Agree, I don't remember a time when they made big changes as they do now. The teams were allowed to innovate more years back. I felt sad for George when I heard about the underweight but I do think the team should have considered this. They will have known how close they are normally, and yes, there was no pick up but they would have known that too. The weight differential to the others was probably more that 1.5 kg. Separately, Lewis seems to have got some mojo back following the Silverstone win. It will be Max's WDC to lose, I don't see Lando getting there yet, too much emotion. To win he needs to be beating Piastri everytime, not just Max.
To win he needs to be beating Piastri everytime, not just Max. Yes,but he couldn`t beat Max yesterday even though he was within one second for about the last ten laps.He came up behind the two Red Bulls and past Perez easily going up the long straight to the top of the hill,so I thought,next lap Max,but no.Lap after lap he stayed behind him within DRS available. I was willing the director of the television feed to show us those two but the cameras stayed on the Mercs. Just couldn`t understand it when I could see on the timing readout at the side of the screen.Piastri has a better chance of getting closer to Max than Norris given the oppertunity.
I’ve heard it said that pickup equates to 1.5-2kg before this weekend. Having said that everyone knows that they don’t do a cool down lap and presumably allowed for that. If it was all due to George wearing the tyres more on the one-stop then it definitely contributed to the win and it’s hard to feel this is anything but fair. Looking back on the race, I do think RedBull might regret taking a penalty here. Whilst you can argue that the RedBull was 3rd/4th fastest this weekend - given the cars were all so close that clear air was vital, it’s not hard to imagine that had he started at the front, Max would have won. With 10 rounds to go, the Championship does seem open. If RedBull aren’t the quickest at Spa, then it’s possible they don’t win again and there are some tracks later in the year where they should really struggle. The problem for their competitors is that their drivers all seem closely matched - none can really afford to throw their weight behind one over the other.
Once behind a competitive driver in a competitive car it did seem the chasing car struggled, suggesting the dirty air syndrome. There have been posts on here sometimes suggesting get ride of DRS, I think we can see that would most likely result in a procession. I gave a thought to Anthoine Hubert this weekend. Horrible crash.
Oh dear. Newey must be very fed up at Red Bull, and perhaps Horner, to want to do a swan song at Aston Martin. Perhaps he is a secret James Bond fan.
Yes, so I heard, and his RB fellows joining him too, which was the stickler for Ferrari. I do wonder if Lewis is regretting his Ferrari move. He has other things going on in his life so maybe he doesn't mind the gamble.
It is a bit amusing that new regs look set to be perfectly timed to ruin a competitive formula for the second time in a row. Though in the FIA's defence, the conventional wisdom until about two months ago was that the teams were several years away from catching Red Bull. I was certainly guilty of crying out for rule changes in March...The same in 2020 i guess when Merc looked more dominant than they had for the entirety of the 2017-21 ruleset. We always predict a gradual closing of the field, but reality seems to be that nothing happens for years and then the lead evaporates all at once.
Imo this race had several aspects thst should be considered. 1. Which cars stripped df and set up for dry Sunday and which cars did not. Redbull clearly had df running. 2. The track was fresh and also green. This affects running. 3. Certain teams have lost their advantages and certain teams have gained, certain teams have stripped upgrades off the cars to run old spec due to the type of track and conditions. 4. Tracks are changing to reduce DRS effect. If you put all these things in the mix then assuming one team won't win again or that another team will win all the time is risky. Verstappen had a 10 place penalty and in effect stopped going forward after lap 2 or 3? The DRS chain was savage. Nobody was doing anything mid race. It was actually fairly dull seeing a stopper cork called perez in the bottle who apparently either had deployment issues or some such. Vertappen was put on an undercut, was slow pitted and ended up losing his hot outlap behind a **** slow car. That ruined any hope of getting ahead. If thst had not happened there was a middling chance he would have jumped the train. The race was "won" by a car going long and conserving tyres because the others couldn't get by. As we go forward the long break now set up upgrades to be relooked at and optimised. We just do not know who will come.out of thst in the best shape. Red bull have lost the WCC. 100% I cannot see perez doing anything and it's too late to change it. This is about the WDC and verstappen has 7 wins and holds a full 3 race advantage. There are 12 races to go. What verstappen needs is to finish them all a day match norris. 3 wins each and then the other 6 could be shared out by others. Podiums will win this for verstappen. Spent races will be important. So from here in maccas need to make a call. Do they want the WCC or both. If they want both then they need piastri to take points off verstappen and norris to win. Right now Ferrari and mercs are collecting up macca error points and that needs to stop. For red bull the need is to regain a couple of 10ths that's all.
Apparently Perez DID have a battery issue , not sure how big , but the team didn’t put that info out . Instead they let Marko throw him under the bus . There is a mitigating circumstance of sorts in that Perez’s lowly 19th place in the post-Raidillon race speed trap suggests his complaint of being “very slow on straights” had merit. This could be explained by a battery deployment issue. But at the same time, better traction with tyre treatment in a tricky tyre management race can lead to big straightline speed discrepancies. Here it’s worth recalling Lance Stroll’s angst with Aston Martin in Japan (and again on Sunday). Red Bull, with all its data, chose not to tell reporters about a car problem on this post-race. Instead, Marko said Perez “completely collapsed”. Given the importance of optics in F1, this is much more telling. Red Bull could yet give Perez another reprieve in its post-Spa choice. He successfully got the fastest lap bonus point last weekend and his “great team player” factor, per Horner, is valued inside the team.
The fact that he didn't sail backwards and end up last just shows how hard it was to get by. Straight line speed is certainly influenced by traction out of thr slow corners and being able to consistently put the power down but in the end, they were running for a wet race and were massively quick Saturday when it was wet.
After Marko made his post race comments I expected Perez to be replaced very quickly but Horner has said they had talks the day after the race and Perez is staying in the seat till at least the end of the season! If that holds true is anyone's guess! If Red Bull had someone else who they think could do better quickly then, I think Perez would be gone. I had hoped that Danny would have had some better results but he's not showing his old form. Yuki, I think needs a bit more time as he doesn't quite seem to be in the right head space sometimes - that will probably come with more experience.
It's significantly more likely that Norris ends up 100+ points back than winning the title. He needs a 10 race winning streak to start immediately and right now a 1 race winning streak seems a struggle. McLaren have a very good chance of their first WCC in 26 years, that should be the focus. No sense demoralising Piastri chasing the impossible.
Basically, for Norris to win the title he's going to have to average 8pts per race over Max for the rest of the season. It's not impossible, but it's a giant ask.
I think what Norris needs is to be consistent and clean Verstappen doesn't want a 0 points race for whatever reason. If norris is faster he just needs to be beating the brat and then see how it goes. Norris has not 1 but potentially 5 rear gunners to compete week on week with verstappen... provided norris is consistently fast and ahead of everyone by piastri. I'd be very happy to see him just being consistently top 2 as long as he is beating verstappen. 12 races to pull back 80 points or there about. It's very possible but any failure will kill him
It's only 10 races left now, so i guess there's already been two failures The time when consistent and clean could do it from Imola onwards, or at least from Austria, but sadly it's not happened. 80 points in 10 races needs perfection. To put it in context. Max's lead after winning 7 of the first 10 was 69 points. So it needs to be more dominant than that was and we're talking about a driver who hasn't won any of the last 8 races doing it. I suppose the other option is to pray that RB/Verstappen have a total meltdown with multiple DNFs, but i think that's equally long odds.
I still see a Verstappen title as the most likely outcome, likely because no consistent challenger emerges, but I do think there’s reasons to think that success outside of that will be hard to come by. The RedBull hasn’t been quickest since Miami, McLaren have dropped the ball a few times, but will learn. Merc still know how to win and are now capable of doing so. What has characterised the races where RedBull have struggled the most - hot tracks and kerbs - of the races left this year, that leaves Brazil, Quatar and Abu Dhabi as the three where they are unlikely to face either. These are 3 out of the last 4 races, so their competitors at least get a good run at them while they are weak and the opportunity to put them on the back foot. In general the Honda has needed 4 engines to last the season, although Verstappen has taken one extra already he lost a brand new one so either he’s going to need another or he’s going to be running heavily detuned for the rest of the season. RedBull have the least research at least through the end of the season and they are learning to work without Newey. On the plus side, they have Verstappen, they do know how to maximise a result and recent experience of winning a championship without the fastest car. Also they can prioritise Verstappen, especially in terms of maximising development budget by focusing on iterating, giving him the new parts and Perez the hand me downs. If a lead team does emerge then they could go on a run of wins. The problem for their competitors is that they all have fairly balanced lineups so they can’t back one horse, yet. At Merc, Lewis has a reasonable lead, but it’s effectively a luck rather than performance offset, Lando’s generally lead Piastri this year, but less so recently and they’re only separated by one DNF and things are even closer at Ferrari. They also really need to be taking big points off Verstappen on a regular basis so they need both their cars performing. I agree that the Constructors seems like it’s headed elsewhere, which might be a blessing in disguise because it does seem RedBull could use more aero time as car progress has dried up this year.
