Irrelevant F1 Facts and News and Stuff

[Chrill]

There will be at least 5 people wearing it ironically. 5 every GP weekend, that must justify flying to every race and selling those.

[Chrill]

https://youtu.be/xHDmbVN9IiE

Mick Schumacher driving his daddy's F2004. He's pushing it, too, this is no soft ride. On the first lap, he locks up massively at the same place Vettel crashed out in 2018. Good on Mick, not taking it too slowly. The sound, too, oh so beautiful.

[Penfold]

Not of interest to anyone but me, but Channel 4's race highlights programmes will now be showing 70% of the action up from just 50% last year.  This takes C4 back to the level of coverage enjoyed for the non-live races during their 2012-18 deal with Sky.  Link which nobody has any reason to read: https://motorsportbroadcasting.com/2020/01/17/channel-4s-f1-race-edit-to-revert-to-extended-highlights-format-for-2020/

The highlights last year were at times pretty hard going, that extra twenty percent makes quite a difference to the flow of a race.

[Chrill]

The 2nd season of Drive to Survive, due to be released on February 28th, has been spoiled by Lando Norris. He recently announced who wins the championship at the end of the series.

It's... Lewis Hamilton

[Penfold]

So that means Mercedes wins again... un-fucking-believable.

[Chrill]

Let's do some facts for the 2020 Sakhir Grand Prix:

• Perez winning marks the second new victor this season, after Gasly's Monza win. Two drivers scoring their first win in a season was last achieved in 2012, when Nico Rosberg and Pastor Maldonado won races (in 2008, we saw debut wins from Kovalainen, Vettel, and Kubica)
  
• Mexico became the 16th nation to secure victories with more than one driver, the other being Pedro Rodríguez. Other surprise nations on that list includes Sweden (three different winners!) and Belgium.
• Perez also became the driver with the most races competed before winning, this was his 190th GP. The previous record was held by Mark Webber on 130.
• Had Russell won, he would have become the 20th Briton to secure a GP victory, and it would also have marked the 300th Grand Prix victory for a Briton. Of course, Lewis makes up almost a third of those GP wins
• Since F1 started mandating 2-car teams in F1, no Grand Prix has seen three driver changes between mid-season races before

[Penfold]

See now that explains why I couldn't remember an occasion when we had three mid-season driver changes between two races.

Nineteen of my fellow countrymen have won a GP... I wonder how many I could name if I put my mind to it.  Let's see: Mike Hawthorn, John Surtees, Stirling Moss, Jim Clark, Tony Brooks, Peter Collins, Graham & Damon Hill, James Hunt, Jackie Stewart, Nigel Mansell, Johnny Herbert, Eddie Irvine, David Coulthard, Jenson Button, Lewis Hamilton.... Hmm, sixteen.  I'll have to think about this some more.

[Chrill]

You've missed three names, then. John Watson (won 3 races between 1976 and 1983), Innes Ireland  (1961 Indy 500, so that doesn't count) and Peter Gethin. Gethin, of course, won  the1971 Italian GP, famous for five drivers literally finishing alongside each other (Howden Ganley in P5 finished 0.61 seconds behind Gethin).

[Penfold]

I always forget that Watson raced F1....

[Chrill]

WTF1 posted on Instagram encouraging fans to make their preferred grid if you could only have one driver per nationality. That means you have to fire two of Hamilton, Rulsell, and Norris. You also need to lose Schumacher or Vettel (or both, for someone like Hulkenberg), Kvyat/Mazepin, Ocon/Gasly, Bottas/Raikkonen and Stroll/Latifi.

I put my grid together a little like this:

Mercedes:
George Russell, GBR
Valtteri Bottas, FIN

Red Bull:
Max Verstappen, NLD
Alexander Albon, THA (courtesy of being from a more unique country!)

McLaren
Daniel Ricciardo, AUS
Felix Rosenqvist, SWE (driving for them in IndyCar, and preferred over Ericsson)

Aston Martin:
Sergio Perez, MEX
Lance Stroll, CAN (huh, they'd keep their driver pairing. Where does that leave Vettel...?)

Alpine:
Pierre Gasly, FRA (superior to the Frenchie originally driving this car)
Alexander Rossi, USA (a slot was left, and he is a driver)

Ferrari:
Charles Leclerc, MON
Carlos Sainz, SPA

AlphaTauri:
Yuki Tsunoda, JAP
Jüri Vips, EST (the strongest Red Bull junior not from a country already listed)

Alfa Romeo:
Antonio Giovinazzi, ITA
Marcus Armstrong, NZL (like Vips but for Ferrari)

Haas:
Mick Schumacher, GER (he's perhaps the future, but Vettel is definitely the past)
Kevin Magnussen, DEN

Williams:
Daniil Kvyat, RUS (Let's be honest, if Mazepin is his rival then we prefer Kvyat)
Stoffel vandoorne, BEL

So I dropped:
Hamilton and Norris for Russell
Alonso for Sainz
Ocon for Gasly
Räikkönen for Bottas
Vettel for Schumacher
Mazepin for Kvyat
Latifi for Stroll

That left 8 gaps to be filled by:
Albon
Rosenqvist
Rossi
Vips
Armstrong
Magnussen
Kvyat
Vandoorne

[Penfold]

It's an interesting experiment.  Sadly I don't follow the junior formulas enough to chuck any different names into the mix, so the only change I'd consider is keeping Norris instead of Russell... but then who gets the second Merc seat?

[Chrill]

It's an interesting experiment.  Sadly I don't follow the junior formulas enough to chuck any different names into the mix, so the only change I'd consider is keeping Norris instead of Russell... but then who gets the second Merc seat?

If Norris is your remaining Brit, perhaps Mercedes would try to steal Leclerc or Verstappen?

[Penfold]

Good idea, I'll have them nick Max.  Now just need a team leader for Red Bull... Ricciardo? Ha, that appeals to me and also means Norris has his McLaren seat back.

So it's:

Mercedes:
Max Ain't No Stappen Me Now, NLD
Valtteri Bottas, FIN

Red Bull:
Daniel Ricciardo, AUS
Alexander Albon, THA (courtesy of being from a more unique country!)

McLaren
Lando Norris, UK
Felix Rosenqvist, SWE (driving for them in IndyCar, and preferred over Ericsson)

Aston Martin:
Sergio Perez, MEX
Lance Stroll, CAN (huh, they'd keep their driver pairing. Where does that leave Vettel...?)

Alpine:
Pierre Gasly, FRA (superior to the Frenchie originally driving this car)
Alexander Rossi, USA (a slot was left, and he is a driver)

Ferrari:
Charles Leclerc, MON
Carlos Sainz, SPA

AlphaTauri:
Yuki Tsunoda, JAP
Jüri Vips, EST (the strongest Red Bull junior not from a country already listed)

Alfa Romeo:
Antonio Giovinazzi, ITA
Marcus Armstrong, NZL (like Vips but for Ferrari)

Haas:
Mick Schumacher, GER (he's perhaps the future, but Vettel is definitely the past)
Kevin Magnussen, DEN

Williams:
Daniil Kvyat, RUS (Let's be honest, if Mazepin is his rival then we prefer Kvyat)
Stoffel Vandoorne, BEL

[Penfold]

I'm going to ponder on alternatives for a couple of them, in particular Toffee Van Door.

[Chrill]

I'll help you out a bit. If we assume that Toffifee is not in the running, you can bring in drivers from:

Belgium (Vandoorne)
Luxembourg (literally nobody I know of)
Switzerland (Louis Delétraz and Ralph Boschung in F2, Nico Müller, Edoardo Mortara, and Sebastien Buemi in Formula E)
Austria (see Luxembourg)
Portugal (Antonio Felix da Costa in Formula E)
Norway (there's a guy in F3 named Dennis Hauger. Attached to Red Bull)
Eastern Europe excluding Russia (Kubica is the only one really, I already got Vips from Estonia)

Asia except Japan (Sean Gelael, Jehan Daruvala, and Guanyu Zhou in F2)

Africa (Nope, sorry)

Middle East (Nope, sorry)

Brazil (Pietro Fittipaldi of Haas fame, Pedro Piquet of little to no fame, Felipe Drugovich in F2)
Argentina (a kid named Franco Colapinto has been successful in Toyota Racing Series and the Formula Renault Eurocup, he is moving to F3 this year)
USA (I put Rossi in there, you could go for Colton Herta instead)
Rest of the Americas (Zane Maloney of Barbados won the British F4 and will race in the new F3 "Formula Regional" for this season, plus there's some people from Colombia and Paraguay in F4)

The standout nations in my list of junior racing talents are definitely Barbados and Estonia, neither of which have produced many motorsporting stars at all (Ott Tänak of Estonia was the 2019 WRC champion). Jüri Vips of Estonia will be in F2 this season.