Motorsport

It's rather like when Michael Gove defended Dom Cummings' method of 'testing his eyesight'.  You can see he knows exactly how disingenuous he's being.

Disingenuous is exactly the word. Little weasel that he is.

Can’t see Lando winning more than 1 more tbh. I don’t think the WDC makes it to the final race.

Next season has some serious potential though…before we change the rules again 😄

www.autosport.com/f1/news/russell-19-out-of-20-drivers-aligned-on-f1-racing-guidelines-changes/10667725/

Who could the mystery dissenter be?

Again very 2021 when I'm pretty sure we were told the exact same thing after a GPDA meeting.

Obviously now it's affecting more than one team they're all banding together. They didn't give a fuck when Max was revving his wheels on Hamiltons head in 2021.

www.the-race.com/formula-1/red-bull-f1-telemetry-verstappen-norris-mexican-gp/

"There's been a reaction to last weekend, and I think it's very important for the stewards and the drivers to sit down, because if I show you here on the GPS [showing the run down to Turn 4], what you can see is that the orange line is Lando's fastest lap of the grand prix, [from] the point he is braking for Turn 4 and then obviously executing the corner.

"What you can see is that on lap whatever it was that's been the incident with Max, he is 15km/h faster, and later on the brakes, than his fastest lap of the grand prix.

"He wouldn't have made the corner. He would have run off track. You can see from his onboard steering.

"And of course at this point of the race he's got probably 80kg more fuel than at the point that he's done his fastest lap."

Again, it's inconceivable that Horner doesn't know full well that he's making a false equivalence.  It's superficially convincing to people that don't know motorsport, but insulting to those that do.  Just bad faith arguments that seek to manipulate the uninformed and play to their base.

To state the relatively obvious: T4 is not an isolated fast corner leading onto a straight, instead it forms the first part of a chicane with T5.  On a normal hot lap the optimal line through T4 involves sacrificing speed to be able to stay left on exit and open up T5 for the quickest overall laptime (can see this on Sainz pole lap).  

So actually it's reasonable to assume Lando could easily carry 15kph more speed and still make the corner as he was doing the opposite to a typical hotlap.  He was sacrificing the T5 exit in favour of just getting to T5 first.  Use all the road on exit of T4, rather than half as normal.  The media has to be calling Horner out on shit like this.  Do basic journalism, don't just write down what someone says, interrogate it.

When Horner submitted that arguement, did he accidentally attach a picture of his tiny penis?

Norris was only a penis’ length in front of Verstappen at the corner, so it doesn’t count!

Quite interesting to see how far Red Bull are willing to go to land Colapinto. It does make a lot of sense for everyone involved except Perez. I guess it just depends on what Williams will accept and whether Carlos Slim is also willing to transfer some of his funding to Franco. Apparently he might as there's some sort of sponsor relationship between them already, but if he doesn't the combined costs of dropping Perez and getting Colapinto could be $20m! Hell of a lot to spend on a rookie for your B team.

It's all so ludicrously self inflicted from Red Bull. The way they've managed this is a joke. There were plenty of drivers better than Perez on the market for next year. Sainz especially. Even Bottas is still available as a proven solid number 2 who qualifies well, even if his race pace could be inconsistent, he's a far better package than Perez. Hulkenburg you'd back to take more points than Perez through consistency.

The lesson to take from the success of Colapinto and to some extent Bearman and Lawson is that F2 form is no longer as good a predictor of F1 potential. I guess they've seen Hadjar in their car and don't rate him, but what about Drugovich or Porchaire or Illot who would also be available on the cheap and have done well in FP1 sessions? Why not try to find another Colapinto from the many overlooked F2 talents that they could get if they want a rookie in the Minardi next season?

Yeah I think that's mostly fair. I guess my point is similar to yours, they've got themselves into this position by not aiming as high as Merc, Ferrari and McLaren do with their choices for the second car and then compounding that with poor management regarding the incumbent.

The only team mate Perez had convincingly established superiority over was Stroll. Otherwise he's been a perfectly decent F1 driver, who had a super power of making one stops work to get results in midfield, which enabled him to often overcome qualifying deficits. Fine, but not what was required at RB. What they really should prioritise in my view is one lap pace. Get someone who can qualify the car vaguely where it should be and worst case they'd finish 8th most weekends.

It's crazy because I don't think Max needs preferential status, he's fast enough to win in a straight fight against almost anyone.

Maybe Red Bull don't trust him. Have we ever seen Max cleanly racing a team mate lap after lap like Ham and Russell on Sunday? Perhaps that's what this ultimately boils down to. Perceived risk that Max will race his team mate the same as he races the others if threatened, which admittedly is a team principle's nightmare. Still seems mad to sacrifice the WCC though, given it's the bigger one for the teams.

Bottas would be ideal for them, really quick over a lap but not threateningly fast on Sundays and compliant in wheel to wheel battles. Would probably leap off the road to avoid Max and grumble quietly and ineffectually to himself after, before repeating the next weekend.

Suppose their argument ie Verstappen x2 would be that with someone decent in the seat you *could* get a 2016 type scenario where with a lot of fortune and circumstance the other bloke snakes a title that you feel is yours. If Redbull had dominated rather than Merc from 2014 to 2021 and their drivers were Hamilton and Rosberg Hamilton wins 8 on the spin imo. As the better driver he’d have just been favoured.

It does seem a strange tactic though to throw away potential WCC when you are in effect only there as a marketing tool for a drinks manufacturer.

I don't follow MotoGP these days but this is a hugely impressive stance to take:
www.the-race.com/motogp/bagnaia-not-willing-valencia-motogp-title-shot/

I think the organisers have since confirmed they won't race there but Bagnaia made his position clear first.

Several interestings things emerging post FP1:
- Bearman fast immediately
- Max will have a 5 place drop for the GP due to taking a new ICE
- Sergio has reverted to an older chassis so is not running same spec as Max. Seems like this is cost cap related, which is sort of fair enough given the number of times Checo has binned it or had avoidable contact this year. Apparently not enough spare parts for both drivers to run the latest spec. dangerousdave this is effectively what you postulated, albeit I don't think they are trying to slow Perez down, instead it's about not running out of spares for Max.