1444 replies to this topic

[PrinceBira]

Hadjar is the only rookie that doesn't have much of a benchmark in terms of an experienced, proven quality team mate this year so not saying he isn't driving well but it's easier for him not to look inconsistent than for others.

He compared very well against Tsunoda didn’t he?

[Mc_Silver]

Not really. It’s 5 races and 2 sprints.
If you’re getting the wins that should be easily possible at most races, you’ll be gaining around 8 - 10 points per weekend.
Fairly sure Maxs was lead was in the 50 point region this time last year.

Lando and Oscar take points off each other as they don't have the luxury of Max where the team solely focus on one driver. This creates a completely different dynamic between two. People should be careful not to lose context and perspective while comparing certain things.

Edited by Mc_Silver, 04 May 2025 - 09:48.

[zeph]

Given all the semantic superlatives, that were used by some people to describe the RB19, the 2025 McLaren for now is at least "dominant" by that standard. 

 

Nah, the McL is the quickest car, but not dominant. The RB19 would finish the race like 30 seconds ahead of the pack. Even the quali gaps were bigger than they are now.

[Button4life]

That’s basically true though. Put Max in a McLaren and most people wouldn’t be tuning in tonight because he’d be winning all the races.

Well you can go to bed early. McLaren has won 4 of the 5 races. Unless it rains, I don’t see any reason they won’t win today too.

[Mc_Silver]

Nah, the McL is the quickest car, but not dominant. The RB19 would finish the race like 30 seconds ahead of the pack. Even the quali gaps were bigger than they are now.

Perez finishing 2nd 50 points ahead of Lewis says it all I guess

[PrinceBira]

Lando and Oscar take points off each other as they don't have the luxury of Max where the team solely focus on one driver. This creates a completely different dynamic between two. People should be careful not to lose context and perspective while comparing certain things.

I agree and I have said numerous times I think that is a mistake from an optimizing point of view.

@Heyli said it nicely in another topic. Norris and Piastri both have their biggest wdc rival in the same car. So in qualifying they’ll be tempted to push 99.9% instead of 99.5% as this increases the chance of beating their team mate. However, the risk of mistakes is also higher.

Verstappen has it much easier relatively. He’ll be pushing 99.5% all the time, making consistency in Q easier for him.

The winning strategy is 1 lead driver and a strong second driver (particularly in Q).

If Mclaren loses the WDC this year it will be partly because of their driver philosophy.

[Anderis]

He compared very well against Tsunoda didn’t he?

Just 2 weekends, which included being outqualified by 6 places in Australia and crashing out on lap 1 while Tsunoda was on course for a top6 finish if not for a bad strategy, and also finishing 13th in China sprint where Tsunoda finished 6th, so he still had plenty of bad moments despite such a small sample. He had good moments too but we were talking about consistency here.

[Button4life]

I agree and I have said numerous times I think that is a mistake from an optimizing point of view.

@Heyli said it nicely in another topic. Norris and Piastri both have their biggest wdc rival in the same car. So in qualifying they’ll be tempted to push 99.9% instead of 99.5% as this increases the chance of beating their team mate. However, the risk of mistakes is also higher.

Verstappen has it much easier relatively. He’ll be pushing 99.5% all the time, making consistency in Q easier for him.

The winning strategy is 1 lead driver and a strong second driver (particularly in Q).

If Mclaren loses the WDC this year it will be partly because of their driver philosophy.

I expect this season to be more like 2010 than 2007. The fastest car wins the WDC because the advantage in races is too big. Even Vettel couldn’t throw away the championship.

[jacdaniel]

Well you can go to bed early. McLaren has won 4 of the 5 races. Unless it rains, I don’t see any reason they won’t win today too.

Yeah I think they’ll likely 1 2 it. But I have to watch and hope Oscar rear ends Lando into T1 or something ha

Or maybe rain drama or something

[PrinceBira]

Just 2 weekends, which included being outqualified by 6 places in Australia and crashing out on lap 1 while Tsunoda was on course for a top6 finish if not for a bad strategy, and also finishing 13th in China sprint where Tsunoda finished 6th, so he still had plenty of bad moments despite such a small sample. He had good moments too but we were talking about consistency here.

The consistency comes with races, the speed normally shows early.

In Australia he was 1 tenth behind Tsunoda in qualifying. In China he already beat him (6 tenths, but 2 tenths faster than Tsunoda’s Q2 lap).

His speed is benchmarked against Tsunoda. His consistency is now starting to show vs Lawson.

We need to look a bit deeper than ‘he’s got no benchmark’.

[PayasYouRace]

Blimey, if this isn’t dominant I’d hate to see what is.

I’d generally say that if you have a dominant car, you tend to be at the front even if you make little mistakes. This isn’t happening with McLaren right now. Their car isn’t far enough ahead to absorb driver errors. Therefore, not dominant.

[LiJu914]

Lando and Oscar take points off each other as they don't have the luxury of Max where the team solely focus on one driver. This creates a completely different dynamic between two. People should be careful not to lose context and perspective while comparing certain things.

 

If we annul all results from Oscar then Lando would be 11 points ahead of Verstappen right now, instead of 10.

 

If we annul all results from Lando then Oscar would be 13 points ahead of Verstappen right now, instead of 19. 

 

 

So having a teammate, who is "nowhere", ain´t great for  WDC-arithmethics either.

Edited by LiJu914, 04 May 2025 - 10:08.

[PrinceBira]

I expect this season to be more like 2010 than 2007. The fastest car wins the WDC because the advantage in races is too big. Even Vettel couldn’t throw away the championship.

IF the relative speed of the teams remains as it currently is, you are definitely right.

However, we have a substantial TD coming into force in Spain. That coúld shake things up. Also: totally new regs next year. Some teams might start focusing on ‘26 earlier than others.

It’s not a given Mclaren will retain its advantage. It’s an uncertain factor. And we have seen last year: if you have an advantage you need to exploit it 100% the moment you have it.

[Button4life]

Red Bulls were fast enough for Perez to qualify and finish in the top 3 consistently. That shows how dominant it was.

[Heyli]

I’d generally say that if you have a dominant car, you tend to be at the front even if you make little mistakes. This isn’t happening with McLaren right now. Their car isn’t far enough ahead to absorb driver errors. Therefore, not dominant.

i disagree at least partially. I think they have gotten away with Little mistakes generally (only not in Japan). It were the bigger mistakes that were the Problem. They quite comfortably won 5 out of 6 races and Seen to have a racing speed edge on all types of tracks.

[RedRabbit]

2023?

So the most dominant os all time is the minimum now?

[Showty]

Shall we expect any rain for today's race?

[cyclist]

Hadjar is the only rookie that doesn't have much of a benchmark in terms of an experienced, proven quality team mate this year so not saying he isn't driving well but it's easier for him not to look inconsistent than for others.

He was paired with Tsunoda in the first two races, who is certainly experienced and fast and he looked very good as well. He certainly surprised me and good to see he got his head in order after that rookie error in Oz.

[PrinceBira]

i disagree at least partially. I think they have gotten away with Little mistakes generally (only not in Japan). It were the bigger mistakes that were the Problem. They quite comfortably won 5 out of 6 races and Seen to have a racing speed edge on all types of tracks.

Exactly, both drivers have made various smaller and bigger mistakes, yet their win rate is 5 out of 6. That’s 83%.

Extrapolated to an entire year that would be 20 race wins out of 24.

Now, in which universe wouldn’t we call a car that wins 20 out of 24 races dominant?

[renzmann]

I’d generally say that if you have a dominant car, you tend to be at the front even if you make little mistakes. This isn’t happening with McLaren right now. Their car isn’t far enough ahead to absorb driver errors. Therefore, not dominant.

I hadn't thought of the McLaren being dominant (just the best car), but I happen to agree with your definition. And by that definition, yes, they have been mostly dominant. Little mistakes everywhere. Yesterday, there were big mistakes. The car couldn't absorb those.

[LiJu914]

Nah, the McL is the quickest car, but not dominant. The RB19 would finish the race like 30 seconds ahead of the pack. Even the quali gaps were bigger than they are now.

 

Maybe you misunderstood my post. I didn´t claim the Macca´s advantage is as large as the RB19´s was - but that car, was occasionally described as even better than the 2014-16 Mercs or even as the most dominant car ever.

 

By that standard the current McL would be a "usual" dominant car.

Edited by LiJu914, 04 May 2025 - 10:20.

[cyclist]

Red Bulls were fast enough for Perez to qualify and finish in the top 3 consistently. That shows how dominant it was.

So we need Perez in the McLaren to gauge how good it is?

 

Seriously though, anyone debating if McLaren is the fastest car OVERALL right now is just fooling themselves. The results speak for themselves. They were at the front every single race and could fight for pole in every one of them. All other teams from the top four were far more erratic in form. The Red Bull can be a fast car, but look at most races and the McLarens could almost always gap him. Red Bull did well on the faster smooth tracks in Japan and Saudi, so it might be the best car or equal to the McLaren in this area. It has more deficits though: the turn in understeer in slow corners, the traction out of slow and medium corners. This is why Max had to make the gains in the 1st sector as the car was just not up for it in the slower stuff.

 

Norris could have easily gotten pole by two tenths if he had not messed up the final hairpin, this is a simple fact. Oscar also did not deliver in this moment.

Edited by cyclist, 04 May 2025 - 10:25.

[Button4life]

[/quote] Team principal Andrea Stella says McLaren have now seen enough of a pattern to work out what has been happening to allow Verstappen to take three poles in six races.

"We have now enough statistics to confirm what was already our initial impression in Bahrain during the (pre-season) test," Stella said, "that the car was easier to exploit in terms of performance in race simulation runs, rather than on a single lap with qualifying trim and new tyres.

"We have seen that pretty much so far we haven't had any perfect lap.

"We are definitely trying to assess on a solid engineering basis our understanding so that we can make some adjustments that our drivers can test to see if we can give them a car that is just slightly more predictable and rich of information in terms of how the grip is when driving the car at the limit."

He added: "Just to make sure that my point is clear, it's a car that doesn't give you much 'cueing', which is the technical word we use, and this means that it's not easy for our drivers to repeat some big performances that we can see in individual laps. [/quote]

https://www.bbc.co.u...es/c99pz7ljz2ro

This explains the mistakes from the McLaren drivers in qualy this season. Norris has always been a strong qualifier. You don’t go from nailing qualy laps to messing up every lap overnight.

[Button4life]

Stella talking about the car’s behaviour after qualifying from yesterday:


“Team principal Andrea Stella says McLaren have now seen enough of a pattern to work out what has been happening to allow Verstappen to take three poles in six races.

"We have now enough statistics to confirm what was already our initial impression in Bahrain during the (pre-season) test," Stella said, "that the car was easier to exploit in terms of performance in race simulation runs, rather than on a single lap with qualifying trim and new tyres.

"We have seen that pretty much so far we haven't had any perfect lap.

"We are definitely trying to assess on a solid engineering basis our understanding so that we can make some adjustments that our drivers can test to see if we can give them a car that is just slightly more predictable and rich of information in terms of how the grip is when driving the car at the limit."

He added: "Just to make sure that my point is clear, it's a car that doesn't give you much 'cueing', which is the technical word we use, and this means that it's not easy for our drivers to repeat some big performances that we can see in individual laps.”

https://www.bbc.co.u...es/c99pz7ljz2ro

This explains the mistakes from the McLaren drivers in qualy this season. Norris has always been a strong qualifier. You don’t go from nailing qualy laps to messing up every lap overnight.

Edited by Button4life, 04 May 2025 - 10:34.

[Sterzo]

There is no driver in the grid who maximised every qualifying and race this season.

Or ever in history. Go back to Stirling Moss who, when asked how often he'd driven a perfect lap, said "Never." It's the nature of sport. The top guys must be way off the theoretical best performance. And those variations make it fascinating. It's why it's sport.

[Clrnc]

The floor Red Bull brought this week is a huge improvement. If Mclaren dont improve their car Max will win the title against

[IrvTheSwerve]

Red Bulls were fast enough for Perez to qualify and finish in the top 3 consistently. That shows how dominant it was.

Perez had a poor finish to his Redbull career, but he’s not (or at least wasn’t) a shabby driver. It’s not like we had a Luca Badoer on the podium every race.

[SophieB]

@MeteoMotorsport

MIAMI GRAND PRIX WEATHER FORECAST

 

Partly sunny with a moderate to high risk of scattered thundery showers. Individual showers will be hit or miss, and some could be heavy with lightning.

 

A day of radar watching awaits

 

meteomotorsport.com/f1

 

#F1 | #MiamiGP

[SenorSjon]

The floor Red Bull brought this week is a huge improvement. If Mclaren dont improve their car Max will win the title against

Really? He was gapped with ease yesterday.

[rodlamas]

@MeteoMotorsport
MIAMI GRAND PRIX WEATHER FORECAST

Partly sunny with a moderate to high risk of scattered thundery showers. Individual showers will be hit or miss, and some could be heavy with lightning.

A day of radar watching awaits

meteomotorsport.com/f1

#F1 | #MiamiGP

50% chance of rain
50% chance of no rain

The predictor always gets it right.

[Boxerevo]

Can i believe that Norris will dive at T1?

[Clrnc]

Really? He was gapped with ease yesterday.

He will gap the Mclarens with ease today. Clean air is king

[Mc_Silver]

Can i believe that Norris will dive at T1?

If he manages to get a good start, there is a good chance. I don't think it's wise to risk it all in T1.

[BillBald]

If we annul all results from Oscar then Lando would be 11 points ahead of Verstappen right now, instead of 10.

 

If we annul all results from Lando then Oscar would be 13 points ahead of Verstappen right now, instead of 19. 

 

 

So having a teammate, who is "nowhere", ain´t great for  WDC-arithmethics either.

 

I think you are neglecting the psychological factors.

 

Max knows that he has the team 100% behind him. They will sacrifice his team-mate's race, if necessary, to gain Max just one extra point.

 

Lando and Oscar don't have this, so they feel under a lot of pressure, even when the McLaren is clearly the best car, which is why they are making so many mistakes (and if the car is 'difficult', that makes it a perfect storm).

 

Lando feels even more pressure, because everyone sees him as the team leader, vs a less experienced driver who shouldn't be able to beat him.

[LiJu914]

I think you are neglecting the psychological factors.

Max knows that he has the team 100% behind him. They will sacrifice his team-mate's race, if necessary, to gain Max just one extra point.

Lando and Oscar don't have this, so they feel under a lot of pressure, even when the McLaren is clearly the best car, which is why they are making so many mistakes (and if the car is 'difficult', that makes it a perfect storm).

Lando feels even more pressure, because everyone sees him as the team leader, vs a less experienced driver who shouldn't be able to beat him.

I doubt MCSilver (whom i'd answered) meant by "taking points off each other" that they make each other worse performance wise by being closely matched, but just that there isn't always the same driver ahead.

[LolaB0860]

 

Partly sunny with a moderate to high risk of scattered thundery showers. Individual showers will be hit or miss, and some could be heavy with lightning.

 

 

Lighting within 30km radius of the circuit means delayed start for 3 hours

[Marklar]

I agree and I have said numerous times I think that is a mistake from an optimizing point of view.

@Heyli said it nicely in another topic. Norris and Piastri both have their biggest wdc rival in the same car. So in qualifying they’ll be tempted to push 99.9% instead of 99.5% as this increases the chance of beating their team mate. However, the risk of mistakes is also higher.

Verstappen has it much easier relatively. He’ll be pushing 99.5% all the time, making consistency in Q easier for him.

The winning strategy is 1 lead driver and a strong second driver (particularly in Q).

If Mclaren loses the WDC this year it will be partly because of their driver philosophy.

This is a factor that could apply, but at least Norris (Piastri is difficult to tell because until this year he was inconsistent in his pace to begin with) had this issue of not getting his quali lap together all his career, I've kept pointing it out whenever someone here said he is definitely better than Leclerc or Russell because "he puts his car where it doesn't belong" just because Ricciardo (and then later Piastri) was out of his depth.

I think most fans do the mistake of not paying enough attention to those small details when they sit in a midfield car or when they are the rising team, and really only look at the raw result, and then only do it once they are a championship competing car.

I am btw not hating on the guy with this, he has other strengths that puts him into the top 5 of the grid, but that they don't maximize their quali performance somewhat is not coming as a shock to me.

Obviously they are unlucky that Verstappen probably nails 90 % of his laps, thus exposing them better. Remove him from the equation and McLaren only loses the sprint poles.

[garoidb]

I think you are neglecting the psychological factors.

 

Max knows that he has the team 100% behind him. They will sacrifice his team-mate's race, if necessary, to gain Max just one extra point.

 

Lando and Oscar don't have this, so they feel under a lot of pressure, even when the McLaren is clearly the best car, which is why they are making so many mistakes (and if the car is 'difficult', that makes it a perfect storm).

 

Lando feels even more pressure, because everyone sees him as the team leader, vs a less experienced driver who shouldn't be able to beat him.

 

Max has won the title four times and isn't the favourite this year. That takes a lot of pressure off him. It's a bigger factor than having a compliant team-mate IMO.

 

I don't think people see Lando as the McLaren team leader any more (and not Oscar either). It will be interesting to see how Oscar handles the new pressure as it builds up on him (for example, if things start to go wrong for a while and his title lead reduces). It's going to be a long and interesting season.

[Ali623]

I agree and I have said numerous times I think that is a mistake from an optimizing point of view.

@Heyli said it nicely in another topic. Norris and Piastri both have their biggest wdc rival in the same car. So in qualifying they’ll be tempted to push 99.9% instead of 99.5% as this increases the chance of beating their team mate. However, the risk of mistakes is also higher.

Verstappen has it much easier relatively. He’ll be pushing 99.5% all the time, making consistency in Q easier for him.

The winning strategy is 1 lead driver and a strong second driver (particularly in Q).

If Mclaren loses the WDC this year it will be partly because of their driver philosophy.

Everyone has to push ‘99.9%’ because gaps between cars are super close. In many cases for example, it’s could be the difference between a front row start and P7/8. Definitely not exclusive to McLaren.

[Lazy]

This is a factor that could apply, but at least Norris (Piastri is difficult to tell because until this year he was inconsistent in his pace to begin with) had this issue of not getting his quali lap together all his career, I've kept pointing it out whenever someone here said he is definitely better than Leclerc or Russell because "he puts his car where it doesn't belong" just because Ricciardo (and then later Piastri) was out of his depth.

I think most fans do the mistake of not paying enough attention to those small details when they sit in a midfield car or when they are the rising team, and really only look at the raw result, and then only do it once they are a championship competing car.

I am btw not hating on the guy with this, he has other strengths that puts him into the top 5 of the grid, but that they don't maximize their quali performance somewhat is not coming as a shock to me.

Obviously they are unlucky that Verstappen probably nails 90 % of his laps, thus exposing them better. Remove him from the equation and McLaren only loses the sprint poles.

Daft. Norris qualifying record is very strong, you're just seeing what you want to see.

[PrinceBira]

Everyone has to push ‘99.9%’ because gaps between cars are super close. In many cases for example, it’s could be the difference between a front row start and P7/8. Definitely not exclusive to McLaren.

I strongly disagree, case in point is the difference in approach with or without banker lap.

99.5 or 99.9% risk is not P1 or P8, but more like a fraction of a tenth. It’s beating your team mate with 0.04 or not. Similar to which lengths Rosberg went in 2016 to get the tiniest edge on Hamilton (like not training his legs to reduce his body weight).

[zeph]

So the most dominant os all time is the minimum now?

 

Good morning, mr. Strawman.

 

Where did I say that?

[zeph]

Maybe you misunderstood my post. I didn´t claim the Macca´s advantage is as large as the RB19´s was - but that car, was occasionally described as even better than the 2014-16 Mercs or even as the most dominant car ever.

 

By that standard the current McL would be a "usual" dominant car.

 

 

I understand, fair enough.

 

This is devolving into an argument over semantics, what does ‘dominant’ mean, and there is no right answer to that. To me, the margins are so thin this year that the McLaren doesn’t look dominant to me, but it is the best and quickest car over all.

 

I just think some people in this thread overstate its “dominance” to emphasize the brilliance of their preferred driver.

[ray b]

local thunder storm 30 mile south of the track

lighting hard rain lost power briefly about an hour to start

 

but rain free start likely

https://www.accuweat...r-radar/2243453

[SophieB]

Race day thread is here: https://forums.autos...-2025-race-day/