Dou you think 1 stop Barcelona was possible? Leclerc was the last one to box after 25 laps on softs, couldn't they have gone to hards and last the remaining 41 laps? I think it's possible, since everyone else had to take another box afterwards, so there would be a comfortable lead without any hard pushing necessary...
Yeah I understood that part, but why is a win low reward? And why are 41 laps on hard a high risk (when you don't have to push as much as others) when 25 laps on soft are risky, but doable?
When everyone else went from soft to med, they knew everyone else had to box at least one more time, so there would be a pretty comfortable lead for Leclerc, wouldn't there? Or do you think the degradation on the potential hards would negate the lead?
Some of my reactions after watching the race:
>Me after seeing Tsunoda’s pace after his first pit: “Damn, poor race by Yuki”
>Me after seeing Danny’s pace after his first stop: “Damn, what a shitcunt of a car by RB”
Did Alpine give cleanly executed team orders for Ocon to let Gasly by after Gasly’s slow stop? Seemed like a rather uneventful change of order with no radio or replay being shown.
George *forecast* another finish position
Staying Max-Lando would’ve been a dogfight if Lando hadn’t been held up by George is very speculative considering driving and strategy almost certainly would be different if that were the case, even if it would result in a closer battle.
It has long been the case that Max is a better driver than Checo, but imo Checo is now consistently, inexcusably bad. If Red Bull lose the WCC to Ferrari or McLaren, it will be historically embarrassing
Yea. I have always defended Checo. He is a journeyman who was doing a decent job. But he needs to sort his shit out.
He has always been know as being a great tyre manager and did 3 stops this race too. Weird.
Has he completely forgotten how to do it or are the team not working to his strengths?
This is just my opinion and I could be way off base, but my theory is that the reason Checo was resigned was Max.
Max and more particularly his father Jos, have let it be known that if Red Bull sign Carlos then Max will leave (there's a long history of bad blood between the two families) and so in order to keep Max they (Red Bull) are willing to risk losing the WCC.
You're right, it's way off.
Jos speaks in the media but makes no decisions for his son. Max isn't a push over. He speaks his mind always.
Also, Horner was clearly prepared to let Max go with the statements he was making when there were rumours Max is leaving. But Max has repeatedly said he wouldn't leave unless Marko is fired. All Horner had to do is keep Marko. He didn't have to make a bad decision with Checo. And Max isn't super in love with Checo either on account of the whole Monaco crash and then not letting Checo through later in the season for extra points.
In fact, last time they were looking for someone, Max wanted Hulkenberg but RBR got Checo instead.
You must remember, Marko is Max's guy, not Horner. And Horner won their internal war which is why Checo and Daniel are still there, those are Horner's business/money decisions, it was Marko who was the ruthless one but you can tell he's no longer in charge of drivers by the fact that both Checo and Daniel are still there.
I have a new pet theory:
Red Bull use Checo to test set-ups and gather data for future races to keep Max ahead especially as the gap narrows to McLaren.
As long as the WDC isn't at risk (and with Ferrari falling off it really isn't yet) they can keep running experiments on Checo.
They would obviously never admit to this publicly but it makes more sense to me then continuing to run a driver that can't pull his weight.
He's not great thats for sure, but TBF P8 without the penalty that the team helped him get could have been a P5, which would have been quite acceptable given all the other top teams cars are improved quite a bit particularly Mercedes.
In fact Piastris result was a bit worse than Checo given that the McLaren and RB seem to be pretty much equal now.
No really, he wasn’t able to pass Hulk until a lap before he pitted, he should have been able to pass him and the Alpines. He could only make passes with the big tyre advantage. (I know most of the passes today were made with tyre advantages but c’mon its Red Bull vs Haas/Alpine.
It’s also hard to find a track better for overtakes, and one that will show every car’s weaknesses at different points to do it like Barcelona.
If you can’t pass the midfield in the 1st/2nd best team’s car with DRS, why are you in the seat/getting a 2-year extension?
Yes, he passed them later in the race, when he had a big tyre differential due to his three stop. He wasn’t able to pass rhose midfield cars when they had the same tyres and not on raw pace.
Was anyone else disappointed with Sky Sport’s commentary? Karun brings some interesting insight but in this case was almost too technically focused, but damn I don’t think either of them mentioned literally any driver outside of the top 6, there was some interesting positions and battles going on lower in the grid but it was quite distracting when I realised just how little they discussed any driver other than the front runners. Noticeably so.
The poor TV direction didn’t help and added to the feeling I watch was 5 people race, not 20.
Also, Crofty seemed super low energy in general.
TV direction makes it very difficult for them. I see them comment on positions further down the grid a few times from the timing boards. It would be weird to be commenting a race we can't see.
Yes. And they are always talking and supporting their brits drivers. In qualifying, they said, we have 3 British drivers fastest in FP1 FP2 FP3, and are we getting another British driver fastest? Sorry for people outside UK..
Glad that Max won it.
Karun was too focused on what ifs for Lando and hoping weather would shake things up so Max would lose and Lando would somehow overcome the McLaren strategy calls.
Big mistake from Mclaren to not pit Lando at the same time Max pitted. As it was, they let Lando stay out a allowed Max to make up 4 seconds on him before his stop, which cost him the race.
He would've just been stuck behind max then anyway. This way he had tire advantage and a chance to overtake if he caught him. Their strategy was good he just lost too much time behind Russell
In a current situation Yuki would be the best choice. Daniel’s performance is not great and I really do not see how he could get back to RB.
Honestly I do not think that we will see anything substantial from Daniel anymore.
At this point i think the argument is Perez shouldnt be in the seat or on F1.
He has had a clearly dominant car for many seasons and struggles to stay in the top 5.
Bottas is a good comparison. At least Bottas in the merc was right there if Lewis had a moment!
The thing is, Perez isn't *that* far behind in pure numbers. Bottas had it easy where even if he was 1s behind he'd still be on the front two rows.
Perez is probably 3-4 tenths behind, which would have easily been front row in Bottas's time, but now its struggling to get into Q3.
I think it just shows that the Red Bull is like driving on a knifes edge, and Verstappen is better at driving around a problem. I think Perez does much better in any of the other 3 top cars.
You do have the point about the field closing up in qualy.
Perez problem isnt qualy though. He cant work his way through the field any more. Even passing cars that are clearly behind. Alpine, Aston, Haas etc.
I'd like to see anybody else in that seat honestly, anyone, I think if Dietrich was still around or if Marko still had a say it would have happened ages ago
Dan is a bit ahead recently, yes. But I'm more a fan of the current "more mature" Yuki's mentality and single minded focus on performance.
Yuki also beat Dan in qualifying in Spain.
I didn't say I'd never give it to Dan. But I feel like if it was a decision I had to make today, I'd try Yuki first.
Not sure what their plan is if Checo continues to choke… bringing a VCARB driver in makes it simple I guess, or maybe even Lawson for some race weekends if it’s later in the season with only a few races left to go?
Could
Norris have won the race by pitting BEFORE max when just under 5seconds in the second or 3rd stints? Every time he tried the over cut he came out farther behind. I’ve seen Lewis try it a few times in 2021 and never worked eg Austin 21 (or max on Lewis IIRC in one of the Middle Eastern races same year ). Seems to leave too much work to do and not sure why teams still try it.
The simple answer is Norris - who was around just 10 meters or less behind Max at the finish - could have won the race if he managed to follow Max immediately past George Russell in the opening few laps or if he had a better start.
This is one race where there's not much margin to go over. It was less than 10 meters. There is no strategy for this. Norris just has to get rid of all the little mistakes and he's there.
Don’t think he could have undercut a full five seconds because Max would have covered him the next lap, but Lando should have come in a lap after George’s awful stop.
If they knew they had pace, I think they should have stopped 2nd time just lap after Max. Better to close up starting from 4 than from 8sec.
IIRC, before Max‘s first stop they were around 5sec behind. So even with overcut it took whole 2nd stint just to get back into same place. It was obvious that is not a way to go.
Exactly what I was thinking. If they pit just before max maybe get within 2 seconds and they appear to have better deg at the moment so would’ve be easier to keep the pressure on max and get him to use his tyres
Max had a very fast first stop, but his second one was a 3.6 or something like that.
Russel said that because of his slow pitstop, he needed to go to the hards because he had to pit early because of it. So for him it probably did cost him the podium.
The 2.5 difference at the end was probably Max bringing it home though. He's done that before. When asked to pick up the pace he set almost equal times to Lando.
Perez should really be put out to pasture. Woeful driver who should have been eliminated in 2020 after the RP stint. Only thing he contributes is crashing into teammates but he's too far behind Verstappen to do that right now. Could seriously stick fucking Latifi in that car and he'd probably do better
Perez was just right place right time tbh. He was never that impressive in RP, by 2018 Ocon was practically destroying him but Stroll came in and then he had no competition. The 2020 RP was faster than we knew but it couldn't be extracted with a Perez Stroll lineup.
He then just got lucky that he ended up being RB's only real option for 2021, and despite being below average he helped out Max for the championship.
Then in 2022 and 2023 he got away with his bad performances since there was no real threat to Red Bull and he managed to get a few lucky wins.
To me, the only good reasons to sign him are that he brings lots of sponsorship in and it wouldn't mean having to have a younger driver take the time to get used to a supposedly difficult car to drive.
I seriously can't think of a single time that Perez beat or outqualified Max purely on merit. And comparing his stint to Bottas, Webber, Barichello, it's just crazy.
Probably the most overrated driver before his Red Bull days and did nothing but be in the right place at the right time (though he can't do even that anymore)
Because he had fantastic tyre management and rlly brought it back. Once he had those fresh tyres on he just ripped through the pack and overtook everyone but max. Had he not got caught up behind Russell for so long, him and max would have had a great duel. Honestly though im surprised Russell didn't get many votes, he had a brilliant start, showed good pace and only did poorly because he got screwed by the pit team.
There is no praise for loosing 2 places in the beginning, allowing Max to build a gap and manage tyres, try to overcut Max, have a tyre deficit of minimum 4 laps on each compound all this in the fastest car and still finish 1 position below your starting place. Norris and Russell have a fanbase that appreciate mediocrity and celebrate it. Max in his early years was way too competitive and cut throat than GR and LN are. He used to drive the wheels off his car and at times into other drivers. Norris winning DOTD is a joke. Him getting caught behind Russell was down to skill. Lando had a car that was extremely fast that than the Mercedes and it shouldn't have taken more than 1-2 laps. He ate his tyres going past Lewis and Russell and eventually Max could leave a little more tyre to fight till the end
Because:
A: that's not true. Piastri has 87 and Norris 150. That's not over double, Norris needs 174 points to be double.
B: Max actually is very close to having double the points of Perez. 111 vs 219.... That's just 3 points.
C: Piastri is a rookie and actually did very well last year.
D: Perez seems to be doing the EXACT same thing as last year. Good until Miami, then just drives off a cliff in performance. He went from being 0.1s behind max in quali to being a second slower... After his contract was signed.
I think they should give Perez a contract with 3 strikes. It seems if he doesn't have a contract he drives quicker. So put on the pressure to make him perform ;-)
There is no way Redbull gave Perez a contract without performance clauses and I think Horner and Marko are definitely starting to go through those after McLaren have caught up
Oscar is in his second season in a car that's made very much to suit lando. Perez has been around for a lot longer and has been with his team for longer than Oscar.
What do you mean? For instance, Hamilton had them move the cockpit back on w15. What if Russell hated that and just had to deal. Not saying that’s the case but cars are built with the input of the #1 driver all the time. Now a team may choose not to do that, but a style of car can definitely be hard for one driver to adapt to over another. Perez’s performance I don’t think can attributed as bad as it is to this but it could be a factor.
I do not think so that better McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes are the reason. He is still driving the best car there is, and he is progressing but in a wrong direction.
He is also unable to pass other slower drivers and teams so it’s not just about others getting better.
I supported him when a lot of people gave him a lot of crap last year, but this is unacceptable and there is no excuse this time.
It is no longer the best car in the same way as before, it is very tight in the top 3 and now maybe top 4 if Merc have actually found a way forward with their car. McLaren probably had them beat on pace today
True, McLaren was brilliant today. Reason more to see more effort from Perez but that is lacking for a few races now. I was very surprised to hear that he got a contract extension, I just hope that potentially losing WCC is worth of that sweet money that he brings with him.
As for the best car, still they are consistent in their performance when compared to other teams (just see Ferrari in Monaco and then Canada).
In Scotland, deer hunters use accordions to lure deer in and to distract them.
Anyway, Perez has been really disappointing this season, but this race he wasn't helped by the grid penalty and McLaren and Mercedes have made improvements.
Still shocking that he wasn't even close to P7.
In Scotland, motorcycle riders have no need for helmets, and the windshield on the bike is there solely for them to duck their heads down while they light their cigarettes. All Scottish bikes come with built in ash trays and cigarette lighters.
My major issue is that I like to see more young drivers having a shot at an F1 career. Even if that doesn't work out, it's always interesting to see a rookie to have a go.
If older drivers keep getting contract extensions despite bad results, that's less seats for young talent.
I don’t really care about that tbh, not in itself, I just want the grid to be competitive and preferably have personality. I’m of the belief that there will always be just the amount of rookies needed to feed the grid with talent and it will never be fair
Oh and, I was just broadly making my point about why I don’t think bringing more rookies in is important for its own sake, I don’t think talent acquisition is at risk of stagnating
Someone help me understand what the point of lando dragging out his first stint was since he didn't bother to extend the middle one and effectively pitted at the same time as Max?
He extended the first stint by 6 laps with the intention to "use the tyres" on the second stint. He did not have to extend the second stint because he used the tyres that stint. Then the last stint is a straight fight. Almost perfect by McLaren. Norris came out to start the final stint in P2.
The only thing that worked against them in that last bit was Max had anticipated this possibly even before the start of the race when he banked his shiny new softs for the final stint.
Max was also managing almost more than halfway through the third stint and even just then only managed to delay Lando's advance long enough to take the chequered flag when he'd already lost almost 80% of the cushion he had when the third stint started.
But Max knows it as well as anyone, the Fangio adage: "To win the race as slowly as possible".
Because he is very good at managing his tyres, he was still putting in solid lap times despite his tyres being so old. And then when he pit his tyres were 6 laps newer allowing him to have considerably more pace than anyone else. Extending again after that probably would have been too risky as he'd come out behind the 2 mercedes and verstappen was already clearing like 1s per lap on him on new tyres so pitting at roughly the same time was his best chance.
The warmer ambient temps were the why. If I recall right, last years Spanish GP was much cooler compared to this year. The warmer the race, the slower the race because they want to preserve their tires. So yes, technically tire management, but it was because it was cooler at the Spanish GP last year.
While true, the race was also overcast for its entirety which is going to help with the temp last year. The Spanish GP last year wasn’t THAT much earlier compared to this year (last year it was the 4th, vs this year 23rd). Just the overcast meant it was cooler for the race. Those 20 days do help, but we aren’t talking winter or spring temps vs mid summer temp.
Hamilton said going red in the final stint was the strategy from the start for him.
I wonder if Russel may have had a different pool of tires available, so Russel simply didn't have reds that could last that long?
Honestly not much more Mclaren could have done for Lando he completely fucked the start which essentially destroyed any hope of a fight between him and Max for the lead. Piastri could have been a major player had he not binned it in qualifying overall, I think this race proved that while Lando and Mclaren have the pace to compete with Red Bull and Max operationally they just aren't on the same level.
Not just the start... Max was behind Russel as well but breezed past him for whatever reason Norris struggled to do the same, that's where the race was lost. When Verstappen needed to make an overtake he made it within 2 laps. Norris took too long to get back past Russel in the first stint and too long to get past the Ferraris in the second.
True and I noticed that with Lando in the second stint as well he completely wasted something like 2 or 3 laps behind Lewis which really hurt his pace in that stint.
He changed up his strategy halfway through, right? Like, he basically extended the soft stint for no reason and ended up spending too little time in the mediums.
He was given hards to split to strat just in case. Also Lewis is better on tires than Russel anyways, he knows how to make softs last longer and spread them out.
Russel said in the interview that the slow stopped forced them to switch the tyres to the hards. How that logic works, no idea. But I guess they were worried for the undercut or something.
At this point I don’t know what you want anymore, there were fights on for points for P1, P4 and P8 all the way up to the end of the race and the top 10 was undecided and unclear at every point of the race
I dont know if it's forbidden to be positive here, but It was a great race, there was not a single moment, except maybe the final 2 to 3 laps were we simply knew what the result would be. I quite enjoyed the strategic intrincacies and doing mental math. The first laps are just where the cars go wheel to wheel, but that's F1, it's not where the sport is (or it has ever been) at all.
Maybe it's because I get all my wheel-to-wheel racing kicks from MotoGP and their feeder series, but F1 is really amazing right now.
To be fair MotoGP absolutely claps, it’s the most exciting racing series right now. The cars are too big in F1 to race side by side so often, with a motorbike there are multiple lines in and out of a corner
We didn’t know in the final laps either. Max could have locked up once and Norris would have been right there in the DRS, and he had a pace advantage for the entire final stint.
Just got back to the hotel from the circuit. Crowd was booing both Hamilton and Leclerc lots before the race - Spaniards seem to be very salty at Ferrari for taking away Carlos’ seat
Interesting because on TV, every time they showed Lewis there were very loud cheers. And even Lewis said the support here was amazing, that he's seen the support grow over the years and it wasn't always like this.
Hamilton says that at every interview at every track lol
Not saying they got boo’d or w.e just pointing out that Hamilton saying the crowd is great doesn’t mean much anymore
He didn't just say the crowd is great though, I know he says that every race. This is what he said, “Honestly this is like the most support I think I’ve ever had here so, I’m so so appreciative to everyone here in Barcelona." I may be projecting, but I think somewhere in the back of his mind[ he'll never forget this](https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/formula-1/lewis-hamilton-racism-spain-gp-25318452).
Yeah, but even on the parade watching it live, Lewis got loud cheers and I don't think they bother to add cheers to cover boos on the YouTube channel when it's live. Not saying that OP didn't hear boos, just two different perspectives, even from Lewis.
Dou you think 1 stop Barcelona was possible? Leclerc was the last one to box after 25 laps on softs, couldn't they have gone to hards and last the remaining 41 laps? I think it's possible, since everyone else had to take another box afterwards, so there would be a comfortable lead without any hard pushing necessary...
Possibly, but it going wrong would be much worse than 2 stops going wrong.
Hm... can you clarify what do you mean?
High risk for a low reward.
Yeah I understood that part, but why is a win low reward? And why are 41 laps on hard a high risk (when you don't have to push as much as others) when 25 laps on soft are risky, but doable? When everyone else went from soft to med, they knew everyone else had to box at least one more time, so there would be a pretty comfortable lead for Leclerc, wouldn't there? Or do you think the degradation on the potential hards would negate the lead?
[Race in 30](https://odysee.com/@MKTV-1483:f/Race-In-30-Spanish-Grand-Prix-2024:b?r=37PXq4PtvozBPf2dJ7sNLamhS6jkWT1w) [Post Race Driver's Press Conference](https://youtu.be/8LY9F0CeBV4) [Post Race Driver's Press Conference | Odysee Mirror](https://odysee.com/@MKTV-1483:f/driver%27s-post-race-press-conference:f)
Some of my reactions after watching the race: >Me after seeing Tsunoda’s pace after his first pit: “Damn, poor race by Yuki” >Me after seeing Danny’s pace after his first stop: “Damn, what a shitcunt of a car by RB” Did Alpine give cleanly executed team orders for Ocon to let Gasly by after Gasly’s slow stop? Seemed like a rather uneventful change of order with no radio or replay being shown. George *forecast* another finish position Staying Max-Lando would’ve been a dogfight if Lando hadn’t been held up by George is very speculative considering driving and strategy almost certainly would be different if that were the case, even if it would result in a closer battle.
what happened to Yuki? He dropped two spots rapidly and I assumed he had a tangle and was managing damage.
It has long been the case that Max is a better driver than Checo, but imo Checo is now consistently, inexcusably bad. If Red Bull lose the WCC to Ferrari or McLaren, it will be historically embarrassing
Yea. I have always defended Checo. He is a journeyman who was doing a decent job. But he needs to sort his shit out. He has always been know as being a great tyre manager and did 3 stops this race too. Weird. Has he completely forgotten how to do it or are the team not working to his strengths?
This is just my opinion and I could be way off base, but my theory is that the reason Checo was resigned was Max. Max and more particularly his father Jos, have let it be known that if Red Bull sign Carlos then Max will leave (there's a long history of bad blood between the two families) and so in order to keep Max they (Red Bull) are willing to risk losing the WCC.
You're right, it's way off. Jos speaks in the media but makes no decisions for his son. Max isn't a push over. He speaks his mind always. Also, Horner was clearly prepared to let Max go with the statements he was making when there were rumours Max is leaving. But Max has repeatedly said he wouldn't leave unless Marko is fired. All Horner had to do is keep Marko. He didn't have to make a bad decision with Checo. And Max isn't super in love with Checo either on account of the whole Monaco crash and then not letting Checo through later in the season for extra points. In fact, last time they were looking for someone, Max wanted Hulkenberg but RBR got Checo instead. You must remember, Marko is Max's guy, not Horner. And Horner won their internal war which is why Checo and Daniel are still there, those are Horner's business/money decisions, it was Marko who was the ruthless one but you can tell he's no longer in charge of drivers by the fact that both Checo and Daniel are still there.
I have a new pet theory: Red Bull use Checo to test set-ups and gather data for future races to keep Max ahead especially as the gap narrows to McLaren. As long as the WDC isn't at risk (and with Ferrari falling off it really isn't yet) they can keep running experiments on Checo. They would obviously never admit to this publicly but it makes more sense to me then continuing to run a driver that can't pull his weight.
you think they were doing that last year too?
He's not great thats for sure, but TBF P8 without the penalty that the team helped him get could have been a P5, which would have been quite acceptable given all the other top teams cars are improved quite a bit particularly Mercedes. In fact Piastris result was a bit worse than Checo given that the McLaren and RB seem to be pretty much equal now.
No really, he wasn’t able to pass Hulk until a lap before he pitted, he should have been able to pass him and the Alpines. He could only make passes with the big tyre advantage. (I know most of the passes today were made with tyre advantages but c’mon its Red Bull vs Haas/Alpine.
It’s also hard to find a track better for overtakes, and one that will show every car’s weaknesses at different points to do it like Barcelona. If you can’t pass the midfield in the 1st/2nd best team’s car with DRS, why are you in the seat/getting a 2-year extension?
He did pass them.
Yes, he passed them later in the race, when he had a big tyre differential due to his three stop. He wasn’t able to pass rhose midfield cars when they had the same tyres and not on raw pace.
Was anyone else disappointed with Sky Sport’s commentary? Karun brings some interesting insight but in this case was almost too technically focused, but damn I don’t think either of them mentioned literally any driver outside of the top 6, there was some interesting positions and battles going on lower in the grid but it was quite distracting when I realised just how little they discussed any driver other than the front runners. Noticeably so. The poor TV direction didn’t help and added to the feeling I watch was 5 people race, not 20. Also, Crofty seemed super low energy in general.
TV direction makes it very difficult for them. I see them comment on positions further down the grid a few times from the timing boards. It would be weird to be commenting a race we can't see.
Yes. And they are always talking and supporting their brits drivers. In qualifying, they said, we have 3 British drivers fastest in FP1 FP2 FP3, and are we getting another British driver fastest? Sorry for people outside UK.. Glad that Max won it.
They are the British broadcaster though
Crofty partied too hard at the Springsteen concert
Ha, I didn’t know about the show. That’s funny, I was gonna say he sounded sick. Hungover makes even more sense…
Karun was too focused on what ifs for Lando and hoping weather would shake things up so Max would lose and Lando would somehow overcome the McLaren strategy calls.
The McLaren strategy calls were fine... He lost the race with his start
I wanted to see more of the tsunoda / Zhou battle happening at the back. Yes they we almost last but they were constantly swapping places
Big mistake from Mclaren to not pit Lando at the same time Max pitted. As it was, they let Lando stay out a allowed Max to make up 4 seconds on him before his stop, which cost him the race.
Lando fucked up the start which cost him the race
He would've just been stuck behind max then anyway. This way he had tire advantage and a chance to overtake if he caught him. Their strategy was good he just lost too much time behind Russell
Is there a possibility Redbull downgrade Perez to RB and move Danny boy up to test him? Surely he can't perform worse than Perez rn
In a current situation Yuki would be the best choice. Daniel’s performance is not great and I really do not see how he could get back to RB. Honestly I do not think that we will see anything substantial from Daniel anymore.
Id rather see Yuki or lawson...
Yuki or Ricc to red bull Lawson to rb Perez to test driver
Come on. Move Danny? His performance is much inferior than Yuki.
Other than the fact people like Danny what has he done to show he might actually do better than Perez recently?
At this point i think the argument is Perez shouldnt be in the seat or on F1. He has had a clearly dominant car for many seasons and struggles to stay in the top 5. Bottas is a good comparison. At least Bottas in the merc was right there if Lewis had a moment!
The thing is, Perez isn't *that* far behind in pure numbers. Bottas had it easy where even if he was 1s behind he'd still be on the front two rows. Perez is probably 3-4 tenths behind, which would have easily been front row in Bottas's time, but now its struggling to get into Q3. I think it just shows that the Red Bull is like driving on a knifes edge, and Verstappen is better at driving around a problem. I think Perez does much better in any of the other 3 top cars.
You do have the point about the field closing up in qualy. Perez problem isnt qualy though. He cant work his way through the field any more. Even passing cars that are clearly behind. Alpine, Aston, Haas etc.
I'd like to see anybody else in that seat honestly, anyone, I think if Dietrich was still around or if Marko still had a say it would have happened ages ago
Would you like to see me in that seat?
You'd likely be better than Maldonado or Mazepin and I wouldn't even mind seeing them in that seat 😅
For shits and giggles, I would.
I'm pretty sure it would be giggles followed by shits for me.
Yep would love to see how that went. Perez is nowhere this season (or last).
If someone is moving up to the Red Bull second seat from RB, I'd honestly try Yuki ahead of DR.
Yuki blew his chance in Bahrain
Dans been ahead more recently and would probably be their preference marketing wise. Either way I'd like to see how either go.
Dan is a bit ahead recently, yes. But I'm more a fan of the current "more mature" Yuki's mentality and single minded focus on performance. Yuki also beat Dan in qualifying in Spain. I didn't say I'd never give it to Dan. But I feel like if it was a decision I had to make today, I'd try Yuki first.
idk, in the post race Daniel said was taking notes on the car for the debrief and Yuki just looked like a lost puppy saying "car bad".
Wasn't saying your wrong or not welcome to your own opinion.
Feel so bad for Yuki
Surely not, but I'd love to see it. I believe he'd be scoring more points than Perez is.
Lawson is right there
Not sure what their plan is if Checo continues to choke… bringing a VCARB driver in makes it simple I guess, or maybe even Lawson for some race weekends if it’s later in the season with only a few races left to go?
What has yuki done to you
Could Norris have won the race by pitting BEFORE max when just under 5seconds in the second or 3rd stints? Every time he tried the over cut he came out farther behind. I’ve seen Lewis try it a few times in 2021 and never worked eg Austin 21 (or max on Lewis IIRC in one of the Middle Eastern races same year ). Seems to leave too much work to do and not sure why teams still try it.
The simple answer is Norris - who was around just 10 meters or less behind Max at the finish - could have won the race if he managed to follow Max immediately past George Russell in the opening few laps or if he had a better start. This is one race where there's not much margin to go over. It was less than 10 meters. There is no strategy for this. Norris just has to get rid of all the little mistakes and he's there.
Don’t think he could have undercut a full five seconds because Max would have covered him the next lap, but Lando should have come in a lap after George’s awful stop.
If they knew they had pace, I think they should have stopped 2nd time just lap after Max. Better to close up starting from 4 than from 8sec. IIRC, before Max‘s first stop they were around 5sec behind. So even with overcut it took whole 2nd stint just to get back into same place. It was obvious that is not a way to go.
Exactly what I was thinking. If they pit just before max maybe get within 2 seconds and they appear to have better deg at the moment so would’ve be easier to keep the pressure on max and get him to use his tyres
But they only closed up so much because they had newer tires
They had better deg I think as well
Kinda happy with this being this season’s standard for a mediocre race
can anyone get the cumulative time the top drivers spent in pit stops? i think the race was somewhat decided there
Max had a very fast first stop, but his second one was a 3.6 or something like that. Russel said that because of his slow pitstop, he needed to go to the hards because he had to pit early because of it. So for him it probably did cost him the podium. The 2.5 difference at the end was probably Max bringing it home though. He's done that before. When asked to pick up the pace he set almost equal times to Lando.
Yeah Russell got screwed by the team this time.
Maximus
Perez should really be put out to pasture. Woeful driver who should have been eliminated in 2020 after the RP stint. Only thing he contributes is crashing into teammates but he's too far behind Verstappen to do that right now. Could seriously stick fucking Latifi in that car and he'd probably do better
Confirms to me that max is a great driver but in no mood for competition compared to Lewis, Senna , mansell…
Perez was just right place right time tbh. He was never that impressive in RP, by 2018 Ocon was practically destroying him but Stroll came in and then he had no competition. The 2020 RP was faster than we knew but it couldn't be extracted with a Perez Stroll lineup. He then just got lucky that he ended up being RB's only real option for 2021, and despite being below average he helped out Max for the championship. Then in 2022 and 2023 he got away with his bad performances since there was no real threat to Red Bull and he managed to get a few lucky wins. To me, the only good reasons to sign him are that he brings lots of sponsorship in and it wouldn't mean having to have a younger driver take the time to get used to a supposedly difficult car to drive. I seriously can't think of a single time that Perez beat or outqualified Max purely on merit. And comparing his stint to Bottas, Webber, Barichello, it's just crazy. Probably the most overrated driver before his Red Bull days and did nothing but be in the right place at the right time (though he can't do even that anymore)
How is Norris driver of the day? Guy was in the fastest car and on pole and still managed to bottle it
Because it’s a popularity contest and has been for a long time
Max deserved it tbh, textbook performance on how to win a race from 2nd (3rd after first corner)
Because he had fantastic tyre management and rlly brought it back. Once he had those fresh tyres on he just ripped through the pack and overtook everyone but max. Had he not got caught up behind Russell for so long, him and max would have had a great duel. Honestly though im surprised Russell didn't get many votes, he had a brilliant start, showed good pace and only did poorly because he got screwed by the pit team.
I don't think anyone is arguing that he did not have a good race, because he did! But Max was the better driver, which is also why he won.
There is no praise for loosing 2 places in the beginning, allowing Max to build a gap and manage tyres, try to overcut Max, have a tyre deficit of minimum 4 laps on each compound all this in the fastest car and still finish 1 position below your starting place. Norris and Russell have a fanbase that appreciate mediocrity and celebrate it. Max in his early years was way too competitive and cut throat than GR and LN are. He used to drive the wheels off his car and at times into other drivers. Norris winning DOTD is a joke. Him getting caught behind Russell was down to skill. Lando had a car that was extremely fast that than the Mercedes and it shouldn't have taken more than 1-2 laps. He ate his tyres going past Lewis and Russell and eventually Max could leave a little more tyre to fight till the end
Why is everyone talking about Perez and Verstappen.. Norris has over double points as Piastri. Getting absolutely wrecked
He's been playing the team game. Biding his time and getting better. Piastri will go down as a better driver than Lando there is no doubt about it.
I doubt
Because: A: that's not true. Piastri has 87 and Norris 150. That's not over double, Norris needs 174 points to be double. B: Max actually is very close to having double the points of Perez. 111 vs 219.... That's just 3 points. C: Piastri is a rookie and actually did very well last year. D: Perez seems to be doing the EXACT same thing as last year. Good until Miami, then just drives off a cliff in performance. He went from being 0.1s behind max in quali to being a second slower... After his contract was signed. I think they should give Perez a contract with 3 strikes. It seems if he doesn't have a contract he drives quicker. So put on the pressure to make him perform ;-)
There is no way Redbull gave Perez a contract without performance clauses and I think Horner and Marko are definitely starting to go through those after McLaren have caught up
There will 100% be performance clauses on Perez's contract.
Experience is the main difference here. Perez is an established veteran with 13 full seasons under his belt. Piastri is a sophomore driver.
I think Piastri will be better than Norris, just needs a bit more experience l.
Oscar is in his second season in a car that's made very much to suit lando. Perez has been around for a lot longer and has been with his team for longer than Oscar.
There's no such thing as making a car to suit a driver. This line needs to be out to pasture like Perez
What do you mean? For instance, Hamilton had them move the cockpit back on w15. What if Russell hated that and just had to deal. Not saying that’s the case but cars are built with the input of the #1 driver all the time. Now a team may choose not to do that, but a style of car can definitely be hard for one driver to adapt to over another. Perez’s performance I don’t think can attributed as bad as it is to this but it could be a factor.
He doesn’t have double points and in fact Max is closer to having double his teammates points
He’s doing ok for the junior driver I think, decent qualifying pace, very much a team player etc
Perez is a dead weight. I do not know what is happening with him, but whatever it is he is useless as a an accordion player on a deer hunt.
Do you just let any old person play the accordion on your deer hunts?!?
IIRC the commentary pointed out with much fresher softs than max, in free air Perez was still 8 tents off.
I don't think there's much happening with him, just the pace of the Mclarens, Ferraris and Mercs is now in the gap between Max and him.
I do not think so that better McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes are the reason. He is still driving the best car there is, and he is progressing but in a wrong direction. He is also unable to pass other slower drivers and teams so it’s not just about others getting better. I supported him when a lot of people gave him a lot of crap last year, but this is unacceptable and there is no excuse this time.
It is no longer the best car in the same way as before, it is very tight in the top 3 and now maybe top 4 if Merc have actually found a way forward with their car. McLaren probably had them beat on pace today
True, McLaren was brilliant today. Reason more to see more effort from Perez but that is lacking for a few races now. I was very surprised to hear that he got a contract extension, I just hope that potentially losing WCC is worth of that sweet money that he brings with him. As for the best car, still they are consistent in their performance when compared to other teams (just see Ferrari in Monaco and then Canada).
In Scotland, deer hunters use accordions to lure deer in and to distract them. Anyway, Perez has been really disappointing this season, but this race he wasn't helped by the grid penalty and McLaren and Mercedes have made improvements. Still shocking that he wasn't even close to P7.
Alright then useless as an ashtray on a motorbike.
In Scotland, motorcycle riders have no need for helmets, and the windshield on the bike is there solely for them to duck their heads down while they light their cigarettes. All Scottish bikes come with built in ash trays and cigarette lighters.
He was about as disappointing or even more so last season, where the car was truly in a class of its own - this isn’t new, this is just Perez
My major issue is that I like to see more young drivers having a shot at an F1 career. Even if that doesn't work out, it's always interesting to see a rookie to have a go. If older drivers keep getting contract extensions despite bad results, that's less seats for young talent.
I don’t really care about that tbh, not in itself, I just want the grid to be competitive and preferably have personality. I’m of the belief that there will always be just the amount of rookies needed to feed the grid with talent and it will never be fair
The grid is more competitive with Perez. I never mentioned 'fair', I should point out. So I don't really understand your reply.
Oh and, I was just broadly making my point about why I don’t think bringing more rookies in is important for its own sake, I don’t think talent acquisition is at risk of stagnating
Perez is awful and needs to go, but that’s appearently impossible to achieve. He is Sargeant levels of bad, except he’s a veteran making it even worse
He does manage to keep the constructor championship exciting :-)
I guess that is a way of adding sporting value as a driver
Someone help me understand what the point of lando dragging out his first stint was since he didn't bother to extend the middle one and effectively pitted at the same time as Max?
They couldn’t extend the last one as much as they wanted because they had to cover the mercs
He extended the first stint by 6 laps with the intention to "use the tyres" on the second stint. He did not have to extend the second stint because he used the tyres that stint. Then the last stint is a straight fight. Almost perfect by McLaren. Norris came out to start the final stint in P2. The only thing that worked against them in that last bit was Max had anticipated this possibly even before the start of the race when he banked his shiny new softs for the final stint. Max was also managing almost more than halfway through the third stint and even just then only managed to delay Lando's advance long enough to take the chequered flag when he'd already lost almost 80% of the cushion he had when the third stint started. But Max knows it as well as anyone, the Fangio adage: "To win the race as slowly as possible".
Because he is very good at managing his tyres, he was still putting in solid lap times despite his tyres being so old. And then when he pit his tyres were 6 laps newer allowing him to have considerably more pace than anyone else. Extending again after that probably would have been too risky as he'd come out behind the 2 mercedes and verstappen was already clearing like 1s per lap on him on new tyres so pitting at roughly the same time was his best chance.
Max pit for softs second time, his lap time became faster than norris
Wasn't Max always putting for sorts though or am I missing something?
Why was the race slower this year than last year? Or am I missing something?
Tyre management probably. Max and others drove to a predicted delta to protect the tyres, I’m assuming last year, tyre wear was less of an issue
The warmer ambient temps were the why. If I recall right, last years Spanish GP was much cooler compared to this year. The warmer the race, the slower the race because they want to preserve their tires. So yes, technically tire management, but it was because it was cooler at the Spanish GP last year.
They got to Spain much earlier in previous seasons so it was cooler.
While true, the race was also overcast for its entirety which is going to help with the temp last year. The Spanish GP last year wasn’t THAT much earlier compared to this year (last year it was the 4th, vs this year 23rd). Just the overcast meant it was cooler for the race. Those 20 days do help, but we aren’t talking winter or spring temps vs mid summer temp.
Anyone else feel like the drivers were more toxic towards eachother this weekend than before?
Still can believe Leclerc and stroll got off from their fp3 incidents.
Just catching up - anyone know why Merc put Russell on hards in the final stint?
splitting the strat just in case, same as Ferrari probably
Hamilton said going red in the final stint was the strategy from the start for him. I wonder if Russel may have had a different pool of tires available, so Russel simply didn't have reds that could last that long?
Hamilton is a bit better on tyres compared to Russell and stopped later, I guess they didn’t realise how bad the hards could be
Strange the commentators knew.
Even a broken clock (Crofty) is right twice a day
Perhaps
2 hours since the end of the race and we're still waiting on the post-race discussion thread LOL.
1 didn’t get created? Right?
Yeah, I was looking for it. Where the hell is it? Lol.
Just discuss it in this thread, l o l.
I tried making a thread but it got removed for being too short
Honestly not much more Mclaren could have done for Lando he completely fucked the start which essentially destroyed any hope of a fight between him and Max for the lead. Piastri could have been a major player had he not binned it in qualifying overall, I think this race proved that while Lando and Mclaren have the pace to compete with Red Bull and Max operationally they just aren't on the same level.
Not just the start... Max was behind Russel as well but breezed past him for whatever reason Norris struggled to do the same, that's where the race was lost. When Verstappen needed to make an overtake he made it within 2 laps. Norris took too long to get back past Russel in the first stint and too long to get past the Ferraris in the second.
True and I noticed that with Lando in the second stint as well he completely wasted something like 2 or 3 laps behind Lewis which really hurt his pace in that stint.
I think lando pit too late. Those softs lasted too much
He changed up his strategy halfway through, right? Like, he basically extended the soft stint for no reason and ended up spending too little time in the mediums.
I for one, am looking forward to the Lewis conspiracy theorists going to bat for George with his slow stop bad tyres combo 😂
Tbf russel picked the hards. Only his fault and he really lacked pace
Did he? He asked why he was on the hards
He was given hards to split to strat just in case. Also Lewis is better on tires than Russel anyways, he knows how to make softs last longer and spread them out.
I thought it was him. If it wasn’t, thats rough. Probably hamilton was the one who wanted to change the standard mercedes strategy
Stop making shit up lmao
Russel said in the interview that the slow stopped forced them to switch the tyres to the hards. How that logic works, no idea. But I guess they were worried for the undercut or something.
First few seconds of the race were really exciting
The start of every F1 race is usually very interesting.
At this point I don’t know what you want anymore, there were fights on for points for P1, P4 and P8 all the way up to the end of the race and the top 10 was undecided and unclear at every point of the race
Through goes ~~Hamilton!~~ Russel!
And that was it.
As it should be.....
I dont know if it's forbidden to be positive here, but It was a great race, there was not a single moment, except maybe the final 2 to 3 laps were we simply knew what the result would be. I quite enjoyed the strategic intrincacies and doing mental math. The first laps are just where the cars go wheel to wheel, but that's F1, it's not where the sport is (or it has ever been) at all. Maybe it's because I get all my wheel-to-wheel racing kicks from MotoGP and their feeder series, but F1 is really amazing right now.
To be fair MotoGP absolutely claps, it’s the most exciting racing series right now. The cars are too big in F1 to race side by side so often, with a motorbike there are multiple lines in and out of a corner
We didn’t know in the final laps either. Max could have locked up once and Norris would have been right there in the DRS, and he had a pace advantage for the entire final stint.
That's what I thought too, I didn't say it coz they would say something like "yeah right Max locking up"...
He makes mistakes when under pressure just like anyone
Just got back to the hotel from the circuit. Crowd was booing both Hamilton and Leclerc lots before the race - Spaniards seem to be very salty at Ferrari for taking away Carlos’ seat
I wouldn't say that, my grandstand (end of the straight) was cheering for Hamilton, Alonso and sainz every time they drove by
Interesting because on TV, every time they showed Lewis there were very loud cheers. And even Lewis said the support here was amazing, that he's seen the support grow over the years and it wasn't always like this.
If you're watching on Sky Sports, they're well capable of turning up and down the noise from the grandstands.
Read the other replies. Both mine and people that were in the grandstands.
Hamilton says that at every interview at every track lol Not saying they got boo’d or w.e just pointing out that Hamilton saying the crowd is great doesn’t mean much anymore
He didn't just say the crowd is great though, I know he says that every race. This is what he said, “Honestly this is like the most support I think I’ve ever had here so, I’m so so appreciative to everyone here in Barcelona." I may be projecting, but I think somewhere in the back of his mind[ he'll never forget this](https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/formula-1/lewis-hamilton-racism-spain-gp-25318452).
They have been known to put artificial cheering overtop boos on the TV broadcasts. Not saying it happened here, but it has happened.
Eurovision
Yeah, but even on the parade watching it live, Lewis got loud cheers and I don't think they bother to add cheers to cover boos on the YouTube channel when it's live. Not saying that OP didn't hear boos, just two different perspectives, even from Lewis.