Check lap time data sheets first, come back to me later.
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Oscar had to fight through a lot more traffic in the race than Max. The avg lap data is clear that Lando was fastest followed by Max and Oscar.
Yes, this is what I was talking about too. Max' key advantages over Mclaren drivers were obtained by him in qualifying. Not only did he get better grid position, especially compared to Norris - clearly Mclaren faster driver, but also in Q1 and Q2 when he used his medium sets a lot less to proceed further, saving those tires for the grand prix. I think on top of brand new set, he had two set with just 3 laps in them, against 6-7 laps in Piastri and Norris sets. This is why they had to pit earlier and came back in heavy traffic and lost a lot of race time, whilst Max as you rightfully noted drove most of the race in free air, and didn't had to overtake a single car for position.
This is true, the phrase "as Piastri can't produce any kind of a challenge for Max" is not, that is what I was disputing.AR3-GP wrote: ↑10 Oct 2023, 17:36The sprint race only had 9 green flag laps and multiple cool down laps. Piastri had clean air.
In the GP where the stints were longer, Norris was faster by a good 2-3 tenths. Norris also pointed out that the dirty air could be felt from 3 seconds gap which may explain why Verstappen couldn’t really get that close in the Sprint, and also shows how much pace Norris had to close the gap down to 1 second in spite of the dirty air at 3 seconds. Norris is definitely the bigger threat at the moment.
What for? He won a race ahead of Verstappen, thus proving beyond any shadow of a doubt that what you said is false.
I'm sure there will be. But they're also probably being conservative on the PU for obvious reasons
Current PU is still probably top rung when observing all parameters. Driveability, reliability, peak power, ERS performance etc etc. We also have no idea if they're running max output often either. To be honest, there doesn't really seem a need to, so you'd assume they'd run the PU moderately to extend lifespan if they have this much advantage.
Most people in this thread doesn't hope that, why would you hope for disaster. Strange logicPlatinumZealot wrote: ↑12 Oct 2023, 05:21One can only hope the RedBull PU will be stricken with unreliabilty in 2026 even if it's powerful. So that's two more seasons of RBR domination before then, and then they'l pick up the peices for 2028 and Max win's his sixth, retires and then a Tsunoda domination era begins.
Verstappen questioned the pitstop timing right after, for that exact reason as you say. Why waste the time in traffic.Juzh wrote: ↑12 Oct 2023, 11:52Horner told Verstappen on the cool down lap they wanted to cover all eventualities in that last stint, that's why they extended hard tyre stint, I guess he's thinking of SCs or the like, but actually it was not the smartest move by RB to leave Max out for so long on hard tyres. Mclarens gained loads of time in the meantime and he encountered lapped traffic which he wouldn't had they stopped 2 or 3 laps earlier. Lapping slower cars cost verstappen around 2s as stroll decided to be himself and just sat in front of him for a whole lap, passing like 20 blue flag lights (hows that not a penatly?). A bad pitstop on top and you've blown 11 lead down to 4s. Verstappen also drove a perfect race with zero mistakes, just a few of those or one big oversteer moment and suddenly you've got an unexpected race on your hands. I've watched Ver's onboard in full and he wasn't exactly doodling around, on last 2 stints he pushed at ~95%.
In my opinion way too conservative approach by RB, reminiscent of old merc dominance, just a matter of time when it'll backfire.
Norris really scored own goal on friday.
I'm not suggesting a straight forward anything for mclaren, however there was chance to annoy RB immensely in Qatar and they blew it, even when they got gifted a forced flat out race. I'm guessing RB19 is inherently slower than it could have been by virtue of tyre saving setups (and maybe even car design). Probably running with less camber and/or other setup adjustments that are suboptimal in pure laptime, but give overall better race time.AR3-GP wrote: ↑12 Oct 2023, 11:56Verstappen questioned the pitstop timing right after, for that exact reason as you say. Why waste the time in traffic.Juzh wrote: ↑12 Oct 2023, 11:52Horner told Verstappen on the cool down lap they wanted to cover all eventualities in that last stint, that's why they extended hard tyre stint, I guess he's thinking of SCs or the like, but actually it was not the smartest move by RB to leave Max out for so long on hard tyres. Mclarens gained loads of time in the meantime and he encountered lapped traffic which he wouldn't had they stopped 2 or 3 laps earlier. Lapping slower cars cost verstappen around 2s as stroll decided to be himself and just sat in front of him for a whole lap, passing like 20 blue flag lights (hows that not a penatly?). A bad pitstop on top and you've blown 11 lead down to 4s. Verstappen also drove a perfect race with zero mistakes, just a few of those or one big oversteer moment and suddenly you've got an unexpected race on your hands. I've watched Ver's onboard in full and he wasn't exactly doodling around, on last 2 stints he pushed at ~95%.
In my opinion way too conservative approach by RB, reminiscent of old merc dominance, just a matter of time when it'll backfire.
Norris really scored own goal on friday.
In any case it wouldn't have been so straight forward for Mclaren. The dirty air in Qatar was immense and understated. Qatar is just turkey turn 8 on repeat. Norris said it could be felt at 3 seconds out. The Mclarens would have started to struggle if they managed to get close.