2020 F1 Season

Any fans out there? Anyone else following F1? So much to look forward too this year and excitment.

Can Williams improve this year with their new car from last place?
Will Redbull Honda continue to charge at Mercedes?
Will Mercedes' DAS be protested?
Will we know more about the Ferarri engine cheating scandal?
Can Leclerc lead the fight for Ferarri or will Sebastain remain their #1 driver?
Will Racing Point be protested for copying Mercedes' car?
The midfield fight looks very strong with Hass, McLaren, Renault, Racing Point, Williams, Alfa Romeo and Alpha Tauri all showing improvement in testing.
Did Ferarri sandbag engine power modes in testing?
Can Mercedes win their 7th consecutive double championship with Hamilton?

The lights go out this weekend in Australia at Albert Park.

It's the Melbourne GP this coming weekend. I have never been to the race here. Maybe I should go one day. I did attend the first Australian GP, in Adelaide, back in '85. Time flies...

Back when I was an OR nurse (many years ago) at the Alfred Hospital I always used to volunteer for on-call the GP week and weekend. We were only a three minute helicopter flight from the track at Albert Park. Always thought I might get to work on someone famous.

I follow F1. Hoping for a better year from Haas. Been watching the second season of the F1 docuseries on Netflix and that's been a good review of 2019.

Wish they would open up the courses so it's more of a race and less of a parade.

What paid streaming service shows all the F1 races?

I watch F1 off and on. My attention tends to wane after a while and the next thing I know I'm doing other things. I dig open wheel and GT cars no matter what though. I figure we'll make it to Austin one year.

Regular follower since 2001. I use to watch all the qualy and races live (mostly 4-5am) but now just watch replays unless the race is at a more friendly time zone for me.

I'm hoping the midfield has closed a bit of the gap to the frontrunners but if not, F1.5 is still fun to follow.

Anyone ever put flowviz on a rocket before launching?

DAllen said:

I follow F1. Hoping for a better year from Haas. Been watching the second season of the F1 docuseries on Netflix and that's been a good review of 2019.

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Haas has already hinted they were dropping out after this year. They alluded to their original goal of 5 years so I wouldn’t expect a whole lot from them.

WFWalby said:

What paid streaming service shows all the F1 races?

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F1 TV is what you want. It has tons of extras and I believe you can watch all the cameras on each car.

JamesS said:

Regular follower since 2001. I use to watch all the qualy and races live (mostly 4-5am) but now just watch replays unless the race is at a more friendly time zone for me.

I'm hoping the midfield has closed a bit of the gap to the frontrunners but if not, F1.5 is still fun to follow.

Anyone ever put flowviz on a rocket before launching?

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Same here, I just watch the recordings. Flowviz would be pretty cool. Where can we get some?

Rob702Martinez said:

Same here, I just watch the recordings. Flowviz would be pretty cool. Where can we get some?

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I was thinking to mix some up following a recipe I found online. Also not sure up to what speed flowviz is good for so maybe try it on low power first before some sort of I1299 machbusting rocket

Think Ferrari understating their preseason testing pace? I guess we'll see soon enough. Melbourne Park is sort of an outlier of a track though, which makes it more interesting to me.

So as someone who hates NASCAR because it's boring as heck, would I find F1 more interesting?

djs said:

So as someone who hates NASCAR because it's boring as heck, would I find F1 more interesting?

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Leaps and bounds more interesting.

So the Coronavirus mass hysteria has led to McLaren pulling out of the race as 1 team member has tested positive. Not sure what role this person plays in the team, and no one else is testing positive on the team. Hass has a few people test positive but they are still racing.
Bahrain has banned all spectators from the race. Vietnam is canceled, China is postponed.
This season will bring a lot of pressure to the teams.

No one is racing, the Australian GP has been called off. Any GP that all teams can't attend will be called off too. I'm betting this season is over before it starts.

Nooooooooooo....... this season was to be the most intense and most looked forward too. Sucks.

The real losers here? Mercedes for sure. All that effort to develop DAS and it won’t be used in anger is a shame. I was really wanting to watch how it developed and how the other teams scrambled to catch up.

Rob702Martinez said:

Leaps and bounds more interesting.

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And now you jinxed it

While I am an F1 fan, I can't honestly say the racing has been all that exciting the last few years. I can't tell you how many races I've actually fell asleep during. I will continue to watch an I am really excited for next season as the new cars and the reduced/modified aero rules should bring closer racing. If you want real exciting racing, Formula E has been great. The cars move around the track on the edge of traction, plenty of passing and a lot of large company support.

I don't watch much TV these days but I did enjoy watching Formula-E when I found a race to watch.

djs said:

So as someone who hates NASCAR because it's boring as heck, would I find F1 more interesting?

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I think it depends on what aspects of motorsports in general you find interesting or entertaining.

F1 has technology and engineering "advancements" that develop quickly because of being in such a competitive race environment. This often makes it compelling for car manufacturers to be involved, not that any particular F1 tech could always be directly translated to road going vehicles but what they learn can certainly inform their roadgoing programs. A few rocket ideas I've had have been inspired with a few things I picked up from watching F1 - already mentioned flowviz, coke bottle, coanda effect, even designed and built a red bull rocket kit as a gift (we played "which tail will break off" bingo when we launched it ).

F1 on-track racing (driver race craft, passing, tire management, pit stops, team strategies, etc...) can make for a dramatic race even if on the surface it seems not much action is happening on track. If cars physically passing each other on track and doing it often is a big part of your motorsport interest, F1 probably will disappoint. However, there can still be drama in watching the overall effort or "lead up" to a pass attempt over multiple laps, even if the pass was ultimately unsuccessful. Personally, that's still satisfying for me to watch.

There's also a lot that happens off the track in F1, most in an attempt for teams/drivers to gain any sort of edge with their competitors - teams "game playing" each other to try to stumble them or throw them off course; trying to gain competitive engineering advantage through finding loopholes in the rules (formula); team qualms with the governing body; etc... Some don't like or find this aspect of F1 frustrating because it sort of goes against an idea of sportsmanship or "gentlemanly racing" or "spirit of the rules." F1 teams spend a ridiculous (ludicrous even?) amount of money and resources to compete and even the tiniest advantage from exploring these grey areas can make a difference. Personally, I find this aspect of F1 entertaining, sometimes in a humorous way even.

I guess in the end, I find following the sport mostly fascinating but am still very much entertained?

The Australian Grand Prix may be on after all

Found this on ESPN:

Conflicting reports about the status of the Australian Grand Prix. The BBC says it is set to be cancelled, but there has been no update from F1, who have been silent on this since McLaren's withdrawal. Team personnel are heading to the circuit as per the usual Friday schedule, having not had instructions to do otherwise. Per local media, Melbourne circuit chief Paul Little is insisting the race will go on as normal.

Nate Saunders, F1 Associate Editor51m ago

It's been back and forth all day. Driving me nuts. I really want to see the whole show of Mercedes DAS and then Red Bull protesting and then someone else protesting Racing Point and so on...

There are reports of some teams and drivers already flown out of Melbourne. Gates have not been opened yet and rumors abound.

Just heard, on the TV, that the FIA have cancelled the GP. Looks to be more official now.

I was wondering about the season a couple of days ago. They were pretty quick talking about postponing China but seems with the thing in Italy and the rest of Europe, seems the only thing they can do is 86 the season. That sucks for DAS. I was so excited about that. I wanted to see if it was designed to heat up the tires prior to turn in what. Good stuff.

OverTheTop said:

Just heard, on the TV, that the FIA have cancelled the GP. Looks to be more official now.

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Yep, definitely off: https://www.formula1.com/

This sucks, I'm running out of things to watch on TV: no NCAA, no NBA, no MLS, no NHL, no MLB, and now no F1.
https://awfulannouncing.com/schedules/so-what-sports-havent-been-cancelled-yet.html

This would not be so bad, if the kids school also didn't get cancelled (last day tomorrow).

At this rate, I may be down to watching cartoons and building rockets all weekend long!

I'll just watch some old Can-Am videos and pretend I don't know how it ends. #chaparralsrule

I love F1 for the CARBON FIBER