The Official 2021 F1 thread....

Max is driving an orange NSX -> https://youtu.be/roi3ZgJ52Kw , so many AMG fans on this site. I have owned 2 AMGs and a 91 NSX, both I loved. Great cars ib their own space. Race control stated that they didn't want the race to end on a safety car and all the team principles agreed. That said saying Max's WC is hollow is unfortunate, because he and Lewis drove to win. Judgements are made by referees all the time. A MLB umpire behind the plate establishes a strike zone at every game even thought the rules state what is a strike zone. I did baseball referee and was a coach. Calls happen that aren't liked all the time by teams and fans. It's part of the sport. I was a flag marshal at 2019 motoGP and COTA. I asked my team chief how to I determine a yellow and blue flag. His answer was for me to use my judgement. I knew I could cost someone track position if I made the wrong call and maybe a motoGP championship. Being a track intervention marshal is more fun. The 2019 USGP I made the opportunity to retrieve a HAAS car at turn 6 during FP2. I'll let you guess who was the driver.
 
Exactly my point. In "professional" sports they get a fine or a technical foul or some type of penalty for going over the line. What is the line in F1.. not sure but they both crossed it in my opinion.

I am sorry Ryu, that is not what I meant. I was sarcastically trying to say that it happens all the time. Coaches notoriously harangue referees at every game.
 
Regardless of your experience working as a Marshals, in my opinion Mad Max 2021 WC is hollow and nothing they can say and do will change that fact.

Bram

Max earned his championship. Don’t diminish his (and the teams) effort all season long. The officiating all season has been sub-par, or to borrow from Rob Dennis, sub-optimal, and several times it favored Merc.

I don’t agree with the way the season finished, but at the end of the day, Verstappen is champion.

It reminds me of college, where the hardest part of my degree was weaving through the bureaucracy.
 
...so many AMG fans on this site...that said saying Max's WC is hollow is unfortunate, because he and Lewis drove to win...

I'm not sure in amount of fans but they certainly are the most vehemently...obstreperous. I'm also sure the FIA and motorsport fans will give them all of the consideration their opinion deserves.

Max earned his championship. Don’t diminish his (and the teams) effort all season long.

Let whomever be upset. It's one of the stages of grief and necessary for the eventual acceptance of reality.

He and Red Bull certainly did earn the championship. If I remember correctly, Max lead over 50% of the laps in the 2021 season, which was more than double of this nearest competitor. And was 8 or 9 seconds ahead of ham in all of 3,400 miles of completed GPs (that was an interesting stat). Whichever way the 2021 championship went, with either RB or merc, the winner was well deserved.

I have to say the way Lewis and his father handled the defeat was very well done - especially initially: classy and the best in sportsmanship. I can certainly understand why he didn't attend the championship gala and hope the new F1 chief gives him a bit of leniency.

Either way, what a great 2021 season!

max-verstappen-abu-dhabi-grand-prix-2021.jpeg
 
If you take away the two "manipulated" results of the year - Belgium and the final race - Lewis wins the championship easily.
Belgium wasn't a race, so no points (not half) should have been awarded.
The final race wasn't run according to the rules - if you were to actually follow the rules the race result should have been declared on the positions as the drivers crossed the line on the penultimate lap.

I'm not a fan of either Hamilton of Verstap - I'm an F1 fan.
 
If you take away the two "manipulated" results of the year - Belgium and the final race - Lewis wins the championship easily.
Belgium wasn't a race, so no points (not half) should have been awarded.
The final race wasn't run according to the rules - if you were to actually follow the rules the race result should have been declared on the positions as the drivers crossed the line on the penultimate lap.

Excellent points as you recall, the Belgium race was a joke....how about the three potential points from the Sprint race in Brazil?

I guess another "BIG picture" is needed to validate Mad Max WC win.

Bram
 
How no one of you guys LH fans did not mention Silverstone crash.This was very unsporty move especially on that fast corner luckly MV came out unhurt.
RB was dominant all weekend in hands of Max, I can also said he lost in Silverstone 26 points.
As Mercedes was fastest car most of season thats one more reason why RB and Max deserve WDC.
 
I don't believe the Merc was the fastest car this season, pretty close between them both all season I'd say...until the last three races. Merc were actually on the back foot at the start, after the new rules the FIA bought in.
The Silverstone incident has been done to death, MAX fans will always see it one way HAM fans will see it the other, mostly blinded by their loyalties.
 
I've now had an EV in stable for 8years. The last year or so i've increasingly become irritated by awful exhaust sounds from ICE cars. Everytime I think of it I shock myself; Having ITBs and all on my own personal NSX... However, i'm now very aware that most of the general population either hate or simply cope with exhaust sounds in general. Unless it's pleasing in tone like a modern GT3, I've grown to have very little temperament for it. It's a shocking revalation to me. I feel old but the feeling is real. Even my SO notices how annoyed I get when a loud open piped Harley blasts past us when having an outdoor dinner. I think I was ruined by the recent "Burble tune" fad that's going around. If only I could demonstrate to those owners how bad their cars truly sound. This is a bit of a tangent, but if it's not a screaming V10/12 of the 80's and 90's, i'm not sure I'd even enjoy watching an ICE race live. Going to the track these days is still fun... it's a personal challenge in muscle/eye coordination but very rarely do I think.. wow.. that car sounds good as I wait in the paddock for my run group.

I'm not sure where this puts us in 10-20 years. I'll likely/hopefully still be driving my noisy NSX. Yet I'm quite certain my non-car enthusiast neighbors will have no patience for it. Today they still tolerate it as exhaust noises are still familiar for most people. I'm old.

Despite loving my NSX with ceramic coated Cantrell headers and an ARK DTX exhaust the same thing has happened to me too. I have spent way too much money on exhaust systems through the years to now be annoyed at the sound of ICE vehicles but there it is.
 
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While my NSX has SS headers and a stock muffler (and I'm happy with it) I can guarantee that many of the e-cars of the future will have a button on the dash that will allow zoomy sounds (i.e. the current Porsche).
H-
 
How no one of you guys LH fans did not mention Silverstone crash.This was very unsporty move especially on that fast corner luckly MV came out unhurt.
RB was dominant all weekend in hands of Max, I can also said he lost in Silverstone 26 points. As Mercedes was fastest car most of season thats one more reason why RB and Max deserve WDC.

Fairly sure the Silverstone shunt was discussed earlier in the thread. Still, it is probably better not to get pulled into "what if" scenarios after the fact (unless for interesting data analysis on decision making) because it just contributes to a "positive feedback loop" that doesn't turn into anything positive. RB started strongly but MB definitely finished the season with the quicker car.

I don't believe the Merc was the fastest car this season, pretty close between them both all season I'd say...until the last three races. Merc were actually on the back foot at the start, after the new rules the FIA bought in.

Ever since MB fitted Ham with a new engine, they've been unstoppable in the Sunday races. Would be a neat exercise to figure out how they did it. Maybe they'll reveal it in a few years. They'd be strong in FP, Max would eek out a pole (or crash), and then MB would disappear on Sunday.

While my NSX has SS headers and a stock muffler (and I'm happy with it) I can guarantee that many of the e-cars of the future will have a button on the dash that will allow zoomy sounds (i.e. the current Porsche).
H-

Still can't get use to the synthetic mechanical sounds piped into new BMWs. An incredibly strange dynamic and...to be frank comical at the track.

Some ICE sounds are thrilling, some not so much. Watching formula E and hearing the whine (screech) of the electric motors is not quite as pleasing to the ear.

But a flat crank V-8 (Mustang, Ferrari or new Corvette), or a V-12 is a work of art.

Was at the track a month ago for a Porsche dealer event and watched a row of electric Taycan's make absolute zero noise except for their tires. Even the muffled 911's sounded like race cars in comparison. Surreal.
 
I have no interest in Form E..except to see who is racing ...although the F1 season ended quite controversially you have to take the sum total of the whole season.Lady Luck sided with max at the bitter end...that's racing..
 
Noone asked but:

-I still feel like potentially F1's best season was shanked by an incompetent race director and a shambles finale. (2012 ranks better IMO plus maybe 07, 08, 10, and 18.) Pity such a poor job refereeing the last 4 laps of this banger of a season. WDC 2021 was defeat snatched from the jaws of victory.

-Hamilton is back because: he *always* pretends like he's gonna retire, money/money/ also money, and he wouldn't do this to Merc on short notice making them hustle De Vries etc into the car. Interesting to see if he rips the band-aid off Abu Dhabi & goes to war with the FIA over it?

-Max the "deserving winner"? Kinda.. but what if has a few percent left in him, look how he shunted under pressure going for pole in Saudi Arabia, started on softs in Abu Dhabi because of his own errors in quali, and in general has a bit of the 'red mist' when it matters most as evidenced by his ugly brake check move. I think the season's best passes were other drivers than VER-HAM, which had Max's thuggish quality. Still his best season hands down even if his 1st WDC has an asterisk.

-¡Checo 4ever! Number 11 ftw.. he owns Senna's NA1 in Berlina Black & has been seen wringing its neck at 10/10ths.

-The change with the new '22 cars could be upstaged by new fuel & the significance of the 4+ year engine freeze about to start. If an engine supplier's design got the E10 fueling wrong or packaging with the new aero the works/customer teams just have to suck it up.

-The body lines of the Hass car don't look as pretty as I expected for '22. The front wing looks 2021 & I thought it would look more swoopy with a trimmed down coke bottle fuselage. Red, orange, and silver should look better.

-Furthest thing from an engineer here but I wonder if there's good lap time to be found in the dampers, suspension, springs, bars, etc. Seems like the 18" tires' short sidewalls and larger OD is no trivial change vs the old squishy 13" tires. Pushrod vs pullrod is a decision they're making etc.

-Even though crazy elaborate bargeboards are gone, there's still a lot of intricate aero stuff at the base of the floor. Floor designs seem to be now the big secret. And then the new rear wing seems complicated as ever since DRS is intact for now. I hope we get to watch a team find a technical advantage and then the other teams rushing in to complain it's egregiously unfair.
 
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