F1 2022

Mr C

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Mar 22, 2017
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F1 says it's ok for Russian and Belarussians to compete under neutral conditions.

Motorspork UK have banned all russian drivers, sponsors etc from the UK

So the HAAS driver will not be able to drive in the British GP.
 
I mean technically it is but like Golf or Tennis access to facilities and coaching comes at a big cost to develop those skills to make it to the very top you need a very dedicated parent.

Hamilton didn't grow up poor but his dad put in a lot of time and money to get him to karting meets and if he hadn't been spotted by McLaren and sponsored he'd never have made it.

You look at most of the drivers and they all come from money and it's always kind of been that way.
 
I played golf and tennis as a child. But not karting.

It's incomparable. Rich kids race cars. Normal kids can play tennis and golf. There are facilities in every town.
 
Normal kids maybe but not poor kids certain in this day and age lucky if you can find a cheap football pitch for kids to train on let alone tennis courts and golf courses.

Lesson, equipment and facilities are out of reach of boys and girls growing up in poor areas.
 
Normal kids cannot play golf. It's a rich man's sport. How much does a set of clubs set you back and a gold membership?
 
Normal kids cannot play golf. It's a rich man's sport. How much does a set of clubs set you back and a gold membership?
You can pick up a beginner set of clubs for under £200 and near me pay per play is a tenner for a decent nine hole course.

So, probably excludes the poorest.
 
Normal kids cannot play golf. It's a rich man's sport. How much does a set of clubs set you back and a gold membership?

You can pick up beginners sets of clubs for £100 especially if you buy second hand and you don't need a membership to play there's plenty of courses that let you pay per round.

Where golf gets really expensive is the lessons like Tennis most lessons are one to one coaching.

It takes a lot of time to get good and it's very hard to practise for free unless you own a lot of land that you can just bang balls around.
 
Fair enough cheaper than I thought. Been looking in to starting up myself. Starting to get a bit old for the five aside and need something new to get in to.

Still though most parents don't have a couple hundred laying around for their child's sport of choice. The poor kids will always end up playing football because it takes a fiver and a football cage on the estate.
 
When I started golf as young boy, you could pay as you play at my local 9 hole. Didn't need membership. But I also just went over the park. Pack of plastic balls for a quid and a club. Even in your garden if you have one, the balls with holes in go about 10m. I got a set of cheap clubs as a christmas present. Well a few clubs and then build it up. You only need a wood, a 4 iron, a 8 iron a wedge and a putter to start. You can get them cheap at car boots too, 20 quid a set. Some clubs hire them.
It's cheaper than you think. I also used to go up the course at dusk and just play. When I was older we used to play a different course each week,
no membership required. But it was 20 - 50 odd a round, plus all the balls I lost :D It can get pricey if you want it to.
But you can practise your swing anywhere. Golf is available to anybody.

The point is, when I was a boy I could get on my bike and play tennis and golf for not much at the local park or golf club. You are not going to do that with Karting. It's a money rich sport to participate.

My tennis here is 300 a year, 90 mins lesson a week (group normally 4 or 5), unlimited use of courts, we have 3 outdoor and one indoor.
 
Just posted this in a new thread and seen this thread now exist.

Well the new season is upon us and it's the biggest regulation change in a long time. Expect the grid to be shuffled up a bit. Testing is over and whilst you can't take any definitive outcomes from it, it looks as it the Mercedes are really struggling. Ferrari look to have bounced back in style doing many laps and consistently fast and Red Bull ending testing looking like the car to be in. McLaren looks good in Barcelona but really struggled with a breaking issue in Bahrain testing.

My guess on the order right now is:

Ferrari
Red Bull
McLaren
Mercedes
Haas

But hopefully the top teams are close enough it's competitive and we see it swing from race to race.

I've had a flutter on Leclerc and Sainz to be WDC this year.

Another point of interest will be the battle of the brits at Mercedes with Russell joining Lewis.
 
Sounds like Mercedes are writing off the first 4 races!

vettel out with Covid.
 
A fun first race.

We had a good bit of back and forth between LeClerc and Max for a few laps both using the DRS to over take and then re-take positions then obviously the drama at the end with the red bull having mechanical problems.

Good to see that Ferrari were able to keep the pace up during the race lets hope that they can keep this up during the season and hopefully Mercedes find a way to solve their issues so they can join the fight at the front.

I expect Hamilton will be delighted with 3rd place given the problems he's had with the car so far it seemed like they found a setup to at least make it driveable but it was still looking nowhere near the two teams out in front until the red bulls packed in.
 
That Ferrari is a thing of beauty. Really hope they can continue their good pace and take as many points off of Red Bull as possible.

The Merc really needs a drastic overhaul; they were over 30secs behind the leader at one point.
 
Pretty fun race strange watching drivers allowing themselves to be overtaken so that they get the DRS boost to take the spot back it's an interesting new twist.

Horrible luck yesterday for Perez pitting at the worst possible time probably cost him the win.

Great drive from Max waited for his moment then took it LeClerc just didn't have the speed down the straights to hold him off.

Hamilton also had bad luck not being able to get into the pits for a tyre change under the virtual safety car his team let him down there by not calling him in before he got to the line.

I do wonder how long they'll be using this track it's clearly very dangerous driving on the limits with no margin for error most surprising thing during the race was no red flags.
 
I get the impression Lewis's team lets him down a fair bit with decisions

Their car is way off, nice to see Ferrari back
 
I think the track will be done. Not because of safety concerns with the track but safety concerns regarding the track. Oil refinery a few miles from the track was bombed, the drivers didn't want to race but we're told they couldn't leave.

I doubt they'll want to go back.
 
Not sure the team had much choice they may have felt it wasn't safe to call him into the pits given Alonso was parked in the pit lane entry they maybe assumed the pits were closed when actually they were still open and he could have come in.

Yeah the Mercedes looks a long way off Russell got 5th yesterday but 30 odd second behind in a race that included a safety car and virtual safety car so he's losing not far off a second a lap to the front runners. Got some serious work to do to find the balance on the car.

12 months is a long time in sport I think they'll be back money talks in that sport.
 
Shows how far the sport has come when guys are surviving crashes like that.

That was so close to being something even worse wasn’t to far off clearing the fence.

It may have even saved the lives of the idiot protestors who got on to the track had the cars made it to them before being stopped we could have seen something truly tragic, these people must have a death wish.
 
It's been a very straight forward season for Verstappen this year the car he has is so much quicker than the rest of the field it doesn't really matter where he starts of what happens in the race. As long as the car doesn't break down he's pretty much certain to win the race.

He obviously plays a part in that his team mate isn't able to get near him either in most races.
 
His team mate also doesn't drive the same car as him. Since the 4th race of the season Perez has lagged behind on the updates as with the budget cap they don't want to spend money making two lots of upgrades.

Maybe more teams will take this route but Redbull are a horrible team.

Found guilty of breaking the budget cap last season and got a slap on the wrist.
 
I didn't realise they were doing that but yeah it sounds like that will be the way things go moving forward for the top teams who have drivers that can compete for the individual title.

Think that's just sport everyone is going right up to the limit of what is cheating and the regulators really don't want to get tied up in actual courts so they'll always dish out slaps on the wrist. At the end of the day everyone is in this to make money.

I can't stand Red Bull either I basically watch the F1 hoping that anyone but Verstappen wins.
 

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