[M5Rick]

Originally Posted by ///M Power-Belgium

Four smokey Joe's !

[///M Power-Belgium]

Originally Posted by M5Rick

Four smokey Joe's !

And the winner takes it all !

[Artemis]

Originally Posted by B-grif

Yes, this extremely close field.... F1 racing is garbage these days. After about 30 laps there's huge gaps between all of the cars.

"Huge gaps" ? Feel free to check all F1 races since 1950:
https://www.formula1.com/en/results.html

For example:

[M5Rick]

Originally Posted by ///M Power-Belgium

And the winner takes it all !

Just like last time in AD the in-line fireworks at the finish were spectacular, at least the organisers there know how to put a show on.

[Artemis]

Most wins in a season - Age:

• personal record Verstappen (15 wins): 25;
• personal record Schumacher (13 wins): 35;
• personal record Vettel (13 wins): 26;
• personal record Hamilton (11 wins): 29.

Verstappen DNF in 2022:

• DNF in P1 in Bahrain during lap 54/57 (engine issue);
• DNF in P2 in Australia during lap 39/58 (engine issue).

'Sprint' in 2022:

• Emilia Romagna: Verstappen;
• Austria: Verstappen;
• Brazil: Russell.

(source: here)

[lens]

Originally Posted by Artemis

"Huge gaps" ? Feel free to check all F1 races since 1950:
https://www.formula1.com/en/results.html

For example:

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Looool

That's someone that's started watching formula 1 this year.

Every year the front runners will gap the field. It's the combination of a good car and driver. The champion drivers and their rival will normally be miles ahead of the rest of the field.


It's completely normal and it's impossible to change it.

[HeelToeShift]

Originally Posted by TheBingoBalls

How close the field was? Please explain.

I think the field was the closest it's been in a long time. Much more passing, much more overall competition. I mean Max had a dominant season, but if you looked solely at qualifying, you'd never guess he did. On top of that, the Ferrari was clearly the faster car for the first 12 races...

[2008M36MT]

Originally Posted by chaungo

Looool

That's someone that's started watching formula 1 this year.

Every year the front runners will gap the field. It's the combination of a good car and driver. The champion drivers and their rival will normally be miles ahead of the rest of the field.


It's completely normal and it's impossible to change it.

I've not actively watched F1, but have watched since the late 90s. It is a boring sport IMO, I'll watch it but if there's something better, which there usually is, I'll click between the channels. There are 2 teams that are usually competitive, but most of the time there are one or two exciting passes per race. All the announcers talk about is the anticipation of an undercut, so boring. Netflix makes F1 seem much more interesting than it really is by adding a human element. If I was a new fan and I saw the series and then an actual race, I'd be supremely disappointed.

[Artemis]

Originally Posted by TheBingoBalls

How close the field was? Please explain.

Verstappen competed this year with former world champions Hamilton (7x WDC aka Greatest Of All Time), Alonso (2x WDC) and Vettel (4x WDC). Those four now share 15 WDC titles - no weak sauce drivers. But, true, the cars of HAM, ALO and VET were no match for the RB18 of VER.

Furthermore we have seen strong performances by super talents Leclerc (with a powerful Ferrari car in the first stages of the season) and Russell (pole position, Sprint win and race win).

And Sainz and Perez were no slouch either.

Genuinely hoping that Mercedes-AMG gets its act together this Winter in offering Hamilton and Russell a competitive car for 2023 and that Leclerc and Sainz don't get Ferrari'd again. And hopefully McLaren offers the young hopeful Oscar Piastri a competitive car to show his talent in 2023.

Who could have fathomed in 2021 that Hamilton would remain empty-handed in 2022 (no WDC, no WCC, no race win, no Sprint win, no pole position) and that he would end P6 in the final WDC classification, outperformed by Mercedes rookie Russell (P4) who did an outstanding job with the worrisome W13 package ?

[GuidoK]

I think Russel was one of the biggest surprises of this season.
Sure last year a lot of members predicted that once he was in a good car, he'd give Hamilton a run for his money, but what I like most about him is his pro active driving style.
He's very much conscient of what happens on track around him and with the car and has good strategic insights.
When he was at Williams.... well Williams radio doesn't get that much attention on TV .
I think if Russel raced in the early 90's, so pre all the sensory data communication, or even early 80's, so pre radio communication, he would have been easily at the top of the field.
And this year winning a race, having 2 poles, 4 fastest laps in what is basically a "best of the mid field car", that's a very good result.
If only he stopped whining a bit about what others do.....

[B-grif]

Originally Posted by chaungo

Looool

That's someone that's started watching formula 1 this year.

Every year the front runners will gap the field. It's the combination of a good car and driver. The champion drivers and their rival will normally be miles ahead of the rest of the field.


It's completely normal and it's impossible to change it.

Sweet, watching a 20 car race with 7+ second between each car is watching a parade. Will be the last year watching F1. Would rather watch IndyCar or NASCAR with this sort of action.

[OG Shark]

Originally Posted by GuidoK

I think Russel was one of the biggest surprises of this season.
Sure last year a lot of members predicted that once he was in a good car, he'd give Hamilton a run for his money, but what I like most about him is his pro active driving style.
He's very much conscient of what happens on track around him and with the car and has good strategic insights.
When he was at Williams.... well Williams radio doesn't get that much attention on TV .
I think if Russel raced in the early 90's, so pre all the sensory data communication, or even early 80's, so pre radio communication, he would have been easily at the top of the field.
And this year winning a race, having 2 poles, 4 fastest laps in what is basically a "best of the mid field car", that's a very good result.
If only he stopped whining a bit about what others do.....

I don’t think he could have handled racing without a radio - wouldn’t have been able to tell everyone how good he was doing. Would have been too hard to wait until the end of the race.

[HeelToeShift]

Originally Posted by OG Shark

I don’t think he could have handled racing without a radio - wouldn’t have been able to tell everyone how good he was doing. Would have been too hard to wait until the end of the race.

It's incredible how big his head is despite not really accomplishing much. Let's not forget, a good chunk of his points were not on merit but the benefit of DNFs from driver's who were clearly better, and faster than he. I think his second half was relatively bad, "win" aside. He made a lot of mistakes, crashed into many other drivers and they were mostly egregious in nature.

[G30M]

Mick attempting to do donuts, gets scolded immediately by Haas

[G30M]

it's completely pointless arguing about who is better than who - you need to put them all in the same car and then you'll see the real ranking

[M3WC]

Originally Posted by TheBingoBalls

Good riddance to the W13. Should be scrapped, don't even keep it with the other great Silver Arrows. What a huge piece of a s—t.

Can you imagine if Merc shows up in preseason testing with no side pods again and none of the other teams adopted the design in the off season?

[M5Rick]

Originally Posted by ///M Power-Belgium

And the winner takes it all !

Difficult to see who will match Max when new season begins, sure Ferrari and Merc will improve and even with ex Merc Rao fumbling though secret doc's of teams' build construction on the pretext of 'safety grounds' to help others I don't think it will be a concern that much. The cheats can copy all they like but there is no substitute for the Newey/Max factor.

[M5Rick]

Originally Posted by Artemis

"Huge gaps" ? Feel free to check all F1 races since 1950:
https://www.formula1.com/en/results.html

For example:

*Looking at the '63 Belgian GP, nearly 5 minutes gap between winner Clark and second placed man and the race lasted two and a half hours in precarious cars with no minimal safety equipment, when men were men in the true sense.

[M5Rick]

Originally Posted by Artemis

The final 10 laps of the race my daughter and I got out of the couch and were standing litterally at arm's length right in front of the TV rooting hard for Charles to hang on to P2 with his old tires. We kept cheering and danced when he made it to the finish line.

After getting getting Ferrari'd so often this season, all's well that ends well for Charles. Well-deserved P2 in the WDC and WCC. Wished that Ferrari had offered him more chances for close-combat with Verstappen - as happened during the first races this season. The very best of this F1 season ended Top 2.

Charlie's status is coming about albeit slowly, the boy in him that screamed through the radio and elsewhere is going away and the boss Mattia is not 100% responsible for others mainly in the strat dept who b@lled it up for him and Sainz as there are others above him who like with the previous Arrivabene were in the Ferrari 'shackles'.
I think Mattia will remain as he has answered all his critics including his famous ''it's not me who goes off the track into barrier'' which may be good enough for the top bods in the dark corridors of Maranello.

[Artemis]

Originally Posted by M5Rick

*Looking at the '63 Belgian GP, nearly 5 minutes gap between winner Clark and second placed man and the race lasted two and a half hours in precarious cars with no safety equipment or even seat belts, when men were men in the true sense.

Jim Clark is an F1 legend. The cockpit as a work place with 3 pedals, a gear shift and steering wheel on bumpy roads. As Jacky Ickx witnessed during the F1 race this weekend (occasional co-commentator on Belgian TV): back in the day you started, not knowing if everyone would make it to the finish line alive (he remains amazed that he survived his long racing career, unlike many other drivers). Clark died young during a race.

Originally Posted by B-grif

Sweet, watching a 20 car race with 7+ second between each car is watching a parade. Will be the last year watching F1. Would rather watch IndyCar or NASCAR with this sort of action.

Sign o' the times:

"The average attention span for the notoriously ill-focused goldfish is nine seconds, but according to a new study from Microsoft Corp., people now generally lose concentration after eight seconds, highlighting the affects of an increasingly digitalized lifestyle on the brain."
(source: https://time.com/3858309/attention-spans-goldfish/)

[lens]

Originally Posted by B-grif

Sweet, watching a 20 car race with 7+ second between each car is watching a parade. Will be the last year watching F1. Would rather watch IndyCar or NASCAR with this sort of action.

Cool, just don't watch racing at all, because every single racing series is like this, from Le mans, to GT series, to NASCAR.

Even when you go watch Go-Karting, it's the same thing, there's always that one or two guys that are better than the rest.

[M5Rick]

Originally Posted by Artemis

Jim Clark is an F1 legend. The cockpit as a work place with 3 pedals, a gear shift and steering wheel on bumpy roads. As Jacky Ickx witnessed during the F1 race this weekend (occasional co-commentator on Belgian TV): back in the day you started, not knowing if everyone would make it to the finish line alive (he remains amazed that he survived his long racing career, unlike many other drivers).

I remember Jacky saying this after trying all forms of motor racing,F1 Ferrari,Le Mans racers etc surviving huge scary moments when death could have been a breath away.
I'm glad he is commentating on local tv and understand he is a keen cyclist, like me