The F1 thread

sinbaadi

Sadly he's obviously just an arrogant twat who's grown up being told he will be world champion and nobody can stand in his way.  Unfortunately it comes across as utterly desperate every time he's under any pressure. 
He does seem fast, at least compared with Perez (the only valid benchmark this season) but Perez is certainly a bit of a journeyman and RBR are definitely backing their strongest contender completely so I'm sure it's not even a perfectly level playing field.  I doubt that in "equal" equipment he would be made to look quite so hot by the likes of LeClerc, Sainz, Norris, Hamilton, Russell, Ricciardo, Alonso.


Ultimately RBR have put their car at the front, not Max, and Max is cracking under the massive pressure to deliver what might the only opportunity of his career, no guarantees for the future (ask Fernando, post-Renault).

Fretwired

Boromedic said:

Here's hoping Max tries some ridiculous move at Abu Dhabi and gets taken out of the race. Karen and others were saying Max is brave with his bold moves, I'd say it's more he dives in and knows the pack will avoid him so he gets away with it most of the time. It's not bold or clever it's playing the odds as he's been fortunate most of the time. Like his cheeky tactics with going wide and then saying he lost control, it's dirty and unpredictable driving which is why he lacks respect. 

The irony in all this is he's a great driver, he doesn't need to do it. Not to mention Horner saying they miss Charlie and need him back in race control, yet Charlie would have penalised Max probably worse than Masi did. 

The only person Max will crash with is Hamilton as no doubt they will be on the front row of the grid. Everyone else will give him a wide berth. Had Charlie still be around he'd have dealt with this earlier in the season - Masi and the stewards have brought some of this on themselves with their inconsistent decisions that have left drivers confused as to what is allowed.

That said it's given F1 a boost - my sports mad son phoned me up this afternoon to discuss it. It doesn't usually watch F1 as he thinks its boring but as news of the action filtered through he tuned in and will watch the climax next week. For the neutral it had everything.

Simonh

and therein lies the problem, liberty media want eyes on the sport and don't much care how they get it. Drama like this pulls in those eyeballs and media coverage, "real" fans that want to see clean hard racing will suffer for it.

skullfunkerry

stickyfiddle said:

Yeah, Jr is a much better driver than his dad was, but still a twat...

And judging from the shots in the garage yesterday, his dad is as good at wearing a mask as he was at driving

Boromedic

Fretwired said:

Boromedic said:

Here's hoping Max tries some ridiculous move at Abu Dhabi and gets taken out of the race. Karen and others were saying Max is brave with his bold moves, I'd say it's more he dives in and knows the pack will avoid him so he gets away with it most of the time. It's not bold or clever it's playing the odds as he's been fortunate most of the time. Like his cheeky tactics with going wide and then saying he lost control, it's dirty and unpredictable driving which is why he lacks respect. 

The irony in all this is he's a great driver, he doesn't need to do it. Not to mention Horner saying they miss Charlie and need him back in race control, yet Charlie would have penalised Max probably worse than Masi did. 

The only person Max will crash with is Hamilton as no doubt they will be on the front row of the grid. Everyone else will give him a wide berth. Had Charlie still be around he'd have dealt with this earlier in the season - Masi and the stewards have brought some of this on themselves with their inconsistent decisions that have left drivers confused as to what is allowed.

That said it's given F1 a boost - my sports mad son phoned me up this afternoon to discuss it. It doesn't usually watch F1 as he thinks its boring but as news of the action filtered through he tuned in and will watch the climax next week. For the neutral it had everything.

Unfortunately that's the problem!! I agree completely with all you said.

Simonh

I wonder if it is possible to work out if Max hadn't done the second application of brakes whether Lewis would have hit him?

Fretwired

Simonh said:

I wonder if it is possible to work out if Max hadn't done the second application of brakes whether Lewis would have hit him?

I don't think Lewis would have hit Verstappen had Verstappen not braked hard. I just think Max had a red mist moment as he thought Hamilton wasn't going to pass him before the DRS detection line. The stewards saw it as a clear-cut infringement although Marko disagrees.

roundthebend

Simonh said:

I am begining to think Max doesn't posses the capability to drive clean, his driving "style" is so ingrained with him and he is used to such leeway from the stewards and other drivers that he can't drive any other way. Ocon last year is a perfect example of this.

I'm relatively new to following F1, what's your Ocon comment referring to. He seems like a really decent chap, solid driver though unlikely to be a world beater because he won't get into the right car to find out.

Simonh

Ocon was re-passing max to unlap himself, so no affect at all on Max’s position in the race and yet Max still had to pull a move that meant the cars collided.

and he the physically assaulted the other driver at the weigh in

sammysaber

There were no clean hands in this race - Hamilton, Verstappen, their two teams, and especially Masi and his FIA owners.

And could it have ended any better - both cockroaches equal on points to finally settle the battle at Yas.

Let's hope no one gets seriously hurt - the last thing we need is these morons becoming some sort of martyrs.

Fretwired

Interesting take on Verstappen .. if you're a fan don't watch ... :-)

Boromedic

I didn't realise this, but listening to the Chequered Flag podcast was interesting. The race was stopped for the Schumacher crash for the equivalent of 3-4 laps at safety car speed, and the barrier wasn't replaced. They didn't need to red flag the race, so the race director created a lot of the drama by doing so, unnecessarily in some people's opinions.

Max is dangerous, because he plays by different rules than the rest and he literally is saying let me through or we're both out of the race.

Emiel

sammysaber said:

There were no clean hands in this race - Hamilton, Verstappen, their two teams, and especially Masi and his FIA owners.

And could it have ended any better - both cockroaches equal on points to finally settle the battle at Yas.

Let's hope no one gets seriously hurt - the last thing we need is these morons becoming some sort of martyrs.

True on that. It was incredibly exciting to watch, but it was an absolute mess.

Masi wasn't in control. Which race director says to a team whose driver has broken a rule "alright, we'll give you the opportunity to restart the race behind Hamilton, or we will take it to the stewards"? No, YOU are the race director, YOU dictate the rules. Pathetic.

Yes, Max violated the rules into turn 1 twice and evidently braked too hard in order to get behind Hamilton so he could get DRS, for which he got penalized too.

But Mercedes and Hamilton were just plain unsportive as well, with Bottas deliberately slowing down during the virtual safety car, and Hamilton pushing Max off the track after overtaking him. If one gets penalized for one thing, why not penalize the other for doing a similar thing? It just baffles me.

And, I do feel that this track didn't provide a good opportunity for these fast cars to overtake into corners. It just looks far too narrow and the slower corners are too tight. Especially the first corner was always going to be a mess. All these new Tilke tracks with tarmac run-off areas just kill the racing, because drivers know they wont get stuck in gravel traps etc. Bring back the old circuits!

TimmyO

Marko apologises https://www.planetf1.com/news/helmut-marko-saudi-arabia-incident-apology/

TimmyO falls off chair 

danishbacon

TimmyO said:

Marko apologises https://www.planetf1.com/news/helmut-marko-saudi-arabia-incident-apology/

TimmyO falls off chair 

That headline is misleading. He's sorry that his engineers passed on incorrect information to him, it's a different kind of apology.

TimmyO

Here’s one I’d be interested in folks views on:

Who are the multiple-world-champions who you CAN’T point to multiple instances of things that suggest they lack (or at that time lacked) integrity. 

Obviously Senna, Prost, Schumacher are out. Hell, even good-guy-Seb is out. 

Who else is out?

Who does it leave? 

sweepy

TimmyO said:

Here’s one I’d be interested in folks views on:

Who are the multiple-world-champions who you CAN’T point to multiple instances of things that suggest they lack (or at that time lacked) integrity. 

Obviously Senna, Prost, Schumacher are out. Hell, even good-guy-Seb is out. 

Who else is out?

Who does it leave? 

Graham Hill, Jimmy Clark, Fangio to name 3, ok different era but still valid 

stickyfiddle

Mansell? I was only around and aware enough for his 1992 season but he always seemed pretty clean. Not actually multiple. 

Hakkinen was always good - certainly compared to Schumi

Haych

Was Button known for dirty driving? I don’t really recall but he doesn’t stand out as one of those who used dirty tactics - I could be wrong.  What about Lauda?  Well before my time, mind, so could be well off the mark.

I agree, Hakkinen was pretty decent.  Did Raikkonen play dirty?  I'll miss him, F1 needs more characters like Raikkonen.

dazzajl

Hakkinen, Alonso and Raikkonen were all in the hard but fair category. Unless I’ve forgotten some poor moves and assuming you believe Alonso didn’t know anything about ‘that crash’.