Sports Formula 1

[kjdaas]

Which team do you think Carlos will move to in 2025?
Aston Martin makes the most sense if Alonso retires, but that is not a given at all.
Otherwise Audi seems like a possible move and he can lead the team after Bottas leaves, but it is a few steps down from Ferrari.
All the other teams either have already 2 good/decent drivers (McLaren,Alpine) or he will slot in as a number 2 again (Merc, RB).
He can also get promoted to head of race strategy at Ferrari since he has been doing that for past 2 years already :P

 

[Dorron]

Which team do you think Carlos will move to in 2025?
Aston Martin makes the most sense if Alonso retires, but that is not a given at all.
Otherwise Audi seems like a possible move and he can lead the team after Bottas leaves, but it is a few steps down from Ferrari.
All the other teams either have already 2 good/decent drivers (McLaren,Alpine) or he will slot in as a number 2 again (Merc, RB).
He can also get promoted to head of race strategy at Ferrari since he has been doing that for past 2 years already :P

I don't think Fernando will retire before 2026, so it would be over Stroll. I can see him in Audi or Mercedes. Toto already wanted Carlos for 2017 after Rosberg's retirement and I don't think he'll want to put Mick there instead of an actual good driver. Ocon is a potential contender for that seat too now that I think about it. The only choice that isn't a big deal is Audi since they'll probably be low or midfield for the first years.

 

[McGrrr]

Which team do you think Carlos will move to in 2025?

Sainz to RB when both Checo and Ricciardo fail to impress; you read it here first.

 

[StupidFlandrs48]

So I had no idea this thread existed last year, that's a mistake I hope not to repeat.

Amazing how people can go from saying "silly season is already over" to seeing this crazy shit in their feeds in the span of a week. Frankly I'm sad about this change, it's gonna hurt Mercedes a lot and push Sainz out of a seat he's fully earned at this point imo. It's weird because I feel like Leclerc + Sainz finally marked Ferrari getting a bigger appreciation for young talent, but now the regressive isntincts have kicked in again

 

[Coronis]

Didn’t even think about Sainz, I’d say Merc is most likely… Red Bull will either be going with Ricciardo or someone like Lawson. Aston is only an option if Fernando retires and who knows about that. Any of the other teams would obviously be a step down but they’d leap at the chance. (yes including Alpine)

How do you say "let's keep pushing" in Italian?



My money would be on Leclerc in qualifying, but Lewis to score more points.

Well duh but that’s only because Leclerc will continue his run of awful luck.

 

[StupidFlandrs48]

Predicting the new Merc seat is maybe the hardest thing I've seen in my five years of following the sport. On the one hand you have Sainz who is obviously an option, but I don't think Toto will settle for a driver who's famous for being forgotten about all the time. You could look at the Mercedes juniors, but most of the qualified ones (Stoffel, Mick, de Vries) have already blown their loads with other teams. Who else on the grid is of Merc caliber AND able and willing to make a shift? Seems like we won't really know until we see the new on-track pecking order

 

[minoutsuba]

Didn't think a thread for this exists in Smogon, but I'm glad that it does.

I think a straight swap between Hamilton and Sainz would be sensible for Mercedes. Sainz isn't exactly an F1 prodigy but there's no one else in the grid right now that's both out of contract and beyond his caliber. Some talking heads are rooting for Antonelli but that's probably for 2026 at the very least. If I'm Toto, running Sainz on a 2-year deal on Mercedes doesn't sound like a bad idea. Of course, that's if Sainz doesn't have a choice and Audi doesn't come knocking in for him before 2026.

Either way, any predictions for this season before it properly starts?

 

[Coronis]

Didn't think a thread for this exists in Smogon, but I'm glad that it does.

I think a straight swap between Hamilton and Sainz would be sensible for Mercedes. Sainz isn't exactly an F1 prodigy but there's no one else in the grid right now that's both out of contract and beyond his caliber. Some talking heads are rooting for Antonelli but that's probably for 2026 at the very least. If I'm Toto, running Sainz on a 2-year deal on Mercedes doesn't sound like a bad idea. Of course, that's if Sainz doesn't have a choice and Audi doesn't come knocking in for him before 2026.

Either way, any predictions for this season before it properly starts?

Verstappen wins again, Perez is booted around the time de Vries was. Haas is worse in quali than last year and again dead awful in the races. RB becomes a consistent challenger to the other top level teams. Norris and Alonso still don’t get a win (really hope this is a shit predict). Leclerc beats Sainz in every possible way except total points. Hamilton has a good send off for Mercedes.

 

[StupidFlandrs48]

FP2 at Bahrain is always funny to me, because it feels like it tells you everything and nothing about the season at the same time. It's representative of race conditions, sure, but the teams are all doing different plans and we don't have much of a frame of reference from testing. Qualy will probably give us a better picture but here are my big observations:

1. Mercedes is fast. I did not expect them to top the charts at all after last week, but they genuinely look like they'll be scrapping with Red Bull all weekend. And given their notoriously great reliability, they'll surely be the ones to capitalize if the first race of the season has attrition, as it often does...
This is pretty unlikely but how would you guys feel if you were Lewis winning the title this year? Kinda silly for the Ferrari move?

2. Aston is fast. Probably not "scrapping for a podium" fast, but Fernando looks really good from what we've seen, and Stroll is actually hanging out in the top half with decent consistency. Will the new car suit him better?

3. McLaren is weird. They seem to have a fast car, but Piastri is the only one harnessing that speed on the evening session. They were 2nd and 3rd in FP1 but dropped off after the track cooled for nighttime? Very interesting stuff, or Lando's struggle could've just been a fluke. We've seen qualy heroics from him before.

4. Williams, Haas and RB all look like fairly solid midfielders. I'm sure Haas will have its usual burst of early-season points before falling off, they almost always repeat that cycle even when there are fewer regulation changes to take advantage of. The other two look really solid though, and Sargeant genuinely seems to be on the pace of Albon to a decent extent. As the world's only Logan Sargeant believer I will take this as a preliminary W

5. What happened to Alpine lmao, they are clowning to an extent not seen since the Jolyon Palmer days. Something must've really gone wrong with offseason development for them to be this slow. I expect that kind of pace from Sauber though, they deserve it for creating that horrid new livery/sponsorship deal

 

[WilhelmTheOkay]

Pace at the top looks real close, really hope we can have an overall competitive year, even if the WDC isn’t. Other random thoughts: Perez’ season might get ugly with RBR’s pace advantage diminishing. Alpine is genuinely pathetic. Hulk is still a beast.

 

[Coronis]

Well there was a couple of fun moments but atm Red Bull is in the same place and Ferrari seem to have a slight advantage on Merc/McLaren. Aston in a solid 5th place and then we have the midfield battle, followed by Alpine looking dreadful.

Haas actually did seem to do much better with the tyres so that was good. I love you Danny but I would’ve given that spot back to Yuki right at the end.

Sargeant is Sargeant. rip Bottas and Hulkenberg. Great job from Zhou. Hopefully a confidence booster for Perez? Really held on well with the softs for 20 laps, was still faster til like the last 3 laps.

 

[Brammi]

Sainz is gonna end up in McLaren. There's no shot that Mclaren gets to hold on to both Norris and Piastri if they drive well given their ages AND the constructor stays middle.

Alonso is defs the next available seat for someone to move in to, but I don't see it being Sainz. There's a world where Perez falls short once new car kinks are out and that seat goes to Sainz, but I think it's potentially Ric's if he has a good season.

 

[WilhelmTheOkay]

Good job by Bearman for like 90min in the car, disappointed he couldn't into Q3 but still hope he can be consistent enough to get some decent points. Leclerc, Piastri, and Alonso were also fantastic. Wtf is going on at Red Bull

 

[Dead by Daylight]

Good job by Bearman for like 90min in the car, disappointed he couldn't into Q3 but still hope he can be consistent enough to get some decent points. Leclerc, Piastri, and Alonso were also fantastic. Wtf is going on at Red Bull

red bull is falling tf apart (well in terms of the org not the driving stuff)

 

[Coronis]

Predictable stuff out front - lets see if Perez can actually maintain this form this year. Sad how Alonso’s pace just seemed to drop off during the race from that top tier - was probably lucky with the SC I doubt he would’ve held off Norris - did well to hold off George the whole post-SC stint. Great job by Bearman, not just the result but his relative pace to Alonso and Russell was impressive for a debutant.

Great to see Haas back in the points, I’m now prepared to actually believe they’ve solved that degradation problem, but the gap from the top 5 teams to the midfield is pretty big. Great job by K-Mag to make the suboptimal strategy work for Hulkenberg, despite his eh driving that led to his penalties. Alpine perhaps not as bad as we saw at Bahrain? At least looked able to compete with the others.

Albon had some good moves with a slightly comprised car likely? Would love to see him in a more competitive car.

rip Gasly and Stroll gonna Stroll. Sargeant looking better than last year pacewise but yeah still don’t see him outqualifying Albon ever bar him crashing in Q1.

 

[WilhelmTheOkay]

Great job by Bearman, not just the result but his relative pace to Alonso and Russell was impressive for a debutant.

With both Oliver and Liam showing genuinely competitive pace in their short stints in F1, I wonder how many teams are going to go for a rookie this offseason. There are quite a few drivers on the grid that look pretty replaceable and they can't just keep letting these F2 drivers rot on the sidelines year after year. I hope Sauber, Haas, RB, and maybe Williams will be able to finally give a full race seat to at least one of these young drivers.

 

[Coronis]

Looking like Lawson should just replace Riccciardo already. Verstappen crazy good. Sainz going quicker without the appendix.

 

[Coronis]

Well with Verstappen out it was a good chance maybe to see where the Red Bull was really at.

Very happy for Sainz, well deserved. Tsunoda quietly having a great race, well done to both Haas drivers too.

 

[StupidFlandrs48]

SMOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOTH OPERATIOOOOOOOOOOOOON
Finally a race with a hot Spanish man on top of the podium, this is the good ending. Sainz is totally silencing my doubts about him, if Mercedes don't pick him up for next year then someone else will, and they will probably make Toto regret it dearly.

Speaking of Mercedes, WOW I did not expect that much of a clown show from them to cap off the weekend. They're now P5 in constructors, somehow behind a team with effectively 1 and a half drivers and a team that had to sub one of its drivers last race. I do hope they can send Lewis off with another win this year but at this juncture even a podium seems like a slight stretch.

In other news, I'm mad. I should be really happy for Haas double points, but I'm mad because Alex Albon isn't in one of those spots. Alex goes pretty well at Melbourne, so you'd think he would be ready to score a point in honor of the teammate he so shamelessly stole a car from, but NOPE! Instead he got styled on by both of the Haas drivers, and also whined about it in the "They race me so hard" fashion that he always seems to use whenever he chokes. Would Sargeant have done any better? Maybe not, but instead of coming away with nothing, Williams has come away with nothing plus a heaping of bad press and a needlessly alienated driver. I've generally liked how James Vowles has handled the team since he took over, but this weekend he really showed those old Mercedes colors. They've confirmed that they'll still have no spare chassis at Suzuka, so what will they do if Albon crashes in practice again? Will they keep entrusting their eggs to someone who keeps dropping the basket? James can call that pragmatism all he wants, but I'd call that failing upwards.

 

[Coronis]

SMOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOTH OPERATIOOOOOOOOOOOOON
Finally a race with a hot Spanish man on top of the podium, this is the good ending. Sainz is totally silencing my doubts about him, if Mercedes don't pick him up for next year then someone else will, and they will probably make Toto regret it dearly.

Speaking of Mercedes, WOW I did not expect that much of a clown show from them to cap off the weekend. They're now P5 in constructors, somehow behind a team with effectively 1 and a half drivers and a team that had to sub one of its drivers last race. I do hope they can send Lewis off with another win this year but at this juncture even a podium seems like a slight stretch.

In other news, I'm mad. I should be really happy for Haas double points, but I'm mad because Alex Albon isn't in one of those spots. Alex goes pretty well at Melbourne, so you'd think he would be ready to score a point in honor of the teammate he so shamelessly stole a car from, but NOPE! Instead he got styled on by both of the Haas drivers, and also whined about it in the "They race me so hard" fashion that he always seems to use whenever he chokes. Would Sargeant have done any better? Maybe not, but instead of coming away with nothing, Williams has come away with nothing plus a heaping of bad press and a needlessly alienated driver. I've generally liked how James Vowles has handled the team since he took over, but this weekend he really showed those old Mercedes colors. They've confirmed that they'll still have no spare chassis at Suzuka, so what will they do if Albon crashes in practice again? Will they keep entrusting their eggs to someone who keeps dropping the basket? James can call that pragmatism all he wants, but I'd call that failing upwards.

Still smarter than giving the car to a bloke who’ll struggle to fight the Alpines and the Saubers even if they keep fucking up their stops

 

[Coronis]

Very nice to see Sergio giving Max a challenge in quali. Ditto Ricciardo and Tsunoda.

Has LeClerc lost it a bit or is Sainz just peaking whilst uncontracted?

 

[StupidFlandrs48]

Very nice to see Sergio giving Max a challenge in quali. Ditto Ricciardo and Tsunoda.

Has LeClerc lost it a bit or is Sainz just peaking whilst uncontracted?

Once a Ferrari driver is free from their contract, they’re immediately free to finally stop choking every race!

 

[Coronis]

Really well driven first stint by LeClerc, just as I was giving up on him. Sainz extended that second set well though. Great stuff from Alonso as usual, just a smart smart boy, felt really bad for Piastri after that lock up. The gap from the top 9 to Yuki (congrats!) was crazy though. rip Stroll, tried the extra stop and couldn’t make those softs last and Hulk grabbed him.

Sargeant gonna Sargeant - under no pressure from Alpine and throws it away lol. gj keeping it out of the wall though - 2 chassis in one weekend for Williams would be awful lol. rip Zhou and rip Ricciardo and Alex.

 

[Coronis]

teehee

 

[StupidFlandrs48]

teehee View attachment 623514

Mexican Tom Cruise does all his own stunts... and nobody stunts on him