2018 Formula 1 Season

Has Max got through a race this season without some stupid incident with his over aggressive driving style?

Seriously, he can be extremely frustrating to watch at times. Feel bad for Ricciardo.

Agree, he did seem faster and he has twice the points in the standings. IMO they should have told Max to let him by. My heart goes out to Bottas for sure, right at the end of the race like that...demoralizing.

I think Niki said it best - the drivers should foot the bill. Bet this wouldn't happen a second time! Max took it too far this time. I like his aggression and gung ho attitude but only to the point it becomes dangerous....too many times he has caused some eyebrows to be raised before he plunges down the inside without regard for others.

There are lies, damn lies and statistics. If the commentator had said Sergio Perez was the most successful Mexican driver in terms of podium finishes he would have been right. What he said was that Sergio was the most successful of all time.
Sergio took 140 starts for his 8 top three finishes, whereas Pedro had 7 from 54 starts, just over double the hit rate. The points per start would take too long to work out because of the vastly different scoring system in modern F1.
Of course the win to start ratio doesn’t work for Sergio because he has never won a GP, whereas Pedro had 2 victories from his 54 starts one of which was a Spa which in those days was a real test of a driver.
It may not be fashionable these days to consider motor sport outside of F1 but back then all the big names competed in the major sports car races as well as F1 and just a few of Pedro’s victories were:

24hrs of Daytona (twice)
1000km Monza. (twice)
and 24 hrs Le Mans 1968 in the JW Automotive Ford GT40.

There is no doubt that Sergio is a good driver, but the most successful Mexican driver of all time? This is why there is so much discussion about the greatest driver of all time, it is fiendishly difficult to compare drivers from different eras.
My own all time hero is the great Jim Clark who I saw race many times in all sorts of machinery, and if it all held together there was always a fair chance he would win.

I don't think Ric was faster all race, the only part where he could catch up was corner 1, never has he challenged Max in corner 2 or 3, where also a lot of moves were made during the whole race, also Max was pulling away until Hamilton appeared in front of him after his pit stop, there he was clearly being held up. He had a 4,5s lead on Ric.

Nevertheless stupid move, though if you see Max' onboard, I don't think he steered quiet as aggressive as it looked on Ric's onboard.

On the US broadcast they did say in terms of podiums. It was a quick caveat like "Sergio is now the most successful Mexican driver" and then he corrected himself by quickly and quietly saying "in terms of podiums".

Wow what a race! Red Bull drama was fun to watch, nice to see Vettel go "all in" and not play safe. Massive bad luck for Bottas. Lewis extremely fortunate to get karma payback for his "lost" Melbourne win.

Some general comments on the season so far:
It is amazing how cars enter and drop out of the tire performance window during a race...seems to be a real knife edge balancing act for each specific compound set and track temperatures.

I have to say the way Bottas is performing (performance not actual results), it would be incredibly unfair for him to lose his seat next year at Merc. He seems to be the perfect no. 2 driver you could wish for...pushing Lewis hard this year but with no politics and focused on being a team player. Kimi also has gained speed vs Vettel but seems to be making too many silly mistakes. He might just need one race win to fully regain confidence.

Max seems to have lost some credibility in the pit lane with the over aggressive moves on track, and I think this could be a defining year for him in terms of learning when to back off. Daniel has demonstrated great race craft (Baku being the exception, of course), but still seems to lack qualifying pace, perhaps he is still struggling to switch on the the tyres for a Q3 lap?

Great to see the Renault team fighting with Red Null (pun intended) on pace this weekend. McLaren seem to have dropped back the midfield order. Williams were looking a compete disaster, so nice to see them winning their first points. Also happy to see Leclerc have a solid weekend and get over the initial F1 jitters.

Most teams usually have significant aero updates for Barcelona...so for the next GP I think we could see some changes in the pecking order, especially in the mid-field.

As per above post....


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The Ferrari now has ' ears'

...Or boggly ' eyes ' , depending on your perspective.

Was wondering the same. What problem did they have, others didn't, and that is the most efficient solution. I'm pretty sure Sauber are still using lollipop sticks