Topic: Motosport General discussion tread --- Formula1, MotoGP, WTCC, ETCC, DTM..... - page 138. (Read 141578 times)

Unfortunately it seem so in the first look.However we are racing in a very technical track and errors can be made very easily in this track,I know Verstappen is a great driver and rarely make such errors but a Safety Car here should be guaranteed especially after we saw a Monaco race without Safety Car which was really really surprising to say the least.

You know what makes it even more boring,when we don't have competition even from the same team,Perez is a mediocre driver and really inconsistent while at Mercedes in 2016 we saw a great season despite that season being dominated completely by Mercedes.

I'm pretty sure that Alonso will be in the top 5 in this race or even the top 3, judging from his performance in FP2 which managed to rank second behind Verstappen. If Alonso can improve his performance and Aston Martin can come up with a good strategy, I think Alonso will be able to give a good result in this Spanish race.

Another easy win this weekend for RBR.

This season they are going to win all the races, the most dominant car ever probably.

Q2 resutls

Pos    Driver    Nat.   Team    Time
1   Max Verstappen   NED   Oracle Red Bull Racing   1m13.907s
2   Fernando Alonso   ESP   Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant Formula One Team   1m14.077s
3   Nico Hulkenberg   GER   MoneyGram Haas F1 Team   1m14.177s
4   Sergio Perez   MEX   Oracle Bull Racing   1m14.219s
5   Esteban Ocon   FRA   BWT Alpine F1 Team   1m14.242s
6   Charles Leclerc   MON   Scuderia Ferrari   1m14.246s
7   Carlos Sainz   ESP   Scuderia Ferrari   1m14.274s
8   George Russell   GBR   Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team   1m14.392s
9   Valtteri Bottas   FIN   Alfa Romeo F1 Team Stake   1m14.448s
10   Pierre Gasly   FRA   BWT Alpine F1 Team   1m14.457s
11   Lewis Hamilton   GBR   Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team   1m14.549s
12   Oscar Piastri   AUS   McLaren F1 Team   1m14.583s
13   Zhou Guanyu   CHN   Alfa Romeo F1 Team Stake   1m14.585s
14   Lando Norris   GBR   McLaren F1 Team   1m14.694s
15   Kevin Magnussen   DEN   MoneyGram Haas F1 Team   1m14.713s
16   Nyck de Vries   NED   Scuderia AlphaTauri   1m14.785s
17   Yuki Tsunoda   JPN   Scuderia AlphaTauri    1m14.840s
18   Lance Stroll   CAN   Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant Formula One Team   1m15.010s
19   Alex Albon   THA   Williams Racing   1m15.056s
20   Logan Sargeant   USA   Williams Racing   1m15.415s


Source: https://www.crash.net/f1/results/1027451/1/f1-2023-spanish-grand-prix-friday-practice-results

Free Practice sessions are always full of surprises. For example Hulkenberg did a really good work by finishing FP2 in third place. It was odd to see him having a better lap than even Perez. There was a huge improvement in Alonso's time from FP1 to FP2 like around 1.5 seconds. Being only 0.1 seconds behind Verstappen must be feeling great for him. However practice sessions can be misleading most of the time. The race weekend in Monaco was a bit like that for example. We saw some drivers doing a really good work in qualifying despite seeming bad in FP sessions.

I don't expect any surprise in qualifying session and the race both in Spain by the way. Verstappen can dominate again. However there is an expectation of rain in Spain at the weekend so this can make it more interesting for us.

At the end of this week the WSBK race will be seen again at the San Marino Misano circuit in Italy as Emilia Romagna and today FP1 and FP2 have also taken place so that tomorrow it will continue with FP3, Superpole and Race1. In addition, there was little news that Toprak for next season would race at BMW by leaving Yamaha at the end of this year, so that made Scott Redding surprised by the decision made by Toprak where he would leave Yamaha to defend BMW.

Didn't watch but expected the result.  Lol.  There are a couple of guys who are prolly still sand bagging tho and hiding their real pace...  I think it's Alonso, Sainz and Leclerc.    That or they haven't found the right balance yet. 

What do you guys think of Alonso to win at 11?  Aston Martin def has a chance of winning at least one race this season and why not Alonso's home race? 

2023 F1 Spanish GP FP1 Results

1   Max Verstappen   NED   Oracle Red Bull Racing   1m14.606s
2   Sergio Perez   MEX   Oracle Bull Racing   1m15.374s
3   Esteban Ocon   FRA   BWT Alpine F1 Team   1m15.418s
4   Nyck de Vries   NED   Scuderia AlphaTauri   1m15.504s
5   Pierre Gasly   FRA   BWT Alpine F1 Team   1m15.545s
6   Fernando Alonso   ESP   Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant Formula One Team   1m15.547s
7   Kevin Magnussen   DEN   MoneyGram Haas F1 Team   1m15.689s
8   Charles Leclerc   MON   Scuderia Ferrari   1m15.694s
9   Carlos Sainz   ESP   Scuderia Ferrari   1m15.726s
10   George Russell   GBR   Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team   1m15.753s
11   Lando Norris   GBR   McLaren F1 Team   1m15.783s
12   Lewis Hamilton   GBR   Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team   1m15.845s
13   Zhou Guanyu   CHN   Alfa Romeo F1 Team Stake   1m15.906s
14   Yuki Tsunoda   JPN   Scuderia AlphaTauri    1m15.915s
15   Lance Stroll   CAN   Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant Formula One Team   1m15.939s
16   Valtteri Bottas   FIN   Alfa Romeo F1 Team Stake   1m15.978s
17   Oscar Piastri   AUS   McLaren F1 Team   1m16.353s
18   Nico Hulkenberg   GER   MoneyGram Haas F1 Team   1m16.461s
19   Logan Sargeant   USA   Williams Racing   1m16.506s
20   Alex Albon   THA   Williams Racing   1m16.630s

The FIA is unlikely to remove Monaco from the F1 calendar given that this is the second oldest circuit in F1 and Monaco is a destination for billionaires from all over the world. Like it or not, Monaco is a tourist destination favored by these millionaires, they need F1-class entertainment and just imagine if F1 is canceled in Monaco it will have quite a serious impact on Monaco. So no matter what, Monaco will not allow that F1 will cancel the race in their country. However, it is possible that the layout of this circuit will be adjusted, so that it will still be able to provide a good experience for fans.

My dear, I confess that at all times I kept imagining those narrow streets completely closed because some car would scatter dozens of parts through it.

But I was surprised with what I saw... the cars "dancing" with the beginning of the rain was really fun, but they almost didn't break when they hit, they even seemed to be made of rubber.

Even so, I disagree with you that the race was boring, I really enjoyed watching it, the start of the rain and the fight for positions, those who tried at all costs to reach the pits with hard tires and the very dangerous Monaco curves in contrast to the its beautiful city that is always a unique glimpse.

I love Monaco, I love F1 and the combination of the two will always be something I enjoy. The rain added a special touch to this combination. I liked very much!

Many people are saying that Monaco GP is no fun and it should be removed. But FIA don't intend to take such action at least for now. It is undoubtedly the most difficult track on which you can overtake someone. When drivers take the risk and go for it they fail most of the time. Sainz damaged his front wing while trying that on Ocon in this race as you might remember.

The only overtakes we saw were like the ones under blue flags.    Ferrari messed it up again by the way. They made this wrong strategy for Leclerc before and it looks like they haven't learned their lesson yet. Because this time they killed Sainz's race due to bad pit timing. They had to double pit once again while the other teams were managing the situation professionally. What's wrong with Ferrari really?

It kinda added a little fun in the race tho and a few laughs too...  Like how Kevin Magnussen went out slipping and sliding when he got the hards on the wet track.    

But yeah...  Overall boring esp with how big the modern F1 cars are.  Stopped watching a few laps before the end of the race after accepting the result that Hamilton will have the fastest lap and I'll lose my bet.  Lol.  I pictured it differently in my head.  I thought it was gonna be an easy RBR 1 - 2 and both Perez will keep pushing and force Verstappen to push too.  It was rather a relaxing race for Verstappen.

And I think this is how I feel for Alonso this season...  With Verstappen the most likely winner every race.  :/

In my last message in this topic I said that Monaco should stay on the calendar after what Verstappen did. But I actually changed my mind after watching the race. It was indeed a super boring race. This track should now be removed from the calendar. Monaco cannot be an organization that is thought of as a race. No overtaking, no fair race. There is no grip with the ideal tire even on wet ground. It is not a grand prix, it is only like a show, shouldn't be organized. Monaco is hurting f1. Competition is in the DNA of motorsports. The competition on this track ends in the qualifying rounds. Starting from pole wins the race. Macau GP, Baku GP, Singapore GP and even Miami GP offer five times the competitiveness of Monaco. Every time I watch it on this track, an empty GP passes.

I thought that the race would be much more interesting than the qualifying session, but it seems I was wrong, the qualifying session is much more worth watching. The only thing that interested me in this race was when Sainz got tired of Ferrari and started cursing them, it was pure gold for me LOL. I can't blame him because again and again Ferrari were stupid enough not to advise them to change to intermediate tires. They are too focused on pursuing RBR to miss crucial things like this. It seems that it will take a long time for Ferrari to be able to solve their strategic problems.

I wasn't hopeful about Monaco GP much until the rain. Because the track is just not for seeing some overtakes. There is even only one DRS part on the whole track and the track is quite tight at the same time. Rain also didn't change much thing indeed and we saw many drivers maintaining their positions anyway. But especially Sainz had a bad day at Ferrari.

He pushed his luck too much against Ocon to try to overtake him after the tunnel exit and broke his front wing a little. He still maintained his pace for a while but Ferrari didn't call him on the right time. Sainz also complained about that. Because he wanted to focus on overtaking Ocon and making strategy for that. But instead the team wanted to make sure Hamilton doesn't get past him during pitting.

Thanks to the rain we see some "action", a new boring race on Monaco. Verstappen its in another league, not only Redbull and their car, Verstappen as a driver he is driving like a god.

Alonso also its doing magic, Aston Martin can be fighting the constructor championship maybe if they have a decent second driver....

It was all the chaos that we like and then some. Even at the very start the hairpin had such a big block of cars all getting too near each other, basically pushing each other, and after that the rain made it even more fun. Normally Monaco is a boring race as there are very few cars that overtake each other, not a lot, the front usually stays the same and doesn't change, this rain really changed it a lot. And Ferrari with double pit yet again, because they failed the pit strategy and got on mediums when they should have done inters, and they didn't stay even on the track decently and we saw them double pitting back to back, not even how Mercedes did, that was decent. Max once again showed class, and finished way ahead of everyone else, dude looks as unstoppable as it gets.

That was a gamble that Alonso wanted to try as the team gave him full power over the decision at that point just like any other team kept listening to the drivers and Alonso wanted to gamble to get a win.It was a gamble that didn't pay off in the end but still he got nothing to lose as he would come still second even with 2 pit stops,so if the gamble would have paid off we would finally see another winner except Redbull during this season.We need to wait for next race weekend in Barcelona to see if we can have a new winner of the race although it looks difficult,Barcelona is a very technical track so most likely Redbull is going to win again there,as despite being in Monaco we saw Verstappen being also able to create a gap with all other cars,so they are still the better car of the grid.

What I've been wondering since last year is how the differences between Red Bull and the other teams have only gotten bigger? I think that it was precisely the intention that the differences between the top and the sub-top would become increasingly smaller. But there is only 1 team that can become world champion and that is RedBull. Although I doubt that other drivers would perform as well in redBull's car. I think it mainly has to do with Verstappen's talent. Hamilton in a RedBull car would also do well I think. But that seems to remain a utopia.

As usual in Monaco, most of things were decided in qualifying, while on Sunday we got boring race. And even rain wasn't such big game changer. I can't believe that there was no safety car in Monaco, especially considering that there was rain. There was so many smal accidents like spinning or touching walls, but nothing serious.
Alonso had great chance to win race, but Aston Martin failed with their strategy. Rain already started, but they decided to give medium tyres to Alonso and just few laps later they had to make extra pit stop and give him intermediate tyres.

It comes as no surprise to me that Verstappen won this race, and that Verstappen would become world champion, that was already clear in the preparation? what surprises me more is that Ferrari and Mercedes have the greatest difficulty in following Verstappen's footsteps. No one even comes close. The championship would be a lot more exciting if Verstappen no longer participated, but he is still a bit too young for that, of course. Father Jos will be very proud, Max has much more talent than Jos right? Strange that big difference between father and son.

This is why I'm more concerned about the teams building the cars rather than the drivers who are driving these cars. Once a team figures out what works best in their car that can edge out any other car in the tournament, the driver is basically set for the rest of the season and all he needs to do is drive normally and not fuck things up. Red Bull just made one hell of a car and it shows, that even the second best team in the tournament is still lagging behind by a lot in F1 standards. the rain could have brought in more action, but unfortunately not much of interesting things happened in the race hence why Red Bull just claimed that top spot so easily.