The Official F1 Thread

[Dogbert]

Piastri wins again and leaving Norris in his dust.

I called it before the 1st race: Lando just doesn’t have the stones to be World Champion.

People said that about Alain Prost, too. Lando is very fast and the perception about his character is influenced by his vocal tone over the radio. He plays the team game nicely and does what they want.

I said Piastri had the goods back in his first McLaren season. He's a genuinely quick driver who stays cool under pressure and calculates well. That move he put Verstappen into for the lead was a masterclass.

For a track that was denigrated as 'old school' and too difficult to pass on , Imola proved anything but, would be a great shame to lose it from the calender.

That move that Verstappen put on Piastri for the lead was a masterclass.

Simply Lovely

[fishfoodie]

On the other side of the pond in Indycar, Team Penske has been caught cheating for a 2nd time this season, & while it's more deniable than the previous incident, which stank to high heaven, this being a 2nd occurrence in a situation where thousands on an mph are critical I think the team & people involved are getting off lightly.

The other teams were furious after the, push-to-pass cheat, so I can only imagine how they'll feel about these cars being allowed to race, even if from the back of the field !

https://www.indycar.com/news/2025/05/05 ... -penalties

[Guy Smiley]

Piastri wins again and leaving Norris in his dust.

I called it before the 1st race: Lando just doesn’t have the stones to be World Champion.

People said that about Alain Prost, too. Lando is very fast and the perception about his character is influenced by his vocal tone over the radio. He plays the team game nicely and does what they want.

I said Piastri had the goods back in his first McLaren season. He's a genuinely quick driver who stays cool under pressure and calculates well. That move he put Verstappen into for the lead was a masterclass.

For a track that was denigrated as 'old school' and too difficult to pass on , Imola proved anything but, would be a great shame to lose it from the calender.

That move that Verstappen put on Piastri for the lead was a masterclass.

Simply Lovely

I've been waiting for some sort of telemetry analysis to come up for this race... might have to wait a few more days yet. I wouldn't call it a masterclass but it was a balls piece of very precise driving. Watch the start again and Piastri has a great launch but gets bogged down with everyone bunching up behind him going into the turn one complex. You hear George Russell swearing about him, saying what is he doing on the radio as he's baulked badly after getting maybe the best start of the top 4. Post race, Piastri admits to learning a lesson in letting Verstappen through... I think he fucked up and went too cautious, leaving a generous gap. Max couldn't help himself but take the chance and it paid off... then he got all the luck with the VSC and SC timing later.

Piastri's pit boxed him for tyres around lap 12 and from there his race for the lead was over. Teams thought the mids were going to cook and pitted early... those who gambled and stayed out had the tyres come back to them and ended up putting in something like 30 or more laps on them.That includes Maz, Norris and a few others.

I thought Norris put on a similar quality pass on Russell (had a look at highlights, it's lap 11) into turn 4, going around the outside into the turn. Ballsy piece of very precise driving.

Red Bull have got a car good enough now to match the McLaren, especially high speed corner circuits. Piastri's pit will have some heavy reviewing after this round because I think they made a few mistakes and maybe fried their own race a bit but the contest for the season is definitely game on. Hamilton looked very comfortable and charged up in the Ferrari, Tsunoda showed good pace and made up 10 places and the Aston Martins had real speed until they pitted onto the hards.

1/4 into the season and it's all very much alive. Someone's going to crash into someone else at a critical juncture before the year is out, there's pressure on all over the field.

[Dogbert]

People said that about Alain Prost, too. Lando is very fast and the perception about his character is influenced by his vocal tone over the radio. He plays the team game nicely and does what they want.

I said Piastri had the goods back in his first McLaren season. He's a genuinely quick driver who stays cool under pressure and calculates well. That move he put Verstappen into for the lead was a masterclass.

For a track that was denigrated as 'old school' and too difficult to pass on , Imola proved anything but, would be a great shame to lose it from the calender.

That move that Verstappen put on Piastri for the lead was a masterclass.

Simply Lovely

I've been waiting for some sort of telemetry analysis to come up for this race... might have to wait a few more days yet. I wouldn't call it a masterclass but it was a balls piece of very precise driving. Watch the start again and Piastri has a great launch but gets bogged down with everyone bunching up behind him going into the turn one complex. You hear George Russell swearing about him, saying what is he doing on the radio as he's baulked badly after getting maybe the best start of the top 4. Post race, Piastri admits to learning a lesson in letting Verstappen through... I think he fucked up and went too cautious, leaving a generous gap. Max couldn't help himself but take the chance and it paid off... then he got all the luck with the VSC and SC timing later.

Piastri's pit boxed him for tyres around lap 12 and from there his race for the lead was over. Teams thought the mids were going to cook and pitted early... those who gambled and stayed out had the tyres come back to them and ended up putting in something like 30 or more laps on them.That includes Maz, Norris and a few others.

I thought Norris put on a similar quality pass on Russell (had a look at highlights, it's lap 11) into turn 4, going around the outside into the turn. Ballsy piece of very precise driving.

Red Bull have got a car good enough now to match the McLaren, especially high speed corner circuits. Piastri's pit will have some heavy reviewing after this round because I think they made a few mistakes and maybe fried their own race a bit but the contest for the season is definitely game on. Hamilton looked very comfortable and charged up in the Ferrari, Tsunoda showed good pace and made up 10 places and the Aston Martins had real speed until they pitted onto the hards.

1/4 into the season and it's all very much alive. Someone's going to crash into someone else at a critical juncture before the year is out, there's pressure on all over the field.

VSC - certainly , but the SC on lap 47 ? , that helped Verstappen's rivals far more than Max , surely.

Up until that point Max had a stable 18/19 second gap to Norris and a 32 second gap to Piastri. Max was able to go onto 'Prost' mode, look after the tyres, use less curb , be more mechanically sympathetic to the car, stroke it home, and even if you make a mistake you have a big enough gap to recover without losing the race

All that the full safety car did was to put Max's main rivals back to his gearbox, one bad shift , one to big a bit of a curb to try get out of DRS range , and that's the race lost.

Why do you think the full safety car was to Max's advantage ?

[Guy Smiley]

I didn’t say it was to his advantage, I said he got all the luck.. the timing of the SCs worked well for him and his tyre life. Contrast with LeClerc who definitely got the wrong end of the stick with both SCs, and Piastri who if they hadn’t pitted early and toughed out the medium tyre would have been a much better chance of 2nd or a tilt at Max.

I think RB have been sandbagging a little over the last few rounds. Miami doesn’t suit their car so much but they had speed. Then they’re right back in it at Imola. They’re back. We could be in for a classic season with several drivers vying for race wins.

[Dogbert]

I didn’t say it was to his advantage, I said he got all the luck.. the timing of the SCs worked well for him and his tyre life. Contrast with LeClerc who definitely got the wrong end of the stick with both SCs, and Piastri who if they hadn’t pitted early and toughed out the medium tyre would have been a much better chance of 2nd or a tilt at Max.

I think RB have been sandbagging a little over the last few rounds. Miami doesn’t suit their car so much but they had speed. Then they’re right back in it at Imola. They’re back. We could be in for a classic season with several drivers vying for race wins.

He got no luck with full SC- the 20 second he had advantage was wiped out in a stroke.

Whether RB are really back is still too early to say, the car seems to suit certain tracks, and tracks with lower tyre degradation ( see Japan ), .and even then it also seems to have a very small performance envelope to get it competitive.The car RB brought to Imola on Friday was not competitive , but by the end of Saturday it was. I suspect that they are burning lot of midnight oil at Milton Keynes to understand the parameters of the car. Whether they can keep that up for a whole season though is less certain.

This does have the potential to be a classic though, to be a classic you need multiple teams to be competitive, rather than a fight between teammates

[fishfoodie]

A video that not just every F1 Team, & FIA Official should watch, but the broader world of managers should take onboard !



A newly appointed top level Executive, in an incredibly difficult position, manages to support his team, admit that they should have done better, & commits to making these things happen.

Compare & contrast to the current shit shows in the Redbull & FIA Leadership!