F1 2024 Season

That's just nonsense from Crofty, once again. Like so many in the British press he likes to push a narrative and yesterday it was this. He went on and on about it to the point where almost everyone on social media was telling him to shut up. His commentary was absolutely shite yesterday, I'm sorry to say. I usually watch through F1TV with English commentary instead of Dutch because I always found it to be of better quality and more balanced but lately I've been second guessing myself on this. It's biased, filled with narratives like these and the way he hypes stuff up feels very artificial.
Fair point, I find Crofty OK sometimes and unbeatable most, not watched the fully race yet , so only got a bit of the sim racing comments, but it’s not the first time I have heard about Max burning the candle at both ends. Is it true , honestly I have no idea.
 
Yeah it's true. I thought it was quite funny and I was surprised max was doing it (staying up so late on a race night). Not the first time apparently but when everything is so close maybe a bit of focus on the day job might help.

If I was being a cnut to everyone I work with and it became known that I was up until the early hours the night before I would feel pretty embarrassed.
 
McLaren put him in that position by pitting lando first, if they pitted piastri first since he was the leading car then he would've won easily. He deserved that win.

We will never know that. He’d already made one mistake (and made another one shortly after pitting) and Norris would probably have been right behind him. He would probably still have won, as Norris wouldn’t have taken any unnecessary risks and it’s very hard to overtake in Hungary, but there’s nothing to suggest that he’d have driven away on slightly older tyres as Lando did.
 
That's just nonsense from Crofty, once again. Like so many in the British press he likes to push a narrative and yesterday it was this. He went on and on about it to the point where almost everyone on social media was telling him to shut up. His commentary was absolutely shite yesterday, I'm sorry to say. I usually watch through F1TV with English commentary instead of Dutch because I always found it to be of better quality and more balanced but lately I've been second guessing myself on this. It's biased, filled with narratives like these and the way he hypes stuff up feels very artificial.
I use F1TV app but I select the other english commentary. No Crofty anymore for me. It makes watching races at least ten times better
 
Yeah it's true. I thought it was quite funny and I was surprised max was doing it (staying up so late on a race night). Not the first time apparently but when everything is so close maybe a bit of focus on the day job might help.

If I was being a cnut to everyone I work with and it became known that I was up until the early hours the night before I would feel pretty embarrassed.
Max has done this many times (and won both online and offline). Red Bull know about it and it's not a problem. For all we know he could have had 8 hours sleep and still be on track hours before the race. We know Max has been unhappy with the car and the team for weeks, he's commented plenty on that, and they had a lot riding on this update package and it didn't work as well as expected. Add to that the shite decisions made by the team in the race, things not going his way with the turn 1 crap plus the car understeering and not having grip and you have an angry Max. But now because he's been up late sim racing that's what's to blame according to the all knowing Crofty. As if Max hasn't been angry on the radio before as well, it's just baseless bollocks, a narrative to spin.
 
Max has done this many times (and won both online and offline). Red Bull know about it and it's not a problem. For all we know he could have had 8 hours sleep and still be on track hours before the race. We know Max has been unhappy with the car and the team for weeks, he's commented plenty on that, and they had a lot riding on this update package and it didn't work as well as expected. Add to that the shite decisions made by the team in the race, things not going his way with the turn 1 crap plus the car understeering and not having grip and you have an angry Max. But now because he's been up late sim racing that's what's to blame according to the all knowing Crofty. As if Max hasn't been angry on the radio before as well, it's just baseless bollocks, a narrative to spin.
I will agree about the SIM racing. It's what he does to relax. Nico Rosberg complained about him playing SIM racing as well. Max and Lando are a different generation, to them it's normal whereas the older generations don't understand it.

Max was taking part in a 24 hour race with his team so was up late and up early to do his stints in the SIM racing. So I think that affected him on track in the GP? Nah not at all.

It's all been blown out of proportion, it's not like he's gone skiing or rock climbing or playing football before a race.

Btw @ArjenIsM3, do you think RedBull have made a huge mistake going away from last year's all conquering car concept? I find it incredible that a 20-30 second lead (that max had in most races last season) has been turned around so quickly. I think this is one of the reasons he's so angry.
 
Max was taking part in a 24 hour race with his team so was up late and up early to do his stints in the SIM racing. So I think that affected him on track in the GP? Nah not at all.

It’s hard to believe it didn’t have any impact if he was up until 4am. Even Max isn’t going to know.

It’s certainly something that’s completely fair to call out, especially when the person concerned spends the entire race sounding out of sorts and makes two significant errors, one of which put the safety of another driver at risk and for which he should have been penalised.

This isn’t a situation anymore where he is in a dominant car. He will have to be completely professional for the rest of the season or that lead may well evaporate.
 
I will agree about the SIM racing. It's what he does to relax. Nico Rosberg complained about him playing SIM racing as well. Max and Lando are a different generation, to them it's normal whereas the older generations don't understand it.

Max was taking part in a 24 hour race with his team so was up late and up early to do his stints in the SIM racing. So I think that affected him on track in the GP? Nah not at all.

It's all been blown out of proportion, it's not like he's gone skiing or rock climbing or playing football before a race.

Btw @ArjenIsM3, do you think RedBull have made a huge mistake going away from last year's all conquering car concept? I find it incredible that a 20-30 second lead (that max had in most races last season) has been turned around so quickly. I think this is one of the reasons he's so angry.

I have seen it suggested that red bull have developed, not the wrong way, but maybe a more limiting way, that makes the car really hard to set up now they are getting to the maximum they can potentially extract. Others have caught them up a bit more and they are struggling to develop much further. Last season they could be off if and still win easily but now they need to be close to perfect a lot of the time and that's much harder to do.

I do lean into this theory based off Perez being so useless. The car must just be a nightmare to drive on the edge, and that's the difference between a driver like max and a driver like Perez who is fine, but nowhere near the best drivers of the sport.
 
Max has done this many times (and won both online and offline). Red Bull know about it and it's not a problem. For all we know he could have had 8 hours sleep and still be on track hours before the race. We know Max has been unhappy with the car and the team for weeks, he's commented plenty on that, and they had a lot riding on this update package and it didn't work as well as expected. Add to that the shite decisions made by the team in the race, things not going his way with the turn 1 crap plus the car understeering and not having grip and you have an angry Max. But now because he's been up late sim racing that's what's to blame according to the all knowing Crofty. As if Max hasn't been angry on the radio before as well, it's just baseless bollocks, a narrative to spin.

Easier to do it in a much faster car. A potential lack of sleep will certainly effect your ability to deal with stress and considering how badly things went I think we did see that imo. Yesterday he seemed particularly bad on the radio, even for him.

It's fine for us to disagree.
 
I mean, it was Max's first bad race in almost two years, and people don't think he should be criticised for staying up late and playing sim racing?

If I was team owner I would definitely have a word about him on that.

Saying that, it's funny how entire team collapses as soon as something is not wrong, their strategy was poor, they pitting times were shite, and Max driving was worse than usual. Even the car setup wasn't listening to them, but that's probably just nervousness that comes with it.

if we had on track fight for the first place, it would go down in history as one of legendary races, despite being average in general.


"But I think some people do need to wake up a bit,"

Asked who are the ones who need to wake up, he says: "I don't need to go into details who that is."

Bit rich coming from someone who didn't had any sleep, right @rimaldo ?
 
jesus christ. the max defence league is in over drive. i’d be keen to see the same poster’s thoughts on rashford in belfast…
 
I will agree about the SIM racing. It's what he does to relax. Nico Rosberg complained about him playing SIM racing as well. Max and Lando are a different generation, to them it's normal whereas the older generations don't understand it.

Max was taking part in a 24 hour race with his team so was up late and up early to do his stints in the SIM racing. So I think that affected him on track in the GP? Nah not at all.

It's all been blown out of proportion, it's not like he's gone skiing or rock climbing or playing football before a race.

Btw @ArjenIsM3, do you think RedBull have made a huge mistake going away from last year's all conquering car concept? I find it incredible that a 20-30 second lead (that max had in most races last season) has been turned around so quickly. I think this is one of the reasons he's so angry.
It's always hard to judge these things from the outside isn't it? I think the car is a bit faster than last year's car but they've made nowhere near the jump other teams have and they've introduced so many problems with the new concept that questions should definitely be asked. They now have issues with correlation and depending on the track with a combination of tyres, balance, understeer, brakes.. it seems it's a nightmare to setup and very hard to drive. I agree with @pacifictheme on this bit.

Easier to do it in a much faster car. A potential lack of sleep will certainly effect your ability to deal with stress and considering how badly things went I think we did see that imo. Yesterday he seemed particularly bad on the radio, even for him.

It's fine for us to disagree.

I don't disagree with the fact that lack of sleep can affect your mental and physical abilities, I'm experiencing that as I type this. Had 3-4 hours of sleep last night, I just couldn't sleep, and I feel hungover despite not having had a drop of alcohol yesterday :lol:

What I don't like is Crofty acting as if he knew for a fact that Max didn't get enough sleep while all he knew was Max was up untill 3am playing iRacing. Meaning he could still easily have gotten 8 hours of sleep. Or maybe he sleeps between sessions and still got plenty of rest. And even if he didn't get a full night sleep, Crofty chooses to ignore all the other (much bigger) factors angering Max and puts all the blame on his lack of sleep, and proceeds to mention it a hundred fecking times. It's just silly.

jesus christ. the max defence league is in over drive. i’d be keen to see the same poster’s thoughts on rashford in belfast…

If you must know I think there is a difference between what is basically training in a simulator untill 3 am and partying untill 3 am :lol:
 
For what it’s worth, tiredness causes quite a large percentage of road accidents because people’s reactions aren’t as good. I’m not saying he’s falling asleep at the wheel, but I don’t think it’s something that you can just dismiss as biased because certain F1 personalities don’t like Max.

If he’s playing a game till 3am, he’s probably not actually getting to sleep till at least 4am. It’s pretty irresponsible when you’ve got a millions being spent on the tiniest of small gains, a whole team of people trying to find you hundredths of a second advantage each lap.

I feel like the people defending him would have a different view if it was a United player, even though F1 is waaay more important to be mentally rested.
 
If you must know I think there is a difference between what is basically training in a simulator untill 3 am and partying untill 3 am :lol:

i find drinking and and partying pretty relaxing. it’s one of the only times i forget all my other worries and responsibilities. if it helps him before a big game, then why not?
 
For what it’s worth, tiredness causes quite a large percentage of road accidents because people’s reactions aren’t as good. I’m not saying he’s falling asleep at the wheel, but I don’t think it’s something that you can just dismiss as biased because certain F1 personalities don’t like Max.

If he’s playing a game till 3am, he’s probably not actually getting to sleep till at least 4am. It’s pretty irresponsible when you’ve got a millions being spent on the tiniest of small gains, a whole team of people trying to find you hundredths of a second advantage each lap.

I feel like the people defending him would have a different view if it was a United player, even though F1 is waaay more important to be mentally rested.

there’s literally no excuse for it. max might stop behaving like a spoilt brat if people stopped allowing him to behave like one. i think the tone in the team radio to him showed his pit crew’s thoughts and feelings on the matter. you’ve got perez’s crew working half the night to get his car ready for the race, whilst max is pulling his todger sim racing.
 
I don’t dislike Max, if his sim racing is affecting his F1 racing and if lack of sleep is what causing the grumpy, bad tempered reactions, then it’s irresponsible on him part,
But my own thoughts are that it’s mainly the upgrades on the car have made it worse and he is frustrated at that and that is fully understandable.
Sim racing will be his way of relaxing
 
Max is up sim racing or gaming well past midnight most nights before qualifying and gps. This is nothing new or special, Crofty is just an idiot.

The only difference is he won a more prestigious event, the 24 hrs at Spa yesterday and 24 hrs at Nurburgring the same day he won at Imola.

It’s nothing to do with sleep. It’s disbelief that RB have messed the RB20 up to this extent when the RB19 would probably be the fastest car on this grid.
Or it is actually because he’s unhappy with the car and extra grouchy because lack of sleep. Never seen this before as he was always half a lap infront of everyone because of the car
 
Fernando Alonso BLAMES Mercedes over retirement decision:

- Fernando Alonso cited Mercedes' dominance during the hybrid era as a significant factor in his decision to retire from Formula 1 in 2018.

- Alonso ended his career after an unsuccessful stint with McLaren, achieving his best championship finish of P10 in 2016.

- Following retirement, Alonso won another Le Mans 24-Hour race in 2019 and competed in the Dakar Rally in 2020.

- Mercedes' success, winning eight consecutive constructors' titles and most drivers' championships from 2014 to 2021, contrasted with Alonso's challenges at McLaren.

- Alonso's return to F1 with Alpine in 2021 marked a comeback to the sport after his hiatus influenced by Mercedes' dominance.

"In 2018, when I stopped, I felt it was too predictable,"

"The dominance of Mercedes was too much to really enjoy being part of the grid.”

"We were just actors in Mercedes' movie, unable to fight at any point."
 
Fernando Alonso BLAMES Mercedes over retirement decision:

- Fernando Alonso cited Mercedes' dominance during the hybrid era as a significant factor in his decision to retire from Formula 1 in 2018.

- Alonso ended his career after an unsuccessful stint with McLaren, achieving his best championship finish of P10 in 2016.

- Following retirement, Alonso won another Le Mans 24-Hour race in 2019 and competed in the Dakar Rally in 2020.

- Mercedes' success, winning eight consecutive constructors' titles and most drivers' championships from 2014 to 2021, contrasted with Alonso's challenges at McLaren.

- Alonso's return to F1 with Alpine in 2021 marked a comeback to the sport after his hiatus influenced by Mercedes' dominance.

"In 2018, when I stopped, I felt it was too predictable,"

"The dominance of Mercedes was too much to really enjoy being part of the grid.”

"We were just actors in Mercedes' movie, unable to fight at any point."

Not like Alonso to blame anyone but himself.
 
Or it is actually because he’s unhappy with the car and extra grouchy because lack of sleep. Never seen this before as he was always half a lap infront of everyone because of the car
He was probably grouch because Hungary is a shite track.
 
Just for fun

So looking at the remaining races, specifically between RedBull and Mclaren (lando and max and presuming they are 1st and 2nd in each race and not including fastest lap). We know currently RedBull have to raise the floor of the car and sacrifice some performance for bumpy tracks due to correlation issues between trackside and simulator.

Didn't work it out all the way to the end, but it's a mighty task for lando. He needs at least 2 x dnf from max and needs McLaren to prioritize him for every race. Also Mercedes and Ferrari will take podium positions here and there as well.

McLaren can I'll afford another farce like Hungary they have to make Norris no1 driver for rest of season and favour him over piastri.

Current points
Max - 265
Lando - 189

Belgium - does McLaren have the ultimate straight line speed of the RedBull? Will RedBull have to lift the floor and sacrifice some performance?

Norris win.
Points
Max 283
Lando 215



Dutch - Max has to be favourite for his home race

Max win
Points
Max 309
Norris 233

Italian - much will depend on what happens in spa in terms of straightline speed. Ferrari will be a factor at this race

Max win
Points
Max 335
Lando 251

Azerbaijan - Street circuit. Will RedBull have to lift the car floor and lose some performance?

Lando won
Points
Max 353
Lando 277

Singapore - a RedBull weakness due to it's bumpy nature

Lando win
Points
Max 371
Lando 303


United States - tough call as both McLaren and RedBull will be mighty through sector 1 and sector 3

Lando win
Points
Max 389
Lando 329

Mexico - RedBull seem to do well at altitude, plus Perez home race

Max win
Points
Max 415
Lando 347

Brazil - could be close, but bumpy nature of track could affect RedBull

Las Vegas - no idea cant remember last year's GP

Qatar - no idea

Abu Dhabi - no idea
 
Of course it’s very tough for Norris to win the title from here - he’s more than 3 race wins to DNFs behind.

Even if we assume that McLaren has the best car for the rest of the season, I would say it really relies on Max cracking. It needs a couple of races similar to Hungary, where he doesn’t get away with the crazy behaviour, and McLaren maximise Lando’s points.

Had the gap been down to 59 points, as it easily could have been if Max hadn’t got lucky with the Hamilton impact, we would be looking at it very differently.
 
and the points deductions as he hits more cars as he’s unable to race wheel-to-wheel without a superior car.
 
Hadn't been in this thread for ages, lovely to see there's still the same level of bitterness, delusion and petty comments going on.

Red Bull definitely seems to be crumbling on various fronts and it just feels like this season is going to end in disaster for them. Shit's going to hit the fan, whether it's Jos and Horner getting into an actual fist fight, or Max having a full meltdown burning bridges with his whole support team before the seasons ends, it just feels like something weird is going to happen.

People who seriously think the Sim Racing plays a factor, there's no words for that though. Verstappen spent 40-50 hours a week (!) on it when he won his first World Championship - this has been very well documented. He's won 61 GP's in his career, always spending most of his free time during race season on... you guessed it... Sim Racing.

The narrative used to be that this is what sets him apart, just like C. Ronaldo being a maniac when it comes to doing the extra training training throughout his career. There's videos of a 19 year old Verstappen showing his home, explaining that the first thing he does when he's back in Monaco after a GP is a 4-5 hours session on his Sim set-up. But now suddenly it's a problem? Only a genuine clown would think this is a valid or legitimate point to bring up.


and the points deductions as he hits more cars as he’s unable to race wheel-to-wheel without a superior car.
I know right! He should aspire to be more like the true GOAT, who won a grand total of 1 races in 3,5 years due to his formidable wheel-to-wheel skills since he got stuck in an inferior car.
 
Hadn't been in this thread for ages, lovely to see there's still the same level of bitterness, delusion and petty comments going on.

Red Bull definitely seems to be crumbling on various fronts and it just feels like this season is going to end in disaster for them. Shit's going to hit the fan, whether it's Jos and Horner getting into an actual fist fight, or Max having a full meltdown burning bridges with his whole support team before the seasons ends, it just feels like something weird is going to happen.

People who seriously think the Sim Racing plays a factor, there's no words for that though. Verstappen spent 40-50 hours a week (!) on it when he won his first World Championship - this has been very well documented. He's won 61 GP's in his career, always spending most of his free time during race season on... you guessed it... Sim Racing.

The narrative used to be that this is what sets him apart, just like C. Ronaldo being a maniac when it comes to doing the extra training training throughout his career. There's videos of a 19 year old Verstappen showing his home, explaining that the first thing he does when he's back in Monaco after a GP is a 4-5 hours session on his Sim set-up. But now suddenly it's a problem? Only a genuine clown would think this is a valid or legitimate point to bring up.



I know right! He should aspire to be more like the true GOAT, who won a grand total of 1 races in 3,5 years due to his formidable wheel-to-wheel skills since he got stuck in an inferior car.
What an ironic post, unless you were being serious and actually do think bitterness and deusional posts are lovely
 
I seriously don't understand the bitterness and shit fanboy posting that people talk about. No one has posted anything stupid from both sides in a while, maybe some over criticism for Max but he deserved it for his crying on the radio alone, and we move on.

I think it's definitely one of better thrads on this forum, and probably the best F1 thread in past few years.
 
I seriously don't understand the bitterness and shit fanboy posting that people talk about. No one has posted anything stupid from both sides in a while, maybe some over criticism for Max but he deserved it for his crying on the radio alone, and we move on.

I think it's definitely one of better thrads on this forum, and probably the best F1 thread in past few years.

The F1 thread got a lot better when a certain driver stopped winning and a few of the worst offenders mostly lost interest.
 
NGL. I love that guy. Heart on his sleeve, even when it works against him.
He’s a first class Cnut of the biggest order. Dummy comes out the first thing that goes wrong and blames everyone else but himself. He’s one nasty piece of shit for sure.
 
This can’t be true !
Red Bull's drop in performance a result of FIA questioning legality of the car, claims F1 pundit. F1 pundit Antonio Lobato has claimed that Red Bull's drop in performance was a result of FIA questioning the legality of some of the parts on the RB20.
https://www.sportskeeda.com/f1/news...fia-questioning-legality-car-claims-f1-pundit
I mean if that were true, surely then they can’t just let the first x races where there car was illegal stand as if nothing happened? I suspect this might not be true. But who knows.
 
The F1 thread got a lot better when a certain driver stopped winning and a few of the worst offenders mostly lost interest.

it lost its spice when the fia decided netflix was more important than the sport. football is likely to go the same way when city get away with it and all the other state owned clubs can just go mental as well.
 
I mean if that were true, surely then they can’t just let the first x races where there car was illegal stand as if nothing happened? I suspect this might not be true. But who knows.

it’s the fia. they don’t want to look incompetent whilst being incompetent.
 
I mean if that were true, surely then they can’t just let the first x races where there car was illegal stand as if nothing happened? I suspect this might not be true. But who knows.
That's not how it works. Remember Ferrari oil burning that was illegal. Results stood. It's hard for the FIA to keep on top of all of that.

RedBull are still very very fast, just not that rocket ship, hyper ballistic fast of last year. So maybe there is something.

Some teams did suspect RedBull of running some sort of active suspension trickery (active suspension is banned) last season. However I think the straightline speed dropoff is more apparent, which makes me think it's something to do with the floor.
 
Fernando Alonso BLAMES Mercedes over retirement decision:

- Fernando Alonso cited Mercedes' dominance during the hybrid era as a significant factor in his decision to retire from Formula 1 in 2018.

- Alonso ended his career after an unsuccessful stint with McLaren, achieving his best championship finish of P10 in 2016.

- Following retirement, Alonso won another Le Mans 24-Hour race in 2019 and competed in the Dakar Rally in 2020.

- Mercedes' success, winning eight consecutive constructors' titles and most drivers' championships from 2014 to 2021, contrasted with Alonso's challenges at McLaren.

- Alonso's return to F1 with Alpine in 2021 marked a comeback to the sport after his hiatus influenced by Mercedes' dominance.

"In 2018, when I stopped, I felt it was too predictable,"

"The dominance of Mercedes was too much to really enjoy being part of the grid.”

"We were just actors in Mercedes' movie, unable to fight at any point."
Welcome to F1.

He wouldn't have complained if it was his tram dominating.
 
Even if Newey were just half as good as everyone says he is he would still be worth the money.