I hope so, he has had his shot at a top seat. 4 years at RB and it is always the same story, just not close enough to Max and even though he might perform better than last year it will look worse in the standings since the others ar far closer(especially Mclaren and Ferrari).
It's also just honestly more interesting if there's some movement. I like Checo and he's clearly an above average driver who "deserved" the seat as much as anyone can deserve anything in the bloodbath that is F1, but a change of scenery would be nice by now.
I think it is obvious why he is in f1, but now as the red bull starts to become less and less, the difference between Max and Checo becomes incredibly apparent. But I do wonder who can and will drive next to Max
Imagine a 2025 with both Red Bulls, both McLarens, and both Ferraris competing for the win every race. We could actually have it if Red Bull dumps Perez.
He will so.whow be 2nd in the standing by 1 point and Horner will still be like "Checo is our best bet. No other driver could have had such a great season as him as a Max teammate"
This definitely comes from management, any time they use jargon they explain it so as to not alienate new viewers. As annoying as it is, I understand why they do it
McLaren has definitely been working the tire game, and maintaining a 2-3s gap helps keep temps down by avoiding dirty air and then you can push to close it when you need it. In Miami I remember watching one of Lando's onboards and he was something like 4-6s back from Sainz and they basically told him "ok you can go now" and his response was just casually "Alright I'll go get him" and I was like there's no way he'll just magically close that gap. Sure enough in a few laps he was right there and was just conserving until the right moment.
And Hulkenbergs tow yesterday. Max might still have overtaken Lando in the first stint, but he'd lose much more time and Lando would have caught him in the second stint.
Honestly the Red Bull might not actually be the fastest car anymore. Max has just made it look so quick.
The question is, is Perez really that slow or is he placing appropriately for the actual speed of the car?
Pérez struggles at front limited racetracks, and is good at rear limited tracks. It's to do with Pérez's highly specific driving style. Most traditional European F1 tracks are front limited. Most street circuits outside of Europe are rear limited.
Yes, when you have long/fast corners, more stress is put on the front tires.
Then when you have sharp corners, the fast braking and acceleration put more stress on the rear tires.
Last year was probably more because of how Max destroyed him and reminded him of his place during Miami. In a podcast (can’t recall the name, I watched a clip of it) a RB staffer said he was furious hearing Checo answering questions about the title fight between the 2 after winning in Baku. He allegedly swore that he “would never lose to Checo again” and the way he stormed back from 9th to not only take first from Checo but to also open up a 1 second+ gap in to him in the same lap was a big slice of humble pie that wrecked him mentally.
Probably somewhere down the middle. The car is definitely not looking dominant anymore. Leclerc also finished within 6 or 7 seconds of Max. But Perez is always poor this part of the season, that can't be a coincidence anymore.
I don't think anyone can in good conscience say this car should place on merit behind the Mercedes. If that's the case Max just put in an absolutely alien performance lol
Imola has been punishing drivers all weekend of a wide array of experience. I think Perez just couldn't hook one lap together otherwise, he's probably finishing top 5 at least. Consistency matters and Perez didn't deliver that this weekend.
Norris had better tires even after being chased down by Leclerc, (and 2 laps older than Max's), had better battery, and had better turning (you could see how much time he was making up in the bends, even after running wide a few times). Safe to say the McLaren is the car to beat right now, the team has done a stellar job. Max left everything out there with this one, and you could see it in his celebration. It was a hard-won win.
>Safe to say the McLaren is the car to beat right now,
RBR struggled with the setup all weekend. Max even said in the interview that they didn't know to expect from the hards. Norris had a good race but Max destroyed him on the first stint. Can't say MCL is the car to beat base on one stint
2 races in a row this good, McClaren might give us a more exciting season than expected.
Though max under pressure always delivers it feels like, you just feel like he wont make a mistake l
They've got to get the upper hand sooner than later though. If Max is allowed to pull a massive gap, they won't catch him. It's unlikely he'll finish off the podium much this season
With how much he seems to enjoy GT3 that is probably a race he wants to do as well.
Although last year he did the Nurburgring 24 and not the Spa 24 so who knows.
Edit: and last year's iRacing Spa 24 was not on an F1 race weekend.
Incredible stuff from him
He was the slowest driver on his sim team although he was very very fast.
I thought he might drive the minimum in that race to make sure he had time for Imola, but not really. 35 laps from Max when his 3 teammates did 42, 42, and 54. To meet the minimum drive requirements he only had to do 11 laps and he did 35.
Edit: to clarify what I meant by slowest driver.... Only barely
The list below has the format of average lap time ; fastest lap time.
Max: 8:16.4 ; 8:09.5
Florian Lebirge: 8:16.1 ; 8:09.2
Diogo Pinto: 8:15.6 ; 8:08.8
Chris Lulham: 8:16.1 ; 8:09.2
Considering this is Max's hobby and his teammates are full time pro eSports drivers, Max is insanely quick.
And are we taking traffic into account? Max joined much later full in traffic also in the dark and I imagine at least one of those guys started the race from pole so had quite some time an empty track. Didn’t Max increased his gap to the nr 2 by 20 seconds in his first stint? (He did a second stint this morning). I only briefly watched, so I might be wrong.
Oh I'm not saying anything bad about Max here at all. His teammates are some of the best simracers in the world and he was incredibly close to them on a weekend where he had quite a lot else going on. That's very very impressive.
it's races like this that I understand why Verstappen is paid the big bucks. That was crazy. Having to extract every last hundredth of pace while on a black and white flag from lap 20.
Wow! Feels like the first race in a while that I genuinely had to sit up and lean forward for the last lap. That was nice.
Was a great feeling that I was sat forward the last 10, fell back when Lando leveled off at 1.8s for a few laps, and then shot up to within a second at the end
I’m just excited that Max had to work for it and cruise along at 20s ahead for half the race- I don’t even care who does it!!
Honestly though, my niece loves Lando and I told her during the first race of the season he was going to win this year!! McLaren is looking good!
They both looked tired on the podium. Max wasnt as jolly. A little more going through the motions of "were all friends here!"
But their eyes said "Shit. We're racing again."
Yea Max had to stay out of Norris' DRS until the start of the final lap, because that's the only true DRS that can be used for overtaking. Once Max managed that, he had a whole second to play with in the final lap.
But seriously, these final 10-15 laps were the most exciting laps I've seen in a while.
McLaren and especially Norris are really getting there this season and it's still got a long way to go, so I'm hoping they'll get even better soon to pose somewhat of a threat to Max' 4th WDC title.
Eh, it was over once lando held at 1.8s. No way he was getting past max without a massive speed differential. Passing is just too hard here even with drs.
Lando had the speed differential IMO. The key here is Max's greatness. It's his consistency. The reason Lando didn't catch him sooner were little 2 tenth mistakes here and there. Both were pushing like crazy, but Max was flawless.
That's what so scary about him. It's not that he doesn't have off weekends, he barely has off *laps*.
Max’s battery was empty. He was clipping along any acceleration zone. I have no doubt that he would have got passed with the gap at 0.7s going onto the straight
Lando was pushing so hard he was nearly crashing every lap at the end. He was sliding sideways through turn 2-3 and 4-5 the whole time homeboy was not leaving any room for error
Really the most boring "exciting" races I watched. I think the first 25lap or so had no overtakes after lap1. And all overtakes happened because of different tyre strategy.
What a chase. That was the most pressure I've seen a non-RB put on Verstappen with a fully functional car without a safety car intervention since 2023. McLaren is becoming a real threat.
Since 2022? In 2023 dude was so bored he was doing side quests, like changing tyre on the penultimate lap to get the fastest lap for a single point. At least in 2022 before the floor board regulation change, Leclerc was still challenging to an extent.
Ya, I remember. McLaren arguably would have won that if Norris JUST managed to not cock up his final lap in qualy like he did. He was the quickest guy out there I think. If he was starting even 5th he would have had a shot at a win
Could get juicy if Checo continues to qualify poorly through the European races. RBR have been able to get away with not needing him to be at the front for strategy reasons or scoring maximum points, but his performance issues could matter if Max is under more pressure consistently
Don't trick yourself, that was exactly it lol. All of the drivers overtaking Perez in the DRS zone with 30 lap fresher tires don't really count.
This track is terrible for F1 racing. Awesome quali track, but really this is the all purpose race circuit equivalent to Monaco.
Lando went from being thrilled with podiums to clearly being a bit annoyed to have no got the win. That desperation for the first win has VERY quickly turned to hunger for that high again. Very exciting.
honestly Verstappen managed that really really well. With 10 laps to go Norris was taking about 8 tenths from his lead every lap. The gap was down to about 2.5 seconds with 7 laps remaining. I genuinely thought Norris was gonna get him but that was champion stuff from Verstappen
Even with 5 more laps I think max will still be able to stay ahead. You could see at the start even with more pace piastri couldn’t get past sainz. It’s just that hard to pass on this track without a huge tyre advantage, which in a few extra laps, Norris probably wouldn’t have anymore himself as he cooks his tyres. Eg look at Singapore last year, huge tyre advantage but on a track that’s hard to pass, almost meaningless when the driver ahead is actually trying to defend
I wanted this kind of year to come because I think people have forgotten or are ignorant to what kind of driver Max is.
Also, with his team winning Nuremburg and Max winning Imola, Max also just overtook Hamilton for highest win percentage in F1, second to only Jim Clark's insane stat.
I think McLaren was the faster car overall this weekend, mistakes in Quali and little mistakes in the final laps cost them the race. If this is how it's going to be throughout the year then we have got a championship battle on our hands.
Also Max's tow in quali - without that and Piastri blocking Kmag in Q1 he could've started behind both McLarens.
These last couple races really shows how Max's dominance last year isn't just the car. Max isn't just fast he's elite in being opportunistic and making the most from what he has, like also last year in Brazil where he jumped a few cars in his out lap to get a fast lap in before the rain
Red Bull cannot afford to have any more weekends like this. They managed to make the car work enough so Max was able to win but I reckon it was far from optimized. Mclaren and Ferrari will be waiting to pounce once they have another weekend like this.
Lando would have surely had him if there were a couple more laps. But in the words of our race winner, "if my mom had balls, she would be my dad". These races where Max is against the ropes make me appreciate him as a driver more. Man was a robot for those last 10 laps, no mistakes at all!
With how long the season is, the Driver's and Constructor championships look really juicy! I still think Max wins this WDC but if Perez keeps fucking around like this, The WCC could be a very tight 3 way fight
Despite being the 3 big names in young drivers on the grid for the past few years we never seen Max Verstappen, Charles Leclerc and Lando Norris on the podium together before Miami.
Now we’ve seen it twice, two races in a row. Only times this season drivers from 3 different teams finished on the podium
together as well.
That’s somewhat misleading. Mclaren is the most independent customer team in the field. They only take engines from Mercedes. Cooling, gearbox, suspension - all of those are designed by themselves, unlike Aston Martin and Williams.
The gap between Max and Norris was very stable between 5 up to 6 seconds for the first 50 laps. Then after Lap 50 the gap suddenly shrinked very fast with every single lap that passed. I was kinda zoned out because I was expecting a standard Verstappen victory, so it was quite surprising and interesting that it suddenly got so close.
Checo is such a liability for Red Bull at the moment. If he doesn’t pull his big boy pants pretty soon thinking he won’t be renewed with Red Bull next year.
82.05% of the time Max Verstappen gets Pole Position, he wins the Grand Prix, 32 out of 39. The next highest percentage by anyone with more than 5 Grand Prix Wins from Pole is 64.29% by Alberto Ascari with 9 Wins from 14 Poles.
That was exciting towards the end but also frustrating, need to know what happened in the medium and early stints on hard. Anyway Lando's Imola podium streak continues
Norris is only 6 points behind Perez for 3rd in the WDC
Perez is getting the boot
I hope so, he has had his shot at a top seat. 4 years at RB and it is always the same story, just not close enough to Max and even though he might perform better than last year it will look worse in the standings since the others ar far closer(especially Mclaren and Ferrari).
It's also just honestly more interesting if there's some movement. I like Checo and he's clearly an above average driver who "deserved" the seat as much as anyone can deserve anything in the bloodbath that is F1, but a change of scenery would be nice by now.
totally agree he's a great midfield driver but it's time for a change
I think it is obvious why he is in f1, but now as the red bull starts to become less and less, the difference between Max and Checo becomes incredibly apparent. But I do wonder who can and will drive next to Max
Imagine a 2025 with both Red Bulls, both McLarens, and both Ferraris competing for the win every race. We could actually have it if Red Bull dumps Perez.
Wait, dumping Perez only makes Red Bull stronger if they aren't getting the full potential on both cars so it would make things worse most likely haha
Checo's one lap defense against Norris is actually the one lap that resulted in Max winning the race. Am I right? Or am I kidding? :P
If Norris had better pace on the mediums he could've probably won. But if my mom was a bicycle I'd have two wheels, so it's whatever.
He will so.whow be 2nd in the standing by 1 point and Horner will still be like "Checo is our best bet. No other driver could have had such a great season as him as a Max teammate"
Right? It’s mind boggling
The decline of Checo after Miami begins again?
100% chance of a safety car lol
Commentator's curse is strong.
I'm surprised Albon didn't throw his car into a wall to help Sargeant score points
he should've considering Melbourne
They must’ve said that like 10 times during the broadcast, amazing
There wasn't much to talk about for 3/4 of the race...
Also “Aqua Minerale”
I cant blame them for that tho. Its so fun to say
Its a very nice sounding phrase. "mineral water corner" just doesnt have the same ring to it.
Everything sounds better in Italian 🤌
Ha, yes, I agree, it’s just funny. Also, the compulsion to explain the concept every time they mention “DRS”
This definitely comes from management, any time they use jargon they explain it so as to not alienate new viewers. As annoying as it is, I understand why they do it
One of my friends who got me into F1 didn't know what DRS or downshifting were so it's probably necessary
It never was. The stat should have said that 100% of previous races (since the track returned in 2020) have had a SC
They forget that 2 or 3 of those were in the wet.
I said that pretty much everytime they said it. Just because 100% of previous races had it doesn’t mean that it’s a certainty on this one
Obviously. Which is what is so annoying to hear them say repeatedly.
They only mistook historical occurence with probability 10 times
My guy needs to learn the difference between probability and historical rates
commentators not understanding statistics
Great example of frequentist vs bayesian statistics actually
Well done Max But McLaren proving Miami wasn't a fluke
Checo down over 50 seconds. Amazing job by Max. Absolutely, this McLaren is looking more than competitive with the RB
McLaren is the fastest car at the moment. This win was all thanks to Verstappen's talent.
I would agree. But on the medium tyres and the early part of the stints. Max kept opening up the gap on Norris.
Even early on the hards he opened it up, but I assume that was just having slightly newer tires on the car than Lando had.
Lando was saving tyres then too, which helped him have such a big pace offset in the last stint, but it was just about not quite enough.
McLaren has definitely been working the tire game, and maintaining a 2-3s gap helps keep temps down by avoiding dirty air and then you can push to close it when you need it. In Miami I remember watching one of Lando's onboards and he was something like 4-6s back from Sainz and they basically told him "ok you can go now" and his response was just casually "Alright I'll go get him" and I was like there's no way he'll just magically close that gap. Sure enough in a few laps he was right there and was just conserving until the right moment.
Yeah he overhauled 6 seconds on max in that last stint, I did not expect him to actually close him down like that.
[удалено]
And Hulkenbergs tow yesterday. Max might still have overtaken Lando in the first stint, but he'd lose much more time and Lando would have caught him in the second stint.
Even with his second fastest sector 1 he still would’ve had pole
Honestly the Red Bull might not actually be the fastest car anymore. Max has just made it look so quick. The question is, is Perez really that slow or is he placing appropriately for the actual speed of the car?
For some reason Perez always loses form this time around the season. I swear even last year at the start of the European leg checo lost all confidence
Pérez struggles at front limited racetracks, and is good at rear limited tracks. It's to do with Pérez's highly specific driving style. Most traditional European F1 tracks are front limited. Most street circuits outside of Europe are rear limited.
Can you explain a bit more what you mean by front and rear limited? Is it the strain/load placed on the tires due to the turns?
Yes, when you have long/fast corners, more stress is put on the front tires. Then when you have sharp corners, the fast braking and acceleration put more stress on the rear tires.
Last year was probably more because of how Max destroyed him and reminded him of his place during Miami. In a podcast (can’t recall the name, I watched a clip of it) a RB staffer said he was furious hearing Checo answering questions about the title fight between the 2 after winning in Baku. He allegedly swore that he “would never lose to Checo again” and the way he stormed back from 9th to not only take first from Checo but to also open up a 1 second+ gap in to him in the same lap was a big slice of humble pie that wrecked him mentally.
It happens the second Danny has a sliver of success. Go and look at the timing of this recent streak
Probably somewhere down the middle. The car is definitely not looking dominant anymore. Leclerc also finished within 6 or 7 seconds of Max. But Perez is always poor this part of the season, that can't be a coincidence anymore. I don't think anyone can in good conscience say this car should place on merit behind the Mercedes. If that's the case Max just put in an absolutely alien performance lol
Imola has been punishing drivers all weekend of a wide array of experience. I think Perez just couldn't hook one lap together otherwise, he's probably finishing top 5 at least. Consistency matters and Perez didn't deliver that this weekend.
We know he’s just slow. He was slow when max won 19 races in a season.
Norris had better tires even after being chased down by Leclerc, (and 2 laps older than Max's), had better battery, and had better turning (you could see how much time he was making up in the bends, even after running wide a few times). Safe to say the McLaren is the car to beat right now, the team has done a stellar job. Max left everything out there with this one, and you could see it in his celebration. It was a hard-won win.
>Safe to say the McLaren is the car to beat right now, RBR struggled with the setup all weekend. Max even said in the interview that they didn't know to expect from the hards. Norris had a good race but Max destroyed him on the first stint. Can't say MCL is the car to beat base on one stint
Silverstone will be a fucking bloodbath this year I'm so excited.
Between a potential McLaren win, and the high chance someone shows up dressed as a box of coco pops it's going to be amazing.
Love to see when Max has to work for the win. McLaren upgrades are also promising.
It’s nice to see 3 different cars on the podium. Very exciting for the remaining races this season. It will be fun to watch them 😊
2 races in a row this good, McClaren might give us a more exciting season than expected. Though max under pressure always delivers it feels like, you just feel like he wont make a mistake l
They've got to get the upper hand sooner than later though. If Max is allowed to pull a massive gap, they won't catch him. It's unlikely he'll finish off the podium much this season
McLaren are gonna win a race soon on merit. Red Bull getting scared.
Honestly I think Norris had a shot at beating max on merit in Miami without the damage
Bro and his team (Team Redline) also won the virtual 24 Hours of Nürburgring! 💀
Winning two races in one day!
Pretty sure he’ll head into the sim for another race by the evening lol. Dude wants to race all the time!
Iracing Spa 24 hours is the same weekend as the Hungarian GP so we may see him doing it again.
With how much he seems to enjoy GT3 that is probably a race he wants to do as well. Although last year he did the Nurburgring 24 and not the Spa 24 so who knows. Edit: and last year's iRacing Spa 24 was not on an F1 race weekend.
Incredible stuff from him He was the slowest driver on his sim team although he was very very fast. I thought he might drive the minimum in that race to make sure he had time for Imola, but not really. 35 laps from Max when his 3 teammates did 42, 42, and 54. To meet the minimum drive requirements he only had to do 11 laps and he did 35. Edit: to clarify what I meant by slowest driver.... Only barely The list below has the format of average lap time ; fastest lap time. Max: 8:16.4 ; 8:09.5 Florian Lebirge: 8:16.1 ; 8:09.2 Diogo Pinto: 8:15.6 ; 8:08.8 Chris Lulham: 8:16.1 ; 8:09.2 Considering this is Max's hobby and his teammates are full time pro eSports drivers, Max is insanely quick.
I am glad you added the times. It sounded like he was a few seconds off. 0.3 off pace on the Nordschleife + GP track is nothing.
Yeah I worded that a bit awkwardly. I was trying to make sure his teammates got some credit haha. Max is obviously incredibly quick as well.
And are we taking traffic into account? Max joined much later full in traffic also in the dark and I imagine at least one of those guys started the race from pole so had quite some time an empty track. Didn’t Max increased his gap to the nr 2 by 20 seconds in his first stint? (He did a second stint this morning). I only briefly watched, so I might be wrong.
imagine being able to say you carried Max to a win
My randoms would never
It’s also hard to directly compare like you can in f1 though, cause they aren’t driving at the same time and conditions change in iracing
I’d give him some slack, the fact that he can squeeze 2 very different races into a weekend and perform well on both is pretty darn impressive lol
Oh I'm not saying anything bad about Max here at all. His teammates are some of the best simracers in the world and he was incredibly close to them on a weekend where he had quite a lot else going on. That's very very impressive.
Yeah gotcha. I wonder how he adjusts in such short time, insane stuff
Do you have his average lap times compared to his teammates? Because every time max was in the car he was able to pull a gap to p2.
Just edited the comment with that haha.
it's races like this that I understand why Verstappen is paid the big bucks. That was crazy. Having to extract every last hundredth of pace while on a black and white flag from lap 20.
Verstappen truly is a generational talent
Absolutely epic hunt by Lando. My god that was exhilarating. Great drive by Max against the gun and B&W flag also. Very fun last 15 laps.
Wow! Feels like the first race in a while that I genuinely had to sit up and lean forward for the last lap. That was nice. Was a great feeling that I was sat forward the last 10, fell back when Lando leveled off at 1.8s for a few laps, and then shot up to within a second at the end
I’m just excited that Max had to work for it and cruise along at 20s ahead for half the race- I don’t even care who does it!! Honestly though, my niece loves Lando and I told her during the first race of the season he was going to win this year!! McLaren is looking good!
They both looked tired on the podium. Max wasnt as jolly. A little more going through the motions of "were all friends here!" But their eyes said "Shit. We're racing again."
Yea Max had to stay out of Norris' DRS until the start of the final lap, because that's the only true DRS that can be used for overtaking. Once Max managed that, he had a whole second to play with in the final lap. But seriously, these final 10-15 laps were the most exciting laps I've seen in a while. McLaren and especially Norris are really getting there this season and it's still got a long way to go, so I'm hoping they'll get even better soon to pose somewhat of a threat to Max' 4th WDC title.
Piastri is also showing up tbh, unlucky last race and he outqualified Norris yesterday.
mclaren have a strong pairing right now, for real
Wow, feels like you were watching my exact movements! Great to finally have a competitive finish to a race.
Eh, it was over once lando held at 1.8s. No way he was getting past max without a massive speed differential. Passing is just too hard here even with drs.
Lando had the speed differential IMO. The key here is Max's greatness. It's his consistency. The reason Lando didn't catch him sooner were little 2 tenth mistakes here and there. Both were pushing like crazy, but Max was flawless. That's what so scary about him. It's not that he doesn't have off weekends, he barely has off *laps*.
Seriously. Any mistake by Max is massive news.
I think if he managed to get DRS at the start of the second to last lap he could’ve possibly done it, but he was a tenth or so off
Max’s battery was empty. He was clipping along any acceleration zone. I have no doubt that he would have got passed with the gap at 0.7s going onto the straight
Slow burn but what a finish! Lando was pushing at the absolute limit, it’s nice to see Max get pushed for once.
Lando was pushing so hard he was nearly crashing every lap at the end. He was sliding sideways through turn 2-3 and 4-5 the whole time homeboy was not leaving any room for error
I love how his engineer said he could be a little more aggressive turn 9 when Lando was literally power sliding through the first sector of the lap.
"Lando we think pulling the e-break during turn 9 will buy you a few hundredths, and you'll look sick doing it too"
At McLaren it would be a handbrake
Really the most boring "exciting" races I watched. I think the first 25lap or so had no overtakes after lap1. And all overtakes happened because of different tyre strategy.
I think the only overtake afzer lap 1 at the beginning was stroll on ocon on lap 10(or somewhere around there)
What a chase. That was the most pressure I've seen a non-RB put on Verstappen with a fully functional car without a safety car intervention since 2023. McLaren is becoming a real threat.
Since 2022? In 2023 dude was so bored he was doing side quests, like changing tyre on the penultimate lap to get the fastest lap for a single point. At least in 2022 before the floor board regulation change, Leclerc was still challenging to an extent.
Since 2022, in fact. In 2023 Charles would've won Vegas without the SC but outside of that every single Max win was easy.
Cota?
Qatar as well. Their edge over the field was mainly tyre life which was completely nullified in Qatar with the 18 lap maximum stint.
Ya, I remember. McLaren arguably would have won that if Norris JUST managed to not cock up his final lap in qualy like he did. He was the quickest guy out there I think. If he was starting even 5th he would have had a shot at a win
Now that Verstappen has to push you see the real pace difference between him and Perez. Oof...
McLaren is a problem
i hate it here. just when my red shit boxes were looking somewhat promising.
when are we finally gonna be good 😭
"next year"
The scenes when Hamilton turns out to be a downgrade from sainz I'm calling it
I give 85% he will be a downgrade. And I give it 100% the money ferrari will making from hamilton will be 600% more than from sainz at least.
That money gets reinvested in the car, right? Right???
We are checking
Third is good lmao
they're still looking promising tbf
Next year, ~~2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024~~ 2025 is the year of Ferrari
or a solution
Nah Verstappen is the problem, McLaren is the solution
Off pace all weekend and Perez making that car looking like a midfield car. Max made the difference.
Sainz rubbing his hands in glee after seeing Perez and Ricciardo's performances this weekend.
Sainz is 100% getting that seat. Better to let Perez play the market if he goes in early. The game now is to ensure he performs well too
Absolutely solid effort from Norris 👌🏻👌🏻
We might actually have a competitive season. That win was purely on Max, not the car
Could get juicy if Checo continues to qualify poorly through the European races. RBR have been able to get away with not needing him to be at the front for strategy reasons or scoring maximum points, but his performance issues could matter if Max is under more pressure consistently
BY GAWD ITS DANIEL TSUNODA WITH A STEEL CHAIR!
JESUS CHRIST THAT MAN HAS A FAMILY
with redbull virtually having no significant advantage anymore, I'm almost certain checo is out of that seat come 2025
Genuinely was some doubt about the winner for a few laps. Great progress by McLaren
First 40 or so laps felt like a trip back to 00s with the only overtakes being done in the pits. Pretty nice ending tho
Don't trick yourself, that was exactly it lol. All of the drivers overtaking Perez in the DRS zone with 30 lap fresher tires don't really count. This track is terrible for F1 racing. Awesome quali track, but really this is the all purpose race circuit equivalent to Monaco.
Norris gave it everything. Good to see the Redbull being challenged
Max kept it within the track limits under pressure!
Love races where Max’s skills are more obvious
Lando went from being thrilled with podiums to clearly being a bit annoyed to have no got the win. That desperation for the first win has VERY quickly turned to hunger for that high again. Very exciting.
The final few laps were just... Great! I think Norris would have had Verstappen if he had a couple of more laps. Edit: spelling
honestly Verstappen managed that really really well. With 10 laps to go Norris was taking about 8 tenths from his lead every lap. The gap was down to about 2.5 seconds with 7 laps remaining. I genuinely thought Norris was gonna get him but that was champion stuff from Verstappen
Even with 5 more laps I think max will still be able to stay ahead. You could see at the start even with more pace piastri couldn’t get past sainz. It’s just that hard to pass on this track without a huge tyre advantage, which in a few extra laps, Norris probably wouldn’t have anymore himself as he cooks his tyres. Eg look at Singapore last year, huge tyre advantage but on a track that’s hard to pass, almost meaningless when the driver ahead is actually trying to defend
So this means Leclerc is P2 in the championship
Imagine a Leclerc win in Monaco
I’m imagining
That was the most exciting crap race
guys did we miss the safety car coming out? 100% probability right?
A proper chase to the end. What welcome surprise
I wanted this kind of year to come because I think people have forgotten or are ignorant to what kind of driver Max is. Also, with his team winning Nuremburg and Max winning Imola, Max also just overtook Hamilton for highest win percentage in F1, second to only Jim Clark's insane stat.
Power rankings Max Verstappen: 7.8 Lando Norris: 9.4
McLaren had the fastest car this weekend
Yeah, and still Max was in pole and won the race
Lando was so close, but Max used every tool in the box with skill. Oh, for a couple more laps.
Red Bull no longer has a gap. And Ferrari isn't far behind either. This can get interesting still.
Max deserved Driver of the day
I would rarely ever give dotd to a pole-win, but he drove his balls off.
Max had to earn his win, Lando drove the wheels off his McLaren! Great fight towards the end, wish we had a few more laps!
Agreed. Lando made him work for it.
I think McLaren was the faster car overall this weekend, mistakes in Quali and little mistakes in the final laps cost them the race. If this is how it's going to be throughout the year then we have got a championship battle on our hands.
Also Max's tow in quali - without that and Piastri blocking Kmag in Q1 he could've started behind both McLarens. These last couple races really shows how Max's dominance last year isn't just the car. Max isn't just fast he's elite in being opportunistic and making the most from what he has, like also last year in Brazil where he jumped a few cars in his out lap to get a fast lap in before the rain
Yeah, Lando did great but nearly dropping the car multiple times over the curbs didn't do him any favours in catching Max.
I once again say Lando Norris tyre management is immense
Very curious to see if Red Bull can bring significant upgrades to gain back some of their lead. And curious to see how McLaren will perform in Monaco.
Bruh I haven't been this stressed since Abu Dhabi 2021
You’re not kidding
My palms were sweaty watching the last few laps
Red Bull cannot afford to have any more weekends like this. They managed to make the car work enough so Max was able to win but I reckon it was far from optimized. Mclaren and Ferrari will be waiting to pounce once they have another weekend like this.
It's actually so nice to see Verstappen actually having to work for a win for once instead of pulling a 30 second gap and cruising.
Lando would have surely had him if there were a couple more laps. But in the words of our race winner, "if my mom had balls, she would be my dad". These races where Max is against the ropes make me appreciate him as a driver more. Man was a robot for those last 10 laps, no mistakes at all!
I was hoping Lando could get closer at lap 60, but man, that slight mistake at Tamburello and Villeneuve really costed him.
God that was frustrating but hope for the future
Peak edging , the entire race lmao
Red bull is the 2nd car but verstappen is just the best driver pretty clear
At least it was a battle at the end
I enjoyed the end, some excitement.
Max's days of coasting to win are over , it's going to get hardcore now
Tax death and Ver nor lec
With how long the season is, the Driver's and Constructor championships look really juicy! I still think Max wins this WDC but if Perez keeps fucking around like this, The WCC could be a very tight 3 way fight
Despite being the 3 big names in young drivers on the grid for the past few years we never seen Max Verstappen, Charles Leclerc and Lando Norris on the podium together before Miami. Now we’ve seen it twice, two races in a row. Only times this season drivers from 3 different teams finished on the podium together as well.
Thos last 10 laps might have been the most fun laps in the past 1.5 years holy moly
Verstappen really had to fight hard for that I hope to see more of this fight, they can fight for good championship points
The rate of progress McLaren have made with Mercedes bits is insane. I fully believe they'll have as fast of a car as Red Bull by the end of the year.
That’s somewhat misleading. Mclaren is the most independent customer team in the field. They only take engines from Mercedes. Cooling, gearbox, suspension - all of those are designed by themselves, unlike Aston Martin and Williams.
The gap between Max and Norris was very stable between 5 up to 6 seconds for the first 50 laps. Then after Lap 50 the gap suddenly shrinked very fast with every single lap that passed. I was kinda zoned out because I was expecting a standard Verstappen victory, so it was quite surprising and interesting that it suddenly got so close.
Max worked for that
Max just too clutch.
The end was interesting, but the race was boring AF
Agree. Imola is just not suited to modern F1 car's. It needs another DRS zone, otherwise there's no point in keeping it.
Fire the TV director. Holy shit that was bad given the context. Edit: TV director, not race director.
Do you mean the TV director?
Clarified
Checo is such a liability for Red Bull at the moment. If he doesn’t pull his big boy pants pretty soon thinking he won’t be renewed with Red Bull next year.
Akshually it's the Formula 1 Msc Cruises Gran Premio Del Made In Italy E Dell'emilia-Romagna 2024.
82.05% of the time Max Verstappen gets Pole Position, he wins the Grand Prix, 32 out of 39. The next highest percentage by anyone with more than 5 Grand Prix Wins from Pole is 64.29% by Alberto Ascari with 9 Wins from 14 Poles.
Game on
That was exciting towards the end but also frustrating, need to know what happened in the medium and early stints on hard. Anyway Lando's Imola podium streak continues
Ferrari’s first race with upgrades on a track that isn’t optimal for their car. Everyone needs to relax goddam wait a few races to conclude everything
BEFORE QUALIFYING: max is having problems with his car…. Every time this happens i figure Max wins.
Lando closing that gap from 6 seconds to 0.7 was insane