Topic: Motosport General discussion tread --- Formula1, MotoGP, WTCC, ETCC, DTM..... - page 36. (Read 141426 times)

Ferrari started to be a big disappointment again...    They had better invest their everything into next season. Because Hamilton is joining. Imagine having drivers like Leclerc - Hamilton in your team.    Ferrari had better give these two a powerful car to be competitive for titles finally.

When it comes to the quarrel between Leclerc and Sainz, things are getting more heated. Sainz talked about how much Leclerc was complaining after the Spanish Grand Prix. The rivalry on track is also fired up already.


Alpine, hmm... Yeah, Sainz has a history with Renault. However Alpine is quite inconsistent. A terrible start to the season and now they have just started to heal. I don't know how much they can offer to Sainz. 

Yes, rumors say that Alpine is also interested in recruiting Sainz into their team, and this makes Alpine the third team, after Williams and Audi, to be interested in the Spaniard. Alpine and Sainz are not two strangers, because Sainz has raced with the Renault team from 2017 and 2018, so it is not difficult for him to join and get used to Alpine. And I wouldn't be surprised if Sainz chooses Alpine as his choice for the 2025 season.

The Spanish GP was an enjoyable race, won by Max Verstappen. Verstappen was on his game again and drove faultlessly. Redbull are no longer the clear frontrunners and McLaren have almost caught them. Mercedes and Ferrari are not far behind. The drivers and their strategies determined the outcome of the race. Norris gave the race to Verstappen because he followed a different strategy. Norris lost a race he could have won again after Imola and the Canadian GP. Mercedes seems to have replaced Ferrari and at this rate Ferrari will remember the Monaco GP as their last win.

I saw on Twitter that Sainz posted a story in Instagram I think, or a simila social media.
He wrote " we will see again in 2025 Barcelona" Or something like that.

This means he already have a deal for the next year with someone.

Small rumors about about Alpine interest in him, but he is cooking something.

from the news i heard that the ceo of aprilia has been waiting for 4 years to bring bezzecchi to their team, and now it has become a reality. and this time aprilia is again a place for italian riders which is the right combination for the development of this team next season. bezzecchi will also benefit from the resources owned by aprilia which can be the best place for bezzecchi to improve his performance and give his best in the 2025 season.

for the vacant place at vr46 racing, it seems that there are several potential names that will fill the vacancy, and it seems that they will look for a talented rider in moto2 to fill the place.

Yeah...  McLaren is looking like they have the best car as the season rolls along.  But they need a good driver to handle it.  I think Sainz could be a good second driver for them.  Dunno about you guys tho.

2024 F1 Spanish GP Race Highlights
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojUQLuSqV4s

Anyway, on to the next.  Another race I like...  Austria!  Would love to see Red Bull pushed to the limit here as this is their home race.

2024 F1 Austrian GP Schedule
Track:  Red Bull Ring



June 28:  Practice 1  12:30 - 13:30
June 28:  Sprint Qualifying  16:30 - 17:30
June 29:  Sprint  12:00 - 13:00
June 29:  Qualifying  16:00 - 17:00
June 30:  Race  15:00

The race was quite fun honestly. If only we had more laps... We could have seen similar moments to the Imola GP.    Norris was faster than Verstappen and he finished by holding the fastest lap as well.

I know it looks really difficult for Norris to catch Verstappen in the drivers championship. But I hope Verstappen doesn't announce his title early like the previous season. It is really boring then you know.    This season is way more fun for sure while leaving the races in the first half behind.

By the way have you seen the improvement in Mercedes recently? They were really solid in Spain GP. It looks like recent upgrades are showing their effect highly.

Finally, the announcement about Marco Bezzecchi joining the Aprilia factory next season was officially announced today and I think this will be very good for Marco Bezzecchi's rider. Because he is a rider from Italy who might be quite suitable for the character of the Aprilia motorbike, the manufacturer of which also comes from Italy, so the empty seat on the VR46 Racing team is still a question mark as to who will fill it next season because there are still many other possibilities if the party Prima Pramac Racing has actually moved to Yamaha for the next season.

Disappointed on not seeing any drop of rain today.
Lando lost the race in the 1st turn today, not because he lost the position to Max but her went behind Russell and he lost so much time behind him.

Ferrari can leave this car and already thinking about next year.

And soon the war between Lecler and Sainz will start...

The Spanish GP has just ended with Max getting P1, followed by Lando and then Hamilton, it was quite an exciting race, where there were several overtakes and tire changes which made the race more unpredictable, but I have to admit that RB's strategy was the best and how Max was able to get out of the pit lanes quickly to take his position back. And it is quite unfortunate that Sainz was not able to get a podium in his home race, even though many people hoped that the upgrades made by Ferrari could provide a good performance for Sainz, but it is quite unfortunate that he could only get P6 and Leclerc only got P5. What stood out the most was the Mercedes duo who showed good performance by finishing in P3 and P4, it seems that Mercedes have re-entered the game after their poor results.

It was a really good race, more enjoyable than my expectations.    Normally seeing so many overtakes isn't very common on this track but today we saw plenty of that. Especially on start straight I mean as it is long enough to attack with the help of DRS. Verstappen won once again but he didn't feel very comfortable during the race.

Norris had an amazing day! He gave his 100% and he could have even won the race if he had a few more laps. Because he managed to drop a gap of 8 seconds to 2.2 in the last moments.

Here is top 10 and the full results are here: https://www.motorsport.com/f1/results/2024/spanish-gp-639957/



As of these results top 3 in driver standings are below. There is a really fierce fight between Norris and Leclerc. 

The weather radar says that no rain is expected during this race yet if it comes it can only make it much more complex and more beautiful for us fans to watch it.I am heavily in favor of Norris as a McLaren fan yet I know Max is the most capable driver right now in the line up and I know I am right because you see Perez with the same car going from shit to deeper shit races while Max has managed to win when he clearly has not the fastest car anymore of the grid,McLaren for me now is the fastest car so far,the only problem is they brought 0 upgrades to this track while all other teams brought upgrades,they need to continue bringing upgrades or they can lose this status they have now.

Rain near Barcelona and cloudy wheater.

It should be an interesting afternoon for Motor Sport.
The bad news is that Redbull and Max are extremely competitive under the rain.

But with light raid McLean fly, so if it will be heavy rain Max will be favorite.


TLDR

light rain, Norris win
Heavy rain, Max win

Just my 2 cents.

How exciting... it was by a very small margin that he managed to get this Pole Position in qualifying for the Spanish GP, but even if it was only +0.020s faster, just the fact of starting ahead of Verstappen is already a great achievement.

The fact is that since last year, McLaren has been making great strides in the development of its cars and drivers, and this is now showing in 2024... there have already been podiums and even a victory for Lando Norris in the Miami GP, and in my opinion the chances for good results will only increase and that is natural... at some point someone will "take Verstappen's place" and maybe even RBR again.

Ferrari and Mercedes also ran very well in Barcelona until qualifying... despite having difficulties during the season, they were consistent during training, so much so that the German team overtook the Italian team and will have Lewis Hamilton and George Russell ahead of Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz.... not bad!

https://www.crash.net/f1/results/1051003/1/2024-f1-spanish-grand-prix-qualifying-results

2024 F1 Spanish Grand Prix - Qualifying Results
Pos   Driver   Nat.   Team   Q1   Q2   Q3
1   Lando Norris   GBR   McLaren F1 Team   1m12.386s   1m11.872s   1m11.383s
2   Max Verstappen   NED   Oracle Red Bull Racing   1m12.306s   1m11.653s   1m11.403s
3   Lewis Hamilton   GBR   Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team   1m12.143s   1m11.792s   1m11.701s
4   George Russell   GBR   Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team   1m12.456s   1m11.812s   1m11.703s
5   Charles Leclerc   MON   Scuderia Ferrari   1m12.257s   1m12.038s   1m11.731s
6   Carlos Sainz   ESP   Scuderia Ferrari   1m12.403s   1m11.874s   1m11.736s
7   Pierre Gasly   FRA   BWT Alpine F1 Team   1m12.651s   1m12.079s   1m11.857s
8   Sergio Perez   MEX   Oracle Red Bull Racing   1m12.477s   1m12.054s   1m12.061s
9   Esteban Ocon   FRA   BWT Alpine F1 Team   1m12.691s   1m12.109s   1m12.125s
10   Oscar Piastri   AUS   McLaren F1 Team   1m12.460s   1m12.011s   No Time

Amazin result for Lando.
Disaster for Perez adding also the 3 position of penalty.
Incredible gain of Mercedes in the latest 3 races.

Yeah it was Norris' 2nd pole position in his career after Sochi.    His career is on the rise this season. McLaren is getting better and we are seeing more competition thanks to that. It wasn't a good session for Piastri though. I hope he doesn't have serious problems with the car. This track is quite challenging but he can still gain more positions with the right strategies.

I thought Sainz or Leclerc would be in top 3 today. But they couldn't even finish ahead of Mercedes drivers. Anyways, I'm especially wondering how the fight between Norris and Verstappen will be for the win. 

Lando finally got his second pole position this season after finishing P1 in the qualifying session, I'm also happy for him because he was finally able to get pole position again. And the same goes for Sir Hamilton, he showed a good performance in the qualifying session by finishing in P3. However, I'm sorry that Sainz couldn't get pole position in his last race with Ferrari at his home circuit, even though in the previous FP3 he managed to get a very good position, but it's a shame he only got P6 in qualifying - but I hope that at least he can still get a podium in the racing session.

There were 4 drivers in 0.1 seconds at top in FP3 really.    Currently the qualifying odds are like Verstappen @2.10 and Norris @2.60.

It looks like we will probably watch an enjoyable Q3. I hope Norris wins which would be a serious advantage in the race. It is so much fun to watch the rivalry of these best friends, Norris - Verstappen. Since McLaren made a big progress we have seen what Norris is capable of.

When it comes to Ferrari, they might carry one driver to podium. Who do you think it would be?    I think Sainz is likely to be more successful now. Leclerc is still complaining about the car.  

Looks like a very tight fight for the poleposition today.

The question is always the same, did Max hide himself or can he push more?

Also we will have not raid today, but almost for sure tomorrow.

Yeah...  But I'm not sure if the rain will help them more or not.  At first glance I think it could hurt them more than not but then again the rain takes away some of the advantages of the guys ahead of them like Red Bull and McLaren.

But look at this.    Ferrari ahead at FP3!  This should be an interesting quali as it looks like Ferrari had some upgrades of their own.  

2024 F1 Spanish GP FP3 Results

1   Carlos Sainz   ESP   Scuderia Ferrari   1m13.013s
2   Lando Norris   GBR   McLaren F1 Team   1m13.043s
3   Charles Leclerc   MON   Scuderia Ferrari   1m13.050s
4   Max Verstappen   NED   Oracle Red Bull Racing   1m13.087s
5   George Russell   GBR   Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team   1m13.164s
6   Lewis Hamilton   GBR   Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team   1m13.359s
7   Sergio Perez   MEX   Oracle Red Bull Racing   1m13.723s
8   Alex Albon   THA   Williams Racing   1m13.753s
9   Fernando Alonso   ESP   Aston Martin Aramco F1 Team   1m13.786s
10   Oscar Piastri   AUS   McLaren F1 Team   1m13.907s
11   Esteban Ocon   FRA   BWT Alpine F1 Team   1m13.950s
12   Pierre Gasly   FRA   BWT Alpine F1 Team   1m13.964s
13   Nico Hulkenberg   GER   MoneyGram Haas F1 Team   1m13.975s
14   Valtteri Bottas   FIN   Stake F1 Team Kick Sauber   1m14.024s
15   Kevin Magnussen   DEN   MoneyGram Haas F1 Team   1m14.074s
16   Daniel Ricciardo   AUS   Visa Cash App RB F1 Team   1m14.161s
17   Lance Stroll   CAN   Aston Martin Aramco F1 Team   1m14.254s
18   Yuki Tsunoda   JPN   Visa Cash App RB F1 Team   1m14.420s
19   Zhou Guanyu   CHN   Stake F1 Team Kick Sauber   1m14.572s
20   Logan Sargeant   USA   Williams Racing   1m14.729s

Ferrari to get quali is at 5.00 and Merc is at 12.00.  Books still thinking it's either Red Bull or McLaren.