If Checo can't get much out of the car, does the rumors that the car is built mainly for Max start to gain steam?
My man was about 15 laps past when the tires had any bite left in them. There’s really nothing he can do. Bigger pictures I’m actually impressed with Checo. His quali has gotten better and better, and sure he wasn’t in the mix. But neither was Bottas either. Max/Lewis in a field of their own, then maybe Checo/Bottas... Lando/Leclerc. There’s a reason they’re hyping this season as Max vs Lewis. They’re just otherworldly right now.
Once Norris was out of the way Checo’s race pace was as good as the top 3. I wouldn’t be claiming he “won’t catch up” just three races into a new car. Just look at how the other team switchers are doing.
I think Checo is fine. Very little offseason time for new drivers to test drive the new cars. you see a lot of those guys on the back foot at the start of the season.
Surprised y’all weren’t more impressed with what Checo did but I have no idea what I’m talking about.
Also I’m curious if Ferrari has buyer’s remorse with Sainz or if it’s still too early. He looks awful. But I also don’t like him.
not sure who else they could realistically get and i think ferrari is more charles being really really good than sainz being bad. out of the 20 drivers sainz is probably mid pack on ability and charles is only definitely behind lewis and max.
most impressive thus far if you don't include lewis and max is lando and it's not particularly close imo
I agree with this. Ocon and Alonso seem to be over performing and getting their wheels under them but I haven’t looked at any numbers to back that up.
i think they made the right call to let him marinate at haas for two years and then they can call him up if he is ready. no clue if mick is good because mazepin obviously doesn't belong anywhere near an f1 car. if he had wrecked perez after 6 blue flags he mightve been in serious danger of getting his license revoked.
mazepin did finish a race so that's progress if he went 0 for 3 while wrecking the race leader that would've been objectively hilarious
The big winner in all of this is Lance Stroll. He caught a lot of flack for daddy's money but he at least belongs on the track.
yeah he is decent and comes off ok in interviews. knows he is born with a silver spoon and doesn't try to pretend to be something he is not
I don’t think I can properly judge Mick at any point because of the love I have for his dad. A young Bankz was introduced to F1 right before he joined Ferrari. This is probably what NASCAR fans who loved Dale felt when talking about Junior. with that said I think Mic has done well. He’s putting laps in and finishing. That’s the goal. I think he has enough talent to get that second seat at Ferrari in a few years. Also shout out to Gio as he’s been doing much better than I ever expected and he flashed some in that Alfa on Sunday.
He’s still a bitch. Seb is washed. He proved that in the 2018 season when he gave away a title to Lewis.
It’s providing cover for the son imho. Look at the narrative about him changing already. Plus Seb is still a star off the track. He’s the new Kimi.
I don't agree with this at all to be honest. By all accounts he was a great mentor for Lando at McLaren and he'll serve as a perfect bridge for Ferrari until MSC (or another of their junior drivers) is ready to take his seat. He was P5 in Imola and qualified P5 this week. The poor Ferrari strategy is what cost him yesterday.
I don't think that should really be classified a rumor, it's a certainty. If anything could be considered a weakness of Horner it's his infatuation with Max. It's why I bet Riccardo doesn't even regret leaving. He knew as time went on Max/Jos' influence on the team would only grow.
Riccardo leaving was a good thing for Red Bull. He’s not a top 5 driver and that’s what they need to compete with Merc.
take a look at these two overtakes from Alonso (especially the one on Ricciardo). That Alpine PU is no joke.
It’s a bummer Haas needs the money because otherwise I think you’d see Illott in the other Haas and I’d love to see what those guys can do in equal cars. Maz has no business being out there. He’s bordering on dangerous. Stroll for all his shit was actually a podium finisher pretty much right away, and I’m pretty sure Latifi is another silver spoon guy who has done absolutely nothing either. It just stinks that there are for sure 2, to as many as 5 seats out of 20 that are purely because of the ability to bring in big money. Maz Latifi Stroll Checo - although going to Red Bull negates this pretty much Mick - got the Haas drive over others on talent, but also the last name/German market) Gio - Alfa told the team they wanted to keep the Italian driver in the car.
Most motorsports have the same issue with silver spooners to some extent or another because of the cost of getting into racing in the first place. So many of those guys' daddy had money to get them where they are now.
Better add Lando to this list. pretty sure Checo didn’t come from money. He just caught Carlos Slim’s eye and used that to his benefit.
Absolutely, but that's where most of the passes were being made on track on Portugal. Ocon was top of the speed chart too. The overtake on Ricciardo in particular is pretty impressive, given McLaren is running a Merc engine. Look at the difference between the Alonso overtakes here and the Verstappen straight line run on Bottas when MV had DRS but the Merc didn't. Alpine has some real straight-line speed. Will be interesting to see how the upgraded package translates to other tracks, but I think they made a clear statement this weekend that they are above Aston and Alfa Romeo and proper contenders for the midfield.
Stroll gets a lot of shit and I'm not necessarily a fan of the guy, but his last year before F1 he absolutely smashed F3 (spec series). Won the Championship going away above guys like Russell and Ilott. Latifi was the clear pay driver prior to this year and Mazepin has obviously only lowered the bar further, but I think it's disingenuous to lump Stroll into this category.
Like any data point in F1, they have to be taken in context. I think Norris' low speed can be attributed to the fact that he was running primarily in clean air and was nursing his tires given he was the only one on the soft-medium strategy who really made it work. By the time the fuel loads were low enough to be setting highest speed/fastest laps, Norris was relatively comfortably in 5th and focused more on bringing his mediums to the finish, rather than pushing the car to the limits.
Seems to be growing smoke that Indy will host a second US race this year with worries about races in Brazil due to covid
That wouldn’t make much sense to go back there again. From what I read, I’ll try and find it. They’ll take the fly away containers and ship them from Austin to Indy. Go to Mexico City between and do a big “American” swing.
I was reading that Penske did a lot of changes to the road course at Indy, so I think if they got a race because of covid like reasons somewhere else, I’d be a huge way to show that maybe the US deserves 3 races. Let alone two. The first two races so far this year had about a million viewers each, and have put rated all the races last year. I think the market is there, and I’d definitely look to go to Cota or Indy to see F1. Especially since both cities have shown they can host huge events like that.
north america hosting 4-5 events is already wild considering all these people live and are based in europe