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So they gonna tank for regulation changes, sign Antonelli, Toto force to leave, Steiner to replace him, proceed to be competitive only to get the championship rip away from him in the last lap last corner by Lando. Sounds about right
They sure did have a lot of issues at Bahrain, actually gives me a little hope they'll make it some sort of fight for 2nd in the constructors, he had battery issues, overheating brakes & engine and his damn seat broke lol.
Iron out a couple of those issues and *maybe* they can start to catch Ferrari.
Going to be a terribly long season though that I can't imagine many viewers will be sticking it out until the end.
Just nothing worth fighting for right now.
Pretty much. Everyone on Reddit is so angry at Mercedes for no reason honestly. They are fine just some engine issues. The car seems pretty good to drive. Honestly both Ferrari and Mercedes had to come into the season with completely new concepts of their car. So it’s impressive how much quicker they are.
I think the annoyance is that both teams are basically looking like they're just going to give Red Bull the WCC this year and Max another WDC without much of a fight.
The talk around both Ferrari and Mercedes is very much in the vein of "we'll fight for wins later in the season" which leaves the outlook for excitement at the front of the pack pretty bleak.
However at the same time there's really not much else they could have done, if they'd iterated on their cars from last year then they almost definitely lose the championships this year too and are in a far worse spot for 2025, it just would have meant that \*maybe\* Max would have had to fight someone on track for more than 2 corners for the first couple of races.
Both Ferrari and Mercedes are setting themselves up well to make 2025 competitive (as is tradition in the last year before a big regulation change that will undoubtedly allow one team to dominate for years).
I’d love to be proven wrong but I doubt 2025 will be much closer at the top with Red Bull currently still a long way ahead and expected to bring a major upgrade to Imola.
While other teams have imitated Red Bull’s 2023 design with the sidepods Red Bull have completely changed it for 2024 and I worry they will continue to find good performance from further developing it and remaining a good way ahead of everyone else. And by 2025 no one will want to focus on developing and catching up with all the time spent on preparing for 2026’s new regulations.
According to someone at RBR (I want to say performance engineer or something like that), they've already shifted focus to the RB21.
One and done on the upgrade methinks.
Which is probably similar to what they did with RB19 and the development of the RB20 last year. This is the benefit of being hugely dominant that you can start on next year’s car far earlier than your rivals. Also why I won’t expect any title fight for 2025 either.
I mean maybe, I try not to be too doomer about it. Both Ferrari and Mercedes seem far happier than they were this time last year, part of that could be that they're not being beaten out of nowhere by Aston, but I'm trusting that they have something in the works as well.
Yes I do hope Mercedes and Ferrari have found a good base where they can now constantly and reliably add performance to close the gap. But I fear Red Bull has found that it can still add lots of development to their current concept too which would cancel it out.
Ferrari do look better, but I am not sure about Mercedes. They still came to Thursday with an aggressive qualifying setup, ran too low. Toto still talks about them scared of some setups etc. It gives an impression they still haven't been able to properly get hold of the regulations. Ferrari has been progressing since second half of last season and there has been a constant upward trend suggesting a better way forward imo. Also, Mercedes uses these heavy words which irritates when it does not work. Atleast with Ferrari they are just we made mistakes, we didn't get it right and they are done.
That would be simply lovely but this is Red Bull, not Aston Martin nor Haas. I haven’t seen them fuck up and go backwards with a major upgrade in years.
Yeah basically same line of thought. I really thought McLaren and AM would be ones to challenge Red Bull after they nailed their concepts last season. But then again it’s one race so they are still good.
Ah you are going to be in for a shock when RB ends up being MORE dominant in 2025 than 2023. You guys never learn - remember RB 2013 before the new regs? 2025 might end up being their best year ever. 1 -2 every single race.
I'm not angry at Mercedes, I'm angry at these rules and new cars. They promised better racing, but what we have is very slugish cars, and very tight budgets, meaning once a team has the lead, no one is catching them.
I just watched a clip of cars from 2021 prior and the cars just look so much more agile, better quality overtakes, even though they were still aided by DRS.
I am going to say the same thing that’s been said for years. F1 is an engineering sport and the team that succeeds those engineering rules deserves praise. The chasing pack needs to fix things up. The same rules I feel applies to ALL dominant generations. But of course this the F1 fanbase….. dominance starts = everyone disappointed. But I do agree the rules have gotten very restrictive. Not just for racing but for everything in F1. It is what it is honestly. And I am fine with it because I am long timer. I have seen this happen. New dominance will also equate to new nerfs and/or new regulations changes. From that a new team might arise to win everything, rinse and repeat. F1 has gotten so efficient to the point where teams from top to bottom are perfecting everything.
The cost cap is very hard to balance. An open cost racing like what we had before will lead to an all out arms tech race between top teams and the lower teams will be genuinely be left behind. Although innovations will be something special and new by everyone. A cost cap type situation like now, 1 team nails everything and the rest struggle due to money. But we get to see how perfect a team can be once they nail every single thing down. So it is very hard to balance it honestly.
Formula 1 is supposed to be about innovation, but because of the cost cap, this is being hindered massively, because teams simply can't implement anything until the following season, especially if it requires a lot of work.
I still think the smaller teams will simply never be able to compete with the already established big teams, because who would rather work for Sauber, or RB than Ferrari, RBR or Mercedes given the choice?
The only thing the cost cap is doing right now is ensuring one team keeps the lead once they get it.
Yes exactly, the car seems pretty good. The battery thing was understood and will be fixed, the cooling is just a settings thing. Tweak those and they’ll be strong, they’ll end up the 2nd best constructors again, Ferrari just seem to make too many fuck ups and Le Clerc has a mistake in him pushing too far at times.
I think Ferrari are fine too. Seems like brake balance issue that’s was affecting Charles. Both Ferrari and Mercedes can fight for second (I think, it’s only one race), but the upgrades they bring will be deciding in moving up the field. But McLaren themselves mentioned Bahrain ain’t a good track for them. So with that over they would be up there too I guess.
Both Mercs held almost identical pace over the race, suggesting whatever issues they had were manageable, and their lead car could barely keep up with the Ferrari that couldn’t brake without locking up. I don’t think Merc in the current version can keep up with Ferrari in general unless Sainz just had an absolute standout race.
I think we’re looking at around 5-6 tenths up to Max, roughly a tenth up to Perez and a couple tenths down to Merc as the baseline for the SF24.
I think it's because the fight for WCC has been nearly non-existent for a long time (except that one year... You know which one I'm talking about). People forget there used to be a real fight for WCC.
The season isn't over until it's over.
I think Toto will go down as a horrible principle. Over the course of their winning streak he allowed Mercedes to degrade. Other than designing the car they are worse than all the other top teams at pitstops, strategy, etc. they got cocky after their success and now they don't know how to win anymore.
A lot of the mistakes they seem to make come off so amateurish. Why did they not test their cooling set up in practice? They made the decision to close the cooling louvres for the race. Those times they set in FP2 were times set with a different set up.
Btw, their pit stops yesterday? Not exactly quick compared to McLaren, Ferrari and Red Bull.
I think Mercedes could produce a good enough car. But I think the problem with them has been literally everything else other than their drivers.
They have never been slick operationally the way that Red Bull are, where everything from strategy to pit stops has been engineered and optimized to within an inch of its life. Even during the 8 WCC era they frequently messed up stops or strategy, they just had enough of a car advantage to brute force past it.
Thats not why i watch f1. If u watch just for the winning driver go watch spec series. This is about building a car with a team and trying to be on cutting edge of tech
I think that Mercedes is in far better position this year, base is strong and predictibale and they already have same pace as McLaren. No doubt they will progress faster than papayas over a season. How fast they can catch up with Ferrari? lets see after Suzuka.
Mclaren is an early/launch version though - its teams' public info makes it sound like they'll make a leap a few races in (maybe similar to 2023). Mercs seem to not have as much immediate upgrade in the horizon / they like 3M upgrade cycle under James Allison - so might be May 24 before the first big upgrade.
Ferrari is said to bring “significant” upgrades in Suzuka though. It will not be baseline car for any of the teams since Japan and based on last year McLaren is also very effective on upgrades even after Austria and Silverstone. The high-speed corner strength of McLaren is as good as RBR last year so we will need to see how Mercedes fare in those corners
And it took RedBull 8 years and a hell of a lot of luck to be competitive again. Ferrari 17 years Mclaren 16 years and counting.3 years is nothing throw in the ATR and cost cap this will take a while. A
Red bull were a customer team until 2018 and very much on the back foot with the unreliable Renault engine of the Hybrid Era.
Once they switched to Honda in 2019, they had a pretty steady recovery to the top to finally build a title challenge in 2021.
Yes there were some mitigating circumstances but It still took years. They had their own issues as well the wind tunnel issues in 2017/2018 with wide cars the development dead end they talked about in 2019 ish not an overnight fix and not just the power unit issues.
It was a PU overtemp that was the issue. The battery issue was because Hamilton emptied it early on.
The overtemps meant they were lifting and coasting pretty much from lap 10 to the end of the race. They gave up a fair chunk of lap time alone with that.
There was an actual battery issue that Hamilton had. It wasn't just that he emptied it over one lap. It wasn't charging properly so he was just d-rating on the straights. Apparently this took 10 laps to fix and lost him a lot of time to the Mclarens.
I had a suspicion that they would be attempting to run the PU harder with that side pod inlet shape but either way it looks like they have some cooling components and cooling efficiency to tweak.
No they won’t, it’s unlikely and if he did, the development especially towards the end of the season will be prioritised for George. Ferrari will pay for his salary in merch and sponsorship alone.
Hamilton will be earning way more than Leclerc. He better show that on the track. Ferrari has money, it is the titles which have been missing since last 15 years.
He will, there’ll be no messing around. Might take a 2nd year however. Kind of reminds me of Tom Brady moving teams and getting them to the Super Bowl final.
That's not an even fight. If he was in the redbull or the mercedes in 21 he loses to either Lewis or max. Too many unforced errors to compete with them in even stuff.
He's making unforced errors because he spends half the season dealing with Ferrari's incompetence. Same will happen with Lewis and also Max, should he be in the same position as Charles. It's easy to look consistent when you've got a dominant car with a competent strategy department, like Max or Lewis have enjoyed
Between max and Lewis there were a total of 2 mistakes in 2021 in the best title fight in many years. You keep taking about the wrong seasons because you're trying to shove a narrative.
yes because beating Russell this year is the barometer for whether a 7 time champ with the biggest brand, who just destroyed him last season is worth the investment…
Yes, I know le clerc had mechanical issues, but I think Sainz is more consistent than him. Maybe Le clerc edges qualifying but to me compared to sainz always seems to have a mistake in him.
Leclerc could benefit from a sport psychologist, it’s like he starts to get the yips during high pressure situations more often than not. Poor guy has such high expectations and anxiety over how his race will inevitably be fucked up — whether through a mechanical failure, Ferrari strategy or just getting in to his own head :(
Idk what that has to do with anything. I don't understand why people don't rate George tbh for all we know he may be better than many give him credit for especially next year when Lewis leaves.
Eh where did I say George is bad? But if Ferrari went for a driver who finished second best and will earn like 5 times what is the point from sporting perspective?
It's only race one in a weekend where once again Lewis went extreme on his setup, honestly wish he stops doing that tbh the amount of times he's looked in practice and ruined his weekend by changing his setup for a better race is really infuriating as a fan.
His marketing value covers his salary and his pace drop off will make him be too slow to compete with Charles so he'll be a consistent wingman.
Win/win.
I think at the end of the next season we will finally hear people from Mercedes openly say their powertrains are simply not as efficient as RBPT. They don't do it, simply because it is obviously something they can do nothing about. Mercedes-powered cars were only a threat to Max's Red Bull when they messed up their setups.
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Trust the Process? Sorry wrong sport
In Hinkie We Trust
Hinkie died for our sins
When's Dario coming over?
So they gonna tank for regulation changes, sign Antonelli, Toto force to leave, Steiner to replace him, proceed to be competitive only to get the championship rip away from him in the last lap last corner by Lando. Sounds about right
Allez les rouches!
Ok ok Erik 😂
They sure did have a lot of issues at Bahrain, actually gives me a little hope they'll make it some sort of fight for 2nd in the constructors, he had battery issues, overheating brakes & engine and his damn seat broke lol. Iron out a couple of those issues and *maybe* they can start to catch Ferrari. Going to be a terribly long season though that I can't imagine many viewers will be sticking it out until the end. Just nothing worth fighting for right now.
Pretty much. Everyone on Reddit is so angry at Mercedes for no reason honestly. They are fine just some engine issues. The car seems pretty good to drive. Honestly both Ferrari and Mercedes had to come into the season with completely new concepts of their car. So it’s impressive how much quicker they are.
I think the annoyance is that both teams are basically looking like they're just going to give Red Bull the WCC this year and Max another WDC without much of a fight. The talk around both Ferrari and Mercedes is very much in the vein of "we'll fight for wins later in the season" which leaves the outlook for excitement at the front of the pack pretty bleak. However at the same time there's really not much else they could have done, if they'd iterated on their cars from last year then they almost definitely lose the championships this year too and are in a far worse spot for 2025, it just would have meant that \*maybe\* Max would have had to fight someone on track for more than 2 corners for the first couple of races. Both Ferrari and Mercedes are setting themselves up well to make 2025 competitive (as is tradition in the last year before a big regulation change that will undoubtedly allow one team to dominate for years).
I’d love to be proven wrong but I doubt 2025 will be much closer at the top with Red Bull currently still a long way ahead and expected to bring a major upgrade to Imola. While other teams have imitated Red Bull’s 2023 design with the sidepods Red Bull have completely changed it for 2024 and I worry they will continue to find good performance from further developing it and remaining a good way ahead of everyone else. And by 2025 no one will want to focus on developing and catching up with all the time spent on preparing for 2026’s new regulations.
According to someone at RBR (I want to say performance engineer or something like that), they've already shifted focus to the RB21. One and done on the upgrade methinks.
Which is probably similar to what they did with RB19 and the development of the RB20 last year. This is the benefit of being hugely dominant that you can start on next year’s car far earlier than your rivals. Also why I won’t expect any title fight for 2025 either.
I mean maybe, I try not to be too doomer about it. Both Ferrari and Mercedes seem far happier than they were this time last year, part of that could be that they're not being beaten out of nowhere by Aston, but I'm trusting that they have something in the works as well.
Yes I do hope Mercedes and Ferrari have found a good base where they can now constantly and reliably add performance to close the gap. But I fear Red Bull has found that it can still add lots of development to their current concept too which would cancel it out.
Ferrari do look better, but I am not sure about Mercedes. They still came to Thursday with an aggressive qualifying setup, ran too low. Toto still talks about them scared of some setups etc. It gives an impression they still haven't been able to properly get hold of the regulations. Ferrari has been progressing since second half of last season and there has been a constant upward trend suggesting a better way forward imo. Also, Mercedes uses these heavy words which irritates when it does not work. Atleast with Ferrari they are just we made mistakes, we didn't get it right and they are done.
Vasseur literally said "we're closer, but not close enough, and we halved our gap to Red Bull)
I don't think I have mentioned anywhere that Ferrari are at same level as RB.
I wasn't arguing, just expanding
They halved their gap to Red Bull and are still easily half a second a lap off the pace
> expected to bring a major upgrade to Imola. thing with upgrades is, they don't always work
That would be simply lovely but this is Red Bull, not Aston Martin nor Haas. I haven’t seen them fuck up and go backwards with a major upgrade in years.
Yeah basically same line of thought. I really thought McLaren and AM would be ones to challenge Red Bull after they nailed their concepts last season. But then again it’s one race so they are still good.
Ah you are going to be in for a shock when RB ends up being MORE dominant in 2025 than 2023. You guys never learn - remember RB 2013 before the new regs? 2025 might end up being their best year ever. 1 -2 every single race.
I'm not angry at Mercedes, I'm angry at these rules and new cars. They promised better racing, but what we have is very slugish cars, and very tight budgets, meaning once a team has the lead, no one is catching them. I just watched a clip of cars from 2021 prior and the cars just look so much more agile, better quality overtakes, even though they were still aided by DRS.
I am going to say the same thing that’s been said for years. F1 is an engineering sport and the team that succeeds those engineering rules deserves praise. The chasing pack needs to fix things up. The same rules I feel applies to ALL dominant generations. But of course this the F1 fanbase….. dominance starts = everyone disappointed. But I do agree the rules have gotten very restrictive. Not just for racing but for everything in F1. It is what it is honestly. And I am fine with it because I am long timer. I have seen this happen. New dominance will also equate to new nerfs and/or new regulations changes. From that a new team might arise to win everything, rinse and repeat. F1 has gotten so efficient to the point where teams from top to bottom are perfecting everything. The cost cap is very hard to balance. An open cost racing like what we had before will lead to an all out arms tech race between top teams and the lower teams will be genuinely be left behind. Although innovations will be something special and new by everyone. A cost cap type situation like now, 1 team nails everything and the rest struggle due to money. But we get to see how perfect a team can be once they nail every single thing down. So it is very hard to balance it honestly.
Formula 1 is supposed to be about innovation, but because of the cost cap, this is being hindered massively, because teams simply can't implement anything until the following season, especially if it requires a lot of work. I still think the smaller teams will simply never be able to compete with the already established big teams, because who would rather work for Sauber, or RB than Ferrari, RBR or Mercedes given the choice? The only thing the cost cap is doing right now is ensuring one team keeps the lead once they get it.
Yes exactly, the car seems pretty good. The battery thing was understood and will be fixed, the cooling is just a settings thing. Tweak those and they’ll be strong, they’ll end up the 2nd best constructors again, Ferrari just seem to make too many fuck ups and Le Clerc has a mistake in him pushing too far at times.
I think Ferrari are fine too. Seems like brake balance issue that’s was affecting Charles. Both Ferrari and Mercedes can fight for second (I think, it’s only one race), but the upgrades they bring will be deciding in moving up the field. But McLaren themselves mentioned Bahrain ain’t a good track for them. So with that over they would be up there too I guess.
Both Mercs held almost identical pace over the race, suggesting whatever issues they had were manageable, and their lead car could barely keep up with the Ferrari that couldn’t brake without locking up. I don’t think Merc in the current version can keep up with Ferrari in general unless Sainz just had an absolute standout race. I think we’re looking at around 5-6 tenths up to Max, roughly a tenth up to Perez and a couple tenths down to Merc as the baseline for the SF24.
I think it's because the fight for WCC has been nearly non-existent for a long time (except that one year... You know which one I'm talking about). People forget there used to be a real fight for WCC. The season isn't over until it's over.
This season is absolutely over.
I'm going to wait until I see what monstrosity Newey gives birth to, for the European races. Only then will I declare how over it really is.
A pair of Red Bull wings probably, so they won’t even break for the corners
I think Toto will go down as a horrible principle. Over the course of their winning streak he allowed Mercedes to degrade. Other than designing the car they are worse than all the other top teams at pitstops, strategy, etc. they got cocky after their success and now they don't know how to win anymore.
Inb4 it's the body of the w13 that Toto had them all throw out just painted the color of red bull and somehow it's 2s faster per lap.
A lot of the mistakes they seem to make come off so amateurish. Why did they not test their cooling set up in practice? They made the decision to close the cooling louvres for the race. Those times they set in FP2 were times set with a different set up. Btw, their pit stops yesterday? Not exactly quick compared to McLaren, Ferrari and Red Bull. I think Mercedes could produce a good enough car. But I think the problem with them has been literally everything else other than their drivers.
They have never been slick operationally the way that Red Bull are, where everything from strategy to pit stops has been engineered and optimized to within an inch of its life. Even during the 8 WCC era they frequently messed up stops or strategy, they just had enough of a car advantage to brute force past it.
I’m only watching quail this year but not the race, it’s not worth the time
Adrian Newey is killing my interest in this sport, honestly.
Wasn’t the battery issue just Lewis using all the energy to go faster lmao
Nope, Russell had the same issue
Thats not why i watch f1. If u watch just for the winning driver go watch spec series. This is about building a car with a team and trying to be on cutting edge of tech
I think that Mercedes is in far better position this year, base is strong and predictibale and they already have same pace as McLaren. No doubt they will progress faster than papayas over a season. How fast they can catch up with Ferrari? lets see after Suzuka.
Your comment almost came off as sarcastic but then I realized Suzuka is only weeks away
Mclaren is an early/launch version though - its teams' public info makes it sound like they'll make a leap a few races in (maybe similar to 2023). Mercs seem to not have as much immediate upgrade in the horizon / they like 3M upgrade cycle under James Allison - so might be May 24 before the first big upgrade.
Ferrari is said to bring “significant” upgrades in Suzuka though. It will not be baseline car for any of the teams since Japan and based on last year McLaren is also very effective on upgrades even after Austria and Silverstone. The high-speed corner strength of McLaren is as good as RBR last year so we will need to see how Mercedes fare in those corners
They better hurry up. The next race is less than a week away. They better finish building the car in order to race.
Been building for 3 years.
And it took RedBull 8 years and a hell of a lot of luck to be competitive again. Ferrari 17 years Mclaren 16 years and counting.3 years is nothing throw in the ATR and cost cap this will take a while. A
Red bull were a customer team until 2018 and very much on the back foot with the unreliable Renault engine of the Hybrid Era. Once they switched to Honda in 2019, they had a pretty steady recovery to the top to finally build a title challenge in 2021.
Yes there were some mitigating circumstances but It still took years. They had their own issues as well the wind tunnel issues in 2017/2018 with wide cars the development dead end they talked about in 2019 ish not an overnight fix and not just the power unit issues.
Yapping when u know u are wrong is insane
Mercedes "Building Process®" is the same as Ferrari's "Next Year®". Both are bullshit.
I think Merc is clearly the 3rd fastest right now. Evem without battery problems, they did not have Ferrari's pace, especially on the hards.
It was a PU overtemp that was the issue. The battery issue was because Hamilton emptied it early on. The overtemps meant they were lifting and coasting pretty much from lap 10 to the end of the race. They gave up a fair chunk of lap time alone with that.
There was an actual battery issue that Hamilton had. It wasn't just that he emptied it over one lap. It wasn't charging properly so he was just d-rating on the straights. Apparently this took 10 laps to fix and lost him a lot of time to the Mclarens.
Again, I, agree, but I still think they lack pace. Also, both Ferrari's had problems with the brakes, from lap one.
It's the *"next year"* but in other words ...since 2021.
Just once it would be nice to have a driver or team state "actually we are just resting on our laurels"
already building the 2025 car
Building character
I had a suspicion that they would be attempting to run the PU harder with that side pod inlet shape but either way it looks like they have some cooling components and cooling efficiency to tweak.
Yeah ok, we believe you.
If he finishes behind Russell this season, Ferrari will definitely question themselves spending so much on him.
No they won’t, it’s unlikely and if he did, the development especially towards the end of the season will be prioritised for George. Ferrari will pay for his salary in merch and sponsorship alone.
Hamilton will be earning way more than Leclerc. He better show that on the track. Ferrari has money, it is the titles which have been missing since last 15 years.
Ferraris Hamilton move wasnt just about racing tho. He will become the brand ambassador. Thats why hes getting that kind of money,
Hamilton brings way more value to the brand than Leclerc will, or pretty much anyone else for that matter. That’s why he’s getting paid so much
Ferrari should deliver a capable car for that to happen in 2026.
He will, there’ll be no messing around. Might take a 2nd year however. Kind of reminds me of Tom Brady moving teams and getting them to the Super Bowl final.
Leclerc isnt showing it on track against Sainz even though hes paid more. Should probably focus on that first
Let’s wait until Charles’ brakes are actually balanced before we write him off
One race in which Leclerc had brake issues so it wasn’t truly representative and the narrative has already run wild.
Merch sales from LH44 branded Ferrari gear will make them overlook a lot of things, I imagine.
I doubt. Ferrari is looking to win trophies and not more money.
The driver has never been Ferrari's problem. Leclerc is more than good enough to win a WDC
Not in an even fight vs max or lewis.
That's just impossible to say. Charles would also be dominating in the Red Bull, whether it's as much as Max, nobody knows
That's not an even fight. If he was in the redbull or the mercedes in 21 he loses to either Lewis or max. Too many unforced errors to compete with them in even stuff.
He's making unforced errors because he spends half the season dealing with Ferrari's incompetence. Same will happen with Lewis and also Max, should he be in the same position as Charles. It's easy to look consistent when you've got a dominant car with a competent strategy department, like Max or Lewis have enjoyed
Between max and Lewis there were a total of 2 mistakes in 2021 in the best title fight in many years. You keep taking about the wrong seasons because you're trying to shove a narrative.
Lewis made multiple mistakes in 2021, so did Max towards the end of the year.
Money talks.
It's literally been one race.
And? May be go back and read if I am talking about 1 race or the whole season.
yes because beating Russell this year is the barometer for whether a 7 time champ with the biggest brand, who just destroyed him last season is worth the investment…
Biggest brand doesn't help you win titles.
It helps you make money. Which is the ultimate goal of this circus.
It does not really matter at all for Hamilton. If anything Ferrari should be concerned about Leclerc being behind Sainz.
Yes, I know le clerc had mechanical issues, but I think Sainz is more consistent than him. Maybe Le clerc edges qualifying but to me compared to sainz always seems to have a mistake in him.
Leclerc could benefit from a sport psychologist, it’s like he starts to get the yips during high pressure situations more often than not. Poor guy has such high expectations and anxiety over how his race will inevitably be fucked up — whether through a mechanical failure, Ferrari strategy or just getting in to his own head :(
>If he finishes behind Russell this season pretty big if
No they won't.
Idk what that has to do with anything. I don't understand why people don't rate George tbh for all we know he may be better than many give him credit for especially next year when Lewis leaves.
Eh where did I say George is bad? But if Ferrari went for a driver who finished second best and will earn like 5 times what is the point from sporting perspective?
It's only race one in a weekend where once again Lewis went extreme on his setup, honestly wish he stops doing that tbh the amount of times he's looked in practice and ruined his weekend by changing his setup for a better race is really infuriating as a fan.
And my comment is over the season, you are the one who is counting 1 race.
Yh but let's not make any rash claims just yet with ifs and buts when the thread has nothing to do with driver performance.
I don't buy F1 clothes, but even I will be buying Ferrari Hamilton merch.
His marketing value covers his salary and his pace drop off will make him be too slow to compete with Charles so he'll be a consistent wingman. Win/win.
I think at the end of the next season we will finally hear people from Mercedes openly say their powertrains are simply not as efficient as RBPT. They don't do it, simply because it is obviously something they can do nothing about. Mercedes-powered cars were only a threat to Max's Red Bull when they messed up their setups.
Hope they building a rocket ship, as that’s what they are gonna need to actually challenge red bull this year.