Craig Woollard

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  • #335550
    Craig Woollard
    Participant

    I’m curious to know why the Williams (and the Haas which has just been leaked on Twitter) are so simplistic in the sidepod areas compared to the likes of McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes.

    I’m also wondering whether T9 is easy flat or not. It would give us a good indicator as to which corners are now flat this season. I only seem to remember it being flat back in 2010 in qualifying only.

    I would also wonder what missing this test will mean for Pascal Wehrlein. How costly will this be for him?

    #334854
    Craig Woollard
    Participant

    I believe that only trusted sources should be used for news, and unfortunately the Daily Mail is not one of them in my books. That’s a view I have had before this happened. There are plenty of other major outlets which I take news from with a pinch of salt.

    I wouldn’t completely ignore the Daily Mail though. If they produce a genuinely decent opinion piece which is worth sticking in the round-up, then I don’t see why it shouldn’t be added.

    #334174
    Craig Woollard
    Participant

    “DRS enabled” messages to not appear at any point this season. Am I being too optimistic?

    #333543
    Craig Woollard
    Participant

    The sheer quality of the field makes this nearly impossible to do, but here goes.

    1. Daniel Ricciardo – The only driver to not retire from a single race. Could well have finished every race in the points. Not always as quick as Verstappen, but so much more consistent. Just the one race win does not justify the level of performance he is at right now. I cannot think of a single major error he has made this season.

    2. Max Verstappen – Sometimes brilliant. Sometimes frustrating. Always exciting. Any critics of this guy have almost certainly been silenced this year. He is still not quite the finished product, but the potential is there for him to be one of the greatest ever. Oh how I wish we had an onboard of the entirety of his final stint at Brazil.

    3. Carlos Sainz – Turned into a brand new driver once Verstappen had left. Even as the season progressed and the Toro Rosso was out-developed by other teams, Sainz still worked some incredible magic. He qualified in positions which the car did not belong in, and finished races in positions which the car did not belong in. To be sticking a Toro Rosso in sixth place on multiple occasions so late into the season is quite simply incredible.

    4. Sergio Perez – The first season I feel where Sergio Perez has strung together a consistent year-long campaign. When an opportunity was presented to him, he took it with both hands, and walked away with silverware on more than one occasion. When the car was not challenging for podiums, he was qualifying it well and sticking it well into the points positions. He very much carried the momentum he had from the second half of 2015 and is one of the main reasons Force India did so well this year.

    5. Lewis Hamilton – Hamilton was the better of the two Mercedes drivers this year, but I can’t help but feel that he could have done a bit more this year. He simply did not ‘turn up’ to races such as Baku and Singapore, and he really looked like a beaten man at times. Many will bring Malaysia up (probably for years to come), but there were plenty of other races where Hamilton could have found that five point swing in his favour.

    6. Nico Rosberg – He had the best car, and beat what was in front of him. Sometimes that was not very much due to issues on the other car, and on other occasions it was a bit more. Some of the penalties given to Rosberg earlier in the season still result in some head-scratching, whilst he got away with other situations. He played the numbers game once he did all of the hard work after Japan, but that should take nothing away from Rosberg. He is a worthy World Champion, but I think that the other guy drove a better season.

    7. Sebastian Vettel – The contrast of Vettel pre and post summer break is staggering. Vettel was nearly flawless early in the season, let down only by the car or by the team. After the summer break, he let himself down far too often, and caused some clumsy incidents. He sometimes didn’t turn up on Saturdays and looks so, so frustrated.

    8. Fernando Alonso – The old Alonso is back. When the car was good, Alonso was fantastic. When the car was not, he still somehow managed to do something with it more often than not. He took a little while to get up to speed this season, especially after launching off the back of a Haas, but ultimately delivered some fine results. He has very much still got it.

    9. Valtteri Bottas – The Finn often went a bit underneath the radar in 2016, but still delivered a very solid season. He was the strongest driver statistically on Saturdays against his team mate, and regularly chucked his Williams into the points. He sometimes stumbled a bit here and there early in the season, and had a few reliability issues, but otherwise was strong once again.

    10. Kimi Raikkonen – Raikkonen bounced back from a fairly so-so start to the year to really make Vettel do some thinking. He was sometimes caught up in incidents which weren’t his fault, but was also prone to his own errors from time to time. His rostrum-less second half of the season is the main reason why he only just scrapes my top ten though.

    11. Romain Grosjean – When the Haas was good, Grosjean was amongst the best drivers in the field. When the Haas was bad, Grosjean was amongst the worst. His passion cannot be questioned, and the team radio showed that. He was not always quicker than his team mate, but crucially he was quicker when it counted.

    12. Nico Hulkenberg – Hulkenberg had a fairly strange season. When opportunities were presented to him, he failed to really make the most of them, yet he would be able to string a result from nowhere at times. His progress has stagnated, which I think is why the Renault move will be good for him. Could, and perhaps should have stood on the podium.

    13. Kevin Magnussen – Magnussen was another driver who was able to extract that little extra something from the car when the opportunity was there to do so, but looked really quite poor at times as well. His control at Russia was nothing short of excellent, and he drove a fine race at Singapore too. He also got a bit unlucky at times.

    14. Felipe Massa – Massa started the season fairly well and consistently, but really dropped off after that. After his retirement announcement, he looked like he was in ‘retirement mode’.

    15. Pascal Wehrlein – Rookie of the year. Wehrlein has not got a seat confirmed for 2017 yet, which surprises me somewhat. He looked a bit shaky on Saturdays initially, but looked so much better after that breakthrough weekend at Austria. He usually starts races incredibly well, but also makes the odd rookie mistake. I hope we see him again next year.

    16. Esteban Gutierrez – I think zero points is a bit unfair on Gutierrez in 2016, considering how often he was able to beat a driver of Grosjean’s quality on merit. He was simply unable to string an entire weekend together when the points were on offer.

    17. Marcus Ericsson – His Mexico drive was absolutely superb, and he clearly had the edge on his team mate for much of the year, but otherwise did very little in a car which was sub-standard.

    18. Jolyon Palmer – Often close to Magnussen, sometimes a little bit ahead, but otherwise completely unspectacular. Only really did anything of note when he spun off or hit something.

    19. Daniil Kvyat – If the car wasn’t ruining a race for Kvyat, or someone else wasn’t ruining a race for him, the Russian was often ruining it for himself. Yes, he had a cracking race at Singapore and a few good qualifyings here and there, but he was absolutely thumped by his team mates this year. He needs to come back next year so much stronger if he is to remain within Red Bull’s family.

    20. Jenson Button – Other than his fine weekend in Austria, I really cannot see what Button did which was particularly great this year. He was comprehensively beaten by Alonso, who was mixing with Williams and Force Indias, whilst Button was sometimes stuck around the Renaults and Haas guys.

    21. Felipe Nasr – Scored points at Brazil. Did very little otherwise.

    22. Esteban Ocon – He started his half-season off incredibly slowly, but gradually looked much more comfortable. Started to look like the real deal at a number of events, especially at Brazil.

    23. Rio Haryanto – Sometimes okay on a Saturday. Absolutely nowhere on a Sunday. Hopefully we never have to see him in F1 again.

    24. (N/A) Stoffel Vandoorne – Ranking a driver based on one race is tough, so hence the N/A. Did a super job at Bahrain.

    #332873
    Craig Woollard
    Participant
    #332717
    Craig Woollard
    Participant

    Reminds me of their Vision Gran Turismo from a few years ago in places:

    All in all, I think this looks fantastic. As well as the new Porsche 911 which will also be racing in IMSA.

    #332030
    Craig Woollard
    Participant

    Looks like @keithcollantine was spot on regarding technical staff. Joerg Zander is off to Sauber.

    #331586
    Craig Woollard
    Participant

    I don’t quite understand this. On what track? With what conditions? In which car? Over a season or just one race? There are still so many grey areas here that it would be impossible to rank the drivers in such a way.

    #331325
    Craig Woollard
    Participant

    Participating in Formula E is a lot less expensive than participating in LMP1 as well, with manufacturers only really asked to develop the drivetrain instead of spending millions on things like downforce. And it’s yet another manufacturer picking Formula E over other, more established series.

    Whatever Formula E is doing, it seems to be doing it right on that front.

    This also leaves some absolutely quality drivers (some with 40 convenient superlicence points I should add) without a race seat next year.

    #329938
    Craig Woollard
    Participant

    Apparently the Ferrari SF15-T in Assetto Corsa’s Red Pack is really good, but I have not tried it. I’m going on word of mouth.

    I don’t believe rFactor/rF2’s game engine is able to do stuff like that, and these things don’t exist (as far as I know) in F1 2016, annoyingly.

    #329829
    Craig Woollard
    Participant

    Get them into bad habits whilst they’re young then.

    The ideology that overtaking can only be done with the assistance of this format of DRS somewhat concerns and aggravates me.

    Overtaking and defending are both arts. DRS ruins that.

    #329702
    Craig Woollard
    Participant

    I don’t get what the problem was. Aggressive, yes, but we have been crying out for that from Rosberg for years now. Neither car was damaged during the overtake, so as far as I’m concerned, it was a perfectly legitimate move.

    Some old-fashioned people love that kind of move! They keep on crying out for more daring racing like that battle at Dijon, and as soon as we get someone getting their elbows out, they get slammed for it.

    It shows what a sorry state F1 is in from a racing perspective when the only overtaking moves which appear to be acceptable are ones which are complete halfway down a ridiculously long straight, thanks to an unfair overtaking device. That is not what I want to see. I want to see hard but fair racing, from the time the lights go out, until the final car has passed the chequered flag.

    #328349
    Craig Woollard
    Participant

    The idea was good but ultimately it failed. Those in charge thought it would bring in manufacturers but Lotus aside, it simply has not. That’s before we mention the vast cost of these things, the questionable appearance of the things and the safety aspect as well.

    As far as I’m concerned it’s absolutely the right thing to do.

    #328341
    Craig Woollard
    Participant

    If there’s one series which absolutely does not need double points then it is IndyCar. The championship has gone down to the wire every year for the last decade anyway, so double points is simply pointless.

    Sure double points might swing the result (as it did last season), but I think both Power (incredibly quick, tad unlucky, few mistakes) and Pagenaud (uber consistent, insane in qualifying) would be deserving of the title this year. Thankfully they don’t have the likes of Dixon to worry about this time around!

    #328163
    Craig Woollard
    Participant

    And it is worth noting that not all teams ran KERS in every race in 2009, or on each car at various races in 2009. I seem to remember Robert Kubica not running it in some races where Nick Heidfeld did, because Kubica was significantly heavier at the time and the weight penalty was not worth it.

Viewing 15 posts - 1 through 15 (of 319 total)