F1 2021 Season

[chugg21]

Not sure why we don't have a thread for this season since it's the best in ages. Today was a solid waste of 4 hours though.

 

[CuseTroop]

Not sure why we don't have a thread for this season since it's the best in ages. Today was a solid waste of 4 hours though.

yeaaa I had it on for an hour or so. I cant believe two laps behind the safety vehicle = a completed race.

 

[chugg21]

yeaaa I had it on for an hour or so. I cant believe two laps behind the safety vehicle = a completed race.

What an absolute embarrassment that was. Next weeks race is only 300km away in the Netherlands. Not being able to have the race tomorrow morning/afternoon and move on is a ridiculous amount of inflexibility. Granted, I've never seen this happen before and hopefully won't again. Was really, really looking to see what Russell was going to be able to do in the rain from the front row.

 

[chugg21]

Great start for entertainment purposes today.

 

[chugg21]

Well that was fun!!

 

[Tango32]

Lifelong rabid F1 fan, sad i just discovered this thread. That race and whole season was just freaking epic.

 

[chugg21]

Lifelong rabid F1 fan, sad i just discovered this thread. That race and whole season was just freaking epic.

Mostly me just talking to myself trying to bump it. Was bizarre seeing my twitter feed turn into F1 central. Not used to it going as mainstream as it did today.

 

[Tango32]

Mostly me just talking to myself trying to bump it. Was bizarre seeing my twitter feed turn into F1 central. Not used to it going as mainstream as it did today.

Yeah hoping this season and the growing popularity of drive to survive turns more people onto it. Its just an amazing sport, wish more people would dive in. Outside of my wife I know like 2 real life people who follow it, and its a way more casual following.

 

[chugg21]

Yeah hoping this season and the growing popularity of drive to survive turns more people onto it. Its just an amazing sport, wish more people would dive in. Outside of my wife I know like 2 real life people who follow it, and its a way more casual following.

Had a friend get me fully into it somewhere around 10 years ago. I was a Nascar fan primarily before but now that's way on the back burner.

 

[Zelda Zonk]

That race was perhaps the most (red)Bull**** thing I’ve ever seen in ‘sports.’ Embarrassing.

It was like Netflix was the Race Director.

F1 rules are ridiculous. You have teams actually negotiating for race positions during the race. Stewards making arbitrary decisions, not explaining rulings in time for driver reactions, and here, so explicitly, safety cars and virtual safety cars favor the driver in back, because they have the advantage in deciding what to do, after seeing what the leader does. Insane.

One driver drove a perfect race today. Consistently drove away, easily, from the other guy, multiple times during the race. Had a ten second lead with five laps to go and was easily maintaining it. Then something outside of his control gives a clear tire and track position advantage to the driver behind him. Then, some bizarre and arbitrary rule at the very last moment puts them back to back, with the driver behimd having brand new, faster tires. Horses***.

It was absolutely amazing that these two drivers would enter the final race tied at 369.5 points. That, alone, is incredible. But to basically award the race to one guy makes F1 a joke.

I’ve seen every race since mid-95 and I’ve never seen anything like this.

What steams me even more is the way one driver entered this race as a douche and the other finished it with absolute grace.

 

[Tango32]

That race was perhaps the most (red)Bull**** thing I’ve ever seen in ‘sports.’ Embarrassing.

It was like Netflix was the Race Director.

F1 rules are ridiculous. You have teams actually negotiating for race positions during the race. Stewards making arbitrary decisions, not explaining rulings in time for driver reactions, and here, so explicitly, safety cars and virtual safety cars favor the driver in back, because they have the advantage in deciding what to do, after seeing what the leader does. Insane.

One driver drove a perfect race today. Consistently drove away, easily, from the other guy, multiple times during the race. Had a ten second lead with five laps to go and was easily maintaining it. Then something outside of his control gives a clear tire and track position advantage to the driver behind him. Then, some bizarre and arbitrary rule at the very last moment puts them back to back, with the driver behimd having brand new, faster tires. Horses***.

It was absolutely amazing that these two drivers would enter the final race tied at 369.5 points. That, alone, is incredible. But to basically award the race to one guy makes F1 a joke.

I’ve seen every race since mid-95 and I’ve never seen anything like this.

What steams me even more is the way one driver entered this race as a douche and the other finished it with absolute grace.

So I have no problem with those upset with the ending, deff unorthodox but it was not red bulls fault, you cant blame them. In my opinion Masi and FIA were in a real crap position, they clearly wanted this to be decided on track not finish in a parade or by a ruling. Finishing under yellows would have just awarded the ship to Ham at their choosing. I know Im in the minority but I liked the call. That last lap battle was epic. Merc could have pitted under the virtual safety car or the real safety car and they gambled not to and lost. And come on, to say Ham drove a perfect race... Dude deff should have gave that place back in the beginning and even all of the Sky guys agreed. The real issue has been Masi and FIA have been all over the place with rulings, just no consistency, and yeah the bartering between Horner and Toto to race control has been so dam wierd, I hate that. Calling Ver a deuche... you see Ham crying on the radio after the epic and clean defense by Checo, saying that was dangerous driving? That was clean as hell and great raceccraft. Youre letting your fandom get in the way, they've both had plenty of deuchey moments. Who cares, it was a awesome season and awesome race.

 

[Zelda Zonk]

So I have no problem with those upset with the ending, deff unorthodox but it was not red bulls fault, you cant blame them. In my opinion Masi and FIA were in a real crap position, they clearly wanted this to be decided on track not finish in a parade or by a ruling. Finishing under yellows would have just awarded the ship to Ham at their choosing. I know Im in the minority but I liked the call. That last lap battle was epic. Merc could have pitted under the virtual safety car or the real safety car and they gambled not to and lost. And come on, to say Ham drove a perfect race... Dude deff should have gave that place back in the beginning and even all of the Sky guys agreed. The real issue has been Masi and FIA have been all over the place with rulings, just no consistency, and yeah the bartering between Horner and Toto to race control has been so dam wierd, I hate that. Calling Ver a deuche... you see Ham crying on the radio after the epic and clean defense by Checo, saying that was dangerous driving? That was clean as hell and great raceccraft. Youre letting your fandom get in the way, they've both had plenty of deuchey moments. Who cares, it was a awesome season and awesome race.

I don't blame Red Bull. They took what was allowed to them.

But, the basic facts remain: Hamilton led the race from start, he easily had more pace than the Red Bull. He pulled away from them whenever they got close, due to Perez' or the restart. Hamilton had a comfortable ten second lead with five laps to go. Twice during the race, a safety car allowed the car behind to pit and gain an advantage because they could react to what the leader was doing. That's ridiculous.

And on the last lap, the stewards seem to have just made up/changed the protocol on whether to allow people to pass to reclaim track position, and they basically turned the championship decider into a one lap sprint. Which might be acceptable IF both drivers were on equal footing BEFORE the safety car. But, no—they let Max put on new, soft tires, while Lewis had old hard tires, and then they said GO. That's insane. Stupid. Completely unfair. You shouldn't be penalized for running a perfect race and building leads at every stage.

Verstappen a douche? Yeah. Consistently throughout his career. And most recently, i think he basically said that if he had the Mercedes, he would have won the championship a while ago. Douchey on multiple fronts. Disrespecting (again) his rival, and at the same time saying his own team isn't as good. And in a few races this year, he's called Hamilton "an idiot" for a maneuver, while he pulls maneuvers many times more dangerous and irresponsible. He's, by far, the most aggressive driver, and he boasts about that, and that other drivers don't drive aggressively enough... I'm going to suggest that if you win 7 championships, you're driving exactly aggressive enough.

Wouldn't call Hamilton's radio comm "crying" about Perez. He said it pretty matter of factly considering he was going 200mph and had just barely avoided both a crash and losing the championship with a DNF. There's no "fandom" involved. It was completely the wrong way for a championship (or any single race) to be decided. One driver dominated the race on merits and kept having his leads taken away. Verstappen didn't earn this win, by any objective reasoning. Denying that is "fandom."

 

[Tango32]

I don't blame Red Bull. They took what was allowed to them.

But, the basic facts remain: Hamilton led the race from start, he easily had more pace than the Red Bull. He pulled away from them whenever they got close, due to Perez' or the restart. Hamilton had a comfortable ten second lead with five laps to go. Twice during the race, a safety car allowed the car behind to pit and gain an advantage because they could react to what the leader was doing. That's ridiculous.

And on the last lap, the stewards seem to have just made up/changed the protocol on whether to allow people to pass to reclaim track position, and they basically turned the championship decider into a one lap sprint. Which might be acceptable IF both drivers were on equal footing BEFORE the safety car. But, no—they let Max put on new, soft tires, while Lewis had old hard tires, and then they said GO. That's insane. Stupid. Completely unfair. You shouldn't be penalized for running a perfect race and building leads at every stage.

Verstappen a douche? Yeah. Consistently throughout his career. And most recently, i think he basically said that if he had the Mercedes, he would have won the championship a while ago. Douchey on multiple fronts. Disrespecting (again) his rival, and at the same time saying his own team isn't as good. And in a few races this year, he's called Hamilton "an idiot" for a maneuver, while he pulls maneuvers many times more dangerous and irresponsible. He's, by far, the most aggressive driver, and he boasts about that, and that other drivers don't drive aggressively enough... I'm going to suggest that if you win 7 championships, you're driving exactly aggressive enough.

Wouldn't call Hamilton's radio comm "crying" about Perez. He said it pretty matter of factly considering he was going 200mph and had just barely avoided both a crash and losing the championship with a DNF. There's no "fandom" involved. It was completely the wrong way for a championship (or any single race) to be decided. One driver dominated the race on merits and kept having his leads taken away. Verstappen didn't earn this win, by any objective reasoning. Denying that is "fandom."

Firstly, I appreciate the discussion man, this is enjoyable to get to talk F1 on this board.

Yeah Ham pulled away consistently, that Merc is a rocketship, crazy good engine with some awesome straightline speed. Seems like Merc strategy at times this year has actually submarined him.

But check this out, Ham has been just as deuchey and aggresive. Ham 2011:

“I drive aggressively because my car is not fast enough at times and I have to push and be aggressive. If I had a car I could cruise around, then I wouldn't have to be aggressive."​

You gotta remeber Ham is 37, Max is 24. They're in very different places maturity wise. Ham was no different at 24. I'd deffinietly expect Ham to handle this better given his experience and age when compared to Max.

For Ham to call Checo's defense "dangerous driving" after crashing Max out at 200mph at Copse Corner in Silverstonstone this year is pot calling kettle black. Ive not seen one person call Checo's defense today anything other than brilliant. That was solid clean entertaining racing.

I'm actually not a Max fan, but remeber if his tire didnt randomly implode at Baku or he didn't get DNF'd by Ham at Silverstone he'd have already won the ship.

 

[Zelda Zonk]

I don’t think that quote from Hamilton is at all douchey. He’s not saying anything against another person. At least, that‘s how I define it. Saying you drive aggressively is pretty much a non-statement. Everyone would say that. Because the alternative is “passively” and no good driver has ever been passive.

Max has been an ass since day one. A lot of his fans have actually rationalized it as “The Dutch Way”—that it’s cultural to be ’upfront and in your face’ and that that is actually virtuous. Isn’t that character in Ted Lasso supposed to be Dutch? The unfiltered soccer player? I think that’s a riff on that stereotype. Hamilton, on the other hand, has always been pretty magnanimous. Even from the beginning when he was facing tremendous racism. He was a bit immature on the track and made mistakes, but that’s no different from any driver. He just had intense scrutiny because he was immediately driving for a prime team and he was the first/only black driver, so we saw and heard everything.

I didn’t say anything negative about Perez’ driving/teamwork today. I only pushed back against the characterization of Lewis’ radio chatter as “crying.” And i‘ll disagree about what happened at Silverstone. Max’ Baku tire is a part of the racijg season. Hamilton has had things go against him, as well. They both entered fairly at 369.5 points. It was down to one race, and Hamilton executed it to perfection. This ending was like if two teams were playing for the basketball Nat Championship, and one team led all the way through, and carried a ten point lead with a minute to go, and the refs said, Hold up. The team in the lead, you gotta play 4 reserves against 5 starters, we are giving the ball to the trailing team, and the next three point shot counts for 11 points.

Media got their first time champion, instead of another one for the status quo, Netflix gets their insane Hollywood season finale, and we don’t have to listen to Christian Horner whine for a year and Red Bull can stop their annual threats to leave F1….

The announcers said multiple times that Red Bull needed a miracle. Horner said we need a miracle. They were given a miracle, and it was a total perversion of what sports should be. I’ve been saying it for a while—the rules and the system suck. Far too much ambiguity and ‘discretion’ involved, even while at the same time, Hamilton got penalized for a wing infraction of just fractions of a millimeter, after Verstappen was shown touching that very component. Ridiculous.

 

[Zelda Zonk]

Just found this:

Jan Maas

Jan Maas is a recurring character featured in the Apple TV+ show, Ted Lasso, a Dutch professional footballer who joined AFC Richmond for the 20/21 Season, and a Center Back player for AFC Richmond. He replaced Anders Rosenfeldt and first introduced after the club lost to Nottingham Forest F.C...

ted-lasso.fandom.com

”Jan Maas is not being rude. He’s just being Dutch.”

 

[chugg21]

Why F1 hopes its new-look 2022 car is a game changer

F1 has lofty expectations for its revamped 2022 cars -- a new competitive order, closer racing and more overtaking. But is it all achievable?

www.espn.com

Good article about the new regulations for 2022. Considered creating a 2022 thread but the majority of this one was me talking to myself so didn't want to press my luck.

 

[CuseTroop]

I don't blame Red Bull. They took what was allowed to them.

But, the basic facts remain: Hamilton led the race from start, he easily had more pace than the Red Bull. He pulled away from them whenever they got close, due to Perez' or the restart. Hamilton had a comfortable ten second lead with five laps to go. Twice during the race, a safety car allowed the car behind to pit and gain an advantage because they could react to what the leader was doing. That's ridiculous.

And on the last lap, the stewards seem to have just made up/changed the protocol on whether to allow people to pass to reclaim track position, and they basically turned the championship decider into a one lap sprint. Which might be acceptable IF both drivers were on equal footing BEFORE the safety car. But, no—they let Max put on new, soft tires, while Lewis had old hard tires, and then they said GO. That's insane. Stupid. Completely unfair. You shouldn't be penalized for running a perfect race and building leads at every stage.

Verstappen a douche? Yeah. Consistently throughout his career. And most recently, i think he basically said that if he had the Mercedes, he would have won the championship a while ago. Douchey on multiple fronts. Disrespecting (again) his rival, and at the same time saying his own team isn't as good. And in a few races this year, he's called Hamilton "an idiot" for a maneuver, while he pulls maneuvers many times more dangerous and irresponsible. He's, by far, the most aggressive driver, and he boasts about that, and that other drivers don't drive aggressively enough... I'm going to suggest that if you win 7 championships, you're driving exactly aggressive enough.

Wouldn't call Hamilton's radio comm "crying" about Perez. He said it pretty matter of factly considering he was going 200mph and had just barely avoided both a crash and losing the championship with a DNF. There's no "fandom" involved. It was completely the wrong way for a championship (or any single race) to be decided. One driver dominated the race on merits and kept having his leads taken away. Verstappen didn't earn this win, by any objective reasoning. Denying that is "fandom."

New to F1, but have been involved in motorsports since I was in the womb. Is there any difference to the bolded sentence above, and say- a NASCAR race coming under caution with 10 laps to go and everyone waiting to see if the leader is going to pit or not before deciding whether they should? Some folks are going to be on new tires, some are going to gamble with old

In my (mostly oval racing) brain, that's all part of the pit strategy. Mercedes gambled on pit strategy and lost.

The decision to keep Hamilton out makes less and less sense the more I think about it. Please let me know if I'm thinking about this wrong or misinterpreting F1 rules.

Hamilton was leading when the safety car came out. Max was behind him. I'm not sure the condition of either's tires when the safety car came out, but someone above mentioned that Lewis was on older hard tires. What's the reasoning for not having Lewis pit? Max either pits with him, and as long as the stop goes well is still behind Lewis coming out- Now all you have to do is hold him off for 1 lap, both with new tires, and Lewis being the faster car all day.
If Max doesn't pit, then Lewis is behind him with fresher tires and a faster car. (this where I might be off... Where would Lewis have come out of the pits? Directly behind Max? Or would there have been multiple cars between them?)

I've been an oval guy my whole life. Ran a few dirt cars back in my day, was big into NASCAR until about 10 years ago (oddly enough, not many people in Alaska give a crap about NASCAR). Was never into road racing until I got into the Iracing simulator and started getting interested in open wheel cars. Then, Drive to Survive really got me hooked. Planning on hitting Austin next year.

 

[Tango32]

Why F1 hopes its new-look 2022 car is a game changer

F1 has lofty expectations for its revamped 2022 cars -- a new competitive order, closer racing and more overtaking. But is it all achievable?

www.espn.com

Good article about the new regulations for 2022. Considered creating a 2022 thread but the majority of this one was me talking to myself so didn't want to press my luck.

Since wandering off from the FB and BB boards and finding this thread and that other Cuse fans like F1 I'll defintely chime in either way. The new designs look stellar, really pumped about the new downforce changes. Hopefully it translates, FIA have been pimping it everywhere so hopefully where there's smoke there's fire. It'll be good to see that whoever beats the pack out of turn one doesn't just go into autopilot until saftey car.

 

[chugg21]

Since wandering off from the FB and BB boards and finding this thread and that other Cuse fans like F1 I'll defintely chime in either way. The new designs look stellar, really pumped about the new downforce changes. Hopefully it translates, FIA have been pimping it everywhere so hopefully where there's smoke there's fire. It'll be good to see that whoever beats the pack out of turn one doesn't just go into autopilot until saftey car.

Hope I never see or hear the phrase "DRS train" ever again.

 

[Tango32]

Planning on hitting Austin next year.

If you're in the Northeast don't sleep on Montreal. Great Circuit. Lived within an hour of Montreal for a number of years, its also a great city. Wife and I had planned to go for the last 2 years but Canada keeps canceling it due to Covid. I Think it'll be on for 2022.

 

[CuseTroop]

If you're in the Northeast don't sleep on Montreal. Great Circuit. Lived within an hour of Montreal for a number of years, its also a great city. Wife and I had planned to go for the last 2 years but Canada keeps canceling it due to Covid. I Think it'll be on for 2022.

Just relocated from Alaska to Henderson, NV. Hadn't even thought of a Montreal trip tho. My dad and brother are still in NY, would be a cool, quick trip for us. Keep me posted on your plans!

 

[Zelda Zonk]

New to F1, but have been involved in motorsports since I was in the womb. Is there any difference to the bolded sentence above, and say- a NASCAR race coming under caution with 10 laps to go and everyone waiting to see if the leader is going to pit or not before deciding whether they should?

In my (mostly oval racing) brain, that's all part of the pit strategy. Mercedes gambled on pit strategy and lost.

The decision to keep Hamilton out makes less and less sense the more I think about it. Please let me know if I'm thinking about this wrong or misinterpreting F1 rules.

Hamilton was leading when the safety car came out. Max was behind him. I'm not sure the condition of either's tires when the safety car came out, but someone above mentioned that Lewis was on older hard tires. What's the reasoning for not having Lewis pit? Max either pits with him, and as long as the stop goes well is still behind Lewis coming out- Now all you have to do is hold him off for 1 lap, both with new tires, and Lewis being the faster car all day.
If Max doesn't pit, then Lewis is behind him with fresher tires and a faster car. (this where I might be off... Where would Lewis have come out of the pits? Directly behind Max? Or would there have been multiple cars between them?)

I've been an oval guy my whole life. Ran a few dirt cars back in my day, was big into NASCAR until about 10 years ago (oddly enough, not many people in Alaska give a crap about NASCAR). Was never into road racing until I got into the Iracing simulator and started getting interested in open wheel cars. Then, Drive to Survive really got me hooked. Planning on hitting Austin next year.

I don't watch NASCAR, so i'm not sure.

The thing with F1, though, is it is rare to give up track position without data that indicates you'll have time to recover it and then—the important and difficult part in F1—to execute an overtake.

Basically, in this situation, Verstappen would have been told to do the opposite of what Hamilton did. Because of the ambiguities in the rules, and the fact that the stewards have some leeway in making calls, there was also no way to know that the race would even have continued. If this were any other race (not deciding a championship), it probably would have finished under caution/Safety Car.

The race director also decided to let Max pass all the backmarkers, when that decision was also either decided in the opposite way, or was undecided. Christian Horner lobbied to have Max pass everyone else and assume position 2. Essentially, the race director allowed himself to be cajoled into even having a last lap, and then into making the last lap all about some contrived 'television moment,' and gave Red Bull the "miracle" everyone was saying they needed. Red Bull's strategy at multiple decision points during the last third of the race was based on "they have nothing to lose," which is also what everyone was saying. That's not winning on merit.

I don't blame Verstappen. I don't even blame Red Bull, although i think Christian Horner is as smug as smug can be, and per the cab driver in Seinfeld, "Smugness is not a good quality." But, he, too, had nothing to lose, made a more compelling and immediate argument than Toto Wolff who was 'gobsmacked' and inarticulate when talking to Race Control—because he simply couldn't believe what was happening. The perfect race by Hamilton/Mercedes was stolen away from them. They couldn't have done anything better.

Yeah, Drive to Survive is excellent. I've watched 99.5% of the races since 2015, but i always tended to pay attention only to my team/drivers, and what was happening at the front of the leaderboard and/race. But, DtS made all the other drivers more interesting and exposed a lot of the 'backstory,' so the entire sport is even more interesting to me now. No offense, but i don't understand how people can watch NASCAR. On one hand, yes, F1 has a problem with passing, but it is just such a beautiful sport. The cars are stunning and the height of industry tech. The drivers are international in flavor. The locations are international and glam. By contrast, i mean—it's Billy Bob in Talladega with a Chevy Lumina with a detergent logo on the hood. Ick!

I keep telling this story, as well—i think it may have been my first or second year being transfixed by racing (at that time, it was F1 and CART, which was really good until my guy died on track—Greg Moore)... And i was watching an F1 race intro, but clicked over to a Nascar even during a commercial. The F1 channel was showing a tech demo, about Computational Fluid Dynamics. When i clicked to the Nascar race, the first thing out of the hick commentator's mouth was: "now folks, that's whatcha call a 'oxy-moron.' Now, that ain't what it sounds like... it's just two words put together that probably shouldn't be."

And that was the last time i watched NASCAR.

 

[CuseTroop]

I don't watch NASCAR, so i'm not sure.

The thing with F1, though, is it is rare to give up track position without data that indicates you'll have time to recover it and then—the important and difficult part in F1—to execute an overtake.

Basically, in this situation, Verstappen would have been told to do the opposite of what Hamilton did. Because of the ambiguities in the rules, and the fact that the stewards have some leeway in making calls, there was also no way to know that the race would even have continued. If this were any other race (not deciding a championship), it probably would have finished under caution/Safety Car.

That is absolutely insane

The race director also decided to let Max pass all the backmarkers, when that decision was also either decided in the opposite way, or was undecided. Christian Horner lobbied to have Max pass everyone else and assume position 2. Essentially, the race director allowed himself to be cajoled into even having a last lap, and then into making the last lap all about some contrived 'television moment,' and gave Red Bull the "miracle" everyone was saying they needed. Red Bull's strategy at multiple decision points during the last third of the race was based on "they have nothing to lose," which is also what everyone was saying. That's not winning on merit.

That was another question I had: In a normal/non championship deciding race, is it normal for lead lap cars to pass non lead lap cars while the safety car is out? I missed the end of the race, but when I heard about what happened I remembered thinking "How do they not know if he should have been able to pass the lapped cars or not"

I don't blame Verstappen. I don't even blame Red Bull, although i think Christian Horner is as smug as smug can be, and per the cab driver in Seinfeld, "Smugness is not a good quality." But, he, too, had nothing to lose, made a more compelling and immediate argument than Toto Wolff who was 'gobsmacked' and inarticulate when talking to Race Control—because he simply couldn't believe what was happening. The perfect race by Hamilton/Mercedes was stolen away from them. They couldn't have done anything better.

Yeah, Drive to Survive is excellent. I've watched 99.5% of the races since 2015, but i always tended to pay attention only to my team/drivers, and what was happening at the front of the leaderboard and/race. But, DtS made all the other drivers more interesting and exposed a lot of the 'backstory,' so the entire sport is even more interesting to me now. No offense, but i don't understand how people can watch NASCAR. On one hand, yes, F1 has a problem with passing, but it is just such a beautiful sport. The cars are stunning and the height of industry tech. The drivers are international in flavor. The locations are international and glam. By contrast, i mean—it's Billy Bob in Talladega with a Chevy Lumina with a detergent logo on the hood. Ick!

I haven't picked a team/driver yet to follow yet, but need to get on that.

I keep telling this story, as well—i think it may have been my first or second year being transfixed by racing (at that time, it was F1 and CART, which was really good until my guy died on track—Greg Moore)... And i was watching an F1 race intro, but clicked over to a Nascar even during a commercial. The F1 channel was showing a tech demo, about Computational Fluid Dynamics. When i clicked to the Nascar race, the first thing out of the hick commentator's mouth was: "now folks, that's whatcha call a 'oxy-moron.' Now, that ain't what it sounds like... it's just two words put together that probably shouldn't be."

And that was the last time i watched NASCAR.

I laughed out loud here haha

 

[Tango32]

The perfect race by Hamilton/Mercedes was stolen away from them. They couldn't have done anything better.

Come on man... He was at a disadvantage, it wasnt stolen. Earlier in the race Checo on 20 lap old softs defended against Hamilton on new rubbers for a whole lap and a half. Ham just needed to do it for 1 lap. It wasnt an impossible task, just hard. I'm not saying Hams not a top driver or anything, he just didnt rise to the occasion in the moment and it cost him the ship. It wasnt stolen, he had a chance.

Also - common ground, NASCAR is awful comparatively

 

[Zelda Zonk]

Come on man... He was at a disadvantage, it wasnt stolen. Earlier in the race Checo on 20 lap old softs defended against Hamilton on new rubbers for a whole lap and a half. Ham just needed to do it for 1 lap. It wasnt an impossible task, just hard. I'm not saying Hams not a top driver or anything, he just didnt rise to the occasion in the moment and it cost him the ship. It wasnt stolen, he had a chance.

Also - common ground, NASCAR is awful comparatively

I don't know what you're saying. Who was at a disadvantage? Verstappen, right? He was 10+ seconds behind, with five laps to go, and that lead was not shrinking. It was 'in the bag' for Hamilton, as much as anything could ever be. Hamilton, even with his old, harder tires wasn't even losing tenths to Verstappen at that point. The difference, though, was putting Verstappen immediately behind him, with fresh tires, after a restart where tires were cold, and giving him the draft. That's four factors that made it pretty easy for him to pass Hamilton on the one/first lap after the Safety Car went in. I give Hamilton tons of credit for not doing anything stupid to block Verstappen. That was pretty mature, given the insanity of losing the championship under those ridiculous circumstances. There was nothing Hamilton could do on that last lap to "rise to the occasion." Nothing. Nothing Schumacher, Fangio, or Senna could have done. It was all down to physics.