Proof that Mercedes has had better race pace over the last three races? Please. In both Singapore and Monza, both Mercedes drivers were catching up to Leclerc. Then in Singapore, Leclerc practically had to drive like he was on a Sunday stroll just to avoid getting undercut by those faster Mercedes cars since he couldn't pull away. It’s pretty obvious if you actually bother to watch the race.
Either that, or the Earth is just one big flat pancake. Look, I get it—living in a place where everything feels like a shady backroom deal or some massive conspiracy, but in Formula 1, the real "conspiracy" is just everyone lobbying behind the scenes to tweak the rules or grab a bigger slice of the pie. On any given track, every single team is purely looking out for Number One. They aren't thinking about the "greater good" or making the sport better for everyone else. There’s a reason for that. First off, they have to justify every cent their stakeholders dump into the team. Then you've got sponsors, who basically only care about being attached to a winner. If you're having a bad race, you're invisible on TV. You don't get those prime-time interviews that actually drive up visibility and cash flow. When you win or even just land a podium, you're everywhere in the media. Every sponsor logo plastered all over your suit or the car gets massive exposure because of that moment. Those sponsors paid for the glory, not for you to play nice and finish fifth. Everyone wants the races to be exciting, sure, but they want *them* to be the ones holding the trophy at the end.
wiredseal7 said:Google weather shows some potential rain hitting Indianapolis Motor Speedway this weekend 🎉 If that doesn't happen, at least qualifying and practice look like they might get soaked, which could make things interesting and unpredictable (expect some chaos on the grid).
Honestly, the guys in red are probably praying for a dry race right about now...
The folks over in Norway are calling for epic rain on Saturday, but only until 3 PM: https://www.yr.no/place/Russia/Krasn...ochi/long.html
ruggedhawk20 said:So they didn't win then!? If you've got a five-time champ behind the wheel, that shouldn't be such a massive hurdle.
That’s just your take on why it "shouldn't be a problem," and honestly, it's way off base. There's a huge difference between catching someone and actually blowing past them. At Spa-Francorchamps, you had Vettel blocking Lewis Hamilton, then at Monza it was Charles Leclerc playing defense, and in Singapore, it was just Mercedes messing up the strategy. Just because Mercedes has a faster car during the race doesn't mean they're two seconds a lap quicker. They might have a slight edge, but you still need everything else to line up—strategy, track position, clean air, overtaking... it's never that simple.
ruggedhawk20 said:If you haven't noticed, Ferrari has been absolutely killing it on every single track since the summer break. Right now, they’ve got the best car on the grid, period. That’s why Mercedes is basically sweating through their suits—the only thing keeping them relevant is that massive 100-point cushion their golden boy built up during the first half of the season.
Without those 100 points, we'd be looking at a 21-year-old world champion. But whatever. Charles Leclerc will probably just coast his way to titles for the next 30 years anyway.
Ferrari fixed their qualifying and strategy issues, sure, but Mercedes actually had the faster car in all three races.
Jason Campbell70 said:Gary Anderson is a legend, mostly because of how many times he’s totally missed the mark with his predictions and technical breakdowns that just don't make any sense.
Luckily for Gary, this article doesn't actually include any predictions or technical analysis.
Anyway, here’s some stuff I pulled from Hulkenberg's radio clips: - Bottas isn't your target - Told him multiple times to back off because he needs to save fuel - Repeated instructions to slow down and cool those brakes - Hulk starts complaining about the gearbox, saying it’s losing that seamless feel and might just quit on him any second (they try to fix it via steering wheel settings, and after a few tries, they actually manage to steady things out) - Once he hits the DRS zone 13 laps before the end, it’s obvious he’s got the pace and better traction—Ricciardo is clearly sliding out of the corners—so he tells his engineer his tires feel great. But instead of letting him go, the guy just repeats "hold position" twice, then follows up with "cool the car" four different times, which sounds like total bullshit given the next message is telling him to stay 2 seconds behind Dani, not 0.5. After a few more laps and two more warnings, he finally pulls more than 2 seconds ahead - At the end, his engineer tells him he did a great job, even though that had to be infuriating... then he adds that Hamilton passed Vettel on the last lap before correcting himself to say Vettel had a penalty, but he didn't catch it live.
Why does any of this matter? Just for the people who actually want to dig deeper. From the outside, you don't see this stuff. And Hulk was slowed down three separate times by his own engineer during the race... I'm not saying he definitely would've cleared Ricciardo, but he was robbed of the chance. Then some commentator who saw the two of them on screen for maybe five seconds will call it a "routine victory for Ricciardo over his teammate." The truth is, it was anything but routine..
crimsonhawk23 said:Honestly, Vettel probably could've pulled off the win even with the penalty. He was sitting 3.3 seconds ahead of Hamilton, but instead of just putting his head down and driving like a beast to make up ground—which is what someone like Hamilton would've done—he spent the rest of the race whining on the radio about how unfair the call was.
No way in hell Vettel could have nabildati a 5+ second gap.
They told Nico Hulkenberg not to bother defending against Valtteri Bottas or even touch that overtake button, claiming it wasn't even his fight to win. But let’s be real—they’re clearly telling Bottas the exact same thing, since he isn't even remotely close to being a threat to him anyway.
Alright, so I just finished combing through the whole race using Ricciardo's onboard footage and all the team radio, and now I've started doing the same deep dive for Hulk. On lap two, they tell him to switch from scenario 1 to scenario 3 "to save performance for later," and then by lap three, they're practically begging him to slow down and cool those brakes—and stop chasing Pierre Gasly—because they're overheating. If I dig up anything else interesting, I'll let you know... but honestly, this stuff is already gold if you actually want a real analysis with some actual substance behind it.