Topic: Motosport General discussion tread --- Formula1, MotoGP, WTCC, ETCC, DTM..... - page 251. (Read 141712 times)

Since you touched on this subject, I went to research the evolution of Williams in F1, and a curiosity caught my attention... they went 10 years without winning a victory.

Williams used to be great, but in a sport that needs constant evolution, Renault's exit from Formula 1 in 1997 was a very strong blow and since then they have never been able to stand out.

But they are still in F1, and they are slowly evolving, as their tight budget allows, the purchase of the team by a new group in 2021 seems to have excited them, hopefully this evolution continues.

It is easy to see that Max will definitely be the winner this year, there is nothing shocking about that and everyone can see that already. However, we need to realize that cars are just getting started, this is the very first season with these cars, all that bouncing is brand new problem and teams are working on it very clearly.

Of course they can't change everything about a car that quickly, it's milimeter per milimeter changes each race, and if you somehow go to wrong direction on one race, you will have to wait for the next one to go to other way, and this is why it is taking so long. I believe next year everyone else will get there, everyone will be much better. I see even Williams eventually reaching the pace of top 10 this year, but they will do that in a few years probably and not this year lol.

Small rumor for drivers market.

It is official now, Gasply will stay in Alpha Tauri 1 more year.

Aprilia had a mistake today, they left the rain deflector on Aleix even with the dry tires mounted and an aerodynamic aid is not allowed, now his times have been cancelled and he is outside the 105% hurdle.

Does this mean that Aleix now has to start from the last grid position?

The results obviously have not been up to the expectations and it is totally understandable why this is happening.
They obviously cannot just wait and hope for things to get better.
Alex Rins is a very capable driver and I think he actually might lose his place to Alex Rins. This makes me wonder about his future!


regards

Duke

It will be a good step for Olivera with the Aprilia next year, the Aprilia next year will be the factory Aprilia of this year in the RNF team, so it will be competitive. For Olivera, KTM just doesn't work at the moment, so maybe it's good to try something new.

Also LCR and Alex Marquez will go separate ways next year, instead of him probably Rins will come to LCR Honda (as you already wrote, but nothing is fixed yet), but where will Alex Marquez change to, maybe Gresini?

The 2014 Moto3 world champion and 2019 Moto2 title winner made his debut in MotoGP with Honda in 2020, taking the place of Jorge Lorenzo at the factory squad.
Scoring two podiums in his rookie campaign, the younger Marquez brother was moved to LCR for 2021 on a two-year deal directly with Honda.

However, results have failed to live up to those of his rookie campaign, with Marquez managing a best of seventh so far in a 2022 campaign in which he has scored just 26 points.
His place at LCR has been under threat in recent weeks as the rider market has kicked into high gear, with Suzuki’s Alex Rins heavily linked with his place at the Honda satellite team.

Speaking to es.Motorsport.com, LCR boss Lucio Cecchinello all but confirmed Marquez’s departure at the end of the year.

Source: https://www.motorsport.com/motogp/news/alex-marquez-will-leave-lcr-honda-for-2023-motogp-season/10327329/

At the start of the season it looked like Max had the reliability issues, and then it switched sides and that caused Charles to lose a lot of points. But, Max wins almost all races he finishes, so that shows that maybe it is not just about reliability, but more about how Max has a better race pace.

It is not even just about the cars neither, sure Red Bull seems like the better car during the race, but Max really makes sure that there is even no doubts, he is that much better than everybody. I wonder if we are starting to see a situation where it is like Hamilton who is a great driver but also driving the best car on the track, hence a domination type of deal with Max and Red Bull and this new cars.

There is zero chance, I agree with that. They could however get a lot better for next year. The trio of max verstappen, charlesleclerc, and georgerussell seems like they are the future of F1 for the time being, there are some other young drivers but none of them are either that good, or they are not in good teams.

This means that when Mercedes fixes the issue and they race at max speed without bouncing, they will be fighting for a title for sure, there is no doubt. This will take until next year, but they will be there for sure. This year, it is all about max getting it, there is no title challenge, he will be the winner, and Charles will try his best to do as good as he can.

MotoGP rumors are getting wild...

Oliveira, who had been rumored to be with Gresini, now turned to RNF. Reportedly there are several reasons that made the negotiations between Oliveira and Gresini a bit tough.
The first is about sponsorship, reportedly the two sponsors of Ducati or Gresini are not compatible with Oliviera's personal sponsor. But this rumor has been denied by Paulo Oliveira's father (as well as Oliveira's manager)

The second thing about the salary was then added that it was not in accordance with Ducati's philosophy, which focused on young drivers.
As for Rins, it is reported that he is getting closer to LCR, but it all depends on Honda's approval. _{Source: gpcorner.com}

I also agree that Ferrari and Red Bull aren't in a that bad situation now despite the new regulation for the height of cars. It was just Mercedes that benefited from this a lot as they improved their performance compared to the previous races. Russell secured his gap with Leclerc in a great way in the last race and there was a very visible improvement in Hamilton's performance as well. It is good to see Mercedes starting to get close to Red Bull and Ferrari slowly. It may take a lot of time for them to reach the level of the other two teams but they must still be contented with the current situation.

I don't think Redbull and Ferrari are that in disadvantage against Mercedes and McLaren because of this new decision.Both Mercedes an McLaren who runs a Mercedes engine are suffering in speed,meaning in their power unit,the gains that they may make because of this new decision will not make their engines faster thus they remain no threat to Redbull and Ferrari.Redbull so far has the fastest top speed in straights and Ferrari has improved a lot in this direction.In the upcoming race we will see again that it will be dominated by these two teams and in such track like the upcoming one Mercedes won't be a threat to Redbull or Ferrari,I am not counting McLaren at all (although I am their fan) because they have a disastrous car so far in the season.

Yeah, it's looking that way. It must be immensely frustrating for Leclerc, who often has the fastest single-lap qualifying car, but not the fastest full-race car, and really suffering from reliability issues. We have to bear in mind he's likely to take further engine penalties as the season progresses, too. The season is in danger of getting boring, as RB need a better second driver who is able to (and permitted to) compete. At least in the Merc era we had Hamilton and Rosberg battling between them, and then a couple of years where Vettel mounted a serious challenge. This season is shaping up to be an easy Verstappen win simply because he's the last man standing.

I wonder if we're going to have an exciting season in the battle for the world championship. The start looked promising, Le Clerc seemed to be fully involved but has now retired a few times in a row and Verstappen is currently winning everything you can win. He does have a great team player with Perez, who has already let Verstappen win once. You also have to be able to handle that to play the 2nd fiddle. The battle for the World Cup seems decided: Verstappen easily becomes world champion.

Now both have retired and become Legends for MotoGp. Overall, Honda has dominated Germany in the past, but for this year everything has changed with the absence of Marc Marquez in Germany so that there is already a new winner from Yamaha, namely Fabio Quartararo. For me the MotoGP race in Germany this year was very boring because there were not many duels that occurred after Bagnaia crashed on the fourth lap at the first corner.

I think that's a bit harsh on the FIA, it's not quite accurate, and it may not be the outcome you anticipate.

Wolff was definitely being a bit ridiculous by claiming it's just a safety concern and so needs to be changed, it's true that certain drivers are experiencing discomfort... but it's equally true that this is because of the way they've designed the car. Other designs (e.g. Red Bull) don't have the problem. So Merc should raise their ride height to ensure their drivers are safe, and other teams can do as they like.

However... and it's a big however... the FIA directive is not to raise ride height, but to reduce oscillation of the cars below a certain permitted limit. What this means is that Merc will have to raise their car... and if Red Bull are genuinely unaffected, they can leave their car as is, completely unchanged. The point being that if Red Bull do raise their car, they will be doing so to comply with the regulation, which means they do have the bouncing issue and are just pretending they don't.

So we'll see. Merc may have been pushing for this, but it's not quite the outcome they wanted, it may end up benefitting them, or it may not, I don't think we know yet. Merc could end up looking ridiculous by pushing for a rule that means they have to raise their own car, and no-one else does!

And the FIA certainly aren't doing them a favour... if you recall, the FIA don't like Mercedes, as was evident in the way they ignored their own rules to ensure Verstappen was given the championship last season!

FIA's decision to increase the height of the cars is going to be really helpful for Mercedes. I think that we saw one of its example in the Canadian GP. After this change in regulations, it looks like Mercedes and McLaren can be the most profitable teams. I don't think that Ferrari are very disadvantageous now because they have also had the porpoising problem so far. Maybe their problem isn't as serious as Mercedes but it was still seen before. Red Bull can be counted as the most disadvantageous team about this maybe but they are still very fast.

Yes, Fabio does a really good job in the race so he is able to keep his pace and rhythm in addition to keeping the tires safe so he just keeps the distance he can and doesn't push it too much.

In 2020 when Mir was consistently on the podium, he only won one race at Valencia and even then it was already the end of the season before the drivers headed to the Algarve Portugal. Actually in 2020 Fabio also looks consistent by winning three races including his team mate (Morbidelli) who was able to win three races so that the independent team champion at that time was held by Petronas Racing.

And overall Yamaha in 2020 was able to get a winning podium 7 times (if combined between the factory team and the Petronas Satellite team), only Fabio at that time felt a little nervous and uneasy when racing in Valencia so he had a crash. For Bagnaia he actually tried to catch Fabio from the start of the season because remembering last year he also failed to catch Fabio in the second half of the season.

The FIA gave them a favor.  Lol.  Didn't the FIA change some regulation with the height of the cars from the ground to help Mercedes with their problems with porpoising citing 'safety concerns'?  I think changing the rules in the middle of the season could set a bad precedent for the sport.  If they start doing it now, they could do it again and again as the season progresses.

Next couple of races should be good.  Silverstone then Austria.  Wheee.

I think so too, but how would it look if Mercedes publicly gave up after 9 races and Wolf said we're writing off the season, there's no chance for us anyway. Ferrari and RedBull have also lost a lot of points because of defects, they are fast but not very reliable.

But I don't agree with you on one point, Perez and Sainz are two strong drivers, they won't really fight for the world championship title, but Perez shows that he's not just a second driver, he wants to be in the race for the win, but he also has a lot of bad luck with defects.