That was unlucky for Hamilton picking up that bollard in Q1
Brilliant job by Hulk + Bottas!
Hulk takes a 3 place penalty for overtaking in the pit exit tunnel.
They should pop a brand new engine in Lewis's car, turn it up to 11 and start him from the pitlane. Bad luck for Lewis, but why were Merc gambling releasing him so late at the end of Q1? No point gambling when the stakes are so high.
The schedule is brutal these days, not just the drivers of course but the rest of the team as well.
Especially for the rest of the team. They wont be flying in and out on private jets at a time that suits and getting all the choice hotels. They are probably the first to arrive at track and the last to leave by the tme they have set up and broken down the pits at the end of the weekend.
He's embraced the Ferrari colours already.
Just needs a few logos and he's away.
Another good race that - seems I’ve said that a lot this year!
…time to order a Ferrari cap!! 🙂
Deserved win for McLaren they've had the best car by far this year. Raised a cheer win Lewis went round the outside in turn 9, And as a grown adult I've got to admit that I'm a bit too excited to see him in a Ferrari next year.
This has been a great thread all year, thanks everyone. Next year's going to be wild
.... Who?
He’s embraced the Ferrari colours already.
Masterclass in how to endear yourself to the tifosi before you’re even officially an employee
Max couldn’t resist being a dick…
I thought that penalty was a bit harsh. Not as harsh as last week but still didn't warrant it IMO.
However, he has driven like a **** for a long time and got away with it so he's not getting any sympathy from me. Hopefully there's a few more undeserved penalties coming his way to make up for all the others he's missed out on.
Who would be everyone's top and bottom three for this year?
I'm going for
Sainz - kept his head in the game and produced some great results despite everything which was happening off track with leaving Ferrari and that comeback after his surgery was great. He's got to be top of the list to replace Hamilton when he retires...
Hulkenberg - never really been a fan, nothing against him but he's always seemed quite mediocre to me. But, fair play to him, he seems to have upped his game this year and really outperformed the car, top marks.
Bearman - not an easy debut, but very impressive, and then also decent when thrown into another car with not much more notice. Let's hope he can keep it up
Honourable mention to Gasley, once they got that car sorted he really made the most of it
.
Disappointments if the year.
It pains me to say this because I've always been fans of theirs but Checo and Riciardo. I know Checo 'has a contract for next year' and the rumour mill is strong with Riciardo to Cadillac but really I think it's time for them both to bow out now. And Sargent, had another chance and sadly didn't step up.
Honourable mention to Stroll for driving into a gravel trap he really didn't need to be in.
.
Can I put Hamilton and Verstappen in both groups? Hamilton at his best is still great, but he has been so hit and miss this year, he needs that new start at new team. Verstappen can be brilliant (Brazil) but has again shown that when he's under pressure (Mexico) he panics and lashes out, he didn't need to when his car was dominant and we thought maybe he'd outgrown it, but no, he's still a ****.
I think I’d put a few people in both groups. Hamilton and Verstappen I agree with, for the same reasons. Sainz was electric at the start of the season but then faded. Colapinto turned up and was on Albon’s pace straight away and put in some good fights against seasoned competitors, but then had a few too many crashes which were a disappointment mainly in that they seem to mean he won’t be on the grid next year. Ricciardo definitely a disappointment, and while Perez has been disappointing of course but I seem to have an evil streak which likes watching being chewed up by the pressure of F1 so he’s kept that part of me entertained. Of the rest, Hulk has done a sterling job, as has Russell, but I think Leclerc has been the most impressive this year: he seems to have shaken his errors without losing his pace, and it’ll be interesting to see how he compares with Hamilton next year. It’ll also be interesting to see the betting odds for the title between Norris, Verstappen, Hamilton and Leclerc. In principle I don’t think there’s much between them. In fact it may come down to whose team-mate robs them of more points—something that Verstappen is at much less risk from than the others, but then he probably has the weakest car of the three right now.
Honourable mention to Gasley, once they got that car sorted he really made the most of it
Gasly also the only driver not to cost their team any money in crash repairs.
Interested to see what Bottas does next too - he said he's not done with F1. And his his socials on his helmet he's bearing a 'What's Next?' slogan.
Bez
I think I’d put a few people in both groups. Hamilton and Verstappen I agree with, for the same reasons. Sainz was electric at the start of the season but then faded.
Yeah, a bit inconsistent perhaps. He had 3 DNF which cost him (one of which probably would have been a podium).
Great pole & win in Mexico though, also winning right after having appendicitis. (The F1 Beyond the Grid podcast with him this week is worth a listen).
I think he'll be a good signing for Williams, I just hope the car is there (I mean both working well, and physically present in Bahrain in time for testing!)
It's interesting to look at ave. drivers grid positions vs their ave. finish positions. There are few that consistently have better races. Leclerc generally started about 5th generally finishes about 4th, Hamilton starts about 9th finishes about 7th. But the stand-outs are Bearman (12th and 9th) and Colapinto (16th and 13th)
Everyone else - including Verstappen and Norris are either finishing about their average grid, or gong backwards
If you start 1st on the grid, it's impossible to improve your finishing position. If you start last, it's impossible to go backwards. You'll have a regression to the mean effect. Drivers who absolutely nail qualifying (or just get a bit lucky) will tend to start near the front, those who mess up in qualifying will tend to start nearer the back. In the race, the luck is reset and the faster cars that had an unlucky qualifying will tend to move forward while the slower cars that had a lucky qualifying will tend to move back. Hamilton's race yesterday is a prime example, he started near the back because of bad luck, then he drove well in the race and finished near the front.
Just went back to the first page to see how my predictions panned out, Perez threw a spanner in the works of the constructors' finishing order, did not foresee McLaren coming on so strong and Red Bull fading so badly.
I expect Red Bull will start next year with the best car, but other teams will be closer. It’s impossible to predict which team will be their nearest challenger, I suspect it will like this year, with different cars being stronger at different tracks and some shuffling of the order over the season as some teams do better on upgrades than others. If I had to put money on it, I would be on the same order of constructors as this year.
A great season ended, it’s a shame Max had to drive like an idiot again. Why he had nothing to gain. Great to watch Hamilton and Ferrari drive through the field without a safety car to help them either. This seasons driver championship reminded me of the jenson one. Best car for the first half of the season and then hanging on defending that from the summer break when everyone else caught up or in McLarens case over took to have the best car.
I thought that penalty was a bit harsh. Not as harsh as last week but still didn’t warrant it IMO.
It probably did.
Apparently the drivers [?] have recently asked the stewards to be harsher on incidents that involve contact as a 5 second penalty means you could punt someone out of the way and only need to be a shortish distance in front of them to get away with it.
This - and Piastri's nudge - was the result.
10 Seconds has a much great effect and probably makes the drivers think twice before piling in. Seems fair enough.
I thought that penalty was a bit harsh. Not as harsh as last week but still didn’t warrant it IMO.
Max was adamant, what, two weeks ago (?) that no driver would ever overtake him around the outside. What a tit! Glad Oscar had the balls to try and the Stewards finally put a stop to such nonsense....
But the thing was, Oscar didn't really try to take Max round the outside. Max just sent it up the inside where he must have known he wasn't going to be able to brake in time. To be fair, Oscar did hold his line on the outside while leaving space. And then Max, typically, on the radio saying he was past. ****. No he wasn't. The laughable thing is when others have done something similar to that both Max and Horner are straight on it and criticising the other driver.
And his his socials on his helmet he’s bearing a ‘What’s Next?’ slogan.
That’s a charity he supports. For people who are unexpectedly let go from jobs.
Max was adamant, what, two weeks ago (?) that no driver would ever overtake him around the outside. What a tit! Glad Oscar had the balls to try
Piastri wasn’t overtaking Verstappen on the outside.
Piastri wasn’t overtaking Verstappen on the outside.
True, but it was two drivers going round the same corner at the same time with Max on the inside...;-)
The rules are completely different depending on whether you’re overtaking or being overtaken, so it’s sort of an important difference.
The rules are completely different depending on whether you’re overtaking or being overtaken Max Verstappenor not, so it’s sort of an important difference.
Hm, not so sure. It’s easy to see that Max does try to go by the rules, because he’s always adapted his driving to whatever rule has been introduced as a result of his previous driving. It’s just that he very deliberately considers only the letter of the law, not the spirit. That’s part of what makes him the most effective driver on the grid.
I think most drivers view the sporting regs as just a formalisation of what used to be unwritten rules, a mutual understanding of what is and isn’t the done thing. They used to be unwritten because there was no need to write them down: until 20-30 years ago if you crossed the line someone stood a decent chance of being hospitalised or killed—or at the very least you’d be retiring with broken suspension. Max on the other hand reads them the same way an engineer reads the technical regs: he’ll exploit them to the fullest extent in order to gain an advantage. There’s nothing wrong with that, it’s just that these days the cars are so resilient and incredibly safe that the consequences of crossing the line are generally limited to losing time in the race.
The issue is that the more the envelope of the rules is tested, the more tightly that envelope demands to be defined. And driving incidents are vastly more complex to write rules for, and to test against those rules, than engineered components. Inevitably, the driver who tests the envelope more than any other will generate the most discussion and opinion.
because he’s always adapted his driving
I try not to be a Verstappen "Hater", but after his double penalty in Mexico, one of which was an obviously desperate lunge to overtake Norris that had zero hope of succeeding and saw him drive both himself and Norris off the track, his response was "I'm a 3 time world champion, I think I know what I'm doing" which implies that 1. he drove like that on purpose, and 2. he saw it as a legitimate manoeuvre, which given his previous clashes with Norris would seem to indicate that he doesn't really adapt any more than any other driver
I think you're right in that increasingly the rules are being more and more closely defined, but that is in part becasue of the way he drives, again i's instructive to look at what he actually said: "Do I think it's overregulated? Probably yes. I mean, in general, the rulebook is only getting bigger and bigger every single year, I don't think that's always the right way forward."
Well, the answer is in part to not drive like you're the only person on the track. I think most of the criticism he gets from other drivers on the grid, is that if everyone drove like he does, most races would be littered with bits of car, and regardless of the increased levels of safety, it's still a dangerous way to behave.
Mexico was inexcusable, don’t get me wrong ? Inevitably there’s a fine line. That was well over it. Max will defend his driving, and he’ll argue for more leeway that he can exploit.
I’m not saying that it sits well with me: I don’t really like watching that level of combat in open wheel racing and I generally wouldn’t want to be on track with him. I’m not a fan of him or how he goes racing, but I generally (Mexico aside) file him under “utterly ruthless” with Senna rather than under “dirty cheat” with Schumacher. Thing is, there’s no denying that utter ruthlessness is brutally effective. The difference is that Senna drove in an era where an incident like Silverstone 21 would have been fatal, maybe even Monza 21. Rightly or wrongly, Max doesn’t have that natural constraint.
With his comments about people overtaking him on the outside I guess he’s completely cool about Silverstone 2021 now!
Again, though, wasn’t a case of overtaking on the outside. Hamilton was trying to pass on the inside.
But it’s a good example of having to test the letter of the law: watching it as it happened with a “spirit of the law” perspective, it looked to me that Hamilton had made a bit of a foolhardy effort at the wrong corner—but when the dust settled and the actual wording of the regulations at the time were explained, it turned out that Hamilton appeared to have driven correctly within the letter of the law and he’d given Max a taste of his own medicine, albeit at quite a punchy corner to say the least.
Thing is, there’s no denying that utter ruthlessness is brutally effective.
Without a doubt, I think it's going to be interesting next year after it's clear that Norris mostly failed to be as effective in the crucial one-on-one battles when they occurred this year. There's no denying that it's a tactic that Max's not afraid to deploy
I both agree with Bez and agree with what I said.
Verstappen is very good at interpreting the laws like a lawyer and applying that interpretation.
The 'rules' that I suggested were being applied differently were the ones that the rest of the drivers follow, with the generally understood meaning and interpretation. It is easy to make a mockery of most rules with a little literal interpretation. From the British Cycling level 1 coaching "At this level you may only coach riders on clear path with and obvious direction and exit". This clearly means that I can rig some scaffold planks across the Grand Canyon and get my trainee riders to ride over them.
Max is like the guy who won't take a vaccine and relies on herd immunity from everyone else to get away with it.
This is pretty cool, Carlos Sainz Jr + Sr both drove the F1-75 round Fiorano today
https://twitter.com/autosport/status/1868981656440172782
https://twitter.com/ScuderiaFerrari/status/1869004161276428757
