Official 2022 Miami Grand Prix Thread ***SPOILERS***

[paulguitar]

LP670 said:

paulguitar said:

Cold said:

paulguitar said:

Cold said:

Further back, at least the Mercedes number two driver didn't get lapped this time, but his deliberate delaying of his consistently faster teammate only punished the team as a whole.

This comment suggests you've completely failed to understand the situation.

This comment suggests you still think your opinion is the only one that matters.

Not at all, I am always interested to read remarks and different views from those who have an understanding of what they are watching.

You appear not to be one of them.

Why is that then? what he put seemed to be a perfect understanding.... was Lewis lapped last race? YES..... is Lewis behind George in the championship? YES..... did Lewis delay George in this race? YES

It's because 'cold' is one of the people who are so anti-Hamilton that it affects judgment to a point where the comments tend to be illogical. Mentioning Hamilton was lapped last time out is entirely irrelevant and clearly only there to be inflammatory, and then accusing Hamilton of 'deliberately delaying his consistently faster teammate' is simply inaccurate. Mercedes let their drivers race, and no instructions had been given to either driver to switch. Russell is not 'consistently faster' than Hamilton, and this means nothing without context anyway.


I find it rather hard to warm to Verstappen as a person, but as a driver, I have been repeatedly fulsome in my praise of him this season. It's clear that there are people posting here and elsewhere who are so fundamentally distracted by viewing the world through an anti-Lewis Hamilton prism that they are unable to remain logical and reasonable. I don't respect that and I don't take their comments seriously.

[resolve10]

Sandpit Steve said:

George took a gamble to stay out long and hope for a safety car, as the hard tyres didn’t wear as much as expected, after taking a while to get up to temperature at the start of the race. He got lucky with the VSC then SC at just the right time.

I think 'got lucky' is doing George an injustice. He suffered massively at the start of the race to fire up his hard tyres, eventually got them working, carefully picked his way back through the field without tripping up, used the information available to him to decide to stay out for the very probable safety car, and even after the SC he had to negotiate HAM needlessly over-defending when he was worse tyres and should have played the team game and let RUS go chase after PER. Fortunate timing with the safety car, but he deliberately played that strategy so far play to him.

EDIT

I take back what I said, the man himself called it a fluke

“You sound like a bit of a genius when things like that happen but it was a total fluke,” was Russell’s candid opinion of his strategy call after the race. “It was obviously a good day to come home in P5. Especially after Lap 1, I was down in P15 and I was like ‘bugger, this is going to be a long afternoon.’

Edited by resolve10 on Monday 9th May 10:33

[C70R]

Another weekend of processional stuff and DRS-only overtakes, dominated by two teams/drivers. It could only be made interesting by someone crashing and bringing out a safety car.

Even then, the 3 laps of 'racing' couldn't make up for an otherwise dismal spectacle.

However, I think I've figured the key to my enjoyment of the new regulations. I was traveling last night, so watched this on record. I managed to watch the whole race in about 20min.

Max - Imperious
Charles - Almost
Carlos - Pea-hearted start
Sergio - Lots of effort, little reward

[NRS]

He's got lucky to benefit from 3 safety cars this season, but you still need to look after the tyres properly to put yourself in that situation.

paulguitar said:

LP670 said:

paulguitar said:

Cold said:

paulguitar said:

Cold said:

Further back, at least the Mercedes number two driver didn't get lapped this time, but his deliberate delaying of his consistently faster teammate only punished the team as a whole.

This comment suggests you've completely failed to understand the situation.

This comment suggests you still think your opinion is the only one that matters.

Not at all, I am always interested to read remarks and different views from those who have an understanding of what they are watching.

You appear not to be one of them.

Why is that then? what he put seemed to be a perfect understanding.... was Lewis lapped last race? YES..... is Lewis behind George in the championship? YES..... did Lewis delay George in this race? YES

It's because 'cold' is one of the people who are so anti-Hamilton that it affects judgment to a point where the comments tend to be illogical. Mentioning Hamilton was lapped last time out is entirely irrelevant and clearly only there to be inflammatory, and then accusing Hamilton of 'deliberately delaying his consistently faster teammate' is simply inaccurate. Mercedes let their drivers race, and no instructions had been given to either driver to switch. Russell is not 'consistently faster' than Hamilton, and this means nothing without context anyway.

I find it rather hard to warm to Verstappen as a person, but as a driver, I have been repeatedly fulsome in my praise of him this season. It's clear that there are people posting here and elsewhere who are so fundamentally distracted by viewing the world through an anti-Lewis Hamilton prism that they are unable to remain logical and reasonable. I don't respect that and I don't take their comments seriously.

Yes - we've seen loads of occasions where the Mercedes are allowed to fight together, it's easy to say "it's because of Hamilton", but that's wrong when you look at many previous races given what has happened historically. If it was 3/4s of the way through the season and Russel was in a fight for second place and Hamilton was say in 7th place for the WDC it'd have been a clear swap. It's not going to happen now as it's too early on in the season. As mentioned look at Ferrari also avoiding to put LeClerc in the position to challenge Max with new tyres as it's too early to put one driver above the other - and that is a far more clear situation to do so, given it's for the WDC (kinda - it actually looks like the RB is way ahead of the others at the moment - it does better on tyres, so he can catch up and pass later in the first stint, and then the high speed they have means the Ferrari can't pass again).

[Derek Smith]

resolve10 said:

Sandpit Steve said:

George took a gamble to stay out long and hope for a safety car, as the hard tyres didn’t wear as much as expected, after taking a while to get up to temperature at the start of the race. He got lucky with the VSC then SC at just the right time.

I think 'got lucky' is doing George an injustice. He suffered massively at the start of the race to fire up his hard tyres, eventually got them working, carefully picked his way back through the field without tripping up, used the information available to him to decide to stay out for the very probable safety car, and even after the SC he had to negotiate HAM needlessly over-defending when he was worse tyres and should have played the team game and let RUS go chase after PER. Fortunate timing with the safety car, but he deliberately played that strategy so far play to him.

EDIT

I take back what I said, the man himself called it a fluke

“You sound like a bit of a genius when things like that happen but it was a total fluke,” was Russell’s candid opinion of his strategy call after the race. “It was obviously a good day to come home in P5. Especially after Lap 1, I was down in P15 and I was like ‘bugger, this is going to be a long afternoon.’

Edited by resolve10 on Monday 9th May 10:33

He and you are wrong. It was a deliberate tactic on his behalf, and he got the benefit of the VSC. It could have rained, as seemed possible even fairly late on in the race, in which case he would have benefited then. He was on hard is from the start which, one would assume, was done to allow him a flexible approach to the tyre change.

I accept as a tactic it doesn't suggest the team or him our intellectual giants as others have used it before and it is quite obvious. It's difficult for other teams to counter, other than not driving into other cars late on in the race. It was not a fluke, it was not a genius move. That said, he earned his fifth spot as much as the others and theirs. Good on him.

[C70R]

entropy said:

DOCG said:

What makes this race so much more profitable?

Promotion. Promoters only earn on gate receipts and everything else including track advertising goes to Liberty plus sanctioning fees.

I would love to see F1 race in Road America but someone trying to persuade the ordinary American to attend a race track in the middle of nowhere in the Mid-west is a tougher sell than Miami.

This.

People clamouring to see F1 at Laguna Seca fundamentally misunderstand how the sport works.

It's a marketing exercise first, and a race second. If the marketing bit doesn't make sense, then it doesn't happen.

[Aids0G]

resolve10 said:

Sandpit Steve said:

George took a gamble to stay out long and hope for a safety car, as the hard tyres didn’t wear as much as expected, after taking a while to get up to temperature at the start of the race. He got lucky with the VSC then SC at just the right time.

I think 'got lucky' is doing George an injustice. He suffered massively at the start of the race to fire up his hard tyres, eventually got them working, carefully picked his way back through the field without tripping up, used the information available to him to decide to stay out for the very probable safety car, and even after the SC he had to negotiate HAM needlessly over-defending when he was worse tyres and should have played the team game and let RUS go chase after PER. Fortunate timing with the safety car, but he deliberately played that strategy so far play to him.

EDIT

I take back what I said, the man himself called it a fluke

“You sound like a bit of a genius when things like that happen but it was a total fluke,” was Russell’s candid opinion of his strategy call after the race. “It was obviously a good day to come home in P5. Especially after Lap 1, I was down in P15 and I was like ‘bugger, this is going to be a long afternoon.’

Edited by resolve10 on Monday 9th May 10:33

I like George he just says it as it is, but he is doing himself a bit of disservice there he held out on the hard tyre really well, yes the SC was 'lucky' but he had to be there to take the luck as it came.

Should Hamilton have let him by at the re-start? Possibly, but then again he had his eyes on Bottas so makes sense to attack Bottas get that pass done then see what happens with George behind. Mercedes would have looked pretty foolish had they ordered the two to swap then ended up with a 5-7 finish not the 5-6 as it happened.

[WestyCarl]

Aids0G said:

I like George he just says it as it is, but he is doing himself a bit of disservice there he held out on the hard tyre really well, yes the SC was 'lucky' but he had to be there to take the luck as it came.

Should Hamilton have let him by at the re-start? Possibly, but then again he had his eyes on Bottas so makes sense to attack Bottas get that pass done then see what happens with George behind. Mercedes would have looked pretty foolish had they ordered the two to swap then ended up with a 5-7 finish not the 5-6 as it happened.

I think George is very smart and downplaying his placing ahead of Lewis as a "fluke", the last thing he needs after a few races is to antagonise Lewis.

I imagine in private his reaction is very different.

[Sandpit Steve]

Derek Smith said:

He and you are wrong. It was a deliberate tactic on his behalf, and he got the benefit of the VSC. It could have rained, as seemed possible even fairly late on in the race, in which case he would have benefited then. He was on hard is from the start which, one would assume, was done to allow him a flexible approach to the tyre change.

I accept as a tactic it doesn't suggest the team or him our intellectual giants as others have used it before and it is quite obvious. It's difficult for other teams to counter, other than not driving into other cars late on in the race. It was not a fluke, it was not a genius move. That said, he earned his fifth spot as much as the others and theirs. Good on him.

He qualified out of position, and chose the contra-strategy to maximise his chance of the luck falling his way. If the SC had been on lap 20 instead of lap 40, he’d have been screwed when everyone else got a free pit stop, but as it happens the incident was at the right time for those on the contra-strategy to benefit.

The deliberate tactic was to extend the stint past the expected (and perhaps optimal) window, as his lap times weren’t dropping off, on the chance that the SC emerged. Alex Albon played this tactic to perfection a couple of races back, stopping on the last lap and getting an unexpected point.

[Aids0G]

WestyCarl said:

Aids0G said:

I like George he just says it as it is, but he is doing himself a bit of disservice there he held out on the hard tyre really well, yes the SC was 'lucky' but he had to be there to take the luck as it came.

Should Hamilton have let him by at the re-start? Possibly, but then again he had his eyes on Bottas so makes sense to attack Bottas get that pass done then see what happens with George behind. Mercedes would have looked pretty foolish had they ordered the two to swap then ended up with a 5-7 finish not the 5-6 as it happened.

I think George is very smart and downplaying his placing ahead of Lewis as a "fluke", the last thing he needs after a few races is to antagonise Lewis.

I imagine in private his reaction is very different.

Not to start the Lewis V George stuff but without the SC he would have ended the race a fair way behind him, but that's not what matters. George is driving really well (aside from a poor quali this weekend) and Merc are benefiting from it + from the outside in the intra team dynamics seem pretty harmonious working to improve the car - 20 races in lets see they may hate each other but I doubt it.

Who knows about his private reaction, we never really get to see it.

[Hungrymc]

a_dreamer said:

Hungrymc said:

And then swapped them back if the attack on Perez was not successful ?

Can you imagine the way a few would have kicked off in here if they did that…. Lol.

They really should not be worried about the reaction of some fan boys on an internet forum

It’s the “hate boys” (?) who would have had a field day if they reversed that and put Lewis back ahead.

I don’t think they are worried about it. I was just pointing out the melt down that some “fans” would have had if they swapped the cars, the plan failed, and they put the cars back in original position as they have before.

[Hungrymc]

Sandpit Steve said:

Derek Smith said:

He and you are wrong. It was a deliberate tactic on his behalf, and he got the benefit of the VSC. It could have rained, as seemed possible even fairly late on in the race, in which case he would have benefited then. He was on hard is from the start which, one would assume, was done to allow him a flexible approach to the tyre change.

I accept as a tactic it doesn't suggest the team or him our intellectual giants as others have used it before and it is quite obvious. It's difficult for other teams to counter, other than not driving into other cars late on in the race. It was not a fluke, it was not a genius move. That said, he earned his fifth spot as much as the others and theirs. Good on him.

He qualified out of position, and chose the contra-strategy to maximise his chance of the luck falling his way. If the SC had been on lap 20 instead of lap 40, he’d have been screwed when everyone else got a free pit stop, but as it happens the incident was at the right time for those on the contra-strategy to benefit.

The deliberate tactic was to extend the stint past the expected (and perhaps optimal) window, as his lap times weren’t dropping off, on the chance that the SC emerged. Alex Albon played this tactic to perfection a couple of races back, stopping on the last lap and getting an unexpected point.

I’m not sure why it’s even controversial. It was smart tactics by George when he had little to lose and a lot to gain. Very sensible, the timing of the SC was very fortunate, but it was executed very well by George.

I didn’t really follow the timing of VSC switching to full SC (in fact, I don’t really follow what triggers the switch other than wanting to pick the leader up). But it did look like there was a window to pit Lewis and get him directly behind George on the softs for a 10 lap sprint (knowing George was on fresh mediums and Lewis aging hards). The window closed when the pack bunched under SC. Don’t know who made the call not to do this (if there really was a window as I think). I wonder if it was Lewis not wanting to give track position (I would say an error of judgement is so) or the team just being too slow and conservative on strategy again?

[caminator11]

Brundle used to be the one voice I'd appreciate on Sky but as time has worn on he's started to fall into the jaded ex professional bracket that you see if you watch football (think Mark Lawrenson)

This year I've switched to watching F1.tv using a vpn and its a breath of fresh air. Ben Edwards and Jolyon Palmer are so much less painful than Crofty and Brundle. Strongly recommend anyone sick of Sky to do the same.

[Gad-Westy]

I try not to get to stuck in with the boring race posts but that one was pretty poor. A bit of shame as viewing time was perfect for me. Uninterupted by kids and a couple of beers on the go. But a bit of a let down. It doesn't seem like a track ever likely to serve much drama other than the heavens opening. Looking at the calendar for 22, we have four tracks grouped together that aren't exactly known for exciting racing. Imola, Miami, Barcelona then Monaco. It would be nice to get a more interesting european race in the the Miami slot and push that one back toward the other end of the season if we're stuck with it.

[HustleRussell]

Not seen enough to make meaningful comparison between Hamilton and Russell's performance but George appears to be doing an exceptional job in all counts.

[Gad-Westy]

HustleRussell said:

Not seen enough to make meaningful comparison between Hamilton and Russell's performance but George appears to be doing an exceptional job in all counts.

Yeah. Agree with that. They're both far enough back in the running order that external factors are having a big impact on their results but GR picking up great points. I'd really love to see Merc get that car sorted sometime soon. Highly unlikely to get them into contention for either championship but six drivers at the sharp end would be most welcome.

Edited by Gad-Westy on Monday 9th May 11:58

[resolve10]

Gad-Westy said:

Yeah. Agree with that. They're both gar enough back in the running order that external factors are having a big impact on their results but GR picking up great points. I'd really love to see Merc get that car sorted sometime soon. Highly unlikely to get them into contention for either championship but six drivers at the sharp end would be most welcome.

Russell is only 45 points behind Leclerc, similar gap to Max a few races ago. If Russell keeps picking up solid points finishes and then Mercedes get a handle on their car, he is not out of the race. Ferarri are specialists at self-imploding and the Red Bull looks weak reliability wise (another issue for Perez yesterday). Definitely don't rule them out as outsiders!

[Gad-Westy]

resolve10 said:

Gad-Westy said:

Yeah. Agree with that. They're both gar enough back in the running order that external factors are having a big impact on their results but GR picking up great points. I'd really love to see Merc get that car sorted sometime soon. Highly unlikely to get them into contention for either championship but six drivers at the sharp end would be most welcome.

Russell is only 45 points behind Leclerc, similar gap to Max a few races ago. If Russell keeps picking up solid points finishes and then Mercedes get a handle on their car, he is not out of the race. Ferarri are specialists at self-imploding and the Red Bull looks weak reliability wise (another issue for Perez yesterday). Definitely don't rule them out as outsiders!

Just being realistic about the pace of development progress. I suspect there will be plenty more Merc suffering to go before they are competitive. For all the promising signs this weekend, their performance was pretty similar to the opening race.

[Pflanzgarten]

If the Mercedes doesn’t improve quick they’re going to have to tell George to hold off hoovering up points so they can get some more wind tunnel time

[HustleRussell]

Every race this season George has finished 5th or better. He is the only driver to have done that. Mercedes have had the 3rd fastest car at best- it is no threat at all to the Red Bulls and Ferraris ahead and it is a close run thing with the Mclaren and Bottas for best of the rest.