2020 Formula 1 Season Paddock

Average position in first 10 races
Hamilton Vs Bottas
2019 1.6 2.2
2018 2.2 3.2
2017 2.8 2.4

 

Yeah Bottas 2.0.

Hamilton this year just seems to not care as much, f1 is not his priority. This is only my opinion and a feeling I’ve got from his interviews and such this season... time will tell.

 

7th title aint gunna get handed to him

 

This season could be a wash given 2020's track record so far.

 

Yup, lots of whipper-snappers ready to get in the way...

 

8 races total this season. Back to back races at the same track. In season development hampered by ‘rona. Any 2020 championship will have an asterisk.

 

8 races announced , 15-18 planned

 

Rumour mill has Renault announcing Alonso as a 2021 driver for them on Wed

 

Ocon will be happy with that...

 

So bottas got divorced last year which makes me think he will be more focused to win this year.
I also think he knows this is it. Merc is gone after 2022 and that’s when his new contract is up.
I do believe Bottas backed Hamilton up, because i also think merc 2-1 call was telling him to swap with Hamilton for points. And he refused and as such he backed Hamilton up later.
I think bottas will win the championship this year.

As for Renault? Cyril is just saying that the driver is someone the older mechanics may know. That could be Alonso but it could also be Vettel.
Alonso is known not to be a developer of chassis. He is also known to be a wrecker of team morale and always has lopsided team orders put in his contract. Ocon sucked this weekend but he has been out of a car for a while. I can’t see them vandoorning their #2 driver.
Vettel can develop a car. Will likely be cheaper than Alonso just to get a ride. But will want a 3 year and not a year or 2 year contract.
Vettel only drives strong rear vehicles. Look at the RB, it is still massively biased in mechanical rear grip. I think that’s the #1 reason vettel did so well in RB and poor in Ferrari. Ferrari kept a lot of front end in their design to keep Kimi happy, The last two full upgrades last year and this years car are completely designed around leclerc. It is very loose on the rear and that is why starts, restarts are bad for leclerc fast sweeps exits are bad and vettel has been spinning more.

vettel needs a rear balanced car. Will Renault build an Adrian newey type car? Maybe not so top speed but smoother turn in and earlier power out?

 

Merc is gone after 2022?

 

https://www.bbc.com/sport/formula1/53325412

Looks like it’s still a 50% chance it’s alonso. bbc usually has a 50% accuracy rate on this stuff.

 

gotta wonder what he's thinking. seems he just wants to have some fun. guess he's kinda bored outside F1.

 

https://www.skysports.com/f1/news/1...-to-return-to-f1-with-renault-for-2021-season

 

Ego.

think about this: his Lemans wins are farces, no other competitors and the team itself penalized your sister car the first time do you could have pole, and then in both races every time the sister car was winning, they mysteriously had to pit for tires and fuel off schedule... so he was racing against his teams sister car only.

as for Indy, he wants the 500, he was terrible the first year because his ego wouldn’t let him pace the first 400 miles. Blew up his engine. Was too slow the next year.
I think maybe this year now that he has had time in the series he may have a chance, but there are other drivers in the series that have equal chances of winning.

every other series he has jumped into has been for the pr of the manufacturer (offroad for instance) even though Alonso’s results were either dnf or miserable.

Renault and liberty media have a pr problem with viewership declining everywhere but with the Americans and the Dutch. And the Dutch are starting to wane and the Americans may wane this year.

alonso is a major share holder (and a board member) of the largest Motorsport media conglomerate (based out of Florida). Zak Brown was too and stepped down last year.

If you bring back alonso you will certainly get press... he will make sure he gets press.

what was it that Mercedes said about the Equivelant advertising return they get from F1... it was in the billions

 

no

https://www.autoblog.com/2020/02/10/mercedes-f1-formula-one-lewis-hamilton-ineos/

 

“Formula One is entering a new era in 2021, and the teams, including Mercedes, have yet to sign a new agreement with U.S.-based commercial rights holders Liberty Media beyond this year, with some evident sticking points.”

Merc ceo was the head of their electric vehicles and has been saying since before he took over that he would leave F1 and focus on FE only.

I have a feeling that what we know as Mercedes and also racing point will become a RB and alpha tauri type thing.
But without the merc name.

leave it to Wolff and Stroll.

even RB took the first step to be able to leave by restructuring toro rosso, as DM doesn’t own a majority stake and would happily sell to the Thai family that does and leave the sport.

it’s an interesting time where merc, RB and fiat are all hedging their bets upon leaving when this formula ends after 2021

 

None of the teams are signed up beyond the current Concorde Agreement correct ?

 

I post all that and I hope not. But RB said they would leave if either Ferrari or merc left, or if there were 2 more years of merc dominance. (This will be year 2).
Fiat said they would have Ferrari leave if it became even more cookie cutter and if the other big name teams left. That they would focus on other series (they are exploring this now and blaming the future budget cap to reassign personnel and money)

I just think, unless there is some sort of reneissance in the sport, there will be mass pull outs by the 3 big teams. One leaving will pull one or two of the other.