Norris rightly gutted with that. Fine margin losses in three of the last 4 races. Flip them around and he's a title contender, but you can't make mistakes and beat Max. This is shaping up to Max's most impressive title so far. Running away with it despite the car advantage clearly falling away and a teammate that never gets higher than 8th.
The cars are finely matched so I'm delighted the team that went boring on hard lost out a bit. Norris messed the race up at the start l. He had the car to win but saw Mr brat drive away after passing Russell and this really only.came.alive after a pit stop started a stream of events.
Completely agree. Look at where his team mate is in comparison. Max been faultless to win these last few races- the first chunk of the season the car was dominant but it is much closer now- he’s reminding me of Schumacher 1995 at the moment. As you know I’m not his biggest fan but I can acknowledge an awesome job when I see it and he’s been top class these past two races to bring home 50 points. Huge credit to him. Macca getting closer- not entirely sure why they shed 4-5 seconds by waiting a couple of laps after Max went on the softs. That essentially cost Lando the chance to fight there and then. If Ferrari can get on top of their upgrades, and with talk of Mercedes having some more bits to come, it could be a stellar second half of the season, albeit difficult to fight Max for the title. Mercedes resurgence is really impressive given the utter mess they were in from Bahrain. Clearly, they have made the sort of breakthrough that McLaren made and they are a dangerous team when they get the juggernaut pointing the right way.
Max has been absolutely top drawer for some time now, but it's nice to see him having to work for it a bit. It's unlikely that Max will lose this title, but I have hopes that this title is far from done. He's not completely out of sight yet, and one car failure would make the gap look a lot more manageable if the rest of the grid continues to improve. Maybe I'm being a little too optimistic, but there is a long way to go.
Max won the race by getting past George on lap 2. We can all go coulda shoulda woulda where Landon is concerned regarding winning the race but the simple fact is McLaren aren't good enough to consistently do it. This is what separate Lewis and Max as drivers from the rest and you can include Nico in that as well in beating Lewis to the title in 2016. Nico couldn't carry on because of the mental effort it took to beat Lewis to the title and the sacrifices he made and he didn't have the will to continue doing that. That's why Max and Lewis are extraordinary drivers. They have a singular focus better than those around then which is why they've achieved what they have.
Imo A) norris lost the race at the start. Nowhere else. B) maccas are thr first cats to push and the last yo have to change tyres. I really hope they are not punished later in the year with grid penalties by being brave enough to push. C) I was very happy to see thr negative tyre choice severely punished. Albeit by drs. Russell never had the pace but to see Hamilton pass as he got the positive choice. Great same for sainz v le clerc but a large portion of this was driver favours. D) interesting to note perez doing nothing as per in a car that's capable of a lot more and again squeezed into last of the big 4 due to soft tyres and others just sat there tyre saving. If norris at least forces verstappen to push all race then it is far better for us to watch
It’s nice to watch GP’s where the outcome isn’t known before the start again . Yes Max won again with some flawless execution, but outside of that what impressed me was that Lando driving his team towards the win through the race in terms of the strategic options. I’m repeating my Saturday comments and it was exacerbated by Piastri’s qualifying mistake, but it’s clear over the last 4 races that Lando has gone up several levels, just by comparing his performances with Oscar. He might need to go up one or two more however in order to beat Max on a regular basis unless McLaren can develop a decisive performance advantage.
I don't think Red Bull have the best car anymore, Perez isn't a great driver but definitely isn't as bad as say Bottas who always got podiums in the rocket ship he race in at Mercedes between 2017 and 2020.
It'll be interesting to see what happens if/when macca's actually execrute properly. Norris took pole with a really good lap so pit themsevles in the mix. He then had a terrible start and took himself out of the mix. They then went agressive with pitstops and put themselves back in contention. Verstappen had an OK start but Russell had a heroic start but verstappen sailed by Russell early enough so he could build thst lead. Verstappen built the gap and then red bull could then plot their pit stops to cope (just about) with the charging macca. Norris closed over 6 to 8 seconds on each stint against verstappen but had to pass mercs to start doing so so was always out of position. If they get it right I think they could have a dominate race soon.
I'm.not ignoring piastri being 7th which was poor but I'm ignoring perez being on a grid penalty as his quali was poor as usual and worse he made little progress in a race where progress was possible.
He made more progress than Piastri, was caught in a DRS train and then given a less than optimal strategy, probably as a test for Max. IMO the cars aren't far apart but, to use a nascar idiom, the McLaren is a long run car, it doesn't have that early pace, it comes up to pace a bit later and then maintains it. That puts them on the back foot for a bit as track position is king.
It's still on top of the pile, but not by much. The car clearly works to Max's style of driving and he's able to extract everything from it where as Perez isn't. Perez has absolutely fallen off a cliff in terms of performance. I'm stunned that he's so poor atm. Having a great car doesn't take anything away from Max at all. He's clearly the best out there in his current form and has a car that works for him. It makes him close to untouchable.
It's done well in quality but you.probably have it nailed on those initial bit of pace where verstappen has managed to open the gap.
The general consensus does seem to be that the McLaren is now a touch faster, but when it’s only a tenth or two of a lap, then across a race you’re talking 5-15s and then things like pitstops, in and out laps, optimising your way through traffic, making a pass at the first attempt can all add up to a similar figure and allow such margins to be overturned by superior execution. Additionally we don’t have a clear view on PU strategy, maybe McLaren are burning through PU life to put pressure on Verstappen, maybe Verstappen has been burning through PU life to keep out of their clutches during recent races? Well only see the effects of some of this towards the end of the year, as people potentially start to pick up PU usage grid penalties, suffer failures or have to run derated and fall off the leading pace.
I gave Alpine/Renault some proper abuse for their rubbish start to the season, so to be fair I should also call out their impressive recovery. Given they’re hobbled this regulation cycle by their power unit, based on their performance at Barcelona they’ve recovered from being the worst team in Race 1, being back to where they should expect to be. Conversely, it’s perhaps time to start looking closely at Aston Martin, they’re development has been sub par for two years now and with the new infrastructure basically on stream, some of the key personnel need to start coming under scrutiny.
