That's the track where its easy to keep those behind you even in drs range and not worry about getting overtaken unless your car is dramatically less powerful than the rest. Seinz could afford to slow down in order to extend tire range and still not worry about losing P1
F1 2023 Season
- Thread starter pauldyson1uk
- Start date
It's all about the battle for P1 though? Adrenaline and all that
Thats mad. Also explains Alonso's pitstop for SOFTS under VSC, when they had to lift one side of the car to get the front and rear on. Did AM and Alonso not realise during the race this had happened?
This is the opening paragraphs of the summmary of the race fron The Guardian.
"...Were Formula One considering quite what a show it would have without Red Bull’s dominance this season, the Singapore Grand Prix delivered a glimpse of this much-anticipated future, a spectacle beyond even the sport’s most wishful thinking.
Transforming from sedate to sensational as Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz hung on for a mighty victory, it was fitting that the curtain should fall on Red Bull’s relentless winning streak with a thriller in which the world champion elect Max Verstappen was but a bit-part player....'
The opening paragraph of the race summary from The Times
"...Formula One returned to its best under the lights in Singapore with an enthralling, breathless finish in which the top four cars fought within two seconds of each other for victory..."
So its not just me who thought it was great. We'll get back to the usual snorefest of RB domination at the next GP.
Besides, what makea this such a great day is that Max's run got stopped and RB wont have a perfect record of GP wins this season. Makes the evening so much sweeter.
I find it hard to believe so many people here dislike George Russel. He is not half bad as some make him out to be, pretty weird stuff.
Beyond weird. If it wasn't for the SC it would be your standard issue street circuit snoozefest.British sports journos being bitter shocker.
"spectacle beyond even the most wishful thinking"
Also "the battle for P1 is all that matters" and in the same time you have drivers at P1 and P2 basically helping each other. What can I say, edge of your seat stuff.
The best race of the season by far, the last 10 or so laps was some great racing by the top four. Great drive by Sainz.
Why? He's just not likeable at all.
It's the combo of being smug, a crybaby and a PR drone, also his habit of torpedoing other drivers and techpro barriers.
Indeed you are in the minority on this one.
Now this I don't think is correct but I don't watch British media regularly. Its just something robot-y about him. Very advanced humanoid but just barely still in the uncanny valley.
He's fine, just like leclerc he makes mistakes (slip of concentration) under pressure he cant afford to make if he ever wants to win a WDC in the future.
He comes across as bright and switched on in race commentary with his race engineer. Has the same sort of questions to be answered about him as does Lando, Leclerc, Sainz i.e. given a potential WDC capable car, could they deliver a WDC
That's nonsense.
He showed who he is, when he slapped Bottas after crashing him out of the race. No coming back from that.
If I'm Williams I'd certainly be speaking to Lawson and seeing if I could secure him to replace Sargeant if AT don't want him - there's a few races left to properly watch him as I remember being impressed by De Vries in his stand in stint last season and we all know how that turns out
Did Perez have a different set up to Max? Max was slicing through the field at the end while Perez continued to toil. He's usually decent on street tracks too
The race was really dull until the last few laps however that's the closeness at the front people want especially on a better overtaking track that would have been really interesting. When was the last time we had a race where 4 drivers had a chance of winning during the last few laps?
Did Perez have a different set up to Max? Max was slicing through the field at the end while Perez continued to toil. He's usually decent on street tracks too
The race was really dull until the last few laps however that's the closeness at the front people want especially on a better overtaking track that would have been really interesting. When was the last time we had a race where 4 drivers had a chance of winning during the last few laps?
He was too budy playing bumper cars, crashing with Albon & later Lawson.
Max was 14(or was it 17?)seconds behind Leclerc three laps before the end, how on earth did he almost pass him in the end?
He didn't really salvage anything. He started 11th and would have finished 8th if not for Alonso, Russell and Ocon throwing it. Though Ocon not really his fault but was having a great race.
Thought we had a chance to see Merc back on the podium in a 1-2 but really clever by Sainz knowing he'd finish 3rd if he didn't help Lando.
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I don’t think Russel is that likeable, but I don’t think he’s less likeable than most of the front runners, and think he gets a disproportionate amount of criticism.
He definitely panders to the audience which is very annoying, but he also makes brave, exciting calls.
He definitely panders to the audience which is very annoying, but he also makes brave, exciting calls.
It can't be that weird because that safety car and double stack did happen. You're basically saying 'if the thing that made the race exciting hadn't happened it would've been a dull race, so it's weird that people say it was exciting', which is kinda weird to be honest.
I also don't think anyone disagrees with the first half of the race being boring, but if the cars in 4th and 5th place both have a huge opportunity to win while coming out 20sec behind the leader with 18 laps to go and no one being able to predict the top 4 until the last few corners then I think that more than makes up for it, especially when we haven't seen anything like it in what feels like forever. Yea Norris didn't go for the win but that's just smart driving and made the Merc's hunting them down even more interesting to me as it added a layer you hardly ever see in F1, though I also get why others would've preferred to see him challenge Sainz.
I wish we could go back to when people who discussed these things discussed which back street boy was likable. I blame unity media and netflix.
It was debris picked up in lap 2 from Perez Tsunoda crash.
Its not too bad on here, quite tame. Stay on here for alittle while and you can figurebout quite easily who is a fan of what team.
There are some truly toxic f1 threads / sites i.e. facebook, gpblog or the comments pages on The-Race.com. The latter is a good site for F1 articles but they are closing the comments section / switching it to paying members only, as the toxic hatred gets in the way of actual useful interesting comments.
But as you said thats social media.
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Depends where you set your bar. There are other sports threads which have supporters of many teams /players which, for the most part, remain civil throughout the year. I think this thread is mostly civil but people in this thread do a much worse job across the spectrum of separating their bias from the discussion.
I don't think that's it, pretty sure the people who like Lewis generally like George too.
Anyway, enjoyable race yesterday and great to see the red bulls out of contention for once. Shows how great this season could/ would have been without them really as so many other teams have been close to each other all season.
How long does sainz have to match / beat le clerc for before opinion swings to him being as good as / better than him? He was brilliant all weekend.
With how the safety cars panned out he lost like 28 seconds compared to other drivers. His average race pace ended up being the 3rd best on the grid and that's with spending more time in traffic from being down the pack.
Of course he salvaged the race. His pace shows with a bit of luck or a better Quali setup he actually would have been fighting for the win.
Indeed. Last few laps were great but the superlatives to describe Singapore when we've had several races that were fun from just about start to finish is hilarious.British sports journos being bitter shocker.
"spectacle beyond even the most wishful thinking"
I was very impressed with Sainz this weekend. I think more than a few wrote him off as a ferrari no2 prematurely. The car has been quite unstable and the twitchy rear end had been difficult for Sainz to manage. However as they have stablised the car with recent updates, it seems to have come back towards Sainz.
Sainz seems like he's in the Button, Russell, Perez driving style of driver who needs a car to have a very stable rear end and for it to be nicely balanced. These guys can be really fast by being smooth with their driving ala Jackie Stewart, Alain Prost etc.
Leclerc on the other hand is blisteringly quick but has mistakes in him. He can deal with a twitchy car better than Sainz. However as the car becomes more balanced and drivable it will be interesting to see how they both compare for rest of the season.
edit: this is a interesting watch, martin brundle on Button, Alonso, Schmacher driving styles.
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Advanced apologies for the long post, however its a interesting read.
Driving styles of the 2019 F1 grid - an analysis
This is an excerpt from a book written by Gábor Wéber in 2019 called “Formula 1 in the 21st Century” (original title: Forma-1 a 21. században). Wéber is currently the main live F1 commentator in the Hungarian broadcast, he started commentating in 2002 and was the “expert commentator” (the equivalent to Martin Brundle, I don't know how to call it) for a long time before taking over main commentating duties in 2019. He raced touring cars professionally until 2014, his biggest achievement is winning the SEAT León Eurocup in 2010. He was an important figure in Hungarian sim-racing since the early days, for example by writing handbooks for car setups for various games since the early 2000’s and was an inspiration and mentor for Norbert Michelisz, 2019 World Touring Car Champion (who also came from a sim-racing background).
In his 2019 book, he writes about many technical aspects of Formula 1, from race car designs and philosophies, about finances in F1 to driving styles of the 2019 grid. Unfortunately, most people wouldn’t understand the book because it is written in Hungarian, but I tried to translate this very interesting and informative part. I highly recommend the book to any Hungarian speaking F1 fan and hope for the others, that it gets translated to English. Now on to the breakdown, starting from the back of the grid (the **highlights** and things in \[\] are my edits):
**Williams**
Every driver on the current grid has his own individual marks on his driving, but some couldn’t show their best side for various reasons. Most of the time, it was **Robert Kubica** who was at the back of the queue, he was only a shadow of his former self since his crash, and whatever they said about his injury, it has very much influenced his driving. His rocky handling of the steering wheel and his unsteady corner entries took away time from him especially in long corners, but he also lost considerably to his teammate under braking. He didn’t feel too well in the car and to be fair, it would have been a miracle, if we had seen the old Kubica on the track this year. **George Russell** on the other hand starred, he rose above the Pole in every aspect and could flash his skills in the Williams. With this hard-to-drive car, he managed to drive especially cleanly, precisely, with minimal corrections, he usually took the corners with one single movement of the steering wheel, while also not screwing around at braking and corner entry. It’s surprising, but based on his driving and accuracy, he is up there with the best and it’s no accident that he beat Kubica by that big of a margin.
**Haas**
The two Haas drivers are an enigma in regards of driving technique, because the only stability in it was their inconsistency, which of course has a lot to do with the car. **Kevin Magnussen** likes to start his corners early and absorbs his high entry speed with a lengthy “sailing” mid-corner phase, quasi deliberately generating understeer, but his lines are scattered and imprecise. This is no doubt the fault of the car, but with better adaptivity, one could have made more of this construction. **Romain Grosjean** is an even bigger enigma, because of the pair, he is more inspired at the wheel, but is at the same time very sensitive. He is among the hardest and latest braking drivers on the grid, but he does that while having very light downshifts, he balances the car beautifully with the brakes in mid-speed corner entries and because of that dares and is able to brake deep into the corner. As Magnussen is the type who approaches the corner with slightly too much speed and searches the limit from above, Grosjean can string together the brake-throttle transition masterfully and nearly invisibly, hurting the car less. It’s a shame that his talents are paired with such a sensitive driver’s soul, while one could even chop wood on the back of his Danish teammate.
**Alfa Romeo**
At Alfa, the team is clearly built around **Kimi Räikkönen**, who still turns in early with massive speed, but couldn’t do this effectively, if he wasn’t pinpoint accurate while hitting the apexes. Kimi’s throttle control is very refined, and he likes to balance the car with the throttle in long corners. \[**Antonio**\] **Giovinazzi** resembles him in the way, that his style is also light and unforced, and he likes to send his car deep into the corner. The Italian struggles more with finding the right rotation and it is obvious that he hasn’t got the right confidence yet, the reason for that could be that he tries to adapt to Räikkönen’s style, but it will not be completely his own. On top of that, in long corners he strangely rests his helmet on the outer side of his headrest, which raises fitness concerns – maybe it’s no coincidence that he is more prone to errors at the end of the races.
**Toro Rosso** \[now called Alpha Tauri\]
**Daniil Kvyat** confidently sends his Toro Rosso with huge speed into the corners, heavily using the engine braking, his last downshifts are especially brutal. He plays the role of the composed but reactive driver perfectly, but he trusts on the grip of the front axle to such an extent, that the slightest slip up can ruin his exit and his chances for a good lap time. His teammate who was demoted during the year, **Pierre Gasly** practices the craft of spurring the car even more masterfully, with deadly downshifts, then as soon as the rotation starts, he releases the brakes, nearly forcing the car into a drift. His style differs from that of Kvyat in that he can transfer the weight of the car faster and doesn’t need the grip of the front that much, but because of that, he can lose stability more quickly – as seen often during his Red Bull stint.
**Racing Point**
**Sergio Perez** is the perfect contrast to this \[Gasly\], a very anticipating driver with nearly classic lines, turning in slightly earlier than those. He’s the one who rather brakes early to have the perfect exit. He purposely drives a square line in slow corners but gains back the lost time in the following straight with a better exit. His technique is perfect for limiting tire wear and it’s what allows him to be one of the tire conserving specialists on the grid. On the other side of the Racing Point garage, we find the perfect opposite to Perez on the driver style spectrum, because **Lance Stroll** is the big improviser on the grid. A true reactive driver, who rides the horse bareback, he operates with very deep braking and carries much speed into the corner because of this. He constantly dances on the limit with the wheel and the pedals. From the outside, it seems like he only plans up to the middle of the corner and somehow fights his way from there to the straight, but his reaction time is incredible. This unrestful style is what limits his qualifying results, but it helps him during the races, because he reacts very well to unforeseen events and changing conditions, we rarely see him making mistakes then.
**Renault**
The Renault drivers approach driving with much more maturity, both driving very precise, geometric lines through corners. **Nico Hülkenberg** is the more graceful of the pair, who like Perez searches for the better exit, rather than braking too hard, rotating the car very well at the late corner entries. He was also born with a throttle patting right foot. Everybody remembers **Daniel Ricciardo** from his late, diving braking manoeuvres, but when he’s on his own, the most special thing is the accuracy with which he is able to do the important weight transfers. This requires a very healthy relationship with the brake pedal, but not in the sense of pressing it to the metal, rather the great feeling and rhythm of releasing it.
**McLaren**
The McLaren drivers differ quite a bit, **Carlos Sainz** is always searching for tiny corrections, he loves when the car lives underneath him. His downshifts are brutal, he moves the steering wheel very determined, uses engine braking much while turning in quite late to catch a late apex. **Lando Norris** on the other hand has a very elegant style, balancing sensibly at the corner entry and while he brakes very late into the corner, we rarely see a big smoke from lockups. It’s like he would want to invisibly trick physics, even his machine gun-like downshifts are much more rhythmic as opposed to other drivers.
**Red Bull**
It is beyond question, that one of the best performing drivers of the past years has been **Max Verstappen** and the Dutchman at Red Bull is now attacking the top of the sport, after developing much in short time. His driving technique is more akin to a precise 12-hour operation conducted by a brain surgeon according to a thought-out plan, than to the hot-headed behaviour of a young man in his twenties. The biggest trick of Verstappen’s speed is that he steers for a minimal amount of time and as the car starts to rotate, he controls it with the pedals, this is also an important aspect of his good tire management. His other even by F1 standards outstanding virtue is the precision of his “inner clock”, which leads to him arriving at every corner at the same exact point and in the exact way as he planned to do. He does this at every stage of the race regardless of speed or tire life. It’s no surprise that his teammates have a hard time and after the summer break, **Alexander Albon** has inherited this unthankful job. The British-Thai dual citizen’s style is actually the nearest to that of Verstappen, which could too justify the driver change before Spa. Albon’s biggest virtue is his calm, rhythmic driving, he doesn’t provoke the car and lets it work under him. He handles the RB15 with sensitive throttle control, without any hot-headedness and his accuracy puts him also into the better half of the field.
**Ferrari**
To be a Ferrari driver is the dream of most young drivers, but most of the time, proven drivers and champions get the seat. This changed this year with the arrival of **Charles Leclerc**, whose driving qualities are undoubted, and the traits of this year’s Ferrari helped him too with evolving into the team leader. The style of the Monegasque actually reminds of the early days Alonso, regarding his steering wheel movement and braking pressure at the corner entries. Leclerc carries some understeer into the balancing phase of the corner and rotates the car at a lower speed, this reduces the sensitivity of the rear of the SF90 which can appear under some circumstances. Another characteristic of his driving is that he hits late and flat apexes and prefers to short shift out of corners. The reason why he had some problems with tire management despite his short shifting is that he still is a reactive driver unlike Perez or Hülkenberg, sometimes “in the heat of the battle” he still is too hard in the throttle. Opposed to that, his teammate **Sebastian Vettel** knows everything about driving being a four-time champion, but this year he arrived at a dead end. His speed didn’t vanish, but his confidence was nearly wiped out completely, which generated more incomprehensible mistakes. The style of the German is based – as is the case with many drivers on the grid – on a high entry speed and on finding the balance with the brakes. This generates together with an early turn-in and early downshifts a rotation which the rear axle has to be able to counter. He used this masterfully during his Red Bull stint, especially with the blown diffuser. This year he was not bothered by this in low-speed or long corners, because his V-shaped lines helped him with this effect, but he remained vulnerable in short, mid-speed corners. This is because this year’s Ferrari was very sensitive at the rear at a certain ride height and angle, and the momentary loss of grip came at the worst times for Vettel. Despite this he seemingly didn’t change or couldn’t change and therefore ended his Ferrari career. What will happen with his F1 career...?
**Mercedes**
With six titles, 87 pole positions and 83 wins, **Lewis Hamilton** has been elevated to the all-time greats and is even in reaching range of the records of Michael Schumacher. Regarding his technique, he likes to brake late, sometimes even locking up his inner front tires, but he can’t be pigeonholed according to his lines. He likes to vary the late, early or normal entry lines, sometimes even on the same lap, according to the behaviour of his car, he’s a bit like a one-man band. His adaptability is one of his strongest weapons, but this wouldn’t help him without his outstanding precision, in this regard he and Verstappen are above the current field. Another trademark of his driving is his ability to transfer load very rapidly, which helps him especially on circuits with many chicanes. **Valtteri Bottas**’ style slightly differs from his teammate; he turns in quite early really throwing his car into the corner but as a master of the mid-corner he somehow always manages to hit the required minimal speed. Basically, as long as his front grips, he is crazy fast. His style is surprisingly aggressive, he likes when the back moves around and he has to correct it. Sometimes he can overdo it, his throttle control is also quite robotic, and the weight transfers are not that efficient as his teammates’.
The driving style of drivers is made of many small, sometimes hardly visible things. A big part of those come naturally and are unique, like a fingerprint or the rhythm of our breathing. Other parts can be learned and improved, and the best drivers never stop learning new things.
Source: Gábor Wéber (2019): Forma-1 a 21. században, p. 101-106
Driving styles of the 2019 F1 grid - an analysis
This is an excerpt from a book written by Gábor Wéber in 2019 called “Formula 1 in the 21st Century” (original title: Forma-1 a 21. században). Wéber is currently the main live F1 commentator in the Hungarian broadcast, he started commentating in 2002 and was the “expert commentator” (the equivalent to Martin Brundle, I don't know how to call it) for a long time before taking over main commentating duties in 2019. He raced touring cars professionally until 2014, his biggest achievement is winning the SEAT León Eurocup in 2010. He was an important figure in Hungarian sim-racing since the early days, for example by writing handbooks for car setups for various games since the early 2000’s and was an inspiration and mentor for Norbert Michelisz, 2019 World Touring Car Champion (who also came from a sim-racing background).
In his 2019 book, he writes about many technical aspects of Formula 1, from race car designs and philosophies, about finances in F1 to driving styles of the 2019 grid. Unfortunately, most people wouldn’t understand the book because it is written in Hungarian, but I tried to translate this very interesting and informative part. I highly recommend the book to any Hungarian speaking F1 fan and hope for the others, that it gets translated to English. Now on to the breakdown, starting from the back of the grid (the **highlights** and things in \[\] are my edits):
**Williams**
Every driver on the current grid has his own individual marks on his driving, but some couldn’t show their best side for various reasons. Most of the time, it was **Robert Kubica** who was at the back of the queue, he was only a shadow of his former self since his crash, and whatever they said about his injury, it has very much influenced his driving. His rocky handling of the steering wheel and his unsteady corner entries took away time from him especially in long corners, but he also lost considerably to his teammate under braking. He didn’t feel too well in the car and to be fair, it would have been a miracle, if we had seen the old Kubica on the track this year. **George Russell** on the other hand starred, he rose above the Pole in every aspect and could flash his skills in the Williams. With this hard-to-drive car, he managed to drive especially cleanly, precisely, with minimal corrections, he usually took the corners with one single movement of the steering wheel, while also not screwing around at braking and corner entry. It’s surprising, but based on his driving and accuracy, he is up there with the best and it’s no accident that he beat Kubica by that big of a margin.
**Haas**
The two Haas drivers are an enigma in regards of driving technique, because the only stability in it was their inconsistency, which of course has a lot to do with the car. **Kevin Magnussen** likes to start his corners early and absorbs his high entry speed with a lengthy “sailing” mid-corner phase, quasi deliberately generating understeer, but his lines are scattered and imprecise. This is no doubt the fault of the car, but with better adaptivity, one could have made more of this construction. **Romain Grosjean** is an even bigger enigma, because of the pair, he is more inspired at the wheel, but is at the same time very sensitive. He is among the hardest and latest braking drivers on the grid, but he does that while having very light downshifts, he balances the car beautifully with the brakes in mid-speed corner entries and because of that dares and is able to brake deep into the corner. As Magnussen is the type who approaches the corner with slightly too much speed and searches the limit from above, Grosjean can string together the brake-throttle transition masterfully and nearly invisibly, hurting the car less. It’s a shame that his talents are paired with such a sensitive driver’s soul, while one could even chop wood on the back of his Danish teammate.
**Alfa Romeo**
At Alfa, the team is clearly built around **Kimi Räikkönen**, who still turns in early with massive speed, but couldn’t do this effectively, if he wasn’t pinpoint accurate while hitting the apexes. Kimi’s throttle control is very refined, and he likes to balance the car with the throttle in long corners. \[**Antonio**\] **Giovinazzi** resembles him in the way, that his style is also light and unforced, and he likes to send his car deep into the corner. The Italian struggles more with finding the right rotation and it is obvious that he hasn’t got the right confidence yet, the reason for that could be that he tries to adapt to Räikkönen’s style, but it will not be completely his own. On top of that, in long corners he strangely rests his helmet on the outer side of his headrest, which raises fitness concerns – maybe it’s no coincidence that he is more prone to errors at the end of the races.
**Toro Rosso** \[now called Alpha Tauri\]
**Daniil Kvyat** confidently sends his Toro Rosso with huge speed into the corners, heavily using the engine braking, his last downshifts are especially brutal. He plays the role of the composed but reactive driver perfectly, but he trusts on the grip of the front axle to such an extent, that the slightest slip up can ruin his exit and his chances for a good lap time. His teammate who was demoted during the year, **Pierre Gasly** practices the craft of spurring the car even more masterfully, with deadly downshifts, then as soon as the rotation starts, he releases the brakes, nearly forcing the car into a drift. His style differs from that of Kvyat in that he can transfer the weight of the car faster and doesn’t need the grip of the front that much, but because of that, he can lose stability more quickly – as seen often during his Red Bull stint.
**Racing Point**
**Sergio Perez** is the perfect contrast to this \[Gasly\], a very anticipating driver with nearly classic lines, turning in slightly earlier than those. He’s the one who rather brakes early to have the perfect exit. He purposely drives a square line in slow corners but gains back the lost time in the following straight with a better exit. His technique is perfect for limiting tire wear and it’s what allows him to be one of the tire conserving specialists on the grid. On the other side of the Racing Point garage, we find the perfect opposite to Perez on the driver style spectrum, because **Lance Stroll** is the big improviser on the grid. A true reactive driver, who rides the horse bareback, he operates with very deep braking and carries much speed into the corner because of this. He constantly dances on the limit with the wheel and the pedals. From the outside, it seems like he only plans up to the middle of the corner and somehow fights his way from there to the straight, but his reaction time is incredible. This unrestful style is what limits his qualifying results, but it helps him during the races, because he reacts very well to unforeseen events and changing conditions, we rarely see him making mistakes then.
**Renault**
The Renault drivers approach driving with much more maturity, both driving very precise, geometric lines through corners. **Nico Hülkenberg** is the more graceful of the pair, who like Perez searches for the better exit, rather than braking too hard, rotating the car very well at the late corner entries. He was also born with a throttle patting right foot. Everybody remembers **Daniel Ricciardo** from his late, diving braking manoeuvres, but when he’s on his own, the most special thing is the accuracy with which he is able to do the important weight transfers. This requires a very healthy relationship with the brake pedal, but not in the sense of pressing it to the metal, rather the great feeling and rhythm of releasing it.
**McLaren**
The McLaren drivers differ quite a bit, **Carlos Sainz** is always searching for tiny corrections, he loves when the car lives underneath him. His downshifts are brutal, he moves the steering wheel very determined, uses engine braking much while turning in quite late to catch a late apex. **Lando Norris** on the other hand has a very elegant style, balancing sensibly at the corner entry and while he brakes very late into the corner, we rarely see a big smoke from lockups. It’s like he would want to invisibly trick physics, even his machine gun-like downshifts are much more rhythmic as opposed to other drivers.
**Red Bull**
It is beyond question, that one of the best performing drivers of the past years has been **Max Verstappen** and the Dutchman at Red Bull is now attacking the top of the sport, after developing much in short time. His driving technique is more akin to a precise 12-hour operation conducted by a brain surgeon according to a thought-out plan, than to the hot-headed behaviour of a young man in his twenties. The biggest trick of Verstappen’s speed is that he steers for a minimal amount of time and as the car starts to rotate, he controls it with the pedals, this is also an important aspect of his good tire management. His other even by F1 standards outstanding virtue is the precision of his “inner clock”, which leads to him arriving at every corner at the same exact point and in the exact way as he planned to do. He does this at every stage of the race regardless of speed or tire life. It’s no surprise that his teammates have a hard time and after the summer break, **Alexander Albon** has inherited this unthankful job. The British-Thai dual citizen’s style is actually the nearest to that of Verstappen, which could too justify the driver change before Spa. Albon’s biggest virtue is his calm, rhythmic driving, he doesn’t provoke the car and lets it work under him. He handles the RB15 with sensitive throttle control, without any hot-headedness and his accuracy puts him also into the better half of the field.
**Ferrari**
To be a Ferrari driver is the dream of most young drivers, but most of the time, proven drivers and champions get the seat. This changed this year with the arrival of **Charles Leclerc**, whose driving qualities are undoubted, and the traits of this year’s Ferrari helped him too with evolving into the team leader. The style of the Monegasque actually reminds of the early days Alonso, regarding his steering wheel movement and braking pressure at the corner entries. Leclerc carries some understeer into the balancing phase of the corner and rotates the car at a lower speed, this reduces the sensitivity of the rear of the SF90 which can appear under some circumstances. Another characteristic of his driving is that he hits late and flat apexes and prefers to short shift out of corners. The reason why he had some problems with tire management despite his short shifting is that he still is a reactive driver unlike Perez or Hülkenberg, sometimes “in the heat of the battle” he still is too hard in the throttle. Opposed to that, his teammate **Sebastian Vettel** knows everything about driving being a four-time champion, but this year he arrived at a dead end. His speed didn’t vanish, but his confidence was nearly wiped out completely, which generated more incomprehensible mistakes. The style of the German is based – as is the case with many drivers on the grid – on a high entry speed and on finding the balance with the brakes. This generates together with an early turn-in and early downshifts a rotation which the rear axle has to be able to counter. He used this masterfully during his Red Bull stint, especially with the blown diffuser. This year he was not bothered by this in low-speed or long corners, because his V-shaped lines helped him with this effect, but he remained vulnerable in short, mid-speed corners. This is because this year’s Ferrari was very sensitive at the rear at a certain ride height and angle, and the momentary loss of grip came at the worst times for Vettel. Despite this he seemingly didn’t change or couldn’t change and therefore ended his Ferrari career. What will happen with his F1 career...?
**Mercedes**
With six titles, 87 pole positions and 83 wins, **Lewis Hamilton** has been elevated to the all-time greats and is even in reaching range of the records of Michael Schumacher. Regarding his technique, he likes to brake late, sometimes even locking up his inner front tires, but he can’t be pigeonholed according to his lines. He likes to vary the late, early or normal entry lines, sometimes even on the same lap, according to the behaviour of his car, he’s a bit like a one-man band. His adaptability is one of his strongest weapons, but this wouldn’t help him without his outstanding precision, in this regard he and Verstappen are above the current field. Another trademark of his driving is his ability to transfer load very rapidly, which helps him especially on circuits with many chicanes. **Valtteri Bottas**’ style slightly differs from his teammate; he turns in quite early really throwing his car into the corner but as a master of the mid-corner he somehow always manages to hit the required minimal speed. Basically, as long as his front grips, he is crazy fast. His style is surprisingly aggressive, he likes when the back moves around and he has to correct it. Sometimes he can overdo it, his throttle control is also quite robotic, and the weight transfers are not that efficient as his teammates’.
The driving style of drivers is made of many small, sometimes hardly visible things. A big part of those come naturally and are unique, like a fingerprint or the rhythm of our breathing. Other parts can be learned and improved, and the best drivers never stop learning new things.
Source: Gábor Wéber (2019): Forma-1 a 21. században, p. 101-106
Re Stroll:
"...but his reaction time is incredible. This unrestful style is what limits his qualifying results, but it helps him during the races, because he reacts very well to unforeseen events and changing conditions, we rarely see him making mistakes then."
It wasn't as much to do with his pace and more to do with the fact that Sainz was backing the pack up for the entire race. All the drivers behind him were telling their engineers how slowly he was going. He lost time to safety cars that he gained back with Sainz driving with seconds of pace in hand and backing the field up for the whole race on top of having 3 drivers ahead of him DNF. He was stuck behind Ocon for a significant portion of the race unable to do anything.
Yeah, he wasn't that fast when you consider that first part of the race everyone was slow and he was unable to overtake.
Nothing to do with technical regulations though, as I am sure they would complain a lot if they had to slow their car for two seconds. Even Horner didn't complain. I am sure they will be back to their best next race though, as it was pretty much explained why they were so slow.
Nothing to do with technical regulations though, as I am sure they would complain a lot if they had to slow their car for two seconds. Even Horner didn't complain. I am sure they will be back to their best next race though, as it was pretty much explained why they were so slow.
i’m with marko, they were clearly slow because one of their drivers comes from a brown country.
No wonder Max drives like a mad man and escapes Checo every tine, he doesn't want to be anywhere near any mexican beside him.
Good analysis. Unsurprisingly the key trait across the best drivers is precision and aggression, but many of them like to balance the car on the throttle rather than steering. Whether its scalpel like efficiency like Verstappen or wild and on the limit like Senna.
I think that's a bit of a biased view of it tbh, he was trying to make his way through the pack from the get go and got stuck behind Ocon on like lap 8 for a significant amount of the race after that. It's not like he just decided in the first 10 laps he didn't want to attack any more, nor did anybody need to bit at that point - and if he had the blistering pace that laughterassassin is trying to credit him with, then he would have taken them without issue. It sems quite obvious that the car was lacking pace all weekend, he was fortunate to salvage 5 with Ocon, Alonso and Russel retiring otherwise it would have been a bland P11 -> P8 for him.
That's a nothing burger, because as George and Lando were saying to their engineers all race - Sainz was driving slowly and backing the race up. I think it was George at one point replied to his engineer telling him Sainz reported he had a seconds pace in hand by saying "I'm surprised he didn't say 2" and the commentators were referencing him backing the cars behind him up and slowing them down all race.
That wasn't Max on beast mode, it was Max driving normal speed and Sainz driving slowly so it should be fairly obvious he'd close the gap.
Especially a Mexican who comes from South America.
The worst kind.
LH helmet for Japanese GP
