Topic: Motosport General discussion tread --- Formula1, MotoGP, WTCC, ETCC, DTM..... - page 268. (Read 141756 times)

As predicted after the Ferrari's problem Max got an easy win.
Without the problem, it could be an easy win for Charles.
Verstappen now leads the leaderboard but it will be a tight fight.
Good recovery by Mercedes with the not so legal car

It was a much better race than I expected in fact. Because the Spanish GP hasn't been a very enjoyable race until now. As there are limited number of places that drivers can overtake each other comfortably, it makes the race boring for spectators. But thankfully this was a better race. Leclerc's incident shocked me truthfully. He was driving just fine even though Sainz and Verstappen made big mistakes on the same turn. But Leclerc was just unlucky that he lost power and Ferrari didn't have any choice other than retiring the car. Verstappen collected significant points and he is ahead of Leclerc in the driver standings now!

Very unexpected that Ferrari has a defect, but it is just so. RedBull has done everything right and are apparently reliable? Unexpected for me....

This had been an insane match today. Who would have thought that Verstappen would still win after his slip? It was to be expected that sooner or later Ferrari would suffer from his engine with Leclerc, that was today. Mercedes was better than the previous races, but Red Bull was supreme. And 1st and 2nd place, and Leclerc who retires. That's a dream scenario.

Let's assume that Toto provides what he promised, and they start to win a few races, like end the season with 3 or 4 wins in total. Would that even be enough? I mean by 10th race we are going to have Ferrari and red bull both having that many wins anyway, so it is not going to be that simple to catch up to them at all.

Hence third team overall when the season ends. Maybe Russell or Hamilton would be like 4th, and take Perez out, maybe? I do not know, but that is going to be unlikely. I mean in a world where Russel is heading above Hamilton, we always knew that Hamilton would not be a dominant power when he loses the best car advantage, but to lose out to your teammate? I am not seeing Mercedes nor Hamilton doing anything at all.

I think with the changes to the cars which allow them to follow more closer than they did the last couple of years even the race is going to be definitely good.Ferrari in here is in great advantage as the track is a narrow slow one city track and I doubt Redbull can do anything here.It will be a driver pure bravery other than the Ferraris if they get the pole which I highly doubt it.Anyway Friday practice will tell us more but this track is more suited to Ferrari than any other team so it will be a good one to recover many of the lost points in today race.

Well, he'll be favourite for pole... and as we all know, whoever gets pole at Monaco is likely to win the race, unless they get caught out at a pit stop.

If Leclerc qualifies in pole at Monaco, I'm pretty sure there's nothing that could possibly go wrong and prevent him winning (or cause him to not even start the race for some reason, and end up with 0 points). There's no history here, right?


I think we all hate Monaco, once qualifying is done the race is simply a dull procession. I've said it before, if F1 want to try something different (as they are with sprint races), then Monaco would be the ideal place to it. They could forget about having the 'race' entirely, and just have something like a series of cycling-style time trials. Or just anything more innovative. Any suggestion at all would probably be better than the 'race'. What do you all think? How could they change Monaco to make it better?

^  I think Perez knew what he was getting into when he signed the contract with Red Bull.  But yeah, I agree.  It would've been better for Verstappen to earn the spot than giving it to him thru team orders.  But then again from the team's pov, Verstappen had the pace and would pass Perez anyway at some point in the race so why take the risk.

Anyway, Monaco next weekend.  Quali will def be good, race will be soso.

A very lucky race for Redbull seeing that they were less than powerful to fight against Leclerc in the first stage of the race,it was just the engine problem of Leclerc who mysteriously gave them a lot of good luck and they got maximum points from the race becoming leaders in the constructors Championship and also Max gaining the lead for the first time during this season.

Nice radio after the end of the race with Perez,when asked by the team say something about the race,he replied "I am happy for the team but we will have to talk later" showing he was not happy with the team order.

Great thing we are going to Monaco this very next weekend,can't wait as the season is becoming more and more unpredictable with Mercedes putting up a good run today.

2022 F1 Spanish GP Race Results

1   Max Verstappen   NED   Oracle Red Bull Racing   66 Laps
2   Sergio Perez   MEX   Oracle Bull Racing   + 13.072s
3   George Russell   GBR   Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team   + 32.927s
4   Carlos Sainz   ESP   Scuderia Ferrari   + 45.208s
5   Lewis Hamilton   GBR   Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team   + 54.534s
6   Valtteri Bottas   FIN   Alfa Romeo F1 Team Orlen   + 59.976s
7   Esteban Ocon   FRA   BWT Alpine F1 Team   + 75.397s
8   Lando Norris   GBR   McLaren F1 Team   + 83.235s
9   Fernando Alonso   ESP   BWT Alpine F1 Team   + 1 Lap
10   Yuki Tsunoda   JPN   Scuderia AlphaTauri   + 1 Lap
11   Sebastian Vettel   GER   Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant Formula One Team   + 1 Lap
12   Daniel Ricciardo   AUS   McLaren F1 Team   + 1 Lap
13   Pierre Gasly   FRA   Scuderia AlphaTauri   + 1 Lap
14   Mick Schumacher   GER   Haas F1 Team   + 1 Lap
15   Lance Stroll   CAN   Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant Formula One Team   + 1 Lap
16   Nicholas Latifi   CAN   Williams Racing   + 1 Lap
17   Kevin Magnussen   DEN   Haas F1 Team   + 2 Laps
18   Alexander Albon   THA   Williams Racing   + 2 Laps
    Guanyu Zhou   CHN   Alfa Romeo F1 Team Orlen   DNF
    Charles Leclerc   MON   Scuderia Ferrari   DNF

Check out this subreddit /r/formula dank.  The memes are hilarious.  

The race was ok with some excitement at the start but got boring later at around the 30th lap or so.  Gutted for Leclerc and as coinlocket$ said, it was in the bag for Leclerc until the power issue on his engine.  I'm pretty sure he'll get Monaco if there aren't any more issues with the car.

Edit:  Lmao this meme.  For the guys who noticed...

True, very sad and extremely unlucky for LeClerc and also i have to say completely surprising for me as the car of Ferrari seemed to be so reliable this season so far, so this issue today came completely out of nowhere. Up until to that point it looked like a relatively easy win for LeClerc as the DRS of Verstappen does not work most of the times so he could not even get past Russel for a few laps so it looked like a great race weekend for LeClerc but that issue changed that completely of course.
Of course we also have to consider that Verstappen also had 2 issues so far in this season already where he had to stop the race when he was on second or even first position.

This week I saw a very fierce race at the WSBK event which was held at the Estoril circuit in Portugal where only three riders were on the podium with three different manufacturers and what was unique was that they always competed in front of the podium (Bautista, Jonathan Rea, and Toprak).

Superpole Podium:
1. Jonathan Rea
2. Toprak
3. Bautista

Race1 Podium:
1. Bautista
2. Toprak
3. Jonathan Rea

SP Race Podium:
1. Jonathan Rea
2. Toprak
3. Bautista

Race2 Podium:
1. Jonathan Rea
2. Bautista
3. Toprak

And what is very unfortunate is that Toprak with his Yamaha motorbike had to be willing to lose on the straight track with Bautista and also with Jonathan Rea's Kawasaki so that Toprak could not feel victory in all the races that took place at the Estoril Portugal circuit and this became a very important lesson for Yamaha in develop a better bike for next season.

Incredible what happened to LeClerc.

He got the win in his hand and got a mechanical issue.

Sad.


Max should win now.

Crazy lap from Leclerc, and Verstappen could no longer be a concern. So the two fastest drivers this season start the race from the front row. Mercedes has also shown that the updates work and are again closer to Ferrari and RedBull. Once wait and see today whether Russell can go the speed in the race.

I think they have made small progress from race to race and I hope the promise of Totto Wolf in the beginning of the season to Hamilton that we will start fighting to win races in the second half of the season comes true.I know that is to late at that time but it would just add better view-ability to the races.I know that Max and Charles are the best drivers of this season so far,we can see from their individual results that they have so far which they have shared victories in these first 5 races of the season and I doubt this will change tomorrow.

People keep claiming every single week about how "Mercedes is bringing something different this week" and how "Mercedes will get back to fighting at the top", but they are still the third team, sure they were barely in top 10 at the start of the season and they are clearly third best team right now but that's about it, I do not see them fighting Red Bull nor Ferrari at all.

I feel like Charles and Max are leagues above everyone else right now, and they are going to end up with the championship fighting and Ferrari and Red Bull will be fighting for the title this year, Mercedes will be third and they will most probably not get any better than that.

I think it's more him having the fastest car. Well, not as fast as Ferrari in qualifying, but faster over race distance. Sainz and Perez really need to step up, otherwise every race will be Leclerc in the fastest qualifying car getting pole, with Verstappen in second... and then Verstappen in the fastest race distance car overtaking him for the win, with Leclerc second. The thing that could make it interesting is one of these teams having a quality second driver who can give a tactical edge, but at the moment it isn't happening. At least Sainz got close to Max in qualifying this time, but you know that when the race starts he'll just fade slowly out of contention. Perez finishing amongst the Mercs and only just ahead of Bottas is a joke.


Their qualifying pace was nothing special, about the same as we've seen so far this year. But it does look like they might have made a step up on full race simulation runs. I think in previous races they've been losing around 0.5s a lap to the front teams. If they can cut that down to just 0.1s or 0.2s, it might be enough to cause some problems for the teams up front... and enable some overtaking in the pit window if not on the track.

We saw a 1:18.750 time for Charles Leclerc on the pole. He wasted his first chance in Q3 by a simple mistake. But he still made a great comeback later on. Verstappen's not being able to use his last chance was a big help for Leclerc also. He lost power and couldn't try to beat Leclerc's time. Russell impressed me too by leaving Perez behind and capturing the fourth position. He missed getting past Sainz also by a gap like 0.017 seconds. This is promising but I still can't trust Mercedes too much. We will see what they will do.

It is only the bravery of Verstappen that brought him second and he will keep the pressure on Leclerc tomorrow,here we have a great straight in the beginning of the first lap so it would be interesting to see how the start will unfold.Even if we don't have position changes I think this track does not permit you to create a huge gap so it would be interesting as a race and I predict a difficult race for Leclerc,lately he hasn't been keeping the pressure very well and I am sure there will be a lot of pressure for him tomorrow.

Mercedes is there and any mistake by the leaders can be a chance for them,especially Hamilton which has got a lot of experience.

Huge pole for Charles.
Verstappen got a problem on his final attempt like the previous GP.

In this track the start will be the key moment, it is very hard to overtake others.