Totally forgot it’s that time. I’m in.
But ya, it’s gonna have to be replay for me.

Yeah, I'm gonna get the 7 day preview on Sunday morning for F1 TV premium. Won't watch it live so might as well do the preview in the morning to fit another race weekend in there before I decide to buy.

Just hoping for another competitive season, with Ferrari or McClaren finishing at the top. Would be extra entertaining if Mercedes somehow finished ahead of Ferrari though.

A guy spun out on the out lap in the rain and crashed

Damn, that was a great race. Kimi is going to win the WDC some day. Hell of a drive from him.

It looks like Lando has finally shaken that pole position curse. McLaren is looking very strong, it will take some serious upgrades to catch them on pace this year. Yuki got ****ed by his team again on strategy, I'm starting to feel bad for him.

I have no idea what the hell happened to Ferrari's pace but they sure 'Ferrarid' the hell out of the strategy call.

How - just HOW - do you see Verstappen go into the pits and think "Nah, he's only the best west weather drive since Senna - who cares if he thinks they've reached a chanegover point and its time to go to inters..."

They got SO lucky with track position and Max had 8 seconds on them. When he went in, you had PLENTY of time to go behind him and enough space to avoid a tight double-stack.

Ferrari just completely gacked that race. Shitty pace and worse strategy. They had no business not putting 2 cars in the top 5 and just completely blew it.

At some point, you have to blame Vasseur. His team looked embarrassingly unprepared out there. If it was just Lewis, you could say it was learning the new car and team.

On the other hand, Vowles is doing a great job so far. Williams is looking to be top of the midfielders right now.

Oh I ABSOLUTELY blame Vasseur.

Especially if the rumor is true that they were worried about the height of the car and the plank wear coming from the final practice so they had to essentially raise the car right before parc ferme and it just completely ****ed up the aero.

But I don't know how you have that car coming off the end of last season with no major regulation changes and it's just...slow. Not good in high speed corners, on straights or low speed corners. It didn't show pace ANYWHERE.

That's seemingly impossible.

Bottom line though is that it looks like it'll take mistakes from McLaren for anyone else to hang with them. That car was a rocket. Any time they wanted more from it, they had it. Max fans will say they had Norris in another lap or two but I don't buy it for a minute.

He was NEVER getting around Norris and even if he did, I think Lando gets right back around him in a DRS zone.

The McLaren was just on a Sunday stroll out there. Compliant and quick.

Fun race to watch. Much better than when the only drama was whether Max would win by over/under 10 seconds.

Apart from the chaos wrought by weather, I actually thought the racing kinda sucked.

One dry line meant overtakes were nearly impossible. It was mostly a procession interrupted by a few moments of chaos during the rain.

I really like Albert Park -- as much as any street circuit anyway (most of those suck). And I think the rain simply replaced the normal sort of drama we can see with those 4 DRS zones with something of a manufactured one.

I mean, unless you're one of us poor Ferrari fans who's only real intrigue came in trying to figure out just how badly they were going to **** the race up by the time it was all said and done.

i'm very new to F1 and trying to learn about it.

how much does driver skill actually come into play? it seems like whoever has the best car is pretty much unbeatable. i watched nascar as a young kid and those races had way more passing. that said, f1 definitely seems to have a cool vibe and aesthetic to it. feels like it takes a lot to really appreciate the little details of it though.

I don't know but when I play iracing these guys are like 25 seconds faster than me they are true aliens

Did you see that pass by Piasti over Hamilton at the end? That was definitely not on a dry line.

The car determines your ceiling, pretty much. A good driver can't make a slow car go fast.

Beyond that, there are a lot of variables under a driver's control. First being consistency. Take a look at https://f1pace.com/ [Not for Melbourne, wet races are too chaotic to get really good data.] How consistent are their lap times? A good driver should have a tight grouping of lap times like a marksman hitting their target. A bad driver [like Zhou last year] will have lap times scattered all over the place. You should see gradual trends as fuel load decreases or tire wear accumulates. Discounting back markers and interruptions, your time should be within a tenth or so [depending on the track] lap after lap. Inconsistent drivers are throwing time away.

Also, take a look at teammates. If one driver is consistently better in the same car, that's an indicator of a more skilled driver.

There are other considerations that aren't so obvious. How aggressive is the driver? How many risks do they take? How do they handle adversity? How do they manage their tires? Can they make tires last longer than other drivers? What kind of feedback do they give the team? A good communicator with good feedback can help the team get the settings dialed in during free practice. A good tune/setup can make a massive difference on race day. The team needs an observant driver to make these settings work.

Part of what makes team changes so interesting is that you get a better appreciation of driver skill. If a driver suddenly gets noticeably faster, maybe their last team had a car that was holding them back. And vice versa. Of course some teams can build a car around a driver's particular style. I'm specifically thinking of Verstappen and Red Bull here.

I'm also new to F1. I got into it during COVID when the CTO of my old company got me into Drive to Survive. I got the $30 F1TV subscription last year and I am watching all the old races in the archive. Unfortunately they only have every race replay since 2004. Before that 1999 is the only year with full race replays. Other than that they have only one or two a year. The earliest full replay is 1981. Before that all they have is highlights. And the highlights only go back to 1970. It's a shame. I'd love to watch footage from the Fangio/Moss/Stewart era.

I have watched every race up to 2008 now. I watch 3-4 races a week and take notes on most of them. The annoying part is avoiding spoilers. F1TV uses the season champion as the cover art for each season so that makes it really tough. I try and use autoplay instead of navigating the menu to avoid it.

Hamilton's in-car has the Gyroscopic camera.

That'll be fun. Probably spend a lot of time in the cockpit with Lewis this week. Being able to split the audio/visual feed on F1 TV is pretty slick. I can watch from someone's in-car but turn on the international audio feed from Crofty or their usual F1 TV crew (Jacques, Palmer and Coulthard, IIRC).

They had those gyro cameras last year, but only some cars had them. I believe everyone gets them this year. This year's cockpit cameras have a wider FOV, so the sensation of speed is much faster. I really like how they look. Although they still use the low-quality OTA cockpit feeds on the replays. I wish they would edit in the high quality cockpit footage after the race. It would be more work in post production, so I get why they don't do it.

Max has been a regular on the podium despite his teammate in the same car doing much worse for years. I think 2023 when Red Bull actually had the best car did his teammate finish right behind him. He also won 19/22 races that year.

This year it seems as if the Red Bull is probably the 4th best car, but Max will still be a title favorite because he’s so good.

There is a point where it doesn’t matter how good you good the driver is because the car is so shit. See Hamilton in 2022-2023. Hulk also probably would have a podium or win by now if he raced for one of the big 4 teams too.

I guess what I’m saying is that it’s required to have a good car and be a good driver.

I’m gonna stay up for the Sprint tonight and I hope I get to watch Quali spoiler free tomorrow I got spoiled about Hamilton SQ pole today.

I think Lando would have given Hamilton's time a run if he didn't mess up the corner at the end.

For quali/main race for China I’m hoping that Lawson turns it around quickly. Seems like he’s being ****ed by his team in practice sessions and then everyone is talking shit on him when he doesn’t qualify well.

Definitely, but sometimes you gotta have a bigger organ in your head than in your scrotum.

Well shit…

Yeah.

Thinks not looking great for Liam.

He has maybe 2-3 more races before they give Yuki that seat. They'll HATE doing it, but he looks like shit.

Sooooo... How is Yuki going to do in the big seat? Is he going to make Liam look foolish? Or is it going to be another Maxmobile?

He was a better fit for that seat anyway.

More aggressive driver; should like the 'pointier' care more than Liam.

The real question is whether or not this is a smart decisions for Yuki. Frankly, I think he was in a no-win scenario. If he doesn't take the promotion, he's on borrowed time at V-CARB because Red Bull would be looking to throw him out of the seat next year and put in a new developmental driver. If he does take the promotion, he'll get chewed up in a similar fashion to anyone else that takes that car.

I'm not convinced he's likely to get more points in that seat than he'd be at Racing Bulls.

Lawson, OTOH, is the big winner here, IMO. He can get points out of that VCARB drive. It's just a little more conventional. I don't think he's a bad driver -- he's just not experienced enough to deal with the degree of difficulty that comes with being the #2 for Red Bull.

New F1 movie with Brad Pitt looks great.

Same people who made Top Gun Maverick.

Yeah I don't think Yuki had a choice there. Though it's really not the worst spot to be in for him. The expectations will be low. He doesn't need to win races. If he can consistently score points every week, that will better than their #2 has done for a few seasons. If he fails, he can blame it on the car. It's a notoriously unstable platform that takes a supremely skilled driver to wring a good pace out of. Is Yuki that good to tame a car like that? I'm really interested to see how he performs.

My god. I just finished watching the 2008 season. That last lap of the last race is one of the most dramatic moments I've seen in any sport. Up there with 13 seconds, the 2014 wild card game, and Mario's Miracle. Absolutely shocking. It felt like an echo of 1976 Fuji, where Hunt beat Niki Lauda at the end of the race without even realizing he was champion.

Ah the crashgate season...

And it still took Timo Glock doing...whatever it was he did (so many rumors there) to make it happen.

Dramatic -- yes. Legitimate? Phew -- there were a lot of shenanigans going on that season. It's all fairly ugly.

Lewis can get riled up about the championship he lost to Verstappen in 2021 if he wants, but really, he shouldn't have that 2008 title. IMO, it all comes out in the wash.

With 6 laps to go Lewis was in 4th and Glock was in 7th place when everyone started the sequence of pitting for wets. Glock gambled staying on slicks, but of course they were too slow and Hamilton overtook on the last lap.

Had Glock boxed for wets he would have stayed behind Hamilton anyways making it a moot point.

I want both Lando and Oscar to win WDC. I would guess this might be Lando's big last chance because I think by next year Oscar will be clear of Lando.

I also wouldn't mind Max winning again, hes a GOAT.

EDIT: Also I think Leclerc is better than both Lando and Oscar, but he will never have a car.

I feel like Lando is already being passed by Oscar.

Piastri just has much more of a champions mentality. You just watch Lando struggle in wheel to wheel action where Piastri will absolutely wax a guy the moment he leaves an opening.

And yes, I think Leclerc is the 2nd best driver in the sport right now and just doesn't have the car. And very possibly never will. He's so damn good. I'd friggen love to see him and Max go at it in equal equipment because both guys respect the hell out of each other and neither of them fears the other guy. You'd have some absolutely remarkable racing.

Meanwhile I didn't like Hamilton when he WASN'T driving for my team - I don't like him now either. I just think he's a mad tinkerer who is so convinced he's going to find the perfect answer in his setup that he's just constantly ****ing with it and usually misses. Oh, and he appears to really suck at getting his tires into a qualifying window so he constantly biffs the Q3 run so he's usually sitting around P6/P7 and that further encourages him to **** with the setup.

I just really hate seeing Charles wasted like this, though. He's absolutely a championship caliber driver and just can't get the car beneath him to get it done.

If Leclerc drives for Ferrari for 15 years can Ferrari get it right in just 1 of the 15 years? I don't know if they can. I don't think Charles wants to or should go anywhere else, maybe Merc, but I think Merc wants Max more than anything and I don't know Charles contract situation.

Problem with going to Merc is that Antonelli is looking like a real monster in his own right. If he goes there, he's not going to get any sort of favored son treatment. Meanwhile at Ferrari, he's the #1 driver unless they sign Max (and they won't sign Max).

Charles window could be closing if Mercedes gets the new reg package right, though. Because Antonelli has championship chops. I think Russell would ultimately blow it but damn he's been steady this year.

And Piastri isn't going anywhere. You give him a title car and he'll win a title, IMO. I love how calm he is when he needs to be and how ruthlessly aggressive he'll be when the situation is ripe for it.

I mean some of the moves he's put on guys are just world class. Meanwhile Norris reminds me a lot of Sainz in that he's good when the car is good but if he needs to get his elbows out or seize a gap, he's just not assertive enough for it. Both can be crafty drivers and are good defenders, but seem to be lacking the killer instinct on the attack.

That said, though Norris did get out of his grid spot, his first lap was fantastic last week. Really aggressive to get from 6 to 2nd (and would've done it even from the right spot on the grid). I thought the move on Hamilton was a close question as to whether or not he really needed to give that spot back but the rules can be pretty cut and dry there.

If he starts doing that more often, my view of him could change a bit.

Im really bummed Colapinto is still an reserve driver for Alpine and not racing this year, i really hope he breaks through at some point.

<blockquote class="reddit-embed-bq" style="height:500px" data-embed-height="584"><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/comments/p1e3nx/ferrari_mechanic_headbutts_a_wall_brazil_08/">Ferrari mechanic headbutts a wall (Brazil 08)</a><br> by<a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Avikar21/">u/Avikar21</a> in<a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/">formula1</a></blockquote><script async="" src="https://embed.reddit.com/widgets.js" charset="UTF-8"></script>

He'll be there by June. Too much money involved.

Can you blame him. I bet some Chiefs fans did the same when Dee Ford was offsides on the INT in the AFCCG.

Holy shit, that was 2008? I had no idea. The broadcast hasn't talked about any of that stuff. I knew Briatore was banned back in the day but I didn't know the details. Reading about it, it looks like it all came out in 2009 so maybe they'll talk about it soon. I avoid reading about past seasons to avoid spoilers. It's way more entertaining that way.

Right before that, both garages were celebrating, jumping up and down thinking they had won the WDC. It was madness.

That end of the 2008 Interlagos Grand Prix was incredibly dramatic, even the podium. The celebration and heartache in the garages, Massa crossing the line as WDC but losing the championship less that a lap later. The saddest winner you've ever seen crying on the podium as dark storm clouds blanket the skies, the wind absolutely whipping the podium flags horizonal. It could not be any more cinematic. It was bonkers.

https://imgur.com/Nn0bVro.jpg

I do think that Piastri will win the WDC this year. Norris is his own worst enemy. He's in his own head. You can't win a championship without confidence in yourself. It just doesn't happen.

And yes, I think Antonelli is going to win one someday. He already looks really, really good out there.

{sigh}

LeClerc is so good. Please give him the car he needs someday, Ferrari.

And man oh man is Lewis Hamilton mid. I'd rather have Sainz.

Is he a top 10 driver anymore? Man...it's close.

Max
Charles
Piastri
Norris
Russell

That's 5 easy.

So you need 5 more...

Sainz
Antonelli
I'd take Gasly.

So you have Hamilton, Albon and Ocon in some order, IMO, for 9, 10 and 11.

He just never does anything. Quali is always mediocre. Race is always 10% worse than LeClerc. He's just...there. He's the most forgetteable car on the track most races. He doesn't seem to bother to defend anymore. He doesn't seem capable of attacking.

I'm gonna be pretty happy to be done with this experiment in a couple years. i don't think Bearman is great, but he's at least interesting.

I would take Tsunoda over Gasley, and Hadjar over Ocon. Aside from that I agree with your rankings. Right now Hamilton is sitting in the Gasley/Albon tier, which is a pretty sad thing to say.

Hadjar is still awfully green but as a pure 'prospect' I'd take him over Ocon, for sure. He's quick.

As for Tsunoda -- I've just never had a feel for him. I think he likes aggressive cars and wants to be able to attack. He just doesn't seem very good at it. Sunday was a clear example of it -- Racing Incident my ass; he took Gasley out. Tsunoda was way too aggressive and just turned the guy.

And he's prone to those sorts of mental errors.

Put him and Hamilton in equal equipment and I think you may get an extra podium or two from Tsunoda, but you'll also get 2 or 3 more DNFs. Hamilton doesn't make silly mistakes -- he just doesn't take any chances at all. He'll drive around in that soft spot in between 7th and 8th most weeks because his car is faster than the other 6 teams on the grid but he's the most ordinary driver of the top 4 teams.

So there's a big ol' gap back to 9, Tsunoda probably takes himself out somehow and so you have a 20 second gap to 6th and another 20 second gap to 8th and Hamilton just drives in circles all day without anything of note taking place.

And if Tsunoda doesn't take himself out, you just have big gaps on either side of him in 8th.

He's just not a premier driver right now. And it may just be that he's simply never going to be again. He might have gone past his sell-by date.

When you have LeClerc in the same equipment blastting past Russell like he's standing still then you have Hamilton staring at the back of Antonelli all day, you can see that the problem isn't the car. It's the wheelman. The Ferrari, on balance, is still the 2nd best car on the grid, IMO. McLaren, Ferrari, Mercedes and Red Bull.

And Hamilton routinely underperforms the car. Even if you figure that Red Bull is two teams (Max and Tsunoda) there's no reason for Hamilton to not be routinely in the mix for 4th/5th.

He just isn't.

And the next race will be the same thing. He'll struggle to get through to Q3, never be within a 1/2 second of pole, start in 7th or 8th place and end within a grid position of where he starts absent a DNF, penalty or strategy error by someone around him.

On track he's a complete non-factor.