FORMULA 1 MSC CRUISES BELGIAN GRAND PRIX 2023 - Spa....Race.... ▄▀▄▀▄▀ SPOILERS ▄▀▄▀▄▀

Never will..

 

I think it is. I try and attend an F1 race every year, Indy and/or LeMans every couple years. I was in Hungary last weekend and went to the race. When I returned home, I watched it on television. There is so much more to an F1 race weekend in the stands and walking around the circuit with thousands of other race fans, music, parties, great local food and the general atmosphere that you cannot get on television.

Watching the Hungarian GP at home when I returned, it was mostly a bore, however, it was one of the best races I've attended in person. No flyovers, no major celebrities (that I saw) but lots and lots of true racing fans that loved sharing their love for the sport with others from around the world. The stands for the support races in Hungary were nearly full, the hillsides were full. The F1 Fanzone at Hungary was lame, practically non-existent compared to Spa or Silverstone. In fact, the F1 Fanzone, although it was on the weekend map, wasn't anything more than vendors selling local food. It was a nice change from the techno-party scene found in other venues.

Same for Spa last year when I went, the locals come out of the Ardennes Forest, they sit on top of the vendor trailers that are selling fries with mayo, just for a glimpse of the red cars between the trees at the start of the Kemmel Straight. It's worth it.

 

I don't entirely agree with this.

In replay, it was clear that, even after the lock-up, Carlos was fully ahead of Oscar.
Oscar dove for a hole that just wasn't there.
He'd have hit Carlos sooner or later, hitting the corner at that angle.

Oscar whined, "He moved in like I didn't exist."
Well, going into the corner, Oscar didn't exist.
Carlos was avoiding Ham, with Oscar behind them both.

If you get hit making a kamikaze dive, you've got nobody to blame but yourself.

 

The gap between the cars seems huge - we can see that in spite of Perez's lacklustre performance (20s down on Max who has the same car and started behind...) Charles starting from pole still ends up behind both RBs.

 

Riccardo would have fared better if he hadn't had that little mistake in quali. Given the changing conditions and strategies with the
tires (see how Norris result changed for the better at the end), he could have done much better from the middle of the field.

 

Yes, bad management from the team can ruin the chances of qualifying well, and therefore put the driver on the back foot for the rest of the weekend sometimes.

 

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/red-bull-breaks-second-f1-trophy-in-a-row-after-belgian-gp/10502468/

this happened....again.

sjd

 

Does red bull have any valid reason for not providing them the same car?

 

No..not from what I can see. But to my eyes..there is something wrong. It makes no sense why he would be consistently over 20 seconds slower every race. He's a good driver..something is off.

 

No, the results would be similar.....give charles the besr car abd he will also whipe the floor with the rest of the field. As we saw last year and before when he znd Max have an equivalent car,no one knows wich one of them will come out on top.

 

Yeah, when he starts telling the pit, I will go faster and burn up the tires so we can practice a pit stop during a race, it gets scary.

 

I don't believe that in Miami Checo was driving the same car as Max.
Max is impressive, but the fact that his team mate is vlearly slower flatters him, just as it did for Elton.
Imagine Prost without Senna in 88 or vive versa....it would have been total domination, probably more than Max is doing right now.

 

*crystal ball* at abu dhabi horner comes on the radio... "ok max, show them..."

 

Another lovely day for powered by Honda, P1, 2 10 (wow Tsunoda shos something today and 16.
Nice podium for Ferrari.
Imagine if Ferrari hired Honda folks to make sure their road cars ran without bricking themselves.

 

Checo has the same car, but when a team is built around a driver, it´s impossible to get the same results. Then comes Dr. Marko talking **** and adding more pressure and the slower driver enters a vicious circle that makes him go from bad to worse, it often has happened in the past with other #2 drivers.

If Checo manages to get some podiums like today and secures the 2nd position in the championship, he´ll regain some confidence and credit within the team and the gap probably will shrink a bit.

 

Here's Perez's take on it:
Checo Perez: Both Red Bull cars are the same, what people are saying is crazy | Marca

With him being seriously under pressure he's the first to start saying that the cars aren't the same or developed to Max's direction.

 

perception varies, but certainly when you jam the wayward soul into the wall, his wheels breaks your car, and a mediocre 55 blows a result.. even if you think his nose is clean.

 

An overall dull race. I'm glad I missed the Friday and Saturday Follies. When this returns from the summer break, I'll probably continue to use this system...ignore Friday and Saturday, watch much of Sunday's race on scan speed.

 

Aero.

 

Agreed. What happened to Sainz was unfortunate and the blame should be placed on Piastri.

 

Yes, the cars are the same, but the design philosophy is around Verstappen. Even if the team doesn't say so openly, after 7 years together,
they know perfectly what Verstappen prefers and if there is any attempt to change the direction in the development of the car,
it will surely be in favour of him, and not Perez, Albon, Gasly or Riccardo (or Webber!).

 

Could be resources, could be pure favoritism. McLaren and Mercedes played favorites with their drivers in who got the best equipment.

I agree with some others here that something is up. There is no way, no how, that what we saw today was just Max being better. Before the pitstops, the gap from Perez to Max was almost 3 seconds. After the first pit stop, Max - who was on colder tires - took that gap down by 1.5 seconds, drove by Perez like he was nothing, then pulled to a twenty second gap to the finish. This, all after starting 5th on the grid! Where did that sudden pace come from?

Sorry, this ain't all down to Newey's aero or Max's better driving. The most sensible explanation is that Max simply had more power available to him than Perez. It looked like Hamilton in Brazil 21' today, where it was obvious one team car had more power than the other.

After today, I'm convinced that the Honda PU is what's behind the mystery of Red Bull's straight line speed and overall pace. I'm sure Red Bull are happy to let the other teams drive themselves crazy looking for some sort of aero trick to get themselves the same performance.

 

I actually took a screenshot of the in and outlaps of both drivers:

Image Unavailable, Please Login

Where did that speed come from? Perez had the faster stop. Max has always done fast inlaps but ridiculously quick outlaps yet still maintain the tyre life in the stint.

Max was saving tyres in S1 and S3, the two higher deg sections and then did his normal S2, where he was 1 to 1.5 seconds faster. If Max had extra power he should be much faster in S1 and S3, not in S2. They have identical wings on the car.

Perez himself has reiterated plenty of times the cars are identical.

It's not the honda power unit that makes the difference. @Mitch Alsup did the math on that already and unless the Honda has something like 100hp extra over anyone else (which it definitely doesn't) , it's simply aero efficiency.

 

### Correction,

Max's first pit stop was 2.5 with Perez 3.2. So Max gained 1.7 seconds on his outlap, and .3 on his inlap