F1 - 2017 Italian Grand Prix

[Garak]

Originally Posted By: Brad_C
Well.... That wasn't as dull as it could have been.

Yes, as Reggaemon put it, perhaps the dullest race of the year; I expected more fireworks. Alonso was comedy, though. He freaked out on the radio about everything, but seemed calm and collected about being told to retire. I guess he's used to it.

I really don't know what the best answer is for McLaren. If it were up to me, and thankfully it's not, I'd think sticking with Honda. The Renault engines still have a power deficit to Mercedes and Ferrari, and the only thing that can be said about their reliability is that it's marginally better than Honda's, but that isn't saying much.

 

[billt460]

Originally Posted By: Garak
Yes, as Reggaemon put it, perhaps the dullest race of the year; I expected more fireworks. Alonso was comedy, though. He freaked out on the radio about everything, but seemed calm and collected about being told to retire. I guess he's used to it.


I think he is thinking ahead to next season in Indy Car. Where he at least knows he'll be competitive. He's getting tired of watching the race from the back, then the garage.

 

[Reggaemon]

Did anyone see the Gene Hass interview? I don't know what to think about it.
It hasn't even been two years and he is talking like he is ready to throw in the towel.

Didn't he see that only three teams stand a chance of winning and everyone else is
just running for a points paying position.

 

[Indydriver]

Originally Posted By: Garak
Originally Posted By: Brad_C
Well.... That wasn't as dull as it could have been.

Yes, as Reggaemon put it, perhaps the dullest race of the year; I expected more fireworks. Alonso was comedy, though. He freaked out on the radio about everything, but seemed calm and collected about being told to retire. I guess he's used to it.

I really don't know what the best answer is for McLaren. If it were up to me, and thankfully it's not, I'd think sticking with Honda. The Renault engines still have a power deficit to Mercedes and Ferrari, and the only thing that can be said about their reliability is that it's marginally better than Honda's, but that isn't saying much.

Don't worry. Honda has the greatest engine engineers in the world. They'll get that VCM working properly then, look out!

 

[Garak]

Originally Posted By: billt460
I think he is thinking ahead to next season in Indy Car. Where he at least knows he'll be competitive. He's getting tired of watching the race from the back, then the garage.

I don't want to see him leave F1, but he's definitely made his own bed. He hasn't helped the situation with Honda at all. Realistically, I'm not sure they should have bothered with Alonso in the first place. Obviously, when the McLaren-Honda partnership began, they'd want an experienced driver, but Alonso might have been a bit much. I think Honda can do it; it just depends on the patience of all the parties involved. McLaren can't wait indefinitely and watch sponsors dry up and everything go south on them.

Reggaemon: No, haven't seen the Haas interview; I'll look for it. He, too, has to have patience. If he wants to do what the big teams does, he has to build sponsorships, too. You'd think he'd have gone into this with eyes wide open. The budgets are astronomical, and that's no secret to even casual fans. Ferrari seems to be moving closer to Sauber and further away from Haas. I'm wondering if there's more to this than we've seen.

 

[Brad_C]

Originally Posted By: Garak

Yes, as Reggaemon put it, perhaps the dullest race of the year; I expected more fireworks. Alonso was comedy, though.


I was actually being a bit facetious. I thought it was a pretty good watch to be honest. Plenty of overtaking, lots of Alonso commentary and another case of Verstappen being completely oblivious to anyone else on the track. I'm just glad he didn't dent Massas car.

Massa pulled the same overtake on Verstappen that Ricciardo pulled on Raikkonen, except Ricciardo was faster and further back and Raikkonen has enough experience to check his mirrors and be aware there are other cars on the track.

Verstappen may have had some unfortunate mechanical luck this season, but the rest of the prangs are entirely due to him continually putting himself in harms way without a thought about the cars around him. The more experienced and mature drivers can see what is going on and stay clear with the "I have the rest of the race to make those positions up, but I can't do that if I have a Force India front wing stuck in my radiator" attitude.

Singapore should be an interesting race with the Mercs longer wheelbase impacting them on the tight circuit.

 

[Garak]

Originally Posted By: Brad_C
I was actually being a bit facetious. I thought it was a pretty good watch to be honest. Plenty of overtaking, lots of Alonso commentary and another case of Verstappen being completely oblivious to anyone else on the track. I'm just glad he didn't dent Massas car.

I was bored with what was going on up front. The back end always has something going on, but the front three were basically all in their own race.

I checked out the Gene Haas interview Reggaemon referenced. He can look at all his issues and realize they're not new and don't have an easy solution. If he wants more randomness, there are a few possibilities. One is a spec series, and that's not even a possibility here, so that can be discounted. One other is that reliability has to be reduced all around. We've seen what that brings in years past. That will simply increase costs, and not decrease them. Or, you can get rid of works teams altogether, and require all teams to be engine customers of some other entities. I'm sure that would please Renault, Mercedes, and Ferrari no end, plus do wonders for the sport, to eliminate them from the series.

If he's got any ideas how to turn a shoe string budget into race wins, I'm all ears, and I'm not the only one. This race had one of the most randomized grids in recent memory, and that wasn't enough, so he needs to come up with some ideas for us. All I can suggest is he concentrate on his team. There will always be back markers. Is he going to be one of them for good, or not?

 

[Brad_C]

Agreed the front three were in another race altogether. Still, they spent a lot of coverage on what was going on behind.

I found the interview also. Gene just sounds like he's having a whinge.

 

[DeepFriar]

Maybe Guenther Stiener is Haas's intended audience this time.