Topic: Motosport General discussion tread --- Formula1, MotoGP, WTCC, ETCC, DTM..... - page 9. (Read 144458 times)

The Sprint results have just come out with the two McLarens getting P1 and P2, that makes them get 15 new points and makes their total points 623. While Ferrari only managed to get 9 points in this Sprint and that makes their total points 593. So far that makes their points difference as much as 30 points. The fight for the world constructor title is getting more interesting, if McLaren can outscore Ferrari by 15 points in the next race, then the world champion title will be theirs to take home, but if on the contrary Ferrari wins the race later (although it won't be easy) then the fight will continue to the next race.

big pole position for Mclaren.
Big advantage versus Ferrari.

If nothing changes Mclaren will be the champions after sunday.
They supremacy proven today in this track is an huge advantage.

Colapinto's first debut was quite good, but in the last races he made a nightmare for the Williams team, it was a little bit of proof that he is still too early in F1 and needs to learn a lot. Compared to Colapinto, keeping Lawson is still a good option that RB can do, even though his performance is still quite ordinary, but I think if he is given time then he can improve his performance and he can be a good partner for Yuki.

2024 F1 Qatar Grand Prix - Free Practice Results (1)
Pos   Driver   Nat.   Team   Time
1   Charles Leclerc   MON   Scuderia Ferrari   1m21.953s
2   Lando Norris   GBR   McLaren F1 Team   1m22.378s
3   Oscar Piastri   AUS   McLaren F1 Team   1m22.425s
4   Carlos Sainz   ESP   Scuderia Ferrari   1m22.535s
5   Yuki Tsunoda   JPN   Visa Cash App RB F1 Team   1m23.045s
6   Valtteri Bottas   FIN   Stake F1 Team Kick Sauber   1m23.064s
7   Lance Stroll   CAN   Aston Martin Aramco F1 Team   1m23.099s
8   George Russell   GBR   Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team   1m23.160s
9   Alex Albon   THA   Williams Racing   1m23.161s
10   Lewis Hamilton   GBR   Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team   1m23.188s
11   Max Verstappen   NED   Oracle Red Bull Racing   1m23.213s
12   Fernando Alonso   ESP   Aston Martin Aramco F1 Team   1m23.227s
13   Nico Hulkenberg   GER   MoneyGram Haas F1 Team   1m23.245s
14   Liam Lawson   NZL   Visa Cash App RB F1 Team   1m23.562s
15   Pierre Gasly   FRA   BWT Alpine F1 Team   1m23.620s
16   Kevin Magnussen   DEN   MoneyGram Haas F1 Team   1m23.715s
17   Zhou Guanyu   CHN   Stake F1 Team Kick Sauber   1m23.880s
18   Sergio Perez   MEX   Oracle Red Bull Racing   1m24.039s
19   Franco Colapinto   ARG   Williams Racing   1m24.200s
20   Esteban Ocon   FRA   BWT Alpine F1 Team   1m24.280s

Source: https://www.crash.net/f1/results/1060873/1/2024-f1-qatar-grand-prix-friday-practice-results

Pace of Ferrari looks incredible so far.
The fight for the world championship is not over.

There is no rain expectation for the Qatar GP weekend. This track has been used for Formula 1 only twice so far. The winners were Hamilton (2021) and Verstappen (2023).

Verstappen is already the official champion of this season. I don't know how much he would push from now on. But considering his competitive nature I wouldn't expect him to be complacent. 

Norris couldn't make use of any of his chances to go for the title recently. I wonder how much he will perform in the remaining races to secure a title for his team at least.

^  Sponsor conflict or are they really blue balling us?  They know every F1 fan can't wait to see Hamilton in red.    Love him or hate him and love Ferrari or hate Ferrari, it's gonna be one of the most anticipated event in the sport...  Hamilton unveiling Ferrari's car for 2025.  

Would be neat if he finds instant success with the team.  But yeah...  How is Ferrari's CTO?  Is he any good?

Lewis Halilton looks like will be not in Abu Dabi f1 test with Ferrari.
Carlos Sainz will drive the Williams next month in the test post season.
It is a sponsor problem conflict.

It will almost impossible for Lewis drive the Ferrari next month however it is porbable that Hamilto will have a chance of driving the 2022 Ferrari at Ferrari private track.

Some tracks pay a lot of money to be there, whereas some tracks could be terrible and FIA will chase after them. Monza and Monaco are terrible tracks, for drivers of course, for us to watch it it's also quite boring to watch most of them and makes no sense, there are newer and much better tracks but for "historical reasons" they still keep using these tracks, makes no sense to me.

This sport will only grow if they could forget about the past and keep progressing. Look at Liberty Media, their Netflix show idea made them so much more famous and I believe we should consider something similar to that, it has to be quite powerful to have such good return in the end.

I believe we can't make anything else change but just watch them have a few boring races every season. At the end of the day, if those races gets much less viewership compared to other tracks, then eventually they will also stop being profitable as well, but Monaco have the advantage of rich people flocking in there, so they make their profit there easily.

I didn't mean that they would rotate with each other. I'm about this:
https://www.planetf1.com/features/ranked-european-f1-races-at-most-risk-of-calendar-rotation-policy
Imola probably is safe, while Monza is atvrisk to rotate their spot in calendar with tracks like Spa or Zandvoort.

Agree about Monza. Also would like to see German or Malaysian GP back on calendar, but unfortunately, it's all about the money and they can't offer it for F1.
I also not big fan of tracks in Middle East. While Macau, can't imagine F1 cars racing there . And it's not possible, as it's FIA Grade 2 track, while F1 track should be Grade 1.

Small rumors.
Colapinto is now rumored going to Visa Cash app for next year.
Schumacher will leave Mercedes at the end of the season and Bottas can join them.

The Hamilton day at Ferrari is still unknow, will it be next month?

Monza is one of those iconic tracks in F1 that shouldn't be removed from the F1 schedule imho.  Another track I wanna see come back is the one in the German GP.  They should sought out the guys who they need to talk to and try to get it back.

And the tracks I don't really care much for are those ones in the Middle East.  I think they should get back the Malaysian GP back too...  But that's just me.  A Macau GP would also be nice.  But not sure if they're track is up to par with F1's standards.

No way they put Imola over Monza.
Imola is one of the most boring track ever.
When they need to race there they will change the name of the GP, not Gp of Italy but GP of Europe or San Marino.

The worst part about all of this is that Ferrari is getting a title would be something marvellous for them and their fans, they have a bigger fan base, sure other teams did better for a long time and Ferrari wasn't good during that same period, but remember, this is the team with the biggest fan base for a reason, they are Ferrari.

To explain how great they are, Mercedes beat Ferrari for so many years in a row, Hamilton was the root cause of all Ferraris troubles, their biggest rival and now Hamilton is going to Ferrari, everyone loves them. So if they finally get this title, it is going to be something amazing for all the fans all over to world, everyone would cheer, even other teams would cheer aside from maybe just Mclaren.

The 24-point difference is not impossible for Ferrari to overtake McLaren from the first position. What Ferrari needs to pay attention to is how they can be consistent and maintain their performance, especially in Sprint as much as possible they have to get points here. Moreover, McLaren's performance has been inconsistent in the last few races, and that can be used by Ferrari to develop their car and set a good strategy so they can get a podium in the remaining races. What I'm worried about is Sainz and Leclerc who are not doing well after the Vegas race yesterday, both drivers expressed some dissatisfaction with the race, their team, and their teammates, it could be a bad incident if these two drivers can't work together in the remaining races - but hopefully that won't happen because I hope that Ferrari at least gets the constructor's world championship this year.

That's awesome news, one of best tracks in calendar. And European tracks rarely get such long contract extensions.
BTW, as I understand it's very unlikely that Monza will be included in track rotation. More likely that Imola will have to rotate with other tracks.

I have no trust in Ferrari to get it to be fair, but I can doubt Mclaren all day long. We have seen Mclaren be amazing for a stretch during the season and get a lot of points, but for the past two races we haven't seen them doing that great, they haven't gotten that 1-2, and that is costing them a lot now, maybe other teams upgraded better and Mclaren just felt like they were already great and didn't focus on this season and already started working on next seasons car, which isn't really a bad idea to be fair.

So if somehow Ferrari wins, which I doubt that could happen, we could say that it would be thanks to Mclaren having a bad period could lead to Ferrari getting the title and couldn't see this growing at all.

And now it is official.
The italian gp of F1 will be raced in Monza until at least to 2031.
They just found the deal and F1 will be there for 7 more years.

And thinking that 2 years ago they were close to cancel it for money/not meeting the quality of the standards.

The last sprint race of the season is going to be really crucial this weekend. It is a huge opportunity for Ferrari to play bigger in constructors championship. 

They must target not less than finishing the session in top 2 with both of their cars. Every point counts now. 24 points is a gap which isn't impossible to close up in the remaining 2 races.

As you can see there is a significant performance loss on McLaren side at the same time. I'm really thrilled about the Qatar race already. There are only a few days left.

That's the easy part...  They need to be 'almost perfect'.  But the hard part and something that's totally out their control is they need McLaren to make a grave mistake or have one of the cars crash and doesn't finish the race.

Anyway yeah...  The constructor's championship is the only thing that's making this thing a little bit interesting.  Would be good to see if Ferrari gets the gap closer after the next race, setting it up for the final race of the season. 

While everyone is only talking about the constructors' championship... which for me is already a given, or do you believe in miracles¹?... I've been looking at another very interesting piece of information.

The 2024 season title is already guaranteed and Red Bull is not the only team that can celebrate in Formula 1 because Ferrari, even without winning the F1 constructors' championship since 2008, has the highest value of all the teams on the grid. The Italian team was valued at US$ 4.78 billion according to Spotico, which is an expert in this.
Mercedes, which was champion between 2014 and 2021, is in second place in the ranking, with US$ 3.94 billion. Red Bull, which is valued at US$ 3.5 billion, comes in only third and ends with McLaren in fourth place, with US$ 2.65 billion.

Where does all this money come from? From Liberty Media after entering the category, after acquiring F1 in 2017, it led efforts to expand the sport's fan base, expanded the sport's presence in the United States and closed new sponsorship deals.
By 2026 this should improve even more with the addition of a new team, controlled by General Motors and Cadillac... the first expansion of the category since 2010.

This is F1 increasingly a "rich kids' sport".