550 replies to this topic

[Risil]

I bet you thought this season was over! Mathematically safe though Lewis Hamilton’s 7th world championship is, there is the small matter of settling fourth place in the driver’s standings, third place in the constructor’s standings, and fulfilling F1’s contractual obligations and racing three times at the two remaining venues.
 
Venue of the week is the Sakhir Circuit in Bahrain, an island bobbing around in the Persian Gulf which is connected to Riyadh by a big motorway. Bahrain’s main export in monetary terms is petroleum, but in romantic terms it’s probably rich guys in flowing white robes with falcons on their arms. You know the circuit layout: it’s very wide, it’s in the desert, and although featureless it has a nice mix of long straights and corners. It’s a solid 6 out of 10 circuit! Anyway, here’s a map:

Looks like a dog looking over its shoulder. What’s it afraid of? We will never know.
 
The schedule, your excellency
After weird Fridayless experiments early this year, we have a solid three days of track activity this weekend. There’s some Formula 2 as well but as usual we’ll deal with that separately. These are local times, take away 3 hours to get GMT and then add one hour back to get whatever time zone they have in France.
 
Friday
FP1: 2-3.30pm
FP2: 6-7.30pm
 
Saturday
FP3: 2-3pm
Qualifying: 5pm
 
Sunday
Race: 5.10pm
 
Why do they add on 10 minutes for the race start, but not the start of qualifying? I don’t know.
 
Here’s a short history of the Bahrain Grand Prix, or at least the bits I remember.
 
2004-5: Who knows, really? Apparently Pedro de la Rosa set the track record in 2005 with McLaren, but did anyone see him do it?

 

2006: Alonso vs Schumacher. Alonso won.

2009: Button wins a third race for Brawn GP, but Toyota probably should have. Across the strait in Qatar the MotoGP race was disrupted by a rain storm, which would be a pretty cool thing to happen at the Bahrain GP.

2010: Extra corners added, somehow made it a terrible race. Virgin accidentally built a car that couldn’t finish the race as its fuel tank was too small.

2011: Arab Spring happens, no race. No race in Summer, Autumn or Winter either.

2012: Arab Spring crushed, race back on. It was at this point that I realized that the runoff area was not actually made of sand, it was just tarmac painted to look like sand and sponsor logos.

2014: First night race. Hamilton and Rosberg fire the first shots of their Merc shooting war, to the benefit (this time) of Lewis. I think Maldonado turned Gutierrez’s car upside down; or at least it sounds like something he might’ve done.

2019: Leclerc loses a debut win after his exhaust packs up and he drops down the order. This feels like it happened more than one year ago, but then again I suppose it did.

 
Here are the championship standings going into the race. Holy **** Haas are doing worse than I thought. Fourth through sixth are close, as are the even less glamorous placings of seventh through eleventh. Daniil Kvyat is also locked in a tight battle with the driver he replaced at Red Bull in 2015, Sebastian Vettel. Weird year.

And here are the constructors’ standings. Uh oh, no better for Haas here.

On that cheery note, over to you. It’s nearly December!

[PayasYouRace]

I can't help feeling that I'll spend most of the weekend looking forward to the perimeter circuit the next weekend.

[Risil]

You're like the person who reads War and Peace but skips past all the battle scenes. Eat your vegetables first!

[Marklar]

how come that this race is three hours earlier than next weeks race?

Edited by Marklar, 25 November 2020 - 21:36.

[FLB]

Bahrain has its own breed of cat (Bahraini Dilmun cat).

 

 

Dilmun cats – a rare Bahraini breed : Gulf Weekly Online

[SophieB]

I like it when the drivers forget they aren’t served champagne as reward for a job well done. Alonso is kind of the gold standard in this much cherished gif...

 

 

...but hats off also to Kimi Raikkonen who is just not having this and seems outraged by the whole thing, much to his team mate’s obvious deep sympathy.

 

 

 

 

[SophieB]

My memory of the Bahrain race that Alonso won as his first victory for Ferrari is that it is possibly the worst F1 race of all time, a real stinker. Can anyone beat it?

[Beri]

Bahrain usually gets a load of negativity thrown at it for being a Tilke drome in the desert and that it shouldn't be on the calendar. But if I'm honest, it has produced some extremely good racing over the years. I think it is a gem in F1s calendar. I'm looking forward to this race. But even more so towards next weeks race.

[baddog]

Bahrain has always been a decent little circuit. Maybe people mix it up in their heads with the horror-show carpark track of abu-dhabi

[FLB]

My memory of the Bahrain race that Alonso won as his first victory for Ferrari is that it is possibly the worst F1 race of all time, a real stinker. Can anyone beat it?

France 2019 would like a word.

 

(But yes, Bahrain 2010 was quite the bore)

[Atreiu]

It’s a cookie cutter.

[P123]

My memory of the Bahrain race that Alonso won as his first victory for Ferrari is that it is possibly the worst F1 race of all time, a real stinker. Can anyone beat it?

 

Russia 2014.. or whatever year it first appeared.

 

 

France 2019 would like a word.

 

(But yes, Bahrain 2010 was quite the bore)

 

I'm sure France 2019 had some battles happening.

[Atreiu]

France 2019 would like a word.

(But yes, Bahrain 2010 was quite the bore)

Hungary 2004.

[dissident]

I love how Michael is doing the #1 gesture despite finishing second. 

[Risil]

I love how Michael is doing the #1 gesture despite finishing second.

I remember how delighted I felt that after the year they'd had in 2005, Schumacher and Ferrari were back in the hunt. Maybe Michael felt the same.

[TomNokoe]

Strange to think it's been 18 months since the last grand prix. From immature 2019 cars to very mature 2020 cars.

I wonder if the circuit has changed, too? The surface, that is. Welsh granite, apparently. There's been some heavy endurance running since the 2019 race, and isn't the rule of thumb that circuits become more abrasive over time with more running and weather cycles? Albeit this circuit is already super abrasive and I'm sure there's diminishing returns at play after 16 years. I think I'm overplaying it after the Turkey fiasco, but with drastically quicker cars and an aggressive tyre selection from Pirelli, I'm wondering if we'll see a mystical three-stopper on Sunday?

It also dawned on me last week that the time the sun sets is incredibly relevant for a dusk/night race. The November slot has a sunset that is 68 minutes earlier than the usual late-March event, which explains why FOM have moved the qualifying and race start-times forward by one hour, compared to previous years. It also means next week's GP will be under the cover of some serious darkness.

I have learnt to love this circuit. The layout seems to compress the field somewhat, and I definitely forgot about three DRS zones. Perhaps that will help to mask Ferrari's deficiencies, in qualifying at least, as they try and gatecrash P3 WCC, which I have absolutely got my eye on. No talk of dead-rubbers here. Go McLaren!

We haven't had a proper Friday practice in ages, what with two day events, washouts, low grip circuits, crashes, fires, etc. It will be nice to settle down for some good, old-fashioned, meaningless running for once! But then again the unrepresentative FP1/FP3 conditions will put pay to any true enthusiasm. I suppose I'll have to wait until next week.

Edited by TomNokoe, 26 November 2020 - 00:56.

[FLB]

 

I'm sure France 2019 had some battles happening.

France 2019 is the only time in my life I've ever considered switching the TV off during a live race (all series). 

[charly0418]

Strange to think it's been 18 months since the last grand prix. From immature 2019 cars to very mature 2020 cars.

I wonder if the circuit has changed, too? The surface, that is. Welsh granite, apparently. There's been some heavy endurance running since the 2019 race, and isn't the rule of thumb that circuits become more abrasive over time with more running and weather cycles? Albeit this circuit is already super abrasive and I'm sure there's diminishing returns at play after 16 years. I think I'm overplaying it after the Turkey fiasco, but with drastically quicker cars and an aggressive tyre selection from Pirelli, I'm wondering if we'll see a mystical three-stopper on Sunday?

It also dawned on me last week that the time the sun sets is incredibly relevant for a dusk/night race. The November slot has a sunset that is 68 minutes earlier than the usual late-March event, which explains why FOM have moved the qualifying and race start-times forward by one hour, compared to previous years. It also means next week's GP will be under the cover of some serious darkness.

I have learnt to love this circuit. The layout seems to compress the field somewhat, and I definitely forgot about three DRS zones. Perhaps that will help to mask Ferrari's deficiencies, in qualifying at least, as they try and gatecrash P3 WCC, which I have absolutely got my eye on. No talk of dead-rubbers here. Go McLaren!

We haven't had a proper Friday practice in ages, what with two day events, washouts, low grip circuits, crashes, fires, etc. It will be nice to settle down for some good, old-fashioned, meaningless running for once! But then again the unrepresentative FP1/FP3 conditions will put pay to any true enthusiasm. I suppose I'll have to wait until next week.

Support races will help if theres no grip

[teejay]

F2 Championship is also worth a watch. Will Mick get it done? 

[TauriJ]

Could rain on saturday...but lots of rain during next week.

[Jovanotti]

The first race is just the warm-up for next weekends outer-circuit madness  

[Planetdune]

My biggest question, Lewis usually drops off after winning the championship and doesn't care a lot about the last few races.. now that those triple digit pole and race wins are getting ever closer, will he do the same or bring his A game this year?

[MJB5990]

My biggest question, Lewis usually drops off after winning the championship and doesn't care a lot about the last few races.. now that those triple digit pole and race wins are getting ever closer, will he do the same or bring his A game this year?

 

I don't think this is the same Lewis as 2015 - which is usually what everyone goes back to.

 

2018 - he took pole and won both races with his teammate missing the podium both times. 

2019 - outqualified his teammate in both races and won the final race of the season. 

[Requiem84]

I don't think this is the same Lewis as 2015 - which is usually what everyone goes back to.

 

2018 - he took pole and won both races with his teammate missing the podium both times. 

2019 - outqualified his teammate in both races and won the final race of the season. 

 

He did get a bit sloppy in 2019 though

[TheFish]

It's remarkable what a turnaround it has been for the Bahrain circuit for me. I used to hate it and now it's one of the races I look forward to most. I suspect it's related to the current car regulations and suits them well.

 

Obviously expecting Merc to dominate again, Lewis to lead home a 1-2.

[Kalmake]

My biggest question, Lewis usually drops off after winning the championship and doesn't care a lot about the last few races.. now that those triple digit pole and race wins are getting ever closer, will he do the same or bring his A game this year?

Can't go round partying this time.

[numberten]

It's remarkable what a turnaround it has been for the Bahrain circuit for me. I used to hate it and now it's one of the races I look forward to most. I suspect it's related to the current car regulations and suits them well.

 

Obviously expecting Merc to dominate again, Lewis to lead home a 1-2.

 

The switch for me seemed to happen when they changed the start time to run it through dusk. Just something about seeing the cars under the lights that makes it pop, and the racing has generally been good since then as well. Really looking forward to the next couple weekends.

[Goron3]

It's a traction limited circuit, and frankly has benefitted from the move to Pirelli. 2011-13 were good races with rear degradation, and that has continued with the move to a night race as the tarmac isn't particularly smooth and retains heat.

[Risil]

It's a hard circuit to love but I know exactly what you mean. F1 always puts on a good show at Bahrain.

[vlado]

Car 16 in the top 3 in qualifying. 

[P123]

I wonder if Franz Tost will ever get over the slight of Lewis educating himself (you ok MalcolmC?) as to who he was. 

 

I also wonder if Franz Tost would support a team principle salary cap.

 

And would Toro Rosso ever pay near $10m to a driver, and if not why should thingmy whatshisname be too concerned to begin with. 

[TheAviator]

Lewis is inviting these questions. He is full of fluff when it comes to instagram posting, but sure enough when his money is in question he gets annoyed.

[Marklar]

Hands up if you wouldnt get annoyed when somebody suggests that you should earn less.

[Dalin80]

Well this is pretty disrespectful from the guy who's been preaching to others to 'educate themselves'.

Educating yourself about social issues that effect everyone is quite different from rembering personnel trivia of an also-ran team that noone cares about. According to google trends Tost isn't even a graphable line compared to Wolff, Horner etc.

Edited by Dalin80, 26 November 2020 - 22:19.

[P123]

Lewis is inviting these questions. He is full of fluff when it comes to instagram posting, but sure enough when his money is in question he gets annoyed.

 

On the contrary, I'd suggest Hamilton being the sole target of these salary questions may start to get irksome when considering other drivers such as Vettel, Leclerc, Verstappen and Ricciardo being on $25m and upwards.  He's not forced anybody to pay him what he is paid after all.  Nevertheless, the video cuts, so we don't learn his answer to know if/ how annoyed he maybe was or is.

[TheAviator]

On the contrary, I'd suggest Hamilton being the sole target of these salary questions may start to get irksome when considering other drivers such as Vettel, Leclerc, Verstappen and Ricciardo being on $25m and upwards. He's not forced anybody to pay him what he is paid after all. Nevertheless, the video cuts, so we don't learn his answer to know if/ how annoyed he maybe was or is.

Leclerc is on 9M, Max on 15M and Ric on 20M.

He is just being cagey like he always was, nothing new. This is what he said few months ago :

Ultimately, it just doesn’t feel like the right time to sit – when you think about so many people in the world that have lost their jobs, people that are unemployed – to then sit and negotiate a big contract,” he said in today’s FIA press conference at Silverstone.

Now, considering his answer to question with "Who is Tost" I do believe the chatter from press about Merc giving him smaller contract, and him not being happy with it. I can see German company doing that in midst of such crisis where they cut of 15K jobs with more to come.

Lewis getting new 50M contract does not look good for Daimler and general public there wont be thrilled about it. Now, obviously, its much easier to talk about poor, discriminated and opressed over Instagram post then getting hit on your own pocket, but that is modus operandi of these big sport superstars.

Edited by TheAviator, 26 November 2020 - 22:28.

[r4mses]

Bahrain has always been a decent little circuit. Maybe people mix it up in their heads with the horror-show carpark track of abu-dhabi

 

...which pretty much proofs the point: the tracks look so similarly, people even mix them up. zero character. zero atmosphere. 

[Marklar]

Ricciardo is proven to be on 27.5 m, a court disclosed it, so we know that. Max is rumoured on up to 40 m too.

F1 salaries of top drivers are high, and I see no problem with that unless you are envious. All those comparisons to hard working middle class people is hugely irrelevant. They may work as hard or more, but they generate less income for their employee too and they are way more interchangable, so there are reasons why it's the way it is.

Edited by Marklar, 26 November 2020 - 22:37.

[TheAviator]

Ricciardo is proven to be on 27.5 m, a court disclosed it, so we know that. Max is rumoured on up to 40 m too.

F1 salaries of top drivers are high, and I see no problem with that unless you are envious. All those comparisons to hard working middle class people is hugely irrelevant. They may work as hard or more, but they generate less income for their employee too and they are way more interchangable, so there are reasons why it's the way it is.

I never ever heard Max being on 40M, that simply cannot be true, is there any source on this?

And no one is envious of their salaries, if they deserve it let them have it. I just hate athletes paid 40-50M per year saying one thing then doing another. Like LeBron and him being very vocal on one side then hush hush when other side is doing 10x worse things, but they are paying him so he better keeps his mouth shut. Does Lewis think we are ********? He is not negotiating deal because people are losimg their job? Give me a break, he would probably lose it if they cut it to 50% of what he earns now.

Edited by TheAviator, 26 November 2020 - 22:42.

[McLaren]

Russia 2014.. or whatever year it first appeared.



I'm sure France 2019 had some battles happening.

The 2005 United States GP was worse then all of them IMO.

[TomNokoe]

Frank Todt? Is that Jean's grandson?

[richardprice]

Well this is pretty disrespectful from the guy who's been preaching to others to 'educate themselves'.

 

To be quite frank, the disrespect was from Franz Tost there, not Hamilton.

 

Any time, and I mean literally *any* time a prospective employer says of their employees "you should get paid what we pay you and no more, you should like it, and you should like working for me regardless" is the moment that employer should lose *all* respect ever.

 

I've had employers try that with me, and I've always walked away soon after to a better paying job and a team who values me more.

 

Franz Tost can try offering a pittance but he wont see the top drivers flock in his direction.

[danmills]

Will be interesting traffic this weekend. Might break the recorded for most lapped. The rumoured laptimes and number of cars puts it at a continuous train all round with next to no gaps. Great for the ears.

 

DRS will be like Mario Kart. I'm expecting an epic race.

 

Edit - wait I thought this week was the outer track?

Edited by danmills, 27 November 2020 - 00:43.

[davidlan]

Well this is pretty disrespectful from the guy who's been preaching to others to 'educate themselves'.

Isn't he the grandson of Burnt Tost. I remember him, a bit of a crusty guy.

 

 

[Garndell]

My memory of the Bahrain race that Alonso won as his first victory for Ferrari is that it is possibly the worst F1 race of all time, a real stinker. Can anyone beat it?

 

Indy 05 was pretty much the biggest stinker I can think of.

[genespleen]

Well this is pretty disrespectful from the guy who's been preaching to others to 'educate themselves'.

Interesting that some might use this mock LH's efforts to draw attention to social issues.  Seems like grasping at straws, though.  What I see here is that Tost expressed frustration that discussions over salary caps (not in themselves evil) were moving higher that his team can afford.  Elsewhere LH has said that GPDA should be involved in those discussions.  Now, an enterprising journo has sought to get a reaction out of LH with the question--and Hamilton's response is a bit catty but in my view appropriate.  He knows full well who Tost is.  But Tost played to the media, and so has LH.

[richardprice]

What I see here is that Tost expressed frustration that discussions over salary caps (not in themselves evil) were moving higher that his team can afford.

 

Hah, as if anyone believes that Franz Tost has *any* say over who drives for AlphaTauri from one race to the next, nor how much those drivers will be paid - thats all Helmut Marko and Christian Horner over at Red Bull.

Perhaps Tost should ask Marko for some freedom and some of Verstappens wages so AT can spend on some decent drivers...?

[warp]

Might break the recorded for most lapped. 

 

And it will be ironic if the winner and the most lapped car is powered by Mercedes.

[Requiem84]

Jeez Lewis, he honestly has no clue who Tost is!

[jjcale]

That was entertaining .... but its possible for both Tost and LH to be disrespectful and unbecoming .... I dont see why LH's fans are defending this. Its obviously poor form - either he is being "catty" as someone said above or he has the memory of a goldfish ... neither is good. .... that said, I agree with LH, Tost is not worthy of response on this issue - and especially after he expressed himself in such a foolish way.

 

In 2007 I predicted (on another board) that eventually LH would have to be part paid in stock/options - I was thinking at the time that Macca would never be able to pay him what he is worth when he assumes his final form... Now here we are 14 years later and even a company as wealthy as Daimler AG is struggling with his demands.

 

.... will this be another prediction of mine that I get to tick off?