Official 2021 French Grand Prix Thread ***SPOILERS***

[Leithen]

SmoothCriminal said:

I'm starting to wonder if haas swapped two clowns for two even bigger ones

Of the four drivers in question, only one appears to be out of his depth. On the face of it Schumacher extracted a remarkably good time out of the Haas before stepping too far over the limit. He's learning, but clearly is quick.

[Sandpit Steve]

JonChalk said:

Magic, made up numbers, presented as fact, down to a decimal point, all to feed Crofty bks.

I fking hate all the AWS st.

They’re trying to sell this data analysis to businesses large and small - but if you continue to put garbage in, you’ll continue to get garbage out.

[skwdenyer]

jsf said:

Slapdown from Lewis to SKY.

Bottas 65.3 with a different chassis still not quick enough.

Yup, a good result from Lewis. Puts the chassis question to bed, I think.

[JonChalk]

skwdenyer said:

jsf said:

Slapdown from Lewis to SKY.

Bottas 65.3 with a different chassis still not quick enough.

Yup, a good result from Lewis. Puts the chassis question to bed, I think.

I suspect it was only ever a question in Bottas's head.

[Sandpit Steve]

Toto saying the chassis swap was a team decision, and that both drivers were offered to swap to the third one overnight but declined.

They insist they’re identical, that Valtteri had setup issues in Baku and Lewis had setup issues in Monaco.

[jimPH]

RB bringing a serious fight on a very much "mercedes" track. Shaping up to be a great season, let's hope this race isn't decided on third party mistakes.

[DanielSan]

jsf said:

Slapdown from Lewis to SKY.

Bottas 65.3 with a different chassis still not quick enough.

I questioned yesterday if Mercedes doing a chassis swap was a lose lose. If Hamilton had a bad day today then it's a real lose, or like has happened, Hamilton has no issue with the chassis and is still quicker than Bottas and Bottas now has the rest of his confidence completely crushed for the rest of the season.

[Clockwork Cupcake]

carl_w said:

Bottas faster than Hamilton in all sessions so far -- looks like one chassis is better than the other then.

Just not when it counted, though, as Lewis out-qualified him.

I think what separates the truly great drivers is the ability to drive around problems. It reminds me of a tale about a Lotus whose gear lever was too close to the bodywork to be used properly. Jim Clark simply rotated his hand and changed gear in an awkward position, whilst his team mate was unable to drive the car until a blister had been added to the bodywork.

[Sandpit Steve]

Oh dear, Norris got told box at the end, because of a fuelling error that sent him out with not enough of it!

Edited by Sandpit Steve on Saturday 19th June 16:08

[M5-911]

DanielSan said:

I questioned yesterday if Mercedes doing a chassis swap was a lose lose. If Hamilton had a bad day today then it's a real lose, or like has happened, Hamilton has no issue with the chassis and is still quicker than Bottas and Bottas now has the rest of his confidence completely crushed for the rest of the season.

Can a chassis really make a performance difference? a chassis is just a tube and that tube is built to the exact same specs all year I guess. the important bits are what is going around it.

jsf, what do you think?

[Clockwork Cupcake]

M5-911 said:

Can a chassis really make a performance difference? a chassis is just a tube and that tube is built to the exact same specs all year I guess. the important bits are what is going around it.

There's very few tubes in a modern F1 car these days, grandad, but yes you would expect them to be identical down to the millimetre.

[paulguitar]

Clockwork Cupcake said:

grandad

Cheeky

[M5-911]

paulguitar said:

Cheeky

No offence taken. I think that he understand what I mean when I say "tube".

[Clockwork Cupcake]

M5-911 said:

No offence taken. I think that he understand what I mean when I say "tube".

No offence taken for "he" either.

[JonChalk]

Clockwork Cupcake said:

M5-911 said:

Can a chassis really make a performance difference? a chassis is just a tube and that tube is built to the exact same specs all year I guess. the important bits are what is going around it.

There's very few tubes in a modern F1 car these days, grandad, but yes you would expect them to be identical down to the millimetre.

There was some chat from the "sensible" Sky team in FP1 yesterday, that there can be minute variations in manufacture and/or micro-cracks / fractures that are difficult to see/find, but that the drivers feel as changes to stiffness / response.

I'm not sure how much I believe it, but my recollection was that Karun was pretty adamant that he could feel differences in chassis that the engineers insisted were the same.

[Adrian W]

Clockwork Cupcake said:

There's very few tubes in a modern F1 car these days, grandad, but yes you would expect them to be identical down to the millimetre.

Something tells m Their CMN can go down to microns

[Clockwork Cupcake]

JonChalk said:

I'm not sure how much I believe it, but my recollection was that Karun was pretty adamant that he could feel differences in chassis that the engineers insisted were the same.

Yes, and Martin Brundle was saying the same too.

I think us mere mortals don't really comprehend how even the worst F1 driver is way way ahead of our own driving abilities.

[Clockwork Cupcake]

Adrian W said:

Something tells m Their CMN can go down to microns

Yes, sorry, I was probably doing them a disservice by saying "millimetre" but I meant it colloquially rather than scientifically. Well, that's my excuse.

[honda_exige]

Thunderstorms showing as predicted during race time. Spicy!!

[M5-911]

Clockwork Cupcake said:

No offence taken for "he" either.