F1 - GP (General Purpose)

Chode ^ | 8/5/2009 | Chode

[Chode]

This will be a general purpose thread for F1 news and pings that really don't require a thread of their own.

[Paal Gulli]

"as conceived and groomed for 17 years"

Sorry, that was a typo Should have been 75 years.

[Paal Gulli]

This is Hambone shooting a bird at Colapinto as he overtook him later in the race after their collision on the opening lap at Myjammy:

The stewards ruled their contact "a racing incident." After the race, Hambone claimed Verstappen had caused the whole mess, so why is he vexed at Colapinto? Unless he's still peeved at being given a penalty point for running into Colapinto at Brazil in 2025...

Anyway, it can't be both Verstappen's fault and Colapinto's, but would you imagine Hambone has apologized to Colapinto for the needlessly rude and unsportsmanlike gesture?

Hambone also has blamed the Ferrari simulator for his woes. Claims it's "misleading" him. Oddly enough, it doesn't appear to be "misleading" Ferrari's other driver as much, since Leclerc has finished ahead of Hambone in two-thirds of all ordered classifications so far this season. And it bears mention that we're already past China, which is Hambone's co-strongest circuit (along with Silvertsone), so he'll doubtless fall further adrift of Leclerc as the season draws out (Leclerc came ahead of Hambone in 83% of all of 2025's classified results, and stands to come close to that figure so again this season).

Earlier in the week he was blaming Ferrari's lack of support so Hambone obviously has a long list of villains to blame before he manages to get down to the real culprit.

It also bears mention that the FIA fined Verstappen's WEC GT3 teammate €5,000 last season for flipping somebody off, so I don't think the book is closed on this one yet. Hambone probably makes that much in a week on his commission on the shoe laces Ferrari is selling with his name or race number on them, so the five grand is chicken feed. A public apology -- to both fans and Colapinto -- would be more apropos.

[Lockbox]

1. Racing is an assault to your senses. That’s why you need noise from the engine.

2. The car manufacturers were enticed with running hybrids. Well, that’s not working out too well. So it’s back to internal combustion noise making machines.

3. Will the car manufacturers stay now that they can’t run their toy and what about the big bucks they bring?

[Captain Jack Aubrey]

Agree. Ditch the whole electric BS. Keep a battery so cars can restart. V-8 or V10.

[Paal Gulli]

The GP Fans website is reporting that Dutch F1 journalist Louis Dekker is predicting Hambone will announce at the race at Silverstone that he's retiring at the end of the 2026 season.

The hitch is that Dekker made the statement in an audio-only podcast and the podcast is in Dutch.

https://www.gpfans.com/en/f1-news/1083402/lewis-hamilton-f1-ferrari-dutch-journalist-predicts-retirement-announcement-silverstone/

https://www.nporadio1.nl/podcasts/nos-formule-1-podcast/140447/7-heel-pijnlijk-voor-prinses-russell-dat-antonelli-al-die-punten-door-zijn-neus-boort-s09

From Dekker's mouth to God's ear but F1 will NEVER be rid of Hambone for the same reason F1 felt compelled to make him successful in the first place: because he's black. And he's an attention whore. He can't stand not being in the spotlight, which is why once he's quit his day job, his relationship with that Whoredashian will be short-lived and end in a spectacular explosion.

[BBB333]

That would be good...he’s only been an influencer of bad tidings.

I hope his future line of purses high heels and hair berets sell well on Sloan St...

[Paal Gulli]

Gary Anderson used to design F1 cars for a living (Jordan, Stewart, Jaguar & Reynard) and was one of the top writers at Autosport back when F1 was still entertaining and I was willing to pay to subscribe. So to say he knows his "stuff" would be a sizeable understatement.

Gary Anderson: F1's engine numbers still don't add up

We know that 50/50 was never really true, it was probably more like 370kW from the internal combustion engine and initially 350kW from the MGU-K.

So working on those figures, that means the MGU-K could supply that level of power from a 4MJ battery pack for roughly 11.5 seconds before the torch went out.

Looking at the magic of how that was supposed to be possible is where I start scratching my head.

On a fairly average generic circuit the driver wants full power for around 60% of the lap and they are braking hard for roughly 15% of the lap. Which leaves 25% in no man’s land. Yes, some regeneration might be possible during that period but in reality not much. For simplicity let’s use 5% of that 25%, so that brings us to potentially being able to harvest for 20% of the lap.

So if we look at those percentages and base it over a 100 second lap we get 60 seconds of potential driver-requested full power. To achieve that from the 4MJ battery pack you need to charge it up 5.2 times per lap (11.5s x 5.2 = 60s) and to achieve that you only have 20 seconds of potentially using that same MGU-K at its maximum regeneration output, in other words using it as the rear brakes when on the brake pedal and on top of that during that braking period driving the engine against the MGU-K to maximise the regeneration - basically using 22 of the multi-million dollar power unit packages as a generator (that’s sending out a fantastic signal to this ever changing world’s push for a global emissions reduction).

This is where it has never made sense to me. Over a lap you’re requesting full power for 60 seconds, braking for 20 seconds so in effect 33% of the lap is your maximum potential for harvesting, and that’s being generous. So then to fill in the gaps comes lift and coast, and the dreaded super clipping. We all know what we and the drivers think of that requirement....

I've been following F1 about 50 years and this by far is the furthest I've ever seen them stick their heads up their asses.

If you want to read the final seven paragraphs of this article (and why wouldn't you?), follow the hotlink in the headline.

[Paal Gulli]

The real story behind Red Bull wing that eclipsed Ferrari's

...The Race understands that Red Bull first started working on its version of the wing in November last year when conversations with the FIA made it clear the new regulations around a different kind of movable rear wing for the 2026 cars invited such an interpretation...

And then there's this:

At Myjammy, Verstappen was 4(-ish) mph faster than either Ferrari but I think the F1 press might be giving Red Bull's macarena wing too much credit for his speed. At Shangai, Vertappen was into the 340s, and that was before the new wing. Leclerc hit 336 at Shangai but Hambone hasn't got into the 330s yet this season. The Ferraris with the Macarena aren't yet putting up the numbers that Verstappen put up without theirs.

[Paal Gulli]

The headline might be a bit hyperbolic -- and I do hate to see the Scuderia in the doldrums -- but I'm 100% for any news that gets Hambone off the grid all the sooner.

Ferrari Miami upgrade leaves team facing ‘soul-destroying’ setback

Former Ferrari engineer Rob Smedley says Ferrari’s failed Miami upgrade blitz will be ‘soul-destroying’ for the Scuderia after 11 new parts failed to close the gap to Mercedes — and McLaren still came out ahead.

Now Ferrari’s technical team has to reverse engineer every one of those upgrades to establish which of the 11 didn’t work – and if it’s even just one...

...Amongst the changes, the team introduced a new floor and diffuser, while also revising the ‘Macarena’ rear wing to improve drag reduction and focus on increasing load in cornering mode...

...Former Ferrari race engineer Smedley says the team will be gutted as it now has to reverse engineer the updates to figure out which part didn’t work as expected.

“It’s slightly soul-destroying,” he said...

...“The other thing to note, from an upgrade perspective, Mercedes didn’t bring anything,” Szafnauer continued. “They’re bringing it to Canada. So let’s see what happens after Canada.”...

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

So the real smack-down for Ferrari won't come until Canada.

[Paal Gulli]

Aldo Costa, former engineer for Abarth, Minardi, Ferrari, Mercedes, and now CEO of Dallara, has joined the "Stick Hambone with a fork" delegation.

"...[E]very driver eventually reaches a point where their performance begins to decline a little. Whether he is in that phase or not is not for me to say - that’s something his race engineers and the people working closely with him have to evaluate. But that moment inevitably comes for everyone, there’s not much you can do about it. He also finds himself alongside an extremely strong teammate.”

https://www.gpblog.com/en/news/hamilton-handed-bleak-prediction-that-moment-inevitably-comes-for-everyone

Everybody is scared spitless to speak the truth about him because he's black but the truth is the emperor is bare-assed naked.

[BBB333]

Had to ping you on this:

Montreal Strippers Plan Strike During F1 Canadian Grand Prix: ‘We Want to be Heard’

https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/4379348/posts

[Paal Gulli]

I remember a ‘documentary’ on one of the cable channels (HBO, Cinemax, etc) many years ago about strip clubs in Canada. Apparently they aren’t considered shady/fringe businesses there, like they are in much of the US. Apparently they got a lot of lonely men driving long stretches of empty highway up there.

I remember once upon a time driving across northern Nevada on I-80 and hearing the strip clubs advertising on the CB radio. As Yakov Smirnov would say, “America, what a country!”

[Paal Gulli]

Apparently I have been censored, one of my posts deleted. I guess my opinion of Hambone is a too politically incorrect for some. Maybe I should have said he’ll walk on the moon before he wins another WDC.

[Paal Gulli]

Online Spanish newspaper Sports World is reporting that a professional photographer has been hired as a spy by one of the F1 teams and takes discrete photos of selected parts of opponents cars.

https://www.mundodeportivo.com/motor/f1/20260422/1004173747/espia-f1-me-llamaron-me-citaron-motorhome-equipo-trae-ordenador-pense-me-he-pasado.html

And online F1 news GP Fans is reporting on the Sports World story in English.

https://www.gpfans.com/en/f1-news/1083924/f1-spy-team-rival-photographer/

Remember 2007’s Stepneygate? OF COURSE the teams are spying on each other. Some even do it openly. Adrian Newey brazenly walks the paddock and makes sketches of anything that strikes his fancy.

At one race earlier this year an F1 website reported that he spent several minutes sketching Ferrari’s front wing (front, mind you, not the macarena wing). Newey’s old schoolmate Jeremy Clarkson noticed this and he walked over to see what it was that had so captivated Newey’s attention. On Clarkson’s approach, Adrian snapped his notebook closed and walked off the other way.

If I were a team manager I couldn’t let the potential downsides go. As Junior Johnson said, “If you ain’t cheatin’, you ain’t tryin.’” I would operate under the presumption that some if not all the teams MUST BE spying on me, which legitimizes my spying back.

The key is plausible deniability. You have to create a spy organization that can’t be traced back to you. As always, should you or any of your IM Force be caught or killed, the Secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions.

[Paal Gulli]

That sniveling little rat Nelson Piquet Jr has ‘officially’ proclaimed Hambone to be Ferrari’s #2 driver ...

https://www.gpfans.com/en/f1-news/1083905/lewis-hamilton-ferrari-f1-demotion-number-2-driver-charles-leclerc-nelson-piquet-jr/

... Which I wouldn’t see fit to relay (on account of Jr is a sniveling rat) except that Dutch racing driver (best known for a long career in Paris-Dakar) turned F1 pundit Tim Coronel has said the same thing.

https://www.planetf1.com/news/lewis-hamilton-ferrari-number-2-role

On top of which, Motorcycle Sports (whoever they are) cites “insiders” who have stated Hambone is now officially #2.

https://motorcyclesports.net/lewis-hamilton-relegated-to-ferraris-no-2-status-is-his-f1-career-in-jeopardy/

And a steady drip becomes a slow trickle. Soon enough there will be a rush among the F1 press to not be the last to report that it’s time to stick Hambone with a fork.

[Paal Gulli]

Mercedes bring first major upgrade of F1 2026 to Canadian Grand Prix in bid to fend off rivals

Mercedes confirms it is bringing an anticipated upgrade to the Canadian Grand Prix.

Mercedes has confirmed it will bring its first major upgrade of the 2026 Formula 1 season to the Canadian Grand Prix this weekend.

F1 returns to action in Montreal following a three-week break with Mercedes looking to continue its unbeaten start to the campaign.

Mercedes has claimed pole position and won all four of the opening races, with Andrea Kimi Antonelli clinching three consecutive victories to build a surprise 20-point advantage over team-mate George Russell in the championship....

https://www.crash.net/f1/news/1095645/1/mercedes-bring-first-major-upgrade-f1-2026-canadian-grand-prix-bid-fend-rivals

---

I’m expecting Mercedes to be “Gone With The Wind” after these “updates,” ... until the FIA reigns them in (or at least tries to) with ADUO.

Russell-Antonelli might become the new Senna-Prost, winning everything in sight.

[Paal Gulli]

Since Day One, Stefano “Baghdad Bob” Domenicali has been telling us that the new rules structure plus ADUO would absolutely prevent a repeat of 2014’s era of one-team dominance. Now Nikolas Tombazis, FIA’s director of single-seat racing, says Mercedes might walk away with it all again, provided they make “the best engine.”

His opinion also is the polar opposite of Domenicali’s as to whether ADUO is about “a kind of balance of performance mechanism.” Stefano says ‘yes,’ Nikolas says ‘no.’

https://www.planetf1.com/news/fia-chief-warns-aduo-not-magic-bullet-underperforming-f1-power-unit-suppliers

[Paal Gulli]

Horner might be in cahoots with BYD (Chinese Tesla) to field the 12th F1 team. BYD is known to have approached the FIA on the matter, and they have the liquid assets to build from scratch rather than buy controlling interest in existing team. Horner recently went to Cannes to meet with BYD VP Stella Li, so there’s apparently something going on there.

https://www.planetf1.com/news/christian-horner-byd-f1-return-chinese-team-speculation

[Paal Gulli]

The Race (dot-com) is reporting that Montreal will be even less hybrid-friendly than Myjammy was. The call it “asymmetric,” one side about a mile and a half with eight turns and the other side about a mile and a quarter with basically two chicanes. So there’s that battery-draining 3/4-mile drag race coming out of the hairpin #10, then the right-left 12/13 complex, followed by a 4/10ths mile chute to Turn #1 where you’re running on fumes.

Storage charge in qualies at this year’s Miami GP was limited to 8mJ and the fastest trap speed was 15.6kph/9.7mph slower than in 2025. Montreal’s highest 2025 trap speed was 7.4kph/4.6 mph slower than Miami ‘25 but max charge storage for ‘26 Montreal qualies is limited to 6mJ, so expect a significantly greater speed differential (to ‘26 Miami’s traps) this go-around.

Which should work in Ferrari’s favor because they haven’t had much success getting past 330 kph, especially Hambone, but it also means that qualifying order once again will be more determined by hybrid efficiency and employment strategery than by superiority of car handling or driver skill.

https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/canadian-gp-2026-f1-cars-energy-demands/

[Paal Gulli]

There's plenty more details at the web address below:

https://www.total-motorsport.com/canadian-gp-upgrades-f1-teams-2026/

Ferrari shot their wad at Miami, so unless Red Bull makes a miraculous turnaround, this season will be a two-horse race between the M&M brothers.

I find the whole macarena wing thing amusing on account of Il Commendatore's belief that "aerodynamics are for people who can't build engines." Seems a bit embarrassing to me to put something so conspicuous on their cars but still not be in the hunt for highest trap speeds. And how much of their budget cap must they have wasted on that thing, how much track testing time, with seemingly no material net benefit from it.