F1 2021 Season

[United Hobbit]

I've long wanted to see Verstappen in the Mercedes with Hamilton but this may be an even better solution, as no "in the teams best interests" scenarios.

Hopefully we get a proper title fight, it'll be interesting to see how Max handles it, as he's never been in a title fight before so never had the pressure it brings on him.

Please don't have reliability or upgrades deny us a season long title battle it'll be so exciting especially between 2 drivers of Lewis and Max's ability

 

[Tiber]

he'll probably crash into Hamilton, as dave matthews would say

This year will be weird for Lewis, he wont able to crash into Albon

 

[Balljy]

Has been for a while imo, but hard to take on that monster of a Merc

If the Red Bull is as is quick as it looks I guess we'll find out this year if both Hamilton and Max push each other.

 

[Buster15]

Man Verstappen is 100% the most talented driver on the grid

Nothing to do with the car then?
It is a long season, so let's judge at the end.

 

[F-Red]

Interesting to see the floor reg changes has impacted Merc the most, probably the cause of their balance issues all weekend.

Should be a good and close race tomorrow, and I think that Perez qualifying low may play a little into Merc's hands.

 

[FreakyJim]

Leclerc with a decent lap too, Ferrari looking not horrendous

 

[Leg-End]

You can’t sleep on Leclerc, he’s bloody rapid, 4th where they looked nowhere near.

 

[Krits]

This season has the potential to be epic. Not only the RB vs Merc. But the midfield isn’t that far behind. Ferrari potentially have the strongest driver line up right now. If they can catch up a bit in performance to the teams ahead. This will be such a fun season. Can’t wait.

 

[Tiber]

Shame its Max v two Mercs as usual. Hopefully Perez is able to catch up quickly, the Red Bull is rapid and he is a great race day driver

 

[JTW95]

Nothing to do with the car then?
It is a long season, so let's judge at the end.

Nope he looked the most talented last season as well. The only driver that was threatening them beasts of a Mercedes.

Perez is a great driver in the same car and look where he currently is.

 

[dinostar77]

Man Verstappen is 100% the most talented driver on the grid

A comment i expect from my 7 year old.

 

[Leg-End]

Nope he looked the most talented last season as well. The only driver that was threatening them beasts of a Mercedes.

Perez is a great driver in the same car and look where he currently is.

He was 3 tenths away on a risky Medium strategy, in a new car against a top class talent.

Perez would have been up there, the team just got caught out. Besides Perez has never been unbelievably quick in quali, he’s a race specialist

 

[dinostar77]

The engine stay though, thats what matter for RB.

RB are taking over the Honda UK facilities and there are talks with honda for them to still provide technical assistance to RB. So honda won't be truely gone. Theres an engine development freeze for next few years as well which will help RB.

 

[pauldyson1uk]

Man Verstappen is 100% the most talented driver on the grid

So the 7 time world champion is suddenly shit !!
Yes he is talented but the best, nah dont agree.
Lewis and Max both have faults, lets get more than the first qualifying out of the way before making such a sweeping comment

 

[Uniquim]

That purple lap was amazing.

My Car ranking at the moment would look a bit like this:
Red Bull > Mercedes >> Ferrari > AlphaTauri = McLaren >>> Alpine > Aston Martin >> Alfa Romeo >> Williams >> Haaas

 

[Tiber]

So the 7 time world champion is suddenly shit !!
Yes he is talented but the best, nah dont agree.
Lewis and Max both have faults, lets get more than the first qualifying out of the way before making such a sweeping comment

Going against a 7 time world champion Max will always have a lot to prove, that can't be argued.

Nor should it be overlooked that said champion has had the best car on the grid, or at worst an very competitive one, for close to every year of his career - including his rookie season. Max hasn't had that help.

 

[Balljy]

Nope he looked the most talented last season as well. The only driver that was threatening them beasts of a Mercedes.

Perez is a great driver in the same car and look where he currently is.

Perez had one lap time deleted and got knocked out when Red Bull stuck him out on mediums to set his one lap time. He wasn't far behind on the same tyres as you would expect as PErez is also a class driver.

I'm really looking forward to this season if the two cars are a similar pace as it will be two extremely talented drivers going at it and fortunately it's happened before Lewis has lost too much pace. I'm just glad we could have a competitive season coming up and hope it stays that way.

 

[Krits]

That purple lap was amazing.

My Car ranking at the moment would look a bit like this:
Red Bull > Mercedes >> Ferrari > AlphaTauri = McLaren >>> Alpine > Aston Martin >> Alfa Romeo >> Williams >> Haaas

I think the alpha tauri looks tasty. It seems really sharp. I think Ferrari might be behind them and the Mclaren. Leclerc just did his usual stonker of a quali run

 

[dinostar77]

I think the alpha tauri looks tasty. It seems really sharp. I think Ferrari might be behind them and the Mclaren. Leclerc just did his usual stonker of a quali run

Agree i would say Alpha Tauri is just ahead. Regardless this could be a classic season and we havent had one of them for a few years.

 

[Eendracht maakt macht]

Verstappen is unreal as is Hamilton and finally Verstappen has a great car. Bring it on!

 

[pauldyson1uk]

Verstappen is unreal as is Hamilton and finally Verstappen has a great car. Bring it on!

sums it up perfectly.

 

[Zlaatan]

It's such a welcome change to watch F1 and not know that there's a 95% chance that a Merc will be on pole/win.. Great stuff from Max and the midfield battle looks to be just as good as we all hoped as well.

Going to spend the rest of the day binging season 3 of DTS. So happy that F1 is back!

 

[stu_1992]

Was great to see Max on pole today, and I hope it'd a sign of more to come. I'd love to see an actual battle between drivers this year for the Championship.

 

[Henrik Larsson]

Last year literally the first race was in Austria and Verstappen had to drop out to some issue, you immediately knew there was about 98% chance Lewis was going to win it for another season with no real competition going on for a whole year. Weirdly enough some people seemed very content with that.

There were still some nice moments of individual skill by various drivers but it wasn't much more than that. Let's hope this season will be a little bit more exciting in terms of actual competition, and may the best driver win.

 

[dbs235]

I've long wanted to see Verstappen in the Mercedes with Hamilton but this may be an even better solution, as no "in the teams best interests" scenarios.

Would be good in terms of that particular battle, but Mercedes would literally get 1-2 every single race Or fail spectacularly as Verstappen crashes into Hamilton every single race.

 

[sglowrider]

Mazepin in being a dickhead isn't really a shock to anyone is it?

Mazespin you mean? He reminds me of a young ivan Drago on wheels.

 

[Tiber]

We all know he is a dickhead. But I thought he would be on his best behaviour for a few weeks.

Tweet

— Twitter API (@user) date

Then again, as we have already seen in F1, if your daddy funds the team nothing else matters

 

[pauldyson1uk]

on BBC4 at 21:00 Hunt v Lauda followed by Rush , excellent film.

 

[ChaddyP]

1	Max VerstappenVER		Red Bull	fastest lap 1:30.499	1:30.318	fastest lap 1:28.997
2	Lewis HamiltonHAM		Mercedes	1:30.617	1:30.085	1:29.385
3	Valtteri BottasBOT		Mercedes	1:31.200	1:30.186	1:29.586
4	Charles LeclercLEC		Ferrari	1:30.691	1:30.010	1:29.678
5	Pierre GaslyGAS		AlphaTauri	1:30.848	1:30.513	1:29.809
6	Daniel RicciardoRIC		McLaren	1:30.795	1:30.222	1:29.927
7	Lando NorrisNOR		McLaren	1:30.902	1:30.099	1:29.974
8	Carlos Sainz JnrSAI		Ferrari	1:31.653	fastest lap 1:30.009	1:30.215
9	Fernando AlonsoALO		Alpine	1:30.863	1:30.595	1:30.249
10	Lance StrollSTR		Aston Martin	1:31.261	1:30.624	1:30.601
11	Sergio PerezPER		Red Bull	1:31.165	1:30.659	not available-
12	Antonio GiovinazziGIO		Alfa Romeo	1:30.998	1:30.708	not available-
13	Yuki TsunodaTSU		AlphaTauri	1:30.607	1:31.203	not available-
14	Kimi RaikkonenRAI		Alfa Romeo	1:31.547	1:31.238	not available-
15	George RussellRUS		Williams	1:31.316	1:33.430	not available-
16	Esteban OconOCO		Alpine	1:31.724	not available-	not available-
17	Nicholas LatifiLAT		Williams	1:31.936	not available-	not available-
18	Sebastian VettelVET		Aston Martin	1:32.056	not available-	not available-
19	Mick SchumacherMSC		Haas	1:32.449	not available-	not available-
20	Nikita MazepinMAZ		Haas	1:33.2731:33.273	not available-	not available-

Le Clerc is closer to Hamilton than Hamilton is to Max. What a season this could be

 

[Uniquim]

Not sure if anyone watches F2, but there was a brilliant sprint race (the second one) on today. Piastri won the F3 Championship last year, and took his first race win in F2 today. Looks like a brilliant driver, and I'm sure we'll see him in F1 soon if he keeps going like this.

Here's the last lap of the race. 3 drivers going head-to-head with multiple overtakes. Beautiful!

 

[dinostar77]

Totto Wolff said Mercs having derating issues at end of straights and in high speed corners. That contributed to their slower times. But not the silver bullet. There are other areas on the car that still need addressing.

 

[Tiber]

Merc sooner or later will figure it out and add some pace. The question is can Red Bull find even more?

 

[Tiber]

I really enjoy Ted's notebook.


Say what you want about Sky, they produce a fantastic show

 

[spontaneus1]

Seb screwed over by 2 yellows according to Otmar, maybe but he did not look to fast.

He was green/purple in all but 1 of the mini sectors not affected by yellow flags in that lap. If Stroll can put the car in 10th Seb certainly can.

Mega drive tomorrow to point himself in the points please.

 

[Jippy]

So this is only on Sky's new F1 channel which charges on top of the normal Sky package?

 

[arthurka]

Totto Wolff said Mercs having derating issues at end of straights and in high speed corners. That contributed to their slower times. But not the silver bullet. There are other areas on the car that still need addressing.

They looked like they had a loose end and a bit of oversteering issues. They don't look like they are on rails like they have been for couple of seasons now. Looking like this will be a great season. Merc the car to beat and Max the driver who could do, he even has the car for it it seems. Ferrari always have better race pace than quali speed. Ferrari needs to keep their eyes on the ball as Red Bull's B team looks mighty quick too. Could be a great one this.

 

[United Hobbit]

Just hope there isn't reliability issues for Max/ Torro Rosso/ Leclerc that ruin potentially a close battle.

It's just got boring as the past few seasons you know if Mercedes get pole, unless there's carnage in the race eg red flags/ dodgy decisions, you know they are going to win with the odd chance of Max breaking the monotony

The rare times Lewis has ended up at the back, he's been great to watch over taking. It would be great for him to be involved in a close battle with Max throughout the season with them challenging each other, rather than Lewis disappearing off into the distance, unchallenged. I'd like to see him racing.

Max has always given the vibe of a future world champion, he just needs the car so hopefully Red Bull can provide that for him. In Drive to Survive you can definitely see how he's the golden boy, but they must be terrified of losing him, especially if they can't provide him with a title challenging car. Hoping we keep the championship fight going all through the season, it'll be interesting to see how Max handles the pressure, he's never been in one before and he's a bit of a hot head at times still.

 

[pauldyson1uk]

So this is only on Sky's new F1 channel which charges on top of the normal Sky package?

I have the normal sky sports channels and get F1 for no extra charge.
Sky F1 has been around for a few years now.

 

[Buster15]

Nope he looked the most talented last season as well. The only driver that was threatening them beasts of a Mercedes.

Perez is a great driver in the same car and look where he currently is.

Ok. If he really is as you say, you can look forward to him beating Lewis Hamilton achievements.
Because in terms of pure racing talent, Hamilton is the best I have ever seen. And I have been watching F1 for over 50 years.

 

[Eendracht maakt macht]

Ok. If he really is as you say, you can look forward to him beating Lewis Hamilton achievements.
Because in terms of pure racing talent, Hamilton is the best I have ever seen. And I have been watching F1 for over 50 years.

That’s not how it works in formula 1. If you don’t have the car you can’t compete. I’m not saying Verstappen is more talented then Hamilton. They both are insane talents but you can’t say he must match his achievements to be called more talented.