The Ferrari both seem to be very annoyed with in-race communications, especially Hamilton. Interesting to hear them tell the drivers when to brake and turn, and what curbs to not hit.
Like the pit wall is telling Lewis when to brake and stuff? Is that a bit odd or normal?
Engineers often give the driver info as to where he is losing or gaining time to his teammate; “your teammate is braking later for turn 2, we suggest trying it”, or “stay off the curb here to limit tire wear/keep the car in line” and stuff like that.
Hamilton’s radio messages seem to be blown out of proportion. Him and his engineer are still learning how to work together best. Just takes time.
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Ah so coaching of sorts is allowed, that’s what was wondering.
I wish I had that kind of live coaching in my kart.
Radio chatter has turned into dramatized entertainment. I actually hate they do it the way they do and then play the drama out while announcing without context to when the radio message was.
I’ll take the drama on DTS, keep it off the broadcast.
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Bye liam. Welcome tsunoda. Lets see how he perform.
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How do we feel about potentially seeing Yuki and Liam trade places after just two races?
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/f1-panel-is-red-bull-right-to-replace-lawson-with-tsunoda-after-just-two-races/10707164/
If Tsunoda performs the story will be forgotten in a week. I remember all the hysteria when Verstappen got Kyvat’s seat… then he won and everyone forgot that bit.
It is what it is. RedBull obviously see how far of Lawson is, so it’s probably worth a punt.
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It was to be expected for Liam unfortunately. Max is starting on the backfoot and Liam was not showing any promising stuff.
I mean, promoting Liam was stupid anyway, you don’t promote a rookie on a top team that is under pressure.
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I think Red Bull know they are in trouble for the season with their car. At least last year it looked strong at the start of the season. This year it’s been soso. They have all the data from the drivers and I’m guessing they can’t afford to have a driver learning in the car.
It’s an oversimplication, but all Yuki has to do is make it to Q2 in the Red Bull and he’s already ahead of Lawson.
Hopefully both drivers will do better than they have in the first “three” races.
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Red Bull being far to knee jerk after letting Sergio dick around in the thing for far too long. Would just look really bad on them in general. I’m not sure egos will allow them to do that just yet.
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I don’t see how some fans can argue that keeping Liam in the seat would be the right decision. I can’t think of a precedent in the last 10 years or so of a new driver coming into a top 4 team, performing this badly, and recovering to get good results. It cannot get any worse.
I think Yuki will do better than Liam did but worse than he did at Racing Bulls. I don’t know if this really helps his career, but some commentators are saying his career in F1 is over after this year regardless because of Honda pulling out. I can understand why he’d want to roll the dice on this.
Best case scenario is that he’s consistently like 2-3 tenths slower than Max, but I’m not sure that even that would get him a seat next year on a grid where marketing value and sponsorship backing often outweigh skill/results.
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I pretty much agree with all the above.
Perez was in the seat for longer than he deserved.
Liam was promoted too early and Yuki should’ve been their first choice.
Taking the Honda money and getting Yuki in for Japan gives them a good comparison between the two and they can cash a big check.
At worst, Yuki performs the same as Liam and loses some of his value, and then they’ll probably put Liam back in after he develops in the RB a bit.
At best, Yuki can handle the car and does okay.
No way anyone is going to match Max at the moment in that car anyway.
It’s good PR toward the Japanese crowd and it will be very special to see Yuki take to the track in front of his home fans.
Like Liam said, he just needs time which he doesn’t have. Kicking him out after two races is harsh for sure, but Red Bull is on tilt at the moment. All the background politics, the loss of Newey, Marko who is becoming clearly mentally deficient with his choices, the threat of Max leaving because they can’t seem to build a consistent car lately, running out of talented juniors with their draconian young drivers program… I would rather be in the RB right now if I was a Red Bull junior. Next year I predict Red Bull to completely drop the ball. They have too much chaos right now and are not focused.
Getting ahead of myself but I predict Max could leave by the end of the season. Where does he go though? If the Antonelli experiment doesn’t pan out (unlikely, he’s doing fine for now), I doubt Merc would pull George who is driving great so far this year.
What makes the car so weird that only max can drive it?
It’s very twitchy and front-heavy. Albon explains it very well in this clip that Nik posted a few days ago:
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A great analogy with the computer game sensitivity!
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Added bonus for Yuki is that he gets to dodge Hadjar. Hadjar is already almost up to Yuki’s pace. Losing to Max looks better for Yuki than narrowly beating Hadjar, who is being underrated like most rookies are.
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There were some rumours that Max and Toto had a secret meeting in the Netherlands a few weeks ago. Nothing concrete, but still interesting. As good as George is, if Mercedes has the chance to get Max, he will have to make way.
I think Max already knows RBR is a sinking ship. Next year they will likely have bigger problems with a new power unit and no Newey to nail the aero to cover up for the PU deficit like he did before 2021. I think it is more likely he will go to AM to work with Newey. They are a team going all-in for 2026 so getting the best driver on the grid seems like the only sensible thing to do, Stroll and an aging Alonso won’t win championships.
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Imagine a kart with a ton of caster and rear end set full narrow.