1 | 1 | Max Verstappen | Red Bull Racing Honda RBPT | 66 | 1:27:57.940 | 26 |
2 | 44 | Lewis Hamilton | Mercedes | 66 | +24.090s | 18 |
3 | 63 | George Russell | Mercedes | 66 | +32.389s | 15 |
4 | 11 | Sergio Perez | Red Bull Racing Honda RBPT | 66 | +35.812s | 12 |
5 | 55 | Carlos Sainz | Ferrari | 66 | +45.698s | 10 |
6 | 18 | Lance Stroll | Aston Martin Aramco Mercedes | 66 | +63.320s | 8 |
7 | 14 | Fernando Alonso | Aston Martin Aramco Mercedes | 66 | +64.127s | 6 |
8 | 31 | Esteban Ocon | Alpine Renault | 66 | +69.242s | 4 |
9 | 24 | Zhou Guanyu | Alfa Romeo Ferrari | 66 | +71.878s | 2 |
10 | 10 | Pierre Gasly | Alpine Renault | 66 | +73.530s | 1 |
POS | NO | DRIVER | CAR | LAPS | TIME/RETIRED | PTS |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 1 | Max Verstappen | RED BULL RACING HONDA RBPT | 70 | 1:33:58.348 | 25 |
2 | 14 | Fernando Alonso | ASTON MARTIN ARAMCO MERCEDES | 70 | +9.570s | 18 |
3 | 44 | Lewis Hamilton | MERCEDES | 70 | +14.168s | 15 |
4 | 16 | Charles Leclerc | FERRARI | 70 | +18.648s | 12 |
5 | 55 | Carlos Sainz | FERRARI | 70 | +21.540s | 10 |
6 | 11 | Sergio Perez | RED BULL RACING HONDA RBPT | 70 | +51.028s | 9 |
7 | 23 | Alexander Albon | WILLIAMS MERCEDES | 70 | +60.813s | 6 |
8 | 31 | Esteban Ocon | ALPINE RENAULT | 70 | +61.692s | 4 |
9 | 18 | Lance Stroll | ASTON MARTIN ARAMCO MERCEDES | 70 | +64.402s | 2 |
10 | 77 | Valtteri Bottas | ALFA ROMEO FERRARI | 70 | +64.432s | 1 |
Yep, Perez has blown two qualifying sessions now. Not good, having a rough time which looks even worse when Max is curb stomping the field in the same car. Definitely like the Vettel/RB v8 run. Damn those engines sounded soooo much better.The Perez choke in quali is destroying him.
Interesting to see that McLaren might be back in the race, and challenging even Ferrari now.
Probably not in Hungary though.
In the Mercedes glory days, usually the number two driver was right up there, which makes Max' display take me back to Vettel's 2013 dominance, where the other car was nowhere to be seen.
Also, Aston Martin, what happened? If you want to stay ahead of McLaren and Mercedes, you need to give that car a bit more speed.
Having Lance in the car, while it was clearly second fastest cost them so much of that early advantage
Yep, Perez has blown two qualifying sessions now. Not good, having a rough time which looks even worse when Max is curb stomping the field in the same car. Definitely like the Vettel/RB v8 run. Damn those engines sounded soooo much better.
Upgrade season is shuffling around the pecking order a bit right now - also there's track to track variations for most teams (better on straights, not corners - better on fast corners, worse on slow corners, etc.). Only RB has a balanced enough car to handle all tracks well right now. Newey was right to focus on the suspension this year - tire wear is excellent. I would really like to see Merc, Ferrari, McLaren and Aston Martin closer to each other, and closer to RB - but that may not really materialize till next year.
Then all the cards get thrown into the air for 2026, and we get to see where they land - hope the new hybrid system doesn't have terrible drivability.
McLaren's upgrade was a huge boost for them, and , as you point out, Silverstone is really an ideal track for their current car. I was thinking the same thing about Perez - no reason he should finish off the podium unless there was a track incident that affected him. He's had some good recovery drives, but that's not good enough for RB really. His head probably isn't in the right space right now - at least with a two year contract, he should be able to get out of it quickly enough to be solidly in 2nd place in the driver's championship.Oh, 5 sessions, lol. No matter how you look at it, he hasn't made Q3 in 5 straight weekends, and he should be at P2, 3 at the very least in every race. There are no more reasons for him not to be, really.
He's been pretty damn good in those races, most things considering and some really really well, tbh, but qualifying has completely ended him. I feel like his head is fucked about it.
I also don't know how Aston has seemed to let the air out so quickly. Not like they're out of 2nd, just....not staying there like they showed early on. McLaren does look legit though, for some reason but honestly--2 great weekends from them and the way Lando was able to stick to Max is something we hadn't seen yet (granted, probably their best track all season, but whatever. At least that's something!). But It really is that they seem to have figured out degen better than anyone else....unless for some reason it's whatever that compound they were using for H was last weekend. I forget which C, heh. Just Uncanny how it seemed to work very much quicker and longer for McLaren compared to everyone else. Very, very strange. Ferrari still doesn't seem to have figured that out completely. For both cars, anyway.
Leclerc's racecraft is top notch, better than Norris and about equal to Alonso (or, so it seems - it may be just that Alonso has to give up positions because it's not worth the battle against faster cars). It is true that Leclerc is making more mistakes, kind of like Vettel at Ferrari. Piastri is the looking like the cream of the crop of the rookies this year.Yeah, Ferrari has been hilarious for two seasons--maybe not as bad as last year as what seems to have been a better car suffered much more from terrible team strategy and race decisions.
Honestly, I'd put LeClerc at ~5th, with the obvious + Alonso and maybe even Norris? in front of him. The dude is fast as hell and a superlative qualifier--I think the best qualifier of the current generation--but he still makes too many mistakes in races (his own--not just his team). Still, he's one of those that deserves if not a better car, a better, more consistent team behind him to keep him in the running. I think Albon is in the same boat, and of course I would have also said Norris as well, but maybe they've finally figured it out there. Speaking of, Piastri really is looking solid.
POS | TEAM | PTS |
---|---|---|
1 | RED BULL RACING HONDA RBPT | 860 |
2 | MERCEDES | 409 |
3 | FERRARI | 406 |
4 | MCLAREN MERCEDES | 302 |
5 | ASTON MARTIN ARAMCO MERCEDES | 280 |
6 | ALPINE RENAULT | 120 |
7 | WILLIAMS MERCEDES | 28 |
8 | ALPHATAURI HONDA RBPT | 25 |
9 | ALFA ROMEO FERRARI | 16 |
10 | HAAS FERRARI | 12 |
POS | DRIVER | NATIONALITY | CAR | PTS |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Max Verstappen | NED | RED BULL RACING HONDA RBPT | 575 |
2 | Sergio Perez | MEX | RED BULL RACING HONDA RBPT | 285 |
3 | Lewis Hamilton | GBR | MERCEDES | 234 |
4 | Fernando Alonso | ESP | ASTON MARTIN ARAMCO MERCEDES | 206 |
5 | Charles Leclerc | MON | FERRARI | 206 |
6 | Lando Norris | GBR | MCLAREN MERCEDES | 205 |
7 | Carlos Sainz | ESP | FERRARI | 200 |
8 | George Russell | GBR | MERCEDES | 175 |
9 | Oscar Piastri | AUS | MCLAREN MERCEDES | 97 |
10 | Lance Stroll | CAN | ASTON MARTIN ARAMCO MERCEDES | 74 |
11 | Pierre Gasly | FRA | ALPINE RENAULT | 62 |
12 | Esteban Ocon | FRA | ALPINE RENAULT | 58 |
13 | Alexander Albon | THA | WILLIAMS MERCEDES | 27 |
14 | Yuki Tsunoda | JPN | ALPHATAURI HONDA RBPT | 17 |
15 | Valtteri Bottas | FIN | ALFA ROMEO FERRARI | 10 |
16 | Nico Hulkenberg | GER | HAAS FERRARI | 9 |
17 | Daniel Ricciardo | AUS | ALPHATAURI HONDA RBPT | 6 |
18 | Zhou Guanyu | CHN | ALFA ROMEO FERRARI | 6 |
19 | Kevin Magnussen | DEN | HAAS FERRARI | 3 |
20 | Liam Lawson | NZL | ALPHATAURI HONDA RBPT | 2 |
21 | Logan Sargeant | USA | WILLIAMS MERCEDES | 1 |
22 | Nyck De Vries | NED | ALPHATAURI HONDA RBPT | 0 |
Allow me to make a rare comeback!Guess it's just you and I left in this thread zin.
Hey, how's it going Rick! Well, Red Bull will still push development on the next two cars because being number one in F1 is the bestest feeling on earth. Why risk ending that streak early? I do hope to see more wins by Ferrari, McLaren and Merc at least; otherwise it's a bit boring. It's much better when Driver/Constructor champs crowned till the last or second to last race.Allow me to make a rare comeback!
I wonder how seriously some of the teams are going to be taking 2024/25 now. I guess Alpine/Aston/Ferrari/McLaren will try to keep pushing, but below and above, does it really make sense to work hard on the car, if the 2026 car will be the one that will just matter so much more? Especially with the huge gap RB are enjoying in race pace.
Whether Andretti can convince the existing teams to be allowed to join the fray will also be interesting.
Sure, the days of 26 cars on the grids weren't exactly the glory days, but with the budget cap, it should be possible to make the case for the 11th team. Also, with so many great F2 champions not being able to go for an F1 seat, and GP Academy being a thing - more seats in F1 would be a good thing.
Also, two re-brandings. The new Sauber name makes me cringe already, and let's see what the Italian Red Bull will be named...
About Hamilton. I’d hope the man has some integrity.And that's two pole positions in a row, with a car that "is really stronger in the race".
I'm still amazed how much Checo is struggling, doesn't look like he recovered from last year's humiliation over the winter.
Daniel Ricciardo also isn't really making inroads into Yuki. If he got a wake-up call after Bahrain and manages to chill down a bit before reacting to what's going on around him, then he'll be in the Red Bull next year.
One of the other drivers that consistently manage to surprise me is Zhou - he is kind of anonymous in the Sauber, but his performances are generally pretty good. He is qualifying on the level of Valtteri, who is known to be very quick on a single lap, and he does mega races as well - but then he puts it in the wall in FP3, and the pundits are already saying that he won't be there, when Audi takes over team management.
Also: the F1 field is insanely close this year - closer than the spec support series. How??? F1 Academy has pole gaps of half a second, F2 has bigger gaps - sure the teams also have different resources in regards to chasing the right setup, and the skill-spread is a bit steeper in F1 Academy, for sure. Yet the gaps we see in F1 (except for Max, and maybe Alpine) are so tight that it's almost commonplace that some pair of drivers in the quali standings is split by a handful of milliseconds, and hundredths have become the new tenths....
Just looking at the Aston Martin and McLaren trajectories across last season - if you find or don't find .2 of a second, that can easily drop you from the podium out of the points..
Also, Lewis is driving like Vettel at Ferrari in 2020...
I wonder if he's already trying to put Ferrari on second in the championship.
I really don't like these early season announcements for driver changes in the next season, it puts such a huge question mark on everyone's motivation.
Ferrari can snag some poles and there are always mishaps that let somebody sneak in a win even if that is Perez.
*laughs in Ferrari*Maybe a backmarker will crash out Max or something but other than that, I don't see any opportunity for him to not finish a race with the way reliability is these days for the top teams.