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If the McLaren catch up is not a lighting in a bottle, Perez is gonna be on the chopping block so much sooner than we think. It's gonna become pivotal for RBR to have a second driver consistently on podium and close behind Max to help him with the WDC.
Pérez was slower than the McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes drivers today. That's just horrific, especially with Mercedes missing 4 tenths of a second compared to the top teams. That's not acceptable at this level, being 4 tenths of a second, per lap, off of the pace around an 80 second lap. Pérez was also matched by Hamilton for pace at Miami. Yes, Hamilton is one of the fastest in race pace and Russell is one of the best qualifiers, but they're driving the impossible to set up Mercedes W15!
I think Sainz is just not happy with the Ferrari upgrades, he's not gotten to terms with them yet. His comments in the media suggest that. Sainz has a specific driving style and window in which he's fastest. Hulkenberg spoke about it while he was at Renault, that Hulkenberg knew that he would beat Sainz as a teammate because of what he saw in the data. I think once Sainz gets comfortable with the upgrades, his pace will return.
However, that's what makes the top drivers the best, they can adapt to anything and adapt quicker than the rest.
True about the driving style change, but even in miami and china he was 10s and 7s behind, so the pace issues were already showing, the upgrades will probably make it even worse.
finish 8 seconds behind is at least respectable
Leclerc is better, easy as that
but Verstappen-Pérez gap was much, much bigger than what Leclerc and Sainz had
“These comparisons shouldn’t be given absolute authority regarding the respective levels of team-mates because there are so many variables. It was telling, for example, not long after Sainz first joined Renault at the tail end of 2017 that Hülkenberg, having had a chance to study the telemetry, was saying privately that he was confident he would prevail over Sainz because the Spaniard’s driving style, which was very different to his own, would not be suited to the traits of the cars that Enstone was producing and developing.”
https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/articles/single-seaters/f1/mph-theres-no-guarantee-ricciardo-will-be-number-one-renault/
He wasn't slower than the Mercs when he could do anything about it. He made up 15 seconds to Hamilton in the 2nd stint. In the first he lost a ton because a. They were extending him on dead tyres waiting for a safety car, and b. On this track overtaking is impossible unless you're 1s+ quicker per lap. Lando was half a second faster than Max and couldn't properly get into DRS even despite spending 5 laps 1,5s behind him.
I really struggle to comprehend why people ar the same time complain about the track making it impossible to overtake on, and also about drivers not overtaking.
There were barely any overtakes all race, why would you expect Perez specifically to pull them off, especially considering his strategy involved conserving his rubber, hoping for a SC and jumping people in the pits...
It literally did not matter lol what the hell are you talking about
They gambled on a safety car that didn't come. If he didn't go off in that corner he would've been 30s behind Hamilton instead of 35s as he was coming out the pits. Big whoop.
Mid season only the VCARB drivers would be available and I don't think Yuki and especially not Ricciardo were bothering the podium today if they were in the 2nd Red Bull.
Agreed. Even if the WCC would be in jeopardy, there's no obvious improvement around that would be a safer bet than Perez - who's finished 2, 2, 5, 2, 3 and 4 before today. Today he finished 8th. Yes, if he goes on a similar streak of bad performance as last year, thats bad. But they know he's got it in him, and they dont know that for anyone else.
It seems likely Ferrari and McLaren will hurt each other enough for Red Bull to hold onto it with just Max, as long as he keeps winning most of the races, but it'll be a lot tighter than it ought to be. If either of those teams improve enough (maybe adapt to their new upgrades, maybe bring more) to start taking too many wins away they'll be in trouble though.
Agree, but it does give Sainz a much better bargaining position, considering he's without a doubt the fastest/most proven available driver. Which then means RB might be willing to compromise and make him a better offer, which they didn't want to do before. Which would make Verstappen/Sainz 2025 way more likely and I'm HYPPPED about that.
Pérez got stuck behind a drs train leaded by a Haas on an alternative strategy on his first stint.
Made a mistake going off track which fkd his tires for the rest of that stint. And on the next one, he got a tear off stuck on his sidepod for the rest of the race.
Tough luck.
It was. He was 0.2s a lap faster than Norris on mediums but 0.1s per lap slower than Norris on the hards. Even Charles was faster than Max on the hard stint. The Redbull for the past two races seems to hate anything but the mediums.
https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/s/YMGJS1qXt8
Charles was faster than Max on the Hards by 0.070 seconds. Not much to affect the race results but Ferrari and McLaren both were faster than the Redbull on the hards. This could be down to redbull having zero data on the Hards given that they had only 3 laps worth of practice time on the Hards in fp3. Plus this has been a McLaren track since 2022 given that Lando finished p3 albeit with Leclerc making an error and going off.
sure the Red Bull had zero data on hards which meant the setup was based on mediums
but if they made a setup that accounts for all compounds, Max would not have been cruising as hard on the C4 mediums I think
Fair point. But it's also true that for the last two races the RB20 is loving the mediums for that specific track but is unpredictable on the softs and outright dislikes the hards. Max said his hard tyres were done after 10 laps.
Exactly. Unusual behaviour this. Especially vs last year. These cars have a narrower setup window now it seems with dirty air also coming back into play.
Nah, Russell was on the limit tire wise and the simulation predicted that he'd run out of tires 3-4 laps before the end. So it wasn't just because they were in no man's land. Toto explained it in a post-race interview.
I think this weekend (we’ll see about next) McLaren has the best qualifying pace.
However I think the two McLaren drivers lack a bit of ability in qualifying compared to Max and Charles.
Ferarri looked better than they have recently in qualifying but still had issues with tyre warm up when it mattered, however even with issues in that opening sector it was the smallest gap Charles had to p1 this season, barring Miami (which was a mess)
If Ferarri can fine tune these upgrades and get the tyres good on the day then hopefully Charles can pull out some home race, street circuit magic.
The margins are small, I’d probably bet on Max, then one of the Mclarens, then Charles to take pole.
If Max takes pole and car is good than i’d bet on Perez to do well, but i don’t he can take pole over Max
Carlos was struggling this weekend so we’ll see he if he can keep up with Charles in Monaco
So McLaren have actually managed to catch up to Red Bull... Was not expecting it this season, let alone this early in it.
But the gaps are so close that different circuits can turn the tide to any of the top 3 teams, though I think if Red Bull have a clean weekend from the get go, they will still be ahead.
I still think Redbull has the advantage overall. But they had setup issues this week. I hope I'm wrong.
We will know for sure though if this trend continues.
Yup I still think it’s set up issues the last couple faces rather then the boys in orange completely closing the gap. They are no doubt the closest to rb but I think rbs just had some issues dialing that car in and the 2 sprints in a row probably exasperated the issue. Would absolutely love to be wrong though
If the cars close up to how they are today, then I have no doubt Perez will finish 6th in the championship. Ultimately he’s too inconsistent and not quick enough to compete against the Ferrari and McLaren drivers in equalish cars.
He's easily 6th best of the top 6. But that's still more than enough. If Max finishes 1st and Perez 6th every race then it's 33 points, the same as someone else could get from 2nd and 3rd.
And they already have a decent cushion. It's not out of the realm of possibility they lose the constructors but I'm not getting the excitement over how likely it is.
I think the races will either be like this or China where RB is just “lol catch me guys” the cars are pretty much RB clones so they have the same relative weaknesses
I love how everyone started this season with "more max domination boring season not gonna watch" and now we have this where he lost last race and only won by 7 tenths this race(with no SC shenanigans)
That’s a very right split compared to the past two and a half seasons. I’m looking forward to the development battle. Maybe the cost cap and development cap are finally harming red bull?
Maybe you’re a new fan and that explains it. The only way you think that is if you didn’t see the Ferrari dominance, red bull dominance and Mercedes dominance.
Piastri needs to get that 2 tenths pace if he want to challenge Norris in race.
Biggest ouch gap for me is
VER-PER (expected)
OCO-GAS (gasly is nowere)
Only if either Ferrari or McLaren become clear 2nd force with the ability to beat Max in at least a few races here and there. McLaren only caught up by one point to Red Bull this weekend despite Perez shitting the bed completely.
well, if you took it very literally, given the difference in pace for Mclaren in Bahrain vs now, they would be dominating halfway through the year
what could be interesting is the constructors battle, because Perez is nowhere now
In trying to determine what this means for the relative pace of the cars, you basically need to make an internal adjustment for how you think the drivers’ race paces compare. This and Miami suggest that, unless Lando is getting more out of it than Max, McLaren is the car to beat. Frankly, you could easily make an argument for the Ferrari over the Red Bull as well if you think Max has more than eight hundredths over Charles. The combined driver and car performances have really converged these past couple of weeks in a very exciting way.
I’m new here, but how did Lando not get a penalty for continually driving outside the white lines? There were several shots those last 10 laps with him exceeding the track limits. Isn’t that an unfair advantage?
I think it was the wider white line they were monitoring track limits on, there were only 11 track limit violations altogether today, 1 of them was Lando
This isn’t from onboard shots. I just rewatched laps 55/56/57, I see three instances of Lando’s car outside of track, with white in between tires and asphalt. F1 app doesn’t allow screenshots but see for yourself.
Are you sure you're looking at the right lines? He wasn't outside the ones they were measuring the track limits on. Again, he only got one track limit violation all race.
Dirty air is a factor as well. it seems like the 2024 cars are more affected by it than their predecessors. Taking pole from Max/Jumping him at the start itself is the best possible idea.
This, 100%. Max is getting away at the starts because he is the only one in clean air. The first step to beating Red Bull is to qualify ahead of them. Everybody is clearly struggling in dirty air. Oscar first with Carlos then Charles. Charles catching up to Lando and ending up on the grass after a couple laps of following.
I like how you write this like usually qualifying ahead of the other team isnt a win condition but you figured it out for this very specific scenario.
You do know they're all trying to outqualify them, right?
It was so weird to watch, from not that far into the race, Charles was consistently cutting down the gap to Lando. He almost got it down when Lando pitted and poor Ferarri strategy left Charles behind Lando with another big gap to go.
When Charles was catching up to Lando was gaining on Max a bit but it really sped up at the end.
It didn’t seem intentional for him to have been saving this extra pace.
Lando had the strongest first 10 laps and strongest last 10 laps but Charles seemed easily faster in the middle of the race.
That’s a stretch. Charles was faster for about 5 laps before the pits and about 10 laps after. Probably cooked his tyres a bit pushing too hard, rather than it being genuine sustainable pace. Never once looked like actually threatening Lando.
"Never once looked like actually threatening Lando"..
Lol, you seem to have watch a different race. If Charles would've not went full yolo mode into the grass he would've passed Norris. That's when his tyres got fucked and couldn't push anymore.
if Charles had managed to pass him and Lando didn’t have the huge jump in pace he’d probably have had the pace to stay ahead.
So if Ferarri assumed Lando wasn’t going to suddenly get so much life in his tires, it was definitely the right call for Charles to push.
Assuming he did no damage to his tires over the grass and that was just his normal degrading, his pace would’ve been strong enough to hold back Lando (not Max Chasing Lando pace i’m just talking about what Ferarri would’ve assumed his pace was) on this very hard to overtake circuit.
If he didn’t manage to overtake, he’d still be able to cling onto that DRS and be right there if Lando made a mistake.
Charles had built up a good gap to Oscar that it was safe to push his tyres and it was the right strategy call based on what Ferarri knew. And we can probably assume that Charles stopped pushing when the gap grew to over 3s
You're waffling with a lot of ifs and buts there. Reality is, Charles pushed harder early on than Lando did and it cost him later on.
Stella confirmed after the race that Lando was managing tyres early in that final stint. He was not actually flat out. McLaren were seeing it on the data and telling Lando that on the radio - he didn't believe them because he assumed everyone was driving with similar management to him. His engineer was literally on the radio telling him not to worry because they knew the performance would come to him later in the race. They even detailed why to him, and what the others were doing compared to him that was working their tyres harder. Go and listen for yourself if you don't believe me.
I’m not trying to say Charles had better pace than Lando i mean it’s obvious he didn’t.
But while Lando was managing his tires in the earlier stint he couldn’t find pace while Charles was gaining on him, which he complained many times about.
I’m saying that Ferarri and Charles pushed Charles’s tyres to catch Lando. But i’m saying that that was the right strategy call. It worked out well even with a mistake from Charles, keeping the gap with Oscar significant.
And he managed to catch Lando and would’ve stuck reasonably near him if Lando hasn’t unlocked more pace, and would’ve been there if Lando made a mistake.
I’m not talking about the ifs and buts of what could have happened but of the perspective of Charles and Ferarri when choosing to push his tyres and even after his pace didn’t drop all too much
there are some laps which are usually removed from the calculations
like for Pérez, the off-road adventure was removed, but not its indirect consequences (without that correction, Pérez would be like 8-9 tenths down, not 6.5-7)
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It’s interesting how Aston Martin can be so inconsistent with pace and upgrades.
Oh they are consistent, just consistently shit
If you were talking about Mercedes, fine. Aston suffers driving with one good driver.
That one good driver has fewer points than both Mercs.
Might sound silly, but ate they concentrating on stroll feedback rather than Nando. Because since the upgrade stroll seems to be faster.
Well if they are, then I expect an exodus of staff in no time.
based on what
Based on a reddit comment, duh.
> Aston suffers driving with one good driver. Who was the one who got points today?
Yes cause one good race makes up for all the bad ones for one of them. And one bad race erases all the good ones for the other... /s
Alonso did have an absolute shiter tho
If the McLaren catch up is not a lighting in a bottle, Perez is gonna be on the chopping block so much sooner than we think. It's gonna become pivotal for RBR to have a second driver consistently on podium and close behind Max to help him with the WDC.
Pérez was slower than the McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes drivers today. That's just horrific, especially with Mercedes missing 4 tenths of a second compared to the top teams. That's not acceptable at this level, being 4 tenths of a second, per lap, off of the pace around an 80 second lap. Pérez was also matched by Hamilton for pace at Miami. Yes, Hamilton is one of the fastest in race pace and Russell is one of the best qualifiers, but they're driving the impossible to set up Mercedes W15!
i mean sainz was also matching lewis, the top 3 drivers are just better and oscar is maturing
I think Sainz is just not happy with the Ferrari upgrades, he's not gotten to terms with them yet. His comments in the media suggest that. Sainz has a specific driving style and window in which he's fastest. Hulkenberg spoke about it while he was at Renault, that Hulkenberg knew that he would beat Sainz as a teammate because of what he saw in the data. I think once Sainz gets comfortable with the upgrades, his pace will return. However, that's what makes the top drivers the best, they can adapt to anything and adapt quicker than the rest.
True about the driving style change, but even in miami and china he was 10s and 7s behind, so the pace issues were already showing, the upgrades will probably make it even worse.
Maybe this is just the reality, le clerc is the quicker driver and has always been
finish 8 seconds behind is at least respectable Leclerc is better, easy as that but Verstappen-Pérez gap was much, much bigger than what Leclerc and Sainz had
“These comparisons shouldn’t be given absolute authority regarding the respective levels of team-mates because there are so many variables. It was telling, for example, not long after Sainz first joined Renault at the tail end of 2017 that Hülkenberg, having had a chance to study the telemetry, was saying privately that he was confident he would prevail over Sainz because the Spaniard’s driving style, which was very different to his own, would not be suited to the traits of the cars that Enstone was producing and developing.” https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/articles/single-seaters/f1/mph-theres-no-guarantee-ricciardo-will-be-number-one-renault/
15 seconds behind Leclerc is about what you'd expect from Sainz though. The last few races was Leclerc being in worse shape. They were the outlier.
Sainz at least beat the Mercs by half a pit stop's distance Pérez didn't even approach them
He wasn't slower than the Mercs when he could do anything about it. He made up 15 seconds to Hamilton in the 2nd stint. In the first he lost a ton because a. They were extending him on dead tyres waiting for a safety car, and b. On this track overtaking is impossible unless you're 1s+ quicker per lap. Lando was half a second faster than Max and couldn't properly get into DRS even despite spending 5 laps 1,5s behind him. I really struggle to comprehend why people ar the same time complain about the track making it impossible to overtake on, and also about drivers not overtaking. There were barely any overtakes all race, why would you expect Perez specifically to pull them off, especially considering his strategy involved conserving his rubber, hoping for a SC and jumping people in the pits...
You forget him going off and losing 5+ seconds just before a crucial pitstop window. He basically doomed his race from there on.
It literally did not matter lol what the hell are you talking about They gambled on a safety car that didn't come. If he didn't go off in that corner he would've been 30s behind Hamilton instead of 35s as he was coming out the pits. Big whoop.
Mid season only the VCARB drivers would be available and I don't think Yuki and especially not Ricciardo were bothering the podium today if they were in the 2nd Red Bull.
They don't need to bother the podium, they just need to finish top 5 to get more WCC points than the other teams.
even 1-6 gets the same points as 2-3 if not accounting for Fastest Lap
Yuki was dragging that VCARB far higher than it belonged in FP and Quali. I honestly think he'd have been in a fight for 3rd of he'd been in the RB.
Lawson or Yuki I think
Sooner than we think.... Is still just 2025. They aren't cutting Perez in season.
Agreed. Even if the WCC would be in jeopardy, there's no obvious improvement around that would be a safer bet than Perez - who's finished 2, 2, 5, 2, 3 and 4 before today. Today he finished 8th. Yes, if he goes on a similar streak of bad performance as last year, thats bad. But they know he's got it in him, and they dont know that for anyone else.
that 3 was on a weekend where his pace should've gotten him 2 and that 4 was after Sainz-Piastri inchident
So what? It's plenty good enough to finish first with Max at the front is the point.
Unless they pull another half a second out of the car, they'll lose P1 in the WCC if they don't cut Checo
Cut him for who?
Yuki maybe? Then put Liam into the RB
It seems likely Ferrari and McLaren will hurt each other enough for Red Bull to hold onto it with just Max, as long as he keeps winning most of the races, but it'll be a lot tighter than it ought to be. If either of those teams improve enough (maybe adapt to their new upgrades, maybe bring more) to start taking too many wins away they'll be in trouble though.
Agree, but it does give Sainz a much better bargaining position, considering he's without a doubt the fastest/most proven available driver. Which then means RB might be willing to compromise and make him a better offer, which they didn't want to do before. Which would make Verstappen/Sainz 2025 way more likely and I'm HYPPPED about that.
Pérez got stuck behind a drs train leaded by a Haas on an alternative strategy on his first stint. Made a mistake going off track which fkd his tires for the rest of that stint. And on the next one, he got a tear off stuck on his sidepod for the rest of the race. Tough luck.
If he hadn't qualified 11th in the same car that won the race none of this would have happened
Was it me or Max's race pace was better on mediums?
It was. He was 0.2s a lap faster than Norris on mediums but 0.1s per lap slower than Norris on the hards. Even Charles was faster than Max on the hard stint. The Redbull for the past two races seems to hate anything but the mediums. https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/s/YMGJS1qXt8
Thanks for the info man.
and Charles was still same pace as Max after the went off except for the last three laps
Charles was faster than Max on the Hards by 0.070 seconds. Not much to affect the race results but Ferrari and McLaren both were faster than the Redbull on the hards. This could be down to redbull having zero data on the Hards given that they had only 3 laps worth of practice time on the Hards in fp3. Plus this has been a McLaren track since 2022 given that Lando finished p3 albeit with Leclerc making an error and going off.
sure the Red Bull had zero data on hards which meant the setup was based on mediums but if they made a setup that accounts for all compounds, Max would not have been cruising as hard on the C4 mediums I think
Fair point. But it's also true that for the last two races the RB20 is loving the mediums for that specific track but is unpredictable on the softs and outright dislikes the hards. Max said his hard tyres were done after 10 laps.
it seems that Red Bull's favorite tire is the C4, McLaren's is the C3 and Ferrari's is the C2
Exactly. Unusual behaviour this. Especially vs last year. These cars have a narrower setup window now it seems with dirty air also coming back into play.
The Curious Case of Aston Button. Performance…just backwards.
McLaren 0.45 sec faster than the works Merc team. Fascinating.
Actually 0.26, since they took HAM instead of RUS, who is faster according to this.
Russell's time is skewed a lot by his new tyres at the end.
Yes, but if you look at the 50% box it’s still a little faster than Hamilton.
He did a two stop which would make his average pace faster (although it's a slower strat)
I understand that, but lots of stuff affects the data. I just am pointing out that they skipped over Russell and took Hamilton’s slower average pace.
Because it makes no sense to compare 2 stop with 1 stop pace. Obviously 2 stop will have an advantage.
I mean Russell only did the second stop because they were in no man's land. It wasn't even an attempted strategy to do something
Nah, Russell was on the limit tire wise and the simulation predicted that he'd run out of tires 3-4 laps before the end. So it wasn't just because they were in no man's land. Toto explained it in a post-race interview.
Red Bull, Ferrari and McLaren all being within a tenth could make for a banger Monaco qualifying.
The Ferrari is awful in low speed.
Ferrari is awful in quali, not in low speed. China was a set up issue, but they just throw time away in every sector 1 in quali.
Still after the upgrade?
Their tyre warmup issues on qualifying fuel levels is a big problem if it happens again in Monte-Carlo.
No , it was actually fine
I think this weekend (we’ll see about next) McLaren has the best qualifying pace. However I think the two McLaren drivers lack a bit of ability in qualifying compared to Max and Charles. Ferarri looked better than they have recently in qualifying but still had issues with tyre warm up when it mattered, however even with issues in that opening sector it was the smallest gap Charles had to p1 this season, barring Miami (which was a mess) If Ferarri can fine tune these upgrades and get the tyres good on the day then hopefully Charles can pull out some home race, street circuit magic. The margins are small, I’d probably bet on Max, then one of the Mclarens, then Charles to take pole. If Max takes pole and car is good than i’d bet on Perez to do well, but i don’t he can take pole over Max Carlos was struggling this weekend so we’ll see he if he can keep up with Charles in Monaco
So McLaren have actually managed to catch up to Red Bull... Was not expecting it this season, let alone this early in it. But the gaps are so close that different circuits can turn the tide to any of the top 3 teams, though I think if Red Bull have a clean weekend from the get go, they will still be ahead.
I still think Redbull has the advantage overall. But they had setup issues this week. I hope I'm wrong. We will know for sure though if this trend continues.
Yup I still think it’s set up issues the last couple faces rather then the boys in orange completely closing the gap. They are no doubt the closest to rb but I think rbs just had some issues dialing that car in and the 2 sprints in a row probably exasperated the issue. Would absolutely love to be wrong though
Constructers Championship is not very certain though. Perez might be the 6th best driver in the top 3 teams.
If he doesn't s\*\*\* the bed and finish top 6, i believe RB would win the WCC given that Ferrari & Mclaren will take points from each other.
If the cars close up to how they are today, then I have no doubt Perez will finish 6th in the championship. Ultimately he’s too inconsistent and not quick enough to compete against the Ferrari and McLaren drivers in equalish cars.
I can’t see Piastri catching up but he could end up fighting Sainz for P4/P5
He's easily 6th best of the top 6. But that's still more than enough. If Max finishes 1st and Perez 6th every race then it's 33 points, the same as someone else could get from 2nd and 3rd. And they already have a decent cushion. It's not out of the realm of possibility they lose the constructors but I'm not getting the excitement over how likely it is.
Might be? Lol
Are there even doubts about it?
Too small sample set.
I think the races will either be like this or China where RB is just “lol catch me guys” the cars are pretty much RB clones so they have the same relative weaknesses
the SF24 isn't fully an RB clone it has a different suspension layout and cooling system
I love how everyone started this season with "more max domination boring season not gonna watch" and now we have this where he lost last race and only won by 7 tenths this race(with no SC shenanigans)
Everyone is quick to turn off the tv, not realising that if the racing does start they're gonna miss it
That’s a very right split compared to the past two and a half seasons. I’m looking forward to the development battle. Maybe the cost cap and development cap are finally harming red bull?
Well also just the further away you get from when they last introduced a new big set of regulations, the harder it is to stay ahead.
It hasn’t been the case. I think it’s just the budget and aero caps doing their job
What do you mean it hasnt been the case? Thats how its always worked in F1.
It hasn’t been the case for the last 20+ years
You and I are watching different sports I think.
Maybe you’re a new fan and that explains it. The only way you think that is if you didn’t see the Ferrari dominance, red bull dominance and Mercedes dominance.
The infighting is starting to catch up to them much sooner than most expected, it seems...
I doubt any of this is caused by the chaos in the leadership. Those effects will be seen in a much longer time span
Piastri needs to get that 2 tenths pace if he want to challenge Norris in race. Biggest ouch gap for me is VER-PER (expected) OCO-GAS (gasly is nowere)
Gasly is ahead in the graphic OP posted?
There might actually be a fight the wccat least with Perez dropping the ball
Only if either Ferrari or McLaren become clear 2nd force with the ability to beat Max in at least a few races here and there. McLaren only caught up by one point to Red Bull this weekend despite Perez shitting the bed completely.
if Mclaren keeps this trajectory we could have a championship battle on yes, I am smoking major copium rn
Share some of that with the rest of us 🥲
well, if you took it very literally, given the difference in pace for Mclaren in Bahrain vs now, they would be dominating halfway through the year what could be interesting is the constructors battle, because Perez is nowhere now
Are the outlaps and fuckup laps removed (Per/Ham losing 5s and Leclerc losing 1s going on gravel?
In trying to determine what this means for the relative pace of the cars, you basically need to make an internal adjustment for how you think the drivers’ race paces compare. This and Miami suggest that, unless Lando is getting more out of it than Max, McLaren is the car to beat. Frankly, you could easily make an argument for the Ferrari over the Red Bull as well if you think Max has more than eight hundredths over Charles. The combined driver and car performances have really converged these past couple of weeks in a very exciting way.
I’m new here, but how did Lando not get a penalty for continually driving outside the white lines? There were several shots those last 10 laps with him exceeding the track limits. Isn’t that an unfair advantage?
I think it was the wider white line they were monitoring track limits on, there were only 11 track limit violations altogether today, 1 of them was Lando
3 of them were Max
He didn't though. He had one track limits violation all race. It's impossible to tell from onboard shots if they are actually over the line or not.
This isn’t from onboard shots. I just rewatched laps 55/56/57, I see three instances of Lando’s car outside of track, with white in between tires and asphalt. F1 app doesn’t allow screenshots but see for yourself.
Are you sure you're looking at the right lines? He wasn't outside the ones they were measuring the track limits on. Again, he only got one track limit violation all race.
They repainted some of the white lines to be thicker after FP2 I think.
The white lines are in bounds.
Got it, I think that’s my confusion. Does it differ by track and is there a standardization across all courses what is considered in or out?
All four tires have to be outside the white lines for it to be considered a track limits violation, same for all races on the calendar.
This was a change made for this race weekend, due to the addition of the gravel traps being there to punish anyone who went out of bounds.
Drivers need to stop letting max getting out of DRS at the beginning of the race. Just gotta drive faster
Expect a job offer from Ferrari/McLaren any moment now
He deserves way more, i.e. an Alpine drive
Genius idea. Why don't the drivers do this? Are they stupid?
"Just win lmao"
Dirty air is a factor as well. it seems like the 2024 cars are more affected by it than their predecessors. Taking pole from Max/Jumping him at the start itself is the best possible idea.
This, 100%. Max is getting away at the starts because he is the only one in clean air. The first step to beating Red Bull is to qualify ahead of them. Everybody is clearly struggling in dirty air. Oscar first with Carlos then Charles. Charles catching up to Lando and ending up on the grass after a couple laps of following.
I like how you write this like usually qualifying ahead of the other team isnt a win condition but you figured it out for this very specific scenario. You do know they're all trying to outqualify them, right?
Are they stupid
Just put it in a gear lower and stamp the throttle!
Exactly! Why don't they start faster? Are they stupid?
My goodness, why couldn't I have thought of that?!
I think McLaren and Ferrari are too conservatives on tires. I don’t think Norris would have catch Verstappen if Leclerc didn’t push him.
He said he had no pace, he wasn't intentionally losing time. The tyres just came back to him.
It was so weird to watch, from not that far into the race, Charles was consistently cutting down the gap to Lando. He almost got it down when Lando pitted and poor Ferarri strategy left Charles behind Lando with another big gap to go. When Charles was catching up to Lando was gaining on Max a bit but it really sped up at the end. It didn’t seem intentional for him to have been saving this extra pace. Lando had the strongest first 10 laps and strongest last 10 laps but Charles seemed easily faster in the middle of the race.
That’s a stretch. Charles was faster for about 5 laps before the pits and about 10 laps after. Probably cooked his tyres a bit pushing too hard, rather than it being genuine sustainable pace. Never once looked like actually threatening Lando.
"Never once looked like actually threatening Lando".. Lol, you seem to have watch a different race. If Charles would've not went full yolo mode into the grass he would've passed Norris. That's when his tyres got fucked and couldn't push anymore.
Has it occurred to you that he took too much out of his tyres trying to catch Lando in the first place?
if Charles had managed to pass him and Lando didn’t have the huge jump in pace he’d probably have had the pace to stay ahead. So if Ferarri assumed Lando wasn’t going to suddenly get so much life in his tires, it was definitely the right call for Charles to push. Assuming he did no damage to his tires over the grass and that was just his normal degrading, his pace would’ve been strong enough to hold back Lando (not Max Chasing Lando pace i’m just talking about what Ferarri would’ve assumed his pace was) on this very hard to overtake circuit. If he didn’t manage to overtake, he’d still be able to cling onto that DRS and be right there if Lando made a mistake. Charles had built up a good gap to Oscar that it was safe to push his tyres and it was the right strategy call based on what Ferarri knew. And we can probably assume that Charles stopped pushing when the gap grew to over 3s
You're waffling with a lot of ifs and buts there. Reality is, Charles pushed harder early on than Lando did and it cost him later on. Stella confirmed after the race that Lando was managing tyres early in that final stint. He was not actually flat out. McLaren were seeing it on the data and telling Lando that on the radio - he didn't believe them because he assumed everyone was driving with similar management to him. His engineer was literally on the radio telling him not to worry because they knew the performance would come to him later in the race. They even detailed why to him, and what the others were doing compared to him that was working their tyres harder. Go and listen for yourself if you don't believe me.
I’m not trying to say Charles had better pace than Lando i mean it’s obvious he didn’t. But while Lando was managing his tires in the earlier stint he couldn’t find pace while Charles was gaining on him, which he complained many times about. I’m saying that Ferarri and Charles pushed Charles’s tyres to catch Lando. But i’m saying that that was the right strategy call. It worked out well even with a mistake from Charles, keeping the gap with Oscar significant. And he managed to catch Lando and would’ve stuck reasonably near him if Lando hasn’t unlocked more pace, and would’ve been there if Lando made a mistake. I’m not talking about the ifs and buts of what could have happened but of the perspective of Charles and Ferarri when choosing to push his tyres and even after his pace didn’t drop all too much
Nah, even without that he wasn't going to get there.
Sainz looked a lot slower than 0.24s
there are some laps which are usually removed from the calculations like for Pérez, the off-road adventure was removed, but not its indirect consequences (without that correction, Pérez would be like 8-9 tenths down, not 6.5-7)
Maxs tyres were considerably younger than Norris so should have had much more pace.
According to the lap timers they were only 2 laps newer.
I knew he was always washed #NOTmyGOAT