At a team event at the Museo Storico Alfa Romeo, where the Italian car manufacturer celebrated their return to Formula One, the Sauber F1 team have announced their driver line-up for 2018. From behind a repainted Sauber in Alfa Romeo colours, Marcus Ericsson and Charles Leclerc were present to confirm their racing seats in 2018.
Seems a very biased way of looking at things!GPR-A wrote: ↑11 Sep 2017, 11:36I wish it would have been so simple to concur.djos wrote: ↑11 Sep 2017, 01:14Indeed, and Dan is winning the team points battle this year mainly due to superb driving and not crashing into others. Both have had mechanical DNF's this year but Dan continually shows his ability to pull off great passes without hitting his opponents, unlike max. Plus he punishes others for making mistakes.PlatinumZealot wrote: ↑11 Sep 2017, 00:41That comprison does't really apply because Max switches in-season and was basically a boy in the sport. Daniel was obviously going to stay on top of him forst time around. Daniel had no business beating a 4XWDC in his own team... But he did... Qualli after Qualli, Race after race. It was certainly legitimate speed.
Max had 6 DNF (all related to PU) and Ric had only 3.
Importantly, on every occasion when Ric gained a podium, Max started ahead of him and could have finished on podium, if not for the DNFs.
In Monaco, Max was ahead of Ric until the strategy played a role.
In Canada, he could have easily retained 2nd place ahead of Bottas, the way Bottas struggled to pass Ocon.
In Baku, it would have been Max who would have won, instead of Ric.
In Silverstone, Max was called in for a precautionary pit stop, that prevented him from a podium.
In fact, on almost all occasions where Ric got on to podium, it would have been Max.
So, just to look at Monza and saying, Ric is better than Max was belying all the realities. So much of frustration and still managing to put in those qualifying performances makes him a stand out performer. Otherwise, just look at Vettel last year.
One fact that has stood out this season is that, Max is faster than Ric over a lap and the engine failures have masked what would have happened in races. If the PU would have shown good reliability, Ric would have been desperately searching for a new home already.
What's those 9 years difference in age between them worth? If it is about racing skills, it was already on display last year (in a car that he hadn't tested) at Silverstone and Brazil, where Ric couldn't match Max.djos wrote: ↑11 Sep 2017, 13:12Max is insanely fast and I love watching him race, especially in the wet!
However Dan has beaten max in races like Monaco by driving insanely well and making the absolute most of every situation. He's beaten drivers in much better cars on a regular basis - he's just a great racer. Max is still learning.
Imo Dan is a modern Prost and Max a modern Senna. They are both supremely talented but Dan is the better strategic driver.
So trueSchuttelberg wrote: ↑12 Sep 2017, 11:26Verstappen has generally shown more speed than Ricciardo this year. I personally find a lot of Ricciardo's performances this year masked by Verstappen's terrible reliabilities. At the end of they day, they're by and far the best driver pairing on the grid in F1. Verstappen made one terrible mistake this year, but Ricciardo himself did that at Baku but ended up winning because everyone else around him kept falling over.
As far as race craft is concerned, the two championship contenders have bullied past practically everyone in their way but neither could pass Verstappen when they were racing him this year. I don't want to get into the debate of who's better or who's been better this year because it's all a hypothesis. We will never know because of MV reliability. But those saying DR has more race craft have clearly no idea about MV's karting days or his racing pedigree.
Apart from some minor tense moments I think Ricciardo handled very well his time with Sebastian and he is doing the same with Max.Jolle wrote: ↑07 Sep 2017, 16:38Vettel, Hamilton (and Alonso, Verstappen) are going to clash with whoever challenges them in the same car. It's one of the trades why they are where they are and not Bottas, Kimi or Button. If you want a team with either of them in it, you better make sure you've got a follower instead of a challenger next to them (like in the past Barichello, Berger, Heiki, Herbert, etc etc). Ricciardo will make Vettel uncomfortable. You don't pay 40mln a year to make it uncomfortable.
