2024 Japanese Grand Prix - Suzuka, April 05 - 07

[Veteran]

Mercedes should have stuck to their concepts instead of trying to please Hamilton. We have seen Wolff and Hamilton bad mouth the car with impunity when Prost was fired for saying less. There is so much talk of how good Ferrari are yet When Merc was finishing 2nd in races last season and before they still moaned about a 5h1t box. They had unique knowledge of their designes and they abandoned that knowledge looking for silver bullets and now are in the wilderness.

I really do think having Hamilton in the team made worse by AD 2021 has given Lewis too much power in deciding and influencing the car design as Lewsi wants instant success been bad for them.

[AR3-GP]

Something I've noticed is that no car can hit the apex at the hairpin. It's very different to 20 years ago.

[AMG.Tzan]

Mercedes should have stuck to their concepts instead of trying to please Hamilton. We have seen Wolff and Hamilton bad mouth the car with impunity when Prost was fired for saying less. There is so much talk of how good Ferrari are yet When Merc was finishing 2nd in races last season and before they still moaned about a 5h1t box. They had unique knowledge of their designes and they abandoned that knowledge looking for silver bullets and now are in the wilderness.

I really do think having Hamilton in the team made worse by AD 2021 has given Lewis too much power in deciding and influencing the car design as Lewsi wants instant success been bad for them.

I don’t know what you think Lewis changed in the design process…

He as a driver wanted a seat further back which clearly gave them better feeling of the back end! Lewis doesn’t design floors though! And all of these cars’ performance comes from these floors!

So I don’t know what you’re accusing Lewis for! Drivers drive and give feedback! They don’t design the cars! As simple as that…

[ringo]

Some posts should be ignored. It saves you from being banned. Lol
The W15, though relatively worst than RB20 is an improvement. The other cars have simply improved way more as those could build on good concepts from the previous year.
Mercedes were building from scratch almost each year from w13 w14.
The w15 is much improved in sector 1.

As for the racing, the 18 inch wheels are also the culprit. F1 needs go back to 13 inch wheels or compromise and go to 16 inch wheels.
There is more variation with more meat on the rim, and compliance to do curb riding and other maneouvres. The 18s just add unsprung weight .
I was hoping 2026 would reduce the wheel size and weight, go back to a narrower lighter car, add more ICE power, and change from ground effect back to flat floors. Getting rid of MGUH was a good move but more needed to be done.

[Seanspeed]

Leclerc's race was somewhat underwhelming. It was not special outside of tge long first stint.

Yea aside from the fact that he did 26 laps on Medium tires while still lapping as fast by the end of it as when he started, which was literally the entire reason the strategy was able to work at all, he didn't really do anything impressive.

I mean, if you discount all of Lewis' championships, has he really accomplished much?

[Mosin123]

Leclerc's race was somewhat underwhelming. It was not special outside of tge long first stint.

Yea aside from the fact that he did 26 laps on Medium tires while still lapping as fast by the end of it as when he started, which was literally the entire reason the strategy was able to work at all, he didn't really do anything impressive.

I mean, if you discount all of Lewis' championships, has he really accomplished much?

what has lapping 1 sec + slower than your team mate got to do with winning the f1 drivers championship?

[ringo]

Exactly. I dont see why my opinion would deserve such push back.
Leclerc made a big error being chased by Perez and that impacted his race outcome.
But he did what the car could do on that first stint and made the most. Drivers don't make tyres go 50% longer than they should and keep top pace. It's not not magic. So good job but nothing special.
He did well to come back from 9th and challenge for a podium. But i would not say his race was jaw dropping by any means. Sainz still overtook him in the end to snatch another podium and that will be a blow to his psyche regaradless of how good that first stint was.
If Sainz didnt miss Saudi Arabia he would be the one fighting for thr WDC.

[stephen]

It was another meh race. F1 needs some on track excitement.

[venkyhere]

I don't know if anyone has mentioned it yet, what I found most impressive about this Suzuka race is :
How well organized the people in charge were, to deal with the Lap1 red flag.

- The quickness shown by race control to go to red immediately, rather than twaddle for 2 laps with yellow, and then going to red.
- How quickly the crane truck and other entourage vehicles arrived on the scene almost immediately
- How quickly they removed two cars, sent away the drivers, and repaired the barricade (even if it was just restacking some tyres).

Honestly, I was expecting a 45min-1hr delay, which is normal for such an incident in an EU track where 'protocol delays' and 'all in due time, sir' procedure simply kills the viewer. Japanese efficiency ensured it was just 20-25 mins.

[basti313]

It was another meh race. F1 needs some on track excitement.

What do you mean with that?
The track was great to watch these GE cars. I think that is what they are designed for.

On the other side it is and was always a tire killing aero track...so not much overtaking, I think in the pre-DRS and pre-Pirelli days you could count the overtakes with one hand.

For me more Miami, more Baku and Vegas would do the job, but others like more Suzuka, Barcelona, etc...I think the mix is there and you have enough races on the calendar to not watch every minute of them if you do not like the track.

[DGP123]

It was another meh race. F1 needs some on track excitement.

Can’t see it happening. Cars are too heavy and cumbersome for any quality wheel to wheel action. It’s mainly strategy, being on the right tyre, and then straight forward, uncontested DRS overtakes. Throw in the championship being over already, and that’s the product we have today. Dire stuff.

[Seanspeed]

Exactly. I dont see why my opinion would deserve such push back.
Leclerc made a big error being chased by Perez and that impacted his race outcome.
But he did what the car could do on that first stint and made the most. Drivers don't make tyres go 50% longer than they should and keep top pace. It's not not magic. So good job but nothing special.
He did well to come back from 9th and challenge for a podium. But i would not say his race was jaw dropping by any means. Sainz still overtook him in the end to snatch another podium and that will be a blow to his psyche regaradless of how good that first stint was.
If Sainz didnt miss Saudi Arabia he would be the one fighting for thr WDC.

It was wild that Leclerc was even in the battle for the podium by the end at all. The idea that Sainz overtaking him for 3rd at the end would be a 'big blow to his psyche' is nonsense. Nobody said what he did was 'magic', so we can quit with any nonsense strawman arguments. But it was impressive and if that's what anybody could have done, they should have done it, yet most all agreed after the race that two stop was still the preferred strategy, making it clear that Leclerc did in fact have to drive extremely well to make it work as he did.

And nobody at Ferrari is 'fighting for the WDC'.

I swear there's a straight up concerted effort to just downplay Leclerc at all costs by many here. lol

[basti313]

Exactly. I dont see why my opinion would deserve such push back.
Leclerc made a big error being chased by Perez and that impacted his race outcome.
But he did what the car could do on that first stint and made the most. Drivers don't make tyres go 50% longer than they should and keep top pace. It's not not magic. So good job but nothing special.
He did well to come back from 9th and challenge for a podium. But i would not say his race was jaw dropping by any means. Sainz still overtook him in the end to snatch another podium and that will be a blow to his psyche regaradless of how good that first stint was.
If Sainz didnt miss Saudi Arabia he would be the one fighting for thr WDC.

It was wild that Leclerc was even in the battle for the podium by the end at all. The idea that Sainz overtaking him for 3rd at the end would be a 'big blow to his psyche' is nonsense. Nobody said what he did was 'magic', so we can quit with any nonsense strawman arguments. But it was impressive and if that's what anybody could have done, they should have done it, yet most all agreed after the race that two stop was still the preferred strategy, making it clear that Leclerc did in fact have to drive extremely well to make it work as he did.

And nobody at Ferrari is 'fighting for the WDC'.

I swear there's a straight up concerted effort to just downplay Leclerc at all costs by many here. lol

Well you can criticize Lec for Q. But I also do not get the discussion on the race, he did a 1-stop for track position, which is always slower than the 2-stop. I also think this was a bit of a gamble on a well timed safety car. All fine from the position he started from.

Talking about strategy:
I am failing to see the reason for both Mercs bottling the strategy. They did a much too short first stint on the hard (laptimes were still consistent slow). With stopping late after the McLarens and Alonso, it was clear they had to overtake these on track. But then they just grilled the hard with two super fast laps which forced them to do another stop. I completely fail to see what they wanted to achieve with these laps in no-mans-land?
They had twice the chance to change the outcome...stay out a bit longer and fight with Piastri and Alonso would have easily put both Mercs ahead of them in the end.

[TFSA]

It was another meh race. F1 needs some on track excitement.

Can’t see it happening. Cars are too heavy and cumbersome for any quality wheel to wheel action. It’s mainly strategy, being on the right tyre, and then straight forward, uncontested DRS overtakes. Throw in the championship being over already, and that’s the product we have today. Dire stuff.

This race had plenty of non-DRS overtakes.... We saw 2-3 at Spoon, 2-3 at R130, and 3-4 in the S-section (although one, Max on George, wasn't televised) and 1-2 at the chicane.

I know you're talking about the sport in general, but the guy you're quoting wasn't. Just pointing out its not all bad.

[venkyhere]

The live telecast editing was sub-par for this race, IMHO. The 5-car pitlane scramble which got Tsunoda 2 or 3 places, was never shown 'live' , didn't even show the replay of VER passing RUS, didn't show what happened to HAM chasing PIA after he was passed right at the end by RUS, didn't show an onboard view of how it looked to the driver behind, who came upto degner2 as SAR was dangerously reversing onto the track at the 90 degree bend... etc