FORMULA 1 2024

[Cleoriff]

So breaking news before the start of the 2024 season:

Lewis Hamilton appears to be making a move to Ferrari for the 2025 season

A major shock as he signed a two year contract with Mercedes last season. So whether it was one year with an opt out clause for 2025 is anyone's guess.

This seems to be anything but a silly season rumour!

MOTORSPORT: HAMILTON TO FERRARI 

SKY NEWS: HAMILTON TO FERRARI FOR 2025 

A lot more news happening but I'll post that later. For now, I need to go and have a lie down 😂

NB As Charles Leclerc has just signed a contract extension with Ferrari, it looks as if Lewis would be replacing Carlos Sainz.

It won't be a popular move. Also, not sure how Mercedes will handle that news THIS year as Lewis is driving for them until the end of 2024.

Will they put all their eggs in George Russells basket? (Hamilton came 3rd in the drivers championship last year and Russell came 8th)

Questions Questions!!🤔

[Cleoriff]

Still rumbling on!
This statement from Toto late last night

[Cleoriff]

I thought a lot about this last night.

Although it's good to stand together as a team, when you break it down, there are two people to blame for this catastrophe (or the masterclass drive, which wasn't a masterclass).

George's race engineer.

This guy is responsible for overseeing everything on that car pre race. He knows how much fuel goes in and it's weight. There are 3 compounds of tyre which were open to be used in this dry race at Spa. Softs, mediums and hards. Only one driver out of 20 elected to start on softs. The rest started on mediums or hards.  The race engineer who knows all about mechanical engineering and physics, should be able to work out the fuel consumption of that car, matched with the tyres being used and how long they are being run for. They have data graphs on computers to show the wear on all 4 tyres.

George, pre race, agreed a 2 stop strategy. This is normal.

George Russell

He also is to blame. He changed his strategy during the race. Spa runs for 44 laps but is a long twisty track with high elevation. On lap 10 he was in 8th place and pitted for hards. After 20 laps he'd made up ground and when asked what tyres he wanted for next stop, George replied he wanted to go to the end. At this point his engineer should have warned him of the risk of running to the end on these tyres. They would lose a lot of rubber and that would have an effect on the fuel remaining. In other words there was a risk of being underweight at race end. His engineer should have requested he pit.

However, George would have lost position to his team mate and he was never going to allow that.

He could also have been told to let Lewis past. This would have llowed him to run in the slip stream of Lewis's car and by lidting and coasting he would have conserved fuel and rubber.

He wasn't asked to do that as he would have refused. (His biggest aim is to beat his team mate!)

So this so called Masterclass of a drive, wasn't that at all. He was disqualified and lost valuable points for the team and himself. He also lost a win which was given to his team mate.

Oh well, all off to the summer break to hopefully enjoy themselves.

[Cleoriff]

DRIVER STANDINGS 29/07/24

(Only shows top 10)

[Cleoriff]

News on the Driver Market.

Carlos Sainz who drives for Ferrari but replaced by Lewis Hamilton next year, has signed for Williams.

Bit of a shock to many as Williams arent a front running team. However they have a clear vision and sponsors are plowing money into the team so hopefully they will start to progress next year.

[Cleoriff]

The month long summer break is over. The cars and engineers are currently at Zandvoort for the Dutch GP.

This starts on Friday with Practice 1.

There will be a drivers press conference. Only 6 drivers attend. I'm wondering if George Russell will be one of the chosen ones? If so he will be inundated with questions about his last race. (Mercedes have yet to release a statement as to the cause of the car being underweight at race end. They have just said, 'it was their fault'. )

Point of interest: Russell wasn't the only one to run a one stop race. Alonso and Tsunoda did the same.

Difference is, they both pitted later than George. All 19 cars running were weighed. Only Russells was below the weight required by the FIA.

Oh well, roll on Zandvoort. This is Verstappens home race so we will see the Orange Army out in full force. 🙄

[Cleoriff]

News released yesterday.

There has been a lot of talk about whether Lewis Hamilton will be allowed to take his race engineer Pete (Bono) Bonnington to Ferrari with him. LH and Bono have been together since 2013 when LH joined Mercedes.

Mercedes have put a stop to all speculation.

Yesterday they announced they had promoted Bono to Head Of Race Engineering. Obviously a lot more money and he will still be allowed to work with LH's replacement, who is yet to be announced.

The front runner is Kimi Antonelli (17) who is currently racing in F2 but has had a few test runs in last years F1 car.

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/hamilton-engineer-bonnington-to-stay-with-mercedes-f1-in-expanded... 

[Cleoriff]

Practice 1 Zandvort

[Cleoriff]

Practice 2 Zandvoort

[Cleoriff]

[Cleoriff]

P3 Zandvoort.

A very short P3. Logan Sargeant (Williams) crashed into the barrier. The car disintegrated and set on fire.

Obviously a red flag was thrown due to the fire and the need to recover the car.

The car can't be repaired so it will be a new chassis and various engine parts. Thankfully Sargeant wont be racing in F1 next year.

All this meant only 6 minutes of Practice was left. Those who hadn't had a run, we first in the Queue to get out. It was mayhem with Verstappen breaking rules to get out first (overtaking in the pitlane and crossing the white line!!

The end of session results weren't really indicative of all the cars real pace.

Qualifying next. It's raining and windy. (Edited to add, the rain has stopped. Now sunny!!)