Red Bull vs Crofty?

The rightful 9x champion! I've heard it all now. What level of delussion is that...thanks for pointing it out! This is the problem with no one questioning anyones statements.

The british media had a similar reaction after Rosberg beat Lewis in 2016.

 

LdM's mistake was that he wanted an Italian leadership group and pushed his best trio out.

 

Yeah I agree and always said that Merc did what they needed to win. Perhaps they got some help along the way... some looking the other way... but there's no denying that in prior years they spent whatever it took and they had two drivers who knew how to extract every 100th of second out of that car.

 

From 2014 'til 2020, Mercedes was the benchmark in F1, no doubt about it.

The cracks started to appear last year, maybe following Lauda's passing: he had a calming influence over Toto Wolff.

 

By cracks you mean RB cheating by going over the budget cap and Michael Masi ignoring Safety Car rules at the last race.

This year just shows how overspenting last year they got the extra money to develop the car. Crime does pay!

 

I understand the partisan mindset... I do. At some point we all need to be at least a little bit intellectually honest and set it aside and see that Merc has more than their fare share of "cheating" if you're really bent on using that word. On what planet can a team bring something to testing of the new season that's clearly illegal and have the F1 Gods say it is... but let them use the entire season. That's just one of hundred examples. Merc has certainly benefited from a blind eye and sometimes dubious on track antics. You can dig up the extra time they had to develop the new era car...how homologation was put in place that froze the field to where they were. You can argue all day. RB fans will see one way... Merc fans ... exactly the opposite.

I believe that what's changed is the budget cap and Mercedes not being able to dump $300-$400 million into a season like had done in the past. Non partisans understand the breach was actually about $500-$750K if you factor in some deduction that they didn't effectively take advantage of. If you're gonna be all upptity about it... perhaps take into consideration Lewis taking out Max in Silverstone and costing RB somewhere in the $2mm range for complete loss of the car,,, then have Bottas dutifully take out the RB's what a race or two later for another several hundred thousand?

Thinking about that... I think there needs to be some adjustment to a teams budget cap due to crashes and damage and all that caused by another team. I'm not sure how it would work, but I'm sure there are people a lot smarter than me who could come up with something reasonable and fair that recognizes the unfair penalty of when that happens.

 

No, the cracks I had in mind were Hamilton's driving mistakes, and the Mercedes pitwall not doing his job properly.

I think the Mercedes team and Hamilton lost focus in early 2021, and their form declined.

2021 wasn't Mercedes at its best like it had been for the last 7 years; their stock went down just as Red Bull improved.

I was surprised Hamilton was still in contention for the title at Abu Dhabi.

Sticking my neck out, I will say that Verstappen was more convincing than Hamilton in 2021.

But I expected that the era of Mercedes dominance would come to an end one day; 2021 was the turning point.

 

I thought it was Kravitz who claimed that the 2021 championship was stolen, not that Croft is any different.

 

You are correct.

 

I just read the whole thread…late to the party!

 

It will add some complexity, but if they run it like insurance companies, it could work. You have a panel examine the accident, determine fault, then charge the offender for the repair. Repair monies comes out of the at fault drivers team budget, then sent to reimburse the other team for repairs. If it is deemed a racing incident, no one is at fault and both teams take their lumps.

 

Sure. There will be no infighting or conflict or running to the press about the other team, the FIA or the budget. You want to give these entities more of a beauracracy to use lol. Please keep going on that lol............

Caught over spending and the the team prinicipal is on camera accepting the fate with the word begrudingly rather than simply staying above it - with something like --we have been judged by the FIA using the SYSTEM WE AGREED to and will move on and focus on the great year we are and F1 are having LOL> that is literally all they needed to say, but would rather be the IGNORANT victim THEY ALWAYS are. Oh and use that TOXIC SOCIAL MEDIA to say it, then have the audacity to say SOCIAL MEDIA is toxic wahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh wahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh wahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.