2025 F1 General Discussion Thread

Frank Bullitt

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123599943#Comment_123599943

The general vibe doesn't really portray much in the way of confidence of these new rules, at least at this early stage anyway.

Appletart Upsetter

My 2 cents on Max is this.

Put him in a "driver friendly" car and his gap to others is relatively small, but he'll still outperform them across a race weekend most of the time.

Stick him in a difficult car and his ability to cope with it will given him a significant advantage over others.

mickdw

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123599986#Comment_123599986

Yes I'd agree but go further. His ability allows him to push cars almost beyond their setup envelope to get lap time that shouldn't really exist. In reality, this year's redbull is only a midfield car if given a nice neutral setup.

El_Duderino 09

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123599628#Comment_123599628

Yeah, That was one point. You ignored the second point. Why did you do that?

Your second paragraph is a totally different point. Which is not relevant in this case.

Either red bull keep choosing teammates for max who are dreadful drivers or they underperform at Red Bull. I think it's the latter. Either max is way, way faster than his teammates (like genuine GOAT of all GOATS) or else he and the team are tailoring the car to himself and that also happens to make the car very difficult to drive for the rest of the drivers, which I think is far more likely.

Andrew76

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123600286#Comment_123600286

"If his way means the car is very difficult to drive for his teammates then that's also a weakness." - was this your second point? If yes then I responded to that with the second sentence in my first paragraph. If that wasn't your second point then what was it?

My second paragraph was responding to your strange question about making a case for one driver score hardly any points benefitting Red Bull - where did that come from? You also said that if Max went to Merc and was at the front while Kimi goes backwards - that's somehow also a weakness of Max's - that makes no sense.

Andrew76

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123599986#Comment_123599986

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123600085#Comment_123600085

Agree with both. I thought that interview Albon did a while back on the High Performance podcast was quite enlightening - where he said Max's sensitivity was on another level to his own - so he can handle a more difficult car if it ultimately means a faster car.

quokula

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123599359#Comment_123599359

Where is the evidence that he can't perform unless he has the car set up his way? What season did he perform poorly and blame it on the car not suiting his driving style? There is just no evidence of this. In fact Max's most successful season was also when they had a better balance that worked well for their other driver too. It makes total sense for Red Bull to create a car as well balanced as they had in 2023 because that suited Max better in addition to suiting his teammate better.

It has not been their plan to create a less drivable car since then, but it turns out designing world championship winning cars is hard, and it's even harder to do it for multiple years in a row when there is a handicapping system that means you have less development capability than your rivals. Their technical director has cited wind tunnel correlation issues and certain upgrades not working the way they expected as key reasons for the issues the car has faced.

So ultimately they've unintentionally ended up with a less stable car by chasing performance and not getting a wide enough operating window. And Max is just able to deal with a car that is more unstable in a way that other drivers can't.

Here's a quote from Pierre Wache:

“It wasn’t our intention to develop a car specifically for Max, but as a driver he can cope with less connected balance.

Or from Pat Symonds:

I have always wished that we were clever enough to design a car to suit a particular driver. The reality is that you always design a car to give the maximum possible physical performance, which means you design it as light as possible and with maximum aerodynamic performance.

Max’s prodigious talent is able to exploit an unstable car more than his team-mates.

Or a quote from Jaime Alguersuari, who previously test drove for Red Bull:

“There is no engineer in the world who builds a car for a specific driving style,” the former F1 driver tells talkSPORT. “Max simply understands how to drive in every situation and under every circumstance. He has enough talent to feel every small change and to find grip in an incredible way that no one else can feel and find.”

Here's a quote from Verstappen himself back in 2021 when asked to define his driving style:

“As a driver, it doesn’t matter if you have an understeering car, oversteery car, slippery surface, grippy surface, you constantly adjust your driving style to that,”

“If you just say ‘this is my driving style’, this is how it’s going to be, you will not be quick. I think you learn in your whole racing career from go-karting to F3 to whatever, every weekend the car behaves a bit differently. So. you always have to adjust to it.

“It’s every weekend, constantly you’re adjusting your driving style a little bit to make sure that the car is working well. And of course you try to set the car to your liking but it will never be fully to your liking. You always have to fine-tune. Or at least you try it.

“And at the end that’s what makes a driver fast.”

Frank Bullitt

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123600388#Comment_123600388

Him liking it to having a computer mouse on full sensitivity but still knowing where to put it etc was a brilliant analogy. Basically, by the time you react to the car, you correct and then recommit, it is too late. Max just has full confidence with his inputs.

rock22

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123598804#Comment_123598804

Or that the lost of any points might reduce Max's position so that he can initiate one of his out clauses. It is believed that he has a clause which allows him to break contract if he is so many points behind the leader by the Hungarian GP.

If he cannot win the championship then he might well be happy to fall back and invoke one of the 'out clauses' and jump to Mercedes?

steve_r

Is there a thread to discuss the "Hill" documentary folks?

Watched it last night and really thought it was really powerful. It's quite short (less than 90) and there's loads they could have gone into in more detail but I thought the story and the racing was so compelling. I started watching F1 around '96 and I remember the Schumacher/Hill stuff but I didn't know the context about his father at the time. I would have liked them to spend longer on the title fights, and I'm not sure why they didn't.

The cars look so small compared to nowadays and the safety levels look awful in a modern context. The death of Senna is harrowing, and it clearly had a massive impact on Hill.

There's great insight into his feelings at the time and there's a real cadour in how and his family speak about things. Overall well worth a watch. It's on NowTV/Sky for those looking for it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWRvO4FTF_0

mickdw

Ya watched it last night.

Never knew the family were left in bad shape financially when Graham Hill died.

Good Program but Damons f1 career seems like yesterday to me. 30 years ago is nuts.

flazio

The AMG Safety car is orange and the stars on the Mercedes Benz have been turned Orange. Either the announcement is imminent or Mercedes Benz are trying to remind everyone what's powering McLaren's dominance.

Brief_Lives

Incredible picture. Max being kind of an introvert, this is the kind of thing he would leave the sport for.

I wonder is he thinking about that or Mercedes.

Andrew76

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123603176#Comment_123603176

Or thinking about getting back home to his new baby or back on the sim rig. 😁 Mad picture alright. He's keeping tight lipped about things anyway.

Gamb!t

Picture speaks a thousand words,looks like he’d like to be somewhere else than the media circus.

I don’t see him in F1 for the long term like other drivers have.

elperello

Where was that photo taken ?

It looks like a very badly organised media event.

Brief_Lives

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123603613#Comment_123603613

I found it on the F1 Subreddit. Big conversation over there about it.

Hijpo

Why is there salt and Peper on a phone??

Andrew76

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123603963#Comment_123603963

Not sure that’s a phone, maybe a coaster of some kind? Looks like the interview is being held in the Red Bull motorhome at a table folks would usually be eating at. Just a guess.

ctrl-alt-delete

Picture that Heinz-Harold Frentzen posted on X.

From Right to Left:

Frentzen - Johnny Herbert - Martin Brundle - Eddie Irvine - John Watson - Martin Donnelly - Damon Hill

So much Jordan history in a selfie.

Jordan 199

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123606752#Comment_123606752

With part of the Jordan 191 in the background and Martin Brundle in his overalls, I think Martin will be driving it. I would love to see it.

dulpit

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123606796#Comment_123606796

Love the 191. Prefer your username though. Quality car.

dulpit

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123606796#Comment_123606796

Turns out Brundle was in his f3 car.

https://twitter.com/MBrundleF1/status/1941594055659446755?t=qBlzl7TwyQVl34iYfDybgQ&s=19%20

AMKC

Have ye seen Oliver Bearman and Martin driving the 1950s cars an Alfa and some other thing.

Here it is,

https://youtu.be/cPHFeg351uo?si=GPWHLUyD_5DsyADt

Gorgeous sound out of them cars. What an experience to have.

dulpit

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123608439#Comment_123608439

Watched it earlier. Class looking machines alright. Not an ounce of safety concerns back then, terrifying when you think about it.

Jordan 199

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123608439#Comment_123608439

The Alfa Romeo 😍 💗

AMKC

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123608767#Comment_123608767

They sure. The Alfa the more beautiful car though.

It was crazy alright. Life was cheap back then.

.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123608993#Comment_123608993

It is gorgeous. A pity about the weird pedal configuration though. You would have to wonder what they were thinking back tgen having the accelerator in the middle and the brake to the right lol.

Jordan 199

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123609043#Comment_123609043

Check out where the electric windows switches are on the Alfa 75 above at 0.21 in the vid below:

https://youtu.be/yrqHsb-ShNY?si=f0xmyLPxz-Uz9MT6

Crazy Italians 😉

AMKC

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123609075#Comment_123609075

Lol. Maybe there us sone logic to it lol. Maybe when you turn your car over and your upside down with the car on its roof you can easily press them to lower the windows and crawl out lol.

dulpit

Do all sports administrators have the same dictatorial tendencies?

https://www.bbc.com/sport/formula1/articles/c1jw82zwrjzo