Topic: Motosport General discussion tread --- Formula1, MotoGP, WTCC, ETCC, DTM..... - page 28. (Read 142977 times)

As you write Bagnaia won both races in Spielberg, but Martin made the best of it and always kept the gap short, a lot can still happen in this championship this year.

But the race itself was a bit boring, it was clear in advance that Ducati would win in Spielberg in dry conditions, but otherwise it was very boring, now there's a week's break and then it continues in Aragón, where it will definitely be more exciting.

Pre free practices and quali, the books still have Verstappen as the slight favorite at 2.75 followed by Norris at 2.85 then Piastri at 6.00...  And Hamilton at 9.50?  Hmmm...  I'm starting to think both Piastri and Hamilton are both value in this spot.  And I'm also starting to think Piastri is slightly starting to gain more pace than Norris is.  But we'll see.

Piastri to get pole is at 5.00...  Wish he sand bags and it goes up after a couple of free practices. 

Mercedes and maybe other teams are willing and able to pay Max more than what RB is offering, but the question is whether Max wants to leave RB? because so far he is still confident and fully trusts the RB team even when several important figures leave RB and there is a decline in performance, but that does not make Max try to leave RB.

And moreover there is no guarantee that the Ford power unit will be worse than the Honda one in the RB, it is possible that Ford develops a competitive engine that suits the RB and that still makes them very competitive at the top.

I believe that Red Bull still has a good way into their future with Max, and while Newey not being there could be terrible, and Ford is a new engine which may not be awesome for them right away in 2026, as long as they keep Max they should be fine.

And it's hard for another team to pay Max what Red Bull is paying him, so I think it is not going to be possible for another team to get him, Max would have to take a significant pay cut to make that work, which I do not think that he would be willing to do. It would have to be a terrible car, and the dominant team have to offer him a big contract for all this to happen and him leave for that team.

I think he will stay, and I think they won't have a dominant car, but he will still have enough car for him to be trying to win it all, even if another team has a better car, if it is not too much better and just a bit better then Max could still win, he is that good. Right now we can say that Mclaren could even be better.

We got a race this weekend and according to rumos Ferrari will probably bring the last update of the car and if they will be still behind they will focus on next year car.

Weather is variable this weekend, rain is expected for Saturday almost certainly according to websites.


As always for me, heavy rain
Max> LAndo

Light rain
Mclaren> RBR

Yeah, it is time for some talk about the upcoming race...    It is indeed a very important race for Verstappen. He couldn't win in the last 4 race weeks. I can imagine how frustrated Verstappen is about that. He doesn't care about Red Bull's success anymore. He is only focused on his own achievements. But whenever Red Bull doesn't give him an unproblematic car, he gets more furious.

Here in this Grand Prix, I doubt Verstappen win once again. I'm once again favouring McLaren drivers for a win here. I would like it to be Norris to catch up with Verstappen more. I was really disappointed with Norris' not being able to make use of this situation effectively in these past 4 races. The point gap could have been much less. 

The fact that in the next few seasons Newey will be gone for sure, Max may leave, and Horner could be kicked because of allegations, I feel like Red Bull could be a middle of the pack team in a few seasons. Dropping from being the most dominant performance ever in history to a middle pack team all within 5 seasons is a huge huge deal.

Like yeah Mercedes isn't great now, but they can be considered either third or at the worst case fourth, I would say third is fair for right at this moment, I know that Ferrari has more points but recently Mercedes has done better. But they did dominate for 7 seasons, that seems like a long time, Red Bull didn't get that much, they dominated for 2 years, and won 2 titles, may win a third this year, may even lose it and that's why I think their future looks bleak and terrible. They need to figure something out and figure that out very quickly, otherwise they are going to have so much more problems and won't really recover at all.

I think the best thing to do right now would be find a great engineer first, because losing Newey is already guaranteed, Max and Horner is the later discussion because they are not leaving just yet, they can think of that when it comes to that.

Yup...  But like the other great teams before it, their dominance will wane and it'll be their turn to play catch up.  And if Horner leaves, it's gonna be sooo hard for them.  But it is what it is.  Lol.

Anyway, race weekend is upon us and it's gonna be in Verstappen's home turf.    I'm thinking the other drivers will be extra motivated for this not to be a win for Verstsppen.  

2024 F1 Dutch GP Schedule
Track:  Circuit Zandvoort



Aug 23:  Practice 1  12:30 - 13:30
Aug 23:  Practice 2  16:00 - 17:00
Aug 24:  Practice 3  11:30 - 12:30
Aug 24:  Qualifying  15:00 - 16:00
Aug 25:  Race  15:00

For this season, it seems that it will be quite difficult for Marquez to compete with Pecco and Martin who both use the GP24 bike, while Marquez is still using the GP23 bike with the latest update. But it will be a different story next season where Marquez will also use the same bike as Pecco so that it could make it easier for Marquez to compete on the track, especially since there are three current Ducati riders who will move to other teams next season. So for a fiercer competition between Marquez and Pecco, it might still happen next season even though this season is still very open.

Another win for Bagnaia.
Second place for Martina and 3rd for Bastianini.
Now the Italia is 1st alone in the leaderboard with an advantage of 5 points.
4th position again for Marquez.

Race was in a dry track, they managed to avoid the rain.
Martin was ahead but Bagnaia overtook him with a better management of the race.

A bit boring race today especially for the podium, Martin started the race good but Pecco did it better then keep on increasing the gap with Martin.
I thought that Enea will be able to compete with Pecco and Martin but he did not do something as what he did at Silverstone.
Bad for Marc, after he failed to finish in the sprint race and today he started the race bad which made him dropped to 13th but he could comeback to secure the 4th position after overtaking many other riders.
I'm wondering, if Marc could do a better start, could he compete with Pecco and Martin because it seems that the GP24 is just much stronger than other bikes including GP23.

And the full race has also been won by Pecco Bagnaia after having fought with Martin at the beginning of the race, because when the race was half way through the three riders in the front row also started to look away from each other like Bagnaia, Martin and Bastianini. It was very unfortunate for Marquez because he had to touch Morbidelli after the start which made him go off track even though he was also able to get a top four position after fighting with several other riders.

Both are only five points apart now even though before the race both had the same number of points and now the competition is still quite fierce in terms of points especially for Pecco Bagnaia and also Jorge Martin. Because both riders must be able to maintain their consistency for the rest of the season and must not fall, although Martin must also try to win more, both in the Sprint and in the Race. If not, Martin may have difficulty catching Bagnaia's points because Bagnaia is starting to be very friendly with his Gp24.

Pecco Bagnaia wins the Sprint Race of the Austrian GP of the MotoGP and joins Jorge Martin at the top of the World Championship, all good but we need to see what he will do in the race today, that is the most important thing of all to stay in the lead

Exactly Bagnaia won the sprint race yesterday and both now have the same number of points, today Martin will start ahead of Bagnaia and I assume that one of the two will be the winner. It will certainly be interesting, there will probably be no rain, the probability of rain is only 10%.

A new gossip/rumor is ongoing right now.
Audi has a vacant seat and Sebastian Vettel is one of the candidate for it.

Audi wants go big already in first year in 2026 and the don't want to be a weak team.
The other driver will be Nico Hulkenberg.

More names for the seat are fro Bottas and Zhou.

Keep in mind that vettel was also called mercedes few months ago for a potential deal after Lewis, so they may have ignited the spark in his brain...

Ricciardo doesn't even need to be young to get the seat. I don't think it is about the age. Perez is 34 and Ricciardo is 35. Not much difference there. 

Red Bull only wants to have a driver who will make enough contribution for constructor championship, that's all. As Perez can't meet the expectations anymore his time is running out there slowly. Ricciardo is no different than Perez these days. No determination left in him. He can't be reliable from now on just as Perez isn't. Oliver Bearman has signed for Haas already. I wish they signed Sainz. But I assume Verstappen wouldn't be satisfied with that.

---

We are about to enter the Dutch GP race week by the way. It is home GP for Verstappen. Let's see if he gets the win or some other driver gives him an upset again...

I honestly think that they would prefer Daniel Ricciardo if he was younger, but they know that he is not young anymore and they just couldn't find anyone who would be good for that spot so they hired him, dude was third driver for a while, and got this place, and I honestly think that they know that he is much better than Tsunoda without a doubt. However, at this moment we know that Tsunoda is much younger and that means while he is worse, he could race for another 10 years easily, and that's why they prefer him.

I also think that they should prefer neither, because neither is good right now, they both suck and I think they need someone else. Even that very young kid from Ferrari looks better, Oliver Bearman or something, but he is contracted to Ferrari. Is there any other choice then Daniel, Tsunoda or Lawsom? Or is that the only three choices that they have? I think we are going to see Red Bull have some hard time for a while, it doesn't look good for them.

1   Francesco Bagnaia   ITA   Ducati Lenovo (GP24)   20m 59.768s
2   Jorge Martin   SPA   Pramac Ducati (GP24)   +4.673s
3   Aleix Espargaro   SPA   Aprilia Racing (RS-GP24)   +7.584s
4   Enea Bastianini   ITA   Ducati Lenovo (GP24)   +9.685s
5   Jack Miller   AUS   Red Bull KTM (RC16)   +10.421s
6   Franco Morbidelli   ITA   Pramac Ducati (GP24)   +10.523s
7   Brad Binder   RSA   Red Bull KTM (RC16)   +10.941s
8   Marco Bezzecchi   ITA   VR46 Ducati (GP23)   +11.932s
9   Pol Espargaro   SPA   Red Bull KTM (RC16)   +15.101s
10   Pedro Acosta   SPA   Red Bull GASGAS Tech3 (RC16)*   +16.611s
11   Maverick Viñales   SPA   Aprilia Racing (RS-GP24)   +16.759s
12   Fabio Quartararo   FRA   Monster Yamaha (YZR-M1)   +17.943s
13   Miguel Oliveira   POR   Trackhouse Aprilia (RS-GP24)   +18.304s
14   Raul Fernandez   SPA   Trackhouse Aprilia (RS-GP24)   +19.185s
15   Johann Zarco   FRA   LCR Honda (RC213V)   +21.330s
16   Takaaki Nakagami   JPN   LCR Honda (RC213V)   +22.940s
17   Luca Marini   ITA   Repsol Honda (RC213V)   +25.830s
18   Lorenzo Savadori   ITA   Aprilia Racing (RS-GP24)   +26.622s
19   Joan Mir   SPA   Repsol Honda (RC213V)   +27.458s
20   Alex Marquez   SPA   Gresini Ducati (GP23)   +37.870s
    Augusto Fernandez   SPA   Red Bull GASGAS Tech3 (RC16)   DNF
    Alex Rins   SPA   Monster Yamaha (YZR-M1)   DNF
    Marc Marquez   SPA   Gresini Ducati (GP23)   DNF
    Stefan Bradl   GER   HRC Test Team (RC213V)   DNF

Bagnaia recoved after the start an won the race.
The leadeboar is very tight now.

https://www.crash.net/motogp/results/1053620/1/2024-austrian-motogp-red-bull-ring-sprint-race-results -< source

It is very extraordinary for Pecco Bagnaia who was able to leave his opponent up to four seconds behind even though at the beginning of the Sprint race he also fought with Jorge Martin. However, because Jorge Martin also made a small mistake which resulted in him having to undergo a long lap penalty, of course he also had to be satisfied with his position in the Sprint race. Because with Marquez's fall in today's Sprint, Jorge Martin was able to take second place for today's Sprint, and tomorrow we will see how the full race goes in Austria.

Indeed. They are likely to drop from being number one team. They have already done so actually.    Newey is one of the best engineers F1 has ever had. The team that has him must be very confident about the future.

Yeah, it is going to be Ford manufacturing new engine for Red Bull as of 2026. It is always difficult to predict what a new brand in this sport can do. But let's hope they do a good work.

When it comes to Verstappen, probably it can happen. It all depends on how strong Red Bull will be. Whenever Verstappen fails in winning a title then I expect him to think of leaving seriously.