That point was raised and exploded upon.
Quali is on at 10pm tonight because it’s another fackin sprint weekend.
Mercedes apparently with a final, big, floor upgrade that they're hoping will shape the '24 car. Let's see what that can give them today.
There's Twitter talk that Perez could be dumped, should he lose 2nd in the standings to Hamilton or Alonso, with Ricciardo having done 'enough' to jump in for 2024. Lawson would then get the Tauri seat.
Other than that and to see who replaces Logi Bear, the only real fights left are in the constructors. The bottom 5 are pretty much set, save for one outstanding result somewhere. McLaren hauling in Aston thanks to Strulovitch incompetence and the tiny chance of chasing down Ferrari is there.
Given we had the two Mercedes almost DNF each other last time out and they still came out of it with more points than Ferrari, I'd suggest them catching Mercedes isn't too likely, but you never know.
Oh dear Aston Martin.
Aston with another incredible 'upgrade.'
Edit: Just realised that table makes no sense. It was a fantasy f1 thing.
Last edited by Adramelch; 20-10-2023 at 09:30 PM.
Max wants to punt Checo's head in it seems.
They had better delete that Max time.
Edit:
Last edited by Sir Andy Mahowry; 20-10-2023 at 10:04 PM.
Could be a decent race with that grid.
Tasty grid for the race.
Aye, that’s great. Cracking lap from Norris as I’m not sure that track suits them at all. Piastri struggled throughout quali.
Verstappen should still win - he’ll be a joke with that DRS
Sharl is such a bellend.
Fairplay to Horner calling him Charles, I assume that is meant as a little dig or needle of some sort seeing as pretty much everything he says is laced with it.
Seems like Brundle listed about half the grid to be investigated for going too slow.
Loving that some saboteur has been out with the white paint making the track limits a bit bigger.
Just need to have an actual problem off the track, like grass or gravel, and the thing polices itself.
4 teams within 0.101.
I suspect Red Bull have the race pace to pull away, but that's set up very nicely again.
Max bullied Charlie on that first corner.
The leaders under a second apart for a change, and we have to look at the battle for 9th and a load of start replays. I swear the TV direction is going way downhill.
Tory Boy went off the track to overtake Piastri!
George is such a crybaby at times.
Mclaren don’t look racey at all here. Struggling badly, especially Piastri who also struggled in Quali
Could do with improving their DRS for next year or straight line speed in general
Last edited by Waffdon; 21-10-2023 at 10:20 PM.
Even with a pretty good upgrade, still 0.5 per lap behind the bulls.
Maybe spoke too soon. Norris gained nearly 7 seconds on Leclerc in that last 8/9 laps. Shame he took an age to get past Sainz but that bodes well for tomorrow if in clear air. P2 the best place to be as well.
That was good for 2 laps and then descended into meh.
It's a testament to whoever is responsible for the Red Bull floor [I guess Newey gets the credit but it's probably some minions somewhere] that it appears to be still so far ahead of the field, unlike previous aero regulation revelations like the double diffuser, which took about 15 minutes for the rest of the field to catch up to once they understood what was actually allowed. And then there's the whole DRS thing, which will probably end up to be some sort of extremely clever 'rule interpretation' which again, kudos, no one else has figured out [like bendy wings Mk II on acid].
Verstappen will need to have some sort of significant misfortune to not win by a decent margin tomorrow.
The other problem is the boffins are restricted by the cost cap now. Mercedes as an example probably used most of theirs abandoning the sidepodless ship this year and getting James Allison back in. He probably knows exactly how to build a Red Bull clone by now, but by the time they are able to implement it(the start of 2024), Newey and co will have driven it another 0.5s up the road from them.
Shows how good a job McLaren have done to go from relative backmarker to challenging for podium race on race.
Anthony Joshua on the radio to Gasly
We're on course for the Waff cumsplosion now.
Lando, Hamilton 1-2 would be amazing.
Not sure the one stopper is the way to go here.
Mclaren had to go on Hards regardless as only 1 pair of Mediums left. Verstappen will overtake Norris within 5 laps now
Hamilton isn't very happy.
I'm hoping Mercedes know something we don't.
Please don't take this away from me
Looking like another weekend of Red Bull donning everyone strategy wise
Feels like Norris has been told to lift his foot off the gas, probably sticking to the one stop I guess.
Edit: Or not.
Why would you put hards back on?
I doubt mediums would last.
A lot of them did run the mediums for over 20 laps with a heavier load though. I guess it's the safer bet and they don't (realistically) think they can get Verstappen anyway.
Yeah I feel like Lewis gets Lando here with some fight, but not Max.
What's Ferarri's strategy with Leclerc I wonder? Looks like he's the slowest driver on track at the moment.
If Max could bin it into a wall with his shit brakes that would be great.
It’s the hope that kills. Norris so consistent at podiums but just can’t get that win.
Can they please keep talking to Max whilst he's braking?
Not that it would have made any difference, Merc fucked that with their first stop dithering, but getting DRS off backmarkers you are lapping is plain stupid.
Hamilton on them Mediums makes not putting them on Norris even more dumb now. They seen how well he done on them in the latter stages of the sprint race on lighter fuel