F1 2022 Round 8 - AZERBAIJAN GP

I have to say it’s a real treat to see all four top drivers pushing to the absolute maximum on every lap, which has been happening all season but is particularly noticeable at street circuits with the walls closing in like Baku and Monaco. It’s such a change from the majority of the hybrid era races being won by dominant cars being driven nowhere near their limits.

At least one red flag tomorrow surely.

It really is red bull ferrari and then the rest this year, they're a mile ahead of the rest. Toto seems absolutely dejected everytime he gives an interview about the car.

Should be an interesting race tomorrow with safety cars/ red flags a possibility, midfield seems on top of eachother so hopefully some good racing there. If Perez and Verstappen can get past leclerc it will be interesting to see if team orders come into play, I can't envisage checo being too keen to be a team player this time around.

perez is defo in the hunt for the championship.

Any more on Hamilton and the possible penalty?

Let’s have some perspective. In every single race they’ve finished this year prior to Monaco Max finished 10+ seconds ahead of Perez. Without the DRS issue in Spain he’d have probably finished 30 seconds ahead in that one. At Monaco Max couldn’t get a final Q3 run because Perez crashed, while in the race Perez was never able to pull away at all and Max looked to have the pace to comfortably keep up, but it’s impossible to overtake in Monaco and the team gave Checo priority in the pitstops.

They’ve been teammates for 29 races and Monaco was the first time Perez finished ahead where Max wasn’t taken out by reliability or a crash. Baku is Sergio’s best track by far so if he’s going to do well anywhere it’s here, but it’s a long race tomorrow and there’s a mountain of evidence pointing to Verstappen being comfortably the faster driver over a season.

Leclerc is an outstanding qualifier. His ability to dig deep and pull out a huge lap is unparalleled on the grid.

The sympathy vote championship. Not the WDC.

Yes, they can. It's their only option. Perez can't usually beat Charles, on pace. So they can't prioritise him over their faster driver who can beat Charles, on pace. Verstappen, with his poor reliability, is 15 points ahead or perez. Max would want to go on a run of 5 races without finishing (or break a leg like Schumacher in 99) to even make red bull consider perez their main championship option.

Leclerc needs to convert those poles to wins, he has 14 poles but only 4 wins

I think he's driving really well and seems to have less issues with his car than Max which has helped.

I don't think he will win the championship but he can certainly challenge for it just like Leclerc.

I think what happened in Spain had a lot to do with Checo winning in Monaco. Verstappen is Redbulls prized pony, he's going to be favoured. Checo is there to get podiums and help RB win the constructors

They used team orders a few races ago. Twice in thst race. Once when petez was on a different strategy and was faster but was told not to attack max. The second time he was told to move over for Max.

Hard to argue RB never favour one driver when we all discuss Perez as a no.2 driver, and they treated him as the no.2 driver a few races ago.

Sainz was 4th in a car that got pole. I don't think there was a team order when Sainz joined Ferrari, but there should be now. He's not as quick or as good a driver as LeClerc

No need to get your knickers in a twist. I do not watch Sky F1 so no idea if they do it or not but yes it was very bad today. It just annoyed me today and your post was just the first one I read today with it that's why I picked it. I was not complaining about you saying it I was just using it as an example.