2024 Japanese Grand Prix - Suzuka, April 05 - 07

[Sevach]

Stroll looked like he was crying on the radio complaining about his slow car.

But Alonso make it work.

Is he right? Is it too much drag with the Aston?
The Merc powered teams seem close together with Mclaren being a little better and Mercedes themselves being the slightly worst.

[avantman]

Alonso DOTD, one of the easiest weekends to choose. Outperformed three significantly faster cars driven by very strong drivers and destroyed his teammate in the same car totally. Incredibly performance again, congrats! The level of understanding of modern fans voting for Leclerc, who got comfortably beaten by his teammate and finished P4 in clearly and easily 2nd fastest car, is just pathetic. Who are all these people?

I guess people that understand Sainz is a proper teammate benchmark whereas Stroll is a joke?

are piastri, russell and lewis (all in faster cars than aston) all joke as well?

[GrizzleBoy]

Alonso DOTD, this was of the easiest weekends to chose one. Outperformed three significantly faster cars driven by very strong drivers and destroyed his teammate in the same car totally. Incredibly performance again, congrats! The level of understanding of modern fans voting for Leclerc, who got comfortably beaten by his teammate and finished P4 in clearly and easily 2nd fastest car, is just pathetic. Who are all these people?

Charles drove an excellent race to make up lots of positions from starting in P8 due to quali team mishaps and bring the car home in literally the best position that was available to him.

[avantman]

due to quali team mishaps
one can't heal leclerc fans.

[ringo]

Hmm.. something about this formula that is wrong.
The cars are boring to watch and the races are not exciting.
A. Lot of overtakes but just doesnt seem very flashy and fast. Maybe the cars are too heavy?

Good race by Yuki. Leclerc did better today even though he was passed by Sainz. Sainz made it work by qualifying well. But his drive was not very impressive. Nonethless he is outperforming his more liked teammate.
Leclerc fans it's just one of the seasons.

The results seem fairly predictable.

Hamilton has defintely checked out of mercedes. No fight whatsoever. He let Goerge by and he was just trundling around. His pace seem better than George's but his inlaps and outlaps were horrendous. He is clearly demotived to be fighting for lower points.
No point in predicting what Lewis will do at Ferrari. He is saving his energy for his new team. No point he fights for scraps like a newbie.

Sargeant needs to swapped right away. Both he and Albon will destroy all the williams chassis before mideseason.

F1 really needs to change. We need back the V10s and much lighter cars.

All the drivers did good apart from sargeant snd ricciardo. I dont know why some fans feel the need to bash the same drivers each weekend. Sainz, Leclcerc, Lewis, Russel, Perez, Stroll.. whats the point of bashing them?

[Cs98]

So Hamilton is supposedly going to be quick enough to beat Charles at Ferrari? I'll believe it when I see it

He gained about 10s total on pace to George after the first stops, before George joined that fight with Piastri and Alonso.

Having g to be the second car to stop each stint is what hurt him.

If he hadn't been slower in the first stint and let George by, he'd have had the better pit strategy and would've been 10s ahead of where George finished in this race, based on his relative pace to George through each stint.

But....shoulda woulda coulda etc...

Excuses. Russell pitted first both times, which meant he got an undercut to open the gap but Hamilton had the fresher tyres to close the gap in the stints. Still, his pace wasn't good enough to catch George. He completely stalled in the middle stint between 3-4s and was not going to get even close to George in the final stint if not for the Alonso train. George was just faster straight up. But fair on Lewis for letting him go, he didn't need to do that.

[GrizzleBoy]

Stroll looked like he was crying on the radio complaining about his slow car.

But Alonso make it work.

Is he right? Is it too much drag with the Aston?
The Merc powered teams seem close together with Mclaren being a little better and Mercedes themselves being the slightly worst.

I was wondering during the race with now all the teams basically converging on the same aero design whether we need to start asking questions of the Mercedes engine power output/efficiency etc.

[Cs98]

Alonso DOTD, one of the easiest weekends to choose. Outperformed three significantly faster cars driven by very strong drivers and destroyed his teammate in the same car totally. Incredibly performance again, congrats! The level of understanding of modern fans voting for Leclerc, who got comfortably beaten by his teammate and finished P4 in clearly and easily 2nd fastest car, is just pathetic. Who are all these people?

I guess people that understand Sainz is a proper teammate benchmark whereas Stroll is a joke?

are piastri, russell and lewis (all in faster cars than aston) all joke as well?

The difference between Merc and Aston was marginal at best post upgrades, only skewed by the lack of performance from Stroll. That being said Alonso drove a great race and certainly beat the faster Piastri. But Leclerc gaining 4 positions and jumping Norris was perhaps even better.

[organic]

Hmm.. something about this formula that is wrong.
The cars are boring to watch and the races are not exciting.

Yup. Heavy, and the handling characteristics of these ground effect cars are terrible

[Dunlay]

That's not a clear pass opportunity, that's a crash trap. He's always going to get squeezed there when he isn't fully alongside. He's putting himself in bad positions and the team can't afford it. How much money has this guy thrown down the drain in a team that needs every penny?

If Ricciardo did this on purpose you'd be looking at this differently but he didn't so he gets a pass. He was desperate to not lose another place to Stroll and he f'd up

Ricciardo was keeping the position whether he moved over or not, that's not a place you pass on the outside from half a car length back. Albon's decision making is not good here, from the standpoint of taking a big risk without any real reward. That doesn't mean he is technically at fault for the crash, it just means it was a bad decision to put himself in a risky position.

Albon has always had poor judgement to go on the outside in places where it's dangerous. Some times he made it and on others, he has eaten humble pie.

[SKYnRacing24]

Russell snatching a miracle P7 because Piastri is still too green and could not pass Alonso.

Hamilton still in a race where he has done nothing.

Verstappen snatching fastest lap on old tyres.

Russell caught up because He didnt have to slow down through the Sargent crash because the sector was green flagged. while Piastri and Alonso did.

[avantman]

I guess people that understand Sainz is a proper teammate benchmark whereas Stroll is a joke?

are piastri, russell and lewis (all in faster cars than aston) all joke as well?

The difference between Merc and Aston was marginal at best post upgrades, only skewed by the lack of performance from Stroll. That being said Alonso drove a great race and certainly beat the faster Piastri. But Leclerc gaining 4 positions and jumping Norris was perhaps even better.

The difference is there and it is clear, both in quali (even based on fastest sector times, aston was 5th fastest car) and even more so on race pace. Fernando Alonso makes the difference look slimmer than it is. You might be too young, but I saw Alonso finishing P2 in Suzuka 2011, in front of Vettel, Webber, and 23 seconds in front of Hamilton *- all in faster cars than Ferrari.
He keeps doing what he does all his career- beats faster cars driven by great drivers. He is that good. and yeah, even in his 40s he is both faster and better overall than Sainz.
Leclerc didn't overtake a single car for position today. Norris was beaten by his strategy team and their stupidity. not by Leclerc, who had clearly a lot faster race car today. Norris has driven a lot stronger weekend than Leclerc. His another poor unforced mistake which costed him a position and almost another one, is emough to put him out of equation for DOTD. Ferrari fans are so blind.

*Of course all of them are slow, and Ferrari was just as fast as Red bull and Mclaren at the end of 2012. No need to mention this. You are surely free to believe what you want to believe...

[Cs98]

are piastri, russell and lewis (all in faster cars than aston) all joke as well?

The difference between Merc and Aston was marginal at best post upgrades, only skewed by the lack of performance from Stroll. That being said Alonso drove a great race and certainly beat the faster Piastri. But Leclerc gaining 4 positions and jumping Norris was perhaps even better.

The difference is there and it is clear, both in quali (even based on fastest sector times, aston was 6th fastest car) and even more so on race pace. Fernando Alonso makes the difference look slimmer than it is. You might be too young, but I saw Alonso finishing P2 in Suzuka 2011, in front of Vettel, Webber, and 23 seconds in front of Hamilton - all in faster cars than Ferrari.
He keeps doing what he does all his career- beats faster cars driven by great drivers. He is that good. and yeah, even in his 40s he is both faster and better overall than Sainz.
*Of course all of them are slow, and Ferrari was just as fast as Red bull and Mclaren at the end of 2012. No need to mention this. You are surely free to believe what you want to believe...

It's not clear at all after these upgrades, quali was super close between several teams and Alonso was managing his pace in that final stint, just keeping Piastri within DRS. Being a superfan and remembering good performances from 10+ years isn't evidence of anything. I can equally bring up 2007 and use that to make my case, but that's equally disingenuous.

[Sedaxel]

As soon as RUS overtaken PIA, ALO increased his pace and opened approx 2 seconds to RUS in the final lap. He was obviously giving DRS to PIA, helping him, to avoid fighting RUS ar the end of the race. Who knows what the real pace was with the final stint on hards...

[the EDGE]

A bit OT… but has anyone seen the times for the chines GP… ?

Sprint Quali - Friday 8.30am UK
Sprint Race - Saturday4am UK

what a rubbish race to make a sprint weekend