Formula 1 Extravaganza

Creating this thread on request.

I'm a dirty Drive to Survive convert, I had the first season recommended to me about when it came out and started watching. My spouse started watching avidly soon after, which is unexpected but very fun. We watch qualifying as well which puts us among the grognards I'm told.

We're kind of weird because some of the non-driver strategy and paddock/factory stuff people find dry about F1 we find really interesting because we're both part applied statisticians in our day job---this strikes me as a statisticians dream even more than baseball is. We don't see their models but it's fun to work through how their decision-making back at their modeling centers are working, when they're wrong, and how you they interact with driver skill and quality.

Same. I'd been aware of F1 over the many years, some people in my life had been fans back in the 80s. But DtS got me back into it, and it was as much because of the race control stuff as the drivers.

(never mind the buzz about DtS creating storylines)

It's funny because to me the drivers are mostly interchangeable. The level of skill is so close (maybe minus someone like Mazepin) that it pretty much doesn't matter who's in which car. The actual car, the prep involved, and the risks taken in stuff like pit strategy contribute so much, and DtS is one of the only windows into that.

There's a rich vein of statisticians digging into F1 statistics trying to normalize expected performance throughout history (Fangio generally wins, which is appropriate, but the cult of Senna is still strong).

But ultimately it's all converged to the car, the team, and the budget, with occasional injections of chaos by spec updates. I'm really happy with how the 2021 changes have shuffled things up, as it's made for an exciting start to the season and caught some teams very off guard.

I got drawn in about five years back when I was coaching robotics, and it's really the engineering that keeps me coming back. And not just the vehicle, the entire business process engineering of the race teams as well.

I now subscribe to the F1 channel which makes for a lot of great technical content to learn about and really deep coverage of the races. Although I tell you what, I'd love to get two hours with the TV producers to tell them how awful their race graphics are and how they could improve it. There are really some elementary mistakes that drive me nuts.

I've been following Haas because I work with a guy whose brother designs body parts for them. So they're kind of family. But I heard a long interview with Carlos Sainz just before the season started so I've been keeping an eye on him particularly. Remarkable choice given what's happened.

And frankly, the difference between Verstappen and Perez in their driving styles, both on the same team, makes for fascinating analysis as well. Perez really knows how to conserve the car, and I think Red Bull could easily put their efforts to have him be their primary driver and get similar or even better results.

My first exposure to F1 was time trials at the Detroit Grand Prix way back when. And it has been Ferrari since then. Although, I did love the Bennetton and John Player's Special cars. I weas all about livery then. DTS really got me back into it and I appreciate the many aspects of F1 now. I have a decent driving rig set up for my PS4 which makes watching races that much more fun since I can really recognize the corners and lines the drivers are taking.

Ferrari and Haas are the teams I root for. While it is nice to see others competing for podiums, I do want to see Hammy out of the midfield. It will happen and a good 6-way battle at the front should be great for everyone to see.

I ponied up for a subscription to F1TV and has been watching F2 as well. It is interesting to see the up and coming drivers.

Hamilton's car is simply not up to the challenge at the moment. In one of the races a few weeks back he said on his radio "you guys aren't giving me anything to work with." And Hamilton is not a complainer. The F-1 announcers for the race were commenting that there were particular moves that Hamilton traditionally uses to pass that he's not using at all this year, leading them to believe he doesn't trust the car to do what he asks it to do.

I opened a thread in a couple of places to discuss the most important part of F-1 cars -- the paint jobs. Ferrari's dip into the deeper red was a fine call, Mercedes moving from SS black to Wehrmacht gray is a solid step up from a German team with zero sense of style. (Someone should tell them the car won't go any slower with a better paint job.) Haas is easy to pick out though Alpha Romeo nestled up to them a bit in the red-on-white. These are important issues, and no one is covering them!

Ferrari has the best looking car on the grid. Those side pods are fantastic and a better shade of red than last year. I really miss the 80s liveries though.

I recommend Chain Bear's youtube channel videos for technical descriptions and analysis as well.

F1 becoming as astoundingly trendy as it has become leaves me almost completely flabbergasted. Srsly...

A) Most people wouldn't know a crankshaft from a brake pad ON THEIR OWN CAR. But somehow now they're devotees of one of the most expensive motorsports ever created? Which leads to...

"Sport of the people" this is not. We're talking cars that can cost over 10 million, run by race teams worth 100's of millions of dollars, sponsored by corporations worth even more. And the same people who complain IRL about "OMG we're living through another Gilded Age!" are the same people jumping on this bandwagon? What happened to "power to the workers" and "eat the rich?"

C) The same people who now pretend to know everything about F1 wouldn't be caught dead watching a Nascar event, or an Indy Car event, or almost any other motorsport anywhere ever. This gap is noticeable and impenetrably weird. It's like the people who incessantly post cricket videos but would never watch an inning of baseball, or the people who want you to know how much they love rugby but dismiss American football or European soccer out of hand. It's become the world's weirdest social signifier.

I'm not trying to yuck anyone's yum, it's just bewildering to me how one of the earth's most elitist sports has rocketed to such global prominence in the middle of a world obsessed with wealth gaps, creeping fascist politics, and workers rights.

What are your thoughts on the new paint jobs?

Your objection is noted, fightcitymayor.

Sagrilarus wrote: What are your thoughts on the new paint jobs?

I'm in I think the minority that the dark red ferrari is a much better color than the classic bright ferrari red. Especially now that they've taken off the comical mission winno/malborough bright green badging.

I think the thing where Alpine is taking on the bright pink color for their sponsor but only for a couple races is disconcerting given that they were branding a different car last year!

It's called a 'sport of the people'? Weird. It shouldn't be called a sport in the first place, but that is a different conversation.

As for not watching other auto racing, I will dismiss Nascar and Indy every day of the week. Ovals are tedious. And before some nascar watcher yells about their few circuits, there are many other sedan leagues that are objectively better and that use production cars (mostly).

Besides, WRC is the pinnacle of autosport.

I've heard good things about Indycar, I've thought about picking it up too if I'm bored.

This touches on another advantage of watching F1, it really respects your time. If you're watching the race, it's two hours and you're done. So even if the race was a little flaccid you aren't out much time.

Gary Sax wrote: I've heard good things about Indycar, I've thought about picking it up too if I'm bored.

This touches on another advantage of watching F1, it really respects your time. If you're watching the race, it's two hours and you're done. So even if the race was a little flaccid you aren't out much time.

Something I've always been a fan of in watching soccer as well. I know what I'm in for, and barring a cup final I can easily plan the rest of my day.

But I'm also a hearty thumbs-down to oval racing, even of the open-wheel variety. Show me some variety.

On the "fight the power" front, I'm pretty sure F1 is a highly effective tool for turning billionaires into mere millionaires, so in that sense I'm all for it.

Sagrilarus wrote: Hamilton's car is simply not up to the challenge at the moment. In one of the races a few weeks back he said on his radio "you guys aren't giving me anything to work with." And Hamilton is not a complainer. The F-1 announcers for the race were commenting that there were particular moves that Hamilton traditionally uses to pass that he's not using at all this year, leading them to believe he doesn't trust the car to do what he asks it to do.

I opened a thread in a couple of places to discuss the most important part of F-1 cars -- the paint jobs. Ferrari's dip into the deeper red was a fine call, Mercedes moving from SS black to Wehrmacht gray is a solid step up from a German team with zero sense of style. (Someone should tell them the car won't go any slower with a better paint job.) Haas is easy to pick out though Alpha Romeo nestled up to them a bit in the red-on-white. These are important issues, and no one is covering them!

"Hamilton is not a complainer" HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA !! He's one of the biggest whiners on the grid - he's constantly questioning his teams pit calls. Every other race he'd say "Bono, my tires are going" then set a fastest lap.


Is his car this year a slug ? Sure is. But he had the best car on the grid for the past 8 years. Sooner or later that was going to end; with such a huge change in regulations it was even more likely - just like Ferrari dominated in the early 00s, then the regs change and their 2005 car sucked.

The "SS black" was a BLM motivated scheme. There was questions whether it hindered cooling . Whats hilarious about paint this year is that after years of people saying cars were too heavy; team are struggling to get them down to the minimum weight and several teams are actually stripping paint to save weight. My favorite recent livery was the McLaren limited Gulf livery they ran a few times last year. The maroon Ferrari scheme is nice too.

Msample wrote: "Hamilton is not a complainer" HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA !! He's one of the biggest whiners on the grid - he's constantly questioning his teams pit calls. Every other race he'd say "Bono, my tires are going" then set a fastest lap.

I like Hamilton a lot but from what I've seen of previous eras he uh had a lot of maturing to do like most drivers.