2019 F1 News Thread

Little update on the 2020 schedule regarding what I posted in #34 and #35.
Ticket registration for the Dutch GP started two weeks ago. 500,000 (!!!!) people applied for tickets during the first week, but there are only 200,000 available.

Meanwhile, either Mexico or Spain is going to remain on the schedule for 2020. The organizers of the Spanish GP have asked the Catalan government to keep financially supporting the GP. Otherwise Spain will lose it's date in 2020.
Mexico's chances to remain seem better at the moment since their race is sold out every year.

Shamefully, the race next month could be the final German GP for quite a while, if not forever.
We are the homeland of the automobile, and the industry seems to have no interest to keep the GP.
During a press conference at Montreal, Toto Wolff confirmed that it is "not looking good" for Hockenheim.
Hockenheim's CEO, Georg Seiler, said earlier this year that losing the F2(!) race this year was a bummer for them because they thought some people would attend because of Mick Schumacher.
I'm too young to remember the races at the old Hockenheim track, but just watching this gives me goose bumps. The reconfiguration was the worst thing they could've done.


Silverstone also doesn't have a contract for 2020 yet, but they are not going to drop the birthplace of F1 off the schedule.

https://www.sport.de/news/ne3669135/formel-1-wolff-plaudert-aus-2020-kein-grand-prix-in-hockenheim/
 
donthaveanickname said:
Little update on the 2020 schedule regarding what I posted in #34 and #35.
Ticket registration for the Dutch GP started two weeks ago. 500,000 (!!!!) people applied for tickets during the first week, but there are only 200,000 available.

Meanwhile, either Mexico or Spain is going to remain on the schedule for 2020. The organizers of the Spanish GP have asked the Catalan government to keep financially supporting the GP. Otherwise Spain will lose it's date in 2020.
Mexico's chances to remain seem better at the moment since their race is sold out every year.

Shamefully, the race next month could be the final German GP for quite a while, if not forever.
We are the homeland of the automobile, and the industry seems to have no interest to keep the GP.
During a press conference at Montreal, Toto Wolff confirmed that it is "not looking good" for Hockenheim.
Hockenheim's CEO, Georg Seiler, said earlier this year that losing the F2(!) race this year was a bummer for them because they thought some people would attend because of Mick Schumacher.
I'm too young to remember the races at the old Hockenheim track, but just watching this gives me goose bumps. The reconfiguration was the worst thing they could've done.


Silverstone also doesn't have a contract for 2020 yet, but they are not going to drop the birthplace of F1 off the schedule.

https://www.sport.de/news/ne3669135/formel-1-wolff-plaudert-aus-2020-kein-grand-prix-in-hockenheim/
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I can't understand how no one can make Hockenheim or Nurburgring work. Just a shame.

At least we have...Vietnam?
 
Pato gets called up for MP Motorsports in F2 as he replaces a suspended Maheever Ragunathan. (He should get his licence stripped):
04yvrgc2xi631.png
 
Oh lord, Comcast is just going to exploit the fans with "NBC Gold" with all the practices and qualifying on NBC Gold. I would love to see the US get our own commentators, but I'd be damned if NBC gets this deal. Pay-walls for Motocross and IndyCar, not to mention F1. I'm loving ESPN and shout out to Mother's for giving us commercial free racing.

NBC is going to try to **** all this up and have a stronghold in the motorsports area...
 
Kiante said:
Oh lord, Comcast is just going to exploit the fans with "NBC Gold" with all the practices and qualifying on NBC Gold. I would love to see the US get our own commentators, but I'd be damned if NBC gets this deal. Pay-walls for Motocross and IndyCar, not to mention F1. I'm loving ESPN and shout out to Mother's for giving us commercial free racing.

NBC is going to try to **** all this up and have a stronghold in the motorsports area...
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Yep, get ready to pay $60 to watch qualifying and F2 races, all while going back to commercial-inundated coverage with commentary from three howler monkeys.
 
FLRacingFan said:
Yep, get ready to pay $60 to watch qualifying and F2 races, all while going back to commercial-inundated coverage with commentary from three howler monkeys.
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I like and miss thier commentary though, better than listening to Crofty.
 
I enjoyed the NBC bunch until being exposed to Sky's coverage, which to my eyes and ears is plainly superior. This is a conundrum, because I don't think ESPN truly values the F1 rights at all. They picked them up for free and outsourced nearly everything. Meanwhile, NBC Sports actually does care and were clearly upset at losing them. Yet at present I don't believe it is possible for American-made F1 broadcasts to be as well connected as the primary international coverage.

If Liberty is serious about expansion and focus in the U.S. and North America, American-centric coverage would be more useful again.
 
FLRacingFan said:
I can't understand how no one can make Hockenheim or Nurburgring work. Just a shame.

At least we have...Vietnam?
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Back when Schumacher raced, a lot of people took the GP weekend off for a family holiday at the track.
Now, the cars are less spectactular, Hockenheim was ruined with the reconfiguration and the ticket prices are horrendous (€250 and more if you actually want to see something).
I can understand nobody wants to go, I wouldn't waste my money on an F1 race either
In Vietnam and Azerbaijan there are governments willing to pay for an F1 race
LewTheShoe said:
I've been curious about this for a while... does anyone know *why* the Dutch fans are so bonkers over Max Verstappen? I mean, he is a great talent, but there are other great young talents as well. Is Charles Leclerc a social phenomenon in France the way Max is in Holland? Was Vettel ever such a thing in Germany? Max-mania is clearly a great thing for F1. Is there anything to learn from that?
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Vettel never reached the level of popularity Schumacher had.
I am too young to remember his championship runs, but I was told that there were two kart centers in my home town (which has roughly a population of 20,000) in the late 90's and early 2000's .
Schumacher is a national hero here in Germany, not many sports personlities who are not soccer players achieved that status. Others that come to my mind are Boris Becker, Steffi Graf, Max Schmeling, Bernd Rosemeyer, Sven Hannawald and maybe also Dirk Nowitzki but not any more.
Right now, media are attemping to hype Mick, but I don't think there will ever be such a hype for him, even if he wins championships
As far as Verstappen goes, the Dutch are a special kind of people. If Michael van der Mark was running up front in MotoGP they would be tearing up the grandstands there as well.
The Polish are the same when it comes to Ski Jumping and Speedway.
 
Also, not to mention the big court case they lost. I bet the owner is extremely salty about it as well, think of the money that has to be spent to repackage all of your product. This whole issue is so unprofessional as well, going to twitter to meltdown? I would not be surprised to see BRE shutdown in the near future.
 
At least this gets them some exposure. All this time I though Rich Energy was some kind of a solar power company but now I know they make energy drinks lol.
 
FLRacingFan said:
I wasn’t expecting it to be Albon.

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Man, Albon has been good... Yet, I feel this is a bit premature for him to be pushed to the big team. I wonder how Kyvat feels about this whole deal.

I guess Marko is giving Albon a shot because Kyvat had an opportunity a couple of years ago. Yet, Kyvat has matured quite a bit compared to 2016.
 
Does anyone here think Ricciardo wishes he had stayed with Red Bull? He hasn't been running as well with Renault this year and RB has become considerably more competitive since they went with Honda. I get why he left RB and he would still be #2 to Verstappen but it wouldn't surprise me if he wishes he had stayed.
 
Tumbleweed said:
Does anyone here think Ricciardo wishes he had stayed with Red Bull? He hasn't been running as well with Renault this year and RB has become considerably more competitive since they went with Honda. I get why he left RB and he would still be #2 to Verstappen but it wouldn't surprise me if he wishes he had stayed.
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His wallet says otherwise.

Danny Ric wants to be the guy to lead a team, not a number two to Verstappen who is Red Bull's golden child. Danny Ric's season has been filled with a lot of questions. Not his ability, I think for the races he has been competitive, he has been the best of the rest. Renault has to find out what they need in the engine department because McLaren is waxing the floor with them as a customer team. IMO, I wanted to see Danny move to McLaren more than anything else, but he made his bed. Lets see what he can make of it. Renault needs to sack Abetiboul more than anything else.
 
Kiante said:
Man, Albon has been good... Yet, I feel this is a bit premature for him to be pushed to the big team. I wonder how Kyvat feels about this whole deal.

I guess Marko is giving Albon a shot because Kyvat had an opportunity a couple of years ago. Yet, Kyvat has matured quite a bit compared to 2016.
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It's rinse and repeat with Red Bull. I guess they feel Kvyat could be the solid fallback plan if all else fails and they just want to try to compare Gasly against Albon in a top car rather than pairing them in the midfield together...Idk, hard to make sense of anything Red Bull do anymore.
 
I wouldn't be surprised if Ricciardo had some regrets over going to Renault. But at the time it probably made more sense - Honda was still a big uncertainty and his race engineer, who he'd been paired with since starting at Red Bull, wanted to travel less and took a full-time role back at the factory. Obviously Honda have made big strides and Red Bull have the most complete package they've had in a while. And Renault are turds setting money on fire; can't build chassis and can't build engines. The salary is good though. But the whole thing does look a bit different in hindsight.

If you consider Red Bull the factory Honda team then Renault's performance compared to the other three factor efforts - Mercedes, Ferrari, Red Bull-Honda - is just unacceptable. Something has to change there, it's an embarrassment. Besides dropping to the worst engine rank they're also getting outscored by almost double by their customers as @Kiante said, so it's the whole package that's junk.
 
Been reading gossip that Bottas will stay at Mercedes and Ocon will replace Hulkenberg at Renault. Hulkenberg might replace Kubica at Williams next year.
 
Kiante said:
Hulk would be an upgrade over Romain, I do quite like Romain, but he's too erratic at times and makes some silly mistakes.

Nico and Kevin are going to be a spicy duo, indeed.
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Haas need some life breathed into that program anyways. The idea of Hulk and K-Mag being teammates now is amusing though. But they’ll be a solid midfield pairing.
 
FLRacingFan said:
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Good move.

I never understood why there was even talk of not resigning Bottas. Guy is bringing it but people demand too much often comparing him with Hamilton. You cant really do that.

Although Bottas is matching him in quali. Probably better than in my opinion.

I think Mercedes is an a good position to get Max in 2021 when just about every F1 driver is going to a free agent.
 
Very big calendar in 2020. I believe 22 grands prix is the most ever ran in one year. Not sure how long this will last because of how tough it'll be on teams but Liberty want even more races.

Unfortunately, no Germany.

 
FLRacingFan said:
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It's gotta be the no commercial breaks. it's a great feeling to just soak one in in peace.

Also convenient, I usually wake up just in time for it and dont even get off from the bed until it ends an hour and change later. lol
 
Reck said:
It's gotta be the no commercial breaks. it's a great feeling to just soak one in in peace.

Also convenient, I usually wake up just in time for it and dont even get off from the bed until it ends an hour and change later. lol
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F1 on ESPN is the best Motorsports broadcast package in the country. Liberty and Sky Sports hit a home run with the English-speaking international production, even if the Hamilton bias comes through every so often.
 
FLRacingFan said:
F1 on ESPN is the best Motorsports broadcast package in the country. Liberty and Sky Sports hit a home run with the English-speaking international production, even if the Hamilton bias comes through every so often.
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The back and forth between Crofty and Ted is super cringe worthy. The booth misses Martin Brundle when he's not there. Otherwise, I agree they are fine.

Miss Hobbs too though.
 
FLRacingFan said:
I hate to say it but Nico really is becoming the next Villeneuve. And the whole YouTuber schtick is just weird.
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I've watch a few of his videos for the inside look he gives but his takes are all over the place. One week he's saying x driver is better than x and the next week he's saying the same thing but oposite and trashing the driver he just complemented.

Also dont know what Vettel did to this guy because he goes all in on him. :idunno:
 
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