Yep . Casio , Timex , . If it was exciting , he would wear it . Old Spice as an afterthought shave as well
That'll be one of those drives that still gets mentioned a decade from now. Sealing the championship with a statement of complete superiority over the field, whilst in the third best car and starting 17th. Legendary stuff.
I think the wet races are a big leveller on car performance. You don't need the fastest car to win in the rain. It also brings out the drivers skills though.
I think Lando might have had too much DF as his straight line speed was awful. Had he have passed Russell early he might have had a shot but even then Max has looked at home here all weekend. Next season interesting- 3/4 closely matched cars from race 1 perhaps
Can’t remember who it was but someone said that Ocon was much faster in the straights than The McLaren , but the McLaren would be quickest over the lap because they had a high DF set up for the corners around this circuit . Pretty sure in was in qualifying .
Yeah, Ferrari made a big deal about setting the car up for the wet, but clearly had too much downforce on too for the straights.
Can't seem to see any news on Mercs changing tyre pressures after they where fitted to the cars or the aborted start muck up. Anyone seen anything?
I don’t even know where to start, so I guess I’ll do something highly unusual for me and praise Alpine. Whether it was an inspired set up, the rain masking their engine deficiencies, a couple of superb driving performances, or some combination of the three; it’s a great result for them and has set fire to the tail end of the constructors championship. Up front, Max’s performance was measured yet brilliant - he didn’t make conditions look easy (that was probably impossible) but he displayed the perfect blend of controlled aggression to navigate his way through the field and then when he hit the front, just set out to make a statement. This championship could have gone another way, but it’s swung solidly in his direction now and it’s appropriate that it’s a performance that any of the greats of the sport would be proud of, that give it a firm nudge in that direction. There’s no shame in being beaten by Verstappen and I think that’s something Lando needs to remember as he regroups and looks to move forward. My feeling is that he and McLaren rather got sucked into the “championship fight” which applied too much pressure to a driver that only won his first race this year. If they could have kept their focus on “one race at at time” I think that would have served them better. Next year - if RedBull don’t rediscover their form - it’s perfectly possible that Lando fights Leclerc and Piastri for the championship and in that situation he goes in with an experience advantage over the others - how his career goes from here, therefore, I think very much depends on how he uses this year’s experience.
For the start situation, Norris and Russell have been given a fine and a reprimand and everyone else has been let off, as they just “followed the leader” and weren’t predominantly responsible. I know there was no sporting advantage, but it seems a bit generous to me, I was expecting each to get a 10s “starting infringement” penalty, provided the investigation didn’t uncover an error on the officiating side.
Merc fined also, it seems the stewards accepted that because of the unusual start situation and the fact that’s it hard to get onto the grid from the pitlane at Brazil it was acceptable that Merc had not followed the rules!? There’s some stuff in the statement that says that they only adjusted the pressures in the range allowed so therefore there was no sporting advantage - which rather ignores the fact that presumably all these things are difficult for all the teams, who either did the task properly or didn’t do it and suffered as a result? The verdict also says “highly specific circumstances, won’t be considered a precedent”, which suggest they know this is a whole can of worms they shouldn’t have opened…
After a bit more time to reflect on what went on elsewhere. Tough race for the rookies, especially Bearman, but in that context I thought Lawson and he did very well. All too easy to become passive in that situation and both fought throughout, making some mistakes on occasion, but kept coming back for more, until Bearman seemed to start to struggle towards the end. Bearman’s penalty for hitting Colapinto seemed harsh, and 10s doubly so - it does seem 10s has become the minimum penalty over the last couple of races - is that an official action?
A fine was my expectation and I think appropriate. As you note there was no gain achieved, since the others followed, so they all burnt the same amount of fuel.
I very much prefer the idea that penalties are the result of actions not outcomes - I’d see this very similar to the jump start penalties that get issued when a car comes to a stop, jumps forward, but comes to a stop again whilst remaining within it’s start box, before then moving away again once the lights go out. These are typically penalised with time penalties despite not conferring a sporting gain.
