2023 Italian Grand Prix - Monza, Sep 01 - 03

[Spoutnik]

Avoiding the mistakes of RB re: inexperienced driver against WDC

Given the inexperienced driver outscored Hamilton in their first season paired (bad luck etc, the same as in actual WDC), it seems this was unnecessary caution!

We are witnessing this year how much faster Russell is compared to Hamilton

You don't have to be faster to score more WDC points over the season.

The higher position of Sainz than Leclerc in 2021 and Russell than Hamilton in 2022 attests to that!

I agrre with you. But Lewis is plain fast. I can't find a track where Russell was blatantly faster than Lewis. We could argue about Silverstone perhaps where Lewis had luck with the SC... apart from that.
And on the 2nd half of 2022 (since Canada in reality), if we exclude Brazil, Hamilton was faster at every race track.

[Cs98]

The onboards of the Hamilton/Piastri showed that the former didn't "move over" as there was no steering towards Piastri. Also, there was some space on the outside of Piastri. But easy to say these things from the comfort of our sofas rather than being strapped in to the cockpit of a car with limited visibility, etc..

Hamilton admitted it was totally his fault - far too few drivers ever do that - and he has apologised to Piastri personally too.

He's side by side going into the braking zone and aims the nose of his car towards the outside of the circuit. There was no need for steering inputs during braking, the fault was made when he aimed the car towards the outside when he knew he had a car next to him.

It was the slightest of drifts across the track and no doubt on the basis that he knew that as he was on the inside and felt he was well past the other driver, it was his track. Nothing malicious, a simple error of judgement. Apologies given, fault accepted. No histrionics by either driver - that is left to the keyboard warriors of the internet as always with sports incidents.

It's a bit like steering a ship, you get direction wrong by a few degrees at the start that's going to put you well out of place down the line, which is exactly what happened here. Drivers handled it fine, but we still get nonsense apologetics and people blaming the victim of the contact. You're attempting much of the same by stating simple falsehoods like "it was his track". No, it wasn't.

[Spoutnik]

After Mercedes botched his pitstop twice when Russell was on track to win the Grand Prix.

I'm confident that Russell could have had a very good chance to win the 2020 WDC with either Lewis Hamilton or Valtteri Bottas as teammate. Mercedes' wildly delayed promotion was a crying shame. That was very, very poor driver program management.

We are witnessing this year how much faster Russell is compared to Hamilton

comical.
Okay. Back on topic to Monza. My last post on the ying yang.

Why is it comical. Russell is pretty close.
But he's never (apart 2, 3 tracks) much faster on race day.

[JordanMugen]

Max needs a strong teammate.

Of course. Russell would have been an excellent choice as said teammate yet Mercedes refused to release Russell from this management contract. Shame. Russell in blue would be most amusing!

Helmut Marko:

He has a ten-year contract with Toto Wolff. He is a Mercedes Junior. Should Mercedes not bring him into the mother team, the [team] will certainly try to poach Russell with tasty arguments.

https://www.motorsport-total.com/formel ... n-20123001

Helmut Marko:

Russell is certainly worth considering [for Red Bull] with the performances he is now showing at Williams. The only thing is, that's so Utopian, because if Mercedes let him go, that would be such a faux pas, that I honestly can't imagine it.

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/marko ... s/6629250/

Oh well. Mid-pack silver star cars it is, instead. Hmm. Shame for George.

[Spoutnik]

Max needs a strong teammate.

Of course. Russell would have been an excellent choice as said teammate yet Mercedes refused to release Russell from this management contract. Shame. Russell in blue would be most amusing!

Helmut Marko:

He has a ten-year contract with Toto Wolff. He is a Mercedes Junior. Should Mercedes not bring him into the mother team, the [team] will certainly try to poach Russell with tasty arguments.

https://www.motorsport-total.com/formel ... n-20123001

Helmut Marko:

Russell is certainly worth considering [for Red Bull] with the performances he is now showing at Williams. The only thing is, that's so Utopian, because if Mercedes let him go, that would be such a faux pas, that I honestly can't imagine it.

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/marko ... s/6629250/

Oh well. Mid-pack silver star cars it is, instead. Hmm. Shame for George.

Russell would get eaten alive by Max imo.

[JordanMugen]

Russell would get eaten alive by Max imo.

I strongly disagree. To put Russell on a par with Gasly, Albon and Perez is unreasonable IMO. [Although it's true that Albon and Russell's delta to Latifi was very similar, though that could be because Latifi improved in the second year with 2020 style cars and got worse with the first year of venturi cars.]

Maybe Russell is only a Tier 1B driver instead of a Tier 1 driver, but sometimes moderate speed plus high determination is enough (e.g., Nigel Mansell and indeed Carlos Sainz Jr!).

[search]

it's kinda interesting, that year after year in Monza, a long first stint turns out to be the better strategy to move up in the midfield. But still, almost no one goes for it.

But of course, if everyone did, it also wouldn't work anymore

[Just_a_fan]

He's side by side going into the braking zone and aims the nose of his car towards the outside of the circuit. There was no need for steering inputs during braking, the fault was made when he aimed the car towards the outside when he knew he had a car next to him.

It was the slightest of drifts across the track and no doubt on the basis that he knew that as he was on the inside and felt he was well past the other driver, it was his track. Nothing malicious, a simple error of judgement. Apologies given, fault accepted. No histrionics by either driver - that is left to the keyboard warriors of the internet as always with sports incidents.

It's a bit like steering a ship, you get direction wrong by a few degrees at the start that's going to put you well out of place down the line, which is exactly what happened here. Drivers handled it fine, but we still get nonsense apologetics and people blaming the victim of the contact. You're attempting much of the same by stating simple falsehoods like "it was his track". No, it wasn't.

If you read what I wrote rather than what you want me to have written, I said he felt he was well past and thus it was his track. He made a mistake. No one is perfect. He owned up to making a mistake. Many others never do that. He personally apologised to Oscar immediately after the race. Again, not many do that.

[JordanMugen]

it's kinda interesting, that year after year in Monza, a long first stint turns out to be the better strategy to move up in the midfield. But still, almost no one goes for it.

But of course, if everyone did, it also wouldn't work anymore

High safety car risk of course. If there is a lap 10 safety car then you would be doing two stops on mediums to everyone else going to the end on hards. It could work, but it is a very racey strategy.

[101FlyingDutchman]

It was the slightest of drifts across the track and no doubt on the basis that he knew that as he was on the inside and felt he was well past the other driver, it was his track. Nothing malicious, a simple error of judgement. Apologies given, fault accepted. No histrionics by either driver - that is left to the keyboard warriors of the internet as always with sports incidents.

It's a bit like steering a ship, you get direction wrong by a few degrees at the start that's going to put you well out of place down the line, which is exactly what happened here. Drivers handled it fine, but we still get nonsense apologetics and people blaming the victim of the contact. You're attempting much of the same by stating simple falsehoods like "it was his track". No, it wasn't.

If you read what I wrote rather than what you want me to have written, I said he felt he was well past and thus it was his track. He made a mistake. No one is perfect. He owned up to making a mistake. Many others never do that. He personally apologised to Oscar immediately after the race. Again, not many do that.

Agreed. But I’d rather some on here don’t try and attempt mental gymnastics and talk in word salad to even imply it was PIA at fault here. As he just wasn’t. Maybe just be the bigger person and hold your hand up (like their idol just has done!) and say it was a mistake. Would be a breathe of fresh air on this forum if they’d be as big as their star driver

[Spoutnik]

Russell would get eaten alive by Max imo.

I strongly disagree. To put Russell on a par with Gasly, Albon and Perez is unreasonable IMO. [Although it's true that Albon and Russell's delta to Latifi was very similar, though that could be because Latifi improved in the second year with 2020 style cars and got worse with the first year of venturi cars.]

Maybe Russell is only a Tier 1B driver instead of a Tier 1 driver, but sometimes moderate speed plus high determination is enough (e.g., Nigel Mansell and indeed Carlos Sainz Jr!).

Yes I agree. We can assume Max is equal or better than Lewis.
So, at Max' home, at his prime. I think he would be more or less as far as he is from Hamilton in this championship.
Keep in mind Russell only had one mechanical DNF. The rest are lack of pace, or his own mistakes (think about Canada even if he had to retire later for another reason, Netherlands...)

[AR3-GP]

If you read what I wrote rather than what you want me to have written, I said he felt he was well past and thus it was his track. He made a mistake. No one is perfect. He owned up to making a mistake. Many others never do that.

I'm confused by this post.

You are saying you think he was well past and it was his track. But Hamilton owned up to it. Do you disagree with Hamilton?

[search]

it's kinda interesting, that year after year in Monza, a long first stint turns out to be the better strategy to move up in the midfield. But still, almost no one goes for it.

But of course, if everyone did, it also wouldn't work anymore

High safety car risk of course. If there is a lap 10 safety car then you would be doing two stops on mediums to everyone else going to the end on hards. It could work, but it is a very racey strategy.

yeah, but on the other hand, the "late pitstop" strategy also won Gasly the race, when he got a red flag after the others had stopped. So you can benefit from it as well

Sure, those were extraordinary circumstances, but when starting 15+ in Monza, you won't score points anyway with a normal strategy.

[Spoutnik]

it's kinda interesting, that year after year in Monza, a long first stint turns out to be the better strategy to move up in the midfield. But still, almost no one goes for it.

But of course, if everyone did, it also wouldn't work anymore

Didn't work that much for Hamilton as he was stuck in a DRS train with the slowest top speed in the field.

[Hammerfist]

it's kinda interesting, that year after year in Monza, a long first stint turns out to be the better strategy to move up in the midfield. But still, almost no one goes for it.

But of course, if everyone did, it also wouldn't work anymore

Didn't work that much for Hamilton as he was stuck in a DRS train with the slowest top speed in the field.

He nearly maximized the result. He had the third best car and finished 6th. The drs train cost him a chance at russell but id say the strategy worked.