Brazilian Grand Prix - Interlagos

[René]

Race three of the American races, race two of the triple header… still following me?

Brazil, samba, Copacobana, heat and rain. It could be a swinging race in treacherous conditions. Crown prince Max has always been strong at Interlagos but King Lewis will do anything to stamp his authority on the sport. All ingredients are there to make this a cracker of a race.

Just read that Max will use the #1 on his car when he wins the title. Way to go lad!

[chrisb]

unfortunately there was a problem with my internet so lost my original comment - mutter mutter

what a wonderful photo Rene, Emmo in his prime in the gorgeous M23 at the majestic circuit

I have gone for Bottas then thought no chance of him winning with Lewis following, so thought about it and was going to change my choice but then thought some more and what happens if Lewis does retire than MB would want Bottas to win,

I love this truncated circuit- sadly I hear that its days are numbered, no doubt to be replaced with the Kuwaiti GP in amongst the oil fields.....

[René]

Interesting developments with a possible illegal DRS on Lewis' car and Max having breached Parc Fermé rules when he checked the Mercedes rear wing. They must have talked about that at Red Bull.

Is Mercedes getting desperate or is it only a storm in a teacup? And Toto said Mercedes' engine problems were a result of stretching it too far in the 2019 battle with Ferrari.... sorry T. that is certainly stretching it too far! What nonsense, you dominated the 2020 championship in between!

_

Max visited his future father-in-law Nelson Piquet for the first time. I believe they got along well. Oh well, Kelly's mum is Dutch so Nelson must have known a few funny Dutch words...

[charleselan]

I forgot that qualifying was last night/evening due to the ridiculous "Sprint" race format on Saturday, so eventually picked up the very edited highlights on YT. Also just read René's comment about the MB infractions etc.

So much for the MB being out performed by the Red Bull cars, but then again it might have been down to the brilliance of SLH.

With regard to Tonto the guy is now becoming a parody of himself with these absurd comments that he keeps coming out with, he gets more like a pantomime dame every week that passes.

I too like the Interlagos circuit but it really could do with a bit more length like the old original track. What is more amazing to me is the very fact that F1 is actually in Brazil in current times with the pandemic still very much in evidence.

One final thing very interesting to see Carlos bettering Charles all through qualifying, not sure if Charles had any issues but I think this has put to bed the thoughts that Carlos was going to Ferrari as a Number 2. However Ferrari nearly one whole second off the fastest car, that is not good at all.

[mikael]

I must say/admit that I have not watched television during the weekend, just read internet-based news. But that "rear wing saga" seems quite "fantastic" (unless a major part of the journalists simply have got it wrong).

Can they really disqualify a driver/team on the reason that the DRS opens up the gap a mere 0.2 mm too much? What is the tolerance for their "on site" measurements, I wonder. And how many measurements is the verdict based on? (Measure; shut-open -> measure again; shut-open -> measure again; ... etc.; do all measurements really fall below a tolerance of 0.2 mm?) What is the tolerance by which the DRS works? Just think about the "knocks" a rear wing gets when the driver runs over the kerbs, as they do nowadays. Does it really work - even then - consistently to a tolerance of less than 0.2 mm? That seems unbelievable. And back to the measurements: how do they compensate for temperature- and moisture-variations (because they certainly have an influence on that level of variations).

[charleselan]

I had to keep my stomach in check yesterday watching the UK S*YF1 broadcast of the ludicrous Sprint race, talk about nationalist hyperbole, it was obscene in my opinion. One such incident when lead presenter Lazenby tried to make out that Max touching the Mercs rear wing was as much of an offence as a technical inaccuracy, sickening is all I can say.

As Mikael points out above the infringement was apparently 0.2mm which is absolutely minuscule in anyones book, probably the thickness of a sheet of paper. The one thing that as interesting on the S*Y transition was Ted Kravitz actually demonstrating how the gap is checked and with the tool used. It is basically a disc (something like a lollypop) attached to a meter that can be set at varying pressures. The disc has to pass through the "DRS gap" with i believe a setting of 10nm. This is what produced the failings on the Mercs wing.

The ambiguity created by the press releases over the weekend did not help here as some took it that Red Bull noticed this increased gap which they plainly had not done as it would have been impossible for the human eye to have seen this. What Adrian Newey had drawn the scrutineers attention to was a whole different matter regarding the wing, something that RB are very concerned about due to a sudden big leap in MB's straight line performance. While checking this out after qualifying the DRS discrepancy was revealed.

Personally I feel that all of this is getting most unsavoury and is in actual fact doing a huge disservice to F1, not helped by the childish "handbags at dawn" behaviour of the two team principles.

For me the highlight of yesterday was something i came across on YouTube last night featuring the amazing humour of Sebastian Vettel. Pulling up behind the MB after the Sprint he says to his engineer "I am going to touch Hamilton's rear wing", to which the engineer says no that would be very expensive, so Seb then says "I am only joking, but maybe I might go and touch his front wing as that will only cost 25,000 euros". You just have to love the guy these days.

[René]

Well, that was quite an eventful weekend! The sprint race wasn’t bad, even if I am not convinced of the format yet, and it was great to see Carlos finish third, that was a strong performance. And Lewis was fantastic to recover the way he did. The penalty he received for the DRS infringement was very weird. 

But anyway, the main race. What a race from Lewis Hamilton! That was the best Hamilton I’ve seen for a while. The Lewis we all came to admire when he came on the scene so many years ago. Fantastic racing and the Brazilians knew it by cheering so loud and enthusiastic for the Englishman. 

And those same Brazilians who know their racing, remarkably also showed their disapproval for the way Max defended his position and probably even more the way he was weaving on the straight, by booing him during the podium ceremony. Flashes of ‘the old Max’ when under pressure? 

Charles’ start and first lap was very aggressive and I had the feeling he wanted to make a point. Very strong drive though!

This is a race and circuit that should really stay on the calendar for many years to come. Always great racing and fantastic race fans. 

[chrisb]

I can't remember the exact width James Hunt's M23 exceeded the rules in Spain 1976 but wasn't he excluded? I know it was minuscule but 0.2

Apparently Matt Bishop got a lot on online abuse for praising Lewis in the sprint race, something I still cannot quite get my head around why a journalist is abused for praising a good drive, especially today a day of remembrance of all the victims of hate,

Haven't watched the race as yet but quickly read the brief report and it is being hailed as a true champion's drive, whereas Max is not coming out of this very well

[robmarsh]

A brilliant weekend performance by Lewis, as Rene said, as of old, Chapeau. Max was probably lucky to have gotten away without a penalty but so far there is nothing to prove he did anything wrong. I just hope the FIA officials are very even handed with their decisions going forward.

0.2mm is very tiny but I do have a drill bit of 0.3mm which seems to snap just by looking at it. It is hard to think that makes a great difference overall to the speed but I do wonder how Mercedes have got so competitive all of a sudden when they are not doing any more development on there car. For Lewis to overtake 25 cars in just over 75 laps on such a short circuit, in a car that is rumoured to be difficult to overtake in, points to a very large car and driver advantage which is almost unbelievable. I shall read and listen to Mark Hughes and Peter Windsor with interest this week.

I worked out why I get so irritated with Merc when they win. It is not because of SLH as on the whole he has come across as very likeable in the interviews this year. It is mainly because of Toto Woolfe, he is just not pleasant. Christian Horner is not a whole lot better and it was largely due to him that I didn't like Red Bull in the past, the lesser of two evils this year. As I have said before, total dominance by one team year on year is not good.

The Ferrari and the Mclarens as the next best teams, are so far behind it is rather disturbing. I hope it all comes together next year and all the teams are closer. The 21st century practice of one team winning for multiple seasons in a row needs to be stopped, it is killing the sport.

I really enjoy the Brazilian circuit and it would be very sad if it fell off the calendar.

[René]

Agree Rob, Wolf and Horner both smooth talkers. Not sincere.

[charleselan]

I have just booked an emergency appointment with my optician as I do not appear to be seeing too clearly at present, so therefore cannot really comment with any authority on Sundays race.

However two salient points that come to mind:-

(1) DRS is a complete sham and offers little as a skill set for a racing driver. If we have to have something like this to brighten up the show then at least adopt something like Indycar have with "push to pass". This allows a driver to use his "device" to counter an attempted overtake, and also the amount of time it can be used is limited.

(2) All of the teams other than Mercedes Benz and Red Bull should save themselves some money and just run GP2 cars, what is the point of spending a fortune and be so far off the outright pace.

[Carl]

Nov 15, 2021 17:44:04 GMT charleselan said:

I have just booked an emergency appointment with my optician as I do not appear to be seeing too clearly at present, so therefore cannot really comment with any authority on Sundays race.

However two salient points that come to mind:-

(1) DRS is a complete sham and offers little as a skill set for a racing driver. If we have to have something like this to brighten up the show then at least adopt something like Indycar have with "push to pass". This allows a driver to use his "device" to counter an attempted overtake, and also the amount of time it can be used is limited.

(2) All of the teams other than Mercedes Benz and Red Bull should save themselves some money and just run GP2 cars, what is the point of spending a fortune and be so far off the outright pace.

John,

          I hope you receive good news and restored excellence of vision.

Best wishes, Carl

[charleselan]

Carl,

Thank you kindly for your concern , but I have to confess to being hoisted by my own petard here and have handed a good friend the wrong end of the stick.

My vision impairment is purely metaphorical.

Kindest of regards

John

[Carl]

As some prone to doubt have suggested, it seemed almost too easy for Lewis Hamilton in both races, troubled only by Max Verstappen. No doubt the team's storyline is that he reached deep into his reserves of character to triumph against adversity, conceivable because of his immense talent.  Skeptics may wonder if Mercedes did at least some of the reaching for him, into the deep reserves of its research and development department, and provided the sort of subtle but distinct advantage Roger Penske always sought and never revealed.

[mikael]

I may be naive, but I do think Hamilton has some "reserves to tap from" when it really matters. Like in 2016, when he "frittered away" at least the first four races. When it finally dawned to him, near the end of the season, that he had to make efforts to take the title again, he was way better than Rosberg; he was really outstanding (in terms of his driving ability). Unfortunately (for him), it was already too late. 

In whatever way, these last races of the '21 season will be really interesting!