Grand Prix 2017 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix Practice, Qualifying & Race Discussion

So it’s Formula One’s tribute act to New Years’ Eve: an interminable and unexciting pre-amble to ten minutes of fireworks then the vain hope that next year will be better.

Ok, so that’s the least optimistic take ever, but Abu Dhabi has only really produced one race that is memorable for being a great race - 2012 - and we all recall the radio calls of the winner more than the action.

Brazil suggests that Hamilton’s Mercedes (with the 2018 engine) is the best around, but they’ve not shown much pace at night this year even if circumstances conspired to deliver victory in Singapore. There’s usually a multi-chassis race in the top six, somewhere.

It’s the end of an error, erm... era, at Woking as McLaren bail from the Honda project. Toro Rosso are currently showing them how easy Renault can be to work with.

Most will expect the pink Force Indias to be followed home by yellow, orange and white machinery with the Heartgas partnership at Toro Rosso around too.

Sauber will probably bring up the rear. Nice to mention them?

A season that promised a title race for the ages has delivered a remarkably damp squib. All we can say, Formula One, is see you in 2018.
 
Let’s hope that the new McLaren project is more exciting. Unfortunately the first season of new partnership between manufacturers and teams is generally dismal. Alonso may be disappointed.
 
Well I'm looking forward to it.

Screen Shot 2017-11-14 at 13.37.39.png
 
So it’s Formula One’s tribute act to New Years’ Eve: an interminable and unexciting pre-amble to ten minutes of fireworks then the vain hope that next year will be better
best opening to one of these ive seen all season. very funny & true. hats off to you for that LOL:goodday:

you know what dont how f1 does it, this is my 19th full season in watching F1 & yet somehow every year it doesnt feel like was 2 mins since i was staying up til 1:30am. watching grosjean come out of the pits in FP1 for Australia before I go to bed. here we are 8 months later in abu dhabi crazy how fast season goes. I think 2017 has been a good season & we should have a title race for the ages but cars aren't to blame there is only 1 person is to blame for the upcoming damp squib & that is vettel because his impatient move in Singapore cost us a brilliant title decider because its a huge swing. lets say hypothetically Lewis got 4th in Singapore & Vettel won, then instead of Lewis 345 - 302 Vettel. we wouldve had Lewis 333 - 327 Vettel with only 6pt gap going into the final round. At Abu Dhabi circuit that supposedly favours ferrari. but i said at the time & still believe now nothing to with Mercedes being better car, Lewis being another level since summer break or unreliability in Malaysia & Japan. Vettel hot headedness in singapore has cost himself the title.

i disagree with just 2012 being good. 2010 was exciting because of the world championship at stake & huge outsider Vettel winning the title against all odds & having the smurf voice on slow down lap as well & wouldn't surprise me if McLaren have a huge Countdown clock in garage, for when they are freed. & if 1 emoji was built for the last 3 years it was this :givemestrength:
 
Wasn't that an error of judgement, because he couldn't see that Verstappen was squeezed inbetween him and Räikkönen?
His hot headedness cost him in Baku though.

yes you have a point in baku but baku was a strange race because there wasn't a team out there, didn't have a story saying we could've had a win/podium. Force india have a amazing case for a 1-2 shows the bonkers nature of it

but Singapore is different for me. I remember saying to my dad post qualifying, max could if he wants to stick 1 up inside because Vettel will jump out of the way as he cant afford a DNF as it title over & yet it was him that moved over squeezed max far too much could've been a crash even discounting kimi on the outside, there was no need it was a 2hr race not a 20 sec race just go straight forward & get him later which he would've
 
F1Brits_90 I remember thinking the last person Vettel likes alongside him on the grid racing down to the first corner is Verstappen. It just seems that Max makes him all jumpy and anxious every time they race each other and on past record Vettel has tried to squeeze drivers into the wall but always come off worse at starts

---------------

Abu Dhabi - apart from 2012 has always been the last race but as much as the track looks nice there has not been any exciting races

Hamilton tried to make one last year by deliberately slowing down to allow Vettel (suggestions are he deliberately did not want to pass Rosberg) and Verstappen to overtake Rosberg... only for Paddy Lowe to open his mouth and tell him to speed up :whistle::facepalm:

What is missing from the circuit is a bit of challenge... they took away all the gravel trap and turned them into large run off areas so there is little chance of being punished for mistakes

The track has two places where you can overtake but without the DRS it actually is very difficult. The excitement only really happens at the start where the concertina effect does lend itself to a few wings being damaged

Other than that the race has become somewhat precessional
 
Not everything that went wrong in the championship race was down to Vettel, just most of it. The next time I hear about how unlucky Hamilton is I shall just say "2017".
 
Apart from the fact that the owners are willing to throw a bit of money to hold the last race and have an end season party. There is not much exciting about Abu Dhabi
 
Really struggling to build up any enthusiasm for this race but I suspect I will be my usual zombie self and tune in for qualifying and the race.
 
Well. I hope the people who wanted Pirellis that didn't degrade and big, wide, sexy looking cars that were a throwback to the pure power era of the early 2000s are happy.

Cos I'm not.

I've stopped watching. The excitement is gone with any potential to overtake and it's going to be worse next year as the regulations bed in. Six cars capable of winning but none capable of overtaking each other. :bored:
 
Oh that’s so defeatist jez101 .
We ..... the fans..... have to make a big noise.... forums like this are carefully scrutinised. We have to make sure that they know what we want from F1. They cannot exist without an audience.
 
I think they did listen before... To the people who complained about the tyres degrading and the lack of out and out speed. I wasn't one of them because I remembered what the 'good old days' were really like.

At least then you had cars breaking down and running out of fuel but that doesn't happen any more, of course. I will still watch the start of the races but after lap 2 the excitement is gone.

I want chance to play a greater part in the result of a race and I want an ebb and flow to the races. I want hard luck stories and flukey wins but most of all, I want cars to be able to follow each other closely. I want dirty air banned.

I want to take the power to set rules away from the teams and telemetry and team radio abolished altogether. For every funny comment by Alonso or Kimi, there are a thousand messages that keep everything nice and stable.

But it aint gonna happen Titch . Someone made out bed and now we have to lie in it for a full rules cycle. Wake me up in a few years time because nothing I want is going to happen for 5 years or so...
 
Back
Top Bottom