It’s a bit of a shame that the dominance of Max overshadows how amazingly tight the rest of the racing field is. If you remove Max from the results you’d have the most exciting and variable results finishes of any season.
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Race grid to be set by championship order if they can’t get qualifying in today. Max with likely 5 place grid drop.
In other News: Otmar out at Alpine.
Ferrari will probably hire him as Charles’ personal strategist
I agree with TJ regarding the factual standpoint. With that said, F1 is becoming boring and very predictable IMHO. When I don’t even have to watch the race, yet I can tell you who’s in the top five is a problem. . .
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Oh I dont hate Max or anything. I do admire him a ton. I just delight in his woes sinces hes top dog and I root for the underdogs/old guys.
I just dont really see F1 as relatable racing. It’s a big show and very fun, but to me it’s some strange party/car thing, with the primary emphasis on the pomp and show, as opposed to the racing. I do love the old f1, tho. I prefer the “classic era” as opposed to the Billionaires in Balenciaga of today.
I thimk I’d be happiest in the stands at some rural dirt track, cheering on some local girl in semi-modifieds.
I don’t know, in many ways you cannot fault Max for his many wins. You can fault RB for giving him a car that is capable of those wins. From day one, the RB has had a massive advantage in straight line speed. That all falls down to the engineering. RB got it right from the start, while the rest of the field was playing catch up. As the season rolls on, many of the other teams have brought upgrades that begin to challenge RB. None so far as to Rival RB, but they are getting closer. AM, McClaren and Merc have been closing the gap. Just not at the rate RB has been able to hold it.
If I had to guess, RB asked Max what do you need to win and they focused the car around that philosophy. Straight line speed! He can brake and battle through the corners with the best of them, but if he cannot pull away after, it is all for not! Case in point is the amount of proposing the other cars are doing compared to the RB. It is optimized for straight line speed!
Not a problem. You need a certain level of predictability. Humans like it. We can’t deal with more than 7 notes in a melody, and very much like music to be somewhat predictable. Of course we need expectation subverted every now and again. It’s a difficult balance to strike. What’s happening right now with F1 is the creation of a legend. A legend who will eventually have to come against an upstart.
f1 has always been a like this. I do think F1 has massive issues fermenting. I think the slow-walk towards spec is bad and we have too many events and in general I don’t like hgow F1 operates, but at the heart of it narratively speaking it’s about right. The best drivers with the best engineers is what it should be about.
When Newey and his team drafted the design I would say Max had very little to no input. Occasionally they will have to consider whether peaky d/f is worth it and whether their driver can handle it, but yeah max would have had almost zero input, certainly under the new regulations. The complexity of aerodynamics means you really just have to leave it in the hands of the engineers and designers.
I don’t mind what we’re witnessing now. We have the best driver in the world driving at his peak and who knows how long that’ll last. It’s so rare to have someone like Max driving at this level. it’s weird how similar it feels to 2013.
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It would be smart for F1 to move the finish line for qualifying before the pit entry. This would help get all of the people lining up to start a lap or go into the pits out of the way of people trying to complete a lap.
That was a fun sprint. Good racing. The penalty for Lewis was insane though. That was purely racing and it was barely any contact.
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Yeah the penalty was definitely iffy, Perez was struggling big time on his tires. Was really rooting for DR to keep the P8, but appears his tires were shot.
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I found myself rooting for Lewis to pass Perez, but I thought the penalty was fair. If there was no damage to Perez car I’d agree, but Lewis did punch a big hole in his sidepod so I say it’s fair.
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The problem is that in the age of the budget cap damage is more consequential than other eras. FIA are now also super hot on ‘causing a collusion’ stuff. That pops up for almost any incident now. If there’s damage on one car it’s almost a slam dunk. We no longer have ‘racing incidents’. I walked out from watching it after he was given a penalty though. I can actually understand the penalty from a regulatory standpoint, but that’s part of the problem. It’s over regulated.
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Lewis fully deserved that penalty. It wasn’t just a slight touch.
It tore a hole in the sidepod, damaged the floor, and caused the radiator to leak. He was done at that point. Checo’s tire problem just created the opportunity for that to occur.
Im trying to understand why the penalty. He was on the inside and besides him. Shouldnt perez have yielded?
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Funnily enough the “classic” era was full of pay for drivers
It was a slight touch though, just because there’s a lot of visual damage doesn’t mean the contact wasn’t slight.
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I didnt like the penalty and thought it was more of a racing incident. But also Lewis didnt leave a cars width for Perez.
Hamiltons camera
Oof , yeah, wide
That’s most deffo on Lewis. Not deliberate, racing incident.
Another race to scare Liberty Media
Max is on another level right now, amazing to witness. You don’t see this level of driving very often.
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Yeah he is just mega in that car. Making jokes about stopping for pit stop practice while pulling away from Checo in the same car. Crazy…
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