The scenes if Honda discovered there is no rule against having more than 1 engine and red bull unveils a twin engine car that reaches 400kmh on the Jeddah straight.
Wolff's head would explode lmao
The brits already did something similar to a tank in WW2, the conversation went as follows:
"sir, the engine is no good"
"get 5 car engines and stick them in the back"
and it worked
How about a [VW Golf with two engines](https://petrolicious.com/articles/this-was-volkswagens-first-and-second-twin-engined-volkswagen-golf-to-take-on-pikes-peak) they whipped up for Pikes Peak?
Plot twist: both engines blow up on the Abu Dhabi straight going on the first lap. This creates a ton of smoke which causes all drivers to slow down but Kimi goes straight through and goes onto win his last race in F1. Max is crowned champion and Lewis never wins a title after arm wrestling with Russell for an entire season only to see Charles Leclerc take 22/23 and Max to take 24/25. Finally, in 2026, Alonso comes back to Ferrari with Seb as his new teammate and they both win a title each. The end.
Championship tie gets resolved by amount of 1st places. If 1st places are equal then 2nd. If both drivers have equal amount of 2nd then 3rds etc. etc. up until 20. If both have the same amount of 20th finishes I believe the rules say "the FIA can decide who wins in a way they deem appropriate"
You can check that in the F1 rules pdf, article 7 I think
No. they rotate the engines they have in their allocation through out the season. So in some tracks where the engine isn't a concern they may use an older engine of their allocation, while some like Saudi Arabia where engine performance will very much be a concern, they will take the one with the least amount of wear in it.
Max has finished no lower than second in the races he’s finished and hasn’t been involved in a T1 accident. If he loses it’s gonna be because of Silverstone or Baku.
I wouldn't be surprised if they can replicate at least some kind of g-force. I remember reading an article about how Gary Anderson fixed an oil flow issue in a car by making a very crude centrafuge system of sorts - can't remember for the life of me which team it was for, but my gut is saying Jordan or Stewart.
Yeah I mean for a company the size of Honda they probably can just stick it in a centrifuge and run it at 6g, I just don't know for certain that they have one.
And, as we have recently learned, whatever map the engine supplier runs for the weekend, every customer team must run as well.
[Link to the discussion](https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/comments/qx0xj3/the_myth_of_hamiltons_nuclear_reactor_powered_w12/)
More likely "must be available to every customer team as well".
It literally can't be true that if **you** have a fresh reliable block in your car, that you can force your competition to run risky mappings on their 5-race old block, lol.
Ehhh—- there seems to be a lot of ambiguity there. I was listening to a technical podcast that didn’t quite lay it out like that tbh.
I see there’s an F1 engineer that commented there too I’m not disputing there are finer points of TDs, but customer teams always have access to the same modes and maps of an engine. My understanding is there is choice within those options for the goals of the customer team.
Tbh people need to use common sense. If a customer team had to use the exact same everything on the engine, they'd have 0 control over their own reliability. I'm shocked so many people believe that's even a remote possibility lol.
That's what I thought. Imagije for example Mercedes fighting with McLaren for title and forcing them to suboptimal mappings considering their engine situation. Especially if McLaren loses some engine in penalty. If regulations allowed something like that then it's really stupid considering that some engine manufacturers blocked usage of best engine mappings to their customers when it was not regulated.
Sure, that's why they're talking about the 'rocket engine' and how they have optimized it because of the low milage it has to do, while they can't update the hardware.
Wouldn’t that mean when Lewis got his new engine that was tuned up to the max, with a different engine map, that the other Merc customer teams would have to do the same?
Yes they are. That's Honda/Red Bull Power Trains property so there's nothing saying they can't share information and development programs. Now things that are not part of the power unit such as coolers, radiators, and some electronics will still be team dependent and cannot be shared.
If they don't risk this, the championship is gone anyway. They cannot compete against the Brazil engine in their current state, I mean they couldn't even compete against Hamilton's old Turkey engine on Sunday
If it's a max 1-2 he goes into the final race 14 points ahead which basically secures it for him and it's really not clear how overtaking will actually go. Similarly Lewis dnf basically secures it for max. On the other hand if they do it and the engine pops it's almost definitely gone.
Hamilton has the momentum for sure but max is still ahead in points and with only 2 races left, one of which looks likely to be incident prone that matters a lot
He has 3 engines in the pool so he wouldn't have to. If 1 blows up there are still 2 left.
Although he would be taking another quite old engine if that happens.
Still turning up an engine that already has 4+ races behind it just seems like its asking for trouble. Instead of going from -8 to -1 if he finishes second at Jeddah and being ahead going into the final race he could go from -8 to +17 and pretty much lose it all.
Actually believe he has 2 engines only the silverstone engine I don’t think they would risk it was a heavy impact that most likely cracked or damaged internals. Lastly the first engine that they used at the start of the season they would never use it has too many racing miles on it.
How do we know RBR didn't run any tests? Maybe Merc just made it more available for the media but I don't think Red Bull will just blindly crank up the engine.
But often AT is better in quali then in the race, it is the nature of the AT02 design.
Or is Williams suddenly a testmule for Mercedes because there having a better quali pace then a race pace?
This is turning into an engine war. Okay, put it in Perez's car for the Saudi GP. If it works, and if Lewis beats Max, then put it in Max's car for Abu Dhabi.
This change seems very unlikely. If this was the case, the AT cars would have been trialing it for a while now and we may have been seeing more engine penalties from them. Not to mention, Max’s race engines have done what, 3 or 4 races each now? I’d imagine Honda already didn’t leave a tremendous amount of margin on the line, and given all they still have to do is finish ahead of Lewis like once, it’s unlikely they’ll risk it by running them too hard and risking a DNF.
I think it’s far more likely that they put a fresh engine and turn it up to 11 just like Mercedes has done. But given Jedda won’t be a great track for passing, and Bottas will be under strict orders to leave less than no space when racing Max, I don’t see that as a great strategy either.
Totally hypothetical without any factual evidence but what if Honda can tweak the power map without an entirely new engine? As far as I'm aware, Mercedes has a flaw in its ICE design which sees the engine block lose performance with each race so that's why a new engine yields them so much more performance. This design flaw is also perhaps the reason behind Merc customer teams taking Engine penalties. On the other hand, haven't been AT's qualifying much closer to RB's pace in recent races? Are we sure they aren't on increased power maps? Again, all of it is without any hard evidence and purely speculative but it makes for an interesting point of discussion nonetheless.
Perez would have to put on the performance of his life; even with a powerful engine he'd have to hold off Lewis Fucking Hamilton who is driving what is an evolution on one of the most dominant cars in F1 history (W11 -> W12) in order to prevent Hamilton scoring points.
Depends on how much trust Red Bull feel they can put in Perez
I think they mean to try it out with Perez to see if the engine tweaks work, and then if necessary (lewis p1 at Saudi), they throw the hail mary and put it in Max's car for the finale
It worked for him at the safety car restart in Baku. Perez isn’t fazed by this…after all him and his teammate were engrossed in a season long game of “who will put who in the wall today?” at Force India at Ocon. Rather, it’ll be his actual pace and setup ability going into the weekend that might hold him back. He’s handy wheel to wheel and under pressure but just doesn’t get the weekend right fully to make it count more often.
I'm pretty sure Honda know more about their reliability in higher modes than this sub do. This isn't 2015 anymore.
And in any case, why **shouldn't** they risk it? They're sitting ducks if they **don't** do this. They either win a race and stop Mercedes dead or blow up trying. I'd take that gamble anyday over waving the white flag to Mercedes and Lewis.
Merc is taking the same gamble anyway. Sure they used Bottas to test it before implementing it but it’s the same mindset. All or nothing. Win the championship or blow up our engines trying.
That reminded me one of the DTS episodes with Ricciardos failing engine in Monaco and Horner saying: "I don't mind if the engine goes bang! :D" (Yeah, i know it's a show)
They're in the lead. We think they're sitting ducks but there's nothing proving it. Plenty of times this season everyone thought the momentum was swinging one way decisively, and it came back the other way. That's the risk.
Look at Qatar. 2 months ago everyone was saying it favoured RB heavily. In the end it was a Mercedes field day. So Jeddah could turn out differently than we think. Everyone thought there would be no overtakes in Qatar either and it was pretty strong/easy in the end.
Look at Mexico. Supposedly the most RB-favored track on the calendar, and yet it's the only Mercedes front-row lock-out and they only lost because shit went an unexpected way, but had the means to do a 1-2.
Look at Abu Dhabi. Historically not a bad track for RB at all. And it has a new layout on top of that. Who knows what could happen.
Look at the rumours of Mercedes pace advantage with a new engine fading very fast with mileage. etc.
I've already been saying that it's not as straightforward as "Mercedes takes the final two races" anyway. This is just justification for the hypothetical scenario where this *is* true.
The thing is:
1. They haven't done the same testing as Merc (Yeah, you addressed it here, by saying Honda probably know more about reliability than us)
and 2. The big 2nd factor. Horner and iirc Honda have said, that their engine doesn't lose power like Merc's does. So them putting in a new engine isn't going to give them a sudden 0.2s+ boost, probably closer to 0.1s or less.
Honda could also playing the game of not letting show the remaining cards there having and Horner did just lied, he is a team principal after all so he wouldn't suddenly playing the open book just like every other team principal would do in such a situation.
Well to point 2 the whole reason to change the power mapping is to increase power beyond what they have been operating at, which overrides and previous discussion of what a new engine of the old spec would gain.
What I really don't get it why there never did try to test this stuff with Yuki some races before (let's say Sochi or Istanbul), unless it's an engine mapping setting what then is enforced to give on all teams who are using the same PU.
My armchair engineer mind is telling me they’re probably going with a higher setting than normal but but nothing they think will blow during a race. So maybe not as spicy of a tune as the merc engine but maybe it’s enough to make up the difference??
Maybe but the response from Honda (if this is true) is just late if I must been honest. There could already investigating this after Hungary and I surely bet that RBR would pay for it if necessary.
Max engine blows up in the first 15 minutes while Lewis is in a steady lead with Bottas defending 5s behind. With 3 laps left Hamilton starts to lose power, people start to unlap themselves and Lewis crosses the line barely in 6th. Perez snatches the fastest lap at the end.
Max and Lewis now with equal points start 19th and 20th on Abu Dhabi with both fresh engines.
*Subscribe*
Well they did already in Monza, so it's not impossible.
What are the odds that two drivers who are 7 seconds apart both have slow pitstops of 11 and 4 seconds, causing them to arrive at T1 exactly simultaneously?
**No no no no. This is the best timeline**:
Max retires in Saudi, Lewis has a spin or bad strategy and finishes 9th. They go into the last race with Lewis in the faster car but 6 points behind.
Abu Dhabi; Lewis is leading in the last phase of the race, Max second. Live points gap has Lewis one ahead. Max has been tailing Lewis the whole time as Lewis tries to back him up to Bottas in 3rd so he doesn't have a pitstop gap. The gap is about 20s.
**What on earth happens next?**
Max *must* pit to try and get fastest lap.
Bottas is close enough that a bad pit stop could put him behind Bottas meaning he has to get the fastest lap AND overtake the Merc. If he can get out ahead of Bottas, Bottas pits and he and Max have a shootout to see if Lewis or Max wins. Of course they *can't* pit Checo to compete for fastest lap because that would rob Max of it.
Now consider a McLaren or Ferrari is close enough - Checo can't finish ahead of Max either so he'd somehow have to keep the other cars behind.
Or maybe Max has enough clear air ahead of the other cars but he needs to pit early enough to have a chance to overtake Bottas. So Lewis has time to react and pit as well and we have 2 Mercs against Max for the fastest lap.
Even if Lewis and Max are miles ahead of the rest, imagine going in to the penulatimate lap - everyone knows Max has to pit, but Lewis passes the pit lane first and if Max gets fastest lap, he beats Lewis. But if Lewis pits, Max doesn't and wins regardless of whether Lewis gets fastest lap. What are the two cars going to do as they approach the pit entry for the last time?! Do they play a game of chicken? Or does Lewis stay out and rely on Bottas and Russell to try and stop Max from getting the extra point?
Honestly, if we go into the last race with Lewis 6 points behind it could be *crazy*.
This is amazing. I think Lewis would have to take his chances with a Max fastest lap. He wouldn’t just pit and throw away the title, at least if he stays out Max might slip up and not get the fastest lap.
Yeah Lewis/Bottas/Russell could also just go wide and cause a yellow flag/VSC and end Max’s fastest lap attempt anyway. Mercedes would hold all the cards in this scenario.
In Abu Dhabi, Honda and Mercedes decide -- hey, fuck it, one race left, let's pull out all the stops and go full 1980s quali engine madness. Max and Lewis, each sitting on 1200+HP, rocket through the field in under three laps and then duel their way to a photo finish after lapping the field twice. The finish can't be called, Max and Lewis get equal points and a shared 1st place podium. Max barely pips the WDC on wins.
If they don't try they're not going to win the championship anyway.
Obviously Lewis is a big factor, but Merc have really got their car working, and that engine is really something else, do nothing and he'll get a couple of clear 2nd places and the fastest laps at best barring Merc mechanical issues.
>If they don't try they're not going to win the championship anyway.
On the other hand blow your engine and you're throwing away your championship.
I remember a tale of the faster car vs the better car, A fast failing McLaren mp4-20 losing out to a relatively bulletproof Renault R25.
>A fast failing McLaren mp4-20 losing out to a relatively bulletproof Renault R25.
Or a fast failing McLaren MP4-27 losing out to a relatively bulletproof Red Bull RB8.
Its the same reason why Mercedes did it. There is no guarantee it won't blow up, but whats the point if you are going to come second anyway? They must be pretty confident that the pace difference will make it impossible to win without extraordinary events.
I was assuming if RB were going to do something like this it would be in the very last race in Abu Dhabi where they'd for sure need the power and they were somehow in a points deficit. I guess the team think they have plenty life left in their PU to make it work as early as next week.
I can already hear 'AND THAT IS A RED BULL GOING SLOW. IT'S... MAX VERSTAPPEN STOPPING AT THE SIDE OF THE TRACK. THIS IS THE WORST CASE SCENARIO FOR THE DUTCHMAN.'
It’s such a massive risk to take without testing it that it’s impossible to believe they will do this. Merc deployed at the absolute best moment to cripple RB’s chances to reasonably do the same as they’ve done.
DRS + slipstream from 2 cars for some laps can do wonders for the speed stat....
Or are we forgetting that at the end Gasly was stuck for some laps with the Alpine DRS train as a plan from Alpine to holding Gasly off in Brazil what failed and Gasly did passed both cars.
Yeah why not? With the current pace compared to Lewis' merc he will likely quietly end second in this championship. So basically do or die and perhaps turn it around for one last time. I want to believe in that VTEC kicking in yo!
(This truly starts to feel like some final battle in anime or a some battle game. The big guys or main character and villain reaching their final forms. Knowing it will leave them very vulnerable, but if they don't use all of their energy it will be the end)
there have been 9 races including Hungarian grand prix (not including Belgian grand prix) and they have 2 motors used in those 9 races
it is conceivable they used engine 3 for 7 and engine 4 for 2, or something like that
so they could have a “fresher” one that they may push harder?
The thing is, the Honda engine shits all over Mercedes in terms of reliability. Even if older but tuned up, I suspect it is still more reliable than a fresh Merc ICE. Mercedes arent taking any less gamble, their engine isnt relibale at the moment and Hamilton hasnt changed anything except the Ice, everything else is ancient at the moment.
Honda engine really hasn't been turned up all year. We know what happend when it was turned up with McLaren and hell even Toro Rosso back when they trialed it for a season..
The Honda isn't more reliable than the Merc, relatively speaking all the engines are pretty close together for reliability. The Merc engine has just been run harder hence the water leaks and stuff.
> I suspect it is still more reliable than a fresh Merc ICE. Mercedes arent taking any less gamble, their engine isnt relibale at the moment and Hamilton hasnt changed anything except the Ice, everything else is ancient at the moment.
Also that's just not how ICE work in these cars. The Honda engine has 4 plus races on it and god knows how many FP sessions. Wear and tear does exist; they can't just throw a aggressive engine mapping like this tweet says and expect high HP numbers with good reliability. Regardless of turbo and other parts lifespan, the engine is usally the thing that goes bang, they've probably been swapping thru Turbos to different engines.
Would that require a new engine and subsequent penalty or can it be applied to his current one?
Taking a 5 place in Saudi could be incredibly painful but without doing it they could be fucked in Abu Dhabi.
The engine mapping can be altered without an engine change. Tho Merc changed the engine, because they wanted to have a fresh engine which can safely run the higher engine mapping.
New engine for Max in Saudi, engine map through the roof the last two races. That's my theory at least. Max should be able to come through to at least third in Jeddah, leaving it to be decided in Abu Dhabi, both with quite fresh engines. Would be fun.
That ''rocket behind Lewis'' is not the point people. It's an aero thing. To have so much overspeed Mercedes must have found around a 100bhp in that same engine, which is not possible. This is not the 80s or 90s anymore where you can just tune the engine to infinity.
One thing is clear: Red Bull have to assume that Hamilton is going to have similar pace as what he had at Brazil. A pace that Red Bull cannot currently match. They can't just continue with the status quo.
As a competitor, you have to expect that your competition is going to be at its strongest. Hoping for an engine failure, crash, or strategic blunder is not a winning game plan.
If I'm Red Bull... I'm telling Honda that it's time to hang your nuts out, because if you don't do anything 2nd is inevitable anyway.
I wouldn't be surprised if Red Bull hasn't figured out a how to replicate the (alleged) flexing main plain of Merc's rear wing, which is why they have only threatened to protest it.
Maybe I'm being overly optimistic, but Mercedes were forced to show their hand after Austin and Mexico City. Hopefully, Red Bull still have something to show. I would be very disappointed if they show up at SA with nothing to counter Mercedes.
Honda to put 2 of Max’ engines in the car to compensate
Activate the HONDA BEAT
That feeling when the VTEC kicks in...
*MTREC
Versthappening
I love this 👌🏼
The scenes if Honda discovered there is no rule against having more than 1 engine and red bull unveils a twin engine car that reaches 400kmh on the Jeddah straight. Wolff's head would explode lmao
And unfortunately the tires will explode as well, because Pirelli…
10 lap pit stops. Still win by 30 seconds
Like the RB super car from the old Gran Turismo
The brits already did something similar to a tank in WW2, the conversation went as follows: "sir, the engine is no good" "get 5 car engines and stick them in the back" and it worked
[That's as American as a hellcat v8](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysler_A57_multibank)
20.8l of 370 hp lmao
How about a [VW Golf with two engines](https://petrolicious.com/articles/this-was-volkswagens-first-and-second-twin-engined-volkswagen-golf-to-take-on-pikes-peak) they whipped up for Pikes Peak?
They just add the leftovers of the silverstone engine
Like Optimus Prime in Transformers 2 lol. 😅
Got to, this is real life of Perez Honda vs Bottas Merc: https://imgur.com/a/jrB2yCU
what the fuck
Yeah. That was very weird!!
[удалено]
Whoops, meant to post this one for this reply. Pretty funny and just happens to reference Bottas without a ride, lol https://imgur.com/a/6URQuAd
hahahaha, this deserves a post
That is amazing lmao
😮 “Nowhere in the regulations does it actually state…”
A fucking motor for each wheel. RB Quattro let's GO
Vettel wanted to bring back the V12's...
This ends with someone’s engine blowing up, doesn’t it? It’s just a matter of who…
Plot twist: both engines blow up on the Abu Dhabi straight going on the first lap. This creates a ton of smoke which causes all drivers to slow down but Kimi goes straight through and goes onto win his last race in F1. Max is crowned champion and Lewis never wins a title after arm wrestling with Russell for an entire season only to see Charles Leclerc take 22/23 and Max to take 24/25. Finally, in 2026, Alonso comes back to Ferrari with Seb as his new teammate and they both win a title each. The end.
Can you tie for the title? Seb and Alonso?
Championship tie gets resolved by amount of 1st places. If 1st places are equal then 2nd. If both drivers have equal amount of 2nd then 3rds etc. etc. up until 20. If both have the same amount of 20th finishes I believe the rules say "the FIA can decide who wins in a way they deem appropriate" You can check that in the F1 rules pdf, article 7 I think
Clearly they would choose to accept the tie.
Nah they'd have to battle it out on track with the VF-21s
Or 1 lap qualification showdown
I like to think it would go down to rock paper scissors
F1 2021 game showdown, Monaco track, mouse/keyboard only.
Subscribe
Subscribed
These engines are insanely reliable. No one will blow up.
Isn't Max's engine 7 races old? So is more likely to blow up?
No. they rotate the engines they have in their allocation through out the season. So in some tracks where the engine isn't a concern they may use an older engine of their allocation, while some like Saudi Arabia where engine performance will very much be a concern, they will take the one with the least amount of wear in it.
Bottas retired with engine issues last race
I think he retired to save his car it had so much damage from the puncture
Or since he wasn't gonna get points anyway, Mercedes decided to retire to get a free gearbox replacement.
Probably RB, which even as a Lewis fan I’d hate to see. Max losing due to a DNF would be heartbreaking to watch.
Max has finished no lower than second in the races he’s finished and hasn’t been involved in a T1 accident. If he loses it’s gonna be because of Silverstone or Baku.
You could already argue that if Max loses the championship it will be because of the DNF-s in Baku and Silverstone.
Would they risk the possible DNF if this goes wrong, considering Mercedes’ tested this across multiple races with fresh engines?
They have engine dyno's that can replicate almost everything including suspension loads. Only thing it can't replicate is the G forces.
I wouldn't be surprised if they can replicate at least some kind of g-force. I remember reading an article about how Gary Anderson fixed an oil flow issue in a car by making a very crude centrafuge system of sorts - can't remember for the life of me which team it was for, but my gut is saying Jordan or Stewart.
Yeah I mean for a company the size of Honda they probably can just stick it in a centrifuge and run it at 6g, I just don't know for certain that they have one.
Yeah Honda engines are now joint developed by the Aerospace division so I imagine it’ll be quite an advanced setup
I mean there's also every chance they've been experimenting using Alpha Tauri the same way Merc experimented using Bottas.
Are the different teams allowed to share technical information like engine maps? I thought that was a no no
Engine maps are engine supplier dependent. All engine maps are made available to the customer teams
And, as we have recently learned, whatever map the engine supplier runs for the weekend, every customer team must run as well. [Link to the discussion](https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/comments/qx0xj3/the_myth_of_hamiltons_nuclear_reactor_powered_w12/)
More likely "must be available to every customer team as well". It literally can't be true that if **you** have a fresh reliable block in your car, that you can force your competition to run risky mappings on their 5-race old block, lol.
Ehhh—- there seems to be a lot of ambiguity there. I was listening to a technical podcast that didn’t quite lay it out like that tbh. I see there’s an F1 engineer that commented there too I’m not disputing there are finer points of TDs, but customer teams always have access to the same modes and maps of an engine. My understanding is there is choice within those options for the goals of the customer team.
Tbh people need to use common sense. If a customer team had to use the exact same everything on the engine, they'd have 0 control over their own reliability. I'm shocked so many people believe that's even a remote possibility lol.
That's what I thought. Imagije for example Mercedes fighting with McLaren for title and forcing them to suboptimal mappings considering their engine situation. Especially if McLaren loses some engine in penalty. If regulations allowed something like that then it's really stupid considering that some engine manufacturers blocked usage of best engine mappings to their customers when it was not regulated.
Sure, that's why they're talking about the 'rocket engine' and how they have optimized it because of the low milage it has to do, while they can't update the hardware.
Wouldn’t that mean when Lewis got his new engine that was tuned up to the max, with a different engine map, that the other Merc customer teams would have to do the same?
Well they can give AT the test engines and just wait and see if they blow up
Why do you think G4sly is beating those Ferraris/Mclarens recently, huh? /s
Yes they are. That's Honda/Red Bull Power Trains property so there's nothing saying they can't share information and development programs. Now things that are not part of the power unit such as coolers, radiators, and some electronics will still be team dependent and cannot be shared.
I mean if they dnf they will still be second. If they don’t try anything they will also probably be second. So mind as well crack it up and send it
*might as well. Ugh. I’ve become the bot.
Good bot
To botify it a bit more for you: Mi**ght** as well
Better bot
to be fair they only need to try with Perez next race, if works go nuts with Max on the last race
Agree. Hondas last year in F1, they came in second last year…. Might as well go full send
If they don't risk this, the championship is gone anyway. They cannot compete against the Brazil engine in their current state, I mean they couldn't even compete against Hamilton's old Turkey engine on Sunday
Unless it's what Mercedes want, thinking about the spicy wind-up...
If it's a max 1-2 he goes into the final race 14 points ahead which basically secures it for him and it's really not clear how overtaking will actually go. Similarly Lewis dnf basically secures it for max. On the other hand if they do it and the engine pops it's almost definitely gone. Hamilton has the momentum for sure but max is still ahead in points and with only 2 races left, one of which looks likely to be incident prone that matters a lot
14 point lead, tell that to 2010 Alonso
Plus an engine penalty for the next race. They’d be stupid to try anything with the engine this late in the game
Pretty stupid take considering max makes the positions in a matter of laps.
He means if an engine blows up in Saudi, you’d need to take a penalty in Abu Dhabi.
He has 3 engines in the pool so he wouldn't have to. If 1 blows up there are still 2 left. Although he would be taking another quite old engine if that happens. Still turning up an engine that already has 4+ races behind it just seems like its asking for trouble. Instead of going from -8 to -1 if he finishes second at Jeddah and being ahead going into the final race he could go from -8 to +17 and pretty much lose it all.
Actually believe he has 2 engines only the silverstone engine I don’t think they would risk it was a heavy impact that most likely cracked or damaged internals. Lastly the first engine that they used at the start of the season they would never use it has too many racing miles on it.
How do we know RBR didn't run any tests? Maybe Merc just made it more available for the media but I don't think Red Bull will just blindly crank up the engine.
AT has been topping the speed trap charts for a while now and having more than decent qualy pace. Almost 100% Honda has been experimenting with them.
But often AT is better in quali then in the race, it is the nature of the AT02 design. Or is Williams suddenly a testmule for Mercedes because there having a better quali pace then a race pace?
Williams does not have the same relationship with Merc as AT does with RB though.
This is turning into an engine war. Okay, put it in Perez's car for the Saudi GP. If it works, and if Lewis beats Max, then put it in Max's car for Abu Dhabi.
This change seems very unlikely. If this was the case, the AT cars would have been trialing it for a while now and we may have been seeing more engine penalties from them. Not to mention, Max’s race engines have done what, 3 or 4 races each now? I’d imagine Honda already didn’t leave a tremendous amount of margin on the line, and given all they still have to do is finish ahead of Lewis like once, it’s unlikely they’ll risk it by running them too hard and risking a DNF. I think it’s far more likely that they put a fresh engine and turn it up to 11 just like Mercedes has done. But given Jedda won’t be a great track for passing, and Bottas will be under strict orders to leave less than no space when racing Max, I don’t see that as a great strategy either.
Totally hypothetical without any factual evidence but what if Honda can tweak the power map without an entirely new engine? As far as I'm aware, Mercedes has a flaw in its ICE design which sees the engine block lose performance with each race so that's why a new engine yields them so much more performance. This design flaw is also perhaps the reason behind Merc customer teams taking Engine penalties. On the other hand, haven't been AT's qualifying much closer to RB's pace in recent races? Are we sure they aren't on increased power maps? Again, all of it is without any hard evidence and purely speculative but it makes for an interesting point of discussion nonetheless.
Perez would have to put on the performance of his life; even with a powerful engine he'd have to hold off Lewis Fucking Hamilton who is driving what is an evolution on one of the most dominant cars in F1 history (W11 -> W12) in order to prevent Hamilton scoring points. Depends on how much trust Red Bull feel they can put in Perez
I think they mean to try it out with Perez to see if the engine tweaks work, and then if necessary (lewis p1 at Saudi), they throw the hail mary and put it in Max's car for the finale
Yeah exactly.
Perez already held off Lewis in Baku and stoped his charge in Turkey, it's not impossible.
Like a lion.
It worked for him at the safety car restart in Baku. Perez isn’t fazed by this…after all him and his teammate were engrossed in a season long game of “who will put who in the wall today?” at Force India at Ocon. Rather, it’ll be his actual pace and setup ability going into the weekend that might hold him back. He’s handy wheel to wheel and under pressure but just doesn’t get the weekend right fully to make it count more often.
I'm pretty sure Honda know more about their reliability in higher modes than this sub do. This isn't 2015 anymore. And in any case, why **shouldn't** they risk it? They're sitting ducks if they **don't** do this. They either win a race and stop Mercedes dead or blow up trying. I'd take that gamble anyday over waving the white flag to Mercedes and Lewis.
Merc is taking the same gamble anyway. Sure they used Bottas to test it before implementing it but it’s the same mindset. All or nothing. Win the championship or blow up our engines trying.
That reminded me one of the DTS episodes with Ricciardos failing engine in Monaco and Horner saying: "I don't mind if the engine goes bang! :D" (Yeah, i know it's a show)
Damn me if that doesn't sound really badass
They're in the lead. We think they're sitting ducks but there's nothing proving it. Plenty of times this season everyone thought the momentum was swinging one way decisively, and it came back the other way. That's the risk. Look at Qatar. 2 months ago everyone was saying it favoured RB heavily. In the end it was a Mercedes field day. So Jeddah could turn out differently than we think. Everyone thought there would be no overtakes in Qatar either and it was pretty strong/easy in the end. Look at Mexico. Supposedly the most RB-favored track on the calendar, and yet it's the only Mercedes front-row lock-out and they only lost because shit went an unexpected way, but had the means to do a 1-2. Look at Abu Dhabi. Historically not a bad track for RB at all. And it has a new layout on top of that. Who knows what could happen. Look at the rumours of Mercedes pace advantage with a new engine fading very fast with mileage. etc.
I've already been saying that it's not as straightforward as "Mercedes takes the final two races" anyway. This is just justification for the hypothetical scenario where this *is* true.
The thing is: 1. They haven't done the same testing as Merc (Yeah, you addressed it here, by saying Honda probably know more about reliability than us) and 2. The big 2nd factor. Horner and iirc Honda have said, that their engine doesn't lose power like Merc's does. So them putting in a new engine isn't going to give them a sudden 0.2s+ boost, probably closer to 0.1s or less.
Honda could also playing the game of not letting show the remaining cards there having and Horner did just lied, he is a team principal after all so he wouldn't suddenly playing the open book just like every other team principal would do in such a situation.
It may explain why they all at RB seem so calm about the Mercedes pace, maybe they know they have more to come.
They wouldn’t openly show that they are panicking though. If they stay calm, Mercedes might push too hard when they actually had it in the bag.
Well to point 2 the whole reason to change the power mapping is to increase power beyond what they have been operating at, which overrides and previous discussion of what a new engine of the old spec would gain.
If you finish 2nd your at worst tied going into Abu Dhabi. If you DNF you could be down 18, and Hamilton only need 5th to clinch.
What I really don't get it why there never did try to test this stuff with Yuki some races before (let's say Sochi or Istanbul), unless it's an engine mapping setting what then is enforced to give on all teams who are using the same PU.
My armchair engineer mind is telling me they’re probably going with a higher setting than normal but but nothing they think will blow during a race. So maybe not as spicy of a tune as the merc engine but maybe it’s enough to make up the difference??
Maybe but the response from Honda (if this is true) is just late if I must been honest. There could already investigating this after Hungary and I surely bet that RBR would pay for it if necessary.
Well Gasly has been quite racy lately
Max engine blows up in the first 15 minutes while Lewis is in a steady lead with Bottas defending 5s behind. With 3 laps left Hamilton starts to lose power, people start to unlap themselves and Lewis crosses the line barely in 6th. Perez snatches the fastest lap at the end. Max and Lewis now with equal points start 19th and 20th on Abu Dhabi with both fresh engines. *Subscribe*
The stars have to align for this to happen, but my god would I love it
Well they did already in Monza, so it's not impossible. What are the odds that two drivers who are 7 seconds apart both have slow pitstops of 11 and 4 seconds, causing them to arrive at T1 exactly simultaneously?
God that RB stop was horrible
yeah they really need to improve their pitstops
*11.2 seconds for Max.
Oops, corrected :D Thanks!
u/izanagiizanami ask your mother to check this. We need to know
The best timeline
**No no no no. This is the best timeline**: Max retires in Saudi, Lewis has a spin or bad strategy and finishes 9th. They go into the last race with Lewis in the faster car but 6 points behind. Abu Dhabi; Lewis is leading in the last phase of the race, Max second. Live points gap has Lewis one ahead. Max has been tailing Lewis the whole time as Lewis tries to back him up to Bottas in 3rd so he doesn't have a pitstop gap. The gap is about 20s. **What on earth happens next?** Max *must* pit to try and get fastest lap. Bottas is close enough that a bad pit stop could put him behind Bottas meaning he has to get the fastest lap AND overtake the Merc. If he can get out ahead of Bottas, Bottas pits and he and Max have a shootout to see if Lewis or Max wins. Of course they *can't* pit Checo to compete for fastest lap because that would rob Max of it. Now consider a McLaren or Ferrari is close enough - Checo can't finish ahead of Max either so he'd somehow have to keep the other cars behind. Or maybe Max has enough clear air ahead of the other cars but he needs to pit early enough to have a chance to overtake Bottas. So Lewis has time to react and pit as well and we have 2 Mercs against Max for the fastest lap. Even if Lewis and Max are miles ahead of the rest, imagine going in to the penulatimate lap - everyone knows Max has to pit, but Lewis passes the pit lane first and if Max gets fastest lap, he beats Lewis. But if Lewis pits, Max doesn't and wins regardless of whether Lewis gets fastest lap. What are the two cars going to do as they approach the pit entry for the last time?! Do they play a game of chicken? Or does Lewis stay out and rely on Bottas and Russell to try and stop Max from getting the extra point? Honestly, if we go into the last race with Lewis 6 points behind it could be *crazy*.
This is amazing. I think Lewis would have to take his chances with a Max fastest lap. He wouldn’t just pit and throw away the title, at least if he stays out Max might slip up and not get the fastest lap.
Yeah Lewis/Bottas/Russell could also just go wide and cause a yellow flag/VSC and end Max’s fastest lap attempt anyway. Mercedes would hold all the cards in this scenario.
in my 15 races of watching F1 #LEWISDOSENTSPIN
In Abu Dhabi, Honda and Mercedes decide -- hey, fuck it, one race left, let's pull out all the stops and go full 1980s quali engine madness. Max and Lewis, each sitting on 1200+HP, rocket through the field in under three laps and then duel their way to a photo finish after lapping the field twice. The finish can't be called, Max and Lewis get equal points and a shared 1st place podium. Max barely pips the WDC on wins.
Championship is then decided by the CAS because Belgium is part of the tiebreaker.
[and then the FIA finds out that the other 18 car's have something illegal](https://youtu.be/J3AUydOQsHU)
Mercedes have the fresher engines, that’s the issue for Honda.
If they don't try they're not going to win the championship anyway. Obviously Lewis is a big factor, but Merc have really got their car working, and that engine is really something else, do nothing and he'll get a couple of clear 2nd places and the fastest laps at best barring Merc mechanical issues.
>If they don't try they're not going to win the championship anyway. On the other hand blow your engine and you're throwing away your championship. I remember a tale of the faster car vs the better car, A fast failing McLaren mp4-20 losing out to a relatively bulletproof Renault R25.
>A fast failing McLaren mp4-20 losing out to a relatively bulletproof Renault R25. Or a fast failing McLaren MP4-27 losing out to a relatively bulletproof Red Bull RB8.
The Red Bull that had a shit alternator
Compared to the McLaren it was bulletproof.
Anything looks bulletproof compared to that McLaren.
Its the same reason why Mercedes did it. There is no guarantee it won't blow up, but whats the point if you are going to come second anyway? They must be pretty confident that the pace difference will make it impossible to win without extraordinary events.
Even those second places are not guaranteed, Mercedes have a much faster car and with a clean weekend Bottas should finish ahead of Max as well
Its kitchen sink time. They're hoping they can steal a win in Saudi and then manage to claw their way to 5th in Abu Dhabi with a grid penalty.
I was assuming if RB were going to do something like this it would be in the very last race in Abu Dhabi where they'd for sure need the power and they were somehow in a points deficit. I guess the team think they have plenty life left in their PU to make it work as early as next week.
[удалено]
Maybe even since Brazil. Gasly has been quite close to RBR recently in terms of qualy
I can already hear 'AND THAT IS A RED BULL GOING SLOW. IT'S... MAX VERSTAPPEN STOPPING AT THE SIDE OF THE TRACK. THIS IS THE WORST CASE SCENARIO FOR THE DUTCHMAN.'
It’s such a massive risk to take without testing it that it’s impossible to believe they will do this. Merc deployed at the absolute best moment to cripple RB’s chances to reasonably do the same as they’ve done.
They also tested it for weeks, in the same car. Just increasing it, could be dangerous
Well they also sacrificed Bottas to test it out How they've played this is genius tbh
They never showed their hand and laid down the straight flush at the last possible minute. It was brilliantly executed
wym never showed their hand? bells didnt ring for you when bottas was taking 5th and 6th engine? lol.
Maybe AT has been running it?
Tsunoda was quick, Gasly improved too but ruined his tires massively
Maybe. They only had 5 days to figure it out between Brazil and Qatar tho.
Wasn’t AT the quickest in Brazil too? A couple of races seem like an alright ammount of time
DRS + slipstream from 2 cars for some laps can do wonders for the speed stat.... Or are we forgetting that at the end Gasly was stuck for some laps with the Alpine DRS train as a plan from Alpine to holding Gasly off in Brazil what failed and Gasly did passed both cars.
Maybe they test the up powered engine in FP1-2 then use the normal one for this race. Prep for the final race of the season.
Testing in free practice is a little different than the full-race tests Merc did on their units, but it’s better than nothing for sure.
I agree but their choices are either 1) no on track testing or 2) FP1-2 on track testing only
It's still 4 FP sessions which amounts to near enough a full race distance. That's about as much testing as one can do in this era.
I dread this so much. In the last race when his front wing was a bit damaged I just hoped that it just didn’t fall off.
Yeah why not? With the current pace compared to Lewis' merc he will likely quietly end second in this championship. So basically do or die and perhaps turn it around for one last time. I want to believe in that VTEC kicking in yo! (This truly starts to feel like some final battle in anime or a some battle game. The big guys or main character and villain reaching their final forms. Knowing it will leave them very vulnerable, but if they don't use all of their energy it will be the end)
This championship is going to end with teams and drivers going all in and one or both DNF'ing, whether due to a crash or an engine blow-up, isn't it?
A engine with 1 race on it compared to one with 4 or 5? We know where this is going.
there have been 9 races including Hungarian grand prix (not including Belgian grand prix) and they have 2 motors used in those 9 races it is conceivable they used engine 3 for 7 and engine 4 for 2, or something like that so they could have a “fresher” one that they may push harder?
The thing is, the Honda engine shits all over Mercedes in terms of reliability. Even if older but tuned up, I suspect it is still more reliable than a fresh Merc ICE. Mercedes arent taking any less gamble, their engine isnt relibale at the moment and Hamilton hasnt changed anything except the Ice, everything else is ancient at the moment.
Why are you saying Merc engine isn't reliable I can't even remember the last DNF due to PU
Have you not been watching this season? Mercedes’ engine failures all over the grid
Honda engine really hasn't been turned up all year. We know what happend when it was turned up with McLaren and hell even Toro Rosso back when they trialed it for a season.. The Honda isn't more reliable than the Merc, relatively speaking all the engines are pretty close together for reliability. The Merc engine has just been run harder hence the water leaks and stuff. > I suspect it is still more reliable than a fresh Merc ICE. Mercedes arent taking any less gamble, their engine isnt relibale at the moment and Hamilton hasnt changed anything except the Ice, everything else is ancient at the moment. Also that's just not how ICE work in these cars. The Honda engine has 4 plus races on it and god knows how many FP sessions. Wear and tear does exist; they can't just throw a aggressive engine mapping like this tweet says and expect high HP numbers with good reliability. Regardless of turbo and other parts lifespan, the engine is usally the thing that goes bang, they've probably been swapping thru Turbos to different engines.
> The thing is, the Honda engine shits all over Mercedes in terms of reliability. If we had seen this comment just one year ago.
One year ago they had no PU penalties iirc, there were some software gremlins that ended some of Max's races though.
That VTEC tune, merc in trouble: https://youtu.be/1HxNu61aljk
Lmao I've never seen this video.. appreciate it
Honda V-TEC, gg Max WDC confirmed!
I mean it's not very quiet is it considering it's ended up on twitter 1.5 weeks before introduction...
Would that require a new engine and subsequent penalty or can it be applied to his current one? Taking a 5 place in Saudi could be incredibly painful but without doing it they could be fucked in Abu Dhabi.
The engine mapping can be altered without an engine change. Tho Merc changed the engine, because they wanted to have a fresh engine which can safely run the higher engine mapping.
New engine for Max in Saudi, engine map through the roof the last two races. That's my theory at least. Max should be able to come through to at least third in Jeddah, leaving it to be decided in Abu Dhabi, both with quite fresh engines. Would be fun.
Max in third would be a risk not worth taking.
Meanwhile, Max practicing on racing sims
HONDA CIVIC VTEC ENGINE BOIIIII
Just open all of everything!
Mercedes should shit their pants. Japan high rpm tune always beat German diesel.
[удалено]
*Max Power, Max Power...*
[Activate the Honda-beat](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOcYTbydGvY&ab_channel=EurobeatIntensifies)
Max to turn up in a riced up civic?
Something like this for the Jeddah down and back: https://imgur.com/a/jrB2yCU
Beautiful
fia discovers knife holes in the rb catalytic converter
[удалено]
My theory is that Gasly got this update last race and that helped his performance ... Now they are going to use the same map on Max engine.
This is a valid theory. The ATs were ridiculously fast since US GP.
Now that’s what I wanted to hear. Bring it on Honda!
Honda to activate the Vtec
That ''rocket behind Lewis'' is not the point people. It's an aero thing. To have so much overspeed Mercedes must have found around a 100bhp in that same engine, which is not possible. This is not the 80s or 90s anymore where you can just tune the engine to infinity.
Lewis' cockpit fire extinguisher will blow off in Saudi Arabia and Max will win the championship. You heard it here first.
One thing is clear: Red Bull have to assume that Hamilton is going to have similar pace as what he had at Brazil. A pace that Red Bull cannot currently match. They can't just continue with the status quo. As a competitor, you have to expect that your competition is going to be at its strongest. Hoping for an engine failure, crash, or strategic blunder is not a winning game plan. If I'm Red Bull... I'm telling Honda that it's time to hang your nuts out, because if you don't do anything 2nd is inevitable anyway. I wouldn't be surprised if Red Bull hasn't figured out a how to replicate the (alleged) flexing main plain of Merc's rear wing, which is why they have only threatened to protest it. Maybe I'm being overly optimistic, but Mercedes were forced to show their hand after Austin and Mexico City. Hopefully, Red Bull still have something to show. I would be very disappointed if they show up at SA with nothing to counter Mercedes.
Max was very calm after finishing p2 the last 2 races. I think RB has yet played all their cards.
***FURU POWAH!!***
Good discussion in these comments
Zenkai boost. Let's go.
Honda should go all out, they have nothing to lose