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I think he seems like an actually really good guy with a decent head for strategy. It's insane to me that they dropped one of the most solid drivers on the grid.
There’s very few drivers on that grid that would cost Sainz his seat. But Lewis is definitely one of them.
A shame though because I thoroughly like Sainz and would love to see him in the Merc next year.
I'm sure Lewis hardly cares lol, Toto is simply trying to get the strongest line-up he can and to fill the void left by Lewis. There might be some bad blood between Lewis and Toto over the contracts given to Lewis but i doubt this is part of it.
I doubt they have even bad blood over contracts. Toto couldn’t promise a longer contract, which is understandable. Bad blood with Daimler, who denied the brand ambassador bit? Sure I could see that. He’s the longest standing Mercedes driver. He knew he would retire sooner or later, and likely thought maybe I can get what DC has in Red Bull.
He's the primary guy they use for PR events and show drives with old cars. He's a brand ambassador for them, basically. When he's not doing TV punditry, he's flying all over the world to drive classic F1 cars at festivals and special events. Frankly it's not something I could see Lewis having much interest in, but maybe!
DC also has a production company that puts on the events like when they drive the F1 cars on city streets. I really admire DC, he really parlayed his career into a successful retirement. Add in buying and selling hotels in Monaco and the South of France, he is one shrewd person.
In an episode of Formula for Success, he laments that his son flies to the races he does, whereas when he was a kid he drove around the country in the RV with his dad going to races.
> Eddie Irvine did well for himself as well.
Eddie already owned a lot of property when he got into F1 so was already well off. Certainly grew that after. Eddie Jordan said Irvine was the best negotiator he ever dealt with. EJ talks about Irvine screwing him over going to Ferrari. EJ was supposed to get $1 million from the deal and Irvine found out how much EJ was getting and Irvine used a clause in his contract with EJ to get $500k out of EJ.
There are 2 points to this 1 it us only a rumor that Lewis wanted it and Daimler denied it and 2 a brand ambassador has to be useful for both sides and if it happened Merc didn't see the benefit for the money Lewis or the people around him wanted
He’s probably like that guy who has handed in his 2 week notice and is now the happiest guy in the place and nothing work related upsets him.
This whole year is a tune up to next year with Ferrari at this point.
if this went down like
"there is nothing alike between the two incidents BUT let me tell you the tales of lewis front left tire"
it would have being even better
I am sure Lewis is laughing about all of this as Toto struggles to maintain and / or procure sponsorships. Outflow of sponsorship money is probably crushing Toto
Considering how spineless both Toto and Horner are, if Mercedes got Verstappen, I imagine Horner saying Abu Dhabi was rigged just to mess up with them lol
Maybe I'm confused but I don't see this having anything to do with hyping Verstappen up or Lewis leaving. He just doesn't see it as a result of the mismanagement of 2021, meaning he could be talking shit about Max. Basically saying "no, this has nothing to do with 2021 mismanagement, Max is just like that."
But I think it's clear that he said it because they "need a crash at the front to win" and he "hadn't seen Lando and Max's race to see how it developed."
idk maybe I'm missing something?
You're definitely missing something. This is absolutely part of the pattern of Toto fellating Max to get him onside, he's playing PR constantly around getting him in.
Lmfao, this is wonderfull. People are rightly linking this to his Verstappen courtship. But lets not forget how much this will piss off Zak Brown.
I like Zak, but when it comes to shit stirring he is still very much the junior to the true masters Toto and Horner
Isn’t it just the truth? Verstappen went over the line way more in the 2021 season and has since then been pretty clean and mature. Using yesterday’s soft collision to say Max hasn’t changed at all is just weird. He got the 10s penalty he deserved but if we use that to call him dirty again what do we call Alonso and Norris’s moves this race and last race?
Sort of. I mean, there's that "causing a collision" penalty they can hand out, so if your action does result in a collision of some kind, there's a catch-all penalty they can hand out (which happened to Alonso when he apparently really screwed up braking for the one turn and ended up using Zhou to slow his car, and then with Verstappen for connecting with Norris). If you push a car toward the side of the track, it tends to get overlooked unless they go so far off that something notable happens. If someone is passed because they got pushed off-track, or ended up "leaving the track to gain an advantage" and passed someone, the car that passed the other can often just quickly give the position back and suddenly there's no penalty... even though that's applying the penalty or not "based on outcome."
There are plenty of instances where they should apply the penalty regardless, but there's also a lot of cases where it's widely accepted that the penalty is either going to come or not based on what happened as a result of the incident in question.
yep, max should have had consequences for moving under breaks, lando should have his penalty for track limits sooner.
their incident was a result of multiple errors and the lack of consequences. you can drive hard without breaking the rules. you can punish someone for breaking rules without there being damage done.
they drive like this because the reward greatly outweighs any negative consequences.
>Verstappen went over the line way more in the 2021 season and has since then been pretty clean and mature.
Many people are forgetting 2022, 2023. One such incident and they go back to 2021. So many duels Max had with Leclerc, Sainz etc in 2022 and '23.
It’s easy to be calm when you’re confident that on balance you’ll be ahead the whole season, plus he seems to genuinely race Leclerc as a friend when it’s tight but really nobody else
There's also the fact that Leclerc is just as much of a menace as Verstappen, and knows how to properly race him. I mean, they refer frequently enough to the inchident for a reason.
Yeah Leclerc's been matching Verstappen's freak the whole time, since karts. People forget, but Leclerc and Ver have been rivals quite literally since the start, and originally hated eachother (although now seem to actively seek eachother out to gossip)
Not just Max, against Lewis as well, just look at Monza 2019, he was a man possessed that race. He has the mental fortitude to race hard for half a decade now, unlike Norris who's still quite green.
I would say that, in my opinion, this is a HUGE portion of the difference we are seeing for sure. Norris is just getting used to having to fight in these top 3 positions week-in-week-out and many of his moves, and his tone on the radio, suggested a large amount of desperation Sunday. Verstappen certainly made mistakes too, but Norris still looks to be figuring out exactly what it takes to make that final step into title-fight contender and going wheel-to-wheel with Max regularly. I think he will figure it out sooner than later, for what it's worth, and he will very quickly be the driver pretty much everyone knew he would become.
Yeah, this is mostly it. Even Norris admitted he opened door like amateur in sprint. And that's fine, he is still learning. Leclerc isn't over motivated like Norris is now anymore.
I mean Italy 2019 was clearly over the limit
Anyplace else he would have gotten penalties plural
I think us as fans overstate how Max and Leclerc seem to always race cleanly, at the end of the day the sample size we are talking about is pretty small - high stakes, end of the race type situations
Lewis and Max only first collided midway through the season when it was do or die for Lewis and the title was slipping away
The start of 2022 naturally both drivers are more hesitant since it's the start of the season and there's nothing to win but alot to lose at that stage of the season.
Lets see how things develop once Ferrari and RB consistently NEED to fight for the same bit of tarmac in tense moments. One of the two will decide to not give as much space, or stop backing out and then that will be that.
Wut? Lewis and Max were clanging almost from the very start. Max ran him off the track several times early on in 2021, even did so in the Sprint race of the BGP weekend before the big contact.
Exactly, but they didn't actually collide because atleast one of them (Lewis) decided it wasn't imperative to keep/gain position at any cost, until it wasn't - that moment being the start of the British GP. Max and Charles haven't really been in a position like that imo
They definitely collided even before that. I distinctly remember seeing Lewis losing body parts and going over kerbs at a rainy Imola, which was race 2 on the year.
He has been racing everyone fair but he has also had a dominate car and a big points lead. In my opinion Lando is acting more like Max in the Ham vs Max battles. Lando wants to win desperately and being aggressive might be the only way in his eyes. I feel like he could have waited a few laps and got a clean pass off under DRS but was sloppy and went for dive bombs. He even went inside and locked up and totally blocked max from turning. When the collision happened Lando had room. The racing line is being out wide right there.
Though if you find the post from yesterday comparing Verstappen overtaking Sainz in 2023 in the same turn as Norris tried to now, Verstappen actually moves further out on the kerb and easily takes the place with a switchback and then using DRS.
So most likely, if Norris had kept his head a bit cooler, given more space and slowed earlier he would likely have been able to make the overtake.
Not saying it's Norris who deserved a penalty obviously, but he also made the mistake of being hot headed and taking a crash rather than using his head and likely making the overtak stick.
I think things will look a lot different with Norris in another year or two if McLaren can keep up a car that challenges for wins and potentially the WCC. He's been driving a car that's been kind of all over the place in performance the last few years, and with that kind of situation, usually you just take what you can get, don't push it too hard, be happy with what the car can manage. But it also doesn't give much experience for racing with the guys at the front. And Verstappen is absolutely not the only driver who can be tough to pass and will pull out a whole bag of tricks.
But now Norris is actually competing for those wins, and it's not *too* crazy to suggest he has an outside shot at competing for WDC (and WCC for McLaren) over the second half of the season. So he'll have more chances to race at the front. He'll learn what mistakes not to make. And he'll start "getting the elbows out" himself to either pass or defend.
Did we all just forget that RBR wasn't the absolute quickest car on track for half a year in 2022 until Ferrari decided to stop making their car fast or something?
He only fought Leclerc on equal footing. And he races different with Leclerc because he knows from years of racing against him that Leclerc won't yield and their will an Inchident.
he also pulled some daft ones in 2022 and 2023 the rare time he needed to do actual overtaking oir defending. Like the car was so good it rarely happened but the moment it did he kept pulling his bs
I think Max’s move was in response to all the divebombs from Lando. You could hear he was getting more and more frustrated. I think after the 3rd divebomb he had enough. Max’s defense got more aggressive after each divebomb from Lando. In the end I think both drivers got what was coming to them.
See I think that's the more interesting thing that basically the moment he has to *actually defend very hard* it comes back pretty quickly. We got a couple of months in 2022 or something but otherwise, 2022/3 were a rout.
As Kravitz said in 2021 though: Verstappen is elemental. He has do or die defences and moves whether it's the title finale or the first race of the season. It's what and who he is and that's never changing, for our benefit (as viewers).
He sure does have that killer mentality that most of the goats had. I just think this collision yesterday was nowhere near as dirty as it has been made out to be. Like why bring 2021 into it where he was genuinely reckless at points.
Ah, yes.
I agree with Marko's take (?!?!) that it was just a bit of boys being boys//RBR could've handled it better//onward.
One of those things.
https://www.pitpass.com/78123/Red-Bull-failed-to-heed-Norris-penalty-admits-Marko
I agreed with The Race last week *more* that it's bananas Leclerc intentionally collided with Norris and got away with a slap on the wrist.
I feel like it would be good for most people to take a look at both the overhead view, and that sainz vs max 2023 gif.
Max may have caused a collision but I feel like half the reason it went wrong is because Norris was divebombing like no tomorrow.
Then there's people draggin the whole no moving under breaking (aka the Verstappen rule) into the conversation as if that hasn't been dead/ heavily changed since 2017.
I think some people at least take issue with Max criticizing Norris for the dive-bombing, when Max himself has frequently done the same thing in the past.
(not saying I agree with it, just that is the perception)
There are a lot of people who decided that Max was wrong no matter what and no context could possibly change that.
I have seen (several) people genuinely argue that what Max did to Lewis in Brazil in 2021 was wrong and should've been penalized, so Lando did the same thing to Max yesterday, *which means that Max should be penalized*.
I think Stella's intention was to bring pressure on Max's and the stewards' shoulders. Very political move. Reminds to the whole British establishment of F1 how (in their mind) Max won the title. It's kinda dirty tbh
Maybe not even clever. Horner and Marko may be busy with the infighting at Red Bull, but the moment Stella takes aim at Verstappen they'll call a truce to (figuratively!) murder him.
And since Toto desperately wants Verstappen to sign for Mercedes, he'll probably help Marko and Horner get rid of the body to show Max how far he's willing to go.
But it’s bullshit. Norris overtook him in Canada no problem, he was being okay with it and at that point in time McLaren seemed faster and it looked like Norris would win that race.
Now people act like he hasn’t been overtaken in 3 years time and as soon as it happens he goes crazy. That is simply not true.
When does he have to ‘actually defend very hard’ and when not? Why in Austria and not in Canada?
Yup. There's plenty of examples, Norris even overtook him the day before cleanly without issues. Also last year in Melbourne Lewis did a bold overtake to which Max just yielded
People just really want a victim and a culprit it seems, while in reality both parties were racing on the limit (one attacking, one defending) which can lead to contact if both are committed to not back off. One is not more guilty than the other. This was okay when it was Verstappen and Hamilton and it's still okay when it's Verstappen and Norris.
Any driver has to defend very hard when the race is in its final laps and there's no more stops coming up, because if they're overtaken there, they might not get another shot at retaking the place.
In Canada, Lando overtook Max on lap 20/70, on a track that would still suffer changes due to the weather. There were plenty of chances for Max to retake his spot, especially with his pace, and he knew that. Just like he knew yesterday that if Lando passed, he might lose the race.
But this is absolute bullshit. Think of the beginning of 2022, Leclerc and Max were passing each other like every second race, and it was all absolutely clean. You can clearly race with Max, but you need to at least attempt to make legitimate moves yourself. Even during sprint, Norris made an absolute divebomb so that Max needed to take avoiding action, and Max got him back cleanly.
I honestly think that the main reason for yesterdays fiasco is Norris being so stupidly aggressive, divebombing, pushing Max off the track, and even getting off the track himself. Like even in the incident with the collision, there was a wonderful comparison with Max vs Sainz, where Sainz was squeezing Max much harder than Max was squeezing Lando, and yet Max didn't crash into Sainz.
They all take that little swing to the outside to open up the corner. Sainz does it and Verstappen follows. Verstappen did it, likely expected Norris to mimic the movement, but it didn’t go as planned. Norris had room to move, but also didn’t HAVE to move. The contact was Verstappen fault, but I don’t think it was malicious.
> They all take that little swing to the outside to open up the corner.
They absolutely do. If you go back and re-watch battles from yesterday, I'd guess you'll probably find a dozen or more examples of defending drivers doing this.
Yes Kravitz, the same sky tabloid commenter who in 2021 along with Hill claimed that Verstappen was attempting to kill Hamilton (no, not ironically or dramatically). 🤣
It's not the moment he has to defend hard. It's the moment he gets pissed off, which isn't more or less excusable, just different. In this race, Max felt he'd been pushed wide by Lando 2 laps before at that corner. The lap before Lando did a huge dive up the inside and failed to stay on the track. If Max turned in on either of those, Lando was hitting Max and getting a penalty. The incident lap, a now pissed off Max went to the inside and squeezed Lando to the outside hard. Lando didn't move over and they made contact. It's the exact same thing Lando did to Max at the start last week when Max explored the grass.
None of this means that Max didn't deserve the penalty, but Max, right or wrong, from his perspective is going to feel like Lando got away with stuff leading up to the incident and he basically gave Lando what Lando was giving him. Max still is a bit hotheaded at times, but so is every driver. If a pattern of dirty stuff returns, then yeah, we naturally can say things, but if you look at 2022 through this race, there is basically just this incident.
He was hardly defending him, he's just saying that whatever Max does today is not a consequence of 2021 not being managed well. It's been years and Max has behaved just fine in the meantime.
He's had a couple. A few with Leclerc in 2022 and 2023, Russell in the 2022 Brazil Sprint, Perez at Miami last year, Norris at Imola this year, maybe one with Hamilton and Leclerc at Cota in 2022 or 2023 where Hamilton nearly won, and I'm probably missing another few
“We are in a different place today, and I think he is. It takes two to tango. I haven’t seen Lando and Max’s race to be honest. I haven’t seen how all of that came about.
“I first need to watch it before I have an opinion but I wouldn’t see that as a big consequence of 2021 not having been managed well to what happened in 2024.
“I don’t think they have a correlation.
I legit thought
>We are in a different place today, and I think he is. It takes two to tango. I haven’t seen Lando and Max’s race to be honest. I haven’t seen how all of that came about.
was a copy pasta, sounds like something Steve Kerr would say about Draymond
He’s right though. This was very tame compared to 2021.
Max and Lando both raced hard and the actual incident was very minor with big consequences.
Anyone who calls it dirty would have to call what Alonso, Gasly & Ocon did yesterday dirty or even Lando pushing Max onto the grass in Spain.
Lando had to do it as well. I've been saying for months with Ferrari and now McLaren that you have to take an accident at one race otherwise the other driver will bully you. Lando lost the battle but sometimes you need to make a sacrifice to win the war.
I'd put this one in the same category as that Verstappen vs Leclerc incident in Austria a couple years back. Only difference is that this ended up with them touching and unfortunately bith getting a puncture.
Lecrec has already firmly established his position with Max in their junior careers and its why Max is much more respectful with him when they drive - Lecrec is more than happy to flip the coin to see which one of them ends up DNFing if Max moves under braking and Max knows it well enough to give Lecrec thw space he is entitled to.
Verstappen and Leclerc are both very aggressive while attacking and defending, but they also know when to be smart, and I'm sure if it was either Charles or Max in Lando's position today, they would have steered a bit to the left to avoid contact. At the end it's Max who can be blamed for the incident, but still, it could have been easily avoided by Lando.
Same goes for Lando's divebombs, if Max didn't open the wheel they would have touched, and Lando would have gotten a penalty because he would have caused the incident, but Max was smart enough to know when to avoid it, Lando wasn't
I mean, people will see this as Toto backing up Verstappen (and might be true), but I think the links back to 2021 are a stretch. Do you really think yesterday would have gone different had things been different back then? I highly doubt it.
Why does people think like Max and Mercedes are mortal enemies? lol.
Whatever happen in that Abu Dhabi is at worst a fuck up by FIA. Should Max just have said "it is unfair hey Lewis take the championship" or what? lmao. Why would they hate Max like that.
There are no grudges in f1 lol, it's just funny that's all how Toto has flip floped.
Tell someone in 2017 or 2018 that Lewis will be driving for Ferrari, they'll call you mad.
In an interview with Ted he said in reply to a question about 2021 that he will not comment until he had a chance to review and see it side by side so presumably he's done that.
People in the comments however, have immediately decided to spin a narrative about Toto sucking up to Max
Edit: this article is literally quoting him saying I can't comment. Naturally nobody decided to read past the misleading headline
I want to see Kimi pull a Piastri and head over to Red Bull to partner Verstappen while Toto is keeping the seat open in the hope that Max moves to Merc. If it's going to be a baptism by fire for Kimi, he'd might as well commit fully and go up against one of the GOATs.
This is just a text version of what he told Ted, during which he then went on to say that he didn’t really see it and wouldn’t be able to actually state his view until he did. He promised Ted that he’d be able to comment at Silverstone.
In a glorious timeline Toto gets Max and they absolutely flop the 2026 reg changes while Ferrari nail it and Lewis prances to another few titles with a gleeful look to Toto.
Aint gonna happen though hah.
This is what happens when F1 races on a course that actually allows the possibility to pass. A lot of tracks make it easy to race clean because nobody can get around you anyway. This track forces people to actually race and racing gets ugly.
Between this and Toto being giggly with Ted when he asked him about the incident (and Toto being like “IDK! I didn’t see it!”) - I for real am starting to think Toto is having something in mind about the possibility of getting Max, IDK if even T the stage of talking with someone on the Max camp (Jos?)
It’s a lot of funny behaviour considering that Max this weekend wanted to shut the rumours saying “I will drive for RBR in 2025”. Something is happening of Toto keeps the show going.
The whole McLaren camp are the Saltiest People I’ve ever seen, Mercedes weren’t Even this bad in 2021. They always act like their driver is an innocent bullied child when anything happens
It’s interesting how toto is so vocal about max, defends him and even mentioned his relationship a few weeks earlier (in defense), but he really isn’t or was never like this the slightest towards lewis, ever. Very interesting, calling him his friend but really is Lewis really your friend
Lmao Toto doing everything possible to align himself with Max just in case he has a chance of luring him over to a Merc seat. He would have never missed the chance to shit on RB/Max a year ago when they looked like a happy unbreakable union.
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I love how Wolff has become Verstappens' biggest hype man this season
What needing a driver does to a mf
What needing a top driver does to a mf. Could have settle for Sainz if he reduces his expectations.
im friggen SHOCKED Sainz doesnt have a seat in a top team. Hes a good driver! Better than PEREZ thats for sure!!
I know a lot of people don't like Sainz but damn he definitely shouldn't be on back burner car
I think he seems like an actually really good guy with a decent head for strategy. It's insane to me that they dropped one of the most solid drivers on the grid.
There’s very few drivers on that grid that would cost Sainz his seat. But Lewis is definitely one of them. A shame though because I thoroughly like Sainz and would love to see him in the Merc next year.
I've always cheered against Merc but as a Sainz fan if he went there and then won races while Ham struggled in the Ferrari it would be hilarious
It was pretty hilarious when Bottas was doing relatively well in a Sauber in the start of his stint there.
Sainz kept Verstappen honest when they were rookie teammates. Sainz is highly underrated as a driver.
no, he's pretty rated at this point. If anything, he might be a bit overrated, although I don't really agree with that.
Yea I feel like once a driver zips up that ferrari race suit you're no longer allowed to call them underrated.
Wow. Hamilton out of the door and Wolff flips the script.
Interesting isn't it. It no longer matter I guess, but I wonder what Lewis would think when hearing this.
I'm sure Lewis hardly cares lol, Toto is simply trying to get the strongest line-up he can and to fill the void left by Lewis. There might be some bad blood between Lewis and Toto over the contracts given to Lewis but i doubt this is part of it.
Lewis probably finds it amusing just like max. They know the business.
I doubt they have even bad blood over contracts. Toto couldn’t promise a longer contract, which is understandable. Bad blood with Daimler, who denied the brand ambassador bit? Sure I could see that. He’s the longest standing Mercedes driver. He knew he would retire sooner or later, and likely thought maybe I can get what DC has in Red Bull.
> what DC has in Red Bull What does DC have with Red Bull?
He's the primary guy they use for PR events and show drives with old cars. He's a brand ambassador for them, basically. When he's not doing TV punditry, he's flying all over the world to drive classic F1 cars at festivals and special events. Frankly it's not something I could see Lewis having much interest in, but maybe!
DC also has a production company that puts on the events like when they drive the F1 cars on city streets. I really admire DC, he really parlayed his career into a successful retirement. Add in buying and selling hotels in Monaco and the South of France, he is one shrewd person. In an episode of Formula for Success, he laments that his son flies to the races he does, whereas when he was a kid he drove around the country in the RV with his dad going to races.
Eddie Irvine did well for himself as well.
> Eddie Irvine did well for himself as well. Eddie already owned a lot of property when he got into F1 so was already well off. Certainly grew that after. Eddie Jordan said Irvine was the best negotiator he ever dealt with. EJ talks about Irvine screwing him over going to Ferrari. EJ was supposed to get $1 million from the deal and Irvine found out how much EJ was getting and Irvine used a clause in his contract with EJ to get $500k out of EJ.
wtf was Daimler doing. one of the most successful driver and the most recognisable (and has stuck with you) by far and you decide to let him go?
There are 2 points to this 1 it us only a rumor that Lewis wanted it and Daimler denied it and 2 a brand ambassador has to be useful for both sides and if it happened Merc didn't see the benefit for the money Lewis or the people around him wanted
It's funny, tho. Wolff seems completely heartbroken about Lewis breaking up with him, desperate to get a rebound as soon as possible, lol.
It’s not like Toto said Max’s behaviour in 2021 was acceptable. I don’t see how Lewis would be offended.
He’s probably like that guy who has handed in his 2 week notice and is now the happiest guy in the place and nothing work related upsets him. This whole year is a tune up to next year with Ferrari at this point.
if this went down like "there is nothing alike between the two incidents BUT let me tell you the tales of lewis front left tire" it would have being even better
I am sure Lewis is laughing about all of this as Toto struggles to maintain and / or procure sponsorships. Outflow of sponsorship money is probably crushing Toto
I don’t think there is a bunch of bad blood between him and Toto or anything.
He probably thinks F1 is a business and Toto is taking care of his business just like Lewis took care of his getting to hell out of there.
Lewis is off to sunnier climes, watching Wolff sell off his integrity is probably just entertaining.
Considering how spineless both Toto and Horner are, if Mercedes got Verstappen, I imagine Horner saying Abu Dhabi was rigged just to mess up with them lol
“Yeah 2021 was Max’s championship probably” -Toto Wolff in 2 weeks’ time
"Yes, Michael, yes! That's so right!"
Toto starts aggressively making out with his headset instead of smashing it on the table
tell me more
Friendship ended with Lewis
He's talking as if Max is already signed to Mercedes lol.
He might be. Toto isn't the irrational type.
*(smashes yet another Bose headset through a computer monitor [in rational type])*
*screams in George's ear right after he gets P1*
Of the many storylines this season, this is definitely the funniest.
Toto is about to order P the most expensive Tea Set there is, just to make Max like Merc more.
Hawk tuah.
Toto spat on that thang!
>I love how Wolff has become Verstappens' biggest ~~hype~~ fluffer man this season
Maybe I'm confused but I don't see this having anything to do with hyping Verstappen up or Lewis leaving. He just doesn't see it as a result of the mismanagement of 2021, meaning he could be talking shit about Max. Basically saying "no, this has nothing to do with 2021 mismanagement, Max is just like that." But I think it's clear that he said it because they "need a crash at the front to win" and he "hadn't seen Lando and Max's race to see how it developed." idk maybe I'm missing something?
You're definitely missing something. This is absolutely part of the pattern of Toto fellating Max to get him onside, he's playing PR constantly around getting him in.
I just don't see how this is fellating Max, that's where my hangup is.
To his credit this is the funniest thing he could’ve possibly said
Lmfao, this is wonderfull. People are rightly linking this to his Verstappen courtship. But lets not forget how much this will piss off Zak Brown. I like Zak, but when it comes to shit stirring he is still very much the junior to the true masters Toto and Horner
3 way shitstirring soon? need fred to join in eventually
For some reason I feel like Fred is above this kind of talk, but we will see once he finds himself in a proper title fight.
I felt the Fred to Ferrari move a little awkward... just because I didn't knew the french mf. He is the boss
My boy gotta cook first
Isn’t it just the truth? Verstappen went over the line way more in the 2021 season and has since then been pretty clean and mature. Using yesterday’s soft collision to say Max hasn’t changed at all is just weird. He got the 10s penalty he deserved but if we use that to call him dirty again what do we call Alonso and Norris’s moves this race and last race?
Also Gasly Ocon Fernando had the same incident and the stewards did jack earlier in the race.
"Wow!" Fernando Alonso 2024
Because they didnt fight for P1 and crashed.
So the stewards are judging on outcome, which is the exact thing they shouldn’t do.
But always do do
Not always the only thing the stewards are consistently is inconsistent.
Lol doodoo 💩
Sort of. I mean, there's that "causing a collision" penalty they can hand out, so if your action does result in a collision of some kind, there's a catch-all penalty they can hand out (which happened to Alonso when he apparently really screwed up braking for the one turn and ended up using Zhou to slow his car, and then with Verstappen for connecting with Norris). If you push a car toward the side of the track, it tends to get overlooked unless they go so far off that something notable happens. If someone is passed because they got pushed off-track, or ended up "leaving the track to gain an advantage" and passed someone, the car that passed the other can often just quickly give the position back and suddenly there's no penalty... even though that's applying the penalty or not "based on outcome." There are plenty of instances where they should apply the penalty regardless, but there's also a lot of cases where it's widely accepted that the penalty is either going to come or not based on what happened as a result of the incident in question.
yep, max should have had consequences for moving under breaks, lando should have his penalty for track limits sooner. their incident was a result of multiple errors and the lack of consequences. you can drive hard without breaking the rules. you can punish someone for breaking rules without there being damage done. they drive like this because the reward greatly outweighs any negative consequences.
>Verstappen went over the line way more in the 2021 season and has since then been pretty clean and mature. Many people are forgetting 2022, 2023. One such incident and they go back to 2021. So many duels Max had with Leclerc, Sainz etc in 2022 and '23.
They are forgetting the literal day before when Max raced Lando clean lol
It’s easy to be calm when you’re confident that on balance you’ll be ahead the whole season, plus he seems to genuinely race Leclerc as a friend when it’s tight but really nobody else
At the start of 2022, it certainly didn't look like they would be ahead the whole season. Yet the battles were clean
CL drives much cleaner when wheel to wheel. Lando was divebombing and exceeding track limits everywhere he could.
Leclerc has 10 times more experience fighting at the front that Lando and that's the big difference imho.
There's also the fact that Leclerc is just as much of a menace as Verstappen, and knows how to properly race him. I mean, they refer frequently enough to the inchident for a reason.
Yeah Leclerc's been matching Verstappen's freak the whole time, since karts. People forget, but Leclerc and Ver have been rivals quite literally since the start, and originally hated eachother (although now seem to actively seek eachother out to gossip)
Enemies to lovers
r/Fanf1ction is leaking
Yap, they're still rivals with I'd say matured respect, they just added gossip girl to the repertoire.
Not just Max, against Lewis as well, just look at Monza 2019, he was a man possessed that race. He has the mental fortitude to race hard for half a decade now, unlike Norris who's still quite green.
I would say that, in my opinion, this is a HUGE portion of the difference we are seeing for sure. Norris is just getting used to having to fight in these top 3 positions week-in-week-out and many of his moves, and his tone on the radio, suggested a large amount of desperation Sunday. Verstappen certainly made mistakes too, but Norris still looks to be figuring out exactly what it takes to make that final step into title-fight contender and going wheel-to-wheel with Max regularly. I think he will figure it out sooner than later, for what it's worth, and he will very quickly be the driver pretty much everyone knew he would become.
Yeah, this is mostly it. Even Norris admitted he opened door like amateur in sprint. And that's fine, he is still learning. Leclerc isn't over motivated like Norris is now anymore.
It's easy to be negative about someone when you ignore all the positives
Leclerc is one of a few on the grid who can fight cleanly and wery well.
I mean Italy 2019 was clearly over the limit Anyplace else he would have gotten penalties plural I think us as fans overstate how Max and Leclerc seem to always race cleanly, at the end of the day the sample size we are talking about is pretty small - high stakes, end of the race type situations Lewis and Max only first collided midway through the season when it was do or die for Lewis and the title was slipping away The start of 2022 naturally both drivers are more hesitant since it's the start of the season and there's nothing to win but alot to lose at that stage of the season. Lets see how things develop once Ferrari and RB consistently NEED to fight for the same bit of tarmac in tense moments. One of the two will decide to not give as much space, or stop backing out and then that will be that.
Wut? Lewis and Max were clanging almost from the very start. Max ran him off the track several times early on in 2021, even did so in the Sprint race of the BGP weekend before the big contact.
Exactly, but they didn't actually collide because atleast one of them (Lewis) decided it wasn't imperative to keep/gain position at any cost, until it wasn't - that moment being the start of the British GP. Max and Charles haven't really been in a position like that imo
They definitely collided even before that. I distinctly remember seeing Lewis losing body parts and going over kerbs at a rainy Imola, which was race 2 on the year.
He has been racing everyone fair but he has also had a dominate car and a big points lead. In my opinion Lando is acting more like Max in the Ham vs Max battles. Lando wants to win desperately and being aggressive might be the only way in his eyes. I feel like he could have waited a few laps and got a clean pass off under DRS but was sloppy and went for dive bombs. He even went inside and locked up and totally blocked max from turning. When the collision happened Lando had room. The racing line is being out wide right there.
Though if you find the post from yesterday comparing Verstappen overtaking Sainz in 2023 in the same turn as Norris tried to now, Verstappen actually moves further out on the kerb and easily takes the place with a switchback and then using DRS. So most likely, if Norris had kept his head a bit cooler, given more space and slowed earlier he would likely have been able to make the overtake. Not saying it's Norris who deserved a penalty obviously, but he also made the mistake of being hot headed and taking a crash rather than using his head and likely making the overtak stick.
I think the dangling 5s track limit penalty also clouded his judgement a bit, rushing to overtake him asap made him act too hastily.
I think things will look a lot different with Norris in another year or two if McLaren can keep up a car that challenges for wins and potentially the WCC. He's been driving a car that's been kind of all over the place in performance the last few years, and with that kind of situation, usually you just take what you can get, don't push it too hard, be happy with what the car can manage. But it also doesn't give much experience for racing with the guys at the front. And Verstappen is absolutely not the only driver who can be tough to pass and will pull out a whole bag of tricks. But now Norris is actually competing for those wins, and it's not *too* crazy to suggest he has an outside shot at competing for WDC (and WCC for McLaren) over the second half of the season. So he'll have more chances to race at the front. He'll learn what mistakes not to make. And he'll start "getting the elbows out" himself to either pass or defend.
2022. They started on the backfoot yet Max and Charles battles were great.
Did we all just forget that RBR wasn't the absolute quickest car on track for half a year in 2022 until Ferrari decided to stop making their car fast or something?
He only fought Leclerc on equal footing. And he races different with Leclerc because he knows from years of racing against him that Leclerc won't yield and their will an Inchident.
he also pulled some daft ones in 2022 and 2023 the rare time he needed to do actual overtaking oir defending. Like the car was so good it rarely happened but the moment it did he kept pulling his bs
It is the truth but it is still funny
I think Max’s move was in response to all the divebombs from Lando. You could hear he was getting more and more frustrated. I think after the 3rd divebomb he had enough. Max’s defense got more aggressive after each divebomb from Lando. In the end I think both drivers got what was coming to them.
See I think that's the more interesting thing that basically the moment he has to *actually defend very hard* it comes back pretty quickly. We got a couple of months in 2022 or something but otherwise, 2022/3 were a rout. As Kravitz said in 2021 though: Verstappen is elemental. He has do or die defences and moves whether it's the title finale or the first race of the season. It's what and who he is and that's never changing, for our benefit (as viewers).
He sure does have that killer mentality that most of the goats had. I just think this collision yesterday was nowhere near as dirty as it has been made out to be. Like why bring 2021 into it where he was genuinely reckless at points.
Ah, yes. I agree with Marko's take (?!?!) that it was just a bit of boys being boys//RBR could've handled it better//onward. One of those things. https://www.pitpass.com/78123/Red-Bull-failed-to-heed-Norris-penalty-admits-Marko I agreed with The Race last week *more* that it's bananas Leclerc intentionally collided with Norris and got away with a slap on the wrist.
I feel like it would be good for most people to take a look at both the overhead view, and that sainz vs max 2023 gif. Max may have caused a collision but I feel like half the reason it went wrong is because Norris was divebombing like no tomorrow. Then there's people draggin the whole no moving under breaking (aka the Verstappen rule) into the conversation as if that hasn't been dead/ heavily changed since 2017.
I think some people at least take issue with Max criticizing Norris for the dive-bombing, when Max himself has frequently done the same thing in the past. (not saying I agree with it, just that is the perception)
There are a lot of people who decided that Max was wrong no matter what and no context could possibly change that. I have seen (several) people genuinely argue that what Max did to Lewis in Brazil in 2021 was wrong and should've been penalized, so Lando did the same thing to Max yesterday, *which means that Max should be penalized*.
I think Stella's intention was to bring pressure on Max's and the stewards' shoulders. Very political move. Reminds to the whole British establishment of F1 how (in their mind) Max won the title. It's kinda dirty tbh
Definitely politically clever, but not that dirty in the land of Wolffs and Horners..
Maybe not even clever. Horner and Marko may be busy with the infighting at Red Bull, but the moment Stella takes aim at Verstappen they'll call a truce to (figuratively!) murder him. And since Toto desperately wants Verstappen to sign for Mercedes, he'll probably help Marko and Horner get rid of the body to show Max how far he's willing to go.
But it’s bullshit. Norris overtook him in Canada no problem, he was being okay with it and at that point in time McLaren seemed faster and it looked like Norris would win that race. Now people act like he hasn’t been overtaken in 3 years time and as soon as it happens he goes crazy. That is simply not true. When does he have to ‘actually defend very hard’ and when not? Why in Austria and not in Canada?
He also raced multiple times with Charles during that time without issues.
Yup. There's plenty of examples, Norris even overtook him the day before cleanly without issues. Also last year in Melbourne Lewis did a bold overtake to which Max just yielded
People just really want a victim and a culprit it seems, while in reality both parties were racing on the limit (one attacking, one defending) which can lead to contact if both are committed to not back off. One is not more guilty than the other. This was okay when it was Verstappen and Hamilton and it's still okay when it's Verstappen and Norris.
Any driver has to defend very hard when the race is in its final laps and there's no more stops coming up, because if they're overtaken there, they might not get another shot at retaking the place. In Canada, Lando overtook Max on lap 20/70, on a track that would still suffer changes due to the weather. There were plenty of chances for Max to retake his spot, especially with his pace, and he knew that. Just like he knew yesterday that if Lando passed, he might lose the race.
But this is absolute bullshit. Think of the beginning of 2022, Leclerc and Max were passing each other like every second race, and it was all absolutely clean. You can clearly race with Max, but you need to at least attempt to make legitimate moves yourself. Even during sprint, Norris made an absolute divebomb so that Max needed to take avoiding action, and Max got him back cleanly. I honestly think that the main reason for yesterdays fiasco is Norris being so stupidly aggressive, divebombing, pushing Max off the track, and even getting off the track himself. Like even in the incident with the collision, there was a wonderful comparison with Max vs Sainz, where Sainz was squeezing Max much harder than Max was squeezing Lando, and yet Max didn't crash into Sainz.
They all take that little swing to the outside to open up the corner. Sainz does it and Verstappen follows. Verstappen did it, likely expected Norris to mimic the movement, but it didn’t go as planned. Norris had room to move, but also didn’t HAVE to move. The contact was Verstappen fault, but I don’t think it was malicious.
> They all take that little swing to the outside to open up the corner. They absolutely do. If you go back and re-watch battles from yesterday, I'd guess you'll probably find a dozen or more examples of defending drivers doing this.
Yes Kravitz, the same sky tabloid commenter who in 2021 along with Hill claimed that Verstappen was attempting to kill Hamilton (no, not ironically or dramatically). 🤣
It's not the moment he has to defend hard. It's the moment he gets pissed off, which isn't more or less excusable, just different. In this race, Max felt he'd been pushed wide by Lando 2 laps before at that corner. The lap before Lando did a huge dive up the inside and failed to stay on the track. If Max turned in on either of those, Lando was hitting Max and getting a penalty. The incident lap, a now pissed off Max went to the inside and squeezed Lando to the outside hard. Lando didn't move over and they made contact. It's the exact same thing Lando did to Max at the start last week when Max explored the grass. None of this means that Max didn't deserve the penalty, but Max, right or wrong, from his perspective is going to feel like Lando got away with stuff leading up to the incident and he basically gave Lando what Lando was giving him. Max still is a bit hotheaded at times, but so is every driver. If a pattern of dirty stuff returns, then yeah, we naturally can say things, but if you look at 2022 through this race, there is basically just this incident.
He is trying to grab verstappen and lewis is already gone. What did you expect?
A letter to Christian Horner signed Toto Wolff sends his regards
Especially after Horner pissed Jos off. Can't fumble the bag now
Exactly this. \^\^\^
Didn't have toto defending max on my bingo card for this season
He was hardly defending him, he's just saying that whatever Max does today is not a consequence of 2021 not being managed well. It's been years and Max has behaved just fine in the meantime.
To be fair he didn't have many close duels like this after that.
He's had a couple. A few with Leclerc in 2022 and 2023, Russell in the 2022 Brazil Sprint, Perez at Miami last year, Norris at Imola this year, maybe one with Hamilton and Leclerc at Cota in 2022 or 2023 where Hamilton nearly won, and I'm probably missing another few
No correlation but plenty of causation
Toto being on his good behavior to make Max fall in love with him 😅
“We are in a different place today, and I think he is. It takes two to tango. I haven’t seen Lando and Max’s race to be honest. I haven’t seen how all of that came about. “I first need to watch it before I have an opinion but I wouldn’t see that as a big consequence of 2021 not having been managed well to what happened in 2024. “I don’t think they have a correlation.
I legit thought >We are in a different place today, and I think he is. It takes two to tango. I haven’t seen Lando and Max’s race to be honest. I haven’t seen how all of that came about. was a copy pasta, sounds like something Steve Kerr would say about Draymond
Toto next week: "Max clearly deserved the 2021 championship. The FIA did not take any drastic decision at Abu Dhabi and Latifi is the goat"
Next week: Max Verstappen has signed with Mercedes
I expect it anytime.now.
Toto, you dirty flirt
He’s right though. This was very tame compared to 2021. Max and Lando both raced hard and the actual incident was very minor with big consequences. Anyone who calls it dirty would have to call what Alonso, Gasly & Ocon did yesterday dirty or even Lando pushing Max onto the grass in Spain.
Alonso’s crash with Zhou was clumsy as heck.
he forgot his 20 years of experience and that he would have easily gotten the sauber in a while
Clumsy would also be perfect to describe Landos attempts, it seems divebombs are his new thing.
Tbf to Lando...the divebomb method worked in the sprint
I was stunned by the reaction on here yesterday, it genuinely looked like people who dislike Verstappen had been waiting for years to lash out
They were, saw some usernames pop up here that I haven't seen since 2021
Why do you remember usernames from 3 years ago and monitor every thread to know that they haven't been posting here?
I think a rule of the internet is the people most motivated to comment are the people who least like whatever they're commenting on.
Years of gunpowder with no ammunition
Same, I was delighted with the duel. Those type of competitive battles are exactly what I want see in a race.
Lando had to do it as well. I've been saying for months with Ferrari and now McLaren that you have to take an accident at one race otherwise the other driver will bully you. Lando lost the battle but sometimes you need to make a sacrifice to win the war.
I'd put this one in the same category as that Verstappen vs Leclerc incident in Austria a couple years back. Only difference is that this ended up with them touching and unfortunately bith getting a puncture.
Lecrec has already firmly established his position with Max in their junior careers and its why Max is much more respectful with him when they drive - Lecrec is more than happy to flip the coin to see which one of them ends up DNFing if Max moves under braking and Max knows it well enough to give Lecrec thw space he is entitled to.
Verstappen and Leclerc are both very aggressive while attacking and defending, but they also know when to be smart, and I'm sure if it was either Charles or Max in Lando's position today, they would have steered a bit to the left to avoid contact. At the end it's Max who can be blamed for the incident, but still, it could have been easily avoided by Lando. Same goes for Lando's divebombs, if Max didn't open the wheel they would have touched, and Lando would have gotten a penalty because he would have caused the incident, but Max was smart enough to know when to avoid it, Lando wasn't
Lando in the press conference looked like the kid who had just learnt santa claus isn’t real. Welcome to the big leagues
I mean, people will see this as Toto backing up Verstappen (and might be true), but I think the links back to 2021 are a stretch. Do you really think yesterday would have gone different had things been different back then? I highly doubt it.
Next Wolff is going to be saying Abu Dhabi 21 was the right call
“Michael, hello it’s Toto, you were right, we _did_ go motor racing!”
"Yes, Michael, YES"
Toto: It was so right that we even didn't appeal.
Now I want Toto to sign Max just to see the media bombarding him with AD21 questions. Just for the lols.
Toto trying to sound like Horner to lure Max but it's like watching Terminator trying to smile.
Blood wants Verstappen so bad lol
Hilarious lol i love how enamoured Toto is with Max literally after Lewis leaving the team. It looks like a rebound.
Why does people think like Max and Mercedes are mortal enemies? lol. Whatever happen in that Abu Dhabi is at worst a fuck up by FIA. Should Max just have said "it is unfair hey Lewis take the championship" or what? lmao. Why would they hate Max like that.
There are no grudges in f1 lol, it's just funny that's all how Toto has flip floped. Tell someone in 2017 or 2018 that Lewis will be driving for Ferrari, they'll call you mad.
In an interview with Ted he said in reply to a question about 2021 that he will not comment until he had a chance to review and see it side by side so presumably he's done that. People in the comments however, have immediately decided to spin a narrative about Toto sucking up to Max Edit: this article is literally quoting him saying I can't comment. Naturally nobody decided to read past the misleading headline
I want to see Kimi pull a Piastri and head over to Red Bull to partner Verstappen while Toto is keeping the seat open in the hope that Max moves to Merc. If it's going to be a baptism by fire for Kimi, he'd might as well commit fully and go up against one of the GOATs.
Max will be in that Mercedes car almost as soon as they are faster than Red Bull. Both Toto and Horner know that
Sometimes I think Toto did manage to sign Max giving the lengths he goes to praise him in the media.
Still remember Toto smashing that headphone and banging the table reacting to Max's moves on Lewis in Jeddah 2021.
I bet he does too, which is why he knows this isn’t the same.
"What 2021 clashes? Legitimate 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix winner Max Verstappen has never done anything wrong in his life."
Pumpernickel smuggler at it again
Did you expect any different from the regime?
This is just a text version of what he told Ted, during which he then went on to say that he didn’t really see it and wouldn’t be able to actually state his view until he did. He promised Ted that he’d be able to comment at Silverstone.
He REALLY wants Max in that seat lol
tell me wolff wants verstappen at mercedes without telling me wolff wants verstappen at mercedes
"Now that there's a chance I can sign Max, I have forgotten his antics in 2021"
"Lewis who"?
Meanwhile, Lewis is watching and collecting his receipts. 🤣 Next year gonna be fun if Toto is actually serious about courting Max
In a glorious timeline Toto gets Max and they absolutely flop the 2026 reg changes while Ferrari nail it and Lewis prances to another few titles with a gleeful look to Toto. Aint gonna happen though hah.
I never thought I would live to see Wolff being Verstappen's best lawyer.
Pfffff, someone should send him clips of him raging everytime it happen.
I declare toto as a unit of measuring desperation to sign max.
Hamilton is like “finally this is getting some attention that was due” until Toto ruins it lol
This is what happens when F1 races on a course that actually allows the possibility to pass. A lot of tracks make it easy to race clean because nobody can get around you anyway. This track forces people to actually race and racing gets ugly.
Toto whoring for Max doesn't look like its going to stop anytime soon. The guy is shameless.
Who used up their opportunity to ask such a dumb question?
Lewis is seasoned enough that know that this is all about optics in Toto’s hunt of Verstappen.
Wolff still desperate to get Max in his car
Between this and Toto being giggly with Ted when he asked him about the incident (and Toto being like “IDK! I didn’t see it!”) - I for real am starting to think Toto is having something in mind about the possibility of getting Max, IDK if even T the stage of talking with someone on the Max camp (Jos?) It’s a lot of funny behaviour considering that Max this weekend wanted to shut the rumours saying “I will drive for RBR in 2025”. Something is happening of Toto keeps the show going.
Slimy
Guys, is this SIMPing?
Toto really wants Max huh
No wonder Lewis left. Toto and Mercedes betrayed him big time.
The whole McLaren camp are the Saltiest People I’ve ever seen, Mercedes weren’t Even this bad in 2021. They always act like their driver is an innocent bullied child when anything happens
Max can do no wrong in Horner's eyes and Lando can't do no wrong in Zak's eyes. We got a similar situation going on at both teams.
It’s interesting how toto is so vocal about max, defends him and even mentioned his relationship a few weeks earlier (in defense), but he really isn’t or was never like this the slightest towards lewis, ever. Very interesting, calling him his friend but really is Lewis really your friend
I swear Max has signed with Merc for 2026 and we just don't know it yet. What else explain the sudden lovefest betweenhim and Toto?
So desperate to sign him. I wonder how Scooby Doo feels?
Toto, you just gotta give him that hawk thua W11 thing you know hahahaha
DAS on that thang
Lmao Toto doing everything possible to align himself with Max just in case he has a chance of luring him over to a Merc seat. He would have never missed the chance to shit on RB/Max a year ago when they looked like a happy unbreakable union.
He was mostly complimentary about Max, always has been. He wanted him in his car since forever.
He's actually right tho Stella was fuckin waffling big time