Grand Prix 2023 Brazilian Grand Prix Practice, Qualifying & Race Discussion

Brazilian GP this weekend. the 50th time a world championship race has taken place in brazil.& which will delighted some the final sprint race of the season. dare i say the only circuit where sprint racing has worked consistently. so surprise we have the same format again. its always 1 of the race i consider that should be ringfenced as its always feel like you get drama here. something always happens. should be no surprise that for the last 2 years its taken the awards for the most overtakes. & as a commentor once said you could have season of only racing at interlagos & you likely have 19 great races

just in the last 15years weve seen.
hamilton winning in the greatest legal ending to a season that weve ever seen.

Barrichello pole lap at his home race, Button drive through the field to take the championship

Hulkenbergs shock pole in his williams

2012 Brazilian gp which many people argue was the best race of the decade & the race hulkenberg & force india shouldve won

2016 was the year we knew how good verstappen would be. as in the torrential rain, he amazed everyone when with 10 laps to go he made pitstop & came from 14th to 3rd with some spectacular moves

Hamilton being only 5 seconds from winning the race despite starting from the pit lane in 2017

2018 was massive controversy when ocon took verstappen out of the lead by refusing to yeild to the race leader & unlap himself. which nearly led to a punch up in the weighing area

the effective end of vettel at ferrari began in 2019. when the Vettel & leclerc rivalry boiled over. Vettel squeezed Leclerc to take them both. also Hamilton making the rare mistake of crashing into albon & then getting outdragged by gasly to finish 2nd in the toro rosso

the last 2 years, you had the incredible drive of Hamilton starting last going from 20th to 5th in the sprint then 10th to 1st in the race. overtaking Verstappen halfway through despite max attempts to take them both out in extremely questionable defence. in 1 of lewis greatest ever drives

last Yr The brilliantly heartwarming story of Kevin Magnussen in the Haas sticking it on pole in falling rain on slicks & the shock upset of the unbeatable Red Bull looking very vulnerable as Russell took his only win to date of his career & setting mercedes up for another year of pain by sticking with the flawed concept

 

[The Artist.....]

Alonso's overtake of Perez on the final lap reminded me of Trulli being overtaken in the Renault in Magny Cours.... I just can't see him keeping that seat for 2024 now...

 

[Il_leone]

Alonso's overtake of Perez on the final lap reminded me of Trulli being overtaken in the Renault in Magny Cours.... I just can't see him keeping that seat for 2024 now...

He will because 2nd in the championship is guaranteed now although he should be on the podium
Mercedes shocker has put Norris and Alonso with a shot of 3rd place in the championship

 

[FB]

How sad that the sprint race was more exciting than the actual GP. And how bad were Mercedes?

 

[Il_leone]

How sad that the sprint race was more exciting than the actual GP. And how bad were Mercedes?

Unacceptably bad

Notice the cars that performed well were the ones that followed the Red Bull aero concept

 

[The Artist.....]

Looking at the details about what has been changed in Parc Ferme after the sprint race, I wouldn't be surprised to see Alonso needing a trip to the stewards following scrutineering...

Aston Martin had to replace lots of elements of the floor and plank after the sprint race.

 

[F1Brits_90]

due to fireworks not live on lap 53 apart from this being unusually dull for brazil weve had quite a few crackers but this isnt 1 of them & this as painful a race i can remember for many years for mercedes & hamilton. they so are slow, chewing through the rear tyres faster than anyone & dropping like a stone through the field

im sure toto wolff was in less pain having his knee surgery. but if there is 1 positive doing great last year cocked up this season. so maybe having a disaster bodes well for 2024

 

[cider_and_toast]

Sky Sports aural blow jobs for Alonso's last couple of laps made me wretch.

"I have to say Martin, could any other driver on the grid pull off the overtake that Fernando did on that last lap?"

Oh **** off and keep ****ing off until you can't **** off anymore.

 

[F1Brits_90]

Sky Sports aural blow jobs for Alonso's last couple of laps made me wretch.

"I have to say Martin, could any other driver on the grid pull off the overtake that Fernando did on that last lap?"

Oh **** off and keep ****ing off until you can't **** off anymore.

for me, i was just delighted for alonso & perez as at least it injected some exitement for those last 10 laps.

 

[cider_and_toast]

Oh yeah, don't get me wrong, it was an enjoyable last couple of laps but David Croft asking Brundle if any other driver on the grid was capable of carrying out a DRS assisted overtake was a rediculous comment. Especially when Perez had done exactly the same thing on Alonso, arguably from further back, a lap before.

Also, let's not forget, the genius of Alonso was assisted in no small part by Perez throwing away his slight speed advantage by going too deep into turn one.

Entertaining? Absolutely.

An achievement on the scale that only the great Alonso could have possibly hoped to pull it off?

I refer you to the reply given in Arkell vs Pressdram.

 

[F1Brits_90]

What on earth is going on at Merc? None of the tyres work

i think they got their simulation wrong coming in & once practise was over they up to there neck & had no idea. because for me it looks like they had not enough cooling, too much drag & whatever it was that made them chew through their tyres quicker than anyone. they were struggling after 15 laps & youve got Norris & alonso doing 25/26

 

[F1Brits_90]

opinion on the red flags. i think this might be a better situation than losing laps & marshalls rushing to get things fixed

 

[Bleu]

opinion on the red flags. i think this might be a better situation than losing laps & marshalls rushing to get things fixed

I agree. After Australia I think there should be a limit when not to have a standing restart. Probably the old 75% rule would be good in that perspective.

 

[F1Brits_90]

I agree. After Australia I think there should be a limit when not to have a standing restart. Probably the old 75% rule would be good in that perspective.

i would agree as well but the expection is that Australia ending wouldve ended all controversy of abu dhabi

 

[TR]

i would agree as well but the expection is that Australia ending wouldve ended all controversy of abu dhabi

I dunno. The most likely outcome for an Australia ending, would have been Lewis and Max coming together with one or both DNFing. This would introduce its own controversy with the supporters of however drew the short end of the stick accusing the winner of crashing on purpose.

 

[F1Brits_90]

I dunno. The most likely outcome for an Australia ending, would have been Lewis and Max coming together with one or both DNFing. This would introduce its own controversy with the supporters of however drew the short end of the stick accusing the winner of crashing on purpose.

in weird way it might have been the apt way, considering they came together in Imola, Spain, Britain, Monza, Saudi & Brazil whats another crash like Hill v Schumacher & Villeneuve v Schumacher.

although i thought it wouldve been the lesser of 2 evils because that way you dont have the safety car controversy & everyone could change tyres.

 

[F1Brits_90]

James Allison on what went wrong with Mercedes’ car in Brazil:

“The main issue was hot rear tyres, which would give you a snappier end, and would give you the sort of tyre degradation we saw, but also an annoying amount of understeer. Now when you’ve got a balance that’s all at sea like that it’s very easy to nibble away, with every bit of throttle you put down, every turn of the wheel, a bit of the tyres.& we’ve got it in a place where a single lap face that was okay, very quickly became more than mediocre as we gobbled our tyres up. That’s normally a strength of ours.”

“So, particularly upsetting to weather that storm here. I mean, every weekend, the job is to land the car in a place where it is as happy as it can be. Sprint weekend put particular pressure on that because you sort of get 1 go at it, maybe an adjust in the one hour you get, and we clearly haven’t landed in it where it did its best work. & that’s not an excuse, because it is a sprint weekend for everyone. And that 1 hour is what everybody has. But we generally get that right but not here.”

“It’s too early to understand what we did or what we should have done, but by the time we figured that out, which we should be able to do before Vegas, and hopefully, we’ll make sure we don’t fall down that little hole again,”

 

[Il_leone]

James Allison on what went wrong with Mercedes’ car in Brazil:

“The main issue was hot rear tyres, which would give you a snappier end, and would give you the sort of tyre degradation we saw, but also an annoying amount of understeer. Now when you’ve got a balance that’s all at sea like that it’s very easy to nibble away, with every bit of throttle you put down, every turn of the wheel, a bit of the tyres.& we’ve got it in a place where a single lap face that was okay, very quickly became more than mediocre as we gobbled our tyres up. That’s normally a strength of ours.”

“So, particularly upsetting to weather that storm here. I mean, every weekend, the job is to land the car in a place where it is as happy as it can be. Sprint weekend put particular pressure on that because you sort of get 1 go at it, maybe an adjust in the one hour you get, and we clearly haven’t landed in it where it did its best work. & that’s not an excuse, because it is a sprint weekend for everyone. And that 1 hour is what everybody has. But we generally get that right but not here.”

“It’s too early to understand what we did or what we should have done, but by the time we figured that out, which we should be able to do before Vegas, and hopefully, we’ll make sure we don’t fall down that little hole again,”

The odds are not great as Vegas is deemed a power track

 

[Wombat]

We all have our individual opinions about the sprint races. My personal opinion is that I hate them. I feel that they are unnecessary and are cheapening F1 (and notably the WDC). In addition, they have perverted a longtime aspect of F1 that has served as an important element regarding the integrity of the championships. As a longtime F1 fan and a traditionalist re. maintaining historical continuity of particular basic aspects within the various sports, I have always liked the fact that championship points for F1’s championships have been awarded only for results from the actual races which, after all, are what the championships are all about (I’m glad that no points are awarded for qualifying and don’t even like giving a point for fastest lap). At least in this respect this has kept the integrity of F1’s championships in line with that of the other major sports leagues such as the NHL, NBA, MLB, NFL, etc., in which the standings are based solely on the results of regular season games. I detest the inclusion of points from a non-feature race source (i.e., the sprint races) into the WDC point totals, especially since the sprints are basically just added in order to generate some cheap, extra entertainment value. If they insist on continuing with sprint races (and I expect that they will probably increase the number of these) then I would prefer that they have a separate season sprint championship and not include points from these in the WDC totals. (I’ll continue this in a separate post.)

 

[Wombat]

(The following is a continuation of my previous post.)

My extreme dislike of the sprint races also derives from the answer to a simple question. A F1 race weekend is all about the actual race—it’s the main event; holding this race is what a race weekend is all about. So, the simple question here is: Does the sprint race add something to or does it detract from the actual race? As the last two sprint race weekends have shown, they clearly detract from the actual race. This is largely due to the fact that teams are limited to just a single practice session versus the usual three, and also the attendant ridiculous parc ferme rules (this latter point deserves to be the subject of a separate post). I firmly believe that F1 should be a true sporting competition, especially being that it calls its drivers championship a “world championship” (it’s sad that F1 has been progressively moving away from being a true sporting competition and degenerating towards becoming a shallow pseudo-sport like NASCAR, Indycar and WWF in which means of creating contrived excitement and entertainment are adopted at the expense of true sport). In other words, a competition that has no handicapping, and no rules specifically designed to artificially “shake up” the field and introduce artificially generated chance and random aspects to the race simply for the sake of generating contrived excitement and entertainment. A true sporting competition should ensure that the competitors are given every chance to enter the competition at their highest level and may the best competitor win. Sprint race weekends clearly are not conducive to producing a true sporting competition (notably in re. to the actual GP race). The single practice session doesn’t allow teams enough opportunity to find the optimum setup for their cars and to properly assess tire performance. The limited track time artificially creates a “hit or miss” outcome among the teams re. setup and denies the troubled teams the all-important overnight setup evaluations that can help them improve their cars. This shortchanging was particularly obvious in Brazil, notably with the Merc cars. It was also painfully obvious in Austin as it was the sprint race weekend format that was ultimately responsible for the result-altering post-race DQs of Lewis and CL (with more time for car setup this likely wouldn’t have happened; also, without the addition of all of the extra laps run in the sprint race the planks probably wouldn’t have worn below the acceptable limit). A F1 race shouldn’t be a crap shoot, a game of chance. A true championship is one that’s run in a manner (that is, as a true sporting competition) that’s designed to determine who really is the best, not who is the luckiest, or was the most gifted by artificial entertainment oriented rules, etc.

Anyway, there is no right or wrong re. this matter. There are only our individual preferences and opinions, and I’m just sharing mine here. I'm sure that there are lots of F1 fans who like the sprint races as well as those who feel the same as I do about them. The for or against views are also divided among the drivers and teams.