4370 replies to this topic

[GlenWatkins]

This video simply demonstrates that Seb is a legend, didn’t even break sweat 😅

His knowledge of F1 history is well known. I would love to see his car collection

Edited by GlenWatkins, 23 April 2025 - 19:11.

[RPM40]

 

Very interesting video on Piastri's driving style and development. 

[Melbourne Park]

Yes this what I was going to say. Lando has more race speed than Oscar. Oscar has more mental strength. Should make for an interesting season.

This year there is no evidence at all of more race speed from Lando.

 

And when leading, going faster is only worthwhile if it opens up a pitstop benefit, there aren't even points this year for a fastest lap. At Suzuka, Oscar was wanted to be let by Lando and have an attack on Max. The team said no. Oscar wasn't slower than landowner's n that race, despite finishing behind Lando. When Oscar drove away at 1 second a lap in China after the safety car pitstops, Oscar was a heap faster than anyone else. But doing so had no reward, he'd been better to open up 4 seconds and then manage his lead. Some may then have celebrated his turn of speed, but I thought he should have just managed his lead, like he did in Saudi. But then Oscar is still learning. And if you want to think about race speed, look at Lando trying to overtake Hamilton at Saudi. Lando's incapacity to work out where he was on the race track was exasperating for all watching the race - I presume you were not - and it took him until two laps of being reposed by Hamilton's slower Ferrari until probably the team told him where to overtake. That cost stupidity or lack of capacity cost Lando a podium. Review too how Piastri passed Hamilton in a clean pass that lost Piastri no time. When in qualifying Q3, and Lando cutting the turn too deep, his wheel spun on the painted curbing, and instead of backing off, he kept it planted and tried to keep his pace. As he said immediately afterwards: "IDIOT". Its best to be able to drive with a little spare mental capacity in order to win a WDC. I've not seen much of that with Lando, just raw pace. 

Edited by Melbourne Park, 24 April 2025 - 00:12.

[mwf1]

I’ve got no doubt Norris will be back at the front challenging Piastri but it’s good to see Piastri has tidied up his qualifying performance and tyre management so he has the ability to go head to head with Norris consistently https://www.planetf1...king-title-lead

Edited by mwf1, 24 April 2025 - 07:51.

[Nobody]

I’ve got no doubt Norris will be back at the front challenging Piastri but it’s good to see Piastri has tidied up his qualifying performance and tyre management so he has the ability to go head to head with Norris consistently https://www.planetf1...king-title-lead

Oh man not Planetf1, the click baiting is so insane even the headlines barely make sense let alone the content of the articles

[rodlamas]

https://www.formula1...GqHtEAd1ZE.html

As I told you guys before the season: 2025 Mclaren has the best car and is by far the best team.

But the press will try to create any narratives that will hamper what will probably be an incredible campaign.

[Mc_Silver]

Our strongest asset is consistency. We have a car which is probably not the strongest in certain types of corners etc. but always close to the best which makes it an all rounder car. Drivers and engineers back at MTC are also doing wonderful job to make this happen. It's all about efficient team work. Stella and Zak knew this and they worked their arse off to bring team at this level.

[blakey]

This year there is no evidence at all of more race speed from Lando.

And when leading, going faster is only worthwhile if it opens up a pitstop benefit, there aren't even points this year for a fastest lap. At Suzuka, Oscar was wanted to be let by Lando and have an attack on Max. The team said no. Oscar wasn't slower than landowner's n that race, despite finishing behind Lando. When Oscar drove away at 1 second a lap in China after the safety car pitstops, Oscar was a heap faster than anyone else. But doing so had no reward, he'd been better to open up 4 seconds and then manage his lead. Some may then have celebrated his turn of speed, but I thought he should have just managed his lead, like he did in Saudi. But then Oscar is still learning. And if you want to think about race speed, look at Lando trying to overtake Hamilton at Saudi. Lando's incapacity to work out where he was on the race track was exasperating for all watching the race - I presume you were not - and it took him until two laps of being reposed by Hamilton's slower Ferrari until probably the team told him where to overtake. That cost stupidity or lack of capacity cost Lando a podium. Review too how Piastri passed Hamilton in a clean pass that lost Piastri no time. When in qualifying Q3, and Lando cutting the turn too deep, his wheel spun on the painted curbing, and instead of backing off, he kept it planted and tried to keep his pace. As he said immediately afterwards: "IDIOT". Its best to be able to drive with a little spare mental capacity in order to win a WDC. I've not seen much of that with Lando, just raw pace.

The 2nd lap of lewis and lando lewis braked checked lando cos lando was going to stay behind him but was forced to overtake cos of the brake check.

[jensfan09]

This year there is no evidence at all of more race speed from Lando.

And when leading, going faster is only worthwhile if it opens up a pitstop benefit, there aren't even points this year for a fastest lap. At Suzuka, Oscar was wanted to be let by Lando and have an attack on Max. The team said no. Oscar wasn't slower than landowner's n that race, despite finishing behind Lando. When Oscar drove away at 1 second a lap in China after the safety car pitstops, Oscar was a heap faster than anyone else. But doing so had no reward, he'd been better to open up 4 seconds and then manage his lead. Some may then have celebrated his turn of speed, but I thought he should have just managed his lead, like he did in Saudi. But then Oscar is still learning. And if you want to think about race speed, look at Lando trying to overtake Hamilton at Saudi. Lando's incapacity to work out where he was on the race track was exasperating for all watching the race - I presume you were not - and it took him until two laps of being reposed by Hamilton's slower Ferrari until probably the team told him where to overtake. That cost stupidity or lack of capacity cost Lando a podium. Review too how Piastri passed Hamilton in a clean pass that lost Piastri no time. When in qualifying Q3, and Lando cutting the turn too deep, his wheel spun on the painted curbing, and instead of backing off, he kept it planted and tried to keep his pace. As he said immediately afterwards: "IDIOT". Its best to be able to drive with a little spare mental capacity in order to win a WDC. I've not seen much of that with Lando, just raw pace.

Most drivers would keep there foot in on a Q3 lap, Lando just unlucky that the walls are so close, when was the last time Lando crashed in Qualifying??

If I remember correctly, Oscar was the last McLaren driver to crash in qualifying, didn’t see you mention that! Lol

Yes you can say in hindsight that Lando lost the podium in his fight with Hamilton, but you could also say Lewis ruined his own race by putting up such a robust defense on Lando when he wasn’t even who he was racing that day, look at how far apart they finished, wasn’t very smart from a 7 time world champion!

You could also say Lando wouldn’t have finished 4th either if Gasly and Tsunoda hadn’t crashed on the first lap, racing is racing, you take the luck when you can get it and you learn from the mistakes and improve.

[chhatra]

Considering the speed of Max and Charles 4th was always going to be the best Lando could achieve without a safety car or red flag intervention.

Time to put Saudi behind us.

[rodlamas]

Considering the speed of Max and Charles 4th was always going to be the best Lando could achieve without a safety car or red flag intervention.

Time to put Saudi behind us.

If Lando hadn't lost that amount of time with Hamilton, he would have been in Charles DRS. If he was going to overtake or not, another problem.

[Mc_Silver]

If Lando hadn't lost that amount of time with Hamilton, he would have been in Charles DRS. If he was going to overtake or not, another problem.

We can talk about a lot of ifs etc. Lando maximised everything on Sunday. As he said to Will, he just needs to sort his Q3 laps out then he will be alright.

[kumo7]

If Lando hadn't lost that amount of time with Hamilton, he would have been in Charles DRS. If he was going to overtake or not, another problem.

none said, and therefore i say that DRS detecting line there is at the strangest place, mostly due three DRS zones stacked up one after the other. In theory The guy behind at the corner entry is to have DRS. But there the line us after the apex directly on the DRS activation mouth, which punishes ‘normal’ overtaking. This is terrible for racing.

[Arska]

none said, and therefore i say that DRS detecting line there is at the strangest place, mostly due three DRS zones stacked up one after the other. In theory The guy behind at the corner entry is to have DRS. But there the line us after the apex directly on the DRS activation mouth, which punishes ‘normal’ overtaking. This is terrible for racing.

 

Or it helps you almost ensure that you make a pass during the drs zones if you start close enough and play your cards right. Provided the car you're trying to pass doesn't get DRS, of course.

[mwf1]

Oh man not Planetf1, the click baiting is so insane even the headlines barely make sense let alone the content of the articles

Amazing how you see the article as clickbait when it directly quotes Piastri as making a step up in qualifying from last year. “I think the hard work we’ve been putting in definitely has been making a difference,” he said. “I think I’ve felt comfortable in qualifying and it felt like I’ve taken a bit of a step up.“. But everyone is entitled to their own opinion.

[Afterburner]

if he even knows who that is...

Watching these (which I'd never seen before) I'm realising that all of my favourite drivers happen to be good at F1 trivia, too. Just a vibe I guess.

[blakey]

Just watching tactical Rob on youtube and boy he is terrible. Going on about oh did the new diffuser not work cos they took it off. God he knows nothing about f1. Terrible content creater. So anti mclaren

[mclarensmps]

Watching these (which I'd never seen before) I'm realising that all of my favourite drivers happen to be good at F1 trivia, too. Just a vibe I guess.

Meanwhile, all my favourite drivers know nothing about cars, let alone F1 trivia . I will never forget Mika driving the McLaren F1 yelling "you can hear the turbos whistling"

[Melbourne Park]

Most drivers would keep there foot in on a Q3 lap, Lando just unlucky that the walls are so close, when was the last time Lando crashed in Qualifying??

If I remember correctly, Oscar was the last McLaren driver to crash in qualifying, didn’t see you mention that! Lol

Yes you can say in hindsight that Lando lost the podium in his fight with Hamilton, but you could also say Lewis ruined his own race by putting up such a robust defense on Lando when he wasn’t even who he was racing that day, look at how far apart they finished, wasn’t very smart from a 7 time world champion!

You could also say Lando wouldn’t have finished 4th either if Gasly and Tsunoda hadn’t crashed on the first lap, racing is racing, you take the luck when you can get it and you learn from the mistakes and improve.

 

Most drivers weren't driving a top two pace car. And that lap was only the banker lap. He should have backed off, but he was on Piastri's pace, so he had a brain fade and did not back off. As he said immediately at the time: "IDIOT". And that micro second of ambition was idiotic. And those were Lando's words, not mine. And Piastri making mistakes in qualifying happens for sure, most particularly, at Suzuka when he blew the first corner. He should have had that pole. Yes, driver's make mistakes, but the micro second decision by Lando to not back off was idiotic. It seems to me that Lando drives at 101%, is totally focused, and there's no room for anything else left while he's on it. It makes him fast but in the fastest car, IMO it's not optimal driving. And if Piastri wasn't in the team, I don't think Lando would have to drive at ten tenths on a banker lap with the track still putting down rubber.

 

It all relates IMO to an issue that perhaps could be managed, but then, at what cost to the whole team?And that is what this thread is about: I don't view this thread as a driver versus driver thread. I see team management issues as a core management issue with McLaren, that the other top teams don't have to manage. 

 

And incidentally, comments about Piastri's tyre management - if one listens to the drivers during the race, you'll realise that Piastri's tyre management is a management issue. His race engineer give him feedback on corner management, in order to manage his tyres. In China a couple of times his engineer told him to take a different corner line in respect to tyre management. It seems too that Piastri is easy to manage from trackside. I reckon Lando is less easy to manage. I won't give the evidence, but there's lots of it. 

 

As far Lando's attempted overtaking of Hamilton: I was thinking at the time he should wait, but when he went for it, I thought OK we'll see ... but then straight away Hamilton overtook him ... and we had seen that same scenario with many drivers in the same race and corner before then. Then, stupid team, they should have assisted. However next lap, Lando tried it again. Everyone watching including me and no doubt you, thought that second attempt ridiculous. Loose a couple of tenths and pass where its assured we all thought after the first attempt. A second try was utterly stupid. Lando and his engineer would have known Lewis's mindset by then. But Lando tried it anyway. And then the team got on the radio to him, telling Lando the obvious, telling Lando where to pass Lewis. I haven't listened to the whole verbals between engineer and Lando for that race though, but I did hear the telecasted team engineer on telling Lando where to pass. Do you think Lando would have tried it a third time on that next lap?

 

As far as Piastri's overtake of Hamilton goes - there is no comparison, but IMO Piastri took Lewis by surprise. That overtake was the overtake of the race IMO. I did not think Piastri's overtake of Max was nearly as meritorious - the McLaren is now a supreme starting car, and I think Max spun his second gear. So the overtake really happened due to the start take off, not the first corner, it was a "game over" by the time they approached the corner. 

 

Your final paragraph is retrospectivity IMO. I have just been trying to talk about race speed, versus race craft. These things all happen in microseconds, and not many drivers in the decades I've been watching have the spare mental capacity to act optimally in those microseconds. It appears more and more that Piastri has that capacity. From what I have seen Lando hasn't. It seems to me too, that the team's attitude is to stand back and watch. But I think if Max was in Lando's position, and the team was Red Bull, that RBR would take action to optimise Lando's performances. I reckon McLaren just sits back and watches and tries to give equal support to each driver via their pit crews. It is possible that if RBR improves a bit relative to McLaren, Max will win another championship, and hence the McLaren results will not improve compared to last year. From the way McLaren are standing back, I reckon they are confident of keeping a margin to the rest of the field this year. Or maybe, they are just hoping. ..

Edited by Melbourne Park, Yesterday, 23:30.

[kumo7]

Just watching tactical Rob on youtube and boy he is terrible. Going on about oh did the new diffuser not work cos they took it off. God he knows nothing about f1. Terrible content creater. So anti mclaren

sadly anything can make anyone popular when anybody could say some hate-words smoothly, currently. reason enough for me to not to go into the path of the dark-side.

Edited by kumo7, Yesterday, 23:04.

[Lazy]

Most drivers weren't driving a top two pace car. And that lap was only the banker lap. He should have backed off, but he was on Piastri's pace, so he had a brain fade and did not back off. As he said immediately at the time: "IDIOT". And that micro second of ambition was idiotic. And those were Lando's words, not mine. And Piastri making mistakes in qualifying happens for sure, most particularly, at Suzuka when he blew the first corner. He should have had that pole. Yes, driver's make mistakes, but the micro second decision by Lando to not back off was idiotic. It seems to me that Lando drives at 101%, is totally focused, and there's no room for anything else left while he's on it. It makes him fast but in the fastest car, IMO it's not optimal driving. And if Piastri wasn't in the team, I don't think Lando would have to drive at ten tenths on a banker lap with the track still putting down rubber.

 

It all relates IMO to an issue that perhaps could be managed, but then, at what cost to the whole team?And that is what this thread is about: I don't view this thread as a driver versus driver thread. I see team management issues as a core management issue with McLaren, that the other top teams don't have to manage. 

 

And incidentally, comments about Piastri's tyre management - if one listens to the drivers during the race, you'll realise that Piastri's tyre management is a management issue. His race engineer give him feedback on corner management, in order to manage his tyres. In China a couple of times his engineer told him to take a different corner line in respect to tyre management. It seems too that Piastri is easy to manage from trackside. I reckon Lando is less easy to manage. I won't give the evidence, but there's lots of it. 

 

As far Lando's attempted overtaking of Hamilton: I was thinking at the time he should wait, but when he went for it, I thought OK we'll see ... but then straight away Hamilton overtook him ... and we had seen that same scenario with many drivers in the same race and corner before then. Then, stupid team, they should have assisted. However next lap, Lando tried it again. Everyone watching including me and no doubt you, thought that second attempt ridiculous. Loose a couple of tenths and pass where its assured we all thought after the first attempt. A second try was utterly stupid. Lando and his engineer would have known Lewis's mindset by then. But Lando tried it anyway. And then the team got on the radio to him, telling Lando the obvious, telling Lando where to pass Lewis. I haven't listened to the whole verbals between engineer and Lando for that race though, but I did hear the telecasted team engineer on telling Lando where to pass. Do you think Lando would have tried it a third time on that next lap?

 

As far as Piastri's overtake of Hamilton goes - there is no comparison, but IMO Piastri took Lewis by surprise. That overtake was the overtake of the race IMO. I did not think Piastri's overtake of Max was nearly as meritorious - the McLaren is now a supreme starting car, and I think Max spun his second gear. So the overtake really happened due to the start take off, not the first corner, it was a "game over" by the time they approached the corner. 

 

Your final paragraph is retrospectivity IMO. I have just been trying to talk about race speed, versus race craft. These things all happen in microseconds, and not many drivers in the decades I've been watching have the spare mental capacity to act optimally in those microseconds. It appears more and more that Piastri has that capacity. From what I have seen Lando hasn't. It seems to me too, that the team's attitude is to stand back and watch. But I think if Max was in Lando's position, and the team was Red Bull, that RBR would take action to optimise Lando's performances. I reckon McLaren just sits back and watches and tries to give equal support to each driver via their pit crews. It is possible that if RBR improves a bit relative to McLaren, Max will win another championship, and hence the McLaren results will not improve compared to last year. From the way McLaren are standing back, I reckon they are confident of keeping a margin to the rest of the field this year. Or maybe, they are just hoping. ..

"Lando drives at 101% but hardly ever crashes" 

 

Hamilton forced him to overtake the 2nd time round.

 

Piastri's overtake of Hamilton was just as risky as Lando keeping his foot in in Q but he got away with it.

 

You "reckon" the team are just sitting back and not working with Lando? lol