Official 2021 Qatar Grand Prix Thread ***SPOILERS***

[Piginapoke]

Round 20 and we’re in Qatar. Only two more rounds after this but unless RB closes the pace to the suddenly much faster Mercedes, the championship is likely done. Hopefully we have a few more twists to go yet.

The track was built with motorcycle racing in mind, so it will be interesting to see how it suits F1. Pirelli has chosen the hardest available tyre compounds (C1, C2, C3) which on the face of it looks a bit conservative

Date(s): Friday 19 November to Sunday 21 November 2021.

UK Broadcast Timings (and local time)

All sessions are live on Sky F1. Qualifying and the race are shown as highlights on Channel 4.





Live timing for all sessions available here:

https://www.formula1.com/en/f1-live.html

Lap times, PU component use, technical reports and Stewards' decisions for the weekend will appear here:

https://www.fia.com/events/fia-formula-one-world-c...

Weather forecast:

https://www.myweather2.com/Motor-Racing/Qatar/Losa...


Tyre options:

Teams have two hard, three mediums and eight soft sets available per driver for each weekend.



2020 race result:

N/A

2020 Race Highlights:

N/A

Edited by Piginapoke on Tuesday 16th November 07:50

[SpudLink]

Thanks again for starting the thread.

[Deesee]

Well done Piginapoke!

Interesting circuit more rights here than the rest of he region.

[Piginapoke]

[kambites]

Difficult one to call this (haven't they all been this season?).

Hopefully Mercedes can maintain the pace they showed in Brazil to make the WDC nice and close going into the final two rounds. It'll be interesting to see what innovative ways the stewards/race director find to make a mockery of the FIA this weekend.

Edited by kambites on Tuesday 16th November 07:42

[Flooble]

Thanks for starting the thread. I have a feeling this is going to be like a high speed Monaco. He who qualifies first finishes first sort of thing. Not the place you want a grid penalty, so I doubt we'll be seeing another Mercedes PU swap. Which may make qualifying a lot closer, as the Mercedes PU will be degraded now.

I think there is plenty of life in the WCC at least.

[TheDeuce]

The circuit is plainly unsuitable for F1... But nonetheless, any new circuit tends to throw the teams and cause some dramas so I'm looking forward to this maiden outing in Qatar.

Fwiw I think overtaking will be possible here, the long straight is long enough for sure. It's the other 90% of the circuit that's too narrow to allow for anything other than processional driving.

[Piginapoke]

kambites said:

Difficult one to call this (haven't they all been this season?).

Hopefully Mercedes can maintain the pace they showed in Brazil to make the WDC nice and close going into the final two rounds. It'll be interesting to see what innovative ways the stewards/race director find to make a mockery of the FIA this weekend.

Edited by kambites on Tuesday 16th November 07:42

I hope you're right, but if Hamilton has the same car/engine advantage as Brazil he'll lap the field.

[Flooble]

TheDeuce said:

The circuit is plainly unsuitable for F1... But nonetheless, any new circuit tends to throw the teams and cause some dramas so I'm looking forward to this maiden outing in Qatar.

Fwiw I think overtaking will be possible here, the long straight is long enough for sure. It's the other 90% of the circuit that's too narrow to allow for anything other than processional driving.

Except we saw last time out there's no such thing as a straight if the car in front is a Red Bull - it becomes a series of S curves

Piginapoke said:

I hope you're right, but if Hamilton has the same car/engine advantage as Brazil he'll lap the field.

He won't - they said the engine degrades quickly. He had a new engine in Turkey and it wasn't up to the job in America (albeit also hampered by the bumps) so chances are it'll be much more even between the teams here too. Cheer up

[TheDeuce]

Flooble said:

TheDeuce said:

The circuit is plainly unsuitable for F1... But nonetheless, any new circuit tends to throw the teams and cause some dramas so I'm looking forward to this maiden outing in Qatar.

Fwiw I think overtaking will be possible here, the long straight is long enough for sure. It's the other 90% of the circuit that's too narrow to allow for anything other than processional driving.

Except we saw last time out there's no such thing as a straight if the car in front is a Red Bull - it becomes a series of S curves

It's interesting... Mercedes seem to be taking a gamble on how hard they push their PU, which could then subsequently fail. Max is doing the same thing with the Stewards - how far can he push them until they do something about it? (very far it turns out..)

Both camps are in their own ways getting desperate. It's great for F1

[AlexIT]

Piginapoke said:

kambites said:

Difficult one to call this (haven't they all been this season?).

Hopefully Mercedes can maintain the pace they showed in Brazil to make the WDC nice and close going into the final two rounds. It'll be interesting to see what innovative ways the stewards/race director find to make a mockery of the FIA this weekend.

Edited by kambites on Tuesday 16th November 07:42

I hope you're right, but if Hamilton has the same car/engine advantage as Brazil he'll lap the field.

I think that Mercedes ran the PU at it's maximum to give RB a headache for the remaining of the season: they now have to approach Qatar not knowing what the actual performance level of Mercedes is and might have to gamble and run their PU at higher levels increasing the risk of it going bang to avoid Mercedes a walk in the park, with a potential 1-2 finish.

On the other hand RB might be very confident on their package and let Mercedes run their PU at this level hoping it won't last till the end of the season.

Makes a very interesting end of the season nevertheless.

[Hungrymc]

This is very hard to try and predict. Looks like quite a lot of mid and high speed corners. The 1km straight has people thinking it will be a Merc circuit, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the rest of the circuit spreads the field out and no one can pass.

[Flooble]

Hungrymc said:

This is very hard to try and predict. Looks like quite a lot of mid and high speed corners. The 1km straight has people thinking it will be a Merc circuit, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the rest of the circuit spreads the field out and no one can pass.

Worth remembering Baku with its straight, where Mercedes took new engines but Red Bull ran their seven-race old units. Was looking like a Red Bull 1-2 until the tyre incident.

[Sandpit Steve]

Every new-to-modern-F1 circuit of the past couple of years, has led to an exciting event. None of the teams have any data on the track, so it’s all down to making the most of the practice sessions to set the car up as well as possible.

LH winning in Brazil has kept the championship running, let’s hope that it keeps running after this race too.

[suffolk009]

I've never seen the circuit before (unsuprisingly). I found this on Youtube, albeit featuring motorised bicycles. Looks like a pretty dull circuit, bt we'll have to wait and see.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApLFIEIk3eA

[DanielSan]

TheDeuce said:

It's interesting... Mercedes seem to be taking a gamble on how hard they push their PU, which could then subsequently fail. Max is doing the same thing with the Stewards - how far can he push them until they do something about it? (very far it turns out..)

Both camps are in their own ways getting desperate. It's great for F1

Toto saying the championship will come down to reliability makes a lot more sense if they really have built an engine to last 4 races/are pushing it to only last 4.

[TheDeuce]

suffolk009 said:

I've never seen the circuit before (unsuprisingly). I found this on Youtube, albeit featuring motorised bicycles. Looks like a pretty dull circuit, bt we'll have to wait and see.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApLFIEIk3eA

It's a bike circuit really, it's extremely narrow for F1 cars - hard to imagine any passing other than on the straight.

I think it's definitely a dull circuit but as it's the first GP there, it's likely to not be an entirely dull race.

[oyster]

AlexIT said:

Piginapoke said:

kambites said:

Difficult one to call this (haven't they all been this season?).

Hopefully Mercedes can maintain the pace they showed in Brazil to make the WDC nice and close going into the final two rounds. It'll be interesting to see what innovative ways the stewards/race director find to make a mockery of the FIA this weekend.

Edited by kambites on Tuesday 16th November 07:42

I hope you're right, but if Hamilton has the same car/engine advantage as Brazil he'll lap the field.

I think that Mercedes ran the PU at it's maximum to give RB a headache for the remaining of the season: they now have to approach Qatar not knowing what the actual performance level of Mercedes is and might have to gamble and run their PU at higher levels increasing the risk of it going bang to avoid Mercedes a walk in the park, with a potential 1-2 finish.

On the other hand RB might be very confident on their package and let Mercedes run their PU at this level hoping it won't last till the end of the season.

Makes a very interesting end of the season nevertheless.

2
I think they ran it at maximum because they had to win. The could not afford to lose more points to Max as they would then have the title outside of their hands.

I think they'll keep it turned up for Qatar too - they will still feel the need to close the points deficit.

[Jasandjules]

oyster said:

I think they'll keep it turned up for Qatar too - they will still feel the need to close the points deficit.

I understood the engine put in Lewis' car was designed to be turned up to 11 for four races. It has a life of less than half the normal engine for that reason and the extra power as a result....

This circuit looks like the only overtakes will be on the straight.

[TheDeuce]

Jasandjules said:

oyster said:

I think they'll keep it turned up for Qatar too - they will still feel the need to close the points deficit.

I understood the engine put in Lewis' car was designed to be turned up to 11 for four races. It has a life of less than half the normal engine for that reason and the extra power as a result....

This circuit looks like the only overtakes will be on the straight.

It's all conjecture. We have no way of knowing what exact compromise between reliability and performance they have selected, nor do we know how safe they are playing that game. We don't know if it'll be turned up for 2, 3 or 4 races or how much it has been turned up.

We don't even know if this is a clever and well calculated attempt to beat RB, or simply a last ditch effort to remain in contention for the titles - they could be going this path because a slim chance of the PU not blowing up is better than no chance of either title at all.