Topic: Motosport General discussion tread --- Formula1, MotoGP, WTCC, ETCC, DTM..... - page 291. (Read 141780 times)

The funniest scene of all the race was Max declining to pass Leclerc before the straight . Both of them literally reached near stopping levels before they continued and that was a very smart chess play by both racers. Leclerct went ahead and took it further than the overtake levels but that allowed Max to not be close enough next lap around and allowed him to pass Leclerc during the pit straight.

It's really a good race when you know that it could have gone either way. This was really what we were missing from F1 for such a long time, people racing close to each other, having fights, not just at the top, we have seen so many overtakes from every single position.

It was a great race to watch yesterday again and the new season could really be a very exciting one. I kinda feel bad for Sergio Perez though. After his great performance in the qualifying he was also leading the race pretty comfortably i would say but then he was just extremely unlucky that he went for the pit stop only 1 or 2 laps before the crash of Latifi happened and the safety car had to come out. He lost his leading position just because of that. The battle between Leclerc and Verstappen was also really exciting to watch and could have ended with either one of those two as the winner of yesterdays race. Maybe it will really be a fight between Ferrari and Red Bull this year. Mercedes needs to step up.

So I already like the new regulations, the drivers can now finally drive close behind each other again and over several laps without the driver behind being disadvantaged. The fight between Verstappen and Leclerc was on a par and very nice to watch, both drivers were simply top, and you could also see that they are stronger than their team colleagues, so the position at Ferrari will soon be taken, at RedBull it was clear, even if Perez was unlucky in this race.

If you genuinely believe that, then I think it's a pretty stupid comment. You don't have to look any further than his debut season to tell he would be a great driver and capable of being a multiple world champion. You can usually see it with the best drivers. Same with Max. Another thing that helps to distinguish great drivers is how they perform in the wet.



I thought Ferrari had the fastest car, but now I'm leaning towards RB... but it may just be that it's quite finely-balanced, and different tracks suit different cars better. Ferrari are fastest in the slower corners, RB fastest on the straights. It is certainly shaping up to be a good fight, although Sainz maybe needs to step up a bit.

RiderTua.com – MotoGP Qatar 2022: based on the number of TV viewers and live broadcast viewers, an Italian media concluded that half a million Valentino Rossi fans are expected to no longer follow MotoGP after the Italian superstar retires. From 2,333,000 million registered spectators in 2021 to 1,612,000 in 2022: the downgrade regarding MotoGP in Italy in the first stage of the Qatar GP is quite sensitive. Valentino Rossi's retirement certainly affected this decline, but Italy certainly has no shortage of other riders with Pecco, & Morbidelli. and in Qatar with the victories of the Italian trio in all classes (Andrea Migno won in Moto3, Celestino Vietti in Moto2 and Enea Bastianini in MotoGP with Ducati) and this fact is still reflected in the audience ratings which are still maintained, despite the decline.

The following is a complete explanation of the dynamics of the numbers or data of the Italian MotoGP audience after the Qatar series from Sky Sport and TV8. (Indonesia is a new circuit so it cannot be compared)

In 2021 Sky Sport MotoGP presents the program: Sky Sport One with a total of 1,170,000 spectators who saw this event. But in 2022, there will only be 560 thousand.
Data regarding TV8 viewers is even quite consistent: in 2021 there will be 1,169,000 people participating in races that are broadcast live on free-to-air channels and 5.8% share. In 2022, this figure recorded only a decrease of 100 thousand- an or 1,052,000 viewers. The fact that there are still many other Italian riders in MotoGP is able to maintain those numbers.

Moto2 races are watched live on Sky by over 300,000 viewers, compared to less than 100,000 last year.
Moto3, on the other hand, between live and delayed broadcasts, totaled 600k viewers, a threefold increase compared to 200,000 in 2021.

According to tuttomotoriweb.it, it is clearly too early to draw conclusions from the TV ratings in the first event relating to the Qatar 2022 World Championship series. But what is certain from the data above can conclude that "Half a million Valentino Rossi fans in Italy no longer follow MotoGP". After Vale's retirement. (Source)

It was an amazing race in my opinion. And Perez was the most unlucky driver of the day certainly. Because he was leading the Grand Prix for a long time but the incident caused him to lose his place to Leclerc. It was a great fake by Ferrari by the way.    They showed it like they were going to have Leclerc in the pit right after the incident but Leclerc didn't enter. And Red Bull tried to counter Ferrari by having Perez before them but it was in vain. And the competition between Verstappen and Leclerc was incredible just as in the Bahrain GP. But this time, the winner was Verstappen.

 People who are "hamilton vs max" could keep on hating on Max, he wouldn't mind because he is used to it, but I am glad that it is 2 different people that are racing for the finish this time around. I am sorry Hamilton fans but we have seen him win 7 times in a row, you can call him the goat or not, thats upto you, if you want to you can, but you also need to understand that we were bored of him, its just not fun to watch anymore when hamilton keeps on being 30+ seconds faster than closest rival team. Ferrari back again, max doing max things, and finally we have other teams changing up the order. Even Haas being this good is great, I would love to see Mick getting some points for sure, it would be lovely to watch. I resemble this to Cavs vs Warriors finals of NBA, they were both great teams but we just wanted something else, even if worse, just something else for the love of god. That happened, and now we have it in F1 as well. I am very glad about this for sure.

Well, Perez on 1st Safety car played dirty.

Sainz was in front of him, crossing the safety's car line from the pit box line and Perez overtook him against the rules of f1.

He also kept his position without letting Sainz pass in that way he denied a possibility for Sainz to overtake Max on the restart of the race.

I don't think anybody can win the title with a decent car. You can win one or two races but you can't dominate the championship. So I don't agree that, it's not about Hamilton, rather about car and driver both. Hamilton is a great driver, if not the greatest but I think this year Mercedes is way behind than both Ferrari and Honda cars.
Today's race was fun and it's good to see Mick Schumacher in the event after yesterdays awful crash. It could've been Leclerc's win but Ferrari still got two spots of the podium and first in the team standings. The competition is long and we've just started. Sometimes Leclerc will win, sometimes Verstappen, but I'm sure we will watch a great season this year.

I've been keeping an eye on the odds of today's race, I even saw Verstappen at 4.00 In play to win the race. Le Clerc was then around 1.25. So the bookmakers were pretty sure he was going to win. Would Verstappen be underestimated? We are talking about the world champion and the most talented rider in the world. And then there were still a lot of laps to race. It was spectacular to see that ending. I also notice that Le Clerc and Verstappen are much more in awe of each other than Hamilton and Verstappen last season.

It was really a great race today. Especially in the last ten laps, there was a huge rivalry between Leclerc and Verstappen for winning the race. And after a very heated competition, Verstappen managed to win the race by a very small gap like half a second or so. I just love to watch this kind of a competition between these two youngsters. They respect each other a lot as Leclerc congratulated him right after crossing the finish line. And this respect makes us watch a fair competition between them.

Lewis Hamilton definitely didn't run a decent car for sure, I agree with the people who do not like Lewis and say that his car was the only reason why he got 7 titles, without that much of a clear difference in their cars, Lewis wouldn't get 7 titles for sure, he is good enough to take advantage of that situation but not great enough to win it with a supbar car.

However, that is a double edged sword, we are talking about a car that had a problem yesterday for sure, he is not bad enough that Russell end up being high in the Q3 whereas Lewis would be eliminated in Q1, that is not really the situation we should be seeing him at all, makes no sense.

It was great race and these fights between Verstappen and Leclerc second race in a row is already getting epic. Yeah, virtual safety car had mixed things a bit, otherwise Max may don't have chance to win. On the other hand, for Perez it had negative impact. He was very unlucky to make pit stop one lap before accident. It also didn't helped for Hamilton who lost great moment to make his pit stop because pit lane was closed.
Quite a lot of cars retired because of engine related issues. Seems that teams still have issues with reliability of cars.

Great race and great driving from all the drivers but not for Ocon as he managed to launch into Stroll and literally crashed my ticket with him as well  as I have Stroll to be winner of group 4 and I was so freaking close.

Now , nostalgia for 2 weeks pause without F1 and in 3rd race we should see who really has the best car for 1st half of the season.

Max won but I think they "robbed" the race with the safety car, they were 1.6 behind and after the virtual safety car they were on DRS range.

Fun race but feels like a robbery, they also did same shit with Perez vs Sainz before the 1st safety car

Yup it's def a red flag for Red Bull especially if you're thinking of backing either Verstappen or Perez.  I think Leclerc wins this tbh.  And if really one of the Red Bulls win, I think it's more likely Verstappen than Perez imho, even if Perez has pole.  Verstappen just has better race craft and better pace.  The first 5 laps should be interesting.

Do the teams declare which tire they start with or is it a surprise?  Verstappen could start with the mediums, pit later than Leclerc and go for the undercut after Leclerc makes the pit.

At the moment, Hamilton's task is to try to keep up with the leaders to a critical distance (by the way, high competition in the top is beneficial for him here) and wait for an upgrade from Mercedes. If the upgrade gets Mercedes back in business and can compete for top spots, then this season could be "fixed", but if there is no significant improvement, then of course the season will be completely lost. 4-5 places is not something interesting for Mercedes.

I agree that Ferrari is the best overall car for most of the tracks but not at this one which is heavily relied on the top speed of the car and acceleration,it looked in the first race that Redbull has some slight advantage in the top speed and this track is all about that,that is why Perez yesterday become the first Mexican ever to sit on Pole Position,it was history written for him during yesterday and in the after qualifying interview he said that this is the most difficult track to drive,it means since we got Pole here we can get it anywhere else.Of course this was because of the enthusiasm of the moment as in most tracks I am sure Ferrari will hit poles.

I also do not write off Mercedes,they told Hamilton we have a lot of pace to find out up until Silverstone or something those lines.

Ferrari and RedBull are currently on their own level as only Mercedes was in the last few years, but I wouldn't write off Mercedes yet, maybe they don't understand one or the other thing about the car yet, I think they can at least catch up with RedBull, Ferrari still seems to be a little stronger. Once wait and see whether the RedBull this time through stop, they have apparently found the error.

Even though he has never won in MotoGP, Aleix Espargaro still has a record to be proud of in his career. That pride is often finishing better than his teammates in the World Championships. In fact, the racer who had a tandem with the MotoP pilot from Granollers is not a sloppy figure.

These heroes include Scott Redding, Andrea Iannone, Bradley Smith and Maverick Vinales.
Aleix Espargaro then emphasized that he was difficult to beat with the same bike.

"Every year it is said: 'He who comes now will be before him'."

"Then: 'The one that comes next year will definitely land in front of him'."

"They are all fast racers."

"If you look, Bradley Smith is sixth in the World Championship with Yamaha. It's not easy."

"Scott Redding is a world champion."

"Andrea Iannone won the Ducati with me."

"Now Maverick, who has won many races with Yamaha, comes."

"I'm trying my best. I'm comfortable with Aprilia."

"I think it's not easy to beat me with the same bike," concluded the 32-year-old racer.

^{Source:📰 Bolasport.com / gpnews.ig}

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I was even a little surprised when I saw a rider like Aleix Espargaro, who is not young anymore, has never had a single victory in the MotoGP class, so that he has never been signed by a big and strong team in MotoGP.