They are only so far ahead in his hands though, in Checo's they're about level with the three chasing teams.
F1 2023 Season
- Thread starter pauldyson1uk
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Nik (@Rood) and Imran (@Annihilate Now!) discuss United's fantastic win away against Athletic Club in the semi-final of the Europa League.
They also pick out the positives of United's 4-3 loss away at Brentford, and Nik reviews a day out at Old Trafford watching Manchester United Women qualify for the Champions League.
They are only so far ahead in his hands though, in Checo's they're about level with the three chasing teams.
Thats cause checo is rubbish. Alonso and Hamilton could do exactly what max has done in the RB this season.
I'm not debating that, just saying that you take Max out of the equation then you have 7 drivers who could realistically win. Every race would be massive.
Next season and 2025 is a massive test of the new rules. In theory the pack i.e. ferrari/merc/mclaren should catch up to RB. As RB have the least amount of CFD and Wind Tunnel time. Although they started working on the 2024 car back in April/May.
Cautiously optimisitic that the gap to RB should reduce. Hoepfully the other teams will have figured out the DRS trick that RB use and will be able to negate that advantage.
Then again Adrian Newey could come up with some other brilliant idea.
To be fair - neither Alonso nor Lewis were ever this scary consistent. And their teams also fecked up a lot of strategic calls. RB still managed to win races during the Merc days because either Lewis or his teammate fecked up, or their team as a whole did.
Yes agree, Hamilton was bickering with Rosberg. Also the reliability of the cars has increased alot in past few seasons due to the stringent rules about parts.
Give max a strong driver as a partner instead if checo and theres a chance RB could have lost races if the squabbling between rhe pair boiled over.
They will catch up but everyone except Ferrari have only changed concept this season so unfortunately I expect RB to still be ahead next season though maybe not as dominant.
Red bull prioritise max far more than mercedes prioritise Lewis.
Ferrari have fixed the fundamental flaw with the balance of the car recently. Though they arent slavishly following the RB concept as the rest of the grid is. Whether thats a mistake, time will tell
We know Mclaren need to work on their slow speed corners. Other than that they have a very quick car.
Mercedes should improve signficantly. This seasons car was designed for slim sidepods. Next season will be a james allison designed car. The first designed by him since end of turbo hybrid era. Mercedes have poor grip at the rear of the car. Get that fixed and hamilton and russell will be able to really push the car.
So therefore im catiously hopeful for next season. RB will start the season with an advantage,but if its only 0.1 or 0.2 in race pace then the other teams can catch up and we could have a championship worth watching again.
Which is arguably a weakness they have, and probably why Max was able to split the two Mercs so often. There isn't a right answer here though. Teams do what they think works best for them.
An FIA spokesperson said: "The FIA is revisiting the incident in which Lewis Hamilton crossed a live track during the Qatar Grand Prix. "The FIA notes that Lewis was apologetic during the subsequent Stewards hearing in to the incident and acknowledged that the crossing was a serious safety breach.
This is just bullshit.
https://www.planetf1.com/news/lewis-hamilton-qatar-gp-fia
This is just bullshit.
https://www.planetf1.com/news/lewis-hamilton-qatar-gp-fia
Yeah saw that. I ll admit I thought the initial penalty was too light for something that dangerous - but to revisit it after they already issued it seems stupid. I hope what they do instead is send the message that upon further review blah blah that drivers who do it in the future will get a much more severe penalty like points on their license, grid drop etc.
It's pretty amazing how Max's brilliance is still underrated. We are talking about driver who would come out on track first of any driver on rainy Q2 after clear practices and Q1, and would set up time 2-3 second faster than others behind him, simply because he is having absolutely great season, that's not just the car, even if he has the best car on the grid. If you think the car is the sole reason for his form, go watch Q3 from Monaco and you'll be convinced otherwise, that kind of driving, that last sector is almost unseen.
Alonso and Hamilton aren't anywhere near form wise to Verstappen in these past two seasons, they have made couple of rookie mistakes and I have no idea why people still put them on that level. Hamilton isn't even clearly better than Russel in last two seasons, only on this forum I see people put him still in Tier1 driver on the grid, since it's pretty obvious his age caught up with him.
Alonso and Hamilton aren't anywhere near form wise to Verstappen in these past two seasons, they have made couple of rookie mistakes and I have no idea why people still put them on that level. Hamilton isn't even clearly better than Russel in last two seasons, only on this forum I see people put him still in Tier1 driver on the grid, since it's pretty obvious his age caught up with him.
I agree the fine at the time was lenient, but that’s what they gave and should stick with it.
Going down the role model route, I can see a race ban coming.
Max has had zero pressure. The car has been miles ahead of the grid, Perez is shit and the team are solely behind him. It's as easy as it can get for a driver.
I don't think he's underrated. He's rated about as highly as someone can be in such a privileged position. When there's pressure from within the team, that's when things start to go wrong.
I thought the same last year… RB have such a lead and understanding plus started on next years car early then you’d expect them to improve and be on pace race 1. Qualifying can be close but race pace and being easy on tyres is where they are so far ahead.
Leclerc or someone recently said it might be difficult to catch them before the next rule changes, whether that’s politics to get FIA to do something or reality I guess we’ll see but its rare to lose such dominance without rule changes as we’ve seen with Merc and RB.
It’s a shame because it’s probably one of the most talented set of drivers we have had in a while.
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In my opinion give Alonso, Max, Hamilton, Lando, Leclerc, or Russell the slightly fastest car and they will each win the championship. A couple of other drivers are easy race winners but still have a bit more to improve, the closest being Sainz.
Rumour is Geely may acquire Aston Martin and have Zhou as team mate for Alonso in 2025.
That’s funny as I just read a rumour that Honda are thinking of doing that with tsunoda going there
The same mistakes were made by Verstappen when he didn't have a rocket of a car which is far superior to everyone else's on the grid. We have seen Verstappen lose his cool multiple times when he was under pressure. It's easy to forget all that when he has this all conquering season.
Max, Lewis yes 100 % Alonso and Lando yeah maybe, personally I think Leclerc and Russell, make to many mistakes under pressure, but all drivers makes mistakes under pressure and not
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This is interesting, if there is any truth in it.
F1 rumours: Christian Horner wants Helmut Marko out in ‘political fight’ at Red Bull (msn.com)
F1 rumours: Christian Horner wants Helmut Marko out in ‘political fight’ at Red Bull (msn.com)
They don't want to change Hamilton's penalty, but review and standardize penalties for this kind of offence, which is a good thing.
that seems fair enough.
Yeah, I was more also alluding to the fact Max is so consistent is also because Red Bull go all in on making sure he has the undisputed best car. I'd argue Lewis would have been able to do that at Mercedes more if it was like that during the Rosberg era. I do think Lewis had an edge, but not to the extent Max does over his teammates.
I’m not a big fan of Max, but I can admit he’s been scarily good this season. He can eek out every second of one of the best cars ever made, that has been tailored to his brilliant pointy-nose style of driving that somehow is so gentle on the tyres.
Better than Lewis and Alonso over the last two seasons, who i think would be comfortably winning the championship with Perez as a team mate, but not by so much and would have made more mistakes.
The key caveat thought is that Lewis generally steps up a gear when he feels he is under pressure, when Max can see red and makes mistakes in such situations. So to see him with a teammate as uncompetitive as Perez is a shame.
Hamilton is clearly better in race trim than Russel. Last season, he only fell so far behind because he was trying (crap) parts, and then significantly caught up when they were both using the same car. This season, with the same car, Hamilton again is comfortably ahead.
Fair points, except the last part, IMO. For all Russel's fault and problems(he had lot of bad luck this year), Hamilton isn't that far ahead at all.
I think the top drivers learn quick and settle when they get the opportunity. It wasn't that long ago Max was called Crashtappen with dangerous driving and incidents with several drivers causing a big focus on overtaking rules.
Lewis is third in the championship with arguably the fourth fastest car over the whole season, which is very impressive given they probably also have the slowest pit stops.
George is 8th. This is top level racing, where mistakes tend to cost you.
In Canada he got a puncture, wing damage and brake issues by hitting the wall. We all know the last lap crash in Singapore was also a massive mistake. He hasn’t made it through to q3 4 times.
The Norris collision was unlucky for Russell. As was being hit by Lewis in Qatar, although the points swing (quite fairly) was greater in Russell’s favour than if the crash didn’t happen.
Saying George has equalled Lewis this season is recency bias. Since Lewis stopped testing crap parts, there has been a decent gap between them on race day.
Isn't it a tad absurd to allow these men to go racing on that circuit with a 1000hp but not trust a champion to judge whether it's safe to cross the road (during full course yellow, none the less)? A slap on the wrist fine I wouldn't care about, but if the people who let F1 race in a oven... Well nothing. They're already clowns either way, and every self respecting race fan knows it.
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Some serious injuries and even death has occured because of people crossing the track with cars are on it. To say it's sort of fine when a F1 driver does it, whoever it is - is a dangerous precedent to set. As I said before I don't think Lewis penalty should be revisited - and it doesn't sound like it is - but going forward there should be a much stronger punishment associated with it - and it should be applied across all motor racing events under FIA's purview.
agreed. i reckon, with all things being equal, and all teams abiding to the cost cap, they’d probably have the best overall package at this stage.
You're being a bit dramatic here. People cross the track all the time under full yellow. That's the point of a full yellow... to let people across to pick up shit or tow a car away etc. F1 drivers know every bit of that process and will be perfectly capable of judging when it is safe (taking part in these events is all they do from age 5). Lewis wasn't risking his life to save himself from walking a couple 100 feet.
In my opinion it can carry some meaningless fine like almost everything else in F1 if it must but beyond that is over the top.
Question then: if this would be a driver you absolutely loathe would you have the exact same feeling about it? Because too often it seems people look at these things from the perspective of defending their favorite driver(s). And again, I am not arguing he should be penalized more. Saying it's dramatic what I'm saying though: what about marshals, stewards, members of the public etc crossing a live track? People can trip and fall, drop an object on the track, etc. If there is no other possible alternative then that should factor into it's but again, while it may seem harmless now, precedent setting is dangerous - when it can so quickly lead to something worse.
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Of the current ones I don't really loathe any. I like some more than others, and I'll easily admit I like Hamilton most. However I feel F1 is going down the route the NBA took about 15 years ago and many sports have gone where the governing body almost disrespects the sportsperson by the restrictions they put on them. These drivers risk their lives for the sport every time they step into an F1 car. On any day of the racing weekend. All of them, the poorer ones probably even more than the better ones. They shouldn't be treated as children or idiots incapable of sound judgement. Whether that concerns jewelry they decide to wear, statements they want to make or crossing the track at a safe time. Again give him a fine if they must but don't treat him like an idiot to be made an example of. Especially when that role model aspect would have never come into it at all if they hadn't made such a public thing out of it. As far as I can remember it wasn't on the live stream, was it?
The times I have seen F1 be dangerous in the past 10 years it was almost always exclusively down to the organisation. Whether that be racing in conditions where drivers claim to be on the fringe of passing out, recovery trucks on track at points and times they shouldn't have been or surfaces not fit for the tires they themselves define the rules of. The people running the sport should be a lot more humble towards those taking part, considering.
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I’ll clarify. By potentially the fourth worst car, what I mean is the fourth least likely to win a race. They’ve never been as close to having the fastest car as Ferrari, AM or McLaren.
They’ve been worse than AM in the first third of the season, and worse than McLaren in the second third. And obviously worse then RB throughout.
They’ve been better than Ferrari under race trim, but often had to come through the field more. They’re within 30 points, and I’d put that mostly down to tactical calls over the season and Lewis (ignoring the last few races) rather than a significant difference in outright performance.
Apparently Mercedes are bringing a new floor this weekend which should give them a good idea of whether they're on the right track for next year's car.
The Mercedes has been pretty consistent throughout the season. I don't think Hamilton is doing anything extraordinary, despite the fact that he is obviously a very good driver. They haven't had the massive swings that AM or McClaren have had, and overall they've been better than Ferrari. AM was very strong for the first half of the season but has now fallen off a cliff, and McClaren was terrible for the first half of the season (or more). Whereas Mercedes have been solid, and have had times where they were probably the second best car. It's definitely better than Ferrari, both in terms of the car and the tactical calls.
Also, when you factor in that all these teams have been taking points off each other in what has been quite a competitive field (outside of Max) then it's really no surprise where he is. And the fact that he can finish second says more about Perez.
Also, when you factor in that all these teams have been taking points off each other in what has been quite a competitive field (outside of Max) then it's really no surprise where he is. And the fact that he can finish second says more about Perez.
Forgot it was another Sprint race weekend
