Things ... Good things / Bad things - 2021 Bahrain GP

[cider_and_toast]

Here are my Good Things / Bad Things from the 2021 Bahrain GP.

Do you agree? What are yours?

Good Things:

1) The battle between Lewis and Max. Edge of the seat stuff. A battle for the lead. Couldn't ask for much more in a race. Hard and fair racing. Wonderful.

2) Perez coming back through the field. Not bad for a number 2. Yes, his car is every bit as good as the one that finished second but he drove well. Pushed when it mattered and recovered to finish 5th in from the pit lane.

3) Strong drives for Tsunoda and Norris. Both drivers could have done better on Saturday but drove really strongly on Sunday. Debut points for Tsunoda and a deserved 4th for Norris.

Bad Things

1) Haas. Awful car, poor drivers. Surely a team living on borrowed time. With their lingering ties to Ferrari it's unlikely that they'll be used as a Trojan horse team for another manufacturer therefore I can't see them being around on the grid for too much longer.

2) Vettel. Sorry Seb but that accident was clearly your fault by a mile. The car ahead was on the racing line and didn't move an inch in the braking zone. A weekend to forget.

3) Alpine. Alonso did well on Saturday but overall, it wasn't a great weekend for a works team.

 

[F1Brits_90]

yes i think that spot on,

good

• For me riccardio must be laughing he has moved from 7th best car on grid to the 3rd & has £50m in his back pocket
• We got the battle we had hoped for many years.
• Perez coming 5th has proven himself already because im sure the gasly & albon that he left from wouldve limped home in 11 & 12th
• F1 publicity has gone through the roof, i have rarely seen such a reaction to F1 race, outside of F1 fans & journalists

Bad

• i would actually put Alpha Tauri in there, we still dont know what they are capable of because they stuffed tsunoda in qualifying by going on the mediums, so he was alot further back than he really should be & then Gasly race was all over when he lost his wing v Riccardio
• Mazepin he is a decent driver, we arent talking about Sean gelael, 2nd in F3, 5th in F2 beating highly rated Zhou. but that was 1 of worst debuts ive seen, think he spun 5 times this weekend
  

 

[Dartman]

It would appear that the new aero regulations do not affect the cars as much through the bends as in previous years and possibly allowed the Hamilton/ Verstappen to be much closer racing, Max was able to close the gap to an attacking position than in previous years as he lost very little in the bends as he closed in, whether this was due to tyres we may see as the season progresses.
I would say Mazepin was on par with Vettel regarding capabilities but at least Mazepin admitted his errors Vettel never has. perhaps Mazepin could improve with a stiffer spring on the throttle pedal it doesn't seem as though he has much feeling in his feet.
I would put McLaren as no3 team and nothing much between Ferrari, Aston and Alfa Tauri

 

[rufus_mcdufus]

McLaren, Ferrari (a little bit), Alpha Tauri & maybe even Williams? all seem to have made gains. McLaren are also historically pretty good at improving over a season, and it's still early days with the Mercedes power plant, so I have a good feeling about them.
Alpine. Aston Martin (over Racing Point) seem to have gone in the wrong direction.
Early days yet though, but I can't help suspecting this year is looking like another Mercedes walkover.

 

[olegg]

is this topic instead of the traditional Rate the race?

 

[Dartman]

Perhaps the title could be changed as we learn the good and bad things about the new minor ? regulation changes and the effect on the teams in future GP's

 

[olegg]

It was very interesting start of season.
We can only hope that the sequel will be no less interesting.

 

[olegg]

52 overtakings was in this race

 

[Titch]

I think that it’s all mostly been said. It was really an edge of the seat finish, I do hope we get a lot more of those.

I did think I may have judged Vettel rather harshly after qualifying as he seemed to be moving up the field in the race until he had his “ should have gone to Specsavers” moment.

Now we have a three week wait to see if it was just a one off race.

 

[Johnny Carwash]

Good:

A battle for the win that went down to the wire.

Lando Norris and Daniel Ricciardo bringing solid points for the McLaren team.

Yuki Tsunoda.

Bad:

Sebastian Vettel, ignoring yellow flags during qualifying, blaming Ocon for a crash that he had no right to blame anyone for. He needs a trip to the opticians.

Haas, looks like it’s going to be a long season for them, if they are putting all there eggs in a basket for next season, and they then don’t perform in 2022, I can’t see them lasting much longer.

Nikita Mazapin: He had the worst f1 debut since Marco Apiccella at Monza in 1993. Looks like most of this seasons budget will be going on repairing his car.

 

[Speshal]

I know we're not supposed to give driver's derogatory names but my phone keeps autocorrecting it to Marzipan.

Best ^ what they said

Worst - There was a debut for an upcoming new driver but his team let him down by stuffing a subway wrapper in his brakes....

 

[Dartman]

Probably quite apt Speshal , similar to Marmite, some will like him others won't rate him, Mazepin, Marzipan and Marmite all equal

 

[cider_and_toast]

is this topic instead of the traditional Rate the race?

Thought I'd do something a little different but we can do a poll as well.

 

[olegg]

Thought I'd do something a little different but we can do a poll as well.

But may be the new format is better

 

[FB]

Vettel apologised to Ocon after the race.

Esteban Ocon: Vettel 'apologised' for Bahrain GP crash

Estaban Ocon, who finished in P13, says that Aston Martin's Sebastian Vettel apologised to him for crashing into his Alpine car at the 2021 Formula 1 Bahrain Grand Prix.

www.formula1.com

 

[Il_leone]

I dont think what people said so far is wrong

The winners

Hamilton/ Mercedes - perhaps this might shut a few people up he won not in the best car


The losers

Verstappen/ Red Bull - looked unbeatable all weekend but could not pull away as expected in the race

Aston Martin - All the hype but poor showing

Gasly - great quali but race ruined damaging his wing

 

[cider_and_toast]

After a bit of thought, I've decided to add a poll to this thread to follow the same theme. Good race / Bad Race?

You get to decide was the race way above average or way below.

The poll remains open for 7 days.

Vote away.

 

[Titch]

Now I’m confused.

 

[cider_and_toast]

Now I’m confused.

In a 1 to 10 poll a vote of 5 would be an middle of the road, average race.

All I've done is called 5 the middle and you can vote a race way above average or way below average.

Simples.

 

[Galahad]

Good thing:

Overall reliability was very good considering the difficult circumstances in which these cars were conceived and tested. Given that Alonso's brake failure was sandwich-aggravated, I think Latifi's turbo was the only mechanical retirement of the race?

Bad things:

Both Red Bulls suffered technical issues in the race; easy to overlook as neither was fatal, but bodes ill for a season-long challenge unless they can get on top of them asap.

Vettel is rightly getting criticism for his accident, but Gasly was also clumsy in taking off his front wing against Ricciardo. It'll be hard for AlphaTauri to maintain competitiveness through the season so an early good result would have been very welcome, and fourth place could have been within his range if he'd played the long game on medium tyres.