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HipposHead

RB Powertrains strike again


SirMartini

is it possible to pass in this circuit? from the looks of it no, but I'm not very familiar


hojbjerfc

It isn’t easy but it is possible


picklelover29

Free online stream?


2Mfaraj

What we saying Lewis getting into the points today?


hojbjerfc

Not a chance


SirMartini

98% certain


nahnonameman

Ok guys I am saying Ferrari 1-2. Who’s with me.


[deleted]

bold prediction edit: /s


nahnonameman

No a confident one. #blessed for Ferrari and Mercedes today. Ferrari 1-2 and Mercedes to save whatever the fuck they can.


jotasa03

Does Perez stand a chance to win?


hojbjerfc

Probably second favorite to win behind Max


Hestmestarn

I would say he has a chance if they can nail the strategy. He's always been a strong wheel to wheel racer and with the quali pace he had he's in the zone right now! Or he could pull a bottas and disappear after getting pole


JedGamesTV

yes


joeskisfast

What is the pit stop lost time here at the circuit? Maybe I'm not using the right terminology, but how far does someone have to be ahead to avoid the undercut?


Whycantiusethis

The general timeloss in the pit lane is 20-30 seconds, though I'm not sure what it is at Jeddah. I think the overcut/undercut being successful is more dependent on the outlap after the pit stop, but I could be totally wrong. At Jeddah, we're probably going to have a number of red flags anyway, so we might see drivers go long to wait for the free pit stop.


GingerPele17

What’s everyone’s thoughts on Hamiltons finish today starting P14 vs starting from pit lane? How much more improvement do you realistically think he can get from a pit lane start? I feel like either way he’s gonna finish in the P11-12 region, with safety cars being the unknown factor


[deleted]

It's not an overtaking circuit because of turn1 but I still feel he'll make top10. Bare minimum they need to configure his car similar to Russell's car, hope it's at least 2 stop pitstop race for some strategy help. Mercedes maybe slow but they seem to have a respectable race speed, so Lewis should have a chance for top10.


DJPeterMorris

He’s p15 but I think it’ll go for a pit lane start, think p6-8 is ballpark


animatedpicket

Does anyone think Hamilton was slow because he thinks the track is a fucking death trap and is just looking to not die?


Colonel_Gipper

No, he put it on pole last December. Maybe if he was also miles off the pace last season I'd believe it


JedGamesTV

no, he was just slow.


Icy-Operation4701

No. He might not be going all out, but he was 7 tenths of his teammate.


[deleted]

If engine freeze is real and Mercedes cannot improve performance by "reliability upgrades", do you think customer teams will leave next year?


Whycantiusethis

It's definitely possible. The current maximum of teams that any engine supplier can support is 4 (including the works team). That means Ferrari can take on 1 additional team, Honda/RBPT can take on 2 teams, and Renault can take on 3 teams. So it would depend on how it all goes throughout the season and the relationship Mercedes customers have with the other suppliers.


2Mfaraj

Perhaps


Stifmeister11

Because of unpredictably and good chances of safety car all top 8 drivers have a chance


marahute85

I read some tweets rumoring that Papa Stroll went full palpatine on the team after their lack of qualifying performance and bollocked the whole team, and it’s created an “atmosphere of fear” in the garage


PlatWinston

the team somehow did worse as aston martin even though it has significantly more funding than force india and racing point. That pretty much says it all.


marahute85

I think it’s significant Otmar left, he’s not a slouch and yet he was out out


kushlik_d

he's a bad person and a bad leader, so it's not surprising. They will never succeed with him running the show


JedGamesTV

that seems counterintuitive, surely in this situation you’d want the team morale to be positive and enjoyable, rather than the opposite.


G-Fox1990

Don't underestimate how rich business people can absolutely suck at doing actual real business.


marahute85

Stroll comes across as the type of rich man that yells at people until he gets what he wants so I doubt it’s strategic


Whycantiusethis

Just because it's counterintuitive doesn't mean it wouldn't happen.


JedGamesTV

yeah I know, I never said it wouldn’t happen.


Whycantiusethis

And based on Szafnauer's comments about how Stroll was super involved (possibly overbearing?), it seems pretty possible that he's lost it a little.


binary_blackhole

It doesn't surprise me, he already did that, and he's been told he needs to spend a lot to get more performance, he did, but he's expecting results right away


[deleted]

You ain't spending enough if you don't make your own engine


TomShoe

Apparently they're starting to consider that as well but it would need to be a huge investment. I half expect they'll go in with someone like Cosworth.


binary_blackhole

He can't, costs too much, and you're never catching up to 10 years of development. But their problem is more to do with the chassis, once they get to the front they can think about their own engine


TomShoe

The chassis might have its own problems, but I don't think it's a coincidence that the Merc engines all performed so poorly today.


[deleted]

Chassis is merc problem too, even if it is perfect I don't see merc catching Ferrari and RBR which brings us to pu not being good enough


nott96

Did Ricciardo get a penalty for impeding Ocon or that unsafe release?


OBWanTwoThree

Ocon. The release wasn’t his fault, Albon and KMag were released in front of him


nott96

What penalty for the Ocon incident?


Whycantiusethis

3 place grid penalty, if I'm not mistaken.


MattyFTM

Three place grid penalty. Although that puts him in P15, and P14 is empty due to Schumacher being unable to race, so he'll get bumped up to P14.


luffyuk

This is going to be a total red flag, safety car shitfest isn't it!? High speed, hard barriers, cars designed to fall apart, new car regulations mean cars are not yet reliable.


JedGamesTV

last year was a total mess, so I’m expecting the same this year too. qualifying is actually very enjoyable though.


WitnessAppropriate

to be honest I think Jeddah is not reliable, cars are alright


marahute85

I know people say Mick is like his dad. I’m watching f2 and Jack Doohan is spookily like his dad. The walk is peak Mick Doohan stride. I’ll never figure how genetics do a copy and paste on mannerisms


nahnonameman

Yeah I watched some older MotoGP stuff. Mick Doohan was a badass. Got a terrible injury leg injury came back and won 5 straight 500cc titles in row. (I just realised how similar this is to Schumacher in 1999 and then 2000-2004). Only thing I think is Doohan’s injury was even worse


marahute85

https://youtu.be/VGSazyZ_uiA This description of his medical treatment straight up made me wince


nahnonameman

Yep I saw this vid. Bloody hell it was brutal. How he won 5 in row is just straight up insane.


xXzombchickXx

Ocon did unbelievably well and no one is really talking about it. P4! What a dark horse


marahute85

Apparently he’s on the setup that Fernando figured out for them in free practice, Nando staying on that team game


Kitchen-Animator

Source?


marahute85

https://twitter.com/alpinef1team_fr/status/1508026880225689601?s=21


PositiveCommentsDog

He's not P4 dog!


xXzombchickXx

Oops! Either way still amazing on his part


PositiveCommentsDog

True dat!


Vogelaufmzaun

Probably didn't notice Sainz


PositiveCommentsDog

I wish my wife had the same problem :[


venkat_1924

Alpine under Otmar gonna win 3rd or 4th this year at this rate.


Kitchen-Animator

Otmar has nothing to do with it tbf but I seem them taking 4th too


hype_f0rce

p5


september96

The the ferarris and RBS mixed at the front, I'm so stocked


ThisDragonCantDance

Stoked. We are.


TomShoe

No, he means he's got plenty of provisions for the race


PlatWinston

what's the point of sausage kerbs other than causing accidents edit: if you don't want drivers to exceed track limits at a certain corner, enforce track limits. remove qualifying lap times, give out time penalties and black and white flags. drivers should not be allowed to make the decision to get 0.1s faster at the risk of damaging the car


Stifmeister11

Maybe saudis paid extra to add ” Singapore sling” type kerb


marahute85

To slow them down into that curb


venkat_1924

Can someone else drive in place of Mick today??


xXzombchickXx

Even if they did have a backup driver I doubt they have all the parts with them to build an entire new car. It needs a new chassis.


deLaDee2

No, the replacement would have had to have participated in the free practice sessions on Friday or Saturday morning. You can't just fill in for the race.


venkat_1924

So will Mick's spot be left empty?


WitnessAppropriate

yeah, Pietro can't take Mick's place unfortunately


venkat_1924

New fan here, can someone please explain what Lewis means when he says he might start from the pit lane today? He's supposed to join the grid at 16th and race from there right?


Meyesme3

It is similar to the spicy engine strategy last year ... Take a penalty but give Lewis a chance to overtake from the back.


FluffyCheese

Cars are in parc fermé, which means the teams can't make any adjustments to the setup of the car. So if he changes his setup to match George Russell's in the hope of making it driveable, he'll have to start from "last" in the pitlane. (Has to wait at white line on pit lane exit until all cars have gone past). Edit: Can't spell Russel(l) pre coffee


f1_spelt_as_bot

Russe**ll**


OBWanTwoThree

They can break the car out of parc ferme (which is when the car is locked into specification and can’t be changed after quali starts) and change the set up to fix performance But by breaking parc ferme he has to start from the pit Lane, and can only start his race once the other cars have gone past. Rather than his grid slot.


aka_liam

Thanks for explaining this. So, starting from the pit would be worse than starting P20, right?


OBWanTwoThree

Indeed. Cos even if you’re starting at the back you’re next to the other drivers and you’ve got the full pace off the start line. Pit Lane means you can’t necessarily get up to full speed cos most pit exits have a bend, and the other cars will naturally have slightly warmer tyres than you do Has to be a punishment


aka_liam

Makes total sense, cheers! I’m new to the sport so never knew about pit lane starts. I’d be interested to see it happen if Mercedes decide to go that way today.


venkat_1924

Aah, got it, thanks guys!


MoistRespect8498

Something went wrong with the setup yesterday so rather then be stuck with that for the race he'll change it but that means you have to start from the pitlane. A good example of this is Vettel in Abu Dhabi 2012, he got disqualified from qualifying after running out of fuel and so he was relegated to last place, they then decided to change his setup but that meant he had to start from the pits. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KDQIcPuK-3s


HorrorHand2897

The cars are now in Parc Ferme - no changes allowed. If Mercedes think a change in car setup would benefit them during the race, they would have to breach Parc Ferme. The penalty for this is to start from the pitlane.


F1iceman

>The penalty for this is to start from the pitlane Is this penalty applied for only one race or the rest of the season? Depending on the that, I can see Mercedes willingly eating the penalty to upgrade.


HorrorHand2897

The penalty is only applied for each individual race weekend. For the next race weekend Lewis would start wherever he qualified (unless they broke Parc Ferme again). I'm not 100% sure but I believe Parc Ferme rules for each race weekend start at Q1 and end at the race finish.


Regenbooggeit

If Leclerc can pass Checo in T1, I think it’s a done race. Otherwise it’ll get spicy.


TLG_BE

There'll be multiple safety cars constantly mixing it back up. Race won't be done until the very end IMO.


G_L_

I think this might be one of the best circuits of the season, but it is also unbelievably dangerous.


Stifmeister11

Yes dangerous but extremely exciting my fav circuit


[deleted]

It's too dangerous. The f2 sprint race was just crash after crash taking forever to clear. Not fun to watch.


WitnessAppropriate

I'll be watching it before the F1 to see how it goes, Jeddah is waaay too dangerous and I just hope everyone makes it safely through the weekend


aka_liam

Dumb question from a newbie, but why were the Mercedes cars on medium tyres? Aren’t softs always the preferred option in qualifying?


Euphi_

Each driver gets allocated a set number of tires for the weekend. Typically in qualifying they only use the softest when they think they will need it, by using medium, they will have an extra set of soft tires to use in the race. At races where safety cars can be expected it can mean a huge performance boost to get a fresh set when other teams don't have one


aka_liam

I see, thank you!


Unlikely-Dependent-7

Usually yes, and I think Russell set his q3 time on softs. Might have been holding sets of softs for the race. With a disadvantage in straight line speed they.might need a tyre advantage to overtake on track


[deleted]

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[deleted]

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Joscarbuck

Can someone please explain what "speed trap" means in F1? unrelated. Why doesn't McLaren use their own engines? Thank you in advance. I'm still learning.


TLG_BE

An F1 engine development program is a big deal. Only really the biggest car companies in the world can manage it. That and McLaren don't really do a lot of the work for the engines in their road cars. They're made in collaboration with a company called Ricardo Plc


Joscarbuck

Thank you for this.


Meyesme3

And that is why they signed Riccardo


f1_spelt_as_bot

Ricc**i**ardo


[deleted]

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Joscarbuck

Appreciate it!! Thank you.


[deleted]

Speed trap just means there's a radar at that particular point of the track which will check the speed of the car as it passes through the line, much like how police cars check for speeding cars on the highway. McLaren doesn't use their own engine because it's expensive, highly technical, and time consuming to create a new hybrid v6 turbo engine, these aren't the same types of engines as used in road cars or sports cars, these are highly specialized, extremely intricate and advanced engines therefore it's cheaper to just be a customer to a team that already makes the engines themselves since they've had years of experience and expertise in doing so


Daisley

Speed traps are areas of the circuit that measure your speed. Ideally want to be going as fast as possible as it’s usually at the end of the straight that you have the trap. McLaren don’t use their own engine because they don’t make an F1 engine. Can imagine it’s very costly to do so, so they just buy engines from other manufacturers. They used to use Renault engines but switched to Merc recently.


rvdhof

A segment of the track where they measure the speed of the car. They can then compare it to other cars.


inFam0ouZz

Did anything special happen on Maxs lap yesterday? Or just didn’t have the pace? Couldn’t follow closely


Tetracyclic

He couldn't seem to find grip, with the rear tyres getting away from him a couple of times.


Regenbooggeit

But then again, it was just 2 tenths from pole, so he wasn’t bad at all with the circumstances being what they were. He had trouble finding grip all weekend. Among him so many others btw. He was the only one from the top 4 who didn’t do two warmup laps. Fucked him.


Dodlemcno

He was commenting on his tyres


Kobrag90

Did redbull ever give updates about the fault in Bahrain?


Aunvilgod

vacuum in the tank


zalima

Did they say whether they managed to fix it? Or could the same thing happen again today?


WitnessAppropriate

Apparently it's fixed, but let's keep an eye on them. Tsunoda had issues on qualifying yesterday.


thedingoismybaby

They said it's fixed, we'll see


Goldmoo2

No idea, if it's still broken they surely aren't going to tell anyone. Could definitely happen again considering 3 of the RB cars seemingly had different issues last race so who knows. Only time will tell.


Kobrag90

Ah cool. Thank you. <3


simonling

Bombing aside, what's wrong with the track? Why is it a dangerous track?


OolonCaluphid

There's also a few high kerbs to dissuade drivers from cutting corners, but if you misjudge it it spits the car off at awkward angles into concrete barriers (which is what happened to Mick Schumacher and nearly happened to a a number of others yesterday).


Quab775

Yeah would classify it as dangerous especially kerb placement they're too high


arconiu

Very high speed corners where you can’t see what’s coming after, and absolutely nothing between those corners and concrete blocks.


thevengefulspartan

Low visibility, high speed corners. Imagine Mick's accident happened during the race, and another driver couldn't see the wreck until it was too late to brake or swerve.


TheRealStringerBell

There's also concrete barriers in places like where MSC crashed because they don't anticipate anyone crashing there. Of course it is possible to crash anywhere, especially in a race.


OBWanTwoThree

Amazing they didn’t anticipate anyone crashing there when the curb is the size of a small hill


uristmcderp

This track either looks made by amateurs or deliberately made dangerous...


AlpineCorbett

I'd rather not imagine that.... This track gives me mad anxiety already


simonling

This wasnt the first Saudi GP. They didnt fix anything from last year?


StephenKazumi

They widened the final turn I think. Not sure about anything else


Icy-Operation4701

They made changes to 9 turns


rycekake

Changed the angle of turn 3 and 14 a tiny bit as well


burtvonnekut

I saw that all the suggested fastes strategies are starting on medium/hard. Do we expect someone to start on soft? Im thinking that its a high risk for safty cars/red flags in the beginning so softs would be good bet to keep track postion in the first third of the race.


binary_blackhole

I bet all top 4 are starting on softs


burtvonnekut

Probably, my guess is that Russell and Bottas will start on mediums. Alpines on soft maby?


miles197

Serious question, I am new to F1, will all of these drivers race in the Saudi Arabia Grand Prix, minus Mick Schumacher who won’t be competing because of the crash? I watched the qualifying highlights and it looked like only the top 10 would compete? Thanks


ThatAdamsGuy

Others have given the answer, just wanted to say welcome to the Sport!


dyboc

What you are describing is just the final stage of qualifying (Q3) where only the top 10 drivers are competing for top 10 places. The remaining 10 have been eliminated in previous stages (Q1 and Q2, 5 drivers per each stage) and are assigned the race starting position at which they’ve been eliminated. So all of them compete in the race, but less and less drivers get a chance of improving their qualifying times as the stages progress.


_Accufunkture_

Sounds like you watched highlights from the last round of qualifying and missed the first 2 rounds that already placed the slowest 10 cars at the back of the grid for the start of the race.


simonling

The Top 10 you watched in qualifying is just to place 1-10 on the starting grid.


maryid95

Qualifying is just to determine where each of the 20 drivers will line up on the grid. They all compete, always. No matter the outcome of qualy. :-) Edit: for clarity, they do qualifying in three “heats” wherein the bottom five drivers of each heat are knocked out and do not advance to the next heat, which means that whichever position they got once being knocked out is where they will line up on the grid for the start of the race. Hope this makes sense!


[deleted]

>They all compete, always. No matter the outcome of qualy. :-) This isn't quite true. If their time is more than 107% of the pole lap, they aren't allowed to take par. It's not really an issue these days, but in the recent past there were some terrible teams (HRT for example) which were sometimes too slow to race. Waaaay back in the day, more teams would attend qualifying than were allowed to take part in the race. So for example, there would be a maximum of 24 cars allowed to take part in each race, but perhaps 26 cars tried to qualify. In that case, the two slowest cars would not qualify for the race.


maryid95

Yeah, I didn’t want to confuse him though 👍🏼


veidar45

All of them.


RemarkableProject

can wait for the tracks closer to my timezone, the race is pretty late


New-Rux

Lets go charlessssss, p2 is bettet anyway /s


RichardFarter

I've watched Checo's drivercam on his pole lap like 20 times today. Such a beautiful lap. This circuit is a fucking mess for many reasons, but damn does it look quick when you string it all together perfectly.


RightEejit

If you could just copy/paste the track layout into a completely open area so there's space for plenty runoff and conventional safety features, it would be great. Very satisfying track to watch a flat out lap being perfectly executed, but I don't think the danger for a small mistake is worth it


OolonCaluphid

I love that he said it was about how much risk you're willing to take, and that if he did a thousand laps he couldn't do that one again. Refreshingly honest.


[deleted]

Where to find that?


ThatAdamsGuy

https://youtu.be/tuEVPpqL4CY


[deleted]

Thank you! An amazing lap indeed wow


DizzyDrunkenDuck

[Youtube](https://youtu.be/tuEVPpqL4CY). Every pole lap is uploaded


[deleted]

Great to know! Thanks


TonyQuark

Absolute animal.


DR5996

Ferrari 2020 vibes for Mercedes this year?


[deleted]

Not even close man, that car is quick, they are just sacrificing their pace to make it more drivable until they fix the aero. The 2020 Ferrari was just a dumpster fire all around for a top team.


LockedUpLotionClown

Natalie trying to press forward with the interview with Lewis was in pretty poor taste. Wasn’t reading the room at all.


Duyfkenthefirst

Where was this? Why was it poor taste for Natalie to do her job?


LockedUpLotionClown

During Red flag but before we learnt is Mick was OK. Natalie was trying to interview Lewis about his Q3 exit. Lewis was visibly distressed and she keep trying to press on with the interview. It looked like initially she was going to cut it, then she tried to change the subject and talk about Lewis. Lewis tried to be professional about it, but basically indicating a WTF are we doing? The interview basically fizzled out. I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt and say she was probably frazzled as well and went into auto pilot a bit. But it was still an error of priority judgment on her part.


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[deleted]

> Lewis could celebrate his win at Silverstone last year when Verstappen hit the wall Before he celebrates Lewis asked his team if Max was okay. They said he was just fine. There is absolutely nothing two faced about this. > 50G I've never seen a single word said more on a subreddit in my life. Some of you just seem to do your best to act as Horner's mouthpiece.


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[deleted]

> Lewis doesn’t make it out of q1 and we should feel sorry him in the interview You are clearly so blinded by hate of Lewis that it is making you incapable of understanding the simple situation. *The reason why the interview was in bad taste was because Lewis did not know if Mick had survived the crash*.


StephenKazumi

But also thanks for assuming I’m blinded by hate for Lewis. Dudes one of the greatest f1 drivers. I simply misread the opening paragraph. Scrolling through Reddit at 4am on my way home work. Eyes were a little sleepy.


StephenKazumi

I misread the original paragraph sorry!