BMW Vettel tribute I like it

Oh to be a fly on the wall to hear the nitty gritty racing bits

I wish Niki could have been there to see it through to the end

I’m not going to say it’ll feel weird to see Lewis in red. The novelty will wear off quickly especially with how competitive next season should be. But Lewis at Mercedes always felt right, and significantly moreso than his time at Mclaren. He was always destined to be a bigger figure than just a racing driver, and Mercedes gave him that freedom

People talk about a challenger to Max as like some messianic Lisan al Ghaib that has the willpower to deal with Max’s aggression

We first need an incentive for Max to back out, and currently he has none. He is leading the championship and will reliably win races. Most of his early career he was chasing wins when they were available, and for a large portion of 2021 he had a championship lead every time he went wheel to wheel with Lewis. Comparatively speaking with his competitors, he had less to lose. When 2022 looked like a dog fight early in the season with Ferrari, Max was noticeably more apprehensive about asserting himself with Leclerc. From mid 2022 onwards, he’s been top dog by miles

If Max were playing catch up in a championship, he’d have an incentive to be more careful. Until then, we have no reason to expect he changes his approach. He’s either just going to blast past you or, if you’re close enough to challenge him, he will be ruthless and force you to back out because the points are in his favor. He is the King until further notice

The Aron erasure continues

Of course it’s copium, I’m banking on Ferrari getting their shit together

If they keep colliding we get a 4 way race for the WCC! Fingers crossed

He has repeatedly talked about struggling with starts, on average losing one place on the first lap of races, and also finds a good balance difficult to find on Pirelli’s hard compound tyres. But his feedback tends to be consistent with Bearman’s, suggesting it’s a team issue holding back two very talented drivers.

Antonelli’s also had reliability issues, most recently in the Red Bull Ring sprint race where “it was a shame that we had engine issues since lap one, with quite a big loss of power in the straights” that restricted him to 15th. The next day he finished 13th, but anyone watching the laptimes closely would have seen he was the fastest driver on long-run pace.

Pretty consistent with what I’ve seen from Kimi. The racecraft needs work and the start falls under that category, but I think assertiveness is a skill you can build on at 18 years old. I remember following the race thread in Monaco when he struggled to pass Colapinto I believe it was, and people were using friggin Monaco as justification for him not being good wheel to wheel. That’s bordering on hate boner territory.

The race pace picture from this analysis paints him in a very good light, and fundamentally the problem is at Prema. We wouldn’t be talking about his racecraft this much if the car was as consistently dialled as their rivals.

To celebrate the heritage of British manufacturing in top-flight Motorsport (we didn’t know what else to do with all these parts)

It doesn’t matter what you think was a good move

The overwhelming consensus was that it’s a good move. And the move on Sunday was likewise a good move. Except nobody wants to admit it because they need to fly their flag

The only difference with 2021 is that the most egregious examples by Max, he couldn’t make them stick haha. But he still ran Lewis wide repeatedly, which is why that’s where the meta is now

https://youtu.be/bZOsFoGeb4M?si=ieqQ0afsUyg2-2Pi

And not only the action, but the reaction

https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/s/Z93tEc8O3O

He was praised for it, and for good reason. But go back (time stamp 4:07) and tell me that isn’t divebombing, and that it wasn’t fucking entertaining to watch. And then recognize that fuck it, sometimes that’s what we want to see.

More pertinent: if he made the corner, that was a race winning move, because Hamilton would have had to give it up.

I don’t know how people are so in denial about this. He straight lines the apex of the corner and then claims the outside white line.

I don’t know why people are so sensitive about this, it is literally how he races when he is being ruthless.

Maybe we should come up with a firm number in meters for how far back a dive bomb is (obviously rhetorical; that’s a stupid idea).

Precisely

The best solution is to make the escape road effectively useless (i.e, with a gravel trap or bollards like in Spain T1 now or Canada at the last chicane). There was no incentive for Max to even try making the corner in Austria.

So any overtake where the driver goes to the outside edge of the corner on exit is a penalty regardless of whether the driver being overtaken stays on track?

That’s why straight-lining the apex the way Max did that year in Barcelona or Imola and tried to do in Saudi/Brazil is genius. You put the car on a trajectory where even if the stewards wanted to police the rule as the second car being “significantly alongside,” it is effectively not possible.

Me neither, I have zero problem with pushing the limits of the rules, at the very least as long as the rules are applied consistently going forward.

Not sure how you can neglect Imola and Barcelona. If the rule is leaving space, it’s leaving space. Max drove to the edge of the track both times even though Lewis was significantly alongside.

As I’ve said elsewhere, if we’re going to mandate leaving space, I am all for it. But that retrospectively makes those moves illegal. If your argument is that Lewis stayed on track in Barcelona (or Saudi at the second red flag restart), Max could have similarly very clearly backed off against Lando or tried an undercut. There was plenty of space for that if you watch the Ocon onboard.

Bro said nothing at all

Bro discovers the concept of law

Okay yeah, there is no recourse. We completely disagree but it is fine. We clearly see the situation differently and if there isn’t even a concession about 2021, I don’t think there is any point continuing.

If we’re mandating that we need to leave a car’s width at all times, then complaining about being pushed out is a very valid complaint if you are on the outside

You’re making no sense whatsoever. Max never intended to make that corner even though he could have. There was at no point the necessity of him coming to “0 kph” as you so eloquently put it, because he could have taken the undercut. The undercut was available to him, it’s a standard move, but it was in all likelihood that Lando got the move done fair and square, so Max bailed altogether. Maybe we should just go back to gravel traps and stop the nonsense.

You are forgetting that its not about the distance to the apex but norris distance to the outside of the exit when he finally turns for the corner and what that means for Verstappens car to make the corner. Verstappen would have needed to come to a complete stop in order to wait for Norris to even start turning.

Like, are you effectively arguing that a significant portion of Max’s moves in 2021 should have been retrospectively illegal? Because he never gave an inch on exit and the FIA was fine with it. And if we at least have to come to a common ground about how to advance the ruling in the future, I am prepared to side with you. I don’t like the rule being apex or bust either, but Max effectively has pushed the rule to that point, and now we’re complaining that it’s unfair when he’s on the receiving end.

This is the crux of the issue. This is how Max raced Lewis consistently in 2021. That’s why the stewards’ decision in AD 2021 to not force Hamilton to give the place on Lap 1 was so bizarre. They spent the whole year making the point that the car at the apex has the corner. I’m open to the idea of changing the rules and mandating space, but the FIA itself does not know what it wants. Within the volume of evidence we have, nothing Lando did was wrong.

The funny thing is Max so clearly had ample space if he wanted to go for an undercut. He was never even in the mindset to make that corner. Watch it back from Ocon’s view and you will see how much space there was between Max and Lando at the apex.

Edit: I’ll give you that there is an edge case whereby a driver just flat out refuses to turn into the corner and forces a collision. That’s what happened between Lewis and Nico in 2016. This was not that.

If that’s the semantics you are drawing on, nothing Lando did was dangerous. It’s a first gear corner and he had space. So we’re back to square one.

It is dangerous. That is what motor racing is. There is only so much you can sanitize about the way people attack each other on track. Fundamentally, you are attacking.

And if you want to make sure there is no risk, defend the inside. But prepare to face a problem on exit. Let’s not rethink the wheel here.