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pretty good history of Monaco and the history of the origins of the race
FWIW, I've been in the Casino and it's literally nothing more than a tourist trap in the front rooms, the back rooms are for the elite and real gamblers.
However the hotel to the west, Hôtel Hermitage Monte-Carlo is spectacular
Good for LN. He seems to be developing into a fairly formidable driver, with a solid car behind him.
+1, also like LN. Always seems very down to earth with no attitude and sincere in interviews and describing his race performance.
LN's performance in 2021 has been great and getting the most of the car and situations. On the flip side gotta wonder what McLaren management are thinking about the DR performance, he's had a difficult time adapting to the car such that he tried to change his driving style, then reverted back to keeping his style (slightly aggressive with late apex braking to rotate the car) but changing his car setup. Either way results have not been coming and getting lapped by LN in Monaco must have been hard, maybe early but wonder if this is the slow start of DR decline, hope not on his good days he can late brake pass cars with the best of them.
On Monaco, of a race
Max drove commanding well, always kept the pace and managed his tires.
bad luck to Charles to have a bad left driveshaft failure, Binota felt it was not damaged from Saturday's crash as it was the hub coupling. The gearbox was rebuilt Saturday night. Was wondering how hard it'd be to change a driveshaft on the grid? Once changed a friend's Ody driveshaft in 20 minutes
also bad luck for Bottas, to retire with a jammed/stripped/stuck wheel nut, I can't recall that ever happening before.
good drive for Saintz , LN, and Perez
happy to see Vettel get up to 5th, good recovery from a poor 2021 start
Ocon has been impressive that he's outqualified and outdriven Alonso since the start of the season
And what does Zak Brown do at the track since McLaren has TP Andreas Seidl?
The damaged wheel nut which forced Valtteri Bottas to retire from the Monaco Grand Prix is still stuck to his car, Mercedes has revealed.
Bottas retired in the pits when Mercedes were unable to remove the front-right wheel from his car when he came in for his pit stop on lap 29.
The team’s technical director James Allison said it won’t be possible to remove the nut, and the wheel with it, until the car returns to the team’s base.
“We didn’t get the wheel off,” Allison admitted. “It’s sat in our garage with the wheel stand on it.
“It’ll have to be ground off. Get a Dremel out and painfully slice through the remnants of the wheel nut. We’ll do this back at the factory.”
The driver said he was “hugely disappointed” to end his race in the pits having run second in the early stages, and urged the team to get to the bottom of its latest pit stop setback.
Bottas described his disbelief as he sat in the pits and realised his race was over.
“I was basically just like ‘yeah, it was a slow pit stop’. And then I was kind of calculating ‘okay, that’s probably Sainz getting past’, and then it was going to be Norris or whoever was behind.
“Then when it came down to like 30 seconds or something, I couldn’t believe it. Obviously hugely disappointing and a situation that we need to make sure that never happens again – it’s a big mistake.”
“I think it’s bad luck from my side,” said Bottas. “It’s something that as a team is going to be a big priority going into the next race."
Mercedes CEO Toto Wolff admitted he’d never previously seen anything like the wheel nut failure before. He explained their pit stop went awry when the mechanic’s wheel gun stripped the teeth from the nut.
“Valtteri said that he saw the aluminium bits flying off in front,” he explained.
“It’s been our weakness this year but we haven’t changed any of the wheel nut designs or the guns so we really need to get on top of what is causing that and come back stronger.”
The exact cause of the failure remains unclear, said Wolff. “We need to look into whether it is a design issue or whether we just had a catastrophic failure of a few systems.
“We just machined the whole nut off. Never seen anything like this. There was no part there any more and the tyre was still on the car.”
Wolff admitted it was “very, very frustrating” for Bottas, who has suffered misfortunes in the pits during previous races. “It seems like he’s cursed.”
pretty good history of Monaco and the history of the origins of the race
FWIW, I've been in the Casino and it's literally nothing more than a tourist trap in the front rooms, the back rooms are for the elite and real gamblers.
However the hotel to the west, Hôtel Hermitage Monte-Carlo is spectacular
Max Mosley, the former FIA President and one of the architects of modern F1, has passed away at the age of 81.
Born in London in 1940, Mosley’s interest in motor racing began at university, with Mosley going on to race in Formula 2 after qualifying as a barrister.
After helping to set up the March Racing Team in 1969 – which would go on to run drivers including Ronnie Peterson and Niki Lauda in F1 – Mosley, together with Bernie Ecclestone, established himself in the 1970s as one of Formula 1’s most powerful figures, taking on the role of the Formula One Constructors’ Association’s legal representative, and helping to negotiate the first Concorde Agreement in 1981.
A decade later, Mosley became president of FISA, becoming president of the FIA itself two years after that in 1993 – with Mosley instrumental in attempting to increase safety in the sport following the deaths of Ayrton Senna and Roland Ratzenberger at the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix. Mosley would stay on in the role until 2009.
A statement from Formula 1 said: "We are saddened to hear that Max Mosley, former FIA President, has passed away. A huge figure in the transition of Formula 1. Our thoughts are with his family and friends at this sad time."
Jean Todt, Mosley's successor as President of the FIA, posted his own message of condolence.
He said: "Deeply saddened by the passing of Max Mosley. He was a major figure in F1 and motor sport. As FIA President for 16 years, he strongly contributed to reinforcing safety on track and on the roads.
"The entire FIA community pays tribute to him. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family."
Saw another headline this morning, and can't find it now, that F1 is looking at possibly introducing an IndyCar qualifying rule.
As I understand it, if you bring out a red flag in quali, your fastest 2 times are deleted. I'm sure there's more to it, but saw a similar comment made shortly after CL's crash in Monaco.
Saw a comment that MB technically didn't complete the pit stop. So, maybe the longest pit stop ever?
One thing I found interesting is the MB tech didn't cut it off but carefully with a Dremel put edges back on the nut faces where the wheel socket contacts.
McLaren have no plans to use their special Monaco Grand Prix livery again – even though it brought them some luck.
There was nothing fortuitous about Lando Norris’ podium finish, as he took a thoroughly deserved third place, but the one-off Gulf-inspired colour scheme will certainly be looked back on fondly from a results perspective even though Daniel Ricciardo was only 12th.
But for now, the orange and light blue, which was also replicated in Norris and Ricciardo’s race suits and other team clothing, is not destined to appear for a second time.
Monaco was chosen for the retro-style livery to commemorate Gulf’s history in motorsport and to reflect their partnership with McLaren – and it proved extremely popular among F1 fans, many of whom would like to see it stay.
However, team principal Andreas Seidl confirmed the regular papaya design will be back for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix in Baku next week and, as far as he is aware, all of this season’s races thereafter.
“On the livery, the only thing I want to say is it was clearly a one off-livery at the moment,” said Seidl, quoted by Motorsport.com.
“It was planned for the iconic race in Monaco, celebrating the historic partnerships we have with Gulf that goes back to the 1960s with Bruce McLaren.
“That was the idea behind this project between Gulf and us. That’s all I can say at the moment in terms of future plans.”
The McLaren livery fared better than a couple of one-off colour schemes Formula 1 had seen in the previous two seasons which recognised big landmarks.
In 2019, Mercedes celebrated their 125th anniversary, and 200th grand prix as a constructor, with a livery paying homage to their origins – but they achieved only a P9 and a retirement as team principal Toto Wolff described it as a “f***ing s**t, awful day at the office” on Netflix docuseries Drive to Survive.
Last year, Ferrari reached their 1,000th race at the Tuscan Grand Prix and temporarily switched to a burgundy livery, their drivers Charles Leclerc and Sebastian Vettel finishing eighth and 10th respectively.
Norris, therefore, will look back with happier memories even if the Gulf livery never sees the light of day again.
“It’s unique,” said the Briton. “The pictures look pretty awesome as well. So it’s just cool to be part of the history of Gulf and also to have it be one of the first liveries to do something that different as well.”
One thing I found interesting is the MB tech didn't cut it off but carefully with a Dremel put edges back on the nut faces where the wheel socket contacts.
^ kinda amusing Hamilton said McLaren and forgot Mercedes, not surprised that Vettel won since he's quite a F1 history buff (he even got Vanwall)
Surprised both Vettel and Mick Schumacher both got Zakspeed.
Surprised both Vettel and Mick Schumacher both got Zakspeed.
Probably not.
Common thread among Vettel, Schumacher, and Zakspeed? They are all German. And Zakspeed is still active in Germany racing GT cars.
They funny bits were Vettel forgetting Red Bull, Hamilton forgetting Mercedes, and Alonso forgetting Alpine. The funniest was how bad Ricciardo was even with the easy ones.
Common thread among Vettel, Schumacher, and Zakspeed? They are all German. And Zakspeed is still active in Germany racing GT cars.
They funny bits were Vettel forgetting Red Bull, Hamilton forgetting Mercedes, and Alonso forgetting Alpine. The funniest was how bad Ricciardo was even with the easy ones.
I knew they were German, but a very unremarkable German team (2 points in their entire 4 year 80's existence) so that's why I was sorta amused both knew they were a F1 team.
BMW I expected from them, but not Zakspeed. Woulda been like Giovinazzi knowing Osella.
Also was amused Vettel, Hamilton, and Alonso forgot their teams/prior teams.
There were some really obscure names in those letter lists
I think the significance of Zakspeed is that they are one of the few German F1 constructors in recent history besides Mercedes. There are so few German teams that I can only remember Mercedes, Zakspeed, and ATS without checking the history books myself. And I think their presence in races like Nurburgring 24 Hours keeps them in ther German consciousness.
I'd forgotten about ATS, vaguely remember that back marker team. Wiki'ed them to discover that ATS founder also founded another German team Rial after ATS folded.
There were so many 3rd tier teams in the 70's, 80's, and 90's. I'm guessing once F1 team costs started to rise in the early 2000's, the little independent teams faded out fast.
I remember going to pre-qualifying at the Canadian GP because there were so many teams, it was mostly an exercise in futility for most of them hoping to get to qualifying.
How F1 cars got so heavy and why it's only getting worse
Pretty good analysis on the weight increases of F1 cars over the past dozen years.
IMO, the most dynamic cars to watch for agility and changing direction were the 3L V10 from the early 2000's
05-21-2021, 09:17 AM
Hoping it leads to some unpredictability:
of a race
