chrisc90 wrote: ↑30 Oct 2024, 15:29
CjC wrote: ↑30 Oct 2024, 15:06
It a very manageable task for Max isn’t it really.
Considering he’s still able to qualify well, no doubt due to the fresh tyres mitigating some of the deficiencies with his car, there’s every chance he might win a sprint or 2, there again because the sprints are short stints the ‘bad’ race pace doesn’t bite him as much.
Yeah, should be pretty doable. Just needs to keep his nose clean and finish the race in a decent position.
Sadly - Max’s nature is to win and do the best he can. So sometimes that can be a downside to being competitive
I think you are both not acknowledging, that Max has the 3rd best car even if discounting Merc. He needs to fight with Merc just to get P5 and need special circumstances to finish above. Yes, there are usually options which is often used by Max. But he has to rely on those to arise (Weak qualy from Piastri, strategic blunders, borderline or out of line defence moves etc). It is not in his hand to score above 10 points/race, he needs those opportunities to arise.
However Norris has a car capable of winning both qualy and race so it is perfectly in his hand to collect 100+ points.
Everybody who mentions this is an easy ride for Max, just automatically assumes that Lando will keep messing up.
Also my math is a bit more conservative as I don't want a stressful last race worrying about random DNF or such. So preferably I would want Max to have 26+ points advantage going into Abu Dhabi.
Which means he can only lose ~20 points during the following 3 races+2 sprints. Which seems almost impossible, at least not without some serious luck.
But I also think that if Max could somehow win any of the remaining races, then he would be relatively safe.