[Official] United States Grand Prix 2022: Grand Prix Weekend Thread - Round 19 of 22

[billy bleach]

Originally Posted by billy bleach

Is Martin Brundell on the Aston Martin payroll? He NEVER criticises Stroll regardless

It would seem the Stewards found against Stroll.....

[greentrumpet]

I thought Brundle was pretty clear that it was Stroll who was responsible but that in most cases such an action would not result in an accident as horrible. Hopefully the lesson will be taken on board by all the drivers but I doubt it. Later in the race Hamilton had a little go while being overtaken, they all do it at the moment, it's not good for racing but difficult to police properly.

[GT6]

Not the greatest of races but this should be the only race in USA each year, the thought of 2 or 3 races held there while historic circuits miss out is very worrying

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by billy bleach

Except they did it when the Championship was around 16 events ….

Not quite. Schumi got his 13 wins in a season at Japan in 2004, which was round 17 of an 18 race season. Vettel got his 13th win at Brazil in 2013, which was the final round of a 19 race season and Verstappen got his got his 13 wins in the US, which was round 19 of the current season.

[Sodemo]

The Sainz incident at the start was largely caused by the nature of the corner design. If the apex was wider and not as acute it would Allow for multiple lines, as it stands it has a very defined clipping point and as a result doesn’t allow for cars to be able to be side by side very much. I’ve always hated hairpins with a tiny apex, they seem to encourage wheel banging sessions; Magny Cours, COTA, China, most of Tilke’s circuits, just awful things.

[peebee2]

Originally Posted by Sodemo

The Sainz incident at the start was largely caused by the nature of the corner design. If the apex was wider and not as acute it would Allow for multiple lines, as it stands it has a very defined clipping point and as a result doesn’t allow for cars to be able to be side by side very much. I’ve always hated hairpins with a tiny apex, they seem to encourage wheel banging sessions; Magny Cours, COTA, China, most of Tilke’s circuits, just awful things.

Possibly true but was caused by Russell being very determined to try and get in front of his team leader, braking far too late and giving himself no space at all when Sainz inevitably took the line he was fully entitled to. I thought a 5 sec penalty was pretty lenient.

[crmalcolm]

George Russell is the type of guy who posts:

[steve_r]

1st corner, 1st lap accidents will always happen. Small misjudgement resulted in an unfortunate spin. Nice to see that George has apologised. Sainz was so quick in qualy, we all missed out on seeing what he could bring to the race, which is a shame.

[AndreasDavour]

I felt really deflated after the race had been on for less than a minute and it had already lost lot of what it had promised. Russel's move was stupid, and felt like the frustrations they feel with the car makes both him and Hamilton, but most definitely Russel, take more risks. Doing that and taking out a competitor is really stupid.
Seeing him putting his hands up and apologizing does give him credit. He often drives with his head, but I would really like him to chill it for the last few races with that car.

[AndreasDavour]

First part of the race wasn't all that great, really. It feels bad when it takes crappy driving and SC to make a race come alive.



It is really depressing seeing Danny Ric just floundering. In this race he was almost as rubbish as Latifi, which takes some effort!

[VIVA GT]

I found it 'interesting' to see that Alonso has claimed that his collision with (next season's team-mate and next season's team owner's son) was 'just a racing incident'!
I do like Fernando, but I have to wonder what he would have said if it was Lewis instead of Lance who he ended up going almost over the top of!

[AndreasDavour]

Really? That is kind of funny.


The history of Lewis and Fernando at McLaren is such a terrible mess. Management at that team have a lot to answer for, letting that get so bad and have the team fall apart. I kind of understand why Fernando might still direct some of those feelings towards Lewis.

[steve_r]

Stroll said that Alonso had plenty of room on the left. Can the stewards increase his penalty, becuase the penny has obviously not dropped with this genius that his awful aggressive last second jink put a fellow driver into the wall completely unnecessarily.

[Lancsbreaker]

Did anyone else think that if Mercedes had tried the Mediums on Hamilton's car at the last stop it might have given him a better chance against Verstappen?


Agree that "record number of wins per season" should perhaps be expressed on a percentage basis of races run.....

[AndreasDavour]

Originally Posted by Lancsbreaker

Did anyone else think that if Mercedes had tried the Mediums on Hamilton's car at the last stop it might have given him a better chance against Verstappen?

I believe very few teams had new mediums left.

[TrapezeArtist]

Originally Posted by Lancsbreaker

Did anyone else think that if Mercedes had tried the Mediums on Hamilton's car at the last stop it might have given him a better chance against Verstappen?

Yes, I was thinking the same.

[TrapezeArtist]

Originally Posted by steve_r

1st corner, 1st lap accidents will always happen. Small misjudgement resulted in an unfortunate spin. Nice to see that George has apologised. Sainz was so quick in qualy, we all missed out on seeing what he could bring to the race, which is a shame.

I like both Carlos and George so I was disappointed to see that happen. Maybe it was a bit ambitious on George’s part but these things happen. We’ve all been there. Unusually (in the sport as a whole) George was honest enough to apologise and accept the blame.

[seanyb505]

Originally Posted by TrapezeArtist

... but these things happen. We’ve all been there...

Man if I had a dollar for every time I accidentally tapped the pole sitter in an F1 race into a spin one lap 1, T1...

[Aysedasi]

Originally Posted by seanyb505

Man if I had a dollar for every time I accidentally tapped the pole sitter in an F1 race into a spin one lap 1, T1...

Yeah, I used to do '5 bar gates' on the calendar but ran out of space.....

[peebee2]

Originally Posted by VIVA GT

I found it 'interesting' to see that Alonso has claimed that his collision with (next season's team-mate and next season's team owner's son) was 'just a racing incident'!
I do like Fernando, but I have to wonder what he would have said if it was Lewis instead of Lance who he ended up going almost over the top of!

LOL yes, any other driver and he would have been all over it. Crazy and dangerous driving, rightly penalised.

[S griffin]

What happened with Sainz and Russell was just a misjudgement by George and can happen to anyone. However Stroll's defensive move, while not the worst I've seen in F1, was still very dangerous and rightly punished, as it not only could it have caused a crash, but did. Hope the FIA start to stamp it out now.

[Richard C]

My son and I returned home late last night from Texas. This was the first time I had attended an F1 race in person since the 2000 US GP at Indy. I have been to COTA before (WEC race a few years back). I haven’t watched the video of the race yet (will do that later this week). So I have no comments on the various on track action that I have yet to see.

We had GA tickets and spent all of Sunday between turn two and three. Turn one is a great location, but it is historically crowded and standing room only and it was no different this past weekend. We saw some exciting passing and attempts at passing going into and through turn three. It was interesting to watch the crowd and who they cheered for. There was a large cheer from the Mercedes fans when Max had his slow pit stop, but also an equally loud one when Max passed Lewis for the last time.

I saw no bad behavior in the crowd. Those with premium paddock passes who were riding around in the back of flatbed trucks did get some boos from the crowed. But clearly in a joking way. I think was mostly a chance for us to shout at the rich folks who were on track waving at us common folk.

Due to the geography, there was a significant Mexican group in attendance and lots of Checo fans showing their support. There was apparently an Iranian protest near us, but we didn’t see it and only heard about it afterwards. It was sunny and hot, but there was a nearly constant breeze all weekend which made is work out for the fans but caused problems for the drivers.

I think the fan experience was fine. I think COTA did a great job with live music, etc. We didn’t attend any of the evening concerts as we were wiped out after each day. I wish there was a larger “F1 fan experience”. They had the F1 simulator and tire changing stuff. But it was a madhouse to even try to do any of that even on Friday. I can only imagine what it must have been like on Sunday. One thing that was NOT lacking was locations to purchase merchandise. You couldn’t take two steps without there being a place to buy hats and shirts.

There was a massive crowd even with the championship being over. It was clear there were some open spots in the premium seats. I had been watching a COTA F1 ticket exchange group on FB and it was clear there was significant speculation on those premium seats with many who had bought them up were trying to dump them right before the weekend and up through Sunday. I think if the championship had not been decided there would have been an even larger crowd. A larger GA crowd would have made it uncomfortable to spectate.

Overall, it was great. My son and I had a good time. We enjoyed our road trip across the half of the US as well (1300 mile drive each way!) I will try to not wait another 20+ years before attending my next face.

Richard

[BTCC frog]

What a fantastic race, the best of the entire 2022 season. Charles Leclerc's move on Sergio Perez was utterly beautiful, and reinforces my opinion that Leclerc is by far the most entertaining driver to watch in Formula 1 at the moment. Sebastian Vettel too made some brilliant passes on Albon and Magnussen, and Alonso finishing (briefly) seventh despite that crash was extraordinary. And we had a Verstappen-Hamilton fight for the win right up until the end of the race.

[VIVA GT]

Originally Posted by Richard Casto

My son and I returned home late last night from Texas. This was the first time I had attended an F1 race in person since the 2000 US GP at Indy. I have been to COTA before (WEC race a few years back). I haven’t watched the video of the race yet (will do that later this week). So I have no comments on the various on track action that I have yet to see.

We had GA tickets and spent all of Sunday between turn two and three. Turn one is a great location, but it is historically crowded and standing room only and it was no different this past weekend. We saw some exciting passing and attempts at passing going into and through turn three. It was interesting to watch the crowd and who they cheered for. There was a large cheer from the Mercedes fans when Max had his slow pit stop, but also an equally loud one when Max passed Lewis for the last time.

I saw no bad behavior in the crowd. Those with premium paddock passes who were riding around in the back of flatbed trucks did get some boos from the crowed. But clearly in a joking way. I think was mostly a chance for us to shout at the rich folks who were on track waving at us common folk.

Due to the geography, there was a significant Mexican group in attendance and lots of Checo fans showing their support. There was apparently an Iranian protest near us, but we didn’t see it and only heard about it afterwards. It was sunny and hot, but there was a nearly constant breeze all weekend which made is work out for the fans but caused problems for the drivers.

I think the fan experience was fine. I think COTA did a great job with live music, etc. We didn’t attend any of the evening concerts as we were wiped out after each day. I wish there was a larger “F1 fan experience”. They had the F1 simulator and tire changing stuff. But it was a madhouse to even try to do any of that even on Friday. I can only imagine what it must have been like on Sunday. One thing that was NOT lacking was locations to purchase merchandise. You couldn’t take two steps without there being a place to buy hats and shirts.

There was a massive crowd even with the championship being over. It was clear there were some open spots in the premium seats. I had been watching a COTA F1 ticket exchange group on FB and it was clear there was significant speculation on those premium seats with many who had bought them up were trying to dump them right before the weekend and up through Sunday. I think if the championship had not been decided there would have been an even larger crowd. A larger GA crowd would have made it uncomfortable to spectate.

Overall, it was great. My son and I had a good time. We enjoyed our road trip across the half of the US as well (1300 mile drive each way!) I will try to not wait another 20+ years before attending my next face.

Richard

Glad you and your son had a good time Richard. Sorry, but living in the UK, driving 1,300 miles to your 'home' GP seems a hell of a long way!

[chillibowl]

Originally Posted by Richard Casto

Overall, it was great. My son and I had a good time. We enjoyed our road trip across the half of the US as well (1300 mile drive each way!) I will try to not wait another 20+ years before attending my next face.

nice. love road trips! glad you two had a good time!

Originally Posted by VIVA GT

Glad you and your son had a good time Richard. Sorry, but living in the UK, driving 1,300 miles to your 'home' GP seems a hell of a long way!

would be about same for me to drive to the Montreal GP!

curious to know which tenthers have the shortest and longest drive to their home GP?