F1 2023: Azerbaijan GP - Baku (Apr 30)

[NYG]

Originally Posted by GuidoK

Baku is one of the best circuits on the calender.
It has very good scenery (beautiful city), very tight and tricky corners but also very good opportunities to overtake due to the long straight.

Beautiful city too

Originally Posted by ///M Power-Belgium

As usual . Thanks for posting my friend . Awesome !

Of course my bro!

[JohnnyBeagle]

Baku is a great race. Excited for this weekend

[Jackie Chiles]

Originally Posted by NYG

Baku is one of the good ones imo!

Originally Posted by GuidoK

Baku is one of the best circuits on the calender.
It has very good scenery (beautiful city), very tight and tricky corners but also very good opportunities to overtake due to the long straight.

Its not bad to watch on TV I suppose, but those walls are unforgiving, and the track is way too narrow in many spots. The potential for major disaster and unnecessary damage is real.

The only street circuit that has any interest for me is Monaco, and only because of its history.

Spa is a 10. Baku is a 4.

[NYG]

Originally Posted by Jackie Chiles

Its not bad to watch on TV I suppose, but those walls are unforgiving, and the track is way too narrow in many spots. The potential for major disaster and unnecessary damage is real.

The only street circuit that has any interest for me is Monaco, and only because of its history.

Spa is a 10. Baku is a 4.

It's all high risk - part of the sport. Racing is all about it.

Spa has more deaths than Baku with one happening very recently.

Agree that Spa is 10/10

[GuidoK]

I don't think Baku is really know for it's big crashes. Obviously sometimes someone hits a wall, but there are very wide straights and only some sections are narrow.

It's not that on dedicated tracks you can't hit a wall. Miami comes to mind.

For me Baku is 9/10. because of it's scenery and the variety in the track layout (slow and narrow and crazy high speed long straight)
Spa is 10/10.

[///M Power-Belgium]

Originally Posted by GuidoK

I don't think Baku is really know for it's big crashes. Obviously sometimes someone hits a wall, but there are very wide straights and only some sections are narrow.

It's not that on dedicated tracks you can't hit a wall. Miami comes to mind.

For me Baku is 9/10. because of it's scenery and the variety in the track layout (slow and narrow and crazy high speed long straight)
Spa is 10/10.

And that was MAX , with his tire blowout .
He couldn't lose that race but got #BadLuck ...Damn !

[M5Rick]

[QUOTE=///M Power-Belgium;30070633]And that was MAX , with his tire blowout .
He couldn't lose that race but got #BadLuck ...Damn !

---------------------------------------------------------------

Tyres and tyres alone were the downfall of some and even losing out on a world championship bc of a tyre ie. Mansell back in '86 at Adelaide is a classic example.

[3798j]

.

[M5Rick]

^ Changed in that Sunday race pole is not dependent on the Sprint outcome on Saturday but separately on Friday the normal way after the three? FP's.

[///M Power-Belgium]

Originally Posted by M5Rick

^ Changed in that Sunday race pole is not dependent on the Sprint outcome on Saturday but separately on Friday the normal way after the three? FP's.

IMHO. The new sprint shootout looks like a mess ..

[a5m]

Originally Posted by 3798j

.

What the hell is this. So it's a two entirely independent races basically.

Or 3 qualifying sessions

[M5Rick]

Originally Posted by ///M Power-Belgium

IMHO. The new sprint shootout looks like a mess ..

I don't know what the point of it is, it's as if a kid thought of it. Is Dominecali for real just jumping to Liberty's whims for more 'variety'..

[M5Rick]

Originally Posted by ///M Power-Belgium

IMHO. The new sprint shootout looks like a mess ..

add. Max and also Checo knows it will be (a little bit of) chaos on the Saturday's sprints and I think should stay out of the Mercs and Ferrari's way as they will be foaming at the mouths to get some points on with the Russel boy already yelling out oh ye oh ye ding ding that Merc will have a sort of double rocket mode
https://www.gpfans.com/en/f1-news/10...d-prix-sprint/
My friend, I am already wearing my orange Orangeboom polo.

[GuidoK]

Also the time to setup the car is now very limited. Only friday morning.
After friday qualifying they go the the parc fermé.

But still I think this only makes RB a stronger competitor (although Max is against the sprint race system).
The RB is out of the box the best car imho and other teams have more difficulty to set up their car. They are far more hit&miss imho.
So indeed what M5Rick says teams that have lesser cars might go for a typical aggressive sprint setup that might make the car fast for a few laps, but get into trouble on sunday during the real race when they suffer tyre degradation like crazy or something like that.
We'll see what kinds of setups they choose.

[3798j]

“I shall seriously reconsider… whether Grand Prix racing is still what it purports to be: the pinnacle of sport and technological achievement. Unfortunately, this appears to be no longer the case and, if one does not clean it up, Formula 1 shall end up in a quagmire of plagiarism, chicanery and petty rule interpretation forced by lobbies manipulated by people for whom the sport has no meaning.” - Colin Chapman, April, 1981

[Jackie Chiles]

Originally Posted by NYG

It's all high risk - part of the sport. Racing is all about it.

Spa has more deaths than Baku with one happening very recently.

Agree that Spa is 10/10

Racing could be lower risk, and I do not want to go back to the 1950s and 1960s when our heros had truncated life spans due to high impacts and fires.

Spa runs far more events than Baku, and is a very busy place these days, so I am sure that more drivers and riders have died there.

But my concern about Baku is the proximity of the guard rails and the sometimes ultra narrow corners that would cause a wreck. Its only a matter of time before we get a Macao-like situation with multiple wrecked cars as the whole field piles into one another.

I guess I just really love the traditional, grand old race tracks like Spa. The phony street and parking lot circuits (Miami, Las Vegas, Baku) seem counter to the pinnacle of motor racing.

Just my 2 cents.

[br438]

Sprint race for points only now... is essentially F1 being like a tool-bag who doubles down on social media after being proven wrong or inappropriate. Top driver and anyone in the bottom of the top 10 are just clocking in and trying not to accrue damage costs. P2,3,4, & P11, 12, 13... those guys will likely plan to race the sprint hard.

It will now merely serve to dilute the "specialness" of Sunday. Why they can't see that boggles my mind. ... but, but... it's another measurable metric for a "top-tier-viewer-engagement" broadcast hour... which presumably gets F1, and teams... more $$ from sponsors. ... which, presumably, is supposed to grow the value of the singular commodity for Liberty Media.

It's just not worth the time out of my life to watch it. Sprint races are a "why bother" for me. I could not care less about sprints before this change. F1, call me when Sunday gets here.

[Joachim]

Originally Posted by br438

It will now merely serve to dilute the "specialness" of Sunday.

Sure it will. Gone the times when I gave a sh*t on time zones and watched them race at (for me) night or incredibly early in the morning, or drove my car during vacation to a parking spot in the mountains where I had terrestrial TV signal for my tiny pocket TV.

Spoiling my precious Saturday or even Friday evening for a one shot race lottery? No. It only lowers my interest in those 4 hrs on Sunday as well. Nature is awakening now, gonna watch grass grow.

[3798j]

From former F1 driver, Jan Lammers...

"I still have the feeling that the sport is moving more and more towards entertainment.”

And that, he says, is at the cost of the sport itself, with two qualifying sessions per weekend threatening to devalue a Formula 1 pole position.

“For me, pole position is a real thing. Now, if you take pole for the sprint race on a Saturday, it’s nice for the scrapbook, but there is really only one pole – the one for the race on Sunday,” said Lammers.

http://www.gptours.com/gr_news/f1-be...sport-lammers/

[///M Power-Belgium]

Originally Posted by Jackie Chiles

Racing could be lower risk, and I do not want to go back to the 1950s and 1960s when our heros had truncated life spans due to high impacts and fires.

Spa runs far more events than Baku, and is a very busy place these days, so I am sure that more drivers and riders have died there.

But my concern about Baku is the proximity of the guard rails and the sometimes ultra narrow corners that would cause a wreck. Its only a matter of time before we get a Macao-like situation with multiple wrecked cars as the whole field piles into one another.

I guess I just really love the traditional, grand old race tracks like Spa. The phony street and parking lot circuits (Miami, Las Vegas, Baku) seem counter to the pinnacle of motor racing.

Just my 2 cents.

The Baku walls are still OK . But the Jeddah track is a rat trap . IOW a death trap !

[///M Power-Belgium]

The one (1)!

[Autobacs]

Originally Posted by Jackie Chiles

Baku?

Gesundheit.

Seriously though, street circuits suck. It is a horrible trend that F1 visits so many of them.

But at least there is a race this weekend. . .

Monaco sucks, Baku is a great track. Not all street tracks are the same