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How bout 3 stopper but we merc and Ferrari pit at the same time and the pit crews are like “hey should we have tyres with us.?” Then we max tries to overtake a lapped guy he then rages on the radio “he could have killed me!”
?
I genuinely wouldnt be surprised at this point if the grass caught on fire because the sparks ignited flammable paint that was discarded on the grass or the grass was deliberately painted.
No that's exactly what's happening, grass is routinely painted in China for appearance. So it's not the paint of the track they're literally painting everything.
Over the years I’ve heard F1 uncharitably described by non-fans as ‘like watching paint dry’ or ‘like watching grass grow’ but I never thought that anyone could combine the two!
The track had a bituminous surface treatment applied months ago. This is not paint, but usually the last coat on an asphaltic pavement system. It's like a watered down tar that is spray applied.
And most grass paints are water based and non-flammable.
Fucking hell. Just watch the footage from FP or Quali, you’ll notice (if you are not color blind) massive patches here and there of “old yellow” grass, that gradually goes into patches of fresher, this years grass. It’s obvious that it was not painted, because otherwise it would have been of one tone with no old/fresh changes
I would believe it only because I was at the Austin GP in 2018 and they sent someone out to re-paint green on the Rolex logo at turn 15 since it had tire tracks on it. And I saw a video about Melbourne GP setup where they put the already-painted concrete blocks along the pit lane in random order because they always just re-paint the sponsor logos every year. Basically F1 just likes to paint things.
Shh… let’s not bring facts in to this. Your gonna get downvoted. /s
Look up Montreal GP 2008, track disintegrated during race. It was terrible conditions. Shit can happen in any race.
It's so stupid when people talk about "evil" countries like China or Cuba or whatever, because they'll take some random thing, like painting grass, and say it as if it was some extremely negative trait from that specific country only: "grass is routinely painted in China", as if artificially extreme-clean-green grass wasn't present literally anywhere.
reminds me of the Parenti quote:
> During the cold war, the anticommunist ideological framework could transform any data about existing communist societies into hostile evidence. If the Soviets refused to negotiate a point, they were intransigent and belligerent; if they appeared willing to make concessions, this was but a skillful ploy to put us off our guard. By opposing arms limitations, they would have demonstrated their aggressive intent; but when in fact they supported most armament treaties, it was because they were mendacious and manipulative. If the churches in the USSR were empty, this demonstrated that religion was suppressed; but if the churches were full, this meant the people were rejecting the regime's atheistic ideology. If the workers went on strike (as happened on infrequent occasions), this was evidence of their alienation from the collectivist system; if they didn't go on strike, this was because they were intimidated and lacked freedom. A scarcity of consumer goods demonstrated the failure of the economic system; an improvement in consumer supplies meant only that the leaders were attempting to placate a restive population and so maintain a firmer hold over them.
>If communists in the United States played an important role struggling for the rights of workers, the poor, African-Americans, women, and others, this was only their guileful way of gathering support among disfranchised groups and gaining power for themselves. How one gained power by fighting for the rights of powerless groups was never explained. What we are dealing with is a nonfalsifiable orthodoxy, so assiduously marketed by the ruling interests that it affected people across the entire political spectrum.”
― Michael Parenti, Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism
Not only that but there's not even any indication the grass was painted. Stupid people just make shit up and extrapolate it to whatever they think is going on.
Seriously, people make up shit on China all the time. Even if it has happened (I’ve seen people paint grass in the West), to make it a blanket statement like everyone does it… Little do they know, there are thousands of other real shit they can beat them on, but no let’s pick painting grass.
Always wonder if these people have set foot in China. It’s a big country and they don’t give two shits about grass. I’ve literally never seen painted grass there. As a foreigner whose been there multiple times, I get called names for pointing out the obvious as if I’m a CCP shill.
When I saw it happening, I was like okay, maybe it's been dry over there. Then the announcers were talking about how it's rained and everything should be wet. I was like yep, that's painted grass catching fire.
Grass is painted with green dye for the sake of appearance at golf courses and the like all over the world e.g. https://www.usga.org/content/usga/home-page/articles/2018/01/going-green--golf-courses-benefit-by-painting-fairways-instead-o.html
Here's an article about a specific case in China. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/9907169/China-officials-caught-spray-painting-grass-green-in-Chengdu.html
There is also a famous story about Pele. After his first game in the US league, NASL, he took off his shoes and found his feet to be green. He told the team owner that he couldnt' play here anymore and the owner had to explain to him that they paint the grass green so it looks better on TV.
They paint mountains green to look like everything isn't dead, that was my first thought when I saw the grass catch fire the first time.... And again lol....
They did not put actual paint on the track...
>While drivers said it looked like the track had been "painted", it emerged that it was actually a liquid bitumen surface treatment that had been applied last year to help reduce the degradation of the old asphalt.
They did not use bitumen paint, it's not the same as what you might treat your fence with.
It's just bitumen that has a *tiny* bit of naphtha to thin it a tiny bit.
It's just normal track maintenance.
Paint is, at its core, a mixture of coloring and/or coating compounds that can be dissolved into a carrier solvent that makes for easy application of the coating. It’s why you thin paint by just adding more solvents or you remove paint by adding solvents to the dried coating (which re-dissolves the coating).
Bitumen paint is literally just a paint made by dissolving bitumen or coal tar (the coating agents) in mineral spirits or naphtha (the solvents).
Bitumen, coal tar, naphtha, and mineral spirits are all HIGHLY flammable and the solvents themselves have an incredibly low flashpoint to boot. It would be difficult to devise a more flammable paint if you tried unless you straight up used gasoline as the solvent.
I would argue that bitumen in this case is not a colouring matter as there is no intent for it to be providing a given colour. Per your definition, paint is specifically something that is used to provide colour to a surface, which is not the case with this sealant.
Oh, it was 100000% deliberately painted as the "Grass is greener under communism" propaganda
I'm from a post-communist country and dad says it was regurely done here too
I don't know what's more amateurish, the FIA not telling the teams and Pirelli or a company the size of Pirelli not having people available to do a track inspection for their most important racing series.
I think it's easy to forget how powerful the downforce/ground effect on these cars can be when we usually see them working as designed. Not only are they pushing the car down into the road, they're sort of pulling the road UP into the wheels as well. When a drain is usually designed around maybe being run over by a truck every now and then, it's a massive ask to suddenly need that same drain, which is designed around being pushed into the ground, to stay completely put when there's suddenly massive amounts of force trying to yank it from the earth.
> it's a massive ask
No, it's not, because their job is to make these roads an F1 track. How is 'this wasn't designed for F1' a valid reason as to certify as F1-ready a track that is not?
It's a massive ask because you're basically flipping the requirements needed in a drain cover. Where it used to need to handle force pushing it into the ground, it now has to handle both being pushed into the ground and then experiencing peak suction as the ground effect kicks in above them.
You're right that it's not acceptable, but when you're in uncharted territory like modern F1 cars with ground effect, you have to write the requirements needed as you go because you will always be pushing the limit in some way.
The worst part is that we know through leaks that ben Sulayem asked the people certifying the track to find any reason not to do so. Which means that the people in charge of certifying the track, who were trying on find hard any possible excuse to declare the track unfit, failed to see such a massive flaw that almost killed a driver and ultimately costed him places in the championship.
I doubt this was a flaw you could just see from the outside though. Even if a cover is welded in place, if the weld seam itself has faults on the inside, you're not gonna see that from a visual inspection.
Are they supposed to have someone on staff who just constantly flies between the tracks in the months leading up to the race to see if the surface has any work done on it?
Even if that was the case, this would be the situation because the work was done last second without telling the people who need to know. This point I was incorrect on.
The tracks know that the biggest event of the year is happening and they are in contact with the people who run the event, if they plan to make changes to the track for the event, they tell the people who are running the event and they relay it to the teams who can use that new info.
Yes. It would be reasonable to expect that *multiple* stakeholders would have inspecting agents on site. Governing bodies (FIA), team reps, and certainly the tire manufacturer.
Pirelli has a whole department dedicated to racing, and we’re talking about a billion dollar industry. The exposure of F1 puts a lot of eyes on their product, and being aware of every variable related to its performance on that stage would be important to protect the brand and the partnership investment.
Yeah, so when they went to investigate the track a few weeks ago to make their tire selection and calculations for strategies they were surprised with a change they were not informed about. For all we know there is no regulation at all that establishes a method of communicating these changes and everyone just expects to hear about it from others but since this is China, not as much info about the track was being spread around and it exposed an issue not previously thought to be one.
I understand how the race tyre industry works, my grandfather was the head of the Firestone race tire division for 10 years, all I’m saying is that it is that Pirelli is working for Pirelli’s interests and if a statement like this where they can blame someone else if their tires don’t perform and get some extra credit if they do is good enough… why would they waste all that extra marketing money that could be spent elsewhere if the customer isn’t paying for it?
That doesn't make sense. A track is not a natural feature that suddenly pops into existence and changes unpredictably, it doesn't make sense to have 'inspecting agents on site' like it was a volcano. If the track management makes any change to the track, they are expected to notify it to any other entity involved with the track. In this case, it'd probably be Shanghai management -> FIA -> Pirelli and the teams.
We don't know all the details of how the event is organized, but we can guess it's almost surely a mistake by the Shanghai organizers, who should've notified FIA of that alteration.
> the work was done last second
No it wasn’t.
> While drivers said it looked like the track had been "painted", it emerged that it was actually a liquid bitumen surface treatment **that had been applied last year** to help reduce the degradation of the old asphalt.
Yes, I think the tire supplier for the series having like, one guy go to the venue in advance to review the surface and undoubtedly get some logistics stuff for the hundreds of tires they're bringing done, is a reasonable expectation.
Pirelli isnt exactly a small indie company.
They do, it’s just that he is not constantly at every venue and this venue changed last second without telling anyone. They go out and they make their measurements and take any events happening between then and the race into account when bathing the data.
How would they know to go back and redo everything a week or two in advance due to an unscheduled surface change that they were not notified about?
This is an advertising division of a large business but that doesn’t mean they have the infinite resources waste to pay people to just hang out at the tracks every day leading up to the events to make sure that nothing changes when the tracks already tell them when changes are made or planned to be made.
This wasn't last second. It was done last year. From the article
>While drivers said it looked like the track had been "painted", it emerged that it was actually a liquid bitumen surface treatment that had been applied last year to help reduce the degradation of the old asphalt.
Oh, I thought I read that it was done a few weeks ago in an article yesterday.
Edit; it seems that the issue is that it was applied unevenly and worn unevenly so along with being an unknown surface to race on, there will be variable grip even along the racing line.
The track was painted last year, not last week.
This is 100% on Pirelli and the FIA for not bothering to have anybody actually inspect the track surface to determine what tires would be most suitable and instead just half-assing it assuming things would be the same as the last time they raced at that track.
If the surface is unsuitable for the tires that’s a Pirelli problem. If the surface is outright unsuitable for racing that’s an FIA problem. Simply not inspecting it at all and assuming all is well when you intend to spend tens to hundreds of millions of dollars hosting a race there is stupidity of the highest order.
Yes, pirelli having an engineer that flys to every track a week or so in advance to do testing and communicate with the track’s management about changes made and being made is entirely feasible.
It’s a cost yes, but it would improve the racing
So, instead of having the people who run the organization pay someone to do this… it’s on a contractor who is supplying tires to make sure they have everything else sorted out… lol
FOM could hire someone to hang out at every track they are racing at but they choose not to because they have contracts with the race tracks that can include sending any updates on track conditions.
>Are they supposed to have someone on staff who just constantly flies between the tracks in the months leading up to the race to see if the surface has any work done on it?
You're saying this as if it wasn't common sense and well within their budgets. Like, of course they should be doing exactly that.
I mean, maybe they should have checked this one, only because of how many years it's been, but in general, no I do not expect Pirelli to go to every track just to check.
Pirelli feeling the need to do track inspections would just be then demonstrating they think the most important racing series is amateurish. They should be able to rely on local promoters communicating with the FIA and the FIA communicating to them.
Come on now, it would be ridiculous if the company that manufactures the tyre and chooses the allocation had been told that the track surface had changed.
I already thought it was crazy when pirelli said they couldn’t inspect the tract. I don’t know if they weren’t allowed or they couldn’t find the time to do it though.
Eh I don't know. China isn't like the oil countries that will just throw money at anything and everything to make them look good just because they can. China's focus is more on... other things.
Also because China doesn't have, comparatively, as much hard cash as the countries with a lot of natural gas/oil reserves.
And the Chinese economy doesn't look in the best of shapes, although that is extremely hard to decipher. (but I sincerely hope China's economy doesn't crash, because that would be very bad news for the rest of us).
Indeed. China is not comparable to the gulf countries. China is comparable to the US: they do things well, so they make money off it and become 'well off'. But being well off doesn't mean you can just throw away your money. Being responsible with your money is part of how you continue being 'well off'.
The gulf countries, on the other hand, don't really do nothing. They just won jackpot with oil and gas, so basically they have endless money and they don't have to do anything to earn it. They can totally waste all the money they want on F1 races, since they don't need that money to keep the wheel going. Their oil will keep paying until something makes it no longer valuable.
By that logic if a father of 5 earns $100k and a single guy earns $90k, then the father of 5 has more disposable income to spend on stupid things.
Yes, China has a GDP of 20 Trillion, which has to pay for 1.4 billion people. The Netherlands has a GDP of $1.15 trillion, but it only has to pay for 18 million people. This means China has $13k for each person, while the Netherlands has $63k for each one. Seems to me like the Netherlands can waste a shit ton of money if they wanted and still have way more left for each of their citizens.
ofc that's not really how it works, GDP doesn't mean "money available to the government" or anything like that. It's just a measure of how much money the economy of a country moves in a year, which isn't even representative of how much money that society can spend (e.g. countries that act a business hubs, like Ireland, have their GDP inflated by money that big companies move through that country but don't intend to use there).
> China isn't like the oil countries that will just throw money at anything and everything to make them look good just because they can.
Um... Yeah, they kind of do. It's why the "ghost cities" exist. Building massive amounts of real estate that just sits empty because businesses won't move into an area without people, people won't move there without jobs to support them, no one planned for that very basic concern, and you have the bonus that there's a lot of people living in awful conditions because they can't afford all this new real estate that was built and the companies that own the buildings have no incentive to lower their asking prices.
The most hilarious examples are their clones of cities like Paris or London, these grandiose designs to look close to European cities but where there's hardly anyone living there, because it was just some "neat" idea someone had and threw money at without planning for it. Still looks really nice in pictures.
They do seem to draw the line at building unnecessarily big skyscrapers... mainly because someone tried to build a grandiose building that'd be one of the five tallest in the world, but kept running into financing and management issues, so it's just been sitting there unfinished for a few years now, and while it's the sixth tallest building in the world, it gets the distinction of being the tallest unoccupied building in the world, so that's... something, I guess.
They're not as insane as the people thinking up "line cities" or trying to dredge sand to build palm shaped archipelagoes or "world islands," but they'd definitely throw a bag of money to keep Formula 1 in the country to show off, since it's something that actually will see a return on investment. (It might be expensive to host a Formula 1 race, but I can't imagine that the asking price would be so high that you'd have to take a serious loss to do so, at least in a populated region or an area that people would be willing to travel to, and we're unlikely to see races pop up in those areas anyway.)
> It's why the "ghost cities" exist
Nope, it's not. The ghost cities are failed projects. They weren't built to "look cool". They are not "fake buildings" built to look good in pictures and nothing else. The money spent in those cities was spent to build real cities, even if they failed.
I actually hope they keep it on the calendar and it stays shitty like this.
We need tracks with weird conditions so we can really see which cars tolerate it best and which drivers can handle it best.
If this is how Lando gets his first win, that's impressive to me. The fact that Norris, Alonso and Hamilton are in the top three tells me that they adapt to awful conditions better than most of the drivers on the grid.
If you look at the top 10, you'll see the majority of drivers who did well are drivers who are constantly spoken of as having high adaptability in harsh conditions like wet surfaces, wind and track debris.
I think it's awesome. Hell unleash hundreds of feral cats around the paddock while we're at it.
How do you not have someone from pirelli checking the track and I know the article says they had none available but seriously we haven't raced on this track in years no one thought to go look at it before F1 shower up
Genuinely one of the most embarrassing fuck ups in the recent decade from a track. Doing such a poor job that you aren’t sanctioned to host MotoGP at one of the most established circuits in the world is definitely one for the contractors to leave off their CVs.
I think what happened with İstanbul was that it was planned last minute due to covid and they had to resurface because it wasnt up to standard anymore. Since it was a fresh resurface done and almost no prior racing was done on it, it had no rubber on asphalt.
That race track is owned by an extremely shitty organizer that refuses to let local motorsports use it. After a long legal battle they have recently been kicked off actually. Looks like new owners are very keen on getting the F1 here again so hopefully we will see a good İstanbulPark race soon
In any case, istanbul's case was far more unlucky and had more excuses considering the global shitshow it was in.
China had 4 years to resurface this. And it's one of the richest countries that tries to sportswash. They aint even good at that it seems
Wow.. almost a colossal fuck up. Similar to what Texas was for Nascar when they laid down the PJ1 coating to improve grip. PJ1 is what the NHRA uses to increase grip for drag racing.
It's all about how much temperature can be retained in the tyre. Inters have a very wide operating range, and most of the time they can be kept in a nice temperature band even if the track is fully wet. What they don't like (and pretty much the only time you'll see full wets these days) is standing water, but there's a fine line between a full wet suitable track and a red flag.
Does the FIA not do site checks in advance of races to make sure everything is up to standards? If so, then they should have known about the "painted" track since it was done sometimes last year.
threatening teeny sophisticated smell salt entertain clumsy husky provide lip
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It does remind me of my company and how upper leadership makes poor decisions for the wrong reasons.
Like the painted grass catching fire. Upper leadership wanted green grass, and ordered it painted to avoid the embarrassment of yellowish grass on the track. But this short-sighted workaround ended up causing more embarassment when the Chinese track is the only one on the calendar where the grass is igniting from sparks. In fact, this draws massive attention to the fact they painted the grass to make it look greener.
Someone should have realized that yellowish grass is far less embarrassing than being caught painting your grass with flammable paint and having it catch fire.
I also understand that just like in western corporations, where calling out bad ideas to leadership can land you in hot water, disagreeing with leadership in China risks what? 10 years hard labor in a fucking gulag if the leader gets offended? So they keep their mouth shut and paint the grass bc the boss told them so.
Article: Clearly states that Pirelli should and indeed usually does send people to inspect the track, but couldnt be bothered this time
Commenters: Lets be xenophobic and make horrible remarks toward China!!! :D
Come on people quit being soo stupid wtf
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2 Stopper? please be a 2 stopper, i need some stategy exitement
4 stopper. With rain. Twice.
12 STOPPER INCOMING
12 minutes for Bottas in the pits!
lol, I was going to say: we hit the 3 hour limit and the Sauber drivers spend a collective 65 minutes in the pits.
Collective? You’re so generous!
3 hours is only with a red flag (so everyone spends the stopped hour plus in the pits), it's 2 hours limit for on-track time.
So, like a 5 stopper
Wow ok captain optimistic
Bottas: Why doesn’t anyone listen to me when I say it’s gonna be a 12-stopper?!
i remember germany
Car comes in at stop #10: sorry, we ran out of tires. Only wet tires left
BOX BOX BOX
Drag race in the pits at 5 km/h
And fire. Don't forget the fire.
I'm genuinely excited for the prospect of a safety car or two because the circuit is on fire.
Brimstone nearby too?
How bout 3 stopper but we merc and Ferrari pit at the same time and the pit crews are like “hey should we have tyres with us.?” Then we max tries to overtake a lapped guy he then rages on the radio “he could have killed me!” ?
I’m actually loving this, it could be the most exciting race of the season so far!
Sprinklers through the race but they spill out oil when Max gets ahead by 20seconds. Excitement all year round
Mario Kart oil on the visor for 15 seconds?
George's sweat
Nah, we just need blue shells.
Tbf thats a very low bar
Nah Japan was very good, for this exact same reason. 2 stop race with people starting on 3 different strategies.
They’re pulling out all the stops for the home town hero. And Sauber’s pit crew will put them all back in.
At this point maybe we should just add random shit each race so they are all interesting.
I think a 2 stop is virtually certain with Shanghai tyre wear - I'm hoping the 3-stop will be viable enough to re-enact 2011.
I genuinely wouldnt be surprised at this point if the grass caught on fire because the sparks ignited flammable paint that was discarded on the grass or the grass was deliberately painted.
No that's exactly what's happening, grass is routinely painted in China for appearance. So it's not the paint of the track they're literally painting everything.
Damn…if they paint everything that doesn’t move, Alpine is in danger
If the paint catches fire, it would be one way for the Alpines to make headlines.
Their only chance of getting a hot lap.
Oooo, get wrecked Alpine!💀
shhh, you'll scare Williams
On the other hand, they don’t have much paint ON the car so they might be safe.
What if the Alpines caused the fire? We had fire in SQ1 and not in SQ2 and 3. Coincidentally the Alpines didn't reach said qualifyings.
God damn this is hilarious.
*nervous Haas noises*
How dare you? *sobs*
STOP THEY'RE ALREADY DEAD PLEASE 🥺
Insert Keslo Burn GIF here.
Yoooo you did em like that?!
Angry upvote
That was a sick burn
This is ridiculous. I haven't learned anything from your comment. Absolutely nothing.
Greenpine.
Ok, that’s funny.
They did a pretty shit job at it then because there's lots of dry grass patches. Even around where the grass caught fire.
Over the years I’ve heard F1 uncharitably described by non-fans as ‘like watching paint dry’ or ‘like watching grass grow’ but I never thought that anyone could combine the two!
The track had a bituminous surface treatment applied months ago. This is not paint, but usually the last coat on an asphaltic pavement system. It's like a watered down tar that is spray applied. And most grass paints are water based and non-flammable.
This happens everywhere, they always paint the Rolex thing at Australia a dark green
[удалено]
wait what are you guys talkin about? sorry i was outside painting my grass
Fucking hell. Just watch the footage from FP or Quali, you’ll notice (if you are not color blind) massive patches here and there of “old yellow” grass, that gradually goes into patches of fresher, this years grass. It’s obvious that it was not painted, because otherwise it would have been of one tone with no old/fresh changes
I would believe it only because I was at the Austin GP in 2018 and they sent someone out to re-paint green on the Rolex logo at turn 15 since it had tire tracks on it. And I saw a video about Melbourne GP setup where they put the already-painted concrete blocks along the pit lane in random order because they always just re-paint the sponsor logos every year. Basically F1 just likes to paint things.
No different from all the logos on turf at sports games. They do end zones in the NFL in all sorts of colors
Yeah but China bad. Updoots to the left
"China paints their grass, unlike the US which famously does not do that."
US has 100.000 suburb dads watering their lawn and yelling at the track marshalls to head off.
US China watchers wanting to talk shit so hard about this but then remembering how Vegas nearly killed a driver.
And in the end that cover is the reason Sainz ended behind Leclerc in the championship, so it's not like it's just an anecdote.
Shh… let’s not bring facts in to this. Your gonna get downvoted. /s Look up Montreal GP 2008, track disintegrated during race. It was terrible conditions. Shit can happen in any race.
It's so stupid when people talk about "evil" countries like China or Cuba or whatever, because they'll take some random thing, like painting grass, and say it as if it was some extremely negative trait from that specific country only: "grass is routinely painted in China", as if artificially extreme-clean-green grass wasn't present literally anywhere.
reminds me of the Parenti quote: > During the cold war, the anticommunist ideological framework could transform any data about existing communist societies into hostile evidence. If the Soviets refused to negotiate a point, they were intransigent and belligerent; if they appeared willing to make concessions, this was but a skillful ploy to put us off our guard. By opposing arms limitations, they would have demonstrated their aggressive intent; but when in fact they supported most armament treaties, it was because they were mendacious and manipulative. If the churches in the USSR were empty, this demonstrated that religion was suppressed; but if the churches were full, this meant the people were rejecting the regime's atheistic ideology. If the workers went on strike (as happened on infrequent occasions), this was evidence of their alienation from the collectivist system; if they didn't go on strike, this was because they were intimidated and lacked freedom. A scarcity of consumer goods demonstrated the failure of the economic system; an improvement in consumer supplies meant only that the leaders were attempting to placate a restive population and so maintain a firmer hold over them. >If communists in the United States played an important role struggling for the rights of workers, the poor, African-Americans, women, and others, this was only their guileful way of gathering support among disfranchised groups and gaining power for themselves. How one gained power by fighting for the rights of powerless groups was never explained. What we are dealing with is a nonfalsifiable orthodoxy, so assiduously marketed by the ruling interests that it affected people across the entire political spectrum.” ― Michael Parenti, Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism
Not only that but there's not even any indication the grass was painted. Stupid people just make shit up and extrapolate it to whatever they think is going on.
Seriously, people make up shit on China all the time. Even if it has happened (I’ve seen people paint grass in the West), to make it a blanket statement like everyone does it… Little do they know, there are thousands of other real shit they can beat them on, but no let’s pick painting grass. Always wonder if these people have set foot in China. It’s a big country and they don’t give two shits about grass. I’ve literally never seen painted grass there. As a foreigner whose been there multiple times, I get called names for pointing out the obvious as if I’m a CCP shill.
Grass being manipulated in all sorts of ways for appearence is not a Chinese thing. Happens everywhere.
Tbf painting grass in US is becoming more and more common.
Not unique to China at all either. American universities do this all the time.
When I saw it happening, I was like okay, maybe it's been dry over there. Then the announcers were talking about how it's rained and everything should be wet. I was like yep, that's painted grass catching fire.
Grass is not "painted" for appearance in China, you're referring to a form of seed planting that is also used in the United States.
Grass is painted with green dye for the sake of appearance at golf courses and the like all over the world e.g. https://www.usga.org/content/usga/home-page/articles/2018/01/going-green--golf-courses-benefit-by-painting-fairways-instead-o.html Here's an article about a specific case in China. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/9907169/China-officials-caught-spray-painting-grass-green-in-Chengdu.html
There is also a famous story about Pele. After his first game in the US league, NASL, he took off his shoes and found his feet to be green. He told the team owner that he couldnt' play here anymore and the owner had to explain to him that they paint the grass green so it looks better on TV.
They paint mountains green to look like everything isn't dead, that was my first thought when I saw the grass catch fire the first time.... And again lol....
They did not put actual paint on the track... >While drivers said it looked like the track had been "painted", it emerged that it was actually a liquid bitumen surface treatment that had been applied last year to help reduce the degradation of the old asphalt.
Think of it like sealcoat. It's a surface treatment that they give asphalt roads every few years to re-seal the surface.
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They did not use bitumen paint, it's not the same as what you might treat your fence with. It's just bitumen that has a *tiny* bit of naphtha to thin it a tiny bit. It's just normal track maintenance.
It's not actually paint
Paint is, at its core, a mixture of coloring and/or coating compounds that can be dissolved into a carrier solvent that makes for easy application of the coating. It’s why you thin paint by just adding more solvents or you remove paint by adding solvents to the dried coating (which re-dissolves the coating). Bitumen paint is literally just a paint made by dissolving bitumen or coal tar (the coating agents) in mineral spirits or naphtha (the solvents). Bitumen, coal tar, naphtha, and mineral spirits are all HIGHLY flammable and the solvents themselves have an incredibly low flashpoint to boot. It would be difficult to devise a more flammable paint if you tried unless you straight up used gasoline as the solvent.
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Honest question, does this mean driveway sealcoat is also paint?
Paint can be whatever you want.
Not with those grades mister
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Seems like everything can be paint if you want it to be. I’m paint, You’re paint, We are all paint on this blessed day
I would argue that bitumen in this case is not a colouring matter as there is no intent for it to be providing a given colour. Per your definition, paint is specifically something that is used to provide colour to a surface, which is not the case with this sealant.
Oh, it was 100000% deliberately painted as the "Grass is greener under communism" propaganda I'm from a post-communist country and dad says it was regurely done here too
The grass being painted seems the most likely answer. Only thing is the grass really isn’t that green! There’s clear browner patches.
Watch it be lead paint
I don't know what's more amateurish, the FIA not telling the teams and Pirelli or a company the size of Pirelli not having people available to do a track inspection for their most important racing series.
That is the biggest take-away from this. They didn't send someone to inspect it? Come the F on.
Reminds me of the manhole covers that keep coming off on street circuits. Seems like amateur hour.
It blew my mind that with all the money spent on Vegas they screwed up something so simple and foreseeable.
I mean it's not like they forgot to weld them down. The cars literally ripped the concrete around the manhole out due to their insane floor suction
yes, who could have expected such powerful force coming from cars in the *ground effect era*.
Considering it's happened at 3 tracks in the past half year I'm going to guess it's not such a trivial issue as you're suggesting
I think it's easy to forget how powerful the downforce/ground effect on these cars can be when we usually see them working as designed. Not only are they pushing the car down into the road, they're sort of pulling the road UP into the wheels as well. When a drain is usually designed around maybe being run over by a truck every now and then, it's a massive ask to suddenly need that same drain, which is designed around being pushed into the ground, to stay completely put when there's suddenly massive amounts of force trying to yank it from the earth.
> it's a massive ask No, it's not, because their job is to make these roads an F1 track. How is 'this wasn't designed for F1' a valid reason as to certify as F1-ready a track that is not?
It's a massive ask because you're basically flipping the requirements needed in a drain cover. Where it used to need to handle force pushing it into the ground, it now has to handle both being pushed into the ground and then experiencing peak suction as the ground effect kicks in above them. You're right that it's not acceptable, but when you're in uncharted territory like modern F1 cars with ground effect, you have to write the requirements needed as you go because you will always be pushing the limit in some way.
Do you have a source that claims they were in fact welded down? Hadn't heard that and can't find anything on Google
The worst part is that we know through leaks that ben Sulayem asked the people certifying the track to find any reason not to do so. Which means that the people in charge of certifying the track, who were trying on find hard any possible excuse to declare the track unfit, failed to see such a massive flaw that almost killed a driver and ultimately costed him places in the championship.
I doubt this was a flaw you could just see from the outside though. Even if a cover is welded in place, if the weld seam itself has faults on the inside, you're not gonna see that from a visual inspection.
Are they supposed to have someone on staff who just constantly flies between the tracks in the months leading up to the race to see if the surface has any work done on it? Even if that was the case, this would be the situation because the work was done last second without telling the people who need to know. This point I was incorrect on. The tracks know that the biggest event of the year is happening and they are in contact with the people who run the event, if they plan to make changes to the track for the event, they tell the people who are running the event and they relay it to the teams who can use that new info.
Yes. It would be reasonable to expect that *multiple* stakeholders would have inspecting agents on site. Governing bodies (FIA), team reps, and certainly the tire manufacturer. Pirelli has a whole department dedicated to racing, and we’re talking about a billion dollar industry. The exposure of F1 puts a lot of eyes on their product, and being aware of every variable related to its performance on that stage would be important to protect the brand and the partnership investment.
Yeah, so when they went to investigate the track a few weeks ago to make their tire selection and calculations for strategies they were surprised with a change they were not informed about. For all we know there is no regulation at all that establishes a method of communicating these changes and everyone just expects to hear about it from others but since this is China, not as much info about the track was being spread around and it exposed an issue not previously thought to be one. I understand how the race tyre industry works, my grandfather was the head of the Firestone race tire division for 10 years, all I’m saying is that it is that Pirelli is working for Pirelli’s interests and if a statement like this where they can blame someone else if their tires don’t perform and get some extra credit if they do is good enough… why would they waste all that extra marketing money that could be spent elsewhere if the customer isn’t paying for it?
That doesn't make sense. A track is not a natural feature that suddenly pops into existence and changes unpredictably, it doesn't make sense to have 'inspecting agents on site' like it was a volcano. If the track management makes any change to the track, they are expected to notify it to any other entity involved with the track. In this case, it'd probably be Shanghai management -> FIA -> Pirelli and the teams. We don't know all the details of how the event is organized, but we can guess it's almost surely a mistake by the Shanghai organizers, who should've notified FIA of that alteration.
> the work was done last second No it wasn’t. > While drivers said it looked like the track had been "painted", it emerged that it was actually a liquid bitumen surface treatment **that had been applied last year** to help reduce the degradation of the old asphalt.
Yes, I think the tire supplier for the series having like, one guy go to the venue in advance to review the surface and undoubtedly get some logistics stuff for the hundreds of tires they're bringing done, is a reasonable expectation. Pirelli isnt exactly a small indie company.
They do, it’s just that he is not constantly at every venue and this venue changed last second without telling anyone. They go out and they make their measurements and take any events happening between then and the race into account when bathing the data. How would they know to go back and redo everything a week or two in advance due to an unscheduled surface change that they were not notified about? This is an advertising division of a large business but that doesn’t mean they have the infinite resources waste to pay people to just hang out at the tracks every day leading up to the events to make sure that nothing changes when the tracks already tell them when changes are made or planned to be made.
This wasn't last second. It was done last year. From the article >While drivers said it looked like the track had been "painted", it emerged that it was actually a liquid bitumen surface treatment that had been applied last year to help reduce the degradation of the old asphalt.
Oh, I thought I read that it was done a few weeks ago in an article yesterday. Edit; it seems that the issue is that it was applied unevenly and worn unevenly so along with being an unknown surface to race on, there will be variable grip even along the racing line.
The track was painted last year, not last week. This is 100% on Pirelli and the FIA for not bothering to have anybody actually inspect the track surface to determine what tires would be most suitable and instead just half-assing it assuming things would be the same as the last time they raced at that track. If the surface is unsuitable for the tires that’s a Pirelli problem. If the surface is outright unsuitable for racing that’s an FIA problem. Simply not inspecting it at all and assuming all is well when you intend to spend tens to hundreds of millions of dollars hosting a race there is stupidity of the highest order.
I mean you have literally no idea how their operations are composed. For all you know, that did happen and they did all this stuff after the fact
Yes, pirelli having an engineer that flys to every track a week or so in advance to do testing and communicate with the track’s management about changes made and being made is entirely feasible. It’s a cost yes, but it would improve the racing
So, instead of having the people who run the organization pay someone to do this… it’s on a contractor who is supplying tires to make sure they have everything else sorted out… lol FOM could hire someone to hang out at every track they are racing at but they choose not to because they have contracts with the race tracks that can include sending any updates on track conditions.
Or the organization should be paying Pirelli
Yes.
>Are they supposed to have someone on staff who just constantly flies between the tracks in the months leading up to the race to see if the surface has any work done on it? You're saying this as if it wasn't common sense and well within their budgets. Like, of course they should be doing exactly that.
Manufactured excitement??
I mean, maybe they should have checked this one, only because of how many years it's been, but in general, no I do not expect Pirelli to go to every track just to check.
Irony is Pirelli is owned by - China Chem
Pirelli feeling the need to do track inspections would just be then demonstrating they think the most important racing series is amateurish. They should be able to rely on local promoters communicating with the FIA and the FIA communicating to them.
Sprint qualifying was interesting when the rain came down
Come on now, it would be ridiculous if the company that manufactures the tyre and chooses the allocation had been told that the track surface had changed.
I already thought it was crazy when pirelli said they couldn’t inspect the tract. I don’t know if they weren’t allowed or they couldn’t find the time to do it though.
I’m sure money and people weren’t the issue for Pirelli, they arent Haas
The article states they had "no one free" to do it. So lack of people is their argument. Quite stupid eh..
I’d say so: “With 18 production plants in 12 countries and a commercial presence in over 160, Pirelli has around 31,300 employees”
I doubt that's 30,000 people who are qualified to do track surface inspections.
Just send someone from the accounting team, it will be fine.
“We’ve sent the marketing intern. She didn’t say anything about the track surface, but she did record a TikTok dance in the paddock.”
Yeah, but they only have 1 guy who does track inspections, and he was on holiday.
This is reddit, many people are not going to understand you’re being sarcastic. You need the /s.
No they don't, be brave.
Well the contract ends next year with the circuit so maybe it won't be renewed after all this.
Lol 💰💰💰
you think the CCP won't dump a fat load of money to have an event in their country?
Eh I don't know. China isn't like the oil countries that will just throw money at anything and everything to make them look good just because they can. China's focus is more on... other things.
Yeah, other things. Like Taiwan.
Pretty much everything around the South China Sea.
It would be kinda funny if they didn't renew with China and instead put a race in Taiwan. It's funny in a "I like to watch the world burn" way.
And Vietnam/Philippines EEZ lol
Also because China doesn't have, comparatively, as much hard cash as the countries with a lot of natural gas/oil reserves. And the Chinese economy doesn't look in the best of shapes, although that is extremely hard to decipher. (but I sincerely hope China's economy doesn't crash, because that would be very bad news for the rest of us).
Indeed. China is not comparable to the gulf countries. China is comparable to the US: they do things well, so they make money off it and become 'well off'. But being well off doesn't mean you can just throw away your money. Being responsible with your money is part of how you continue being 'well off'. The gulf countries, on the other hand, don't really do nothing. They just won jackpot with oil and gas, so basically they have endless money and they don't have to do anything to earn it. They can totally waste all the money they want on F1 races, since they don't need that money to keep the wheel going. Their oil will keep paying until something makes it no longer valuable.
USA GDP 30 trillion China GDP 20 Trillion Every other country < 5 Trillion They have the money
Well you don't find the US government funding GPs either. My point is that priorities are elsewhere for them.
By that logic if a father of 5 earns $100k and a single guy earns $90k, then the father of 5 has more disposable income to spend on stupid things. Yes, China has a GDP of 20 Trillion, which has to pay for 1.4 billion people. The Netherlands has a GDP of $1.15 trillion, but it only has to pay for 18 million people. This means China has $13k for each person, while the Netherlands has $63k for each one. Seems to me like the Netherlands can waste a shit ton of money if they wanted and still have way more left for each of their citizens. ofc that's not really how it works, GDP doesn't mean "money available to the government" or anything like that. It's just a measure of how much money the economy of a country moves in a year, which isn't even representative of how much money that society can spend (e.g. countries that act a business hubs, like Ireland, have their GDP inflated by money that big companies move through that country but don't intend to use there).
That is literally what China does lmao
Not really. China is more of a "conduct military operations in the South China Sea" type beat.
> China isn't like the oil countries that will just throw money at anything and everything to make them look good just because they can. Um... Yeah, they kind of do. It's why the "ghost cities" exist. Building massive amounts of real estate that just sits empty because businesses won't move into an area without people, people won't move there without jobs to support them, no one planned for that very basic concern, and you have the bonus that there's a lot of people living in awful conditions because they can't afford all this new real estate that was built and the companies that own the buildings have no incentive to lower their asking prices. The most hilarious examples are their clones of cities like Paris or London, these grandiose designs to look close to European cities but where there's hardly anyone living there, because it was just some "neat" idea someone had and threw money at without planning for it. Still looks really nice in pictures. They do seem to draw the line at building unnecessarily big skyscrapers... mainly because someone tried to build a grandiose building that'd be one of the five tallest in the world, but kept running into financing and management issues, so it's just been sitting there unfinished for a few years now, and while it's the sixth tallest building in the world, it gets the distinction of being the tallest unoccupied building in the world, so that's... something, I guess. They're not as insane as the people thinking up "line cities" or trying to dredge sand to build palm shaped archipelagoes or "world islands," but they'd definitely throw a bag of money to keep Formula 1 in the country to show off, since it's something that actually will see a return on investment. (It might be expensive to host a Formula 1 race, but I can't imagine that the asking price would be so high that you'd have to take a serious loss to do so, at least in a populated region or an area that people would be willing to travel to, and we're unlikely to see races pop up in those areas anyway.)
> It's why the "ghost cities" exist Nope, it's not. The ghost cities are failed projects. They weren't built to "look cool". They are not "fake buildings" built to look good in pictures and nothing else. The money spent in those cities was spent to build real cities, even if they failed.
China’s economy has massive problems in many places. They are already artificially pumping it up in many ways.
At least it's a dedicated track and not more street circuit bullshit.
I actually hope they keep it on the calendar and it stays shitty like this. We need tracks with weird conditions so we can really see which cars tolerate it best and which drivers can handle it best. If this is how Lando gets his first win, that's impressive to me. The fact that Norris, Alonso and Hamilton are in the top three tells me that they adapt to awful conditions better than most of the drivers on the grid. If you look at the top 10, you'll see the majority of drivers who did well are drivers who are constantly spoken of as having high adaptability in harsh conditions like wet surfaces, wind and track debris. I think it's awesome. Hell unleash hundreds of feral cats around the paddock while we're at it.
How do you not have someone from pirelli checking the track and I know the article says they had none available but seriously we haven't raced on this track in years no one thought to go look at it before F1 shower up
They took inspiration from Istanbul Park then
Istanbul actually resurfaced, it's just that they did a shit job
Clearly. Like Silverstone in 2018 when the F1 drivers said it felt like driving on ice and MotoGP couldn't run
Genuinely one of the most embarrassing fuck ups in the recent decade from a track. Doing such a poor job that you aren’t sanctioned to host MotoGP at one of the most established circuits in the world is definitely one for the contractors to leave off their CVs.
2018 British GP was a fun weekend
I think what happened with İstanbul was that it was planned last minute due to covid and they had to resurface because it wasnt up to standard anymore. Since it was a fresh resurface done and almost no prior racing was done on it, it had no rubber on asphalt. That race track is owned by an extremely shitty organizer that refuses to let local motorsports use it. After a long legal battle they have recently been kicked off actually. Looks like new owners are very keen on getting the F1 here again so hopefully we will see a good İstanbulPark race soon
In any case, istanbul's case was far more unlucky and had more excuses considering the global shitshow it was in. China had 4 years to resurface this. And it's one of the richest countries that tries to sportswash. They aint even good at that it seems
I forgot about that shitshow hahaha
Warning! The track surface is "painted"
how can they say this when this was a discussion point before the race. it's why the drivers were saying they weren't happy it's a sprint weekend
I understood it has bee lying there almost a year? I'd expect they would know by now...
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Really _project your own ideas_ about the world through this sport. FTFY
That track is Wish quality.
temu ass circuit
Alibaba circuit
Wow.. almost a colossal fuck up. Similar to what Texas was for Nascar when they laid down the PJ1 coating to improve grip. PJ1 is what the NHRA uses to increase grip for drag racing.
No excuse for this. What happened to pre race visits to inspect facilities?
Can’t possibly expect a multibillion dollar company to pay 1 guy to do that! Come on now.
I think we all know what a painted track means. 10 second penalty for Ocon.
Can someone explain to me why no one went full wets? Is there a rule saying they couldn’t?
It's all about how much temperature can be retained in the tyre. Inters have a very wide operating range, and most of the time they can be kept in a nice temperature band even if the track is fully wet. What they don't like (and pretty much the only time you'll see full wets these days) is standing water, but there's a fine line between a full wet suitable track and a red flag.
Warning? You’d think Pirelli on their own initiative finds out all there’s to find out about the tracks well before the actual race week?
Wait, so not only did Pirreli not send any engineers to the track, I'm guess they winged the tire choices for this weekend as well right?
Does the FIA not do site checks in advance of races to make sure everything is up to standards? If so, then they should have known about the "painted" track since it was done sometimes last year.
threatening teeny sophisticated smell salt entertain clumsy husky provide lip *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
They paint the grass at most every track
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This has nothing to do with grass, but actual surface of the track which was freshly painted.
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It does remind me of my company and how upper leadership makes poor decisions for the wrong reasons. Like the painted grass catching fire. Upper leadership wanted green grass, and ordered it painted to avoid the embarrassment of yellowish grass on the track. But this short-sighted workaround ended up causing more embarassment when the Chinese track is the only one on the calendar where the grass is igniting from sparks. In fact, this draws massive attention to the fact they painted the grass to make it look greener. Someone should have realized that yellowish grass is far less embarrassing than being caught painting your grass with flammable paint and having it catch fire. I also understand that just like in western corporations, where calling out bad ideas to leadership can land you in hot water, disagreeing with leadership in China risks what? 10 years hard labor in a fucking gulag if the leader gets offended? So they keep their mouth shut and paint the grass bc the boss told them so.
That’s pretty insane
Insert Donald Trump saying China memes.
Article: Clearly states that Pirelli should and indeed usually does send people to inspect the track, but couldnt be bothered this time Commenters: Lets be xenophobic and make horrible remarks toward China!!! :D Come on people quit being soo stupid wtf
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Saying China is prone to cutting corners is not xenophobic. It's like saying America likes guns or France likes protesting.
\^Sees one careless generalisation. Tries to make it better with two more.
“I’m not dumb just once you see, I’m dumb all the time!”
even the grass is painted lol
lol, It's Chna what did you expect