2019 Australian F1 Grandprix - Albert Park Melbourne

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Originally Posted by The Black Knight

It was ultimately a bad start and floor damage that cost Hamilton this race. Lets not get carried away. Bottas also showed his weak mentality after the race with his "to whom it may concern, fuck you" comment. A truly mentally strong person would not have felt the need to make that comment. It shows the pasting he received last year is still in his head and bothering him so this, he has come back a new man talk being spouted by the media is nothing other than complete and utter nonsense.

From Hamilton’s POV I would not be the least bit concerned about this result.

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My brother and I were actually discussing this before you posted and we said pretty much the same thing. To me It just shows how demoralized and broken he must have become last year to be like this.
I honestly wouldnt be surprised if we see a 'crazy' Valteri this year, someone who will try anything to stay in front... maybe like some of Nico's previous antics.

What will happen to someone who seems quite fragile, when Lewis beats him over the season? I'm a bit worried for him. Seeing a sports psychologist probably wouldnt be a bad idea. :/

I agree that Kubica has looked like crap this weekend, but let's not draw conclusions too quickly, shall we?

I was disappointed with Williams choosing him as I severely doubt that all the time away from competitive racing won't have had any major impacts on his ability, but even so, we definitely cannot judge whether his comeback will be a success or a disaster based on a single weekend. Let's just save our judgment for later. :p

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Originally Posted by COD

Rallying makes you a better F1 driver too!

Looks a lot like Williams needs to look for a possible replacement for Kubica. Any guesses? Ocon?

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I really was rooting for Kubica to do well, even in a useless car. but this was a bit embarrassing.
I hope it was an issue with the car, otherwise, yeah...they should call ocon or wherlein quickly.

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Originally Posted by Tazio

Why can't MoHaas get their pit work squared away? They stuffed it up again. :rolleyes:

https://www.gpfans.com/en/articles/3...-grosjean-dnf/

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shambolic

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Originally Posted by Samouri

Absolutely....The poor start by Lewis, and that damaged floor in the front of the left front tire, surely played a role in Hamilton's poor race pace and performance, which enabled Bottas to finish 20 seconds ahead of Lewis. All in all still....a good drive and win by Valtteri.

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Well, coming home comfortably in p2 with a damaged floor is not a bad consolation prize.
It's gonna be a long season and on days when things don't go your way, you gotta make the best of it and he did.
So I'm not worried about Bottas whatsoever. I will congratulate him on a decent drive and deserving win, but have no delusions that he is any kind of worry to hamilton over the season.
He got a better start than Hamilton and that was that.
Last year, he should have probably gotten his win in Baku, so this is somewhat of a redemption for him. He did get carried away with his radio comments, and i have a funny feeling, they are gonna come back and bite him as a meme later in the year.

Excuses. He got beat and Valterri has come to try and dominate.

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Originally Posted by The Black Knight

Bottas also showed his weak mentality after the race with his "to whom it may concern, fuck you" comment. A truly mentally strong person would not have felt the need to make that comment.

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On the flipside, his comment shows your weak mentality. Even though he's not speaking to you personally, it's clear that you're taking his comment as though he talking to you.

Clear thinking people who also don't live vicariously through Hamilton like you do, would just take the comment for what it is. A moment ot take a shot at all the know it all plebs, who have a narrow frame in which they view racing, that have taken a massive metaphorical **** on his head the past year.

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Originally Posted by The Black Knight

It shows the pasting he received last year is still in his head and bothering him so this,

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Still in his head and bothering him? You mean like Hamilton fans who still think about Rosberg after all these years?

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Originally Posted by The Black Knight

he has come back a new man talk being spouted by the media is nothing other than complete and utter nonsense.

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Bottas performance in qualifying was much more potent than any performance of his in his MB career so far (Even more so than when he's taken pole, which has come across as random). 2018 is history, and yesterday's race is now in his mental filing cabinet. Even without a supposed damaged floor, Hamilton's not winning that race. Whatever superiority he had was not much, and it wouldn't have overcome a similar performing car.

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Originally Posted by The Black Knight

From Hamilton’s POV I would not be the least bit concerned about this result.

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Maybe. But all of us here know you'll go into a meltdown if it happens a few more times early in the season.

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Originally Posted by truefan72

So I'm not worried about Bottas whatsoever. I will congratulate him on a decent drive and deserving win, but...

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You know what they say about using the word "but"?

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Originally Posted by truefan72

Last year, he should have probably gotten his win in Baku, so this is somewhat of a redemption for him. He did get carried away with his radio comments, and i have a funny feeling, they are gonna come back and bite him as a meme later in the year.

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Has anybody else noticed that truefan doesn't refer to Russia?

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Originally Posted by journeyman racer

On the flipside, his comment shows your weak mentality. Even though he's not speaking to you personally, it's clear that you're taking his comment as though he talking to you.

Clear thinking people who also don't live vicariously through Hamilton like you do, would just take the comment for what it is. A moment ot take a shot at all the know it all plebs, who have a narrow frame in which they view racing, that have taken a massive metaphorical **** on his head the past year.



Still in his head and bothering him? You mean like Hamilton fans who still think about Rosberg after all these years?



Bottas performance in qualifying was much more potent than any performance of his in his MB career so far (Even more so than when he's taken pole, which has come across as random). 2018 is history, and yesterday's race is now in his mental filing cabinet. Even without a supposed damaged floor, Hamilton's not winning that race. Whatever superiority he had was not much, and it wouldn't have overcome a similar performing car.



Maybe. But all of us here know you'll go into a meltdown if it happens a few more times early in the season.


You know what they say about using the word "but"?



Has anybody else noticed that truefan doesn't refer to Russia?

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Man, I feel so sorry for you. I have not replied to any of your posts in about a year and a half and you still follow me around, badgering me at every opportunity. Take a deep breath, meditate and centre yourself. I take no pleasure in having such power over you.

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Originally Posted by Zico

My brother and I were actually discussing this before you posted and we said pretty much the same thing. To me It just shows how demoralized and broken he must have become last year to be like this.
I honestly wouldnt be surprised if we see a 'crazy' Valteri this year, someone who will try anything to stay in front... maybe like some of Nico's previous antics.

What will happen to someone who seems quite fragile, when Lewis beats him over the season? I'm a bit worried for him. Seeing a sports psychologist probably wouldnt be a bad idea. :/

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Agreed. Should Hamilton beat him in the next couple of races I suspect it will break Bottas immediately. Hamilton always comes back. Beating him drives him to come back stronger. Beating Bottas, on the other hand, destroys his confidence, as we have seen. Psychologically Bottas is his own worst enemy. I suspect he may have even affected himself by making that comment. He needs to sort that out if he has any chance against Hamilton. Rosberg was mentaly really strong and that’s what got him over the line.

Deflection.

Truth be told, I'd be extremely surprised if Bottas could beat Hamilton often. The Boss' poor performance might have been due to car damage alone or to one of his off days, which we know he has, but so far we haven't seen anything that suggests that Bottas can keep a high enough level to consistently equal Hamilton, let alone beat him. A single race in which Hamilton took pole and had some sort of justification for being slow in the race (car damage) is not by any means indicative of a change of trend.

Hard to say where it will go. Lewis would be hard for just about anyone to beat in the last few years, and I think Bottas knew completely that he would be in solid #2 territory when he moved from Williams. But Nico figured it out and took a title in the same car as Lewis, and TBH I think Bottas has shown at least as much racecraft as Rosberg. Probably more really.

But after 2018, he probably had to think that if he doesn't up his game his seat is going to open up. For some that means they throw in the towel. For others, the biggest motivation they often have is fear of losing a good job.

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Originally Posted by Zico

Yep, that was painful to watch. Unless there is a valid reason for his severe lack of pace that should probably be his last race and Claire needs to call it.

Too harsh? I suppose even replacing him with Alonso or someone of that caliber wouldnt change anything so might as well leave him be.

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I think there were two reasons why Kubica had a bad race, firstly, he lost his front wing at the start of the race. Hence, had to go into the pits to have them replaced like Ricciado. He also ran over Ricciado's front wig which may have caused floor damage. I am sure there were other chassis [aero] damage to his car.

To be fair, we all wanted Bottas to turn up this season and be competitive. He has started the season agressively with a brilliant show of pace and a win to go with it. I think that is great and good luck to him. I think he has made an error of judgement by his radio message which could be a seed for a bitter rivalry this season. I can see Hamilton and some people in the Mercedes garage would not have appreciated that message. I think winning in Mercedes is going to be personal for both drivers from now on. I just hope Bottas would be able to swallow the outcome of this feud.

I didn't see enough to suggest the new regulation improved overtaking. If anywhere was a good place to test the regulation, the street circuit of Albert Park would been such place. These are the sorts of tracks we were hoping to see the effects of the new regs manifest its self strongly. Unfortunately, the bigger DRS flaps did not produce the surge forward that one had hoped for. It was the reason why Gastly in a faster Redbull struggled to pass Kyvat in a slower Torro Rosso with similar Honda engines.

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Originally Posted by Nitrodaze

I didn't see enough to suggest the new regulation improved overtaking. If anywhere was a good place to test the regulation, the street circuit of Albert Park would been such place. These are the sorts of tracks we were hoping to see the effects of the new regs manifest its self strongly. Unfortunately, the bigger DRS flaps did not produce the surge forward that one had hoped for. It was the reason why Gastly in a faster Redbull struggled to pass Kyvat in a slower Torro Rosso with similar Honda engines.

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Ross Brawn appears to have felt it did. I can’t say I noticed any real overtaking difference either, except maybe for Max being anle to overtake Vettel but I don’t think that was due to the new rules.

I read the comment on here, and I'm not sure what you guys are watching or how you view racing? N4D13's post is particularly interesting to me.

We haven't seen anything that suggests that Bottas can keep a high enough level to consistently equal Hamilton, let alone beat him?

First of all, there have numerous time in the past couple of years that Bottas has had the better of Hamilton. It's right to recognise if Bottas can carry that level of performance throughout the season, because he hasn't done it before. However there's no question Bottas is capable.

But what is so pitiful about N4D13's comment (And is typical of truefan and TBK) is they don't recognise what's different and how irrelevant their reasons to diminish Bottas' win and how irrelevant their reasons to justify Hamilton's lack of performance are.

Even if the damaged floor hadn't occured, it doesn't change the bottom line. Bottas is winning the race, and he's winning it purposefully. It's just he's winning the race the whole way by 3 secs instead of 20.

What is not recognise is that last weekend is the most assertive performance Bottas has had in his career (Even more so than the other races he's won or should've won). That would be the case even if Hamilton led into the first corner, led all the way and won. Why is this the case? Because if it occurred and Bottas finished second, he would've finished second right behind Hamilton. Not 8secs or 20secs behind Hamilton, right in there behind him.

But some of you are just so warped, that you actually get confused when you see something that doesn't fit in with your prejudiced views. Even if there was no cracked floor, some of you would've just moaned about something else(and looked stupid doing so). You would've said some BS like "It was the tyres" "MB gave Bottas the better strategy".

You get confused like a person who's just found out a relative/friend of theirs has been charged with a heinous crime. "Oh no, you're wrong. You must've confused him with someone else. It can't be them, they're a really good guy and they wouldn't do things like that."

Some fans are just hopeless.

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Originally Posted by journeyman racer

Some fans are just hopeless.

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Hey, at least we agree on something! :D

Hmmm. That post is as good as Bottas' performance last weekend.

Would it be fair to say all the top drivers except Verstapenn, under-performed at this race. Hamilton had a bad start, Vettel got overtaken by Verstapenn, Ricciado stuffed it on the first lap. The rookies were luke warm l felt. Though, Norris impressed but fell out of the top ten, Russell quietly out-qualified and finished ahead of his more experienced teammate. Gasly was poor at this race by his Torro Rosso standards even. Albon and Giovinazzi finished outside the points while their more experienced teammates were in the top ten positions.

I think Gasly in particular need to up his game or Redbull may well think he is not ready and put Kyvat in his seat.

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Originally Posted by Nitrodaze

Would it be fair to say all the top drivers except Verstapenn, under-performed at this race. Hamilton had a bad start, Vettel got overtaken by Verstapenn, Ricciado stuffed it on the first lap. The rookies were luke warm l felt. Though, Norris impressed but fell out of the top ten, Russell quietly out-qualified and finished ahead of his more experienced teammate. Gasly was poor at this race by his Torro Rosso standards even. Albon and Giovinazzi finished outside the points while their more experienced teammates were in the top ten positions.

I think Gasly in particular need to up his game or Redbull may well think he is not ready and put Kyvat in his seat.

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Think you’re being a bit harsh on Gasly there. RBR messed up his qualifying so he was always on the backfoot from the start. And RBR have admitted it was their error as they underestimated track evolution. Ricciardo, for me, was the real embarrassment. He is being paid $49 million dollars a year and, for that kind of money, you don’t want to self inflict a wing loss on yourself before the first corner of the first race of the season and your new team, especially since you’ve never been a title contender and only won 7 races in an 8 year career. He has a lot to prove after the hammering he received from his teammate last year and, really, you have to question Renault’s sanity paying out that kinda money for him.

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Originally Posted by The Black Knight

Think you’re being a bit harsh on Gasly there. RBR messed up his qualifying so he was always on the backfoot from the start. And RBR have admitted it was their error as they underestimated track evolution. Ricciardo, for me, was the real embarrassment. He is being paid $49 million dollars a year and, for that kind of money, you don’t want to self inflict a wing loss on yourself before the first corner of the first race of the season and your new team, especially since you’ve never been a title contender and only won 7 races in an 8 year career. He has a lot to prove after the hammering he received from his teammate last year and, really, you have to question Renault’s sanity paying out that kinda money for him.

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I hear your point and have taken that into consideration. I think the team made up for that by operating a strategy that put him ahead of Kyvat. He came out of the pits ahead of Kyvat but was not aggressive enough to hang on to the position advantage. He spent the rest of the race behind Kyvat which was what was poor about his race. That said, l think he would bounce back and show his real pace and racecraft. But that event did not go unnoticed and he has to do better next time l think.

lol Ricciardo has never been a title contender. Sure, but he hasn't had the advantage of being in title contending cars at any stage in his career. He's up there with Hamilton as the best performed driver since the hybrid turbos have been introduce. He's has had seasons where he's driven better than Hamilton, it's just that Hamilton has had a better car. Most notably in 14 & 16, and possibly 17&18 as well. Some great wins last year hampered by chronic unreliability (not 1 or 2), and the only RB to set PP last year.

The initial broken wing was obviously due to his error. But after that I think he should be acknowledged for showing an awareness and skill to avoid a calamity in the first corner. No front wing, cold tyres, and the dirty side of the track. Yet he didn't cause a first corner crash. That cannot be underestimated.

edit: Also, the hammering he copped from his team mate was solely due to reliability. In races they both finished, Ricciardo outscored Verstappen.

Verstappen out qualified Ricciardo 15-5. And he had more points than him at the end of the season. That’s a hammering.

And if you’re not willing to take reliability into account for the reasons behind the destination of the 2016 WDC with Hamilton and Rosberg, where Hamilton had worse reliability, then you can’t cite reliability as a reason for Ricciardo not beating Verstappen simply because it suits you.

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Originally Posted by Nitrodaze

I hear your point and have taken that into consideration. I think the team made up for that by operating a strategy that put him ahead of Kyvat. He came out of the pits ahead of Kyvat but was not aggressive enough to hang on to the position advantage. He spent the rest of the race behind Kyvat which was what was poor about his race. That said, l think he would bounce back and show his real pace and racecraft. But that event did not go unnoticed and he has to do better next time l think.

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Still only his first race of the season. Yes, he’ll have to do better. But both cars have same engine and are relatively sinilar by design. Again, wouldn’t be too harsh on him. Taking these factors into account he hadn’t the sort of advantage Max had on Sebastien when he passed him. The rule changes may have aided following a car buy not enough to be very harsh on Gasly imo.

Hmm, yes. It's a peculiar type of fan who can compare Hamilton's single mechanical dnf in 2016 (In a race where Rosberg was unfairly impeded on being poleaxed by Vettel, and in a year only Hamilton benefitted from team orders) to the SEVEN mechanical failures Ricciardo copped compared to Verstappen's two.

In Ricciardo had one or two extra mechanical failure and the points margin were still the same, then you could make a point. But as you've demonstrated many time over the years, you have no clue. It's embarrassing, and I'm embarrassed for Lewis Hamilton that a person bereft of motorsport knowledge is attracted to him.

Because you have the limited abilty to put performances in context. I'll show you how an intelligent, knowledgeable motorsport fan summarises the performance and results of the RB drivers in 2018.

Max Verstappen drove mostly well for 2018. He wasn't perfect, but it was his first season where he added a certain consistency to the flair that excites some fans. 4th place with 2 wins was a good effort, and it's something to build on for the future.

Daniel Ricciardo drove well in 2018. He had so many mechanical and non-driver error dnf compared to his rivals above him (8 for him, 10 for the 5 rivals above him), that it clouds the judgment of his output of results.

While he was denied the glory from getting the glory result. There's nothing in his performances otherwise that demonstrate a diminished ability or worthy of being derided. In races they both finished, he outscored Verstappen 158-142. Even though he fell behind in the head to head qualifying 15-5, he was the only one to demonstrate key optimal pace by being the only RB driver to score a PP, and it was 2 PP he scored. 2018 is stop gap year in his career.

You either take the DNF’s into account or you don’t. There’s no in between. The points difference between Hamilton and Rosberg was 5 in the end and Hamilton lost much more than that to Rosberg over the seasons course due to reliability. If you want to be inconsistent in your position, pluck an arbitrary number out of your head, like 1 or 2 for DNF’s not mattering as you just did just because, once again, it suits your narrative, you just come across biased.

So, the DNF’s can either be taken into account evenly across the board or they can be ignored completely, not just taken onboard as and when it suits your narrative.

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Originally Posted by The Black Knight

You either take the DNF’s into account or you don’t. There’s no in between. The points difference between Hamilton and Rosberg was 5 in the end and Hamilton lost much more than that to Rosberg over the seasons course. If you want to be inconsistent in your position, pluck an arbitrary number out of your head, like 1 or 2 for DNF’s not mattering as you just said just because, once again, it suits your narrative, you just come across inconsistent and biased.

So, the DNF’s can either be taken into account evenly across the board or they can be ignored completely, not just taken onboard as and when it suits your narrative.

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Any sane person would always take (non driver related) DNFs into account when viewing driver performance. And for that reason, it's rather ridiculous to state that Riccardo took a hammering. His car broke a lot, and he couldn't overcome the points delta with such an unreliable car. It's really that simple. Kimi had the same fate in the Ferrari, but if you account for the car problems was about at an equal average points per race to Seb. So based on your own twisting of the stats from your statement, maybe Lewis should have retired in 2017. After all, he received a hammering from Nico in 2016. :laugh:

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Originally Posted by airshifter

Any sane person would always take (non driver related) DNFs into account when viewing driver performance. And for that reason, it's rather ridiculous to state that Riccardo took a hammering. His car broke a lot, and he couldn't overcome the points delta with such an unreliable car. It's really that simple. Kimi had the same fate in the Ferrari, but if you account for the car problems was about at an equal average points per race to Seb. So based on your own twisting of the stats from your statement, maybe Lewis should have retired in 2017. After all, he received a hammering from Nico in 2016. :laugh:

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Agreed and that’s my point. You have to take them into account but you then can’t pick and choose when you take them into account. So if you take them into account with Ricciardo, it follows you must take them into account for Lewis and Rosberg. Journeyman doesn’t do that, simply plucks some arbitrary number of retirements that don’t matter off the top of his head (whatever suits him) and carries on.

The point is, if you want to evaluate using this approach you must apply it to all evaluations consistently, especially for teammates.

So if it should be taken into account for Ricciardo last year, it also follows that it should be taken into account when evaluating why the 2016 drivers title ended up where it did and that would be a consistent evaluation.


Since Journeyman is desparate for my attention the last year and a half, all I did here was take the logic he took towards Hamilton and Rosberg and applied it to Ricciardo and Verstappen knowing wholly that he would rush to Ricciardo’s defence using reliability as an excuse. I gave the poor fella the tidbit he has been vying for, just for my own temporary entertainment. As he’s super predictable he took the bait. Angry people are the easiest to manipulate, you see.

So he can either apply his approach consistently, in which case, if he takes reliability into the equation, he must concede it also played a part in the 2016 title, otherwise he must concede that it played no part in which case it cannot be used for evaluating Verstappen and Ricciardo last year either.

I’m happy with either approach. I’ve had my bit of fun with him either way.

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Originally Posted by airshifter

Any sane person would always take (non driver related) DNFs into account when viewing driver performance. And for that reason, it's rather ridiculous to state that Riccardo took a hammering. His car broke a lot, and he couldn't overcome the points delta with such an unreliable car. It's really that simple. Kimi had the same fate in the Ferrari, but if you account for the car problems was about at an equal average points per race to Seb. So based on your own twisting of the stats from your statement, maybe Lewis should have retired in 2017. After all, he received a hammering from Nico in 2016. :laugh:

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And Remember, for the first half of the year, Ricciardo had Verstappen's Number and was ahead in the points. The Qualy stat is less meaningful to me than the race performances. And tbh on most race days in 2019 it was sorta evident that RBR had an unbalanced playing field. Verstappen may have better potential but as of right now I think Ricciardo is the better driver, given equal machinery etc. In 2019 that was absolutely not the case for Riccardo and he suffered because of that in the 2nd half of the season (coincidentally, after he announced his move from RBR to renault). Black Knight, you and I are pretty much on the same page in most cases, but I'll disagree with you on this one.
http://www.dsev.com/img/RBR2018F1.jpg
Look at the points up until Hungary before the summer break:
Ricciardo 118 with 2 wins - 4 ret.
Verstappen 105 with 1 win - 3 ret.

After the summer break (and after his august 3rd announcement)
Ricciardo immediately has 2 back to back retirements then another pair of back to backs in USA and Mexico
This resulted in a total of 8 retirements for the 2018 campaign, along with shaite strategies for him in the 2nd half of the year as the team really didn't care about him.

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Originally Posted by The Black Knight

Agreed and that’s my point. You have to take them into account but you then can’t pick and choose when you take them into account. So if you take them into account with Ricciardo, it follows you must take them into account for Lewis and Rosberg. Journeyman doesn’t do that, simply plucks some arbitrary number of retirements that don’t matter off the top of his head (whatever suits him) and carries on.

The point is, if you want to evaluate using this approach you must apply it to all evaluations consistently, especially for teammates.

So if it should be taken into account for Ricciardo last year, it also follows that it should be taken into account when evaluating why the 2016 drivers title ended up where it did and that would be a consistent evaluation.


Since Journeyman is desparate for my attention the last year and a half, all I did here was take the logic he took towards Hamilton and Rosberg and applied it to Ricciardo and Verstappen knowing wholly that he would rush to Ricciardo’s defence using reliability as an excuse. I gave the poor fella the tidbit he has been vying for, just for my own temporary entertainment. As he’s super predictable he took the bate. Angry people are the easiest to manipulate, you see.

So he can either apply his approach consistently, in which case, if he takes reliability into the equation, he must concede it also played a part in the 2016 title, otherwise he must concede that it played no part in which case it cannot be used for evaluating Verstappen and Ricciardo last year either.

I’m happy with either approach. I’ve had my bit of fun with him either way.

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But you were quick to defend Lewis yet trash Ricciardo. Surely a driver doing damage to the floor is driver error, just the same way as Daniel trashing the wing was his fault? Doesn't Lewis get paid enough to not smash into curbs and trash the car? Similar to DNF's you either take driver error as a factor or you don't. Though you claim to be seemingly trolling Journeyman Racer, it seems you have your own set of rules as well.

I wonder if any of you have seen the Mercedes Twitter podcasts after the Australian GP. They answer questions put to the team after the race and explain the reasons for why certain things happen during the race. They are the only team having a go at being very transparent with their fans at the moment. Initially, l thought it was brilliant but then later, l thought it took away from the speculative conversations that take place in forums about events during the race. While it appears great, l think it may hamper the dialogues of forum communities. If you are going to spoon fed the info, why bother chatting about it.

I think Mercedes should not be too sensitive to the potential for forum threads to woefully get things wrong. That is the point of forums. Speculative to the point of conspiracy theories. But great fun to have the banter even when some are annoying and others are plain rude. But generally, a very respectful and and easy going racing communities. Hence, l think the podcast is an overkill. Let the people get it right or wrong, c'est la vie.

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Originally Posted by airshifter

But you were quick to defend Lewis yet trash Ricciardo. Surely a driver doing damage to the floor is driver error, just the same way as Daniel trashing the wing was his fault? Doesn't Lewis get paid enough to not smash into curbs and trash the car? Similar to DNF's you either take driver error as a factor or you don't. Though you claim to be seemingly trolling Journeyman Racer, it seems you have your own set of rules as well.

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We don’t know for certain what caused the damage to Lewis floor. But yes, I’m quite happy to put that down as a black mark against Lewis as, unless the kerb was loose, then it would be his fault for running wide to begin. I was viewing onboard with him the first ten laps and don’t remember seeing him go off but I may have missed it as wasn’t watching his onboard 100% of the time.

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Originally Posted by truefan72

And Remember, for the first half of the year, Ricciardo had Verstappen's Number and was ahead in the points. The Qualy stat is less meaningful to me than the race performances. And tbh on most race days in 2019 it was sorta evident that RBR had an unbalanced playing field. Verstappen may have better potential but as of right now I think Ricciardo is the better driver, given equal machinery etc. In 2019 that was absolutely not the case for Riccardo and he suffered because of that in the 2nd half of the season (coincidentally, after he announced his move from RBR to renault). Black Knight, you and I are pretty much on the same page in most cases, but I'll disagree with you on this one.
http://www.dsev.com/img/RBR2018F1.jpg
Look at the points up until Hungary before the summer break:
Ricciardo 118 with 2 wins - 4 ret.
Verstappen 105 with 1 win - 3 ret.

After the summer break (and after his august 3rd announcement)
Ricciardo immediately has 2 back to back retirements then another pair of back to backs in USA and Mexico
This resulted in a total of 8 retirements for the 2018 campaign, along with shaite strategies for him in the 2nd half of the year as the team really didn't care about him.

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You’re not really getting my point. The point is you can either take reliability into account or you can set it aside. If you’re taking it onboard, all of what you say is valid just as it’s valid to state that reliability decided the 2016 title. Otherwise, you must ignore the DNF’s and just look at the points conveniently ignoring the reasons behind it to reach the conclusions you want.

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Originally Posted by The Black Knight

You’re not really getting my point. The point is you can either take reliability into account or you can set it aside. If you’re taking it onboard, all of what you say is valid. Otherwise, you must ignore the DNF’s and just look at the points conveniently ignoring the reasons behind it to reach the conclusions you want.

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Maybe we are 2 ships sailing past each other in the fog. I hear you and from my perspective, I take the reliability and other mitigating factors into account.
It's funny how a certain unnamed member will defend Ricciardo's performance in 2018 and summarily dismiss the same points and reasons (most importantly reliability) for Hamilton in 2016.
lol. Anyways, we are all good now that I get where you are coming from. cheers

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Originally Posted by truefan72

Maybe we are 2 ships sailing past each other in the fog. I hear you and from my perspective, I take the reliability and other mitigating factors into account.
It's funny how a certain unnamed member will defend Ricciardo's performance in 2018 and summarily dismiss the same points and reasons (most importantly reliability) for Hamilton in 2016.
lol. Anyways, we are all good now that get where you are coming from. cheers

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Bingo ;)

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Originally Posted by truefan72

After the summer break (and after his august 3rd announcement)
Ricciardo immediately has 2 back to back retirements then another pair of back to backs in USA and Mexico
This resulted in a total of 8 retirements for the 2018 campaign, along with shaite strategies for him in the 2nd half of the year as the team really didn't care about him.

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I don't think it's quite accurate to say the team didn't care about him. After all there was a whole lot of money in play based on constructor's points. To say he was relegated to definite number two status is more on point.

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Originally Posted by Nitrodaze

I wonder if any of you have seen the Mercedes Twitter podcasts after the Australian GP. They answer questions put to the team after the race and explain the reasons for why certain things happen during the race. They the only team having a go at being very transparent with their fans at the moment. Initially,. l thought it was brilliant but then later, l thought it took away from the speculative conversations that take place in forums about events during the race. While it appears great, l think it may hamper the dialogues od forum communities. If you are going to spoon fed the info, why bother chatting about it.

I think Mercedes should not be too sensitive to the potential for forum threads to woefully get things wrong. That is the point of forums. Speculative to the point of conspiracy theories. But great fun to have the banter even when some are annoying and others are plain rude. But generally, a very respectful and and easy going racing communities. Hence, l think the podcast is an overkill. Let the people get it right or wrong, c'est la vie.

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Perhaps it's because I live on the west side of the Atlantic that I don't believe anything any person or organization puts out on the internet without seeing independent corroboration from other sources.

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Originally Posted by Starter

I don't think it's quite accurate to say the team didn't care about him. After all there was a whole lot of money in play based on constructor's points. To say he was relegated to definite number two status is more on point.

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Can you provide an example to support this claim?

Ok, you've twisted my arm. Taking into mechanical failures, Nico Rosberg wins the 2016 Monaco GP. If he didn't have a faulty car, MB wouldn't have applied team orders to benefit Hamilton. As Ricciardo proved last year, you can have a significantly faulty and still defend your position for a large portion of the race.

To say that Ricciardo was hammered by Verstappen is to say that Ricciardo has been diminished. But he's not diminished, and is still recognised as a top tier driver.

Feel free to analyse all of Ricciardo's dnf and speculate where he would/could've finished had they not occurred. I'll be interested to read it.

No way Ricciardo has diminished. .
95%+ of it is all about the car so going to Renault won't do his reputation any favours. 45 million dollars is also a bit much (I'd rather spend that money on Neweys services..) but If I was a boss in a top team I'd seriously consider him. Put it this way.. I'd choose him before Vettel.

I think Starter was bang on the money in saying Danny was relegated to No2 status at RB. Despite any concrete evidence/admissions its pretty clear to most people thats what happened