Formula 1 2024 - WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS

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.

Here's Lewis' final lap onboard,  it was a lovely move. I missed the Mansell-esque dummy on the postage stamp showing the overtake on the Sky feed!

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.

I'm a big fan of Sainz. He seems very level headed and polite too. I think his dad has taught him well (I was a huge fan of him too).

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.

With his comments about people overtaking him on the outside I guess he's completely cool about Silverstone 2021 now! 🙂

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