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I didn't pay much attention to the race. Put it on my phone while I watched NFL and followed our elections here.

Anyway,when I looked at my phone and saw the race showing an onboard of the 15th place, I knew it was not a good one. That's always a bad sign.

I guess Hamilton slept through it and when he realized he lost time he pulled that one just being cheeky hehe he was too far away to see Max pulling a gap

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

As I already said yesterday, you'd assume the computers would register it if Verstappen was above the delta. But then again, the FIA has proven on multiple occasions they cant even tie their own shoes even if it are velcro shoes so we'll never know for sure

There is degradation, max just drove way slower at the beginning of the stint. Then the tyres degrade but the fuel comes down too, so if you just keep hitting the exact same laptime. So basicly a whole race at 80%. If he needed it, I think he could have lapped significantly faster and made a 2 stop work. The softs at the end compared to the old hards of Hamilton would have given Max at least a 1 sec/lap advantage.

But Red Bull choose the less risky 1 stop unfortunately for the excitement of the race.

few drivers could do what Max with excellence. The ones I can point out are Prost, Lauda and Alonso

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

That’s not how VSC delta works, the tracks are split up into segments, and the teams are told the minimum time you can do in that section, that gives you the delta. So say for example, segment 1 is 15 seconds, and segment 2 is 27 seconds etc. The teams have this delta calculated in real time so know exactly how far ahead or behind the delta they are at a specific point on the track for that segment.

Lewis and Mercedes were the first to suss this out hence why you will often see Lewis go through the first part of a segment really quick then slow down in the second part to bring him back into the correct delta, he’s hoping it goes green before he has reached the “gotta slow down” point and can wing a time advantage out of it. Everybody does it, the loophole is deliberate.

Think of it how average speed cameras work, they don’t measure your speed through the average speed check zone, they measure the time you enter the zone and the time you exit it and if you are below a certain time, they know you’ve exceeded the speed limit. You could quiet conceivably enter a 50mph average speed check zone, drive the first half at 5mph, wait a couple minutes, then speed through the second half at 90mph and you will not get a ticket because as long as you don’t come in under the arbitrary 3 minutes and 17 seconds they’ve calculated it would take you to drive through the segment at 50mph on the nose, you’re in the good.

Same applies to VSC zones. Why they just didn’t do what WEC did and make it a maximum speed is beyond me. Only the teams will know if Max was ahead or Lewis got caught in his “gotta slow down” stage and didn’t react quick enough. The FIA haven’t a clue.

It does seem rather odd that they can't institute a maximum speed. Just have a VSC button on the steering wheel like the Pit Limiter button. The FIA can set whatever speed they like. Drivers still slow down like usual, hit the button and it automatically cruises along at the set speed, or gives them a plus/minus 5/10kph guide on the dash for them to do manually. Hell, if the drivers are going to complain that it effects them in a particular corner the FIA can automatically program in the speed on a corner by corner basis. If automatic no matter how hard the drivers press the go pedal it is only going to go at the set speed.

If manually and they are over the plus/minus 5/10kph limit then they get a penalty for not keeping to the VSC limit.

That surely means equality for all. Rather than this nonsense of drivers pushing like buggery at the beginning of a sector then slowing to a crawl at the end.

The issue with the sportscar system is that you can gain or lose substantial time depending on where you are when the FCY is thrown since they don't specify (unless it changed recently) a maximum time to reach the FCY speed, only that the car should continually decelerate to 80kph. So if you are doing 300kph down the straight when the yellow is thrown you will gain a substantial advantage to a car that was in a braking zone at the same time as you can simply take your foot off the throttle and let the car coast to the required speed.

In sportscars it's less of an issue due to the race lengths and general nature of the racing but it would be a disaster for F1. The delta system alleviates that issue but there are still tricks that can be played.

Then you give the drivers 5 seconds to get to 80kph or face a penalty.
Hell in this day and age they could probably calculate this in real-time and anybody who gained a small advantage by not slowing down fast enough is remotely slows until the gap is correct.

Or just stop using shitty systems and go back to using full safety cars, VSC is great for drivers, spectators not so much.

and now for the bonus stats that are better than the track action we had last weekend

-14th victory for Max Verstappen (a new record for most victories in one season)
-9th straight victory for Red Bull this season (equals 2013 streak from Spa to Interlagos - joint 6th best overall [McLaren still has all time record from 1988 - Jacarepaguá to Spa])
-87th podium for Lewis Hamilton without being a win (all time record set in Austria this year surpassing Raikkonen)

-1st time since 2016 that the polesitter wins at Hermanos Rodríguez

-33rd time Mercedes earns the fastest lap point since their inception in 2019

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

Despite winning the Mexican GP for the 4th time and often in a dominating way, it was Verstappens first (official) pole in Mexico

Another milestone set by Hamilton over Schumacher is regarding the number of starts, with 308 (4th all time)

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

The amount of time you could gain doing 300kph for 3 seconds then another two to slow to 80kph compared to a car already at 80kph is significant.

The current system is still fairer.

AFAIK VSC delta intends to keep gaps similar while hard speed limit would affect gaps more based on where the driver is.

Still more fair than a full safety car, for cases that are not serious enough to bring it out. Nothing is going to be 100% fair, and as Kimi said wisely, some days it's in your favour, some days against, and it evens out over enough time (granted, he was speaking about collision penalties, but this applies to everything)