The king is dead, long live the king.
Only 102 days to lights out for 2023..
Well "slightly" and "miles ahead" are relative terms. My point was that it's not like some other years where there was literally no hope of any team catching the front runners. It's not beyond the realms of possibility that one or two teams will be challenging Red Bull for wins by the end of the season.
Interesting. Great opportunity for Danny Ric to show that he still has the speed.
Marko stating that after Silverstone Riccardo doing a three day tyre Test and then he will be evaluated against Perez who is doing too many errors.
He is doing this for the AT seat. Saw also toto getting involved but never click those suggested articles from express, mail etc... Mostly nonsense
Ah, we kinda are to be fair. They are cruising at the front with pace in the bag.
It is as you point out, a great driver in a great car with a great team behind it all. They aren't "slightly" quicker, they are miles ahead.
You'd think he'd be better off trying to link his nephew to the seat.
Its coming out of the mouth of Ralf Schumacher who throws such ideas in and the yellow press makes a rumour out of this brain fart.
yea, I didn't click the link, but 1 of them said it will be when Alonso leaves. so.... next year ?
Seen the lines but pure clickbait imho.. Same crowd seem to be saying Checo will lose his seat if there isn't a podium in next two races. Tabloid "journalism"
I've seen headlines but didn't click on them. Who do the rumours say he'll replace? And when do they suggest the move would happen? Like next year or 2025 or 26?
I presume leclerc is well under contract so I didn't bother reading.
anyone hearing/reading rumours of leclerc to Aston Martin?
I consider myself a fan but I've had much less engagement this year. One of the lads has is around to his for the races. Everyone brings a frozen pizza or chicken dippers and a couple of cans and have the craic watching the races. But we haven't really bothered as much this year. I don't have Sky myself so I only have highlights and I haven't always bothered with them this year either.
The lack of competition is a massive factor in fan engagement.
You don't know that though. There are mitigating factors such as drive to survive, and for all you know it could be even more popular if the merc years were more competitive. Anecdotally, I noticed a big uptick in following among my friends after the 2021 season went down to the wire.
More races then ever before, huge crowds
The Merc dominance certainly didn't hinder growth in last decade
Good doc on tg4 currently, don't know much about it, only watching while on break
I don't the RB19 is that far a head of the rest, it's more Verstappen and the car being in perfect harmony well except for the downshifts he's always giving out about
Been following F1 since 1995, so have seen lots of fans come and go when they got bored of Schumacher winning, and then Vettel winning, and then Hamilton winning. Dominance is not good for any sport.
I don't think we've really seen Red Bulls full pace either. Verstappen is cruising to victories now, and they are already talking about designing next years car.
I have no idea why people find it valid to roll out the "dominance is not good for the sport" line.
Either they are completely new to the sport or have been saying it every year when their chosen team is not winning. Im relatively knew and even i know there has always been one team well out in front of the rest, and here we are in a new era focused on aero with another team doing really well.
Red bull dominance might be bad, but the Merc dominance for 8 years hardly stunted the growth of the sport?
Also, Red Bull aren't that far ahead. We're not talking Ferrari 2004 or Merc 2014 levels of dominance. They have a slightly quicker car than the rest, plus a particularly effective DRS, plus the best driver on the grid.
It'll be on other teams to catch up though, surely?
I don't love the domination despite being a Max fan. At the same time, RB have nailed it with this car and concept and is making teams look silly, and so what? The FAI might have to step in and do something, but I do hope it is not done to appease the American market. I know it is important but dear god to hinder a team for a sake of that would be so dumb, especially with no teams really asking for a rule change.
Even Toto has applauded RB on the job they have done, it really should be up to teams to catch up. It is also only year 2 of this rule set, and the budget cap and the limited windtunnel time. Teams can catch up, look at the leap that AM made since last year, it can be done.
Perez is doing just like Ferrari did last season. He gave everybody false hope at the start of the season with some nice wins, but since then he has been awful. He just needs to get back to being somewhere in the middle to keep his seat. There is no competition in the constructors, Aston Martin only have one good driver, and Mercedes are not going to beat Red Bull either.
Red Bull have won 18 out of the last 19 races. This kind of domination isn't good for the sport, especially if they want to grow the casual American fan base. The novelty of Miami and Vegas could wear off pretty quickly.
He still wouldn't win the championship in the best car. That's the story with Perez. He's alright, he's not bad, he's a bit above average, but that's it. He has a real skill for getting the best out of tyres on a long stint. And that's a handy skill a few times a season, but it does not a top driver make.
He's being judged against the standards of a top driver and falling well short. But he was hired as a second driver to support max. A "tail gunner" as he was described when he was able to get far enough up the grid to do the job. He's falling short of that too at the moment but he's missing that target by a smaller margin than he's missing the target of being a top driver. He's basically irrelevant to Max at the moment. He's just scoring points in the constructors.
There's no way they'll replace him mid-season but he might have to argue for his place next season. I suspect he'll win that argument but we'll have to see how it goes.
All 20 drivers get into Q1, it's Q3 he's struggling with. And it's 4 out of 8 as he qualified on the front row alongside LeClerc in the Baku Sprint.
I honestly don't think he's doing enough, He hasn't got that RedBull into 4 out of 7 Q1's which is slightly embarrassing. Checos qualifying is pretty poor overall. He shouldn't be as far behind Verstappen as he has been even if you took Verstappen out of the championship, Checo still wouldn't win it
That is highly unlikely. The only way I see Perez leaving red bull mid season is if he stops scoring any points. As long as he helps with the constructors and doesn't impede Max winning the driver's championship Perez will have done his job.
The only other way I see it happening is if Max's form dips, then there would be more pressure on Perez to help guarantee the constructors championship.
But as things are going Perez is doing enough to keep his seat for the rest of the year. Next year is a different story though.
Ric could be in the red bull with Perez back to AT on current form.
A couple of weeks ago Marko hinted that this would be the case if DeV didn't raise his game.
F1 is really leaning into it also though. I think motorsport as a whole will be far more sustainable in the coming years than ever before.
Could alpha Tauri get Ricciardo for the rest of the season as part of the wider Red Bull family...
