Formula 1 talk.

[Yorkshire_OH]

My only comment is that Charles managed his medium tyres super well. Hats off to the guy.

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[sk47]

Another blow for Lewis Hamilton as he’s forced to shut up shop

Hello; Since this thread has been unusually dead after the most recent race, I thought the above might not distract. First thing is the click-bait title did catch me. I did not know the story was about plant burgers. I did not know LH and the actor had opened a chain of plant burger joints.

I did try a plant burger years ago and found it barely worth eating. The thing seemed to rely on lots of spices and about halfway thru the subterfuge fell away. I did not finish it. Have not tried any such since.
I did pick up a pack of what turned out to be plant based hot dogs at the supermarket one day. Not to worry though as I did wash my hands thoroughly. I get the notion of plant-based meat substitutes, I just do not find them tasty. I eat lots of plant foods and often do not have meat. They only need to tase good, not try to taste like meat.

There is a 20 plus acre cow pasture next to my place. A small herd of beef cattle are kept on it. Grass fed except for part of the winter when they have to bring in the big round hay bales. In my science classes i would show the numbers for such a pasture. That growing plant food crops could potentially feed ten times as many people as the beef.

Back to LH and his decline as a driver. I do not know if he had lost concentration on the driving due to side hustles. But something is not going well. Not likely to be the Ferrari as the other car is right up near the front.
I read often enough that RB has been building their car around Max and such makes it hard for other drivers to dive a RB well. Could it also have been that MB had been catering it's car around Lewis the last few years. That now Ferrari is not able to or is not willing to alter the car to suit Lewis.
Whatever the case may be, I do see how it makes sense for a driver to not take time off. Actually, I mistakenly have figured that for a $20 - $30 + million payday, that every waking moment was about the car and doing better. Guess the bigger surprise, for me, was there were vacation days in the schedule to begin with.

 

[Yorkshire_OH]

LH is just getting old, look back to when Schuey came back to Merc he still had a passion for racing but he admitted that he'd lost the sharpness he needed for F1 after ploughing into the back of someone in a braking zone, maybe LH in a car that wasn't fighting at the front for a few years has also lost his edge. Age is a race noone will win in the end. I'd love to see what Alonso could do in a McLaren (now, not the piece of sh*t he had to endure his second time there) or a Ferrari/RB/Merc now. He's nearly always dragged a result out of whatever car he's been in. I'd love to see a non championship race where they are all given the exact same car just to make people put up or shut up. Like when Mercedes gave all the F1 drivers 190e cars and they went racing. See who has the skills, I bet it would be extremely close.

 

[HoosierDaddy]

I did try a plant burger years ago and found it barely worth eating. The thing seemed to rely on lots of spices and about halfway thru the subterfuge fell away. I did not finish it. Have not tried any such since.

Tip: if you do order one when in a hurry, ask for well done. Rare takes longer as they have to inject red/pink dye into them. True story.

 

[HoosierDaddy]

LH is just getting old, look back to when Schuey came back to Merc he still had a passion for racing but he admitted that he'd lost the sharpness he needed for F1 after ploughing into the back of someone in a braking zone

But Lewis been doing that since his 2nd year:



There's a better clip with Kimi snd Lewis walking away with Kimi pointing to the red light and explaining what it means. LoL

 

[S550HPP]

Another blow for Lewis Hamilton as he’s forced to shut up shop

Hello; Since this thread has been unusually dead after the most recent race, I thought the above might not distract. First thing is the click-bait title did catch me. I did not know the story was about plant burgers. I did not know LH and the actor had opened a chain of plant burger joints.

I did try a plant burger years ago and found it barely worth eating. The thing seemed to rely on lots of spices and about halfway thru the subterfuge fell away. I did not finish it. Have not tried any such since.
I did pick up a pack of what turned out to be plant based hot dogs at the supermarket one day. Not to worry though as I did wash my hands thoroughly. I get the notion of plant-based meat substitutes, I just do not find them tasty. I eat lots of plant foods and often do not have meat. They only need to tase good, not try to taste like meat.

There is a 20 plus acre cow pasture next to my place. A small herd of beef cattle are kept on it. Grass fed except for part of the winter when they have to bring in the big round hay bales. In my science classes i would show the numbers for such a pasture. That growing plant food crops could potentially feed ten times as many people as the beef.

Back to LH and his decline as a driver. I do not know if he had lost concentration on the driving due to side hustles. But something is not going well. Not likely to be the Ferrari as the other car is right up near the front.
I read often enough that RB has been building their car around Max and such makes it hard for other drivers to dive a RB well. Could it also have been that MB had been catering it's car around Lewis the last few years. That now Ferrari is not able to or is not willing to alter the car to suit Lewis.
Whatever the case may be, I do see how it makes sense for a driver to not take time off. Actually, I mistakenly have figured that for a $20 - $30 + million payday, that every waking moment was about the car and doing better. Guess the bigger surprise, for me, was there were vacation days in the schedule to begin with.

LH is a proven professional in a new car and to achieve the literal 100th sec gains it intuitive in a perfect car with the confidence to push it that far...it's mostly physiological.....will take a while before he's 110%.

No one wants to crash or the risk of healing time during which time you are replaced, especially at his age, which is a plus for developing and honing the car. No one expected him to win out of the the box.

 

[sk47]

LH is a proven professional in a new car and to achieve the literal 100th sec gains it intuitive in a perfect car with the confidence to push it that far...it's mostly physiological.....will take a while before he's 110%.

No one wants to crash or the risk of healing time during which time you are replaced, especially at his age, which is a plus for developing and honing the car. No one expected him to win out of the the box.

Hello; While my post was about the potential effect of the distraction of a side hustle, I do get your point about needing time to get comfortable with a different car. Not so sure no one expected him to win out of the box. I got the impression some did expect him to be on top of the Ferrari right away since he is, in their opinion, the ultimate driver.

Not clear to me how much of a learning curve time F1 teams are willing to give new drivers. We have seen some impatience in the RB and Racing Bull teams already. I also do not have any way to know how much different a Ferrari is from a MB. Even within the same team during a season the cars are changed from race to race meaning the drivers are often having to adjust to changes in the cars.
I tend to think one reason teams hire experienced drivers is the team expects them to get on with it right away. Otherwise might as well hire the younger rookie drivers for less money and let them take a season to figure things out.

But Lewis has a couple of weeks to get it right before the next race if he can. Maybe no side hustles for a while can help?

 

[S550HPP]

He's worth everything even as a development driver and to finish in top somewhere....F1 is just a branding exercise for Ferrari so they can sell their cars that cost 60K ( most of tub and engines / trans) to build for 400K.....the power of Icon branding.

Competition is so close it just comes down to Aero and rules interpretation...

 

[sk47]

F1 is just a branding exercise for Ferrari so they can sell their cars that cost 60K ( most of tub and engines / trans) to build for 400K.....the power of Icon branding.

Hello; You lost me here. I do not get it. Would not be surprised to learn LH is drawing 30+ millions a season and then add the cost of the rest of a team.
An old saying from NASCAR was win on Sunday and sell on Monday. That was back when the race cars were similar to the cars we could buy. Now they run Toyotas. Try to go buy a Toyota car with a V8.
But I have had the silly notion Ferrari wants to win races and thought hiring LH would help that pursuit. A branding exercise huh?

 

[S550HPP]

Sure they want to win races props up the Ferrari brand even more than LH cobranding. With $135M 2025 cap 30M for LH is huge if it comes out of that cap budget but LH will leverage the Ferrari drive to annual income $100M +/- in side deals so he's super motivated.

Even a 10th sec per lap advantage consistently is difficult let Lone a few hundredths.

It blow me away how competitive these cars are as well as WRC who over three days will finish within seconds of each other.

Hyper competitive is an understatement.

 

[S550HPP]

Sure they want to win races props up the Ferrari brand even more than LH cobranding. With $135M 2025 cap 30M for LH is huge if it comes out of that cap budget but LH will leverage the Ferrari drive to annual income $100M +/- in side deals so he's super motivated.

Even a 10th sec per lap advantage consistently is difficult let Lone a few hundredths.

It blow me away how competitive these cars are as well as WRC who over three days will finish within seconds of each other.

Hyper competitive is an understatement.

 

[Inthehighdesert]

Driver salaries aren’t part of the cost cap. It’s debateable if Hamilton’s move to Ferarri was motivated by actually going to Ferarri or if it was the potential financial benefits. At the level of F1 and his experience he should be up to speed if he’s going to get there in the car by now. We’ll see if there’s any change in the next few weeks, but I’d be surprised if there was. Not hating on him. It can be argued the last several years have been motivated by the financial side for him. It’s hard to get around the numbers he was demanding and the rest from Merc when the performance simply wasn’t there to remotely justify it. As for the WEC, the regs are designed to create parity and when that doesn‘t get it done the BOP kicks in. Even with all that it’s pretty amazing how it works out. The endurance racing is fun to watch, even better in person.

Sure they want to win races props up the Ferrari brand even more than LH cobranding. With $135M 2025 cap 30M for LH is huge if it comes out of that cap budget but LH will leverage the Ferrari drive to annual income $100M +/- in side deals so he's super motivated.

Even a 10th sec per lap advantage consistently is difficult let Lone a few hundredths.

It blow me away how competitive these cars are as well as WRC who over three days will finish within seconds of each other.

Hyper competitive is an understatement.

 

[Skye]

https://www.bbc.com/sport/formula1/articles/cgqvk9vyly1o

Some details of the on-going discussions involving the new powertrain for 2026.

 

[S550HPP]

Driver salaries aren’t part of the cost cap. It’s debateable if Hamilton’s move to Ferarri was motivated by actually going to Ferarri or if it was the potential financial benefits. At the level of F1 and his experience he should be up to speed if he’s going to get there in the car by now. We’ll see if there’s any change in the next few weeks, but I’d be surprised if there was. Not hating on him. It can be argued the last several years have been motivated by the financial side for him. It’s hard to get around the numbers he was demanding and the rest from Merc when the performance simply wasn’t there to remotely justify it. As for the WEC, the regs are designed to create parity and when that doesn‘t get it done the BOP kicks in. Even with all that it’s pretty amazing how it works out. The endurance racing is fun to watch, even better in person.

IMO with LH at MB since he was a child it's natural to desire change and what better place to to than prestige of a Ferrari which only has upside for both in every aspect.

Aero within the ruleset and interpretation is tricky plus execution validation by FIA even more fiendishly difficult.....this is really the only differentiating factors between teams. Good thing can rent $10BN super computers with AI advancing rapidly in the engineering space.

 

[sk47]

IMO with LH at MB since he was a child it's natural to desire change and what better place to to than prestige of a Ferrari which only has upside for both in every aspect.

Aero within the ruleset and interpretation is tricky plus execution validation by FIA even more fiendishly difficult.....this is really the only differentiating factors between teams. Good thing can rent $10BN super computers with AI advancing rapidly in the engineering space.

Hello; Afraid you lost me again with both statements. Lewis bailed on the team which helped give him great successes. The MB was cream of the crop for a time and with a superior car Lewis won races. Then the RB and now the McLarens became just as good, and LH could no longer dominate. I say just as good based on the performance of Max compared to his various teammates. Max could win in the RB while his mates struggle so often. Now the McLarens are able to run up front.

Add to the above that now Lewis in a Ferrari is most often overshadowed by his Ferrari mate. LH did win a sprint this year, but I suspect it could have been because of the same setup trick which got him a DQ in the big race. Just did not run enough laps in the sprint to wear down the plank.

My take is every driver has to come to grips with the cars every year and every few races. Teams change things every few races. I could buy the "it is not really Lewis's fault" if he was at least beating his teammate in the same car.

In terms of money LH may come out good with the move to Ferrari, but I do not see an upside, so far, for Ferrari. Especially if they paid him more than MB was willing to. ( I do not know if such actually happened)

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