Overall it was a very eventful race at Mexico but Carlos Sainz really didn't put a single foot wrong all weekend and continued this today to stay out of trouble and drive to a well deserved victory. Lando Norris finished second while the second Ferrari of Leclerc completed the podium.
They did. It will be impossible to be certain whether bib made them lose race pace but we can look what happens in the next 4 races. In Mexico Verstappen was unable to catch battling Mercedes drivers and couldn't pull a gap to Haas. He also lost about 0.6-0.7s per lap to the leading Ferrari in the first stint.
These are all datapoints. Maybe in Brazil Red Bull bounces back and we can forget about the bib thing. I think it's worth bringing it up though.
That is not datapoints, this is nonsense. It was clear, that he can not reach the Mercs and the only thread was behind with Piastri. He was just managing the tires and gap with an old engine.
Let's see if he "manages tires and gap" in the last 4 races.
Indeed. He was also complaining the entire time he was supposedly managing his tyres and the gap. And has complained about the race pace in post-race interviews
He also highlighted how the lack of running affected the setup. Remember the sprint weekend in Brazil a few years ago, where he got eaten alive bc of the wrong setup (starting on pole)?
Anyway this championship is far from over. Things have gone pretty favorable for Max with Lando and Mclaren not always taking full advantage, and also Mercedes and Ferrari stepping in to take points away. However if RB has a true off weekend, with Mclaren and others performing, Lando could still take some big bites out of the lead. RB is certainly not in control.
They did. It will be impossible to be certain whether bib made them lose race pace but we can look what happens in the next 4 races. In Mexico Verstappen was unable to catch battling Mercedes drivers and couldn't pull a gap to Haas. He also lost about 0.6-0.7s per lap to the leading Ferrari in the first stint.
They were losing 0.6 to 0.7s per lap in Hungary and Zandvoort.
Haas is closer to everyone now because of a very big update. Magnussen was keeping Piastri honest.
Surely it’s not a coincidence that both Ferrari and Haas have improved?
Ferrari had a PU advantage in Mexico. Haas and Ferrari were the fastest cars in the speed traps.
From qualy:
Look at the finish line trap speeds. Top 4 cars was Haas and Ferrari. They were accelerating and reaching top speed faster than the other cars. Power advantage.
Surely it’s not a coincidence that both Ferrari and Haas have improved?
Given that Haas improved after Ferrari did, it most likely is just a coincidence. Sauber is still absolutely undoubtedly the slowest team despite Ferrari and Haas improving.
They did admittedly perform slightly less poorly in Mexico, but I'd still consider the broadly similar rates of improvement in Ferrari and haas to be coincidence. Obviously Haas is benefiting immensely from the vastly improved 2024 Ferrari suspension which allows Haas to upgrade the car without it turning into a tyre chewing monster. If anything the upgrades that would normally cause it to start eating tyres just improve performance by making it easier to get the tyres up to temp.
AFAIK the Ferrari suspension hasn't been changed though, so Ferrari hasn't really unlocked some kind of extra suspension performance for Haas post-monza. They just happened to bring massive upgrade packages at similar times that brought similar results.
The only thing that could really have "trickled down" to Haas is the effects of Ferrari upgrading their wind tunnel around Monza, which seems to have corrected some correlation issues. Still I doubt Haas managed to develop their massive upgrade package since Monza. It has probably been in the pipeline since well before the wind tunnel upgrade.
So it should really be coincidence that Haas improved a ton. It could have something to do with the Toyota Gazoo racing contract bringing them confidence in their financial situation. Confidence in their finances would allow them to release a bunch of funds held in reserve for a huge upgrade package.
VER had slower pace than a Haas. We will see what happens in next races.
If pace continues to be this bad then it was the bib.
You've got it backwards. Supposed bib adjustment allowed for lower ride height during quali and would improve quali performance, something which is still in relatively good shape on the RB20. It should have no relative effect on race pace, which in any case is garbage since a long time before whole bib thing came up.
As much as that must have taken a few minutes, it's not relevant in this thread.
Can we keep all this track limits ahead penalty waffle in the thread created for that purpose please?
My first reply was to a post in this thread and I tried keeping it on topic of unfair penalty to RBR driver. To be honest, there's too many threads recently, too many parallel conversations going on. In any case, moved to race thread and making my final post on this topic
Again, it's semantics and technicalities. If you read the penalty reports they explain the reasoning behind their decision. Judging from telemetry data and onboard footage, the stewards deemed the overtaking attempt at T4 as safe and controlled by Lando. He was ahead of Max at the entry, apex and towards the exit of the corner and from the data they had, the stewards believed Lando would have kept it on track for T5 had he not been forced off the track by Max. Hence, no penalty for Lando because "technically" the position would have been his had the opponent not forced him off. So he didn't gain anything by going off-track and he let Carlos by (the only position he "technically" gained while going off-track).
The report on T8 again acknowledges that Max was ahead at the apex and was entitled to racing room, but he did not complete the maneuver on-track.
The difference is, one of the drivers would have pulled off the overtake if he hadn't been pushed off-track by the defender. Whereas the other couldn't pull off the overtake without going off-track (by himself), while pushing the defender off in the process (again, this is not so relevant, but I like to mention it ).
Two completely different scenarios.
We cannot objectively say that A) Norris would have made the T4-5 chicane easily without Max pushing him off and B) even if he kept it in, he wouldn't massively compromise his T5 line. Him being +13% quicker on entry is a massive compromise towards T5 apex. But this is beside the point for T8 penalty.
Again, Max completed the T7 overtake according to the definitions of rules and guidlines. They both left the track on T8 entry and Norris wasn't forced to do it. He was compromised, but compromising your opponent by forcing him off the ideal line is part of racing as long as you don't force him off track physically.
There is no objective reasoning for T8 penalty whatsoever.
We cannot objectively say that A) Norris would have made the T4-5 chicane easily without Max pushing him off and B) even if he kept it in, he wouldn't massively compromise his T5 line. Him being +13% quicker on entry is a massive compromise towards T5 apex. But this is beside the point for T8 penalty.
Again, Max completed the T7 overtake according to the definitions of rules and guidlines. They both left the track on T8 entry and Norris wasn't forced to do it. He was compromised, but compromising your opponent by forcing him off the ideal line is part of racing as long as you don't force him off track physically.
There is no objective reasoning for T8 penalty whatsoever.
Lando would have made the corner and I think it's fairly obvious from the onboards. Would T5 be compromised? Absolutely, but it's actually beneficial to completing the overtake because you get the inside line into that corner and the other driver can't really do anything about it without going off-track around the outside of T5.
This is how it should be done if both players race fairly :
As for the T7-T8 debacle, you are fixating on the fact that Max technically completed the overtake while they both were on track. You can't ignore what happened before and after that moment and what happened after is Max completely missing the exit and going off track.
Because of this, by definition, the overtake was not completed and therefore he gained a lasting advantage by going off the track. I don't understand why you don't consider that completely objective reasoning. He couldn't make the move stick without going off-track, you can't just allow that sort of thing to stand.
You literally just ruin the sport. All you have to do is be ahead by the apex and it doesn't matter whether you make the exit or not, the position is yours. If you go by that logic, why not just dive the inside at the nouvelle chicane in Monaco, cut half the corner, but it doesn't matter because you were ahead at the apex.
That's what you're saying. Let's freeze the frame at the apex, check that the overtaking driver is ahead, boom, the overtake is technically done, doesn't matter what happens after.
This just makes no sense. You complete the overtake when you are ahead AND keep it on track.
He was compromised, but compromising your opponent by forcing him off the ideal line is part of racing as long as you don't force him off track physically.
Sure, he compromised Lando significantly actually and if Lando had gained anything by choosing to go off instead of backing out of the corner, he would have been penalized for it. Still changes nothing about why Max got the penalty.
The T7 one was worse than the T4 one IMO. The T7 made zero effort to actually make the corner, he sent it in hoping to wipe Norris out or force Norris to take evasive action. I'd be asking for a race ban in our club for that ---. These takes are insane. Stick to the technical analysis.
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