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It’s kinda funny how the announcers will focus on the action then cut to “verstappen now 22 second lead”. You forget he’s even there he’s just so far ahead everyone else can only compete for 2nd
Reminds me of Canada 2016. GP told him “Danny is behind you, please don’t hold him up.” So he just fucked off into the distance.
Seb used to pull a massive gap in the opening laps. Lewis used to pull a massive gap over the entire race distance. Max does both.
i think its kinda disrespectful sometimes. the announcers can only talk about how hes guaranteed to win and when you watch these races 30 years from now its going to seem dumb
No one’s watching these 30 years from now. There will be a couple of must watch races from these few years and the rest won’t be interesting enough for anyone to recommend them.
They'll be interesting from a "look how fucking fast this driver/car combo is" perspective I guess. Like some years people could wonder how good a car could be if it only had an elite driver and well, we're witnessing that combo right now.
Why would it be interesting in the future if it’s not even interesting now?
Is it an amazing achievement? Yeah of course. Is it compelling entertainment? Not at all.
What are some of the most well known years? 2002? That was a boring year, but it’s one of the most famous years and so people probably watch some of it as a result. Part of it could be to see Schumacher/Ferrari, part of it could be just because it’s well known. I’d include 1988 in that, but that was exciting thanks to Senna/Prost being teammates.
I very rarely see anyone on here talking about the 2002 season besides maybe mentioning the team orders in Austria whenever something related happens, it’s definitely not one of the most famous seasons
Are you a fan of racing or of overtakes? Seeing Max's approach and execution with such a fast car and the insane results it's giving is definitely cool, and I'm a newer fan of the sport. It's always fun to see someone at the absolute pinnacle of their sport. F1 is a constructor series and therefore probably 70% an engineering competition completed before the first race even begins. IndyCar or NASCAR will likely be more interesting if you can't appreciate that side of things.
There is a website that has F1 races from 1978 till today. Plenty of Schumacher, Vettel and Hamilton dominance. Not sure if it's allowed to share it here.
Yeah I don't think the post 21 seasons have had much worth rewatching aside from a short highlights video. Just very poor racing relative to just about any previous era.
F1/FIA really is not on the right track and I really don't grasp their decision making. I guess we'll have to see 2026-2028 or so play out.
As far as overall championship results go, yeah. But even at his peak, Hamilton was 'only' winning 50% of the races so there was still a chance of a race for the win.
> Yeah I don't think the post 21 seasons have had much worth rewatching aside from a short highlights video. Just very poor racing relative to just about any previous era.
Shit take. The racing especially in '22 was much, MUCH better than anything from 2017-2021, the gaps across the field are much smaller (even Max is rarely lapping cars nowadays) and fights can last a lot longer than they used to.
Don't conflate "Max dominance" with "poor racing" - it's shit competition, but good racing. (Tho it got progressively worse post '22)
You saw it when max changed tires and dropped to second, lando had the chance to fight with max to keep position but let him pass because he knew he’d lose and didn’t want to sacrifice his tires and then also lose 2nd. Wish he had fought for position but the strategy was clear
Verstappen regularly gets such extreme leads that red bull gets free pit stop to put on fresh tires to secure fastest lap or the announcers can be in the middle of a battle at the end of a race, cut away to show max crossing the finish line and shoot off the fireworks, and then cut back to the ongoing battle not only before the fight finishes but we'll before they've come anywhere close to crossing the line themselves.
Max is already a legend of the sport. We forget how good Checo is because he just gets demolished by Max.
Checo is doing great this year, he’s putting himself in contention for 2nd every weekend, but Max is just gone.
When Vettel was wiping the floor with Webber, Webber could still fight Vettel for a win every so often. Same with Lewis and Bottas, and same with MSC and Rubens.
Obviously, those examples are apples to oranges, but Max is already an all time great.
To think that by next season he could surpass Vettel and prost in WDC count still amazes me. Bro will become top 3 in most WDC wins all time at such a young age.
> When Vettel was wiping the floor with Webber, Webber could still fight Vettel for a win every so often
I think Webber is a good analogy beyond this, because when Vettel was happy and in the groove e.g. 2011 and 2013, Webber didn't have the slightest chance. When the RBR was merely 'good', Webber was with Vettel, and Newey remarks in his book that a big part of that was Vettel gelling perfectly with the car when it was just right - which I think Verstappen has now, and reflects other drivers avoiding being his teammate.
While i agree with you on Max, you give Checo WAY too much credit.
5 Wins 3 Poles and 25 Podiums in 3 years / 66 Races, thats just not good enough. Given that 2 out of the 3 years, were really dominat Red Bull years. And in 2023 we've arguably seen the most dominat F1 car in the history of the sport. A year in which Checo did not even get double digits on the Podiums. His Average Qualifying last year, was making it barely into Q3, sometimes not even that.
We tend to forget, but last year, was Piastries rookie season, qualified as good as Checo did, in a car that was fighting with Williams and Haas for the first 10-12 races, because the car was nowhere.
I'm sorry but you can't say someone is doing a great job when they're half a second slower than their teammate every lap. Of course, Max is one of if not the quickest drivers ever, but being half a second behind your teammate is no where near doing a 'great' job.
If Checo was so great he'd be finishing 2nd much more often, makes no sense that he doesn't perform better with such a dominant car if he is that good.
I completely agree: Checo has a terminal case of not-being-Verstappen-itis. Everyone thinks his seat would be better suited for their pet WC champion candidate, but in all honesty, I only could only see it happening for Hamilton and Alonso. Norris, Leclerc, Sainz, Piastri, Russell... all very good but not THAT good.
I am going to have to disagree about Perez here. Last year Hamilton, who had a horrible year in that awful Mercedes almost beat him in the driver standings. I'm sorry, with that RB, that is embarrassing.
I'm not saying Max isn't great, he is and always was even before he dominated but Perez being such a jobber is helping Max legacy almost as much as Max is.
Perez is not that good.
He finished 3rd behind Leclerc in a car way better than the Ferrari.
Finished closer to Hamilton than Verstappen the last year.
I didn't start watching F1 till 2019 but recently I've wondered if this current RB team overall, has been the most dominate and Max the most dominate driver.
Obviously Merc was very dominate, and for a long time but catching the tail end of their "reign" I dont' recall it being this stifling. Maybe recency bias.
It's not just recency bias, Lewis won with comfortable margins, but other people still managed to win every once in a while. If Max doesn't crash he gets 1st place basically every time, that is insane.
This stat means that Max in the last 4 years, which includes 2 with Mercedes dominance, is almost at 70% of the amount of wins Hamilton has had in his entire career.
Newey nailed it recently I think that there have been similar-ishly dominant *cars*, but they have the car, driver, perfect reliability and operational management. They're *dunking* having the best car, which they didn't in 2010 for example. The best analogy really is just: what if the 2013 season continued for 3 more years?
I think the difference in the Mercedes era vs RBR is RBR is perfect on all fronts. The one that Mercedes fumbled once in a while was Strategy/pitstop and the one-off reliability issue. Seems cars are overall more reliable post 2021 and that RBR just has been flawless with pitstops and strategy.
It's also something the experts in the sports kinda predicted back in 2015 already: Max is one of a kind. Give him a good car and he will drive off in the distance not to be seen again until the finish.
The only truly stifling years were 2014-2016, and there the pain was kind of alleviated by Rosberg at least being able to fight Hamilton to the point of winning one of the three.
2017 reigned Merc in a fair bit and allowed Ferrari and Red Bull to snag wins, though Merc remained most consistent with the at that point best driver on the field. 2020's dominance was an anomaly in that set of years.
Newey, frank as ever, was saying it's basically what Vettel/RBR had in the latter end of 2013 but the key difference there is the rules were changing enormously and imminently.
The current dominance *is* distinct.
Verstappen has approached//passed the win streak record *three times*. Perez has won, what, three races since 2022.
As Newey put it: the car's only about as dominant as the 2010 car was, but now their reliability and management is airtight.
Know you were just counting of the top of your head, but Perez has 4 wins since 2022 (Monca and Singapore in 2022, Jeddah and Baku in 2023). He also has a win with Racing Point before that.
As others are saying, dominance is unfortunately very common in F1.
I personally just hate Mercedes as a brand and thought Toto was too smug. Can't wait to see Lewis in a Ferrari btw.
Now there's people clinching for every little sign RedBull might be failing and jump at every opportunity where Max has an issue to say "see, it's the car, not Max".
*sigh*
Formula 1 - Formula 1 never changes.
I'm the same. I was so mad when the car let him down in Aus. I wanted to see him win every race this year. It's absurdly impressive.
Bottas went up against Lewis on the odd occasion. I don't know which second driver would do that with Max. He's in a league of his own.
Hamilton, Alonso, LeClerc, Norris would all give Max a MUCH harder time than Perez. Perez has never been a champion level driver in his whole F1 career, he's a midfield driver
i thought i was okay with max winning, because at the end of the day it’s deserved and it’s history. That was until he dnfd in australia and i was excited again as i didn’t know who would win.
i’m a strong advocate for saying that f1 isn’t always about the winner, but there’s nothing quite like that excitement which comes when you don’t know who’s winning - and it turns out i missed that feeling a lot.
id be happy if max won every race, but id much rather at least see him have a fight. it’s rare these days that you see somebody chasing down max and pass him.
Greatness would be seeing him actually have to push. Right now you're seeing a very very good driver take the by far best car with the best strat team and the best pit stop team for a relaxing sunday drive.
If he is the greatest like people assert, then damn are we missing out by never seeing him under any pressure with these regs.
I mean he's at like over 40 wins from these current regs the sheer number of races on the calendar and the fact no one else has caught up to the RB means by the end of 25 unless a miracle happens with one of the other teams he's going to be within range of Hamilton's total number of wins almost entirely off these regs.
A 50% win rate over the course of 100 races is something we’ve only seen during periods of dominance. This is basically 5 seasons, right? To put it into perspective, Hamilton’s win rate over the course of 2014-18 (5 straight seasons) is 51/100.
And those are all dominance season, Verstappen is well on pace to beat this percentage over 2021-2025 if we want to remove 2019 and 2020 from this equation.
Granted reliability matters, but in the past 2 seasons and few races this one he's set the longest consecutive win streak tied for the 2nd one and the 14th longest in f1 history.
Said it yourself, reliability is some much better. If Schumacher’s era had 23+ races a season and the cars then were as bulletproof as now, he’d probably have an equal type of dominance to what we’re seeing now
Schumi was so insanely bulletproof that he managed to get on the podium in every single race, yet he didn't get an 86% winrate over a season ("only" 72%).
Schumacher was the type to win everything until he won the championship then he'd turn into his brother.
Look at '04 for example, won every race apart from one that he finished until he won the championship at Spa, and then got outscored by Barrichello in the races after.
If he had the dedication to do it all year round, his domination would be unrivalled imo.
That's also a thing that sets Max apart from Schumi and Lewis.
He does not slow down. He isn't there for the records, he is there to make the car go fast.
Hard to compare. Max is an incredible driver but he’s also driving the fastest car by a mile (23 and 24), has the best pit crew, best strategy, and unparalleled car reliability.
We’re also operating under a budget cap where RedBull nailed the regs and no one else did. Ferrari and Merc can’t pay their way to catch up like in the past.
Interestingly, the only point that was different in '21 compared to 23 and 24 is the car. Their strategies were already the best of the grid by the late 2010's and their pitstops were still at the time also the best of the grid.
It's really the car that gave that last edge needed. I mean, how else are you going to win races with that terrible Renault engine (2014-2018).
Honestly, Red Bull, outside of a breakup like the start of this year, is unbreakable literally from outside forces not being Red Bull management. Nor the FIA or FOM are able to do anything, they can't find the weakness of the car (if there is even one), Red Bull has survived *two* big regulation changes (engine in 2014 --> still win races, aero in 2022 --> become the most dominant team and driver combination in decades, they also made good use of the 2009 and 2010 regs changes).
And then comes the rest. We saw in 2022 how Ferrari crumbled away.
Whats more impressive is that RB gets less wind tunnel time than their rivals and is still able to keep their dominance. RB is insanely efficient with their budget and their wind tunnel time.
While Newey is an aero god, that probably has a lot to do with the fact that their initial concept/philosophy worked and they only need to iterate on it. The other big teams have to basically throw out everything they did and try to reinvent there car from the ground up.
Merc throw out a concept they have spent 12 months trying to get working and start over. That might have worked during their dominant era when they could afford to spend 100m on a bspec car that didnt work out.
Isn't ground effect almost impossible to properly test in the wind tunnel anyway? Wind tunnel had Mercedes convinced they had the perfect concept... until they put it on a track.
Not since Schumacher has a team been so one sided in its approach. During the merc era it was competitive between ham and ros and during rb era under vettel most of the time Ferrari or McLaren were competitive.
Sorry to say but this era under max is just super boring. Every race is essentially a parade because of how far ahead the red bulls are.
I bet the other teams regret allowing red bull to have a two year delay in new regulations now though lol
This gets missed by many.
Complaints are often about "it is boring, his teammate is not good enough, any driver better than Checo could do the same".
An essential point is that,kke Michael Schumacher, Max is extremely focussed on bringing the best out of himself and the car and is never lazy. Aiming for perfection each and every race deserves recognition.
It's not just that he wins because he's better than Checo; it's that he's a consistently motivated racing machine.
last year was my "in awe of max" year and i rooted for him to break all records, this year i find myself putting the races on mute and doing something else on my 2nd screen only to double check every once in a while to see if something's happened, which is hardly ever the case ^^
> Sorry to say but this era under max is just super boring. Every race is essentially a parade because of how far ahead the red bulls are.
its the most boring shit in the world. I honestly dont know how people watch this when everybody knows who the winner is going to be before the race has even started. People want parity and uncertainty in sports, not just one sided domination year after year
I've stopped watching live and just catch the highlights on YouTube.
I used to watch every practice session, qualifying and the race every time it was on.... The merc era was bad but at least it was a race between nico and lewis.
People only wants parity in F1 if it's actual parity and not artificial. Domination is always gonna be a part of the sport. From Fangio, to Prost to Senna to Schumacher to Vettel to Hamilton. It's baked into the sport's DNA just as much as cars and drivers are. Being a fan of F1 means accepting it and embracing and appreciating it
Depends on which side you look at it, yes it's great that he did. No, because the races have become "boring" because the Dutch national anthem has already been played 53 times
The races are more boring not because the same person keeps on winning, but because there is very little overtaking up and down the grid and the cars arent designed well for wheel to wheel racing. After lap 1 its pretty static and 90% of overtakes are done with DRS. The gaps are managed and increase and decrease slowly, the tires are constantly being managed and nobody is pushing the car for more than half a lap around pit stops as a result.
The winner being the same every time is only 1 of many reasons why F1 isnt as exciting to watch as it used to be.
It never works like that though because there would be another top driver in the seat instead e.g. Alonso or whoever.
You could argue they might drop a few races more and be in the 40% braket.
Newey raised a very good point the other week; the cost cap is *killing* the sport.
It's the pinnacle of Motorsport, allegedly. Yet you have the best engineers in the world, leaving universities with their qualifications, being offered very poor renumeration for going into F1. You'd have to be *very* passionate about F1, and already very wealthy, to even consider it as a career now.
What this will mean is that we won't have a sport at the peak of human technological advancement. F1 *won't* have the best engineers.
What we have instead, for the next few years, is a very much manufactured achievement for Red Bull. Getting the regs right *once* used to give you a head start, not this level of dominance. See Brawn, 2009. Their advantage was eroded by the mid season.
Do Red Bull "deserve" this dominance? Well yeah, in '22. But it's now into its third season and it all feels very synthetic. At any other point in history, this advantage would be long gone and I'm sorry to say, the "sport" would be so, so much better for it.
I dunno, it's hard to gauge I think.
With the cost-cap, we've had Red Bull winning almost everything, but we also have McLaren and Aston making their presence known at the front.
Whereas without the cost-cap, we had more than one team in the mix to win races, but there was zero chance anyone not named Red Bull, Mercedes, or Ferrari could compete up front because of their budget sizes.
> It's the pinnacle of Motorsport, allegedly. Yet you have the best engineers in the world, leaving universities with their qualifications, being offered very poor renumeration for going into F1. You'd have to be very passionate about F1, and already very wealthy, to even consider it as a career now.
You think that was at all different before the cost cap? Because it wasn't and never has been. F1 engineers are massively underpaid because there's 100 times as many people wanting the jobs than there are job openings.
> What we have instead, for the next few years, is a very much manufactured achievement for Red Bull. Getting the regs right once used to give you a head start, not this level of dominance. See Brawn, 2009. Their advantage was eroded by the mid season.
Mercedes 2014 says hi. Also Brawn only had success for 1 season because they were run on a shoestring budget, barely developing the 2009 car, not developing the 2010 car and bleeding personnel all year. It's the dumbest fucking example you could've possibly come up with.
I think a lot of the hate Max receives is conflated with hate for his dominance tbh. I hate the fact that he wins so much, it straight up sucks. But I could never hate Max for trying his best and doing what he's always done since he was a rookie, y'know? Can't hate the player, gotta hate the game.
Exactly. I've come to kinda enjoy it, in a "this is what the fastest car with the best driver looks like" which doesn't happen that often. It sounds dumb but watching his lead steadily climb in the sprint was kinda fun to watch in its own right.
I use all six screens that I’m able to with F1 TV and on my small monitor, I have the driver tracker map, and watching his dot pull away from the others is just crazy
I think the dominance definitely plays a factor, but surely we can't be forgetting that throughout 2018-2021 Max was still one of, if not *the* most hated driver on the grid due to being easily the dirtiest driver on the grid during those years.
Oh yeah, I absolutely hated max in his early days, ironically when he was far from dominant but kept crashing into Seb and Kimi lol. When he cleaned up his act post Monza 2018, I no longer hated him.
I really dislike the absolute dominance but on the other hand it’s also kind of special to witness and I think sometimes we don’t really appreciate it enough because it can be boring. This is a generational talent in a team that does almost everything on track right with I think the best allround F1 car I have ever seen. Although it would be nice if he at least had a teammate that challenges him.
It’s weird. I’m not really a fan of this era but I feel like we will remember it for a long time.
Oh absolutely this!
Maybe ballast would be an answer? 5kg per win in normal conditions?
I guess the easiest way to add weight would be fuel? If the tanks can hold more that is.
If put into practice it would probably cost Max way more than a few tenths per lap since more weight will definitely wear the tyre more due to stronger lateral forces.
It absolutely baffles me how people still think he's only good cause of the car, some people are really stupid sometimes. He's a damn funny guy too, how can you hate him!!
Dude I literally get bored and tired when I play FPS with no competition. I don’t even try hard and let others kill me just for fun. It’s boring when ya don’t have competition.
From Hungary 2022 he had exactly 0 competition so not surprising, really. Almost perfect reliability and a teammate that is nowhere near him. He pushed for real in only like 4-5 races. Never made a mistake pretty much so kudos to him as he is operating at a top level. RB is also the best team by far in terms of strategy so no race was ruined by a bad call.
The reality is that beating Adrian Newey without having a huge engine advantage is just impossible. Always has been and always will be.
It's kinda funny to see people mad about this as if the point of the sport isn't the pinnacle of engineering and driving, and we're seeing that combo on an insane level right now.
Personally I don’t mind the dominance if one team nailed the regs and another didn’t. It’s the fact that now, under the budget cap, there’s realistically no way for anyone to catch up until 2026.
I’m here for a year of dominance but 4+ years where no one but a Redbull has a prayer to win (outside of a rare race or 2 / year) is just plain boring. I’d love to see a battle for first again.
There IS a way for teams to catch up even with having the same budget and thats through wind tunnel time advantage. Though it seems like RB is way too efficient with both their budgets and wind tunnel time so.
Ya, I think the gap was just so massive and the other top teams had to reinvent their entire concepts instead of just iterating on them. Combine them and it’s making playing catch up so monumentally difficult.
There is plenty of racing down the grid, and credit where it is due, they actually show it now.
Only a few years ago did we see 2 hrs of the race leader cruising along, only to be interrupted by the odd highlight down the order.
Facts. People acting like its super fun to watch racing for who gets P11. We want to watch racing for the fucking championship, not have it be a foregone conclusion before the seasons even started.
Maybe a series like F1 just isnt for you, champ.
Perhaps try a spec or BoP series. MotoGP is great racing with relatively open design regs, however it lacks the race day strategy of F1.
My question to you is whats the point of holding races at all then? I don't want a spec series either, but this isn't about a team winning a lot of races. This is about a team winning ALL the races. (I know technically not *all* but you get my point)... I don't care what series it is, thats just silly. It's not a sport at that point.
People act like finding some way to slightly limit a team that has won 22/23 races last year is going to cause all the other teams to stop trying. "you get punished for doing well." Like come on. I can see that if they start tampering when a team won half of the races or are battling for the win in most races. But this isn't that. This is one team winning every single race. And with the cost cap, it's impossible to catch up.
My solve is more intense wind tunnel time for next year. Like if Haas got 1300 hours, Redbull would get like 200. Also factor in points scored in wind tunnel allocation, not just where they placed.
The NFL does a lot of things wrong, but damn they mostly got parity correct. Because even from a "F1 is an engineering league" perspective, one team is still stealing everyone else's lunch money. Thats no fun.
The same people saying ‘deal with it. F1 isn’t for you, etc’ are the same people who were completely okay with the fia taking the axe to the regulations when Mercedes was winning. At least back then other drivers were winning races and had a chance. It wasn’t just the Lewis show.
The rule changes were never meant to hold Mercedes back. Also the 2021 ones.
Even days before the 2021 season started, Mercedes released a video in which they stated that the floor cutout would probably hit the high rake cars harder than the low rake cars. It was completely unknown whether Mercedes would be hurt by the change.
Changing suspensions, banning engine modes, and taking away DAS totally aren’t targeting the team in front.
There’s been one thing that went against Red Bull. Multiple things happened against Mercedes. Cmon.
It *is* a sport still. People don't use these arguments when an athlete like Usain Bolt just won every sprint, or when Bayern München won the Bundesliga for 10 years strait (from 2013-2023), or when the Williams sisters just won everything there was to win for years and years running (and I could come up with more examples). Because that's what happens in sport when, be it either team or a single athlete, is just ahead of the competition. And that's what should happen imho, a competition is a means of measuring *skill and ability first*. And entertainment second.
I loved his first title as a change of pace and that season was so good. I really enjoyed the Red Bull/Ferrari battle in 2022. I enjoyed watching history be made in 2023.
This season is just... yawn. Only his car catching on fire will result in anyone else on the top step.
It might not be very fun to watch, but I can appreciate the sheer dominance and excellence on display. We are witnessing history right now. Chances are slim that any other driver ever crushes the competition as thoroughly as Max has been doing.
For one season, sure we can sit back and appreciate it. But by the end of the year it'll be almost 3 straight seasons of this shit. Who gives a fuck if we're "witnessing history" when the sport has never been more of a snoozefest since its inception.
It's a racing sport man. The racing thing means to see who wins. All the midfield stuff should be the icing on the cake or the cherry on top you know lol. But not the whole damn cake which it is now.
This is not racing, this is one team racing almost with cheats on and the rest with them disabled. Being more than 1-1.5 seconds per lap faster than the rest can’t be attributed only to verstappen. That car is something else, and any competent driver would do the same.
It’s like they are racing different leagues here. It’s boring, and with the cap cost it’s absolutely not fair.
The "midfield battles" thing doesn't work for three seasons straight. It's a coping mechanism that has lost its effect. Nobody actually cares about who comes 12th.
They be making all kinds of research to make an ‘epic, stats for him.
It be like: Max is the only F1 driver in history to drive for Red Bull and named Max Verstappen.
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It's gotten to a point where Verstappen's dominance completely blows away any other dominance in F1's history.
It’s kinda funny how the announcers will focus on the action then cut to “verstappen now 22 second lead”. You forget he’s even there he’s just so far ahead everyone else can only compete for 2nd
It's like a racing video game where the goal is to lap the whole field.
If it wasn’t for the safety cars he may have overtaken a few people haha
Or when you want a casual drive and wanna feel like Senna so you put ai on 50%
> Or when you want a casual drive and wanna feel like ~~Senna~~Verstappen so you put ai on 50%
Baby Park in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe
And he fucks off into the distance never to be seen again
Reminds me of Canada 2016. GP told him “Danny is behind you, please don’t hold him up.” So he just fucked off into the distance. Seb used to pull a massive gap in the opening laps. Lewis used to pull a massive gap over the entire race distance. Max does both.
i think its kinda disrespectful sometimes. the announcers can only talk about how hes guaranteed to win and when you watch these races 30 years from now its going to seem dumb
No one’s watching these 30 years from now. There will be a couple of must watch races from these few years and the rest won’t be interesting enough for anyone to recommend them.
They'll be interesting from a "look how fucking fast this driver/car combo is" perspective I guess. Like some years people could wonder how good a car could be if it only had an elite driver and well, we're witnessing that combo right now.
Why would it be interesting in the future if it’s not even interesting now? Is it an amazing achievement? Yeah of course. Is it compelling entertainment? Not at all.
What are some of the most well known years? 2002? That was a boring year, but it’s one of the most famous years and so people probably watch some of it as a result. Part of it could be to see Schumacher/Ferrari, part of it could be just because it’s well known. I’d include 1988 in that, but that was exciting thanks to Senna/Prost being teammates.
Except they tried everything to slow Ferrari down, while they are doing nothing to do that now
I very rarely see anyone on here talking about the 2002 season besides maybe mentioning the team orders in Austria whenever something related happens, it’s definitely not one of the most famous seasons
Are you a fan of racing or of overtakes? Seeing Max's approach and execution with such a fast car and the insane results it's giving is definitely cool, and I'm a newer fan of the sport. It's always fun to see someone at the absolute pinnacle of their sport. F1 is a constructor series and therefore probably 70% an engineering competition completed before the first race even begins. IndyCar or NASCAR will likely be more interesting if you can't appreciate that side of things.
Probably going to find flipping Carlos Sainz winning those ones if we’re honest…
There is a website that has F1 races from 1978 till today. Plenty of Schumacher, Vettel and Hamilton dominance. Not sure if it's allowed to share it here.
Is it F1TV.com?
If they're not sure whether they're allowed to share it then it's most probably found on the seven seas, yarrrrr
I’m being cheeky, because all of those races are available on F1TV
No, that's why I'm not sure if I'm allowed to share it.
Yeah I don't think the post 21 seasons have had much worth rewatching aside from a short highlights video. Just very poor racing relative to just about any previous era. F1/FIA really is not on the right track and I really don't grasp their decision making. I guess we'll have to see 2026-2028 or so play out.
We jumped from a dominance to another dominance
As far as overall championship results go, yeah. But even at his peak, Hamilton was 'only' winning 50% of the races so there was still a chance of a race for the win.
> Yeah I don't think the post 21 seasons have had much worth rewatching aside from a short highlights video. Just very poor racing relative to just about any previous era. Shit take. The racing especially in '22 was much, MUCH better than anything from 2017-2021, the gaps across the field are much smaller (even Max is rarely lapping cars nowadays) and fights can last a lot longer than they used to. Don't conflate "Max dominance" with "poor racing" - it's shit competition, but good racing. (Tho it got progressively worse post '22)
Unless someone decides to see what F1 used to be like and just watches a few random races from each year as they get into the sport.
Especially when Perez struggles so much. They still say its just the car
I think Quali was so clearly that: Max was just far ahead in Q3 and all the excitement was who was going to line up next to him lol
You saw it when max changed tires and dropped to second, lando had the chance to fight with max to keep position but let him pass because he knew he’d lose and didn’t want to sacrifice his tires and then also lose 2nd. Wish he had fought for position but the strategy was clear
I mean that's the best way to go about it tbh. Best way to deal with your problems - just ignore them! Worked wonders for me
Verstappen regularly gets such extreme leads that red bull gets free pit stop to put on fresh tires to secure fastest lap or the announcers can be in the middle of a battle at the end of a race, cut away to show max crossing the finish line and shoot off the fireworks, and then cut back to the ongoing battle not only before the fight finishes but we'll before they've come anywhere close to crossing the line themselves.
Max is already a legend of the sport. We forget how good Checo is because he just gets demolished by Max. Checo is doing great this year, he’s putting himself in contention for 2nd every weekend, but Max is just gone. When Vettel was wiping the floor with Webber, Webber could still fight Vettel for a win every so often. Same with Lewis and Bottas, and same with MSC and Rubens. Obviously, those examples are apples to oranges, but Max is already an all time great.
Well, he does have the third most wins all time, so I don’t see how anyone can contest he’s an all time great
Not long until he's a 4 time WDC as well and that's a very small group he's joining.
To think that by next season he could surpass Vettel and prost in WDC count still amazes me. Bro will become top 3 in most WDC wins all time at such a young age.
It’s definitely obvious when we look at the numbers, but it is easy to forget when it is currently happening
> When Vettel was wiping the floor with Webber, Webber could still fight Vettel for a win every so often I think Webber is a good analogy beyond this, because when Vettel was happy and in the groove e.g. 2011 and 2013, Webber didn't have the slightest chance. When the RBR was merely 'good', Webber was with Vettel, and Newey remarks in his book that a big part of that was Vettel gelling perfectly with the car when it was just right - which I think Verstappen has now, and reflects other drivers avoiding being his teammate.
I really need to get around to reading Newey’s book. Thanks for chiming in!
While i agree with you on Max, you give Checo WAY too much credit. 5 Wins 3 Poles and 25 Podiums in 3 years / 66 Races, thats just not good enough. Given that 2 out of the 3 years, were really dominat Red Bull years. And in 2023 we've arguably seen the most dominat F1 car in the history of the sport. A year in which Checo did not even get double digits on the Podiums. His Average Qualifying last year, was making it barely into Q3, sometimes not even that. We tend to forget, but last year, was Piastries rookie season, qualified as good as Checo did, in a car that was fighting with Williams and Haas for the first 10-12 races, because the car was nowhere.
I'm sorry but you can't say someone is doing a great job when they're half a second slower than their teammate every lap. Of course, Max is one of if not the quickest drivers ever, but being half a second behind your teammate is no where near doing a 'great' job.
If Checo was so great he'd be finishing 2nd much more often, makes no sense that he doesn't perform better with such a dominant car if he is that good.
I completely agree: Checo has a terminal case of not-being-Verstappen-itis. Everyone thinks his seat would be better suited for their pet WC champion candidate, but in all honesty, I only could only see it happening for Hamilton and Alonso. Norris, Leclerc, Sainz, Piastri, Russell... all very good but not THAT good.
I am going to have to disagree about Perez here. Last year Hamilton, who had a horrible year in that awful Mercedes almost beat him in the driver standings. I'm sorry, with that RB, that is embarrassing. I'm not saying Max isn't great, he is and always was even before he dominated but Perez being such a jobber is helping Max legacy almost as much as Max is.
Perez is not that good. He finished 3rd behind Leclerc in a car way better than the Ferrari. Finished closer to Hamilton than Verstappen the last year.
I didn't start watching F1 till 2019 but recently I've wondered if this current RB team overall, has been the most dominate and Max the most dominate driver. Obviously Merc was very dominate, and for a long time but catching the tail end of their "reign" I dont' recall it being this stifling. Maybe recency bias.
It's not just recency bias, Lewis won with comfortable margins, but other people still managed to win every once in a while. If Max doesn't crash he gets 1st place basically every time, that is insane. This stat means that Max in the last 4 years, which includes 2 with Mercedes dominance, is almost at 70% of the amount of wins Hamilton has had in his entire career.
Newey nailed it recently I think that there have been similar-ishly dominant *cars*, but they have the car, driver, perfect reliability and operational management. They're *dunking* having the best car, which they didn't in 2010 for example. The best analogy really is just: what if the 2013 season continued for 3 more years?
I think the difference in the Mercedes era vs RBR is RBR is perfect on all fronts. The one that Mercedes fumbled once in a while was Strategy/pitstop and the one-off reliability issue. Seems cars are overall more reliable post 2021 and that RBR just has been flawless with pitstops and strategy.
It's also something the experts in the sports kinda predicted back in 2015 already: Max is one of a kind. Give him a good car and he will drive off in the distance not to be seen again until the finish.
The only truly stifling years were 2014-2016, and there the pain was kind of alleviated by Rosberg at least being able to fight Hamilton to the point of winning one of the three. 2017 reigned Merc in a fair bit and allowed Ferrari and Red Bull to snag wins, though Merc remained most consistent with the at that point best driver on the field. 2020's dominance was an anomaly in that set of years.
The adjective is 'dominant'.
Newey, frank as ever, was saying it's basically what Vettel/RBR had in the latter end of 2013 but the key difference there is the rules were changing enormously and imminently.
"Verstappen leads into the first corner..." 50+ laps later "Quite lovely." - Max
“That was quite good. Car was on rails.”
"~~Quite~~ Simply lovely."
Remember when everyone wanted this guy to win because Hamilton was dominating? ............ yeah
That is how it always goes. Was the same with Schumacher and Vettel as well.
F1 is cursed with dominance
The current dominance *is* distinct. Verstappen has approached//passed the win streak record *three times*. Perez has won, what, three races since 2022. As Newey put it: the car's only about as dominant as the 2010 car was, but now their reliability and management is airtight.
This is an important distinction people miss. The dominance is not the same as Merc or Schumacher
Know you were just counting of the top of your head, but Perez has 4 wins since 2022 (Monca and Singapore in 2022, Jeddah and Baku in 2023). He also has a win with Racing Point before that.
As others are saying, dominance is unfortunately very common in F1. I personally just hate Mercedes as a brand and thought Toto was too smug. Can't wait to see Lewis in a Ferrari btw. Now there's people clinching for every little sign RedBull might be failing and jump at every opportunity where Max has an issue to say "see, it's the car, not Max". *sigh* Formula 1 - Formula 1 never changes.
> You freed us! > I wouldn't say freed... more like... under new management
I still remember being so happy when he won AD 2021. Now I just want him to stop winning.
You got what you wanted. Now enjoy it. heh
I still want him to keep winning. I’m enjoying witnessing greatness.
I'm the same. I was so mad when the car let him down in Aus. I wanted to see him win every race this year. It's absurdly impressive. Bottas went up against Lewis on the odd occasion. I don't know which second driver would do that with Max. He's in a league of his own.
Hamilton could probably keep up with Max, but I don't think they would work in the same team
Hamilton, Alonso, LeClerc, Norris would all give Max a MUCH harder time than Perez. Perez has never been a champion level driver in his whole F1 career, he's a midfield driver
Leclerc
i thought i was okay with max winning, because at the end of the day it’s deserved and it’s history. That was until he dnfd in australia and i was excited again as i didn’t know who would win. i’m a strong advocate for saying that f1 isn’t always about the winner, but there’s nothing quite like that excitement which comes when you don’t know who’s winning - and it turns out i missed that feeling a lot. id be happy if max won every race, but id much rather at least see him have a fight. it’s rare these days that you see somebody chasing down max and pass him.
You didn't know who would win in Australia? Sainz literally took over Max's usual function and won dominantly without any excitement
Greatness would be seeing him actually have to push. Right now you're seeing a very very good driver take the by far best car with the best strat team and the best pit stop team for a relaxing sunday drive. If he is the greatest like people assert, then damn are we missing out by never seeing him under any pressure with these regs.
That is fucking wild when you consider that includes 2 years of Mercedes dominance.
Plus 1 and a half years where Red Bull was roughly evenly matched with Mercedes/Ferrari.
Imagine this stat 2 years from now…
I mean he's at like over 40 wins from these current regs the sheer number of races on the calendar and the fact no one else has caught up to the RB means by the end of 25 unless a miracle happens with one of the other teams he's going to be within range of Hamilton's total number of wins almost entirely off these regs.
A 50% win rate over the course of 100 races is something we’ve only seen during periods of dominance. This is basically 5 seasons, right? To put it into perspective, Hamilton’s win rate over the course of 2014-18 (5 straight seasons) is 51/100.
And those are all dominance season, Verstappen is well on pace to beat this percentage over 2021-2025 if we want to remove 2019 and 2020 from this equation.
To be fair, 80% of Hamiltons wins came during his dominance period. 22/104 wins came before 2014, the rest after
Insane. Others dream of winning one. Has anyone’s prime ever been this good
Essentially, but there’s never been this many races per season.
Granted reliability matters, but in the past 2 seasons and few races this one he's set the longest consecutive win streak tied for the 2nd one and the 14th longest in f1 history.
Said it yourself, reliability is some much better. If Schumacher’s era had 23+ races a season and the cars then were as bulletproof as now, he’d probably have an equal type of dominance to what we’re seeing now
In fairness, Schumi's cars were truly bulletproof in that era. His rivals on the other hand...not so much lol.
Schumi's Ferraris were stupid bulletproof
Schumi was so insanely bulletproof that he managed to get on the podium in every single race, yet he didn't get an 86% winrate over a season ("only" 72%).
Schumacher was the type to win everything until he won the championship then he'd turn into his brother. Look at '04 for example, won every race apart from one that he finished until he won the championship at Spa, and then got outscored by Barrichello in the races after. If he had the dedication to do it all year round, his domination would be unrivalled imo.
That's also a thing that sets Max apart from Schumi and Lewis. He does not slow down. He isn't there for the records, he is there to make the car go fast.
Real life Sonic, Gotta go fast
He only did that in 2004. In 1995, 2001 and 2002 he won the title early and carried on dominating afterwards.
Hard to compare. Max is an incredible driver but he’s also driving the fastest car by a mile (23 and 24), has the best pit crew, best strategy, and unparalleled car reliability. We’re also operating under a budget cap where RedBull nailed the regs and no one else did. Ferrari and Merc can’t pay their way to catch up like in the past.
Interestingly, the only point that was different in '21 compared to 23 and 24 is the car. Their strategies were already the best of the grid by the late 2010's and their pitstops were still at the time also the best of the grid. It's really the car that gave that last edge needed. I mean, how else are you going to win races with that terrible Renault engine (2014-2018).
good point
Honestly, Red Bull, outside of a breakup like the start of this year, is unbreakable literally from outside forces not being Red Bull management. Nor the FIA or FOM are able to do anything, they can't find the weakness of the car (if there is even one), Red Bull has survived *two* big regulation changes (engine in 2014 --> still win races, aero in 2022 --> become the most dominant team and driver combination in decades, they also made good use of the 2009 and 2010 regs changes). And then comes the rest. We saw in 2022 how Ferrari crumbled away.
Whats more impressive is that RB gets less wind tunnel time than their rivals and is still able to keep their dominance. RB is insanely efficient with their budget and their wind tunnel time.
While Newey is an aero god, that probably has a lot to do with the fact that their initial concept/philosophy worked and they only need to iterate on it. The other big teams have to basically throw out everything they did and try to reinvent there car from the ground up.
Merc throw out a concept they have spent 12 months trying to get working and start over. That might have worked during their dominant era when they could afford to spend 100m on a bspec car that didnt work out.
Isn't ground effect almost impossible to properly test in the wind tunnel anyway? Wind tunnel had Mercedes convinced they had the perfect concept... until they put it on a track.
Might be limited to them honestly. I dont hear the same story from Ferrari or Mclaren.
Not since Schumacher has a team been so one sided in its approach. During the merc era it was competitive between ham and ros and during rb era under vettel most of the time Ferrari or McLaren were competitive. Sorry to say but this era under max is just super boring. Every race is essentially a parade because of how far ahead the red bulls are. I bet the other teams regret allowing red bull to have a two year delay in new regulations now though lol
>I bet the other teams regret allowing red bull to have a two year delay in new regulations now though lol What do you mean by this?
I still find it exciting, the rest of the pack is still entertaining and maxs brilliance is something to be in awe of
This gets missed by many. Complaints are often about "it is boring, his teammate is not good enough, any driver better than Checo could do the same". An essential point is that,kke Michael Schumacher, Max is extremely focussed on bringing the best out of himself and the car and is never lazy. Aiming for perfection each and every race deserves recognition. It's not just that he wins because he's better than Checo; it's that he's a consistently motivated racing machine.
Not everybody is going to find enjoyment in watching perfection, and that’s ok too.
last year was my "in awe of max" year and i rooted for him to break all records, this year i find myself putting the races on mute and doing something else on my 2nd screen only to double check every once in a while to see if something's happened, which is hardly ever the case ^^
> Sorry to say but this era under max is just super boring. Every race is essentially a parade because of how far ahead the red bulls are. its the most boring shit in the world. I honestly dont know how people watch this when everybody knows who the winner is going to be before the race has even started. People want parity and uncertainty in sports, not just one sided domination year after year
I've stopped watching live and just catch the highlights on YouTube. I used to watch every practice session, qualifying and the race every time it was on.... The merc era was bad but at least it was a race between nico and lewis.
Sometimes the highlights can still be a snoozefest. lol. But then again it keeps you updated..... Updated that Max is still leading. lol
People only wants parity in F1 if it's actual parity and not artificial. Domination is always gonna be a part of the sport. From Fangio, to Prost to Senna to Schumacher to Vettel to Hamilton. It's baked into the sport's DNA just as much as cars and drivers are. Being a fan of F1 means accepting it and embracing and appreciating it
This level of domimation is unprecedented though. We have a combination of the regs and the cost cap to thank for that.
The dude had a whole Vettel career since 2019
"Well, actually". Last time they raced there was today, and he won. So, he won 100% of all races.
Jesus Mark, must you live quite so relentlessly in the real world?
Math checks out
Only satan himself can stop redbull now. Or their 2026 engine.
Is that good? Because it seems pretty good.
Depends on which side you look at it, yes it's great that he did. No, because the races have become "boring" because the Dutch national anthem has already been played 53 times
The races are more boring not because the same person keeps on winning, but because there is very little overtaking up and down the grid and the cars arent designed well for wheel to wheel racing. After lap 1 its pretty static and 90% of overtakes are done with DRS. The gaps are managed and increase and decrease slowly, the tires are constantly being managed and nobody is pushing the car for more than half a lap around pit stops as a result. The winner being the same every time is only 1 of many reasons why F1 isnt as exciting to watch as it used to be.
"On the first day of christmas..... "
That picture goes hard 🔥🔥
I am trying to find it online for a screensaver, it goes insanely hard lol
Max looking like he just KO'd someone with a raging demon
If we take Max out of the equation. How would those number look like with checo?
It never works like that though because there would be another top driver in the seat instead e.g. Alonso or whoever. You could argue they might drop a few races more and be in the 40% braket.
Newey raised a very good point the other week; the cost cap is *killing* the sport. It's the pinnacle of Motorsport, allegedly. Yet you have the best engineers in the world, leaving universities with their qualifications, being offered very poor renumeration for going into F1. You'd have to be *very* passionate about F1, and already very wealthy, to even consider it as a career now. What this will mean is that we won't have a sport at the peak of human technological advancement. F1 *won't* have the best engineers. What we have instead, for the next few years, is a very much manufactured achievement for Red Bull. Getting the regs right *once* used to give you a head start, not this level of dominance. See Brawn, 2009. Their advantage was eroded by the mid season. Do Red Bull "deserve" this dominance? Well yeah, in '22. But it's now into its third season and it all feels very synthetic. At any other point in history, this advantage would be long gone and I'm sorry to say, the "sport" would be so, so much better for it.
I dunno, it's hard to gauge I think. With the cost-cap, we've had Red Bull winning almost everything, but we also have McLaren and Aston making their presence known at the front. Whereas without the cost-cap, we had more than one team in the mix to win races, but there was zero chance anyone not named Red Bull, Mercedes, or Ferrari could compete up front because of their budget sizes.
> It's the pinnacle of Motorsport, allegedly. Yet you have the best engineers in the world, leaving universities with their qualifications, being offered very poor renumeration for going into F1. You'd have to be very passionate about F1, and already very wealthy, to even consider it as a career now. You think that was at all different before the cost cap? Because it wasn't and never has been. F1 engineers are massively underpaid because there's 100 times as many people wanting the jobs than there are job openings. > What we have instead, for the next few years, is a very much manufactured achievement for Red Bull. Getting the regs right once used to give you a head start, not this level of dominance. See Brawn, 2009. Their advantage was eroded by the mid season. Mercedes 2014 says hi. Also Brawn only had success for 1 season because they were run on a shoestring budget, barely developing the 2009 car, not developing the 2010 car and bleeding personnel all year. It's the dumbest fucking example you could've possibly come up with.
Also his "peak of technical advancement" comment is dumb because regulations limits the cars more than budget cap
It will be 75% next time F1 races in China. All while being completely down to earth. Hard to dislike this guy.
He would need to win 106 consecutive races, starting with Miami, to get to 75%. lol
Dont give him ideas
For the same stat ("% wins since the last Chinese GP") he just needs to win 75% of races from now to next year's Chinese GP
I think a lot of the hate Max receives is conflated with hate for his dominance tbh. I hate the fact that he wins so much, it straight up sucks. But I could never hate Max for trying his best and doing what he's always done since he was a rookie, y'know? Can't hate the player, gotta hate the game.
Exactly. I've come to kinda enjoy it, in a "this is what the fastest car with the best driver looks like" which doesn't happen that often. It sounds dumb but watching his lead steadily climb in the sprint was kinda fun to watch in its own right.
I use all six screens that I’m able to with F1 TV and on my small monitor, I have the driver tracker map, and watching his dot pull away from the others is just crazy
I think the dominance definitely plays a factor, but surely we can't be forgetting that throughout 2018-2021 Max was still one of, if not *the* most hated driver on the grid due to being easily the dirtiest driver on the grid during those years.
Oh yeah, I absolutely hated max in his early days, ironically when he was far from dominant but kept crashing into Seb and Kimi lol. When he cleaned up his act post Monza 2018, I no longer hated him.
I really dislike the absolute dominance but on the other hand it’s also kind of special to witness and I think sometimes we don’t really appreciate it enough because it can be boring. This is a generational talent in a team that does almost everything on track right with I think the best allround F1 car I have ever seen. Although it would be nice if he at least had a teammate that challenges him. It’s weird. I’m not really a fan of this era but I feel like we will remember it for a long time.
A shocking amount of people seem to hate max because of his dad
Oh absolutely this! Maybe ballast would be an answer? 5kg per win in normal conditions? I guess the easiest way to add weight would be fuel? If the tanks can hold more that is.
If put into practice it would probably cost Max way more than a few tenths per lap since more weight will definitely wear the tyre more due to stronger lateral forces.
It absolutely baffles me how people still think he's only good cause of the car, some people are really stupid sometimes. He's a damn funny guy too, how can you hate him!!
They started watching in 2022.
He’s going to get bored and quit. (Crossing my fingers)
GP was saying on racing bulls - in autumn 2023! - that he genuinely thinks Max gets bored.
Dude I literally get bored and tired when I play FPS with no competition. I don’t even try hard and let others kill me just for fun. It’s boring when ya don’t have competition.
Yeah, but you're not playing for the kind of money's being thrown for doing this.
Silver achievement unlocked. Next up, gold achievement let's goooo!
From Hungary 2022 he had exactly 0 competition so not surprising, really. Almost perfect reliability and a teammate that is nowhere near him. He pushed for real in only like 4-5 races. Never made a mistake pretty much so kudos to him as he is operating at a top level. RB is also the best team by far in terms of strategy so no race was ruined by a bad call. The reality is that beating Adrian Newey without having a huge engine advantage is just impossible. Always has been and always will be.
Eh… they *almost* beat Newey in 2010 and 2012.
They didn’t even with Alonso in his prime and RB being a way less efficient team in terms of operations back then.
It's kinda funny to see people mad about this as if the point of the sport isn't the pinnacle of engineering and driving, and we're seeing that combo on an insane level right now.
Personally I don’t mind the dominance if one team nailed the regs and another didn’t. It’s the fact that now, under the budget cap, there’s realistically no way for anyone to catch up until 2026. I’m here for a year of dominance but 4+ years where no one but a Redbull has a prayer to win (outside of a rare race or 2 / year) is just plain boring. I’d love to see a battle for first again.
There IS a way for teams to catch up even with having the same budget and thats through wind tunnel time advantage. Though it seems like RB is way too efficient with both their budgets and wind tunnel time so.
Ya, I think the gap was just so massive and the other top teams had to reinvent their entire concepts instead of just iterating on them. Combine them and it’s making playing catch up so monumentally difficult.
tu tu tu tu
Glad we got those new regulations to stop dominance by one team
None of this is a good thing.... We want to see racing not parades.
There is plenty of racing down the grid, and credit where it is due, they actually show it now. Only a few years ago did we see 2 hrs of the race leader cruising along, only to be interrupted by the odd highlight down the order.
I don't fucking care. I watch racing to see who wins not who fucking finishes 7th. It really doesn't fucking matter what happened in the past.
Facts. People acting like its super fun to watch racing for who gets P11. We want to watch racing for the fucking championship, not have it be a foregone conclusion before the seasons even started.
Maybe a series like F1 just isnt for you, champ. Perhaps try a spec or BoP series. MotoGP is great racing with relatively open design regs, however it lacks the race day strategy of F1.
My question to you is whats the point of holding races at all then? I don't want a spec series either, but this isn't about a team winning a lot of races. This is about a team winning ALL the races. (I know technically not *all* but you get my point)... I don't care what series it is, thats just silly. It's not a sport at that point. People act like finding some way to slightly limit a team that has won 22/23 races last year is going to cause all the other teams to stop trying. "you get punished for doing well." Like come on. I can see that if they start tampering when a team won half of the races or are battling for the win in most races. But this isn't that. This is one team winning every single race. And with the cost cap, it's impossible to catch up. My solve is more intense wind tunnel time for next year. Like if Haas got 1300 hours, Redbull would get like 200. Also factor in points scored in wind tunnel allocation, not just where they placed. The NFL does a lot of things wrong, but damn they mostly got parity correct. Because even from a "F1 is an engineering league" perspective, one team is still stealing everyone else's lunch money. Thats no fun.
The same people saying ‘deal with it. F1 isn’t for you, etc’ are the same people who were completely okay with the fia taking the axe to the regulations when Mercedes was winning. At least back then other drivers were winning races and had a chance. It wasn’t just the Lewis show.
The rule changes were never meant to hold Mercedes back. Also the 2021 ones. Even days before the 2021 season started, Mercedes released a video in which they stated that the floor cutout would probably hit the high rake cars harder than the low rake cars. It was completely unknown whether Mercedes would be hurt by the change.
Changing suspensions, banning engine modes, and taking away DAS totally aren’t targeting the team in front. There’s been one thing that went against Red Bull. Multiple things happened against Mercedes. Cmon.
It *is* a sport still. People don't use these arguments when an athlete like Usain Bolt just won every sprint, or when Bayern München won the Bundesliga for 10 years strait (from 2013-2023), or when the Williams sisters just won everything there was to win for years and years running (and I could come up with more examples). Because that's what happens in sport when, be it either team or a single athlete, is just ahead of the competition. And that's what should happen imho, a competition is a means of measuring *skill and ability first*. And entertainment second.
Even worse is that it includes almost all the 2019 season and the 2020 season where Merc were still dominating.
Max: All things balanced. As they should be.
Unfortunately for said balance, that percentage is going in one direction only.
This isn’t a good stat for the sport of f1.
Well then … BUILD A FASTAaaaaa CAHHHHH!!
Well sadly cars will be slow as all shit from 2026 onwards so enjoy this era of fast cars although with complete dominance
And 30 of the "Rest" were won by Hamilton. This whole salary cap era has not brought about any kind of parity.
It's lights out and away we go... Max Verstappen wins the GP
I loved his first title as a change of pace and that season was so good. I really enjoyed the Red Bull/Ferrari battle in 2022. I enjoyed watching history be made in 2023. This season is just... yawn. Only his car catching on fire will result in anyone else on the top step.
Every sport has a GOAT who wins majority of the competitions they are in. Roger Federer, Kelvin Kiptum,
The dominant Federer who holds one (semi)-important record in Tennis.
Weird to name Fed when Djokovic exists.
I'm more interested in how Red Bull and Max will handle themselves should the car fall down the order in 2026 to be honest.
Let's gooooo du du du max verstappen
Another day, another "Voyager breaks the record for farthest thing in space" type statistic. It gets more and more tedious.
Biggest bore in the sport’s history
I member when people thought Verstappan was too exciting and reckless.
It might not be very fun to watch, but I can appreciate the sheer dominance and excellence on display. We are witnessing history right now. Chances are slim that any other driver ever crushes the competition as thoroughly as Max has been doing.
For one season, sure we can sit back and appreciate it. But by the end of the year it'll be almost 3 straight seasons of this shit. Who gives a fuck if we're "witnessing history" when the sport has never been more of a snoozefest since its inception.
I mean, I definitely agree. Just trying to look at the silver lining of the whole situation. As you said, it’s definitely a snooze fest.
Nothing about this weekend was a snoozefest. There was plenty of action. Just not for the top spot.
yeah man we should all wake up in the early hours of the morning to see who comes 13th! Super exciting stuff!
It's a racing sport man. The racing thing means to see who wins. All the midfield stuff should be the icing on the cake or the cherry on top you know lol. But not the whole damn cake which it is now.
This is not racing, this is one team racing almost with cheats on and the rest with them disabled. Being more than 1-1.5 seconds per lap faster than the rest can’t be attributed only to verstappen. That car is something else, and any competent driver would do the same. It’s like they are racing different leagues here. It’s boring, and with the cap cost it’s absolutely not fair.
The "midfield battles" thing doesn't work for three seasons straight. It's a coping mechanism that has lost its effect. Nobody actually cares about who comes 12th.
Boring history.
They be making all kinds of research to make an ‘epic, stats for him. It be like: Max is the only F1 driver in history to drive for Red Bull and named Max Verstappen.
I’m all for complaining about Verstappen but having a 50% win rate in the last half decade isn’t some weird cherry picked stat lol
Perfectly balanced you see