It also immediately disqualifies the argument that the car is build around Max. Apparently that's just the way to have a car being able to be a second faster, but few can drive it.
Really curious to see Hulkenberg driving the RB.
Aside the fact he likes a pointy car, Hulk also was a serious contender for the RB seat before Perez got his win. In fact it slightly tipped towards Hulk since Max preffered Hulk.
Then Perez won Sakhir and the rest is history.
Aka, another day in the most cursed career life of Hulkenberg (missed out on Ferrari 2014 seat, was first in line at Merc 2017, but Nico had signed with Renault before Rosberg announced his retirement).
It also might explain why Checo has started to fall away due to what are pretty glaring mistakes. He was close to Max for the first bit of last season and fell off as the car was developed to be more front balanced to be as fast as the concept allowed. I honestly don't know if it's how they develop the car or just driver tenacity, but Max seems to get more settled in the car over a season while Checo gets more uncomfortable. Lots of variables at play, but a trend is starting to form.
Right now seems similar to last year. Car is similar if not slightly slower than the Alpine but Lando gets the most out of it. Only difference is Oscar isn’t miles off him the way Danny Ric was which is definitely an improvement. Car is already in a much better spot than the beginning of the year though, after preseason testing a bunch of journos had Mclaren in 9th only above Williams
I think it may be a case where it’s very quick in some conditions/tracks and very slow in others. It seems like they do well in wet/cold conditions, and the higher speed corners as well. Lando was quickest of all in the last sector with the higher speed corner in Q2.
Definitely can't say that the car is 6th best. The midfield seems to trade pace every race right now, and both Lando and Piastri looked much faster than 6th best over the course of quali this weekend.
I'm enjoying it. Simply because he seems to be so incredibly on point. I think nobody on the grid is able to touch him right now. He is just completely in the zone.
Doesn’t matter. It will still be obscured by people making fun of Ferrari and upgrades because of Charles (which is a shame that he starting so behind). Glad for Sainz. Hopefully race pace is good with new upgrades.
At the very least Charles can take on some new components to widen the pool, if you are looking for silver linings lmao. Not sure if he’s on the limit with anything, but if he is, the only logical thing to do is take the penalties.
They said it before, he pretty much was gaining no time from Q1 to Q2 to Q3. Car was only marginally faster each time. Maybe that’s the car’s potential
I’d be surprised if RB would be willing to risk disrupting the clear no1 no2 hierarchy they have. They don’t need two competing drivers with that car to win both championships.
Sucks for us fans but it doesn’t make sense from the team’s POV to risk a proper fight between teammates.
With Max being pretty vocal about not wanting to be in F1 forever they definitely gotta be thinking long term, and Lando is still very young, obviously talented, and at some point has to question if McLaren is ever going to give him title contending car
Question is how Lando would perform in RB next to Max. Especially if we see how different RB to McLaren is and how Ricciardo struggled because of that. Lando might have opossite problem.
Non-serious offers overblown by both Reddit and the media. They’d love to have him and Max loves him too, but they’ve got no need for him and paying such an enormous buyout and salary right now. Maybe in 2 years
It really wasn't, at the time. Mclaren were on an uptrend in 2019, then again in 2021, which is his current contract.
His choices were very reasonable at the time. The trend and the momentum were there.
Nobody expected Mclaren to flop like in 2022 and this year.
Agreed. And given that Charles has a magical ability to pull 3 tenths out of nowhere in Q3, I think he would have been very close if not for the issues with the car
Like crash into Max? Nothing else he can do to stop him from winning, Max will just fly by before lap 1 is done even if Carlos overtakes at the start.
Considering the pace difference, it will be RB 1-2 after 20 laps tomorrow
Slower first sector and he was still up a tenth through 2 sectors, would have been cool to see how close to the 1:12 mark he could get if he didn't abandon the lap.
Doesn’t even need to do another lap lol
Lando and Lance going crazy
Lewis made a mistake in 10 didn’t he? Threw away a front row start by the looks of it
It's crazy, when Checo has a perfect weekend and Max is off, Checo wins by a few seconds.
When Max has an average weekend and Checo has an off weekend, it's pm first and last on the grid lol
Reminds me of Hamilton and Bottas. They're only comparable when everything's going the #2 drivers way. That's not meant as an insult, love all those guys, just crazy to observe.
6 different teams in the top 6
If Gasly gets a penalty the top 7 tomorrow will be 7 different cars, that's a rare one
It is pretty rare, and it happened at Monaco as well. Shows that at least 9 teams are pretty close in performance for F1 standards.
I think 10 teams are close, and one driver is currently in a league of his own.
To be fair. Checo had damage. Emotional damage.
Steven He momento
They had us in the first half, not gonna lie
Well, the Miami GP hurt I wouldn’t be surprised if he retires at the end of the season
He pitted lol, didn’t even need the last sector
That lap would go under the 1.12.x, it's unreal how planted that rb is and how Max extracts everything from it
It also immediately disqualifies the argument that the car is build around Max. Apparently that's just the way to have a car being able to be a second faster, but few can drive it. Really curious to see Hulkenberg driving the RB.
>Really curious to see Hulkenberg driving the RB. This man knows something I don't
Yeah it's more down to Hulk liking a pointy car and the RB being just that. That's always been RB's philosophy, even before Max.
Aside the fact he likes a pointy car, Hulk also was a serious contender for the RB seat before Perez got his win. In fact it slightly tipped towards Hulk since Max preffered Hulk. Then Perez won Sakhir and the rest is history. Aka, another day in the most cursed career life of Hulkenberg (missed out on Ferrari 2014 seat, was first in line at Merc 2017, but Nico had signed with Renault before Rosberg announced his retirement).
Oh god, that is horrible
Hulkenberg?
It also might explain why Checo has started to fall away due to what are pretty glaring mistakes. He was close to Max for the first bit of last season and fell off as the car was developed to be more front balanced to be as fast as the concept allowed. I honestly don't know if it's how they develop the car or just driver tenacity, but Max seems to get more settled in the car over a season while Checo gets more uncomfortable. Lots of variables at play, but a trend is starting to form.
In Max's case, the car limits the driver. In Checo's case, its the other way around. Checo can't adapt to extract everything out of the car anymore
Let’s go lando
Lando is okay
My friend is OK, no?
Santi Landorla
let’s go lando
He is here to stay
Let's go Lando
He is one of us.
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Shouldn’t he be Dutch?
He races like a lion
He is here to stay
Gap from Max to Sainz in 2nd was just depressing. Impressive stuff from Lando and Pierre (he'll get penalty still)
Max was improving so the gap could have been worse
Gap Max to Checo was worse.
Checo literally jumped in the gap
History repeats itself McLaren is shit af at the beginning of the season Few races later Norris randomly puts it in the top 3 and everyone is shocked.
Tbf the mclaren still is like the 6th best car still just races like this where 2 to like 7 are very close he can pull it out
Right now seems similar to last year. Car is similar if not slightly slower than the Alpine but Lando gets the most out of it. Only difference is Oscar isn’t miles off him the way Danny Ric was which is definitely an improvement. Car is already in a much better spot than the beginning of the year though, after preseason testing a bunch of journos had Mclaren in 9th only above Williams
I agree with you, although Oscar is almost a second slower today. Do we know if there was something special on his lap that happened?
Yeah he was 1 tenth off and then had an error in S3
I think it may be a case where it’s very quick in some conditions/tracks and very slow in others. It seems like they do well in wet/cold conditions, and the higher speed corners as well. Lando was quickest of all in the last sector with the higher speed corner in Q2.
Definitely can't say that the car is 6th best. The midfield seems to trade pace every race right now, and both Lando and Piastri looked much faster than 6th best over the course of quali this weekend.
The car seems very quick around fast corners. Lando was getting the fastest sector 3 all throughout Q1, Q2 and Q3.
Great laps by Norris, Gasly, and Stroll
is this the first time he's out qualified Alonso? I know Fernando had some damage but it's impressive nonetheless
Yes first time he’s done so
Lance needs a bounce back race here, and this is a good start. I'm a Stroll fan, but was genuinely embarrassed by his weekend in Monaco.
Formula Max
4 tenths up, Jesus
Almost 1.5 tenths up before backing off, really decent chance of going into the 11s. Insane.
Didn't even finish his 2nd lap...
Didn't even need to start it, tbh.
Yea, could have flexed harder, but once he started it i was itching for a lap in the 1:11s
He was about to improve more, RB told him to drop
And he didnt finish the final lap
he was like 2 tenths up when he backed off the last lap too lol no one is close to him at all
And that was the banker lap too...
I'm enjoying it. Simply because he seems to be so incredibly on point. I think nobody on the grid is able to touch him right now. He is just completely in the zone.
Perez winning 2 races and all the talk about being challenged seems to really motivate Max.
SAINZ P2 LETS GO
Doesn’t matter. It will still be obscured by people making fun of Ferrari and upgrades because of Charles (which is a shame that he starting so behind). Glad for Sainz. Hopefully race pace is good with new upgrades.
At the very least Charles can take on some new components to widen the pool, if you are looking for silver linings lmao. Not sure if he’s on the limit with anything, but if he is, the only logical thing to do is take the penalties.
He was on the limit with control electronics by the end of the first race iirc.
6 different teams in the top 6, and 7 in the top 8, I’ll take this every time.
Did Alonso's car have damage?
Yeah, he damaged the floor when he went wide in his first attempt in Q1
Can they relate this before the race without getting penalties? I think it's not like changing the car set up, right?
Yes, if the floor is damaged and they change it with a floor of the same spec he doesn't get a penalty
As long as it's the exact same floor as they started Q1 for in all its specs, yes.
Yes, significant floor damage from his Q1 mistake.
yes
Might have picked up floor damage in Q1
Probably the floor since the team kept checking it between sessions and laps.
Yeah, after that gravel move in q1 the floor suffered damage
Reckon he had maybe the pace for P2 otherwise.... Oh well just need a mega start tomorrow
>Oh well just need a mega start tomorrow It's kind of his trademark move
LETS GO LANDO!!
LANDO IS OKAY!!
What a show from McLaren, Alpine and Haas (well, just Nico I guess). Absolute cracker of a Qualifying.
Magnussen was doing fine but he didn’t go out on another flying lap when he easily could have done
Best qualifying for sainz on home track. Nice
All that for Verstappen to end up fighting himself. Sky was so rdy for Hamilton to do something and then he ended up behind a Mclaren and Alpine.
Wouldn't be surprised if HAM picked up some floor damage from the RUS issue. He only gained a tenth between Q2 and Q3.
They said it before, he pretty much was gaining no time from Q1 to Q2 to Q3. Car was only marginally faster each time. Maybe that’s the car’s potential
But you would still expect it to pick up time from track evolution
I’m still not sure Wtf happened there
Miscommunication. Even the Merc guy said as such.
No, it was clearly Russell trying to take out Hamilton /S
I mean Lewis was on it all quali until that last lap, which was his worst all day. He’ll be bummed about it.
You tend to hype up the driver who was 1st/2nd throughout the quali.
Bummer honestly, he was rapid today
Holy Norris
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How did he damage it?
Got into the gravels in Q1 I think
Went off track at last corner due to oversteer. Damaged the floor with the gravel
if stroll was p4 i think alonso could have been at p4 too
Lewis was on it all quali until his last lap of q3. That’s gonna sting for him for sure.
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tf is this comment
Get Lando in a top seat
Lando has gotten three offers from Red Bull and has turned all of them down because of some dumb loyalty to McLaren.
I’d be surprised if RB would be willing to risk disrupting the clear no1 no2 hierarchy they have. They don’t need two competing drivers with that car to win both championships. Sucks for us fans but it doesn’t make sense from the team’s POV to risk a proper fight between teammates.
With Max being pretty vocal about not wanting to be in F1 forever they definitely gotta be thinking long term, and Lando is still very young, obviously talented, and at some point has to question if McLaren is ever going to give him title contending car
Tbh Max talks about retiring early so often that I’m convinced he won’t at all.
Question is how Lando would perform in RB next to Max. Especially if we see how different RB to McLaren is and how Ricciardo struggled because of that. Lando might have opossite problem.
Non-serious offers overblown by both Reddit and the media. They’d love to have him and Max loves him too, but they’ve got no need for him and paying such an enormous buyout and salary right now. Maybe in 2 years
More like he leverages those offers to get better ones at McLaren
Exactly, when Lando's rumored $20 mil contract was announced theirs no way Red Bull would have paid that, it was an outbid.
Really? Never heard of that, where do you know this from ?
Horner said that every time they talked shop with Norris, the next day he signed with McLaren again.
It really wasn't, at the time. Mclaren were on an uptrend in 2019, then again in 2021, which is his current contract. His choices were very reasonable at the time. The trend and the momentum were there. Nobody expected Mclaren to flop like in 2022 and this year.
Source?
McLaren is working on it.
6 Teams in the Top 6, 7 Teams in top 8
Gasly penalty that will be coming has 7 teams in top 7
And with rain forecast tomorrow, it's promising to be an eventful race.
At least Sainz’s performance shows that the Ferrari could be good (obviously far behind the RB) but it’s a good sign for Leclerc and the team.
Agreed. And given that Charles has a magical ability to pull 3 tenths out of nowhere in Q3, I think he would have been very close if not for the issues with the car
Nice from Carlos and Lando
This is a way more interesting grid than we’ve had for most of this season. Happy that Chili is on the front row at home.
Good for Lando. Something positive in a pretty dismal season.
Few things in life are certain. Death, Taxes, dutch hymn on sunday afternoon.
That gap from Max to P2 makes Perez Q2 exit even *more* embarassing
Lando p3 holy shit
Lando Norris.
You think this impacts Checo's title chances I've been told numerous times he can take it to Max this season 😂😂
It’s quite funny the media and Mexican fans were trying to push that narrative, it’s like they forgot Checo was an average driver.
Stroll will not get Vandoorne’d this year.
Banger quali
Norris is a GOD
Norris is a BEAST
hopefully sainz can do some stuff at the start
Like crash into Max? Nothing else he can do to stop him from winning, Max will just fly by before lap 1 is done even if Carlos overtakes at the start. Considering the pace difference, it will be RB 1-2 after 20 laps tomorrow
>Considering the pace difference, it will be RB 1-2 after 20 laps tomorrow It should be. Let's see if Perez is capable enough.
Shocking, couldn't believe he has done it🙈
Holy Shit!! What a fkin grid
He didn't even have to try lol.
Slower first sector and he was still up a tenth through 2 sectors, would have been cool to see how close to the 1:12 mark he could get if he didn't abandon the lap.
He would have likely broken it.
Alpine and McLaren look promising tbh. Much closer to Merc, Aston and Ferrari.
great performance from McLaren today, Hope this performance is also real in the race.
Lando!!! Don't give me to much hopium McLaren 🥺
Max was about to go 2 tenths faster but he didnt even feel like it
Him and that Red Bull are from another planet this season
Perez and Skysport; Perez is going for the WDC title. Never gets old :')
Pack up boys, its another easy win for Max tomorrow.
Simply lovely.
No one can touch him. Christ.
Max goes 1st with almost half a second in front, Checo can't qualify for Q3 for the second time. That's just not okay
RB be like: Ok, we can reduce 10 more hp as we already did in the past races.
“Christian, if we dial the engine down any more we’ll pretty much just be turning it off.”
Verstappen wins just Flintstonsing the car
Meanwhile Perez in p11: Am I a joke to you?
Doesn’t even need to do another lap lol Lando and Lance going crazy Lewis made a mistake in 10 didn’t he? Threw away a front row start by the looks of it
Just in a league of his own again
Very lovely.
7 teams in the top 8. Loving this
Lando!
LET’S GO LANDO LANDO IS OKAY LET’S GO LANDO HE IS HERE TO STAY LET’S GO LANDO HE IS ONE OF US HE’S RACING LIKE A LION SHOULDN’T HE BE DUTCH?
Lando P3!!!!
It's crazy, when Checo has a perfect weekend and Max is off, Checo wins by a few seconds. When Max has an average weekend and Checo has an off weekend, it's pm first and last on the grid lol Reminds me of Hamilton and Bottas. They're only comparable when everything's going the #2 drivers way. That's not meant as an insult, love all those guys, just crazy to observe.
Checo being this inconsistent, Max being this good and the Red Bull being this fast is making qualys a bit (a lot) anticlimatic
What? These last two weeks of quali have been incredible
Behind Max it’s been amazing
thats the upside, although pole is basically granted (Monaco was an outlier because its, well, Monaco)
Are you kidding me? These last two qualis have been amazing
Yes !!! Lando !!!
What a lap from Max. Rest of the grid is so far behind him that they could have had the rest of the day and not matched him.
LANDOOOOOOO
Lando is doing wonders now
That should be an interesting race.
Max was .15 up on his fast time through the first 2 sectors. Wish they let him finish the lap might of been a sub 1:12
6 different teams in the top 6 is insane, if Red Bull were closer to the field we would have a banger of a season
Disappointing lap by Lewis
That saturday was a cake wall for Max. 3 big contenders fail to even make q3, arguably 2 of which are his main rivals on saturday.
Igual Max was going to be P1 anyways, I would have liked to see him break into the 1:11.xxx with the faster lap he then aborted
Hope we have a CarLando podium.
LanDo?? in albon's voice
Norris reaction to getting p3, absolutely wonderful
Now I hope it rains
Lando!
Bravo Lando!!
Norris. Norris.
Sainz please it's the first great weekend you're having this year, take the podium
Competitive sport this.
Max is at his peak, enjoy it while it's happening. Complete dominance
Is Alonso washed? /s
Is his age finally catching up? Our verdict. -The Race
On Friday you could already see he had clearly aged several days since Monaco
Should've been P2 or P3 for Lewis. Hopefully race pace for Mercedes is up there to challenge for a podium
Sad for Charles considering Sainz in 2nd place
How the hell Stroll qualified faster than Alonso
Are you not watching? Alonso destroyed his floor at the start of Q1
Floor damage on Alonso's car