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

[tokeweed]

^  Japan is Honda's race, so they had to.  Same as when it goes to Italy for Ferrari.  They have to win those races for their supporters. 

Superb race for Leclerc with tyre managment.
In a track where is very hard to overtake in similar condition, he got the best outcome.

Redbull is on another level but today we have the dimostration that Ferrari halved the distance from the past year and now they are the second strenght in the cirucs

Yup got all on the way up behind Sainz. It would've been sweet if he got to the podium.  If not for Perez's improved performance as of late we'd be seeing both Ferraris on the podium.  Lol.  But not really sure what's gotten in Perez this season...  Maybe he needs to prove a point that he should be given a new contract.    

As for the race itself, I kinda was getting bored starting at around lap 21...  And I just can't pay as much attention to it anymore.

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[coinlocket$]

During the week we received news of a possible sale of the French team, Alpine (Renault) after the disastrous start of the championship.

today there were denials from the French.

The team will not be sold and will continue. Incredibly, however, there have never been any rumors of an upgrade to the car, it is assumed that the team will struggle for much if not all of the championship.

[tokeweed]

^  The more interesting question tho is who would be interested in buying the team if Renault was really planning on selling the team?    We've seen a couple of new teams getting in at 2026 after the new spec changes.  So that prolly means there could be others wanting to get in but not knowing the cheapest way to enter...  And buying a team could be cheaper than starting one from scratch.

I miss those days when F1 had Toyota and BMW in there.  I think it was Williams that had the BMW power unit.

[coinlocket$]

Some news:

Barelona is ready and is negotiating with liberty media, they are trying to get the license for the grand prix after 2026.

Mercedes has already saved Max Verstappen's possible salary for the next few years' budget in case they manage to get the driver's yes.
It would be ridiculous if they managed to get the driver ok, but couldn't sign him due to exceeding of the salary cap.

[swogerino]

During the week we received news of a possible sale of the French team, Alpine (Renault) after the disastrous start of the championship.

today there were denials from the French.

The team will not be sold and will continue. Incredibly, however, there have never been any rumors of an upgrade to the car, it is assumed that the team will struggle for much if not all of the championship.

They say the sun can be spotted early in the morning and it is a shame to see an ex World Champion in 2005-2006 Renault team not doing well,in fact struggling a lot.The more performing and competitive teams the better the overall race and Championship for us all to watch.I am amazed at how the budget of such a team if it is still Renault behind Alpine (I have high doubts about it) and they are never making an upgrade package,nor are throwing in some extra budget as Renault is a very rich company with great numbers regarding sales of normal cars,if they wanted they can surely inject quite a lot of money in the team and start doing much better than they are doing already in the season of 2024.

[coinlocket$]

Fernando Alonso has just signed the renewal of his contract with Aston Martin.

All rumors about his future arrival at Mercedes in place of Lewis Hamilton next year have therefore fallen away.
It must also be said that in this historical moment Mercedes is not a team much sought after by the drivers as the performances are not that great

[FanEagle]

To be fair, buying a team is "cheaper" in the time sense, because you may pay a little bit more maybe, but you are getting everything ready, meaning that you are not losing any time at all. This allows the new owner to not lose a single day and keep running the team without any time wasted.

Whereas, if you start from zero, maybe you will spend less or maybe you will spend more, depends on the expertise of the people hired for the team, but also you are going to have a lot of time building that team, it's not built overnight, so there will be a lot of time wasted. This is why we should consider buying a team is cheaper in the sense that it would allow anyone to just start right away without trouble. If I had the money, I would prefer buying too.

[tokeweed]

Some news:

Barelona is ready and is negotiating with liberty media, they are trying to get the license for the grand prix after 2026.

Mercedes has already saved Max Verstappen's possible salary for the next few years' budget in case they manage to get the driver's yes.
It would be ridiculous if they managed to get the driver ok, but couldn't sign him due to exceeding of the salary cap.

Verstappen to Mercedes is not happening unless Verstappen deliberately leaves Red Bull because of all the shenanigans going on over there.  If it's just a regular transfer thing, nope...  Not happening.  But if he does leave that means because of the salary stuff, Russell has to leave or takes a pay cut.  I know one guy who's willing to take a pay cut...  Vettel!  Get him back on the grid!

Fernando Alonso has just signed the renewal of his contract with Aston Martin.

All rumors about his future arrival at Mercedes in place of Lewis Hamilton next year have therefore fallen away.
It must also be said that in this historical moment Mercedes is not a team much sought after by the drivers as the performances are not that great

Wups!  All the more Vettel to return in F1 and to get the Mercedes drive is a possbility.  I wonder if there's a betting market for it.  

[Velvet78]

Some news:

Barelona is ready and is negotiating with liberty media, they are trying to get the license for the grand prix after 2026.

Mercedes has already saved Max Verstappen's possible salary for the next few years' budget in case they manage to get the driver's yes.
It would be ridiculous if they managed to get the driver ok, but couldn't sign him due to exceeding of the salary cap.

Can't Mercedes sign Verstappen anyway even if they exceed the salary cap? I mean like they sign him but get a penalty for exceeding the cap. In that situation I don't know what the penalty for that would be though. 

Besides at least for next season I don't expect Verstappen to leave Red Bull unless something big happens to cause him make such decision. However for 2026 season it is really difficult to be sure of something. Because cars will change a lot. Mercedes seem like they have the best engine data for new changes for now. If it stays like that later as well then Verstappen might really think of joining Mercedes in my opinion.

[coinlocket$]

Update on the new sprint races, as we will have one first next week in China.
Several things have changed for the

The shootout race will now take place on Friday and will determine the start of the sprint race.

Qualifying will take place on Saturday, in the last available session before the race

The points will be 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

[swogerino]

Update on the new sprint races, as we will have one first next week in China.
Several things have changed for the

The shootout race will now take place on Friday and will determine the start of the sprint race.

Qualifying will take place on Saturday, in the last available session before the race

The points will be 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

No matter what they change they can't make it more interesting F1 unless a team builds up and makes a huge upgrade package to their car in order to fight Redbull.We have seen some sparks of that in Ferrari yet the last race in Japan made us all forget about Ferrari and put in the spot light once again the domination of Redbull.

The China track is more wide but when it comes to being a technical one it is not that much different from Suzuka,the same here,the drivers love this track although more wide and longer than Suzuka,I expect not a lot of change regarding the race as I continue to expect full Redbull domination even in here.

[coinlocket$]

No matter what they change they can't make it more interesting F1 unless a team builds up and makes a huge upgrade package to their car in order to fight Redbull.We have seen some sparks of that in Ferrari yet the last race in Japan made us all forget about Ferrari and put in the spot light once again the domination of Redbull.

The China track is more wide but when it comes to being a technical one it is not that much different from Suzuka,the same here,the drivers love this track although more wide and longer than Suzuka,I expect not a lot of change regarding the race as I continue to expect full Redbull domination even in here.

Yep.

but Fia can also do what they did on 2021.
In the winter of 2020 they decided to remove the 20% of all the cars drag from back the car.

Fia chosen to nerf the main strength of the Mercedes and RBR won the title the following year.

FIA knows why RBR is so strong in comparison to the others, and if they want they can remove they strenght.

Will they do it?

[alegotardo]

No matter what they change they can't make it more interesting F1 unless a team builds up and makes a huge upgrade package to their car in order to fight Redbull.We have seen some sparks of that in Ferrari yet the last race in Japan made us all forget about Ferrari and put in the spot light once again the domination of Redbull.

The China track is more wide but when it comes to being a technical one it is not that much different from Suzuka,the same here,the drivers love this track although more wide and longer than Suzuka,I expect not a lot of change regarding the race as I continue to expect full Redbull domination even in here.

I still believe that there will come a point where they will say: "Red Bull has already lost its favor, let's leave the game for 1 or 2 years and let you train to evolve a little more"

I really believed in McLaren this year, because in 2023 the team didn't start the season so well, but in the 2nd half of the championship it gained strength.... so much so that in the last races of the year, Lando Norris finished on the podium in 5 of them, 4 in a row. His teammate, newcomer Oscar Piastri, also reached the podium in the second part of the competition twice.
So, by having a strong and promising pair of drivers, I honestly had no doubts that McLaren could continue to evolve in 2024 and even manage to go head to head with Red Bull. but.....

[Republikcoin.com]

After watching FP2 yesterday for the American MotoGP event which will take place in Austin Texas, I saw that all Japanese manufacturers had to be outside the top 15 or in other words, none of the Japanese motorbikes were in the top ten. Starting from Yamaha which is in 17th place with rider Fabio Quartararo to the Honda motorbike in the most distended position, and this indicates that between Yamaha and Honda motorbikes they actually have strengths that are not much different even though the engine characteristics are very different

It was a big blow for all Japanese motorbikes, especially for Yamaha and Honda manufacturers that they still had to work harder to surpass European manufacturers such as KTM, Aprilia and Ducati. Because almost all European-made motorbikes in MotoGP are currently very, very fast and powerful, so on any circuit, all European motorbikes will be dominant in the front row.

[Distraction]

I wasn't expecting Alonso to be in such hurry to extend his contract with Aston Martin. I'm quite surprised.    Because Aston Martin doesn't have too much to offer for Alonso at the moment. The car isn't good enough no matter how hard he is trying to get the best result anyway. I wonder if they guaranteed him something for the future.

The Chinese Grand Prix could be more enjoyable. We are likely to see many more overtakes than the Suzuka one which is what I like the most while watching this sport. 

There is a sprint race too this time, yeah. I remember McLaren's success with Piastri in a race last season. He won a sprint race finishing right ahead of Verstappen. I wonder if we would see such result from McLaren this season too.

[tokeweed]

He prolly doesn't want to give his seat away to some German who wants to return to F1. 

No matter what they change they can't make it more interesting F1 unless a team builds up and makes a huge upgrade package to their car in order to fight Redbull.We have seen some sparks of that in Ferrari yet the last race in Japan made us all forget about Ferrari and put in the spot light once again the domination of Redbull.

The China track is more wide but when it comes to being a technical one it is not that much different from Suzuka,the same here,the drivers love this track although more wide and longer than Suzuka,I expect not a lot of change regarding the race as I continue to expect full Redbull domination even in here.

Yep.

but Fia can also do what they did on 2021.
In the winter of 2020 they decided to remove the 20% of all the cars drag from back the car.

Fia chosen to nerf the main strength of the Mercedes and RBR won the title the following year.

FIA knows why RBR is so strong in comparison to the others, and if they want they can remove they strenght.

Will they do it?

That doesn't make sense. So if Horner and Newey really makes the move to Ferrari and Newey builds a car from scratch that has the technical advantage over the rest, it's ok for the FIA to remove Ferrari's advantage because the other teams can't keep up?  C'mon...  That would be total bs.  Not sure why they did it with Merc but they shouldn't have done it unless there's something else is amiss.

But since it's Ferrari, no way the FIA will remove it.  

[coinlocket$]

The sprint race in the US has been completed
Strong win for Viniales followd by Macquez.

Marc is getting better and better, race after race with his new Ducati.

Disaster for Bagnaia and decent result for my favorite of the season, Martin.

[swogerino]

The sprint race in the US has been completed
Strong win for Viniales followd by Macquez.

Marc is getting better and better, race after race with his new Ducati.

Disaster for Bagnaia and decent result for my favorite of the season, Martin.

So tomorrow there is a MotoGP race in USA,that is great news as I am not a consistent fan of MotoGP,I only watch races when I remember much differently from F1 which I don't miss any race.However in such boring weekends like this one without a F1 race the consolation would be to watch that race in USA.

Marquez at Ducatti will have his chance to win again a World Cup title and I think after all his suffering he deserves to get it,I also think it would be great to the title fight,to add some more emotions to it,not that emotions are missing here from what I remember yet it would be a great thing if many riders fight for the title.

[Republikcoin.com]

Marquez at Ducatti will have his chance to win again a World Cup title and I think after all his suffering he deserves to get it,I also think it would be great to the title fight,to add some more emotions to it,not that emotions are missing here from what I remember yet it would be a great thing if many riders fight for the title.

Even though Marquez is already in a satellite team that uses a Ducati motorbike, that doesn't mean it will be easy for him to win another title this season. Because from what I have seen in the two series that have taken place and there will also be a third series today, Marquez still has to struggle with so many obstacles on the track. This was seen in yesterday's Sprint Race where he was under pressure from this year's rookie Pedro Acosta and was also unable to catch up with Vinales who started the Sprint Race from first on the grid. In fact, the Austin circuit in Texas is Marquez's favorite circuit with so many wins there when Marquez was still with the Honda manufacturer.

[Distraction]

He prolly doesn't want to give his seat away to some German who wants to return to F1. 

Do you think Sebastian Vettel would like a seat at Aston Martin even if he decides to return? I'm not sure about that after having really bad memories with the team.    He wouldn't like to be the teammate of Stroll in the first place.    Stroll isn't the worst driver on the grid maybe but he still needs to put a lot more into his effort.

If Vettel makes such decision I would expect him to eye the Mercedes seat which will be empty after Hamilton joins Ferrari. I guess the German team would lean towards such deal also.

However I don't think he will return as a driver anymore.