kipford

I am interested why they questionable? Mind games play a part in every sport and have been a part of motorsport since its inception, dear old Enzo was probably one of the worst exponents. All the great drivers have a ruthless streak and will do anything to gain what the late great Mark Donohue called the unfair advantage. PS his book 'The Unfair Advantage' is a great read.

Are trains allowed to run in tier 4.

Alex Albon, HMMMMMMMMMMM. I must admit to being torn. I never like to see a Brit losing his seat, his father is British was born and lived all his life in the UK and has dual nationality so he is not really Thai. He races extremely well most of the time, but he has not performed relative to Max this year and I think Perez actually deserves the seat and would be a great back up to Max. Talking of Max he absolutely drove the b...s off the that car today. As said in an earlier post he is as fast as Lewis on raw pace but is not yet the complete driver.

Until the last Q3 run Alex had possibly done enough not sure now, depends on how he races.

I think it does because no way was Daddy Stroll going to fire his son, he would have ended up in the divorce courts. I bet Perez did the Mexican equivalent of up yours to himself afterwards, I know I would.

From the Autosport website. Here are Mercedes Trackside Engineering Director Andrew Shovlin's comments about Georges weekend. For those who may not know 'Shov' was Jenson Buttons Race Engineer during his 2009 championship winning season. Shovlin says Mercedes tried not to "overwhelm" Russell with information ahead of his debut, and while he admits the W11 will be "easier" than the Williams, he notes Russell had to understand the greater window of performance it possessed. "We were just trying to feed the information to him in a way that wasn't going to overwhelm him," he said. "We weren't telling him things on Thursday night that he didn't need to know until Sunday morning. "In some ways our car will be easier than the Williams that he normally drives because it's quite a nice handling car, there aren't any major vices, it's got good grip. "So, in some ways that direction is easier. But the fact is the performance envelope of our car is much bigger. "And you can brake later, you can get on the throttle sooner, you can be more aggressive with it, and the car will look after you and, and not catch you out as much as some others, and you can carry much more speed into corners. "And it's just sort of understanding that. And it takes more than one race to really build up a sort of full appreciation of what the car can do. "He's done a good job, he's approached that methodically." Shovlin also concedes Russell's tall frame (he had to wear racing boots a size smaller than normal to fit into the W11's cockpit) meant driving the Mercedes would have been "painful", but he was "determined" to race the car. What it confirms is that 'easier to drive' is a relative term and brings it own challenges from the hike in car performance.

Crisis Rail First an apology for the rather crass comment on you enthusiasm and experience. I will put it down to a senior moment as I normally do not respond to prosts in that manner. I have had similar experience to you. Karting as a Junior, normally top 3 at club level until I ran out of money at Uni. Then I track marshalled all the way up to Grand Prix level. Being able to walk through the paddock pre Bernie with an access all areas pass with my girlfriend (now wife) was unbelievable looking back on it. From there I went to circuit racing and F750 where I designed built and raced reasonably successfully my own cars. The driver was always the limitation, but I could run top 6. Family meant racing had to cease but I built another car for a friend later on and continued helping out at the odd race meetings and running the local club centre. These days I am a design Judge with the IMechE Formula Student competition where I have the privilege to work alongside and learn from F1 engineering staff. My specialist subjects in this competition are chassis structures, suspension design and aerodynamics. I am interested in why people think that the car is the overriding factor in success. Yes the car has an incredible effect on whether you at the front or the back of the grid, George has proved that. But you still need to have the best driver to get the best out of it. In Formula Ford which Crisis Rail has some experience of there are multiple cars ostensibly the same. Given reliability and a bit of luck the best drivers have always prevailed (Senna dominated his year in Formula Ford but one). Outright raw pace is not the be all, you need race craft and edge that others don’t have. Schumacher had it, he was not always the fastest driver but he was the most complete of his time. Other to consider would be Fangio, Moss, Clark, Stewart. Lewis also has that edge he is not necessarily the fastest driver out there today, that is probably Max, but he is the most complete. Lewis has always had an edge over his team mates possibly with the exception in the early day of Alonso. At Mercedes yes it has been the dominant car but It took everything Rosberg could muster and more, plus some bad luck to beat Lewis to one championship, he then sensibly retired knowing he could never do it again. The best car allowed them to win the championship but the best driver prevailed. Sorry for rambling, I am know going to make lots of swarf in the garage. The 5" gauge loco beckons. Keep safe all

I see you are a true enthusiast, with expert knowledge then. No F1 car is a piece of p.... to drive, but then no racing car is, it is all relative. All F1 drivers are top drawer, but some have an edge that others do not. Max won his first GP after transfering from Toro Rosso to Red Bull. Ok he was lucky the Mercedes decided to hit each other but it was a top drawer drive with only a couple of sim sessions before the race. Since then apart from Daniel Riccardo no team mate has got anywhere near him, was the car a piece p.... to drive? With the exception of Jenson Button and Nico Rosberg no other team mate has outscored Lewis in a season, so were the Mclarens and all the Mercs pieces of p.... to drive? Bottas is a very quick driver and on his day as fast as Lewis, but George beat him fair and square simple as that. By the way I not seen any quotes from Stewart saying George lucked it because the car was easy to drive.

Gutted for him, but that's Motor Racing.

I understood this was just for FP1 as a look see for next year.

Interesting comment from Russell on Autosport site. He is 6'1" Hamilton is 4" shorter, so he was finding Lewis's car a bit of a cosy! Did not realise he was that tall, similar to Damon Hill if I remember correctly. He takes size 11 shoes, Hamilton size 9 and has had to drop a shoe size in order to make himself more comfortable! Having raced in boots that were too tight once before in a 20 minute club race, I can confirm his feet are going to be a bit uncomfortable come the end of the race!

Its called brain fade used the ratio not the ratio x the delta. Hey ho it makes a pratt

It is a win win situation for Williams. Lots of publicity, a financial settlement and a driver who no matter what happens will come back the better for the experience. Perhaps more important he will be able to debrief with the engineers where the Merc is different to the Williams in how it handles, he is going to get a real grilling but of course observing IP. Oh and they get to try out another young brit. Will interesting to see how close he gets to Latifi!

What has been fascinating about this season is the anomalies. Nurburgring, Mugello, Imola, Portimao, Turkey, except for Lewis always being there or there about we have had some really exciting things at all of them. Even the double headers have thrown up different scenarios. The next Bahrain circuit is very different again. Not so much an oval but three long straights with big stops at the end of them and some wiggly bits to load the tyres the other way. The 55 sec lap or there about and traffic means everyone is potentially going to be tripping over each other. Also the slip stream may play a bigger part because so much of the lap is at high speed. Quick bit of maths. Difference between first and last on the grid last weekend was 2.9 secs. Assuming the ratio between front to back stays roughly the same the grid separation will be around 0.6 secs. Thousands of a sec separation times may decided the top 10! Going to be great.

He should be OK having nearly two seasons behind him. He will not get any simulator time as he is in Bahrain not the factory. But remember he did drive W10 at the Bahrain test last year. Quote from Mercedes at the time:

On Autosport site. Russell is favourite. Decision tomorrow, with negotiations currently ongoing. Seems Vandorne and Russell are the only two to have had seat fittings, which rules out the Hulk.

Had Vandoorne been first choice, Mercedes would have announced straight off, so they must be considering their options? Bottas will not cares who his partner is, he has a contract for next year! Also they will not be as quick as Lewis and an inform Bottas can match Lewis in qualifying and just about on race pace, he is just not a complete a driver.

Gutierrez is out of the running as he does not enough current super licence points. It will between Vandoorne official reserve driver but no recent F1, Nico Hulkenberg not a Mercedes driver but has 3 GP's this season with Racing Point (Mercedes power) and Russell as an outside possibility. Russell is a Mercedes junior team driver but is contracted with Williams so it becomes complicated to release him. Heart says put Russell in, head says Hulkenberg will get it.

Next week is liable to be bonkers (to quote George Russell) they are predicting around a 55 sec lap, with the field probably very tightly packed. Qually at least will be decided by very small margins, one mistake could see people 6,7 or places back down the grid. Bring it on.

The picture above is very similar to my earlier post and shows it was not a head on impact. Although the car is angled towards the barrier the direction of travel is about still about 30 degrees to to the barrier, but it is understandable why it flipped round. Michael Masi the FIA Race Director is now saying the barrier damage was down to to the energy of the crash. I must admit to still being surprised that barrier reacted as badly as it did.

Hobby sorry to disagree with you on it being a head on impact. He hit at an angle of about 30 degrees as shown by the skid marks on the screen shot and the in from Kyvat. At that angle he should deflected off not gone through it which indicates as both of us suggested it was either a failure of the barrier or due to a gap in it. Interesting though this screen shot from Hamilton's pole lap at the crash site suggests no opening in the barrier. We shall wait and see. Whilst I admire the reaction of Alan Van de Mere and Dr Ian Robert, they were only doing the job they had been trained for. I say this from the position of someone who is a retired circuit marshal and officiated at all levels including GP's.

The car splitting in two is not necessarily a bad thing as a lot of energy is dissipated in doing that rather than putting it through the chassis and ultimately the driver. The power unit/gearbox/rear suspension/rear wing hangs off the back of the chassis by 4 bolts and these will have been to stressed to break under under a certain load ,similar to the mounting bolts used to mount the engine on the wing of an aircraft. F1 and the teams will now analysise the data to see what can be learned, but my real concern would be why the barrier failed because even though it was armco he should have bounced off it. It if was due to an opening then the track safety rules need an overhaul. It was an accident reminiscent of the type we used to see in the seventies, which killed Jochen Rindt, Francois Cevert, Markus Hottinger, Gerry Birrell to name but a few, thank God for modern chassis design and the Halo.

Was informed yesterday the 2021 exhibition at Thornbury is cancelled. Not unexpected, but a shame as it is only 20 mins drive from my son's house and we would have made a real weekend of it. 2022 is out for me due to (hopefully) Railex so it will be 2023 at the earliest before I can take Brighton.

I use a milk bottle top, works fine. KISS.

I model in EM so any RTR stuff is ruined the minute I put new wheel sets in. That aside I have no concerns over resale value, all stock/vehicles is weathered as required. It is how it looks on the layout that is the important thing.