F1 Hungarian GP and silly season

[bvandegraff]

The biggest story from this race is the continued incompetence of Ferrari. With Red Bull starting P10 and P11 after a poor qualifying, and themselves starting P2 and P3 and with better pace than George Russell's Mercedes on pole, they found a way to finish off the podium at P4 and P6 and allow Max Verstappen to come from P10 to win and extend his WDC lead to 80 points. All this on a track that is a better fit for Ferrari than Red Bull.

For some reason noone has yet explained, Ferrari chose to put Leclerc on hard tires for his third stint in cooler conditions and after Alpine and Haas struggled on them earlier in the race. Leclerc was on mediums and said he could extend his second stint by 7 or 8 laps then finish on softs. Ferrari pitted him 2 laps after the radio call and put him on hards. After getting promptly overtaken by Verstappen, Leclerc radioed, "The tires are ****". There were also bad pit stops for both Ferrari cars as well.

Mercedes is set to pass Ferrari in the constructors' despite a slower car. Hamilton P2 and Russell P3.

Verstappen was masterful in coming from P10 to win at a track that supposedly doesn't support much overtaking. My man Checo has struggled recently. Wonder if the upgrades aren't to his liking. Hopefully he will regain his form after the break.

Embarrassing week for Alpine. First they learn through Twitter that Fernando Alonso will leave the team to replace Vettel at Aston Martin (God only knows why). Then, when they announce Oscar Piastri will join the team next year, Piastri tweets that he will actually not. Then today a story breaks that Piastri will replace Danny Ricciardo at Mclaren. I would think there's a pretty good chance that Alpine takes Ricciardo back next year. Should make for an awkward second half on those teams.

Happy Trails to Sebastian Vettel, one of the real good guys in F1. He wasn't competitive at Aston Martin, but he did win 4 world titles with Red Bull.

 

[LSUgrad2BamaDad]

ferrari has the best car, despite a couple failures. Their race day decision making has been awful.

 

[bvandegraff]

ferrari has the best car, despite a couple failures. Their race day decision making has been awful.

If it's not botched strategy, it's engine failure (Sainz) or driver errors (Leclerc). Binotto says Ferrari doesn't need to make any changes in an article I read today. What's smh in Italian?

 

[UAH]

If it's not botched strategy, it's engine failure (Sainz) or driver errors (Leclerc). Binotto says Ferrari doesn't need to make any changes in an article I read today. What's smh in Italian?

My impression of Ferrari after watching all of Vettel's career there is that their overall relationship with drivers is corrosive. They managed to effectively destroy Vettel's confidence and let it be known during his entire last season that they intended to replace him.

This attitude probably goes all the way back to Enzo who was a tyrant toward his drivers and expected them to drive for Ferrari for far less than they would be paid by other teams.

In regard to the Leclerc spin when leading the race it came out that their Engineer/Strategist had been in Leclerc's ear saying that he was slower in a specific turn than the other top cars. We are likely talking about 1/100 of a second. Leclerc attempted to take a different line into the turn and brake later and promptly lost the rear and went into the fence. It is difficult to understand how a culture could be changed that is so deeply engrained in a team.

 

[bvandegraff]

I think you're right. Leclerc's not making a huge effort to conceal his frustration - he's had more poles than any driver on the grid but is 80 points behind Verstappen.

It's a shame. Ferrari has everything going for it - a storied history, that fantastic iconic red livery, and this year, competitive cars and excellent drivers (Sainz is probably their best strategist). But as you said, there's an institutional arrogance that goes back to Enzo, and that's not likely to change, even though their last real competitive car was the result of cheating with the fuel system and they haven't won any championships in 15 years since the days of Michael Schumacher and Jean Todt.

My impression of Ferrari after watching all of Vettel's career there is that their overall relationship with drivers is corrosive. They managed to effectively destroy Vettel's confidence and let it be known during his entire last season that they intended to replace him.

This attitude probably goes all the way back to Enzo who was a tyrant toward his drivers and expected them to drive for Ferrari for far less than they would be paid by other teams.

In regard to the Leclerc spin when leading the race it came out that their Engineer/Strategist had been in Leclerc's ear saying that he was slower in a specific turn than the other top cars. We are likely talking about 1/100 of a second. Leclerc attempted to take a different line into the turn and brake later and promptly lost the rear and went into the fence. It is difficult to understand how a culture could be changed that is so deeply engrained in a team.

 

[UAH]

I think you're right. Leclerc's not making a huge effort to conceal his frustration - he's had more poles than any driver on the grid but is 80 points behind Verstappen.

It's a shame. Ferrari has everything going for it - a storied history, that fantastic iconic red livery, and this year, competitive cars and excellent drivers (Sainz is probably their best strategist). But as you said, there's an institutional arrogance that goes back to Enzo, and that's not likely to change, even though their last real competitive car was the result of cheating with the fuel system and they haven't won any championships in 15 years since the days of Michael Schumacher and Jean Todt.

Witnessing the continuation of Ferrari's ineptitude as Mercedes returns to form after persuading the FIA to allow them to essentially redesign their hopelessly flawed design will be interesting although frustrating. for me it has been a bit nauseating to see George Russell complaining about Red Bull cheating with their "flexible" floor plan while his team politicked for a complete redesign is disingenuous at best.

Changing the topic a bit to Hass. It would be a strong plus to enable a team like Andretti into the sport to replace Hass and allow Gunther Steiner to go do something he is more capable of.

 

[bvandegraff]

Witnessing the continuation of Ferrari's ineptitude as Mercedes returns to form after persuading the FIA to allow them to essentially redesign their hopelessly flawed design will be interesting although frustrating. for me it has been a bit nauseating to see George Russell complaining about Red Bull cheating with their "flexible" floor plan while his team politicked for a complete redesign is disingenuous at best.

Changing the topic a bit to Hass. It would be a strong plus to enable a team like Andretti into the sport to replace Hass and allow Gunther Steiner to go do something he is more capable of.

The constant politicking throughout F1 is one of its most tedious features. As for Russell, Mercedes has brought out his Whiner Within. Can't deny I got a little chuckle out of Toto's meltdown after Abu Dhabi. Real competition did not bring out the best in Merc.

Completely agree re: Andretti. I'm not up to speed on their Indy Car team, but I would think they could buy out Haas and then bring in a ton of US money just on the Andretti name. I would guess big US money getting behind a big-name US team worries the big boy teams, especially with Liberty Media owning F1 and making it huge in this country.