2021 F1 Testing

That shouldn't be a challenge: I bet they have simulators for that and Seb is a smart guy.

 

More filming for Mercedes today.

Or is it testing

Tweet

— Twitter API (@user) date

 

Smart move possibly. Shake down early or use this session as a bonus test. Clear that Mercedes 'need' it vs RedBull.

 

Fins n Slats near sidepods are quite like RedBull. Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

Agree with most of this, however I think Merc has some issues with its tail-happy car before you can place with Red Bull. I don't believe they are bluffing. The trimmed floor seems to reward cars with a high rake, so it fits well with Red Bull.

I guess we'll wait to see, but I think we have to seriously consider that what we saw may be where things are currently. Especially with truncated testing this year.

 

So thanks for the less grip tires????????????

Pirelli: F1 cars will be just as quick as last year
By: Jonathan Noble
Mar 16, 2021, 1:53 PM
Formula 1’s 2021 cars are going to be just as fast as last year's despite aero rule changes aimed at slowing them down, reckons tyre supplier Pirelli

 

After 7 years I've grown to be extremely skeptical of anything negative Mercedes says. 2019 ''we are half a second behind Ferrari''. Yet at the first race beat them by .7 of a second. You don't find 1.2 seconds in a couple of weeks. F1 isn't easy. Their car looked slow back then in testing also, slow to get around corners and not as stable. After Q3 Bahrain I'll be more comfortable with the true order of things.

And of course...Toto already saying they found out where the issue is.

I do hope they have problems and I hope that the high rake concept is better, but I sincerely doubt all the talk by F1 media saying that Red Bull is the team to beat this year. They have something to sell. And the story of ''Mercedes is once again the team to beat" doesn't sell ****. They've been trying to sell us Red Bull and Ferrari being king of testing a number of times now...and been very, very wrong indeed.

 

Spot on Sir! What was it that Ron Dennis said, "Ferrari may have won the Winter Championship, we won the Summer won" one year. Toto is full of it, and so is the media, saying that, I sure hope they do have issues and we don't have another year of the same old same old. At least in the Hamilton/Rosberg days there was the competition between the two, not anymore unfortunately.

 

Exactly right. At least with Rosberg there was at least SOME competition at the front...something F1 is really desperate for now.

 

I think RBR is just the favorite going into Bahrain. Most will expect Merc to fix their issues but I’m skeptical enough to wait and see. The car just looked very unsettled during testing.

it could all be a ruse, as you say, also...

 

I think their problems are genuine. They broke a pair of gearboxes too. The issue is that for Mercedes being in trouble means that instead of winning by 30 seconds the'll win by just 5, they still have a huge margin to play with. Also this season is long.

But I hope that at least there is some fight between them and Red Bull, even if it's just to delay the work in the car for the next season.

 

+1

Performance with the updated floors/cars now could be more circuit dependent this year. RedBull could be quick in Bahrain and suffer in others.
Mercedes were competent at most circuits. We could have more variability this year!!

 

Merc could have probably won by double the margins last year. The old adage of "win by the smallest margins" sort of applies, but with them they can't sandbag that much during the season because it would be way too obvious. So I agree with DeSoto... maybe on some tracks they just won't win by quite as much.

Every year we hear the same old thing... Toto and the team claiming this issue or that one... that this RBR or Ferrari "are the favorite" etc etc etc... blah blah blah. And then here... as the incredibly desperate fans that we all are... we hope and want to believe there's at least a modicum of truth to anything that might cut into Merc's utter dominance over F1. Has it ever happened? Of course not. This run was set into motion at the dawn of this new era... with rules that ensured nothing could or would really change the course they were on. Whether that was intentional or not... maybe we'll find out some day, but there is nothing that is going to change this year. Merc and Lewis have been guaranteed to surpass all the records. There's not a chance that will change.

For me, I've accepted all this about Merc and Hamilton. I've even accepted what they did to Russell at his debut. I just no longer care. For me, this year will be about watching the new line ups. Will Lando end Riccardo's career and shut the honey badger up? Will Vettel stomp Lance or will he prove his detractors are correct? Will Alonso... well... who really cares about Fred anymore anyway? Will Perez be the real deal? What will RBR do if by some chance they do win races and podiums... and begin splitting points? Will Mazzy make it the season without an incident? These are the only things of interest to me anymore until the new cars come out.

 

Do you think Merc made an executive decision to sabotage Russell's first race ?

 

[Scarbs]

Comparison of Sebs steering wheel and Strolls steering wheel. In testing he's run a modified steering wheel.

Image Unavailable, Please Login



The standard wheel lives on from FIF1 & RPoint. There's a vertical thumb wheel above the grip, another beside it and a stack of 7 buttons. Behind are six paddles; 2 clutch, 2 gearshift and 2 driver specific.

Image Unavailable, Please Login

Image Unavailable, Please Login

Image Unavailable, Please Login


Vettel has rearranged the controls. The top rotary wheel is now horizontal. Rearranged buttons, plus there appear to be 4 unused blankings for extra buttons, 2 on front and 2 behind. There is also at least one extra paddle fitted in the space between the upper pair.

Image Unavailable, Please Login

Image Unavailable, Please Login




This was easy to accommodate as the whole front face of the wheel is removable from the wheel structure behind. This facial is made from carbon fibre, in the FIF1 days it was 3D printed in grey resin. So, Vettel has a new dascua, not a new wheel.

Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

Holy cow these things are getting complex!

 

Yep ...can we turn the clock back please ?

Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

+1

It's gone all X-Box.

Throttle will be on a micro thumb lever soon

 

I'm not a tin-hat guy, but I certainly can see why some believe that. I think about the implications of a Russell win and it's easy to entertain those ideas. You take a kid... one that's never been in the car... didn't even really fit in the car... and he damn near wins pole and without the "blunder" would have handily won the race. I think that would have been earth shaking for a lot of reasons. It would bring a lot of settlement to the driver vs. car argument although Bottas brings his own evidence to that argument. Think about the implications for Lewis... is he really the best or just the best driver for the car? If I'm Mercedes, I'm asking why I am i paying for Lewis? Maybe because currently he's the only driver who's really a celebrity outside of the F1 crowd... sure... but that's changing with guys like Lando and Russell. Clearly one race doesn't make a trend, but you have to wonder out loud what was going through everyone's mind as Russell was taking control of that race. Merc and Lewis are tied together... I don't think anyone can credibly dispute that and I think both Merc, and clearly F1, have a vested interest in Lewis succeeding and surpassing the records that are in place... even more so now in the SJW world we live in today. Russell coming in and winning the race on his first drive would have easily called into question Hamilton's value with not just the fans... but also with stakeholders. Combine all that with the fact that Merc literally had zero to lose if they purposely trashed Russell's win and I can very easily buy into the conspiracy if I wanted to.

Again... I'm not a tin-hat guy... but I understand. For me, I'm pragmatic. I won't and can't possibly know what the really happened... if anything at all other than what we saw on tv, so I can entertain both scenarios and just accept what happened at the same time regardless of the reason.

 

It's an interesting thought, and the Mercedes clown-act was an amazing coincidence if it was not deliberate.

Another coincidence: Faulty radio equipment is possibly the only tech that cannot measured via telemetry. Other methods of "invisible" blunder would have been readable.

We all understand why Bottas has been kept on 12 month contracts for 5 years. The motive is clear despite Hamilton's rhetoric, but I do feel for real racers such as Ricciardo who should have got Bottas' seat.

Hamilton is now on a 12 month contract and my instinct says Russell will be incoming for 2022. George certainly deserves a seat.

 

I believe as with any sport... especially those with finite chances like the Boxing, the NFL and F1... where literally every contest matters... a certain level of corruption and collusion is always at play or at least waiting in the wings. When you look at Mercedes and F1 together... what they have to gain... what they have to lose... together, I think it becomes quite hard to believe when you look at the oddities and strange things in totality over the years, that there's not something going on. That's the feeling of a lot people I think. Then again, who knows. I certainly don't. But I've certainly scratch my head a lot over the past several years.

 

Nice! The wheel from Elton has another extra feature, he has a heated steering wheel.

ciao
Osca

 

For anybody who watched the race it was apparent that Russell did win. The implications are clear, but it will just be something that is discussed on occasion as the win is not listed in the stats.

 

Terrific assessment. Great reading.

 

I would have viewed a Russell win in another way. Like it or not, Lewis will be crossing into the downside of his career as Father Time is the only undefeated driver in F1 history. Russell had been heralded as Merc's future driver (and is managed by Toto) for the last year or so and it would have served notice that Merc has a succession plan for Hamilton. At this point, there is no gain in Merc sabotaging his car. Hamilton has won when he's had the clearly best car and when he's had a merely competitive car. At this stage of his career, the car/driver issue doesn't really matter as he's just piling up historical levels of wins. And, while it's true that NO team in modern history has sustained this duration of dominance, the truth is still that you need a superior car to be WDC.

I just don't see why Toto would job his own driver, unless you feel it was more about keeping other teams away from him.