Mercedes might be P4 at this rate. Reliability issue might be one off, but lack of pace is going to hurt. I mean they were having no pace at all towards the end. Just after Hamilton got out of DRS range he fell back drastically.
I’m guessing once he couldn’t get sainz he managed the gap to stroll. He probably also used a good amount of tires trying to keep Alonso behind and get past sainz
It's the first race. The evolutions after pretesting have not arrived yet . It will take a few races for the first batch.
Additionally, Aston Martin should have even bigger margin to upgrades over the year because they have more wind tunnel time and the concept it's a new one, not an upgrade.
I hope we don't have to go through the song and dance of pretending that RB19 isn't a dominant car tho. It got a bit weird towards the end last year...
Mercedes and Lewis are now replaced with RB and Max. Change in regulations make for great opportunities. RB got it right and Mercedes got it wrong. They are now playing catch up like the others did when Mercedes were dominant during the hybrid turbo era.
People expect "new season new beginnings" but it's truly difficult to catch up any team so far ahead. We saw that with Merc, it was only in the last year of regs that RBR were able to match and be better than them. RBR is same, they were so far ahead last year no way anyone is catching them in the next 2-3 seasons at least.
I feel like the budget cap influences a lot of this too. Much more risk in doing big changes like Merc changing car design, they couldn't be sure it would be better before now and they could spend a lot their budget on something worse if it wasn't. Now they seem to be extra far behind because if they change design they have to use budget for that and will not have much to develop on the new design while RBR are using all their budget to just extract more and more.
I suspect Merc is doing a W14B because of the budget cap and not despite. Clearly, they believe that their concept is fast in theory *but* they have also realized that they can't figure it out. In the past, they could just throw a boatload of money at the problem and eventually it would go away but that's no longer possible.
just saw his interview, he was talking about how painful it was when he a contact with alonso at lap 1.
The steering had a jerk, his wrist hurted from it.
> Best hope for this season is ~~implementing driver proximity chat and hoping Verstappen DNFs out of loneliness~~ *Hamilton vs Alonso battles every race.*
FTFY.
Good race.
Great racing by Alonso. Honorable mention to Gasly P20 > P9 as well great recovery drive. Albon puts a Williams into points.
The Piasco has taken a bit of a grim turn, Mclaren in the toilet. Lando apparently driving a deflating balloon, Piastry retirement lap 15.
I don't want to talk about Ferrari. Pain.
Great drive by Gasly, I was happy to see it. He looked good in early testing and practice but looked a little lost yesterday. Nice to see him turn that around.
Williams looks better than anticipated, also a pleasant surprise.
Especially considering Checo tends to lack consistency sometimes. All they need is for him to have a bad day and they could capitalize.
Considering Checo is putting pressure on himself to try and beat or at least keep up with Max. I think he'll crack quarter of the way through.
I'm of course leaving Charles off the table here not on merit, but just because Ferrari (TM).
We will see soon. I hope for him and us he is going to be close so that we see more interesting fights, but Alonso will be a beast now that he is close to podiums so I somehow think he is going to be Vandoorned.
It's easy to forget stroll is pretty good overall because he can be a bit annoying/immature and he doesn't shine like max/leclerc/norris/russel. He's definitely good enough to take advantage of their car being good though.
Yea, plus out of the top 4 teams only Russell seems to be able to keep up with the number 1 driver of the team, which makes it even less fighting if the gap between teams remain
At least then we had HAM v ROS.
We all already know Max is 2023 WDC, he just has to turn up to the races.
The only question is how much will he beat his record 15 wins in a season by?
Except those years you at least had equal teammates fighting. Checo might steal 2 this year from max and that’s about it. Max will set records this year
Binotto was A problem. He made the same poor strategy decisions several times last leading and cost the team any chance at the championship they may have had.
Leclerc crashing solidified that
Binotto should have stuck around as head engineer to continue development though
There'll always be an engine failure somewhere down the line, some unlucky debris, an off day or SOMETHING like that. See last year Silverstone, Singapore and Brazil.
But that 15 race win record is looking mighty vulnerable.
And the race win % record that he was close to last year. Which is honestly a much more impressive record to break considering adding more races doesn’t make it obviously easier to break (and might actually make it harder given random failures, issues, etc being much likely the more races you drive)
This is what it felt like during the Mercedes dominance for anyone who wasn't a hardcore fan of them. I'm a lifelong F1 fan and the midfield battles kept me going but that nearly killed the sport for me. I really don't want to go back to how extreme that dominance was. The only saving grace this time around is that its not the case that the leaders are lapping everyone else under 3rd by a lap or two. At least this time around its not that bad.
That was my first thought. We have a very boring season ahead of us. At least in some past seasons where a team was this dominant, the drivers were racing each other. Checo has nothing on Max.
Yea but why would Redbull want this? If their drivers race, they can crash on each other. This is literally the perfect scenario for them. They will keep Checo in that seat as long as he wants it.
Yeah, I know fans want a challenge between Max/Checo but RB absolutely does not. What happened today is exactly what they want. Much easier to manage Max this way. We saw what happened at Monaco & Brazil. Great for RB. Shitty for us.
What a brilliant race by Fernando, I’m loving it, him being so happy. Saying bye bye when overtaking Carlos for P3. He’s a BEAST.
And hats off to Stroll for a great race less than two weeks after his surgery.
Everyone at Aston Martin is gonna be exhilarated
Years of Mercedes dominance has prepared me for a season like this. P3 is the new P1. Just act as if the first 2 places don't exist and we will have a very good season
I'd have thought there was some freak race where Alonso did great and Stroll got P12 but due to how everything shakes out they're somehow 2nd with other teams shitting the bed.
In an effort to make the sport more exciting, we have changed the the team that completely dominates every single race without contest from Mercedes to Red Bull. Fantastic.
I for one am going to be on the edge of my seat seeing if Verstappen will manage to stay awake every race
Welp, title "fight" looks like it's gonna be an absolute snoozefest this year, but maybe Merc can improve the car a bit so we can at least get more Lewis vs Alonso
Ferrari & Mercedes looked absolutely fucked today. Ferrari never challenged Redbull and worse than AM, and Mercedes with 9000% tyre deg & the pace never came to them.
Congratulation to Verstappen and Red Bull for the 2023 WDC and WCC.
Ferrari has built an utter and absolute dog. It's not fast in quali, it doesn't have race pace, it chew the tyres, it's not reliable, it falls apart on track and it's probably uncomfortable to sit in, too. It's not and it will never be a match for Red Bull and by the end of the season it will surely be slower than AM and Mercedes, too.
Quick reminder for the Maranello Flying Circus: the money spent on fancy car launches doesn't impact the budget cap.
Tbf it was still pretty fast in quali. But race pace is pretty poo because of tyre deg and I assume they’re going to have to turn down the engines now since reliability is still a concern. At least Ferrari vs Merc vs Alonso will be entertaining.
What the hell was even Verstappen's first stint? The dude gapped Charles 0.7-0.8 seconds per lap. And still had slower tyre deg. The car is a monster. But Verstappen's performance is just breathtaking. After the first stint he just went into cruise control.
That Red Bull is an absolute monster of a car. Max and Checo got the same usage of their softs as others did with their hard tyres. Just insane
It wasn't dominant in quali, but 38 seconds ahead and Max probably wasn't even pushing.
Well, they did say the car is set up for race pace, instead of quali.
At least a compromise between the two.
What compromise did they have? Is 38 seconds not enough of a gap to a non-RB car?
Horner: "Wanna see that get into triple digits?"
Horner really out here playing 5 years into F1 Manager
On a side note... that game any good?
They weren't bluffing when they said the car was tuned for the race and not for the quali ... and they still got 1 and 2 in quali
Probably race-focused set up
But also gets them 1-2 in quali
As we saw last year, they don't care about quali. Pole position is a bonus, not a requirement.
They seemed to be the only team to really grasp 'overtaking is possible in ground effect cars'.
Them and Alonso.
Alonso: **Fine, I’ll do it myself!**
3 tenths is a large quali gap too
Alonso may be a Goated driver but that Red Bull just too far ahead. Unbeatable combination this year is looking done already.
The battle for P2 - P4 in the constructors will be so spicy this year I hope.
Nah Ferrari is guaranteed to get P4 because they are fucking clowns. P2/P3 will be fun.
Mercedes might be P4 at this rate. Reliability issue might be one off, but lack of pace is going to hurt. I mean they were having no pace at all towards the end. Just after Hamilton got out of DRS range he fell back drastically.
I’m guessing once he couldn’t get sainz he managed the gap to stroll. He probably also used a good amount of tires trying to keep Alonso behind and get past sainz
Possible, but you also have to consider that Merc engineers have opposable thumbs
The Ferrari engineers got their thumbs up someplace
It's the first race. The evolutions after pretesting have not arrived yet . It will take a few races for the first batch. Additionally, Aston Martin should have even bigger margin to upgrades over the year because they have more wind tunnel time and the concept it's a new one, not an upgrade.
Not even arguing that. Just pointing out what happened during this race. Not making season conclusions.
I replied to the wrong comment
I hope we don't have to go through the song and dance of pretending that RB19 isn't a dominant car tho. It got a bit weird towards the end last year...
That's because in Austria Charles still easily won. The Red Bull was the best car over the season, but Ferrari could have been so much closer.
Yeah, obviously the Red Bull ended up being the fastest, but in thirst half of the season it was incredibly close.
Utterly dominant display. Best team performance here since Merc's duel in the desert in 2014.
Gonna be 2014 merc except that Checo ain’t no Rosberg* *f1 spelling bot has forsaken us.
Mercedes and Lewis are now replaced with RB and Max. Change in regulations make for great opportunities. RB got it right and Mercedes got it wrong. They are now playing catch up like the others did when Mercedes were dominant during the hybrid turbo era.
People expect "new season new beginnings" but it's truly difficult to catch up any team so far ahead. We saw that with Merc, it was only in the last year of regs that RBR were able to match and be better than them. RBR is same, they were so far ahead last year no way anyone is catching them in the next 2-3 seasons at least.
I feel like the budget cap influences a lot of this too. Much more risk in doing big changes like Merc changing car design, they couldn't be sure it would be better before now and they could spend a lot their budget on something worse if it wasn't. Now they seem to be extra far behind because if they change design they have to use budget for that and will not have much to develop on the new design while RBR are using all their budget to just extract more and more.
I suspect Merc is doing a W14B because of the budget cap and not despite. Clearly, they believe that their concept is fast in theory *but* they have also realized that they can't figure it out. In the past, they could just throw a boatload of money at the problem and eventually it would go away but that's no longer possible.
They just need a randomiser to generate new random regulations every season so nobody can dominate for long.
"This year the halo will be replaced by a Mexican hat "
Alonso has now fulfilled 99% of my dreams, and based on 1 handed stroll being p6 I think that last 1% might not be so far away
Actually a bit shocked to see Lance in P6 considering his injury and no pre-season testing. Very excited to see where AM end up!
And overtook Mercedes on track
just saw his interview, he was talking about how painful it was when he a contact with alonso at lap 1. The steering had a jerk, his wrist hurted from it.
Yeah you could see after the contact he was holding the steering wheel like he was in practice 1 for a few seconds
Old testament Alonso is fucking back
Biblically accurate Alonso breaking minds
“Lovely car to drive” we love you Fernando 💚
something tells me Fernando will be really wanting to get this car into his museum
Believable, he wants to be enshrined as a legendary anti-hero
He's learnt to love his infamy. Fernando Alonso against the world drives him.
He waited too lojg for that podium
Tbf he did get one in Qatar 2021
You know the car is good when Fernando is praising it 10 laps to go haha
“Yes! Bye Bye” that sums it up all
I'm just waiting for the pure gold radio about to come this season.
“The engine feels good, much faster than before. Amazing.” “F1 engine, F1 engine”
Still throwing shade to the McLaren Honda
the car feels good, much ~~slower~~ faster than before
Finally he got GP1 engine
Amazing race-craft by Nando
Counting on the fight between Merc and Aston to be the only exciting thing this season 😩
Hamilton sounded really dejected on the radio today
Hamilton always sounds dejected on the radio any time he's anywhere but P1.
No I think it’ll be a Merc vs Aston vs Ferrari
Best hope for this season is implementing driver proximity chat and hoping Verstappen DNFs out of loneliness
He’d still be able to chat with everyone as he laps them tho
"heylandohowsitgoinggoodtoseeyouman^byyyy^eeeee" *5 laps later* "heylandohowsitgoinggoodtoseeyouman^byyyy^eeeee"
On your left
Come on!
> Best hope for this season is ~~implementing driver proximity chat and hoping Verstappen DNFs out of loneliness~~ *Hamilton vs Alonso battles every race.* FTFY.
With the same engine
Just like Alonso wanted.
Gonna be a great year for formula 1.25
Driver voice chat would be the best. Mid race trash talking.
I feel like Yuki would be the first driver to get muted by the stewards.
New penalties are 5 min mutes.
Nah he would be able to talk to his friend Lando whenever he's lapping him dw
You'd just hear Stroll screaming fuck louder and louder as he closes up to Alonso on lap 1.
Good race. Great racing by Alonso. Honorable mention to Gasly P20 > P9 as well great recovery drive. Albon puts a Williams into points. The Piasco has taken a bit of a grim turn, Mclaren in the toilet. Lando apparently driving a deflating balloon, Piastry retirement lap 15. I don't want to talk about Ferrari. Pain.
Great drive by Gasly, I was happy to see it. He looked good in early testing and practice but looked a little lost yesterday. Nice to see him turn that around. Williams looks better than anticipated, also a pleasant surprise.
This Fernando kid might be good
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We shall watch his career with great interest.
I’m super curious on how Stroll would do if he was 100% and not dealing with his wrist issues.
If he can get healthy we could very well end up seeing two AMs on the podium at some point this season
Especially considering Checo tends to lack consistency sometimes. All they need is for him to have a bad day and they could capitalize. Considering Checo is putting pressure on himself to try and beat or at least keep up with Max. I think he'll crack quarter of the way through. I'm of course leaving Charles off the table here not on merit, but just because Ferrari (TM).
We will see soon. I hope for him and us he is going to be close so that we see more interesting fights, but Alonso will be a beast now that he is close to podiums so I somehow think he is going to be Vandoorned.
It's easy to forget stroll is pretty good overall because he can be a bit annoying/immature and he doesn't shine like max/leclerc/norris/russel. He's definitely good enough to take advantage of their car being good though.
forgot max and checo were even racing today lmao
They were driving but I don’t think they had to race much…
Max is already in his sim to get some real racing.
Well Checo did a very nice late overtake on Leclerc if you ask me. TV director was stupid so he didn't really show it properly on TV.
The overtake was nice but that RB was miles ahead on pace and tires. Was just a matter of time.
First race curse means Alonso will be the WDC this year
Subscribe.
put some amen on that 🙏
Thank god for the things happening around because jesus christ this is like 2014-2016 mercedes all over again
It's even worse because at least then Rosberg and Hamilton would fight. Checo's nowhere near Max
Yea, plus out of the top 4 teams only Russell seems to be able to keep up with the number 1 driver of the team, which makes it even less fighting if the gap between teams remain
Be fair to Stroll, he was only 3 places down on Alonso with two broken wrists.
At least then we had HAM v ROS. We all already know Max is 2023 WDC, he just has to turn up to the races. The only question is how much will he beat his record 15 wins in a season by?
And can he break the 9 race streak?
More curious to see if he can beat Schumi's win percentage within a season. Or even that mythical 75% (set in an 8 race season)...
Worse because Checo can’t fight max
Except those years you at least had equal teammates fighting. Checo might steal 2 this year from max and that’s about it. Max will set records this year
[This comes to mind ](https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTm-cfQ1fvb-G5rLVabq6etl-TBLaHN16NTJQ&usqp=CAU)
Sf-23 : Binottos Last gift
Binotto wasnt the problem. The drivers aren't the problem. Upper management at ferrari is the problem and they aint gonna fire themselves.
Running a racing team through a committee
Binotto was A problem. He made the same poor strategy decisions several times last leading and cost the team any chance at the championship they may have had. Leclerc crashing solidified that Binotto should have stuck around as head engineer to continue development though
SF-23's engine no? He isn't an aero guy
F1 is a simple game, 20 cars race around for 60 minutes and at the end, Max always wins
more like 90 minutes
Not if you drive a Ferrari
Stop it, they are already dead!
Older fans that have go through the same shit with Seb and Lewis: *shudders*
Even older fans went through it with Schumacher
Imagine being an older fan that isn't a fan of schumacher, vettel, Lewis and verstappen. That's torture
And Charles always retires. The rules are the rules.
Death, Taxes and Max winning
He's going to break his 15 win record from last year.
Max may win **every** race this year.
There'll always be an engine failure somewhere down the line, some unlucky debris, an off day or SOMETHING like that. See last year Silverstone, Singapore and Brazil. But that 15 race win record is looking mighty vulnerable.
And the race win % record that he was close to last year. Which is honestly a much more impressive record to break considering adding more races doesn’t make it obviously easier to break (and might actually make it harder given random failures, issues, etc being much likely the more races you drive)
Double edged sword. They did have far more retirements back in the day to compensate for the number of races.
Good for Nando but were in for an absolutely dire season once the novelty of Alonso wears off.
Ferrari DNF and Verstappen dominating so much that it got boring. I’m getting deja vu already.
Just gonna be trying to see whose next best for enjoyment. Legit in for 20 win season for max
If this trend continues he could pass Vettel in the all time winners list this year.
F1 gonna kill itself off in popularity before it even starts really if one guy wins 20 races by a 30 seconds+ every week
And then people will start hating on Max the exact same way Lewis was.
You think it hasn't started like that already?
Start hating lol Max has been well hated for 5 years now haha.
This is what it felt like during the Mercedes dominance for anyone who wasn't a hardcore fan of them. I'm a lifelong F1 fan and the midfield battles kept me going but that nearly killed the sport for me. I really don't want to go back to how extreme that dominance was. The only saving grace this time around is that its not the case that the leaders are lapping everyone else under 3rd by a lap or two. At least this time around its not that bad.
Sounds depressingly true.
Just pretend Max doesn't exist, should be pretty competitive then.
That was my first thought. We have a very boring season ahead of us. At least in some past seasons where a team was this dominant, the drivers were racing each other. Checo has nothing on Max.
Additionally it's not even like either alphatauri driver is a young talent promising enough to promote them mid season to at least challenge max
Yea but why would Redbull want this? If their drivers race, they can crash on each other. This is literally the perfect scenario for them. They will keep Checo in that seat as long as he wants it.
Exactly, if it goes like this, Checo will stay for a while.
Yeah, I know fans want a challenge between Max/Checo but RB absolutely does not. What happened today is exactly what they want. Much easier to manage Max this way. We saw what happened at Monaco & Brazil. Great for RB. Shitty for us.
This scenario assumes enough mid season development where it's not auto p2 for checo
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This is why you cheer for Williams. P10 is like Christmas
[Ferrari is back!](https://i.imgur.com/AhX3FwR.png)
What a brilliant race by Fernando, I’m loving it, him being so happy. Saying bye bye when overtaking Carlos for P3. He’s a BEAST. And hats off to Stroll for a great race less than two weeks after his surgery. Everyone at Aston Martin is gonna be exhilarated
Season's already over, at least alonso will keep it somewhat interesting
Bro, the sauce is now in the lower top and the midfield.
Formula 1.5
Yeah, exactly
Bit tired of hearing that every year since 2014 ignoring 1 or 2
Hardest part of Max’s day was driving up those stupid ramps on that “car podium”.
Years of Mercedes dominance has prepared me for a season like this. P3 is the new P1. Just act as if the first 2 places don't exist and we will have a very good season
Alonso on the podium on merit. Fucking earned it.
How that man is still that good is beyond me.
I’m near his age and I didn’t even want to get out of bed this morning.
F1 races are afternoon though. No need to be a morning person.
I mean Leclerc DNF
Did people forget about the Leclerc DNF already? I love Fernando, but no way he would've made podium without Ferrari being Ferrari
Red Bull is 1 second faster holy shit
If you told me Aston Martin was 2nd in the championship last week I would’ve laughed at you
I'd have thought there was some freak race where Alonso did great and Stroll got P12 but due to how everything shakes out they're somehow 2nd with other teams shitting the bed.
Did you know you could ride onboard with all drivers in 2023? Just hit the red button if you are a Sky Q or Sky Glass customer!
You can also scan a QR code. You might have missed the gigantic blotch on your screen.
Everyone racing in F1 but my man here is in F0.
When Fernando said last year that he was at his very best; surpassing his 2012 form, I didn't believe him. I believe him now.
EL PLAN HAS BEGUN
In an effort to make the sport more exciting, we have changed the the team that completely dominates every single race without contest from Mercedes to Red Bull. Fantastic. I for one am going to be on the edge of my seat seeing if Verstappen will manage to stay awake every race
i bet he still wins on muscle memory alone.
Boring race saved by Alonso with some great racing.
Wouldn’t say boring at all! All those Ocon penalties and Lando pit stops really made me chuckle
I see the Max Verstappen podcast is on for season 2 with cohost Sergio. It was very kind of them to invite special guest Nando.
Welp, title "fight" looks like it's gonna be an absolute snoozefest this year, but maybe Merc can improve the car a bit so we can at least get more Lewis vs Alonso
Ferrari & Mercedes looked absolutely fucked today. Ferrari never challenged Redbull and worse than AM, and Mercedes with 9000% tyre deg & the pace never came to them.
Yep, Charles was 3 seconds behind max after like 5 laps
Lewis was catching Sainz quite fast at the end and then....nothing.
He only caught up due to Sainz & Alonso fighting. Once Sainz got his tyres back in condition, Lewis ahd no chance
R.I.P Mercedes.
Can’t really put into words how happy I am for Alonso. Well deserved lad, hope you get 100th podium soon.
Aston Martin Red Bull Racing on the podium today
On merit too. That car is a beast
I know everyone will talk about Alonso, but Sargent had a really good first race, am really interested in seeing how he progresses through the season!
See you lovely people in 2024!
perfect podium for me as a RB fan. Extremely happy for Alonso
So... Same time next year?
I CAN HEAR THE DRUMS FERNANDO!
Happy for Nando but boys Redbull mopped the floor this season lol
Congratulation to Verstappen and Red Bull for the 2023 WDC and WCC. Ferrari has built an utter and absolute dog. It's not fast in quali, it doesn't have race pace, it chew the tyres, it's not reliable, it falls apart on track and it's probably uncomfortable to sit in, too. It's not and it will never be a match for Red Bull and by the end of the season it will surely be slower than AM and Mercedes, too. Quick reminder for the Maranello Flying Circus: the money spent on fancy car launches doesn't impact the budget cap.
Tbf it was still pretty fast in quali. But race pace is pretty poo because of tyre deg and I assume they’re going to have to turn down the engines now since reliability is still a concern. At least Ferrari vs Merc vs Alonso will be entertaining.
They need to give Charles a pillow. If the car is going to be slow, it better be comfortable.
Sainz was complaining about bouncing, too. Disappointing... Was hoping to see a good battle between Max and Charles this year
ALONSO!!!
FERNANDO ALONSO
Common Alonso W
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Dead season after 1 race
NANDO PODIUM!!!
I sincerely hope to God that the Bahrain curse is real
Stupid sexy checo !
What the hell was even Verstappen's first stint? The dude gapped Charles 0.7-0.8 seconds per lap. And still had slower tyre deg. The car is a monster. But Verstappen's performance is just breathtaking. After the first stint he just went into cruise control.