There was a day when people complained there was too much strategy involved, but the different strategies gave the most excitement. Red Bull dominant as always. Max was in complete control right from the start. Hard to imagine just how much pace he had in reserve. Perez a bit of a disappointment. Easy 1-2 in the sprint and couldn't close on Lando in the race. McLaren looked very good this weekend. Lando in particular drove a phenomenal race. We know how much speed was in the Red Bull, and the fact he was as fast or faster than Perez is exceptional. Piastri was a step below Lando all weekend, of course the damage hurt any chances of forward progress. Still a great job to stay ahead of George. Ferrari just didn't quite have the pace this weekend. As Carlos said, it's just the track suited McLaren better. Strange that there was such a pace discrepancy between the hard and medium tires though. It appears there was some genuine conflict between the drivers. Now with Sainz leaving, is the the start of a friction filled relationship to the end of the season? Mercedes also struggled. A guess is that with the bumpy old track surface, Mercedes could not get the car low enough to get in their performance window. Russell had a relatively strong weekend apart from the Sprint race. Far better than Lewis who aside from the Sprint race, drove poorly. He still has luck on his side as retirements from Ricciardo, Tsunoda, and Bottas all benefited him. Plus the safety cars really helped his race. Points were always possible, but unsure if he would have gotten any without all the luck. Aston Martin perhaps have taken over as the team with the worst decisions. It made zero sense to put Alonso on softs with 30 or so laps to go. They had a brand new set of mediums that would have at least had a shot at finishing the race. Alonso was one of the drivers of the day, but his team let him down again. Stroll was nowhere near Alonso's level today. His crash into Ricciardo topped it off. At first I thought the penalty was too harsh as the concertina effect caught out a lot of drivers. However upon close review, Stroll wasn't even looking at the car ahead. Plus he had room to swerve right. Bad job Lance. Haas had some pace today. Interestingly didn't put up any fight against the Ferrari's but they weren't in that race anyways. Hulkenberg had a very strong race and a deserving point. Magnussen had a wicked battle with Stroll for last place. Alpine looked the best they have all season. Both drivers strong armed their way around the track battling with their competitors. Sadly no points could come out of it, but a positive weekend. Williams looked to have dropped back a bit this weekend. In races where high speed downforce matters, their car seems to really struggle. Albon still a solid performance, Logan always the worst. Stake Sauber had the spot light on them. Huge media attention surrounding Zhou in his home race. It's understandable why they push the coverage from a business standpoint, but it was borderline embarrassing by how bad it got. By all accounts, Zhou had a terrible performance. Bottas thumped in all weekend. In the end Zhou finished 14th out of 17 running cars even though the Sauber had top 10 outright pace. Then they allowed him to park on the straight in front of his picture. It was cringe. Visa RB had the race fall apart on them by no fault of their own. Ricciardo had a legit shot at points and was destroyed by Stroll. Tsunoda wasn't that far off until he was wrecked by Kmag. Driver of the Day: Lando Norris. The Red Bull had all the pace to easily get a 1-2 yet Lando alone spoiled that result. One of his best drives.
I agree. Even if they limit the race to 110 kg of total fuel or whatever, allow them to have different fuel strategies with refueling.
Close racing is only close when you have cars and drivers at their highest state of development. This whole weekend was a perfect example of the decline of F1 over the entire post-Schumacher era. It doesn't have anything to do with him, but with how the FIA has changed the rules...again and again...year after year. And now we have this. If the goal of this sprint weekend format was to create "closer racing," they finally achieved it by turning the entire event into a crap shoot. On a green track that no one had set a wheel on in four years, the teams and drivers were given only 1 hour of practice to set up a car for two qualifying sessions and two races. And it showed. Guessing replaced testing...it was coin toss racing...with no time to try alternates. Yes, Max and Red Bull dominated...and no one was surprised. But at the current rate of control and interferance in F1 by Liberty and the FIA, and with a little help from Hollywood and AI, it won't surprise me to see "scripted" races...much like wrestling. So let's crank up the hype for F1 Smack Down in Miami in two weeks. What the sport needs now is for Lewis and Charles to get into a fist fight over posing for photos with Taylor Swift.
The cars are so large and F1 focused on lap times, just hold time trials now. That’s really what the current configuration is suited for and Qualy is now far more interesting and focused!!
+1 and the front noses are way too fragile on slight impact. Less fussy designs and aluminium would be more durable.
Superb review as per usual. Toss up between Alonso and Norris for me. Both very deserving. Max in class of 1 again. Scary thing is he wasn't even under pressure so how much was left in his tank if he needed to use that?
Autosport says: In the first stint, Perez was losing around 0.6s to 0.7s per lap compared to his team-mate on average. No pressure at all and the real gap is 1.0 now in my opinion.
Without both SC's, I would say Max would have had a 40 to 45 sec. lead. On lap 23, Max was already 20sec. ahead of everyone else. The 2nd SC was in for 11 laps. Max was on a 2 stopper so the pit delta was 24sec which comes out to 48sec. I figured Max was doing close to .8sec per lap.
Like it was with Gasly in 2019 during the races. No surprises then.. With insights again, 2018 was the most important year for Max’s career..
Same as last year. He is just as fast and the gap I was using was .8. He is faster now overall in a track he has not see for years with limited grip. Miami is going to be a nice race to record lol. I dont care how great racing is for P5 and back. Its not racing its getting paid to drive in circles until the guy 40sec in front see's a flag to end the race. Will care more when P1 is somehow under threat of losing 20 laps from the end. Not seeing much of that lately LOL
The problem is...who CAN you put alongside? Norris been offered multiple contracts and refused them all. Alonso just been offered a contract for a 3rd time, again he refused. Sainz has a MEGA offer from Audi that can't be matched. Leclerc signed a huge deal with Ferrari. Lewis doesn't have the balls. Taken the seat next to Max IF you're heralded as the next best thing can very much be seen as career suicide. You can be the most confident guy out there, but if you get beaten consistently by Max, that's it. Especially if you don't have a title yet. And even with a title, or multiple titles...that's a BIG hit to take. It's very much like the Schumacher era. Barrichello was a VERY quick driver but when he sat next to Michael within just a few races he was suddenly ridiculed to being a useless #2 there to make sure no one challenges Michael...Just because very good drivers can't match someone like that doesn't make them useless. It just speaks of the insane talent of said driver...
The problem at Red Bull is that Marko is NEVER happy with the #2 !! After Kvyat, Gasly and Albon, Perez has done a good job, but that's never enough ...
The No2 driver cannot do any better than P2 in the WDC. Perez is doing that and Marko should learn the art of gratitude.
I know we have a lack on inside garage competition for Max. Was thinking other teams in my post. Be nice to see some others create the good machine for a fight up front consistently. One day..............maybe lol
Did Alonso actually get an offer from RBR? It would be news to me. I recall when the media was suggesting Alonso, Verstappen commented that it didn't make sense. I agree there is no driver you can put alongside Max and see a challenge over an entire season. I don't even necessarily want that. I want rival teams to challenge him. Unfortunately for a driver in another team to be consistently competitive against Max, they need a car 2-5 tenths faster.
I think that Max may have more natural ability. Michael's strengths were his superior level of fitness and relentless testing.
2015-2018 I recall Max being pretty "dirty". Swerving on the straights, squeezing other cars, dive bombs. I was absolutely not a fan of his driving in those early years because he often cross the line of fair driving. Undoubtedly talented, but not clean IMO.
Offer was real...Alonso commented saying that there is zero chance Max would leave RBR but IF he did, it would certainly impact his decision on his next team. i.e. he'd sign but not to sit next to Max... I do hope other teams improve. I think there may be a few tracks where other teams challenge RBR more this year (singapore, Monaco for example) but if the gap from Shanghai is an indication for the rest of the season, it spells bad news for 2025
In his learning years, Max was a bit of a loose cannon, I admit, but he has toned down a lot since. He has polished his racecraft and now he is OK. Like Senna, Schumacher was malicious on the track to the end of his career.
