45 laps of absolute boredom, followed by a thrilling final 17. Ferrari may have pulled out another 1988, spoiling perhaps a perfect season for Red Bull. Fantastic job by Carlos Sainz. He was the star in Qualifying, he was on point with a very tactical but effective strategy, and kept his composure under pressure at the end. Even had the focus to allow Lando into his DRS to help protect his race from the much faster Mercedes. Leclerc had a decent race. Great start on soft tires, good tire management. Ferrari I think completely dropped the ball by not pitting him under the VSC. Unless he had zero tires left, which I find hard to believe, it seemed like a no brainer. Everyone saw how much faster new tires were over old tires against the Red Bulls on 25 lap old hards. It may have made no difference in the end, but at least he could have fought. McLaren brought another upgrade and it appeared to work. Piastri got caught out in qualifying, so their performance is not just down to upgrades. Lando was brilliant. He looked faster than Sainz at the end, but its just too difficult to pass. Defending against those Mercedes was monumental. Despite Piastri's poor grid position, still finished P7, so an outstanding job by him as well. Mercedes probably had the fastest car in the race. Had Ferrari set off going as fast as they could, Mercedes likely would have jumped them with pit strategy and probably would have walked away with a 1-2. Hamilton still showing why he is top dog, even if it's not by much. On the fresh Mediums, both drivers were pushing hard, but Hamilton definitely seems to be able to get the laptime without destroying his tires. He was quicker than George at the end, no doubt. George Russell continues to make a case of being dramatically overrated. He has good speed, a good attitude to go for wins, but somehow manages to make the stupidest mistakes. Very very costly and if he wants to be #1 at Mercedes, he needs to do better. Red Bull had by far their worst race of the year. The car looked awful in qualifying. Both drivers complaining about lack of grip in the race. Safety car, and VSC didn't help their race at all. Yet they raced their way up to P5 and P8. They did get lucky with a few DNF's ahead of them though. Alpine looked very strong in the race. Ocon was one of the drivers of the day up until his car failed him. He was definitely on route to a good points finish. Gasly was there to pick up the pieces of others bad days, and had a solid finish. Likely would have been in the points no matter what. AlphaTauri has been one of the worst teams all year, so for Liam Lawson to score his first points... that's huge! He has been incredibly impressive in all his F1 drives. Making a huge case for at least deserving a permanent seat in F1. Yuki got blocked in quali, and then bumped off in the race. Seems the Stewards think it's okay for drivers just to push him around without giving penalties. Haas has been another awful car this season, so to get a point is a good result. KMag and Gasly pushed each other off track multiple times in the race, so it's surprising he outperformed Hulkenberg. Williams isn't suited for the high downforce street circuit. Which makes Albon's performance that much more impressive. He didn't have a clean race at all, and still nearly got a point. Sargeant on the other hand was terrible. But hey, Goatifi vibes for bringing out the Safety car and giving some action in the race. Alfa Romeo was the worst car today, but kudos to Zhou for once again beating Bottas. Aston Martin. It is heartbreaking how bad the car has gotten when everyone had such high hopes for Alonso. The car looked horrible to drive, Alonso was going to wrestle it into points, even with his own uncharacteristic mistake. Then the team threw away any chance with a disastrous pitstop. Why did they even continue racing, they should have parked the car to save parts. Lance Stroll didn't even start the race due to his own mistake... which emphasizes the ancor he is to the team. This season will go down as a failure. Driver of the Day: Carlos Sainz. Had enough speed, a big enough brain and didn't make any mistakes.
fully agreed as per usual. The last 17 laps where amazing indeed. The SC/VSC's couldn't possibly have come at a worse time for the Red Bulls. Right in the window for the medium/soft runners, way too early for the Hard equipped Red Bulls. Another 8 laps or so would've worked in their favor massively. Can't win them all! I was utterly convinced the Merc's would win it. Sainz and Norris both played the game to a T. Absolute masterclass in racecraft from both. When the Merc's didn't take them by lap 61 I knew it was in the bag, and then george ****ing it into the wall sealed the deal. George makes too many mistakes under pressure still. Sainz's stock is rising rapidly. Thoroughly well deserved win.
Well, not quite as dramatic as 1988…that was divine intervention level perfection…but thrilling nonetheless! I’m reading that the team is giving Sainz full credit for the Lando/DRS-play, and he deserves it. That was master class, tactically. I’m very impressed with his progress this season. His confidence seems to be way up and this car suits his style; he is mastering it, not reacting to it.
This is correct; RB was caught by SC at exactly the time their tire strategy was worst. They could not make it 1-stop with a switch to mediums, and lost 20+ seconds later when they did have to pit. I am left wondering what would have happened if Hard runners were allowed to go stopless in the race.
Again Leclerc looks like he doesn’t improve since 2019 on technical side. Five years in this team and engineers unable to build a car that suits its driving style.. Weird isn’t it ?
Charles says the 'over-steer' he needs has been somewhat eliminated in the current car improvements and he cannot drive around it. Well.........Mr overpaid non WDC winner - start. You need to adapt. The improvements appear to be working overall and performance has improved. He needs to 'step-up' and make it happen!! Carlos is not making excuses, he is simply driving and getting it done. Thats the job.
I agree. The truly great drivers can adapt and perform with the car changes. To be fair, a focused team with adapt their car to their #1 star if he is worthy of it. If you look through history, a lot of great drivers have figured out how to extract performance in any car their drove. Michael Schumacher: H pattern Benetton with flat floors, to stepped floors and paddle shifts. V10s or V8. Slicks or grooved tires. He figured out how to win in anything. Even in his stint with Mercedes, he was faster than Rosberg in 2012. Alonso gets the maximum out of any car he drives. Be it an agile Renault from 06, or a roaring V10 on a single set of tires in 05, or any of the pieces of crap he's driven since then. Lewis Hamilton, a championship contender in his rookie year, to a winner and even champion in multiple different variations of F1 cars. After getting beat by his fresh teammate in 2022, has found a way to get more performance out of his side of the garage and is now thumping George. Carlos openly admitted to struggling with the 2022 car, but made huge progress by the end of the year. An undeniable question mark is how much does the team develop around a single driver. Santander is a primary sponsor giving $80 million per year apparently, and they have a direct interest in Carlos Sainz. Does this prevent Leclerc from getting a car exactly to his liking?
had they stayed on hards it would've have been game over for sure. However...had that SC come out 5-8 laps later we could very well have been writing now how it's been 11 in a row. Quite likely would be that the medium and certainly soft runners would've boxed already at this point.
Many of us overestimated Leclerc, myself included. His breakout year in 2019 where he outscored a very broken Vettel flattered him. It presented an appearance that he was in a league with Max and Ham, when he really isn't. Tons of smoke got blown up Leclerc's ass because of 19' and the first few races of 22', by the media, by Ferrari fans, and the team. What we all failed to notice is Leclerc seems to have serious anger issues behind the wheel, imho. He often rages when things getting frustrating for him. His screaming on the radio in France last year really tipped me off that he has emotional issues he has to work on. This year he's shown his immaturity speeding in the pits, overheating his tires, yelling at the team for his mistakes, and disobeying team orders. His stunt at Monza that almost crashed both him and Sainz was indefensible. It's clear that Sainz performing better than him has gotten under his skin, and his racing desperately. Vasseur needs to get control of him, fast. Sainz keeps his cool and works any problems that come his way, which helps him contribute to the strategy and handle in-race pressure better than Leclerc, imho. This isn't to say everything is Leclerc's fault, because it isn't. Ferrari are Ferrari. But, the rest of the team have been working hard to improve, and the results are beginning to show some hope. It's time for Leclerc to improve himself like Sainz is doing, and get his anger under control. The kid is wicked fast, but he needs to grow up and take responsibility for his mistakes like Russel and Sainz do, or he'll never be a champion..
But, but, but according to some of the self-anointed motorsport "authorities/experts" here on Fchat, LH is really nothing more than a midpacker whose "false legacy" has been built on "fairy dust" . . .
I largely agree, but I wouldn't dismiss his attitude as just emotional issues. He's clearly very passionate and very hungry to win a championship with Ferrari, and I admire his dedication. He's also become very punchy over the past year and those cracks are sadly starting to show in his performance. Really, what I want more than anything in this sport is for Ferrari to field the best car and for us to see Leclerc and Sainz go head-to-head with equal treatment from the team.
Mistakes caused by pressure from Hammy too. GR had to watch the front and the rear. A little team orders for the benefit of the team could have resulting in a merc 1 & 2. Instead two guys that are on diffrent teams but former team mates were a better team then the merc duo. No one talks about the pressure put on by Hammy. But Hammy's popping out of line and filling GR's mirrors tells GR one thing...Keep hammy behind. Add in some target fixation = fail! Lots of points lost for the team.
I guess it's difficult for Toto Wolff to rein in Hamilton, and tell him to hold station. But that's a problem for Mercedes to solve; now their star driver is directing the script. I guess Hamilton was quite happy to see Russell crash. Nobody should be fooled by his post-race statement. If you look at Red Bull, Ferrari and Mercedes, there quite a lot of tension between team mates. At least Alonso doesn't have to put up with that crap !!!
After watching GR's crash on replay (and I felt the same way watching live) I think he was putting his elbows out to block Hamilton. Hamilton was faster at that point in the race and George was trying to hang on to his spot.
In the post race interviews, Lewis said he should have been on pole. Does anyone know what he's basing this off of? Looked to me he just got beat by his teammate and everyone else ahead of him.
Perhaps but they have data for a predictive lap. That lap might have showed him p1? It is super hard to put a perfect lap together. These guys are working in the 100th's of a second while the best amateurs and lowest level pros race for 10th's. That's a whole order of magnitude difference.
It's a coded way of saying he's faster than his teammate when he wasn't. I think it's a classic example of the "I'm faster than everybody else" mentality run amok.
I hope young drivers don't have this mentality, they will never make it. They should be saying I'm slower than everybody else.
I think this is a bad take, these guys have never been separated by much. Sainz has usually been slightly slower over a single lap but has, right now, got the advantage, even though it's slight. To think it's a big difference is wrong, Charles got the bad end of a double stack in the pits that dropped him out of 2nd, and still managed to get 4th. He was right on Sainz's gearbox in Monza. As I've said many times, drivers are not the problem at Ferrari, I think they flatter the car tbh. They're both driving at a very high level. The car chews up tires and has all year, so they're working around it and starting to get results. I'd be hard pressed to criticize either driver tbh, when they've made mistakes it's been trying to drag a poor car up the grid or compensate for a strategic blunder. The fact they're never separated by much leads me to think they're either both good at extracting the most from any car or they both like the same car characteristics, and either way it's a good thing. That Sainz could match Lando in the old McLaren that ruined Ricciardo leads me to think they're just both good at extracting what's available from the car. That can sometimes hamper development as it flatters the car (which is why I think we're seeing Aston fall off a bit, Alonso can drive anything at it's limit). Charles has a bit extra from Sainz but Sainz is an insanely hard worker so he's never far off and super consistent. Great pairing, and they get along well.
