In the round-up: Lewis Hamilton says Sebastian Vettel will come back stronger from a series of troubled races including a collision with Max Verstappen last weekend.
What they say
Hamilton was asked whether he misses fighting with Vettel this year after their championship fights in the last two seasons.I love the racing. I do love the racing element. I loved competing against Ferrari last year. I wish the battle of the day was with the Ferraris. It’s different when you’re racing within a team. I have always told you, I much prefer it when you’re racing against Red Bull and Ferrari but currently that’s not how it is.
But I absolutely believe he will rebound. You look at the greats playing tennis and he is one of those. He’s had a difficult race but he’s a four time world champion. He will recover, he will redeem himself if he feels he needs to and he will come back stronger in the next race. That’s what great athletes do.
Quotes: Dieter Rencken
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Social media
Notable posts from Twitter, Instagram and more:
Now @redbull are taking William Storey to court. A cynic might see a pattern emerging! #richenergy #betterthanredbull #williamstorey #BusinessIntelligence pic.twitter.com/aB17r9Lz89
— Rich Energy (@rich_energy) July 18, 2019
The @FIAFormulaE series is growing so fast that I can say with a high level of confidence that average driver salary now has multiplied by a factor of 10 since Season 1 and still rising, making it the highest paid series, on average, after F1.
— LUCAS DI GRASSI (@LucasdiGrassi) July 18, 2019
Congratulations to my good friend Robert Fernley, who was last week awarded an Honorary Doctorate by @BoltonUni for his services to automotive engineering. Well deserved, Bob! #F1 pic.twitter.com/4wpEfVtP2b
— Fritz-Dieter Rencken (@RacingLines) July 18, 2019
- Find more official F1 accounts to follow in the F1 Twitter Directory
Links
More motor racing links of interest:
"The court considered case management issues and settled the timetable for further steps up to trial, which was scheduled to take place between October and December 2020."
Buemi escapes unharmed after crash at F1 tyre test (Motorsport Week)
"Red Bull confirmed that 'the cause of the incident is under investigation' and that 'Sebastien was released by doctors following a thorough medical examination.'"
Rahal Dismisses Formula E Entry Talk (Sportscar365)
"Unless you have a major automobile manufacturer funding it, and you look at the paddock area, that’s where the money is coming from, whether directly or indirectly. If you something like that, what’s the point? Also, it’s a closed group. There’s only X amount of franchises."
Frijns: Perfect End to the Season in New York (e-racing365)
"It worked beautifully again and despite a little bit of contact, I was through and into the lead. That felt good because Paris seems like a very long time ago and, as they say, once you get a taste for winning it gets pretty addictive."
Ex-Formula 1 driver Perry McCarthy joins TitansRX fiel (Autosport)
"McCarthy - who drove for Andrea Moda in Formula 1 26 years ago and last competed at Le Mans in 2003 - will campaign a single-make, four-wheel drive PanteraRX6 in the Lydden Hill double-header, before subsequently competing in the remaining rounds of the season in Portugal, Austria, Hungary and Germany."
We always endeavour to credit original sources. If you have a tip for a link to feature in the next RaceFans round-up please send it in via the contact form.
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Comment of the day
Rising F1 car weight isn’t necessarily a problem, @MazdaChris argues:
it doesn’t really bother me at all. The cars are heavier, yes. They’re also incredibly powerful with more downforce than ever. The past couple of years they’ve consistently smashed lap records everywhere from Monza to Monaco; they’re faster in absolutely every type of circuit. The weight is a technical challenge which has been overcome.
Sure, the BGP001 was a lovely car, very lightweight. And it would be absolutely destroyed by a 2019 F1 car. It went 1:24.7 on the fastest qualifying session in 2009; in 2019 even the Williams managed to go faster. Yes, it’s apples and oranges – they competed under different regulations, different tyres, mostly on different track surfaces. But the point is, these supposedly overweight oil tankers they’re driving in 2019 are the fastest, most technologically sophisticated racing cars in human history.
You want to look at the real reason the racing is broken in 2019, look instead at the spread of lap times. Like I said, Australia 2009, the BGP-001 posted a 1’24.7. Of the 14 cars running in that Q2 session, the slowest time was a 1’25.7. A little under 1 second separating 14 cars. Compare that to Australia 2019 – Hamilton set a pole time of 1’20.4 while 10th placed Perez only managed 1’22.7 – ten cars separated by 2.3 seconds. And the BGP-001 is hailed as a dominating car of its era!
If weight is a factor here, it’s simply that certain teams have done a better job of meeting the technical challenge that the additional weight creates in terms of car dynamics.
@MazdaChris
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Glamo
19th July 2019, 0:57
Oh so easy to say when you’ve had a race winning car for ALL of your puppet F1 career!
Martin
19th July 2019, 1:25
Oh someone’s just started watching F1
Green Flag (@greenflag)
19th July 2019, 1:36
With his mommy’s help.
JammyB
19th July 2019, 2:16
Yep lets just ignore his GP2 F3 and Formula Renault results leading up to F1, and the fact he matched his two time world champion teammate and missed out on the title by a single point in his rookie year, then proved it wasn’t a fluke by winning the title in just his 2nd year. And still winning races in the years where the Mclaren was inferior to it’s competitors.
But I guess if you’ve only started watching since 2014 or just chose to ignore everything before that then it’s possible to think that.
Toxic
19th July 2019, 6:31
I don’t agree with Glamo but to say Mclaren was inferior is a lie. Only 2009 was a bit difficult at the beginning of the season but the 2nd part of the year it was one of the top cars.
F1oSaurus (@)
19th July 2019, 10:24
The McLaren was less good than The Ferrari at the time
Lancer033 (@lancer033)
19th July 2019, 14:01
From what i remember of 2009 Mclaren qualified dead last at the British Grand Prix not because of a mistake, but they were just that slow. Sure, thats not representative of the whole season and that was the low point, but that car was rubbish and Lewis was a big part in getting it to the front.
grat
19th July 2019, 17:43
The 2009 McLaren was never a good car. It was better once they sorted out their stalling issue, but it was still only competitive thanks to it being one of the few cars that didn’t ditch KERS that season.
Darryn Smith (@darryn)
19th July 2019, 3:33
Isn’t there a reason he is always in the best car? Seriously. Is it just luck? Is he sleeping with the right people? or is he really just good.
ColdFly (@)
19th July 2019, 8:22
Those rumours could fill the silly season ;)
Paul Duggan
19th July 2019, 7:48
This is the best dumb post I’ve seen in a while. Olympic standard ignorance.
Shimks (@shimks)
19th July 2019, 9:07
The real problem is that you all answer these stupid posts.
Paul Duggan
19th July 2019, 9:27
No, the real problem is that you answer the answers. Replies are not what comment sections are for, dammit!
Gav
19th July 2019, 10:55
Answering the answers to the answers is the real problem here!
rushfan
19th July 2019, 9:34
Glamo, stay off a site like this dude, you’re encouraged here to make well informed comments, it’s not the place for that.
Karabo
19th July 2019, 20:42
+1
bob (@riptide)
19th July 2019, 10:14
Oh the joy of witnessing someone in so much pain and anger other someone else’s success. Keep it up Glamo. You are like the cherry on top of the cake for us Hamilton fans.
eljueta (@eljueta)
19th July 2019, 11:19
Not even a Hamilton fan but SERIOUSLY?
grat
19th July 2019, 17:45
Hamilton Rule!
“If Lewis Hamilton wins a race, it’s because of luck and a superior car. If anyone else wins a race, it’s because of talent, skill, and hard work”.
Stubborn Swiss (@stubbornswiss)
19th July 2019, 17:59
Glamo:
Your dislike of Hamilton is surpassed only by your ignorance of the sport!
petebaldwin (@)
19th July 2019, 18:21
Hamilton is the best driver on the grid regardless of whether his recent Championship wins have been easy or not. It’s like a boxing match between Muhammad Ali in his prime vs and old man with no arms. He’d have won by an embarrassingly easy margin and lots of people wouldn’t enjoy watching it but that still doesn’t mean that Muhammad Ali wasn’t the best boxer on the planet at that time.
I think Hamilton would win if they were all in equal cars. I guess you could argue the wins would mean a bit more because he’d have to be at his very best in order to finish first but the results would still be the same.
RB13
20th July 2019, 8:34
Troll scum.
Aussie Rod (@aussierod)
19th July 2019, 1:29
Two points re: COTD.
One, the current cars are only smashing lap records in qualifying, when they can run the engines in ‘one-lap only’ modes. Reduce the number of races the engines need to cover and they could unleash more of this performance in the races too.
Two, building a record-breaking race car is actually not too difficult. Look what Porsche did with the 919 Evo compared to the WEC spec version. The most important question for F1 is HOW to generate the amazing record-breaking speeds we all want to see. And at the moment, the answer is big, heavy but powerful cars with incredible aero. I appreciate the engineering that goes into this, but it produces terrible racing.
Smaller, lighter and more nimble cars would look more spectacular on track and could compensate for a reduction in aero that would improve racing.
JammyB
19th July 2019, 2:34
And you know why they only break lap records in qualifying these days and not during races? *drum roll* They banned refueling! Funny how that works, cars are slower during races starting with full fuel tanks..Who knew! And also ignoring that tyres back then could be pushed hard where as now tyre management is basically everything during races.
And also you weren’t watching F1 during the V10 period if you think this current period is terrible, the cars sounded fantastic but the majority of races were processions. People just think back to the couple of stand out races from each season and forget how dull a lot of races actually were.
Aussie Rod (@aussierod)
19th July 2019, 5:08
Considering Bottas pole was a 1:25.1 and his fastest lap on new soft tires and only a handful of laps of fuel left was a 1:27.4, I would suggest fuel and tires is not the only factor.
And despite the criticism it receives, DRS is the primary reason we enjoy the racing we did on Sunday. Take DRS away and 90% of action we saw wouldn’t have happened.
I have been following F1 since 1992, and I’ve watched my fair share of boring races in the wee hours of the night, struggling to stay awake. I fully agree that no era of F1 is perfect and many (including myself) look at the past with rose-tinted glasses. But that shouldn’t stop anyone from trying to improve the formula in future.
The idea that F1 might benefit from a reduction in areo and car weight is not exactly controversial. Most would agree. The question is HOW. My suggestion is simply that a reduction in the lifespan of engine components could form part of the answer by unlocking performance through both reduced weight and the ability to utilise higher engine modes for longer.
anon
19th July 2019, 8:26
@aussierod, and if the minimum weight remains the same as it has always been, that won’t make any difference at all.
Equally, if you look at what has happened in the past when they increased the service life of the engines, there wasn’t much evidence for the engines becoming heavier – the minimum weight of a lot of components is either regulated or controlled by physical constraints, so shortening the service lifespan wouldn’t really change much, if anything, in that respect.
Aussie Rod (@aussierod)
19th July 2019, 12:08
Yes anon, any initiative to reduce the cars weight would necessitate a reduction in the regulated minimum weight.
Otherwise of course it would make no difference :)
anon
19th July 2019, 13:13
@aussierod, it was a slightly facetious note – that said, the more serious point I was making was that, in the past, there doesn’t seem to be very strong evidence for the idea of shorter lifespans making the components that much lighter in recent years, or conversely that components became noticeably heavier when the longer lifespan rules came into effect.
As an aside, with regards to your comment below that “So are you saying if Williams, for example, were given a regulation-free blank sheet of paper for 2020 they wouldn’t easily build the fastest car on the grid..?” – I think that there are a lot of people do wonder whether a cash strapped team that, over the past decade, has seen most of their cars being designed with at least one major design flaw built into it, really would succeed or would still find a way of messing it up.
It also depends on how exactly you define as “actually not too difficult” to build a record breaking racing car. The Porsche 919 Evo that you bring up was built around an unraced development of the 919 that would have been built for the 2018 season, which was then modified to produce that car – so a decent chunk of the development work that would need to have been done for that car was already in place.
Being able to build on developments which had been done a year in advance probably makes the development programme for the Evo look shorter and cheaper than it probably would have actually been if they had been forced to start from scratch.
F1oSaurus (@)
19th July 2019, 10:26
@aussierod hear, hear on the DRS remark. People really should understand what DRS actually does for racing. Instead of looking at instances when much faster cars just drive by a slower car while also happening to have their rear wing open.
petebaldwin (@)
19th July 2019, 18:28
@f1osaurus – I don’t think DRS is necessarily the problem – it’s the implementation of it. For example, seeing drivers overtake someone and then use DRS to pull clear because “they were behind at the activation point” makes no sense. Once you overtake the car that activated your DRS, your DRS should deactivate immediately in my opinion.
When DRS works well, people don’t have a problem with it but after all these years, we’ve still got some tracks where it’s far too powerful and destroys potentially exciting battles.
F1oSaurus (@)
20th July 2019, 11:16
@petebaldwin That’s exactly the point. You are again looking at wrong examples. If a car is already ahead with DRS still open then the performance difference between the carse was so great already that they could have done it without DRS.
Those cases are not a “big battle” that was ruined. That would have been a drive by regardless of DRS or not. Then people blame DRS when in fact it’s thje tyres creating a 3 second lap time delta or simply a top 3 cart vs a Williams.
CHIKANO (@chikano)
19th July 2019, 8:49
@aussierod
Two, building a record-breaking race car is actually not too difficult . . .
I stopped reading here LoL good one !!!
Aussie Rod (@aussierod)
19th July 2019, 12:02
So are you saying if Williams, for example, were given a regulation-free blank sheet of paper for 2020 they wouldn’t easily build the fastest car on the grid..?
LoL good one indeed.
Jere (@jerejj)
19th July 2019, 13:40
@aussierod Wrong, the current cars are smashing outright track records in qualifying-conditions primarily thanks to the aero and tyres, though.
grat
19th July 2019, 17:48
13 of the 21 tracks on the current calendar have race lap records set in 2018 or 2019.
Jere (@jerejj)
19th July 2019, 19:46
@grat ‘Official’ lap records those are.
Stephen Crowsen (@drycrust)
19th July 2019, 2:21
Currently there’s 100 points in the World Drivers’ Championship separating Lewis and Sebastian, and there’s 11 races left this season, meaning that if Lewis scored no more points this season Sebastian would still need an average of 5th place (10 points) or better to pass Lewis.
If Sebastian were to win every remaining race (275 pts), then he’d finish the season with 398 points (excluding fastest laps). So Lewis could still beat Sebastian if his average points yield was 16 at each of the remaining 11 races (16 x 11 = 176, plus the 100 pts in hand = 276 pts).
Darryn Smith (@darryn)
19th July 2019, 2:51
He’s not great or an athlete.
Exediron (@exediron)
19th July 2019, 3:51
Whether you think he’s great is a matter open to (some) debate, but he is an athlete. The level of fitness for any F1 driver is at the very upper end of athletic fitness compared to any other sport.
ColdFly (@)
19th July 2019, 8:39
Please join Glamo above and fight it out amongst yourselves.
Matteo (@m-bagattini)
19th July 2019, 10:45
Wow, not even Max was this bitter and he literally got Seb in his back
eljueta (@eljueta)
19th July 2019, 11:24
Oh please give us more insights like this oh great wise one.
Jere (@jerejj)
19th July 2019, 13:50
@darryn Try driving an F1 car (either an actual or virtual with similar features, and behavior to an actual car) for a few laps and then come back with that claim. I’ve driven a realistic single-seater simulator (similar to those F1 teams use) three times (most recently in early-May this year) and following each of the sessions I was exhausted, sweaty combined with a bit of hand pain due to how heavy the steering wheel feels when turning especially through high-speed corners. Based on my experience of driving a racing simulator I can honestly confirm that racing drivers indeed are athletes at least equally if not even more so than, for example, footballers, runners, hockey-players, basketball-players, tennis-players, etc.
Darryn Smith (@darryn)
19th July 2019, 15:29
This is funny. The simulator part. You have to consider your level of fitness in all of this and you don’t. You guys really take this personally.
Jere (@jerejj)
19th July 2019, 19:53
@darryn Well, the state-of-the-art type of simulators are very realistic and accurate these days, so they give an excellent idea of what it’s like to drive an F1 car even if virtual-driving isn’t precisely the same as actual-driving, but close enough to make a proper judgment, and honestly, driving those things feels more like work than fun as Daniel Ricciardo once pointed out back in 2012. Nevertheless, I’d be more than happy to drive these things daily despite the exhaustion, and hand-pain they (can) cause, but all worth it.
grat
19th July 2019, 18:28
Perspective is required– There are 7 billion people on the planet, and 107 of them have won F1 races. 33 of them have won world championships. 16 of those have won more than 1 world championship.
Vettel may not be Ayrton Senna or Juan Manuel Fangio– but he’s still competing way above the 99th percentile.
MB (@muralibhats)
19th July 2019, 3:10
A nice way to put more pressure on Vettel!
Fletcher LeGardy (@fsliv)
19th July 2019, 4:09
I would also agree because of he doesn’t bounce back, then I guess he’s not a great athlete. Lol wow Lewis.
Toxic
19th July 2019, 6:33
Lewis has to talk up Vettel otherwise it will always be mentioned that he had no competition during his title winning years at Mercedes. Which actually is true since Rosberg left the team.
Moi
19th July 2019, 9:10
+1
F1oSaurus (@)
19th July 2019, 10:27
Rosberg hardly was competition either. Rosberg’s mechanics were better perhaps though.
grat
19th July 2019, 18:31
Rosberg mopped the floor with Michael Schumacher at Mercedes. Sure, Michael wasn’t quite as determined to win as he had been at Ferrari, but I think it’s a mistake to underestimate Rosberg’s ability as a driver.
Unlike Vettel, Rosberg was very good at identifying his weaknesses, and working to improve them.
Rosberg wasn’t as creative at wheel-to-wheel as his teammate, but he knew every standard move in the book, and used them effectively. His one-lap pace was not to be sneered at.
His ability to adapt to the unexpected was a bit weak though, in my opinion.
F1oSaurus (@)
20th July 2019, 11:19
Sure Rosberg was a great driver, but the point is that he still wasn’t near the level of Hamilton either.
Regarding one lap pace. Rosberg also known to go for Q3 setups and that would usually end up costing him in the race. Especially in 2014 when he really went to far towards Q3 setups..
anon
19th July 2019, 8:30
@muralibhats, it’s a curious thing that, even when one driver is saying something complimentary about another one, or even offering some degree of support, the fans always want to look for a secondary hidden meaning, even if it is not there to begin with.
Given the way in which Vettel and Hamilton have both defended the other against media criticism that they have felt was excessive, to me it looks more like Hamilton rebuking the media for the way that they report on the drivers.
NewVerstappenFan (@jureo)
19th July 2019, 9:25
Yeah that is what I thought aswell, such a subtle poke at Vettel.
bogaaaa (@nosehair)
19th July 2019, 3:17
Seb is done!!
Ericglo
19th July 2019, 5:24
Does Di Grassi have such an inferiority complex that he has to bring up driver salaries? I guess it is possible that the bottom 10 to 15 in Nascar bring the average down so much that it is less than FE. Still the top 10 or 15 are making over $5 million a year.
Paul Duggan
19th July 2019, 7:53
Seb must be very comforted to know that Lewis feels so comfortable in his advantages over him (both car & head) that he will put his arm around and give him a ‘chin up’ pep-talk. “Dude, come on! You’re just too easy to beat right now and it’s just no fun for me. Get your stuff together mate and I know you can get somewhere near making it a fight again. Don’t listen to what everyone else is saying, they’re probably just wrong”.
bob (@riptide)
19th July 2019, 10:34
Thank you for expressing your little fantasy on here. What a strange little fellow you are.
Paul Duggan
19th July 2019, 11:00
Thanks for the diagnosis Dr Ian, but less of the ‘little’. If you don’t think that Hamilton is deliberately playing a game here then you’re not paying attention.
Ipsom
19th July 2019, 8:02
Ricciardo and Leclerc are showing vettels true level. Which is good but not great.
In formula 1 number of titles don’t always correlate with driver skill.
NewVerstappenFan (@jureo)
19th July 2019, 9:33
Yeah it shows, when things are not going well for him, he is just not that good.
When things were not going bad for Hamilton in 2016, he was still pretty spectacular.
When things go bad for Vettel he can fall behind his teammate quite a bit. Things are going bad for him now for over a year.
Charles Leclerc has no such issues, things going badly and getting the best out of it are his only way. Last year this time he was brilliant in not so brilliant car. Driving a not so brilliant Ferrari brilliantly is his second nature.
Vettel I feel gets furstrated when car is not going his way, then he just under-steers, over-drives, crashes or just makes small mistakes. He just cannot switch on a poor car.
When the car is really great, like it was for a few years in RedBull he is brilliant. I am certain in Mercedes he would be quite good.
Right now Ferrari needs another driver that can extract performance out of a not so great car. Alonso, Hamilton, Verstappen those would do just fine in that Ferrari. And it seems Leclerc.
Ipsom
19th July 2019, 10:51
+1 @jureo
He’s comfortable as long as he feels that he’s getting the maximum from the car (in front of his teammate).
In hindsight, he should have done a Rosberg and left after the fourth championship. He exposed his weaknesses after his last championship year.
Green Flag (@greenflag)
19th July 2019, 17:12
Done a Rosberg! But Seb will never master the Rosberg smirk.
Phylyp (@phylyp)
19th July 2019, 8:48
Rule #1: Don’t feed the trolls after midnight.
Rule #2: The time is always after midnight.
vjanik (@vjanik)
19th July 2019, 9:00
Toto shooting praises at the Ferrari car since winter testing. And Hamilton pumping up Vettel all season long.
If you dominate somebody, making them look good makes you look even better. No wonder they jump at the chance every time someone asks them about their rivals.
bob (@riptide)
19th July 2019, 10:39
Everyone was praising the Ferrari car at the first tests and start of the season. I don’t remember you warning us that they were taking the wrong development path at that time?
vjanik (@vjanik)
19th July 2019, 11:10
I said “since” the first test. Not at the first test. We are half way into the most dominant season dude.
petebaldwin (@)
19th July 2019, 18:42
@riptide I called “sandbagging” from the first test and was more surprised to see the sun rise in the morning than I was to see Mercedes have the fastest car. The biggest surprise for me was how many people fell for Mercedes’ spin.
bob (@riptide)
19th July 2019, 19:58
You mean they kept all the good parts til the second test just to fool us? Must of been very confident to throw the first week. Not sure what they were trying to achieve by sandbagging in the first week, as in the second they quickly got closer to the Ferrari and by the last day extremely close.
As for how many fell for the spin, I think most who follow Mercedes expected a close season; but who knew Ferrari were going to throw so many races. All going well for Mercedes; with no screw ups, we could only hope for 6 out of the last 10.
Can’t say I was that surprised how many wanted to believe that they would struggle this season. Some driver gets a bit close to Hamilton and everyone’s predicting the second coming. What have we had so far this year? It’s Vettel! No hang on, its Bottas 2.0, its Leclerc, oops no, its Max! Hardly surprising that Ferrari having a good test would get so many believers grasp at any straw they can. And now its all tears because those nasty people at Mercedes didnt say the 2019 season would be a walk in the park. And now its all tears again because that Hamilton fella is telling them Vettel is a great who will bounce back. We have now come to the stage where fans are taking umbrage over what Hamilton said and demanding he acknowledges that Vettel is a failure.
bob (@riptide)
19th July 2019, 20:16
I think what I’m saying is so many people believed it, because they wanted to believe it.
Jeff
19th July 2019, 9:37
Driving a car does not make you am athelete. Sorry it just doesn’t.
F1oSaurus (@)
19th July 2019, 10:29
Driving a race car pulling 3 to 4 g does though. They train massive amounts to reach the fitness levels F1 drivers are at these days.
Martin
19th July 2019, 10:47
You’re wrong
Ipsom
19th July 2019, 10:57
What defines an athlete? I think that’s a good question to ask ourselves. Can a non professional sports player be considered and athlete if he/she is in a superb fitness level?
I do believe that F1 drivers are athletes, but are they the most physically fit/gifted when comparing to other sports… not by a long shot. Other professional athletes who have a 2hour game period (tennis, football, basketball, etc..) are miles ahead in strength, power, agility, and most other benchmarks of fitness.
F1 drivers excel in coordination and the mental focus, by miles. But these are not physical measures
JimG (@jimg)
19th July 2019, 12:43
Ipsom said: “Other professional athletes who have a 2hour game period (tennis, football, basketball, etc..) are miles ahead in strength, power, agility, and most other benchmarks of fitness.”
Are you sure?
For those who haven’t been paying attention, F1 races are usually around an hour and a half. Of almost continuous exertion, in temperatures of around 50C. The drivers get a few seconds’ partial rest on some straights, and a few more in the pit lane. No opportunity to walk around the pitch/court instead of running. No sit-down between games. No substitutions. No timeouts.
anon
19th July 2019, 13:50
@jimg, to that end, it is worth noting that, when Jenson Button began competing in triathlon events a few years ago, I believe that GlaxoSmthKline, who were sponsoring McLaren at the time, did actually run some tests between Button and Alistair Brownlee, the winner of the 2012 and 2016 Olympic triathlon events.
It was noted that, in high temperature and high humidity environments, Button was initially able to physically outperform Alistair, although over an extended period of time Alistair did pull ahead again due to his higher long term stamina – Button was not a significant distance behind Alistair in those tests though, showing that he was not that far off in terms of physical fitness.
In terms of measured VO2 max figures, which is commonly used as a measure of cardiorespiratory capacity, whilst F1 drivers might be below that of a triathlete or track runners, which tends to be over 70 ml/kg/min, F1 drivers have been measured with VO2 max figures which are in the 60 ml/kg/min range.
Whilst slightly below that of a track athlete, therefore, those measures of cardiorespiratory capacity are actually in the same range as, say, a Premiership footballer or a top tennis player – so, contrary to what Ipsom claims, it seems that your typical F1 driver does actually stack up as being fairly directly comparable in terms of athletic attributes to the footballers or tennis players that he is using as a comparison.
Jere (@jerejj)
19th July 2019, 13:42
@Jeff Try driving an F1 car (either an actual or virtual with similar features, and behaviour to an actual car) for a few laps and then come back with that claim.
petebaldwin (@)
19th July 2019, 18:44
Going for a jog doesn’t make you an athlete either so I guess that’s Mo Farah and Usain Bolt crossed off the list…..
Matteo (@m-bagattini)
19th July 2019, 10:51
The comments section today is pretty toxic, sadly.
One more time I’m here saying that this site needs a decent commenting system, complete with the option to bury comments and hide people.
GeeMac (@geemac)
19th July 2019, 11:45
@m-bagattini Indeed. The increased reach of Racefans is obviously a good thing because it allows Keith to bring in the likes of Dieter and Scarbs…but it also brings with it comments from the dregs of the internet who feel the need to try rile people up in our once pleasant corner of the internet.
Matteo (@m-bagattini)
19th July 2019, 12:04
@geemac I agree, its an obvious consequence of the evolution. I suppose @keithcollantine needed to increase the capacity of his servers to allow more visits and a good user experience: it’s been a while now and I can’t understand why he doesn’t do the same with the comments section, which has the same scalability needs.
Honestly, I’m reading and participating less nowadays because of the noise, because it’s not possible to fix tiny mistakes, because threading and notifying OPs is a mess.
I expected a revision a while ago, maybe during the winter, but it doesn’t look something that is going to happen.
ColdFly (@)
19th July 2019, 16:23
Same here, @m-bagattini.
Moved from being a daily reader/contributor to a once-in-a-while visitor.
I’ve also suggested @keithcollantine some potential improvements in the past. But it’s not my site.
petebaldwin (@)
19th July 2019, 18:49
@m-bagattini 100% agree. This site has always been a place to have an intelligent debate about F1 with other like-minded individuals. Whilst that’s still the case, you have to wade through a load of “Youtube comments” to find it now.
NeverElectric
22nd July 2019, 4:40
The site does need a better commenting set-up. A simple upvote/downvote system, allowing only registered users to vote/downvote, would work wonders and would quickly drive away the trolls by burying their bs under tonnes of downvotes – as well as compelling anonymous users like me to register accounts (hint, @keithcollantine – that might translate into more ad revenue thanks to verified users…? I might even offer to do a weekly SuperCars column next year, to add to the range of motoring events – and to give me an excuse to attend every race…).
An “Edit Comment” option is also needed, since typos are typos and tyops will happen…lol
GeeMac (@geemac)
19th July 2019, 11:31
Re Uralkali, they can dispute this all they like but the simple fact is this: Administrators have to act in the best interest of the business and its creditors. They don’t have to accept the “highest” offer for a business, they have to accept offers which are best for the long term future of that business and which will achieve the best return for the creditors of that business. It seems they did that by accepting the Stroll consortium’s offer. I don’t see what basis Uralkali have to continue to object to the decision which was taken.
petebaldwin (@)
19th July 2019, 18:53
@geemac – It’s difficult to say for certain without knowing what was in Uralkali’s proposal. We don’t know if his offer would have achieved an even bigger return for creditors or not…. I guess he thinks it would have and that’s why he’s appealing the decision but I can’t imagine anything will come of it because it’ll be almost impossible to prove.
GeeMac (@geemac)
22nd July 2019, 9:20
@petebaldwin That’s true, their proposal may have offered a bigger return for the creditors may have been worse for the business going forward. The administrators of the erstwhile Force India are very reputable in that market, they will not have let anything get in the way of their duties to all the stakeholders involved, particularly the staff of the business.
Uralkali’s actions strike me as those of someone who doesn’t like not getting their own way rather than of someone who thinks there has been an error in the process.
Jere (@jerejj)
19th July 2019, 13:54
Regarding the COTD: Yes, the slowest-Williams might’ve achieved a faster lap time than the fastest 2009 car in Australia, but that’s something that varies from circuit to circuit. For example, in Spain, on the other hand, the fastest lap time achieved in qualifying for the 2009 race JB’s 1:19.954 from Q2 while Robert Kubica, who qualified 20th and last in this season’s qualifying session achieved 1:20.254 as his PB.
RB13
20th July 2019, 8:38
Lewis shows sportmanship, people talk s.
Lewis avoids interviews, people talk s.
It’s clearly evident whatever this young successful black man does will be denigrated regardless and it’s honestly digusting and boring now. Grow up.
Ajaxn
20th July 2019, 16:35
Every story needs its Villians as well as its Heros.
Hamilton knowns in years to come he will be judged in comparison to his nearest rivals.
Hamilton needs Vettel to make more of a show of it. Right now his only rival is Bottas.
The question now is how well will Farrari finish this year’s championship? We are not yet
at half way and so in theory, there is still everything to play for.