2023 Canadian Grand Prix - Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve - June 16 - 18

[Sieper]

But why was he doing that? If the option to not do it is not on the table the deficit is still real. Cars performance is the sum of all parts. Plus, redbull didn’t have the ideal set-up on a track that doesn’t suit them especially well. On others the gap will be bigger imho.

[AR3-GP]

Yes, but having been in RB next to Max, Albon has now freed himself of the Marko Junior set up and is setting his own course. Red Bull only want a second driver to be there "just in case" their current star has an issue on the day. Albon was never going to be allowed to star. Max is the star, just as Seb was before him. Ask Webber how that went for him, even when he was beating Seb on merit.

Maybe Mercedes will take Albon. He's clearly the worthy successor to Lewis Hamilton. Evil Marko is just holding all that talent back. I reckon Merc would start winning championships immediately once Albon is onboard.

lol.

Or maybe Albon just isn't good enough to be the star of a big team and it's time to give it a rest...

RBR run the team as a single-driver focused operation. That's their way of doing things. They did it with Seb and they're doing it with Max. If Fernando or Lewis was available, would they put them in the other car? No. Why not? Because that would cause huge issues in the team. So they use youngsters or journeymen in the second seat because that enables them to manage the team as they see fit. That's fine. But don't dress it up as being anything else.

Is Albon as good as Max? No, he probably isn't. But they were never going to get the best from him the way they used him. Albon's career is better suited elsewhere because being second driver in Red Bull is not going to lead to a long and glorious career.

Red Bull made an offer to Norris. He rejected it. RB also made an offer to Russell. He rejected it. Mercedes and Aston have not made offers to Verstappen. They've only been making offers to Rb's technical staff .

[Sieper]

Mercedes did talk to the Verstappens in their run up to F1. And I think at some point when the Megachrome engine kept falling apart and they didn’t even provide complete, functional new engines further talks have happened. I always hoped Max would stay at RBR and that they would build together. And with Honda that happened. Max is also sad to see them gone. But from an independent team (and ofc Honda pulling out) I can see the want/need.

[PlatinumZealot]

This era is worse than Mercedes domination. At least we had fights for the win back then. Now it's not even a question of whether Max will win, it's will he lead every single lap?

[AR3-GP]

This era is worse than Mercedes domination. At least we had fights for the win back then. Now it's not even a question of whether Max will win, it's will he lead every single lap?

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[organic]

This era is worse than Mercedes domination. At least we had fights for the win back then. Now it's not even a question of whether Max will win, it's will he lead every single lap?

I think it's the longest anyone has led consecutively since Vettel. If Max leads every lap of Austria it will be the most consecutive laps led ever (breaking a record established by Ascari in 1952)..

It's certainly one of the least competitive eras of the sport we've had. The driver is dominant within the team and the car the team has produced for the season is miles ahead of the competition. But this is in large part to their rivals (Ferrari, Merc) dropping the ball.. The pace with which AMR and even Ferrari/Merc are closing the gap using the increased wind tunnel time relative to RB shows that the sliding scale of development will work

Not convinced that RB will hold this advantage for a great deal longer. The second half of the season looks like it'll be close or at least the RB19 won't be strongest everywhere as it has been hitherto. It hasn't even been a full 12 months since Ferrari spectacularly lost form in 2022, so it's been less than a year of domination in real terms. Mercedes domination lasted for at least 4 seasons (from 2014-2016 and 2019-2020) in the previous ruleset.

Severity of this domination compared to merc's is significantly worse, but the duration is not comparable yet

[napoleon1981]

There is some exaggeration going on here. Max got 4 consecutive wins. Lewis has done 5 wins atleast twice on separate occasions. Rosberg did 7. Perez is 9 points in front of alonso. Look at the dominant merc years. Both drivers were marching away. Thats the sign of a dominant car. We now have a dominant driver

[organic]

There is some exaggeration going on here. Max got 4 consecutive wins. Lewis has done 5 wins atleast twice on separate occasions. Rosberg did 7. Perez is 9 points in front of alonso. Look at the dominant merc years. Both drivers were marching away. Thats the sign of a dominant car. We now have a dominant driver

Max has won 20 of the last 27 grand Prix. Perez has taken 4 of those remaining. George, Sainz and Leclerc the other 3. That's a 74% win rate for Max and 89% for the car since it became dominant

Lewis never got close to 74% true, but 89% win rate in a period of about a year is a dominant car

Put two Lando Norris calibre drivers in the rb18/rb19 and it looks similarly dominant imo. Maybe a few fewer wins but there wouldn't be a lot in it.

[Silent Storm]

Yes, but having been in RB next to Max, Albon has now freed himself of the Marko Junior set up and is setting his own course. Red Bull only want a second driver to be there "just in case" their current star has an issue on the day. Albon was never going to be allowed to star. Max is the star, just as Seb was before him. Ask Webber how that went for him, even when he was beating Seb on merit.

Maybe Mercedes will take Albon. He's clearly the worthy successor to Lewis Hamilton. Evil Marko is just holding all that talent back. I reckon Merc would start winning championships immediately once Albon is onboard.

lol.

Or maybe Albon just isn't good enough to be the star of a big team and it's time to give it a rest...

RBR run the team as a single-driver focused operation. That's their way of doing things. They did it with Seb and they're doing it with Max. If Fernando or Lewis was available, would they put them in the other car? No. Why not? Because that would cause huge issues in the team. So they use youngsters or journeymen in the second seat because that enables them to manage the team as they see fit. That's fine. But don't dress it up as being anything else.

Is Albon as good as Max? No, he probably isn't. But they were never going to get the best from him the way they used him. Albon's career is better suited elsewhere because being second driver in Red Bull is not going to lead to a long and glorious career.

If redbull are a single driver focused team why did they allow Daniel to win 3 races in 2014 against their 4 time world champion? Easy to nerf a car in garage and dial in some understeer or limit power in the name of reliability as 2014 Renault PU was fragile. They let Daniel shine against Seb and did the same when Max showed up.

[bluechris]

There is some exaggeration going on here. Max got 4 consecutive wins. Lewis has done 5 wins atleast twice on separate occasions. Rosberg did 7. Perez is 9 points in front of alonso. Look at the dominant merc years. Both drivers were marching away. Thats the sign of a dominant car. We now have a dominant driver

Max has won 20 of the last 27 grand Prix. Perez has taken 4 of those remaining. George, Sainz and Leclerc the other 3. That's a 74% win rate for Max and 89% for the car since it became dominant

Lewis never got close to 74% true, but 89% win rate in a period of about a year is a dominant car

Put two Lando Norris calibre drivers in the rb18/rb19 and it looks similarly dominant imo. Maybe a few fewer wins but there wouldn't be a lot in it.

This is correct but never in history we had one team dropping the ball totally for more than 1.5 year (MB) and another team because of a change midseason last year (Ferrari) to drop the ball also till now. You must count this things also before you say who is dominant and not.

RB hasnt done something extreme the last years. They just got it right from start and they improve it constantly bit by bit but the others needed completely overhaul of their design.

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Hmm don't think so.. did not everyone except Merc dropp the ball in 2014? and it took 3 years for Ferrari to catch up enough and 5-6 years for RB (with honda).

[Stu]

Way off-topic here, please either get back on track or take it elsewhere.

[PlatinumZealot]

There is some exaggeration going on here. Max got 4 consecutive wins. Lewis has done 5 wins atleast twice on separate occasions. Rosberg did 7. Perez is 9 points in front of alonso. Look at the dominant merc years. Both drivers were marching away. Thats the sign of a dominant car. We now have a dominant driver

My main point was Max in unchallenged so there is no fight for the win, much less to even lead him on a lap.

Result of Number 1 driver in dominant car in era of reliabilty.

In the Canadian race his engineer said something so damning... "Max those behind you are pushing harder than you are".... While Max was 10 seconds down the road complaining about heating the tyres..

Can't blame them, but it certainly dampened the race.

[Bill]

I wish Alex gets a chance to be back in the Red bull team. I think he would be a good number 2 to Max.

one race does not make a season ,Nick secored points in his first race in that william in monza.the william is a good car in a straight line but does not mean Alex perfomance is so exceptional to warrant a second bite at redbull seat .he still be 0.6 tenth behind Max.

[Juzh]

But why was he doing that? If the option to not do it is not on the table the deficit is still real. Cars performance is the sum of all parts. Plus, redbull didn’t have the ideal set-up on a track that doesn’t suit them especially well. On others the gap will be bigger imho.

Well apparently it was a phantom issue, not something they intended to do
https://www.racefans.net/2023/06/19/alo ... terialise/
this could very well mean alonso ended with too much fuel in the end, causing more slowdown

RBs problems on this track were fundamental to the car, not anything in particular to do with setup. Gap could and probably will be bigger in next races, but on this past sunday alonso could be very close without that problem, as I said.