Motosport General discussion tread --- Formula1, MotoGP, WTCC, ETCC, DTM.....

[Velvet78]

Next week we are going to be in another race week and this time we are in Italy. Last week Verstappen did a really great work by winning the race despite starting at the 9th position. This was very helpful for him to increase the point gap with Perez in driver standings to 14 as well. Fastest lap was also on him so it was a really solid race by him there.

Perez is really ambitious this season. He is doing his best with this very fast car. He would like to prevent the gap from getting bigger in the next race. Maybe he can take another pole position there but when it comes to a win his job will still be difficult against Verstappen of course. He has a more skilled opponent against himself in the end.

[swogerino]

The Honda factory team has registered their flagship rider (Marc Marquez) to race at the French MotoGP this week which will take place at the Le Mans circuit. Apart from that, the sanctions he previously received were also abolished after the Honda manufacturer made an appeal with the race organizers, meaning that Marc Marquez could join the race again without being burdened with sanctions such as the Long Laps Penalty. Hopefully there will be more exciting races this week at Le Mans France.

Le Mans one of the most beautiful tracks when it is for MotoGP racing,completely different when it is car racing as the track is very narrow and technical not permitting much to cars but to MotoGP immediately brought back memories to me in the epic fights with Rossi vs Biaggi,Rossi vs Lorenzo many many years ago from now.I think the riders are still good enough the ones taking part in such race and I think it should a be a very beautiful race to enjoy on TV especially after seeing such boring races in F1 completely dominated by Redbull racing,I believe the race of Le Mans to be much different than those and show some good competition between the riders.

[Juggy777]

Next week we are going to be in another race week and this time we are in Italy. Last week Verstappen did a really great work by winning the race despite starting at the 9th position. This was very helpful for him to increase the point gap with Perez in driver standings to 14 as well. Fastest lap was also on him so it was a really solid race by him there.

Perez is really ambitious this season. He is doing his best with this very fast car. He would like to prevent the gap from getting bigger in the next race. Maybe he can take another pole position there but when it comes to a win his job will still be difficult against Verstappen of course. He has a more skilled opponent against himself in the end.

@Velvet78 their rivalry has made F1 really interesting to watch this season and I believe that they’ll not go easy on one another hence I’m expecting a tight race once more between these two. Lastly is anyone else disappointed by Hamilton’s performances this season because he’s been performing poorly and I can’t believe that he’s yet struggling thus I wonder how long can he continue to race by putting in such mediocre performances.

[tokeweed]

They changed the rule to get easier overtakes, ruining an equilibrated F1 for these cars with the hope to get closer cars and easier overtakes.

After 1 year we have the most dominating car of the decade and the only car that can overtake.

Mission accomplished 

Yup...  It would've been a lot better if F1 stayed with the specs it had during the season when it got really close between Verstappen and Hamilton.  Was it 2021?  But yeah, if it was the same specs, the next season and the current season would prolly be close between RBR and Mercedes too. 

But no, they wanted more 'easy overtakes' and please the newer fans.  Kinda like they're dumbing the sport down.  It would've been better to let everything stay the same, remove DRS even, and let the fans understand that overtakes are planned laps ahead before the drivers get the opportunity.

[retreat]

Next week we are going to be in another race week and this time we are in Italy. Last week Verstappen did a really great work by winning the race despite starting at the 9th position. This was very helpful for him to increase the point gap with Perez in driver standings to 14 as well. Fastest lap was also on him so it was a really solid race by him there.

Perez is really ambitious this season. He is doing his best with this very fast car. He would like to prevent the gap from getting bigger in the next race. Maybe he can take another pole position there but when it comes to a win his job will still be difficult against Verstappen of course. He has a more skilled opponent against himself in the end.

If we see that the points between Verstappen and Perez are not too far away (119 and 105) and I admit that Verstappen is really struggling not to fall far behind his team-mate. But seeing that several times Verstappen faced problems in the previous races, which was beneficial for Perez, it doesn't rule out the possibility that Perez can catch up on his points and maybe he can win the world title. Who knows, all possibilities are open.

[beerlover]

Next week we are going to be in another race week and this time we are in Italy. Last week Verstappen did a really great work by winning the race despite starting at the 9th position. This was very helpful for him to increase the point gap with Perez in driver standings to 14 as well. Fastest lap was also on him so it was a really solid race by him there.

Perez is really ambitious this season. He is doing his best with this very fast car. He would like to prevent the gap from getting bigger in the next race. Maybe he can take another pole position there but when it comes to a win his job will still be difficult against Verstappen of course. He has a more skilled opponent against himself in the end.

@Velvet78 their rivalry has made F1 really interesting to watch this season and I believe that they’ll not go easy on one another hence I’m expecting a tight race once more between these two. Lastly is anyone else disappointed by Hamilton’s performances this season because he’s been performing poorly and I can’t believe that he’s yet struggling thus I wonder how long can he continue to race by putting in such mediocre performances.

Even though they are making it good to watch because otherwise nobody is even remotely close to them, it is also not really a close one neither. Just look at how easy it was for Max to pass Perez when he wanted to, it took him like 15 laps to get to second position, that is as dominant as I have ever seen, even Mercedes had just a few years that dominant, normally even they weren't that dominant by the end few years, and eventually lost obviously.

So, it is not going to be really that easy to just take it away from Max, even Perez will not be able to do that, and the difference by the end will be easily more than 100+ points, probably maybe even more. At least Perez will get the second position he wanted last year, that's going to be a good ending for him, he deserved it.

[Distraction]

I have also heard that FIA are thinking of making the cars smaller and lighter than before. This is supposed to be good for F1 fans normally but it isn't honestly. Because as long as this huge gap between the teams is maintained nothing will change in a good way. We will even see the opposite because Red Bull are going to get even more advantageous in that case.

We would just watch Verstappen and Perez getting past everyone else like they are just there fore practicing.    Verstappen made a statement like he would like to see some balance among the teams to make the sport more competitive. However Red Bull are the team that create this much big gap in the first place so he should start with his team about this.

[Davian144]

Le Mans one of the most beautiful tracks when it is for MotoGP racing,completely different when it is car racing as the track is very narrow and technical not permitting much to cars but to MotoGP immediately brought back memories to me in the epic fights with Rossi vs Biaggi,Rossi vs Lorenzo many many years ago from now.I think the riders are still good enough the ones taking part in such race and I think it should a be a very beautiful race to enjoy on TV especially after seeing such boring races in F1 completely dominated by Redbull racing,I believe the race of Le Mans to be much different than those and show some good competition between the riders.

It is very logical for what you say because Le Mans has always presented very good races for MotoGP, including when Valentino Rossi competed with Maverick Vinales when they were both at Yamaha. But for the last two seasons I have started to see the dominance of Ducati which is very extraordinary although sometimes other manufacturers start to surprise unexpectedly like the KTM factory did in the previous race at the Jerez circuit. But for this race, I hope that the host riders can make better domination so that the competition becomes more exciting.

[swogerino]

Le Mans one of the most beautiful tracks when it is for MotoGP racing,completely different when it is car racing as the track is very narrow and technical not permitting much to cars but to MotoGP immediately brought back memories to me in the epic fights with Rossi vs Biaggi,Rossi vs Lorenzo many many years ago from now.I think the riders are still good enough the ones taking part in such race and I think it should a be a very beautiful race to enjoy on TV especially after seeing such boring races in F1 completely dominated by Redbull racing,I believe the race of Le Mans to be much different than those and show some good competition between the riders.

It is very logical for what you say because Le Mans has always presented very good races for MotoGP, including when Valentino Rossi competed with Maverick Vinales when they were both at Yamaha. But for the last two seasons I have started to see the dominance of Ducati which is very extraordinary although sometimes other manufacturers start to surprise unexpectedly like the KTM factory did in the previous race at the Jerez circuit. But for this race, I hope that the host riders can make better domination so that the competition becomes more exciting.

Ducati has always been a bike that had the most speed in straights and I don't think the small Le Mans circuit in which the race will take place will have a lot of straights like the big one which is about 3.45 seconds and has a lot of straights so spectacle is most likely guaranteed.We also need here to see some comeback from Bagnaia as he has made a couple of mistakes which can make him get out of the title fight if he continues with the same performance although I still think he is the most favored title contender while I also hope to see a great rider like Marquez what he can do on this track.

[alegotardo]

I have also heard that FIA are thinking of making the cars smaller and lighter than before. This is supposed to be good for F1 fans normally but it isn't honestly. Because as long as this huge gap between the teams is maintained nothing will change in a good way. We will even see the opposite because Red Bull are going to get even more advantageous in that case.

F1 is a very expensive sport, so unlike football for example (which is also expensive, but not that expensive) we may never see a balance between the constructors and indeed this seems to be a discrepancy that only increases over time. time.

In order to try to make F1 fairer, I think that the better placed teams should be more limited in terms of spending budget, engine changes and general improvements.
As well as less qualified teams should have a greater incentive to improve.

I understand, however, that such measures would be quite controversial and would please very few. In a sport where money is king, something like that would never be approved.
So... let's get used to seeing the "jets fly past the freighters".

[retreat]

-snip-

In order to try to make F1 fairer, I think that the better placed teams should be more limited in terms of spending budget, engine changes and general improvements.
As well as less qualified teams should have a greater incentive to improve.

-snip-

Actually the current FIA rules are pretty strict with regards to budgets, engines and other improvements to cars, but the problem is that right now the FIA seems "too soft" to enforce the rules on some of the top constructors. For example, like in the previous season, Vasseur said that the penalty imposed on Red Bull was quite light, where they were only fined 6 million euros (https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2023/apr/07/red-bulls-penalty -too-light-says-ferrari-chief-fred-vasseur), he even said that it wasn't a penalty at all because of course Red Bull could solve this problem quickly and maybe they will do it again in the future. So the problem now lies with the FIA itself, because the top constructors can exploit the rules and they are not subject to heavy penalties for that.

[swogerino]

I have also heard that FIA are thinking of making the cars smaller and lighter than before. This is supposed to be good for F1 fans normally but it isn't honestly. Because as long as this huge gap between the teams is maintained nothing will change in a good way. We will even see the opposite because Red Bull are going to get even more advantageous in that case.

F1 is a very expensive sport, so unlike football for example (which is also expensive, but not that expensive) we may never see a balance between the constructors and indeed this seems to be a discrepancy that only increases over time. time.

In order to try to make F1 fairer, I think that the better placed teams should be more limited in terms of spending budget, engine changes and general improvements.
As well as less qualified teams should have a greater incentive to improve.

I understand, however, that such measures would be quite controversial and would please very few. In a sport where money is king, something like that would never be approved.
So... let's get used to seeing the "jets fly past the freighters".

I don't agree with limiting the top teams on changes and upgrades they do to their cars,this removes competition from the table,the only change which I agree FIA should do is to give teams who are in the middle of the standings and in the bottom of the ranking to have unlimited budget and spending until they reach a certain performance and this can be used as an incentive in order to bring competition back.Also the team not performing well should try and get the best engineers for them but in order to do so they have to pay a lot of money,teams who got in this way of thinking by getting the best engineers were usually paid off because they won Championships,McLaren being a crystal clear example of this in past years,I don't know what happened to them in these last years as they are not getting where they deserve to be.

[Davian144]

Ducati has always been a bike that had the most speed in straights and I don't think the small Le Mans circuit in which the race will take place will have a lot of straights like the big one which is about 3.45 seconds and has a lot of straights so spectacle is most likely guaranteed.We also need here to see some comeback from Bagnaia as he has made a couple of mistakes which can make him get out of the title fight if he continues with the same performance although I still think he is the most favored title contender while I also hope to see a great rider like Marquez what he can do on this track.

For this season, Bagnaia generally hasn't made many mistakes and Bagnaia's points have also been at the top of the temporary standings after winning at the Jerez Grandprix and also taking the podium at the Jerez Grandprix Sprint Race. This means that the Ducati motorbike that Bagnaia is riding this season is a complete package from the Ducati factory so that the motorbike must be considered as his newest motorbike this season.

As for Marquez, who was able to make a comeback to the race which coincided with the race at Le Mans, I'm not sure that he will get good results right away because he has just recovered from his injury. In addition, the Honda factory this season still looks slow and weak in terms of motorbike development when compared to other manufacturers, especially with European manufacturers such as Ducati, Aprilia and KTM. And even today the riders from the Honda factory and the Honda satellite team will use the new chassis from Kalex which is allegedly the best chassis from Kalex for Honda.

[tokeweed]

I have also heard that FIA are thinking of making the cars smaller and lighter than before. This is supposed to be good for F1 fans normally but it isn't honestly. Because as long as this huge gap between the teams is maintained nothing will change in a good way. We will even see the opposite because Red Bull are going to get even more advantageous in that case.

We would just watch Verstappen and Perez getting past everyone else like they are just there fore practicing.    Verstappen made a statement like he would like to see some balance among the teams to make the sport more competitive. However Red Bull are the team that create this much big gap in the first place so he should start with his team about this.

It's really hard to please everybody as these latest spec changes were made to take away Mercedes' dominance and make it more balanced for the other teams.  If they make another major spec change, dominance could go back to Mercedes and we'd all be complainig about it the same way people are currently complaining about RBR .  

Mercedes dominated for 7 years straight starting when F1 switched to the V6.  Red Bull broke their streak the season before the major spec change.

[BitcoinAccepted]

I initially thought that Verstappen would easily become world champion again this year. Although he made a big impression last race by catching up from 9th to 1st place without any problems, Perez is also serious this season. I didn't think the competition would come from him, I rather thought from someone like Leclerc. But Leclerc still continues to make too many significant mistakes, unfortunately. For now it is an illusion to think that Leclerc will become world champion. As long as Verstappen continues to drive at RedBull, we cannot count on LeClerc having a serious chance at Ferrari to become world champion. It would still be nice to see LeClerc and Verstappen together in a team.

[Koal-84]

Strong performance by Miller today at the thousandth MotoGP Gand Prix, Marc Marquez crashed twice but he did his best time with the Kalex chassis. For tomorrow and Sunday it looks like Ducati and KTM will fight for the victory, maybe Aprilia can surprise, Honda and Yamaha I don't trust much.

[coinlocket$]

But no, they wanted more 'easy overtakes' and please the newer fans.  Kinda like they're dumbing the sport down.  It would've been better to let everything stay the same, remove DRS even, and let the fans understand that overtakes are planned laps ahead before the drivers get the opportunity.

They can't remove DRS, they need to improve it otherwise it will be impossible to overtake.

These cars are like planes, when they can't stay near another car even if slower in the open air it's like they hit a wall of air with a lot of friction to the air slowing them down.

[retreat]

I initially thought that Verstappen would easily become world champion again this year. Although he made a big impression last race by catching up from 9th to 1st place without any problems, Perez is also serious this season. I didn't think the competition would come from him, I rather thought from someone like Leclerc. But Leclerc still continues to make too many significant mistakes, unfortunately. For now it is an illusion to think that Leclerc will become world champion. As long as Verstappen continues to drive at RedBull, we cannot count on LeClerc having a serious chance at Ferrari to become world champion. It would still be nice to see LeClerc and Verstappen together in a team.

Actually, in terms of potential, Leclerc is not far behind Verstappen, but the problem here is that the car used by Leclerc is worse than that used by Verstappen and Perez. Coupled with Leclerc's confidence, which continues to be eroded by his declining performance, Leclerc's performance was not optimal, even in the previous season, he was frustrated with catching up to Verstappen, and now coupled with Ferrari's inconsistency, it makes him even more insecure. This is a big homework for Ferrari because they are not only forced to improve the performance of their cars, but also increase the confidence of their drivers.

[FanEagle]

I don't agree with limiting the top teams on changes and upgrades they do to their cars,this removes competition from the table,the only change which I agree FIA should do is to give teams who are in the middle of the standings and in the bottom of the ranking to have unlimited budget and spending until they reach a certain performance and this can be used as an incentive in order to bring competition back.Also the team not performing well should try and get the best engineers for them but in order to do so they have to pay a lot of money,teams who got in this way of thinking by getting the best engineers were usually paid off because they won Championships,McLaren being a crystal clear example of this in past years,I don't know what happened to them in these last years as they are not getting where they deserve to be.

I think it is already getting as close as it could potentially get. Not many people know much about the 2026 changes but they are working on that for a long time, it will be a lot more electric, and a lot less engine power and that means the one with the best chasis would have such a huge advantage as well and we are going to end up with teams that are much closer because all they have to do is copy the best chasis and they will do better.

I am not saying that the teams will not have clear better ones and clear worse ones, that will obviously always happen, but I think top 3-4 teams will fight for win each season and there will be winners from 3-4 different teams and that should be important. I can see less than 100 point difference between drivers champion and next teams best driver.

[Koal-84]

The pole position doesn't surprise me with Bagnaia, if he doesn't make a mistake this season he will dominate in MotoGP like Verstappen in Formula 1. Also a very good performance from Marc Marquez with the second starting position but what I haven't found out yet was the time with the Honda or the new Kalex chassis?

With Miller in 4th and the new start device from KTM, it's definitely a race to be reckoned with.