2022 Dutch Grand Prix - Zandvoort, Sep 02 - 04

[chrisc90]

It was a reaction to someone shouting

"No Mikey Noo! No! Nooo Mikey! That was sooo not riiight!!"

Yup, still should just ignore it rather than the reaction he gave.

[DChemTech]

Dont get how Max and RB fans still deny that they have the best most Dominant package.

May be the dominance is not like of the mercs level sply on car/engin front but overall combination , Car+driver+wingman+diver priority+sharpness in strategy+ sharpness in pits+ adaption to different situations + regular updates on car etc . if we add all that the combination is head & Shoulders above the rest.

Those wins from 10th, 15th looked like a cakewalk

If the car is absolutely dominant, one would expect consistent one-two finishes (barring external circumstances) and/or drivers cruising to the horizon with double-digit second leads. We have not seen that consistently over this season, so my conclusion is that the car is not dominant (as of yet - that may change of course).

Nobody is denying the overall performance of all factors combined is dominant - it is, but that is something different than the car being dominant, which is what the discussion was about.

The current dominance, in my view, is a combination of operational excellence on behalf of RB (at least, one driver and strategy team), and poor performance of the main competitor with equal car (mainly strategy, but also errors by the drivers). In that sense, it's a more extreme version of the FER-MB battle in 2018/19, where eventually operational excellence of Hamilton and MB compared to mistakes from Ferrari/Vettel made the difference rather than the car.

[dxpetrov]

No car could be dominant if the team is ---, therefore it's always the team + car combo that makes it!

[vorticism]

Semantics although not on the part of DChemTech. There are three areas that are distinct as it relates to winning and statistics as DChemTech rightly points out -- team, driver, and car.

These three areas are being packaged up and called 'car' by the upset bandwagon. Obviously Ferrari team strategy is a major talking point this season, and the wheeled vehicle of theirs is not alone the source of their problem.

In the Mercedes era it was easier to pinpoint the source of their pace--it was the power unit. The engine regs had just changed and it was obvious Merc had engine modes, better packaging, and were practicing the fine art of minimal sandbagging. Oil burning eventually was banned and numerous other developments eventually brought engine parity amongst the teams for better or worse.

In the RB era, it was easy to see that aero and chassis was the main source of their pace. The aero regs had just changed, and RBT delivered. RB fans at the time did not throw the team nor the car under the bus for the ego of the driver. Point of comparison.

In the BrawnGP era (one half season) it was as well easy to see that aero was the source of their pace.

In the Schumacher and Alonso eras it was less clear cut; more of a mix of all of the three areas mentioned above. Team-driver-car. Hence why they persist as more mythic figures in the F1 driver pantheon. Verstappen is nearing this area because he too is the benefactor of this more diffuse superiority of team-driver-car. The RB18 is good but we don't yet fully understand why, while seeing that the RB team have been solid in their support and strategy, while the driver is delivering.

Still no one can pinpoint the source of RB's pace. We assume engines are roughly equal now, and the RB18 benefits mostly from aero and chassis development. The speculation about flexing floors, flexing planks is falling away and was recently replaced with a grand tale of RB buying off STR, AR, and parts of the Merc team in order to curate the final ten minutes of a grand prix they didn't need to win. The Merc mob can't into technical nuance; for eight years they haven't been able to admit the W series cars had an engine. They think the driver sticks his legs through the floor of the cockpit and propels the car himself. On these topics they devolve into magical thinking. Even on an nominative technical forum they perpetuate their own stereotypes. The Merc team thread has 22 points. The RB team thread has 1 point. lol.

[jz11]

People seem to be misusing the word - dominant, just like "amazed", "mind blown" about the simplest things

RB18 is not a dominant car, if it is, how then would you describe the RBs of the V8 era? or Mercs that lapped the rest of the field? Those were dominant cars, and RB18 isn't, it is better than the rest, sometimes more so, but it ain't dominant

or next time you'll have to call marginally better something to be ultra uber X

It is the whole team, together with Honda, that managed to achieve this result, they simply haven't made mistakes (apart from couple issues at the beginning of the year with the fuel pumps), Max did that one spin, which he recovered from, I can't recall any other mistakes from him.

and I've said a number of times, Merc strategists aren't great, they might not even be good, it was the car and drivers that masked majority of their bad calls, now they don't have that car advantage and their mediocrity is very obvious, compare that to RB years when they were 3rd or 2nd best car, how many obvious strategy mistakes you can recall? Drivers were banging heads once in a while, but strategy calls (even when they turned out not to bear fruit) were justified - mind you, they _always_ were 1 driver oriented, so "mistakes" with the 2nd driver strategy are irrelevant

[Neuron]

[saviour stivala]

So number 44 was correct when he said something to the effect that without the car a driver will not win any.

[Quantum]

But as was said during the Mercedes days, if you put any of the top echelon of drivers in the RB18, they'd be where Max is now, just as Max in the Mercs would be where Hamilton is now in terms of records if he'd had the Mercs.

I think that's a totally reasonable point of view.

Failing a driver physically getting out of a car and pushing it while it's doing 200mph or 3G plus cornering, the car can only ever be driven to 100% potential.
As in Spa, the RB18 started 14th, won the race and beat a Ferrari that started on pole, by 30 seconds with Max not even breaking a sweat. That's literally a perfect example of when a machine is beyond anything else on the grid.
Again, congrats to Red Bull and to Max on his 2nd title.

[Cs98]

But as was said during the Mercedes days, if you put any of the top echelon of drivers in the RB18, they'd be where Max is now, just as Max in the Mercs would be where Hamilton is now in terms of records if he'd had the Mercs.

I think that's a totally reasonable point of view.

Failing a driver physically getting out of a car and pushing it while it's doing 200mph or 3G plus cornering, the car can only ever be driven to 100% potential.
As in Spa, the RB18 started 14th, won the race and beat a Ferrari that started on pole, by 30 seconds with Max not even breaking a sweat. That's literally a perfect example of when a machine is beyond anything else on the grid.
Again, congrats to Red Bull and to Max on his 2nd title.

Which would be a solid argument if that level of performance had been representative for the rest of the season. But it hasn’t. Back in the days (2014-2016, 2020) legitimately 9/10 races were like that. With one team just cruising at the front. From all those seasons you could name the races there was legitimate competition (on pace) on one hand. Malaysia 2015, Hungary 2015, Singapore 2015, Monaco 2016, AD 2020. The rest of the races won by someone not named Merc were fluke wins.

This season, I could name 8 races Ferrari either won or should’ve won on pace. Bahrain, Australia, Spain, Monaco, Canada, Austria, France and Hungary. So there’s dominant results and dominant cars, not always the same thing.

[vorticism]

People seem to be misusing the word - dominant, just like "amazed", "mind blown" about the simplest things

RB18 is not a dominant car, if it is, how then would you describe the RBs of the V8 era? or Mercs that lapped the rest of the field? Those were dominant cars, and RB18 isn't, it is better than the rest, sometimes more so, but it ain't dominant

or next time you'll have to call marginally better something to be ultra uber X

With engines roughly equal (afawk) amid an aero and chassis formula more restrictive than ever, you have to wonder how much differentiation is ultimately available. RB did their usual good job with chassis/aero, however, once teams start copying each other we'll be at roughly similar aero along with roughly similar engines within a season or two, with suspensions that can't do much beyond the basics. So what will be left for RB to continue perfecting? On the car side.

[jz11]

People seem to be misusing the word - dominant, just like "amazed", "mind blown" about the simplest things

RB18 is not a dominant car, if it is, how then would you describe the RBs of the V8 era? or Mercs that lapped the rest of the field? Those were dominant cars, and RB18 isn't, it is better than the rest, sometimes more so, but it ain't dominant

or next time you'll have to call marginally better something to be ultra uber X

With engines roughly equal (afawk) amid an aero and chassis formula more restrictive than ever, you have to wonder how much differentiation is ultimately available. RB did their usual good job with chassis/aero, however, once teams start copying each other we'll be at roughly similar aero along with roughly similar engines within a season or two, with suspensions that can't do much beyond the basics. So what will be left for RB to continue perfecting? On the car side.

this is going OT... and just pure speculation from my side

RB, I suspect, are just a lot better on tuning the aero so there are no significant changes to how it works at different speeds (no sudden changes to car balance at different speeds and different parts of the corner even) - which gives drivers a lot of confidence to push to the limit feeling the car behaving predictably (not perfectly mind you - but predictably), which seemingly is not the case with Ferrari (both Carlos and Charles have made odd mistakes), and as they refine the design and push the limit further, it is natural this predictability may get sacrificed (car becomes snappy), and Perez seems to struggle with it, and I think that this is the advantage Max has over the driver in the other car, he doesn't seem to be bothered by it, because he is the 105% driver driving at 100% nowdays, compared to 95% drivers trying to get to the 100% (Sainz for instance)

edit: and I very much disagree with the PUs being equal (Honda and Ferrari perhaps are, and are above the 2 others), I think Merc are still significantly behind (which was the rumor before the season when they all had to switch to the new fuel), because their troubles seem to be very similar to what RB was dealing with when they had the deficit in that area, they just seemingly couldn't do anything, they might show a glimpse of great pace here and there for short periods, but it wasn't sustainable, this exact pattern is present with Merc car this year, I don't think their aero philosophy is bad or anything, they simply don't have enough power (edit: I mean they were promised or expected more, so chassis/aero designers counted on that and it does affect the overall design, but the fuel switch proved to be more challenging) to utilize it, so they must compromise something, and that led to porpoising, tire life problems etc, having single lap pace but being bad in long runs or vice versa

[Quantum]

I think that this is the advantage Max has over the driver in the other car, he doesn't seem to be bothered by it, because he is the 105% driver driving at 100% nowdays

You've lost me there.

[Quantum]

People seem to be misusing the word - dominant, just like "amazed", "mind blown" about the simplest things

RB18 is not a dominant car, if it is, how then would you describe the RBs of the V8 era? or Mercs that lapped the rest of the field? Those were dominant cars, and RB18 isn't, it is better than the rest, sometimes more so, but it ain't dominant

or next time you'll have to call marginally better something to be ultra uber X

It is the whole team, together with Honda, that managed to achieve this result, they simply haven't made mistakes (apart from couple issues at the beginning of the year with the fuel pumps), Max did that one spin, which he recovered from, I can't recall any other mistakes from him.

and I've said a number of times, Merc strategists aren't great, they might not even be good, it was the car and drivers that masked majority of their bad calls, now they don't have that car advantage and their mediocrity is very obvious, compare that to RB years when they were 3rd or 2nd best car, how many obvious strategy mistakes you can recall? Drivers were banging heads once in a while, but strategy calls (even when they turned out not to bear fruit) were justified - mind you, they _always_ were 1 driver oriented, so "mistakes" with the 2nd driver strategy are irrelevant

So we-lap-any-car-at-some-tracks-as-yet-undefined-range is the definition of dominance?


To win 70% of the races is not enough. You must lap the field too.
Ok, we shall add this arbitrarily.

[ispano6]

Max and Checo have the same car, and. Checo is level with Charles. Checo and Charles are not dominant. The Rb18 can't drive itself, but in the hands of Max, has been able to pull off 70% of wins due to getting the most performance out of the car and Ferrari underachieving on race day. We all know Ferrari in the hands of Charles has been dominant in qualifying so the Rb18 is not an outright dominant car, and has it's strengths on straights and perhaps on high fuel. The rest is down to driver and team.

[jz11]

So we-lap-any-car-at-some-tracks-as-yet-undefined-range is the definition of dominance?


To win 70% of the races is not enough. You must lap the field too.
Ok, we shall add this arbitrarily.

in short - the _car_ didn't win those 70%, the whole team did, and not without help from Ferrari and Mercedes

statistics alone don't tell the whole story