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This races big problem was Perez. The fact that he was stuck behind Dan for 40 odd laps just did nothing for Red Bull, meaning Merc could do whatever they wanted. I like Perez and thought that he would be doing a much better job than what he is....but he is doing pretty much the same job as what Albon was doing.

Like Dan the mantra of "he just needs time" doesn't cut it for me when you are racing at the sharp end. You have to deliver and be much closer to your team mate than what they both are. You don't get the luxury of time. He cost Red Bull big time in this race.

So based on that logic Mclaren should have kicked Norris midway through 2019 as he wasn't really up to Sainz's pace, and Renault should have dropped Dan at about the same time. Not like those relationships produced highlight results through giving them time to gel did they? You can't compare how quickly drivers were able to adapt to new teams 5 or 10 years ago to what they're doing now, testing is so much more restricted now than it was then. By midseason these guys should start to be judged against their established teammates, but right now the goal should not be throwing away points opportunities. Not everyone has the luxury of the Verstappen approach of being fast, wrecking out of half of the races but having Jos as dance mom to bully the team into ongoing support.

And Perez's biggest error was not making the most of the start; everything after that is just Barcelona. He made one of the most impressive passes of the race on Ric, while plenty of other guys weren't able to make a pass all race.

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Don't you dare bring that up again! Paid for the overseas trip, paid excellent seats at turn 1, for my first ever attendance to a GP and a child's dream coming true. I thought you could not get it wrong with Canada

Agree on yesterday's race though, it had suspense for the win and for some other positions. It manages to make us forget that there are still 3 distinct groups of teams that are 15 to 30s away from each other in terms of race pace, but within those groups there is enough position changes and fighting that there is still something to follow during the race.

Now we only need Perez to join the top 4, and Hamilton to have a bit of bad luck so that the championship remains close. Still, I won't even be mad if Hamilton wins by a far margin, as long as he is forced to fight hard after them like in the past two races.

@

Philthy82Well it is well established that we have completely different opinions on the matter. I totally get what you are saying, and in lesser teams on the grid, yes, everything you pointed out stands true.

Put it to you this way. Do you think McLaren or Red Bull wouldn't think twice by signing Dan and Perez if they were upfront that they need half a season to be "comfortable" in the car and that for the first half they would be way behind their team mate? No. They would choose the guy that says, hell yes, I'm ready.

I'm in no way saying that they won't eventually get there because I think they will. But we saw today, Perez by ballsing up qualifying and his inability to pass Dan early potentially cost his team a victory today. You think Red Bull would say OK to that before signing?

Ferrari's bonehead strategies aside, Sainz is showing how it should be done.

I don't think Kvyat was that bad a driver - he would likely be doing a better job than Tsunoda, although Yuki has plenty of time to improve.

Difficult to judge Perez so far. I had hoped that he would be within a couple of tenths of Max and putting some pressure on Bottas. I feel like he has started off better than Albon or Gasly. Decent recovery drive in Bahrain. Outqaulifying Max in Imola, but a poor race with mistakes. Not too far off the pace in Portugal (leaving him out for ages cost him a ton of time, but I think he was only 10 seconds behind Max before the pit stops), and then compromised in Spain by a poor qualifying session - allegedly he was unwell.

I think the reality is that Mercedes are still much faster than Red Bull over a race distance. Max is doing an exceptional job to split the Mercedes, and Lewis is doing an exceptional job to be that much faster than Bottas. Bottas and Perez are where a lot of drivers would be in the same car, in my opinion.

After 3 years of Red Bull concluding repeatedly that they've chosen the wrong second driver, you have to ask does their definition of the right driver exist? Who do they or anyone here think would do better? Put Norris, Sainz or the like in that car and I think we'd be seeing the same performances over the same period of time. Anybody better than that (and we're talking maybe the best 3 drivers in the sport) wouldn't want to drive for Red Bull and put up with this shit.

The reason Mercedes has both drivers 'in the fight' is because they've built a car so dominant (even this season) that their drivers don't need to go balls out every lap to be up front. It's becoming pretty obvious that Red Bull have produced a car that's probably closer to the midpack than to Mercedes, and Max flatters them by driving the car in a way that apparently another driver can't just show up and do in a few races. Articles like this piss me off because it shows Red Bull feel they are entitled to have 2 drivers at the front when they've probably been producing a car that should be competing for the top 6, and after 3 years they still haven't learned a fucking thing.

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Red Bull seem to be in an infinite Benetton 1994 loop.

One car and driver are outstanding and the second one is nowhere. Max is an outstanding driver and was evenly matched by Dan until halfway through 2018, then it seems something happened internally with the other seat.

lack of testing are really hurting drivers in a new team

funny that Russell jumped right away into a Mercedes and was able to win

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Motorsports trend for 2024: everything is a bad taste joke now

Some would say the 2nd RBR seat is cursed or that it's just a coincidence.

That's a lot of coincidences though.

the curse was given by Dr Marko when Fittipaldi struck his eye with a rock

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Motorsports trend for 2024: everything is a bad taste joke now

On a track with three slow speed corners and a chicane you don't really get a good idea how he might have done on a regular circuit.


I believe driving style differences and how different cars are designed for certain driving styles might have things to do here. Maybe Ricciardo was able to adopt to same car as Max while others struggle to keep the thing fast and on the track pointing the right direction. Perez was also fast with RP but is now suddenly struggling with RBR.

Russell was learning F1 driving with a car that had aerodynamic and mechanical grip issues, then got to drive the car that's best on those categories while still having the same power unit and gearbox.

And Gasly has got more podiums and wins with Alpha Tauri than with the Red Bull. And knowing Helmut Marko, if Gasly would have been shit on the data, he would have just thrown him under the bus rather than giving him another seat.

So in my opinion this has to be more down on how different cars handle and who can get the best out of that particular character and Mercedes is quite likely the easiest car to handle while Red Bull has more extreme and on the edge package.

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"Indy doesn't give you a second chance. You have to earn it."

I don't know if anything can save the racing at Barcelona, but please let this happen. This + 2022 regs might help a little bit. Even if it doesn't, I will be happy to never see cars going through that chicane ever again.

https://www.grandprix.com/news/f1-not-r ... e-axe.html

Not that I would *ever* suspect F1 of forgetting, but I remember that the main reason for adding the chicane in the first place was to slow the cars down through the final corner, given that they can't move the grandstand further away and the previous layout invited some nasty crashes there as a result...

have we had bad crashes in the final corners in the past?

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Motorsports trend for 2024: everything is a bad taste joke now

Montermini.

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Dan Wheldon ¦ 1978-2011
Marco Simoncelli ¦ 1987-2011
Jules Bianchi ¦ 1989-2015
Justin Wilson ¦ 1978-2015

Yeah, I know he's mad and I don't care. I do not care. I did not care then. I do not care now. I'm here to race him.

Montermini is the obvious one. Maybe a Sauber in the mid 90s as well? There was a huge roll in a Formula BMW race there, but the chicane may have already been in place.

Yes, Frentzen demolished his Sauber in the warm-up in 1996.

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Dan Wheldon ¦ 1978-2011
Marco Simoncelli ¦ 1987-2011
Jules Bianchi ¦ 1989-2015
Justin Wilson ¦ 1978-2015

Yeah, I know he's mad and I don't care. I do not care. I did not care then. I do not care now. I'm here to race him.

Mario Haberfeld 2000.

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"Indy doesn't give you a second chance. You have to earn it."

It wasn't just for safety, it was also because the cars were losing way too much ground in the dirty air of the car in front so the chicane was brought in to try and improve overtaking into T1 (lol)

Chicane or flat out corner, whatever you do there, this track sucks

And I've said it before and I'll say it again, when you have Gasly, Kvyat, Albon and now Perez, maybe the problem isn't the driver of the 2nd car but the way you set up your cars.
Setting up a team completely around 1 driver equals just having that one driver at the front

Those drivers are better than that car allows them to show. They've won in lesser machines, for christ sakes
When they get over Adrian's philosiphy of "I'm doing what's best for the aero and to hell with driver comfort/stability or anything else, maybe they'll be the full package like Mercedes

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RIP Birmingham Wheels: here's some of the crash videos I recorded when it was there:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIaKIE ... 5t9d5PvoHA

Twitter:

http://www.twitter.com/paulhadsley

Wasn't the Raikkonen testing crash of 2005 the final catalyst for those corners to change?



The Frentzen crash and damage was more down to just the crappy tyre wall construction of the mid 90's. Would be a sizeable hit today, but without as much damage.