniel's point.

[Peppermint Lounge]

Ricciardo's radio says it.

[stanard]

It was worth a try, but ideally they should've switched the places back after Lando couldn't move further forward/was overtaken by Perez. But saying that I don't know what the gap was too Ocon ahead, or to Danny back to Stroll, so might have been too risky to orchestrate it.

Overall a pretty ho-hum race. Cool location though!

[Peppermint Lounge]

Ricciardo wins, McLaren 1-2, Ricciardo nabbing fastest lap upon crossing chequered flag. You can't do better. A shame VER and HAM took each other out but by then I was confident the McLarens could keep them behind. Amazing race.

[stanard]

When Hamilton came out, Norris was closer to them both than I was expecting, but yeah Danny definitely had it in the bag by that stage.

Besides the scarily close call with that tyre and Lewis's head them taking each other out was hilarious. This is such a good title fight!

[Peppermint Lounge]

Huge props to Lando Norris too. I was waning on him a little bit. Not badly, just a few little comments here and there and nothing I wouldn't forgive a 21 year old for. It's clear his relationship with Daniel is more business like vs his previous real friendship with Carlos Sainz. He's been a total statesman this weekend though. I'm always pretty amazed at the composure of these super young F1 drivers given the volume of media they do.

[Peppermint Lounge]

Godly performance by Hamilton this weekend. Overcomes aggregate 25 car penalty to win the race.

Ric well in the points and doing ok until the car malfunctioned and had to be retired. Sainz does the dirty on his ex team mate Norris. Not a lot in it but Sainz after a botched start definitely moved in slightly to squeeze Norris who was overtaking on the outside.

[stanard]

Yep brilliant weekend for Hamilton! Hopefully it goes down to the last race

And fuck Verstappen.

[Peppermint Lounge]

This is a lot better than I thought it was going to be.

[stanard]

Haha that's great. The Sainz jnr and Kimi are perfect

[stanard]

F1 Saudi Arabian GP.

So I can't decide if that was a great race, or a shit race. I'm leaning towards the latter. I hate fake "street" circuits, and this one was just stupid. Sure looks fun for the drivers and in car hotlaps are kinda crazy, but visually there was nothing there for the fans, especially as a night race.

For a fast sweeping circuit the actual racing was crap, and the whole thing was just ruined by the non stop VSCs. Standing starts after red flags (outside of the first few laps) are just shit too. Manufactured excitement.

And fuck Verstappen.

[Peppermint Lounge]

The drama was good. Barracking for a HAM championship not just for HAM over VER but also Toto over Christian.

[Peppermint Lounge]

Verstappen on pole running softs. Hamilton no. 2 on mediums. Potential problem for Hamilton is he has Norris, Perez & Sainz behind him all running softs. Hamilton will need a very good start because if he's overtaken by anyone behind him it will hugely negate his medium tyre longevity advantage.

[stanard]

Pretty pumped for this race! I liked Lando's comments after quali about not wanting to get involved

[stanard]

Yeah....so that was kinda dodgy. I get why the decision was made to let those cars through and restart the race straight away, but like with all the other calls this year it's just the lack of consistency with the rules. Race control saying one thing, then changing their mind half a lap later just felt yuck.

Max getting the rub of the green with the safety car and fresh tyres is frustrating, but hey that's F1.

Ahh well, crazy season. Hopefully next year the rules can be tightened up a bit.

And fuck Jos.

[Peppermint Lounge]

Bizarre. Mercedes/Hamilton dominated the race. Verstappen choked the start and didn't have the pace. Safety cars and VSCs influence races all the time but for the race director to let lapped cars up to Verstappen to pass Hamilton and not the others then white flag the race with one lap to go is some bullshit.

[stanard]

Yep, especially with only the cars between Max and Lewis being met through. Ricciardo for example was the first car behind Max. Meant he lost any chance of then battling for his position. I know it didn't have any impact but what if the battle between Ferrari and McLaren in constructors had still been close?

The whole thing just felt wrong and manufactured.

[stanard]

Just read that the Mercedes protest has of course just been waved away.

Be interesting if any of the midfield teams protest anything.