Formula 1 - 2023 Season

Let's see if Max can hold his temper starting somewhere in the back or will he go back to his old habits, should be fun
 
He’ll have Charles not too far ahead of him to focus his anger on. I think even Sainz is onto his second engine.

Should also mean Max won’t win every race this year, though I wouldn’t put anything past this RB (plus three DRS zones).
 
Well, Australia just signed up for ten more years of that madness. Interesting race because of all the wackiness (including the return of the standing restart—Masi was at the track both in spirit and in person). I was as gobsmacked as Spa last year when Max pulled a 2.8s gap in less than a lap after passing Lewis, but apparently Lewis backed off a bit as Max only outpaced 3rd place Alonso by 0.8s. It sounds crazy, but I guess Seb was pulling 20s gaps in his RB years.

The five second penalty on Sainz for the second restart was harsh for essentially a first-lap incident (in which several cars took themselves out of the race).

Spectacular mistake by Kevin and own goal by the Alpines. This race was one of extended DRS-assisted passes and vehicular carnage. Still strange to see a Merc finish not only on the podium but above Alonso. Hulkenberg almost finished fourth! In a Haas!
 
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The race was yet another disgrace. Red flag for some gravel on track?! Seriously? Next season we're probably cancelling races if anyone has spotted a single speck of cloud within 1000 km of the track :rolleyes:
 
I feel that was on Gasly and a lack of awareness (despite this year’s bigger mirrors). Ocon backing off could have invited someone to rear end him.

But my general impression of Ocon’s racecraft is better than, say, KMag’s or Max’s (tho Max did choose wisely on lap 1 T1 knowing he has by far the best car).
 
I feel that was on Gasly and a lack of awareness (despite this year’s bigger mirrors). Ocon backing off could have invited someone to rear end him.

But my general impression of Ocon’s racecraft is better than, say, KMag’s or Max’s (tho Max did choose wisely on lap 1 T1 knowing he has by far the best car).

lol

How many times has he made contact with team mates before? And that is not even counting the other times he got unnecessary involved in incidents.
 
True. It’s all a bit hazy now, but I put a lot of his contact w Perez on Perez. (I remember when Perez was with McLaren and dive-bombing people at the Nouvelle Chicane in Monaco and Kimi accepting the collision rather than avoiding the BS move. Perez always drove like he had something to prove despite his sponsorship backing.) I don’t think Ocon tangled with Ricciardo and I honestly can’t remember when Alonso and he collided (Brazil? Saudi Arabia?). Maybe I have a blind spot
 
He collided with three different teammates and managed to crash into the race leader while being lapped.

I just don't see how you could possibly say Ocon's race craft is better than Vertappen's. How many amazing races or over takes come to mind when talking about Ocon? Don't forget he's only been in f1 one year less than Verstappen.
 
Max crashed into Ocon. Just my perspective. Was that because his engineer didn’t warn him that Ocon was unlapping himself or because Max assumed the corner was his (see Silverstone)? I don’t know. My view of Max’s racecraft is colored by impatient attacking (Vettel in China) and late/poor defending (Ricciardo in Baku, Hamilton in Brazil). He has improved, probably (see T1 just yesterday), but that may be situational (i.e., he can afford to not win every corner with a monster car vs. having to scrap for positions with a merely competitive car). I admit he can analyze race situations faster than I can, he knows way more about corner positioning than I do, and he may just be playing his hand optimally (taking “risks” establishing a crash-or-yield persona knowing that rules are soft and racing is pushing the limits).

I’m not saying other drivers are perfect, and I’m probably glossing over Max vs. Charles fights last year in terms of whether Max has improved his wheel-to-wheel racing.

Like I said, maybe I’m finding excuses for Ocon. When I say his race craft is better than Max it doesn’t mean it’s good, more like it’s less bad. He gets crashy but, like Perez, it seems he’s crashing partly because he doesn’t want to yield (especially to a teammate) because he thinks he’s fighting for his F1 career. Part of the reason he may not be that upset at yesterday’s Gasly crash is because otherwise Gasly beat him over the weekend.
 
Stay classy, Max. I thought Vettel was the king of in-car adrenaline-fueled emotional outbursts, but Max's continue outside the car--even now, after two championships, driving the clearly fastest car and competing against a routinely slower teammate in a semi-meaningless sprint race.

Baku was an interesting choice of testing the new sprint race format. While I kind of like a sprint race (it's more interesting than a quali session and spices up the real race by reducing time to prep for the race), a second quali session isn't super exciting. There seemed to be much less obstructing as everyone came out at the same time on the same tires. I thought there was a minimum (technically, maximum) lap time they had to do while in quali to avoid dangerously high speed deltas, but I believe the penultimate lap of the last session of sprint quali had people doing 3+ minute laps to cool their overheated softs on a <2 minute track.

Also weird that new tires were required to participate in each sprint quali session, so Lando couldn't even go out in SQ3. Strange condition / oversight.

Edit: Per the BBC:
Verstappen accused Russell of lacking "common sense".

"They are off the pace and to take that much risk it is not very rewarding because I will get him anyway in the next few laps," Verstappen said.

[...]

"[In his position] I would try to fight, but not run into him," Verstappen said. "Maybe it is something you learn over time. I had my moments when I just started in F1 where you make some silly mistakes or lock-ups and damage and maybe it is part of the learning curve."
<mindblown.png>

I don't understand the obliviousness, but it's maybe unfair to expect a reasoned argument immediately after jumping out of the car.
 
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Would it be unfair to say that the most exciting part of the race was Russell passing Stroll in the pits?

Edit: To be fair, I missed the potential calamity when Ocon boxed on the last lap, but we’re still talking pit action rather than track action.
 
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