2021 motor racing thread

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Will Mercedes pit Bottas or Hamilton again to try to keep the fastest lap from Verstappen?
 
Red Bull seems to have that short term advantage but they just can't manage the long runs. It would be interesting to see how Hamilton and Verstappen would do in each others cars. I don't think any driver can match Hamilton for being able to manage their tires.
 
Shades of Hungary when Lewis came back to beat max.
Bottas giving Lewis a hard time on a different strategy. Not sure how Toto is going to handle. It’s one thing to try and keep the lead if it’s last couple laps, but Bottas had zero chance of holding off Lewis. They shouldn’t have pitted Bottas after that imo. He most likely would have kept max out there on the one stopper and prevented max from getting the fastest lap point. Perez would have got it regardless. But better than max.
 
Verstappen thought he was a sitting duck on the one stop. They are talking about not having another set of medium tires for Verstappen so they couldn't pit when Hamilton did as the soft tires wouldn't have made it to the end. The race was lost on tire strategy in practice. The hard tires must be really bad there as nobody seemed to want them.
 
Shades of Hungary when Lewis came back to beat max.
Bottas giving Lewis a hard time on a different strategy. Not sure how Toto is going to handle. It’s one thing to try and keep the lead if it’s last couple laps, but Bottas had zero chance of holding off Lewis. They shouldn’t have pitted Bottas after that imo. He most likely would have kept max out there on the one stopper and prevented max from getting the fastest lap point. Perez would have got it regardless. But better than max.
They were already pretty unhappy with Bottas and thought about replacing him, I'm pretty sure that stunt won't help him in that regard. I get his frustration but last year they let them have a fair fight until he got unlucky for a few races. This year his performance isn't even on the same planet as Lewis', though, he couldn't even beat Verstappen on Mercedes friendly tracks.
 
Shades of Hungary when Lewis came back to beat max.
Bottas giving Lewis a hard time on a different strategy. Not sure how Toto is going to handle. It’s one thing to try and keep the lead if it’s last couple laps, but Bottas had zero chance of holding off Lewis. They shouldn’t have pitted Bottas after that imo. He most likely would have kept max out there on the one stopper and prevented max from getting the fastest lap point. Perez would have got it regardless. But better than max.

It did seem odd to pit Bottas when he appeared to have a chance for second place as he was 11 seconds behind. They had to figure Bottas wouldn't be able to hold second when Max came out on faster tires. Maybe Mercedes were trying to entice Red Bull into pitting Verstappen by giving up second place. It would be interesting to have access to the tire choices. They show them sometimes but they often make errors. Did using the scuffed soft tires on Hamilton's car make such a difference in the first run?

They seemed to cut the race coverage short today. They usually talk to the team principles and some other drivers. Maybe Sky Sports did and it was ESPN that cut off early.
 
They were already pretty unhappy with Bottas and thought about replacing him, I'm pretty sure that stunt won't help him in that regard. I get his frustration but last year they let them have a fair fight until he got unlucky for a few races. This year his performance isn't even on the same planet as Lewis', though, he couldn't even beat Verstappen on Mercedes friendly tracks.
Yeah. Bottas didn’t do himself any favours today. I’d hate to see him lose his seat.
 
It did seem odd to pit Bottas when he appeared to have a chance for second place as he was 11 seconds behind. They had to figure Bottas wouldn't be able to hold second when Max came out on faster tires. Maybe Mercedes were trying to entice Red Bull into pitting Verstappen by giving up second place. It would be interesting to have access to the tire choices. They show them sometimes but they often make errors. Did using the scuffed soft tires on Hamilton's car make such a difference in the first run?

They seemed to cut the race coverage short today. They usually talk to the team principles and some other drivers. Maybe Sky Sports did and it was ESPN that cut off early.
I don’t think red bull would have pitted max if Bottas stayed out. Unless they did it quick and pulled the same move on Bottas. But not sure if they had a good set of mediums. Was entertaining none the less!
 
I don’t think red bull would have pitted max if Bottas stayed out. Unless they did it quick and pulled the same move on Bottas. But not sure if they had a good set of mediums. Was entertaining none the less!

If there was any chance that Bottas could have held onto second if Max pitted, it wasn't wise to pit him to try to get the fastest lap. I suspect Mercedes saw something about his tire wear that caused the pit stop.
 
Verstappen thought he was a sitting duck on the one stop. They are talking about not having another set of medium tires for Verstappen so they couldn't pit when Hamilton did as the soft tires wouldn't have made it to the end. The race was lost on tire strategy in practice. The hard tires must be really bad there as nobody seemed to want them.

I don't think I saw a single car on hards. Then again I think even the softs lasted a good while for pretty much everybody.
 
I don't think I saw a single car on hards. Then again I think even the softs lasted a good while for pretty much everybody.

I'm watching the race again and even the cars that stopped under the safety car early in the race didn't go to hard tires. Mercedes ran hard tires and set the fastest times in the first practice session and were running many laps on them. It seems very odd that some team didn't try to run hard tires.
 
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Hamilton made some pretty good comments after the race. They may be head games, but he says he learned so much from driving behind max. About his car, what the car does, how max reacts. I’m sure he did, but I’m also sure a little of it was, sure, you can take the lead, but before I take you over later in the race, I’m learning all I can about your car.
At least that’s how I read it.

Also, he said he didn’t know Bottas was told to let him by, and he straight passed him. Valteri also said he wasn’t in a hurry to let Lewis by. He was worrying about his race first.
 
Hamilton made some pretty good comments after the race. They may be head games, but he says he learned so much from driving behind max. About his car, what the car does, how max reacts. I’m sure he did, but I’m also sure a little of it was, sure, you can take the lead, but before I take you over later in the race, I’m learning all I can about your car.
At least that’s how I read it.

Also, he said he didn’t know Bottas was told to let him by, and he straight passed him. Valteri also said he wasn’t in a hurry to let Lewis by. He was worrying about his race first.

Bottas should be concerned about his ride. There may be some question about who has the better car between Max and Lewis but Valteri has the same car as Lewis and is no where near Lewis in performance. Bottas wasn't being challenged from behind and blocking Hamilton slowed his own lap times as well. I thought they should have left Valteri out on those tires to force Max to stay on his tires or risk Valteri taking second. At the very least it wouldn't have given Red Bull another free pit stop. Maybe they thought Valteri's tires would fail before the end of the race. Bottas finished 10.77 seconds behind Max. Take away the 21 seconds lost in a pit stop and it might have been close. Bottas did have a lap or two more on his tires than Verstappen but the Mercedes isn't as hard on tires as the Red Bulls and are better on the harder compound tires.
 
Red Bull seems to have that short term advantage but they just can't manage the long runs. It would be interesting to see how Hamilton and Verstappen would do in each others cars. I don't think any driver can match Hamilton for being able to manage their tires.
Red Bull seems to have that short term advantage but they just can't manage the long runs. It would be interesting to see how Hamilton and Verstappen would do in each others cars. I don't think any driver can match Hamilton for being able to manage their tires.

That’s the big question isn’t it? One way to look at it, for the past few years Max has outperformed his teammates more than Ham has outperformed Bottas. That does seem to indicate a strong Mercedes advantage (as if that were even in question). At this point, given how young Max is and his recent career trajectory, I think would bet heavily on him in the hypothetical matchup of switched cars and would have to think long and hard about the matchup of same cars.
 
Anyone think Jimmie Johnson will pass and legitimately finish ahead of another competitor this season?
 
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