General Sports Thread

Toto coming up with some novel solutions to make Mercedes competitive.

 

Think it will be running back by committee, rather than having a proper starter. Would explain the Oliver signing a bit more as well. Mattison/Chandler/Nwangwu/rookie will all get lots of opportunities depending on the situation I expect.

I assume the Vikings are below the cap now as they had to be by the end of yesterday. Surprised both Smiths and Cook are still there, fully expect something to happen with all 3 at some point. I’d imagine Cook and Z Smith to be cut/traded and H Smith to restructure his deal to decrease his cap hit. Seems like they have a done good job in saving some money for next year as well, saw 1 report saying they will be about $100m under the cap this time next year (obviously will invest some of that in re-signing players and extensions and Cousins will be a large part of that number) but it’s what needed to be done

 

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA Max is out in Q2.

 

Should make the first 7-8 laps interesting if nothing else.

 

That Red Bull is so, so far ahead. For Sergio to essentially be half a second ahead of the field (bar Charles, whose lap was a Charles special, it wasn't to do with the car, he just outperformed in qually, as he often does. Compare and contrast with Sainz's lap) shows you how insanely quick it is.

Such a shame, as without that, it would be a hell of a season.

 

Russell & Domenicali trying not to piss themselves laughing at the Saudi band doing the Saudi National Anthem

 

Safety car has fallen perfectly for Max. And Lewis as well to be fair.

 

Just seen a 10 second penalty for Alonso, giving Russell 3rd place.

 

Little bit unfortunate. Suspect that's games a bit by Mercedes, who would have highlighted it at a point where he had no chance of pulling the gap. Back down to 99 career podiums!

 

Such a shame the RBR is so good, as it would be an epic year without them!

 

....which has (rightly) been reversed....

Fernando back to third, and a 100th podium.

 

Good. Very harsh to give him a 10 second penalty there. I thought it was very pedantic of the stewards.

 

Unpopular opinion but I don't like Russell. He was doing naff all before joining Mercedes and then suddenly once he moved to the team with the fastest or second fastest car, he starts actually doing something. Like the f1 equivalent of the CEO giving their 18 year old kid fresh out of high school an upper management job.

 

Disagree entirely. Russell did shockingly well with an utterly abject car, and the fact that he finished fourth in the standings last year -- some distance ahead of Hamilton -- shows that it was the right move.

The reality is that the cars do 90% of the work: if you stick Verstappen and Hamilton in backmarker cars, they will not win races. And if you stick Nyck de Vries in a current Red Bull, he will win quite a lot of races. That extra 10% is quite important in circumstances where the cars are fairly close to one another in performance, but when there is a huge gap (like Williams versus competitiveness in 2021, or Red Bull versus literally anyone in 2023) there's only so much one can do.

 

I don’t like Russell either, but your reasoning there is just…y’know…completely wrong. My reasoning is purely that I find him quite dull and Head Boy-ish.

As Schad said, he continually outperformed in a poor car at Williams, and has had huge success in the junior formulae. So it really is a case of “tell me you don’t know much about motorsport, without telling me you don’t know much about motorsport”. Sorry.

 

Dis you see how quick he was in qualifying with the Williams? To get into Q3 with that car was a fantastic achievement.

 

He won the GP3 and F2 championships in successive rookie seasons before moving to F1. That's only been done three times before in history, by Lewis Hamilton, Nico Hulkenburg and Charles Leclerc. To say "he was doing naff all" just shows a complete lack of knowledge of the sport.

 

Was it Spa in the wet where he put his Williams on the front row? I think Norris had a big crash on that day so it was extraordinary driving from Russell in the wet.

 

He’s a very, very good driver. Up there with the very best of this current generation.

 

Eh I don't claim to be knowledgeable of F1. I liked to watch it when it was on on a Sunday afternoon and the family were over but I rarely watched qualifying and certainly not F2. Haven't watched it in ages as I now have no TV license and I live miles from my family. Thanks for enlightening me.