One of the true great tracks in F1. Always enjoyable to see an F1 car do a lap. Not the greatest race, but far from the worst. Red Bull Racing officially are the 2023 World Constructors Champions. No surprise there but a congratulations to them. Max Verstappen couldn't be touched this weekend. It's almost like he made it personal and wanted to prove a point just how far ahead he is. Dominating win, probably could have won by over a minute if he pushed. On a day that should be all smiles for the team, and Perez craps the bed. He made plenty of his own mistakes in a car that had the pace to be 2nd. McLaren have done an incredible job this season and have been rewarded with a double podium. Lando looked particularly strong in the race. Piastri did gain much, if anything from the pitstop under VSC, but was able to easily secure his first podium in his career. Great job for them all around. Ferrari looked good this weekend. Leclerc was back on form as the stronger Ferrari driver. Had plenty of pace for 4th, but not enough car to challenge the McLarens. Sainz was doing well but it seems the team threw away his best chance at 5th. Hamilton had so so 3 second second pit stop and this was a great opportunity for Ferrari to pit Sainz and possibly retain position ahead of Lewis. Maybe it would not have mattered anyways as Sainz wasn't able to catch back up to Lewis very quickly. More points than Mercedes is still a good day. Mercedes stated the car wasn't very balanced around Suzuka. Quite a few little issues showed up while boss man Toto was away. Russell seemed like he had a bone to pick. He fought Lewis hard and fair, only to be pushed off the track by his own teammate. Hamilton had a slow 4 second first stop moments after George was right on his rear wing, and instead of pitting George a lap later, they went for a 1 stop. This was a lot down to George's call. I appreciate he takes a chance in an off strategy to shoot for a better result, but it rarely works out. Later in the race, he fought with Lewis again and the team order Lewis past early enough to try to catch Leclerc, and then they left George to fight on his own against Sainz instead of working together. This weekend Hamilton made a point of saying he was better than George, almost trying to make a plea to the team to be considered the #1 guy. He pointed out he was 3 tenths faster in Quali, and then said he scored the most points for the team this season. Is this an indication of some ripples showing up between the drivers, and maybe some friction within the team? Either way, it's fun to watch. Aston Martin have dropped down to a team barely able to stay within the points. While we have heard Alonso complain on the radio many times before, it's rare to actually hear him upset at his team. You have to feel bad for him as he was so happy in a car that was 2nd best and capable of a podium each race. And now he is struggling to score a point. The team has done the worst job in developing and they are making many pitstop and strategy errors. Brutal. Lance Stroll had a pretty good battle up from his poor quali position. Probably wasn't going to be good enough for points, but at least he wasn't going backwards. Alpine keep collecting those last few points which should probably guarantee them 6th in the standings. Ocon and Gasly are pretty evenly matched, this race goes to Ocon. AlphaTauri have improved to the point they are close to fighting for a point. This is good news. Lawson is driving in his last 1 or 2 Grand Prix's before Ricciardo comes back. Sad because he has earned a seat. Outperforming Yuki in this race, and in many other sessions this season. Extremely impressive to say the least. Alfa Romeo isn't too far off AT, but need a lot of luck to get points. A tough race overall. Zhou had his contact and problems early, and Bottas got completely punted off. Haas was the worst car again. Its hard to believe a car can be that bad in the race compared to it's qualifying pace. Williams a double DNF. Albon probably had enough talent to fight in the 11-13th position but was collected in a big shunt early. A racing incident. Logan Sargeant flat out sucks. The body language from his team after another qualifying crash spoke volumes. Driver of the Day: By all accounts it should be Max Verstappen since he simply destroyed everyone. However it goes to Lando Norris. After a tight quali where he was tipped by Piastri, Lando put his foot down in the race and showed why he is still the #1 guy at McLaren. A sizable margin over Oscar in the race. Aside from Max, he was the class of the field.
Nice analysis as always. I don’t get more and more the Ricciardo choice by Alpha Tauri for next year ..
Great analysis as per usual. Perez had an absolute stinker of a race. Max is on course for doubling his points tally despite Perez having just one DNF...which is absolutely insane. I was thinking about this just now as well. My guess right now is that RBR have signed Norris for 2025 already. Perez seems to be actively trying to be sacked right now with this drive, so he'll get a big pay day. But then RBR what are their options...they can't put Lawson in because they'll then have to demote him a year later to make room for Norris. My guess is then that they also can't put Ricciardo in for ''fear'' that he's back on pre 2018 form and that they'll then be sacking a driver who is back on form and the subsequent PR disaster that'll entail, because they can't do the norris announcement.
Very risky bet about Ricciardo’s mindset. I still believe he’s toasted after Verstappen and Norris experiences.
I believe so as well. But could well be getting into a car he likes he's back to normal again...only for then to be sacked again. And again the payout RB needs to do to Perez for breaching contract. I'm no F1 contract lawyer but surely P2 supersedes "half the points of Max". They still won the WCC (thanks Max) so I doubt Perez is even in breach of contract. Who knows. Maybe the plan is to see what Perez does in the first half next year and boot him out when needed anyways, either Lawson or Ricciardo if Norris is a no go.
it wouldn't surprise me if RBR have contracts that state if you can't stay within X distance of Max, you can get fired at any time. If only Alonso could have a go in the Red Bull in 2024. He'd still get beat, but he very likely would win a race or two.
Do you imagine for one second Alonso would be pleased to be humiliated by Max race after race, sessions after sessions ?
Not at all. Alonso is the type of guy that expects to be #1 in any team he is in. He has a fair argument to think that, except against Max. He could get equal status in the worst case against any other driver, but Max deserves to be #1 at Red Bull. I do think Alonso would give Max a challenge once in awhile, but I don't think it would be very close over a full season.
Stop imagining things !! There has never been "equal status" at Red Bull; that's not the way they work. Red Bull don't need a strong driver alongside Max; alone he delivers both titles without help !!! Long may it last !!!
Max won. Too many thought they were driving in F2 today lol. Perez has a drive why? Stroll-esque performance. 32sec gap for Max to P2 at one point. The rest of the field are filler. There is racing but now its 'testing' for next year. Not sure why Mercedes care about P2 overall. Lose more and get more development time. It certainly not about maximizing performance under a cost cap.
Mercedes seems absolutely lost since their zero pods concept last year. W15 will be crucial for Wolff either next season..
They were entertaining today but not well organized. Had they let LH clear Russell earlier maybe a challenge on Charles was possible. George just a rolling road block on dead tires since he gambled for fewer stops. Not sure what Mercedes are doing really. For most is just about next year now. Nothing else. Doing better gets you more money but less wind tunnel. Hard to say which is more important.
Cars are carrying much more downforce that tires were redesigned mid season. Harder to follow and or pass. Not sensing any real great innovation coming for next year. Again we wait for the new regs and hope things actually change and racing is closer. Today we had closer racing between team mates lol. Getting easier to make fun of this than enjoy it when the racing is just DRS trains and the leader has a 32sec gap to P2. Not exactly what Liberty envisioned so far. But wow..........we have the lights of Vegas to distract us from a series where the titles were done by race 9. Seeing a new winner last week was a gift. Qatar will be no better than today. Just a different venue. Maybe Russell will not make a poor tire call and get passed late eh? SKY was so impressed with his in car race management till it wasnt.
Perez started the day running people off track lol. LH had to avoid early. Im amazed he keeps his seat. He hit the bottom today. Rock bottom. I dont care what his contract states, he needs to be gone. For a top team driver he's at Stroll - level performance today. Paying for that is a joke. Fire and pay him off. He had his time. What excuses will Horner state if he dares to even talk about that mess of a drive today. Lance Perez ladies and gentleman lol Image Unavailable, Please Login
Pretty amazing that of all the accidents Perez had today, you find the one he's innocent in, and blame him for it.
As much as I like DR he has had his day in the sun. In his short AT combeback he was not impressive at all. Lawson deserves the seat. The concept of needing experience for development may backfire on the team. Perez is channeling his inner danny ric. Perez is mentally destroyed by max and either needs to accept #2 and regroup or leave the sport a broken man. Max the team mate destroyer! Max is so different from hammy. Hammy plays mind games and actively undermines his team mate. Max just crushes his team mate Viking style. I think Hammy costs points in singapore helping to distract GR. Hammy cost the team points again at suzuka unable to think of anyone but himself and destroy GR with the Sainz maneuver clearly fresh in everyone's mind, Sainz closing, and GR calling for the Sainz maneuver. The worst "team" out there is merc! GR is not without fault but the fault is on him. GR is letting Hammy get in his head when Hammy is the one with the most to loose. GR needs to just race his race and do his talking on track. Albon! If he didn't have bad luck he would not have any luck at all. He is so much better than his stats reveal. Williams is make slow progress forward. I'd like to see that bare fruit.
He’s past it. Lawson has earned the seat and he should get it. Mr. Spice just can’t admit he made an error in putting Ricci Danni, who’s like an American football coach…always failing up…back on the grid. He should just take credit for spotting Lawson’s talent and move on.
I didn't say they did, but I'll play along. I do think Red Bull have had equal status before. Early years of Max and Sainz and even Max and Ricciardo. It didn't take long until they knew Max was the guy and made him #1 and developed around him. Ricciardo saw this and left. I thought they were right for doing so then, and it has proved to be the right decision as we see now. The funny thing is I don't think Red Bull even knew how good Max was. When he destroyed Gasly and Albon they blamed the 2nd drivers for underperforming. Then an experienced Perez shows up and gets destroyed just the same.
