F1 2024 - Round 13 - Budapest - Hungaroring

I get that it's all about the constructors championship which is all about the money over winning a driver's championship.

But no one remembers which team won they only remember the driver of that year. It will be a hollow win if they win the constructures yet lose the driver's championship by 5 points at the end. Lando lost 7 points today that he should have.

Remember when Red bull told Max to swap and all he said was no and don't ask again. Everyone shrugged their shoulders and continued on saying that's why he is a champion.

…ahhh

Verstappen really has shown his true colours today. Surely even the most one-eyed fans can't defend him after that.

In turn 1 he did exactly what he did when Norris passed him in Austria. He nailed the throttle well before the exit kerb and used the runoff to maximise his speed through the corner so he didn't lose the position, then wrongly blamed Norris for running him off the road.

He spent much of the race moaning about his car, his team, everyone. Some have claimed that Hamilton complains when he's not winning - but it's nothing like the endless, odious way in which Verstappen complains.

And as for that move on Hamilton, it was yet another example that spoke to his desperation and a complete lack of ability to race cleanly unless he has a massive car advantage.

When he is not winning he puts himself, but more importantly, others in danger, that is not a skillful driver by any stretch of the imagination, he was never making that pass on Hamilton, though some people are trying to make excuses, well , some are.

You can be a skilful driver in that you have the skill required to drive a car quickly but you don’t possess the skill to do that and avoid hitting other cars at the same time. In my opinion that is why he will never be a great driver in the way that Stewart, Lauda, Senna, Hamilton and others have been.

However if he is to be the one of the greatest drivers ever, move teams and win a WDC and constructors with another team and prove you can adapt to any environment and become one of the true greats of the sport.

You should probably pay attention to what actually happened rather than take the gaslighting of the British commentators as gospel.

Both Hamilton and the stewards said the collision was just a racing incident, nothing more. Drivers make late moves like that all the time and it doesn't always work out, it's nothing unusual. Lando did it multiple times on Max at Austria, the difference being that Max stayed out of the way instead of turning in and clipping him the way Hamilton did. Max did brake late (technically according to the telemetry he braked at the same time as normal, but misjudged that he was carrying more speed than the previous lap), and he locked up but his trajectory was not towards Hamilton, it was to the inside of him. The contact happened because Lewis turned in and clipped him. The stewards recognised in their conclusion that Lewis could have avoided doing that, and Lewis himself was happy to just call it a racing incident rather than try to blame Max. Nobody directly involved thought it was a big deal.

In the last two years I think Max has been in a total of two collisions, both of which were pretty minor tyre on tyre contacts that the media have blown wildly out of proportion, despite the fact that in both incidents even the other driver involved didn't think it was anything more than a racing incident and didn't blame Max (Lando did at first but changed his mind on reviewing replays and data). I'm not sure there are many drivers on the grid with a cleaner record.

As for turn 1, again it's something you see multiple drivers do regularly at turn 1. And Lando did visibly push him off. Watch the onboard, Max was ahead at the apex and Lando specifically turned his steering wheel to the left in the middle of a right hand turn forcing Max off. The fact that Norris was only doing this to avoid Piastri is not relevant. Max did nothing wrong there and gave the place back anyway, which he probably didn't need to do.

Obviously Max's comments on the radio could have been much better judged, but his complaints were well founded. The car was handling poorly, they've been more and more off the pace of their competitors with each passing race with a car that has been increasingly difficult to drive, just look at where a top quality driver like Perez is ending up recently as he can't drive the wheels off the thing on a knife edge like Max can. Meanwhile the strategy he was put on was a disaster. Hungaroring is well known as being the most difficult tracks on the entire calendar to pass on other than Monaco, so running a strategy that required passing multiple competitive cars was never going to work. It was inevitable Max would get frustrated and some of that would come out.

Honestly I think GP did an absolutely terrible job though. Max's complaining was nothing out of the ordinary for an F1 driver, Lewis is of course most famous for it but Lando does it, Fernando does it, pretty much every driver does it. I think Piastri may be the only driver from the top teams I've never heard bitching over the radio. Honestly it's natural with adrenaline flowing when everything is going against you and you're pushing to the limit. What I've never heard though is an engineer getting passive aggressive and escalating and exacerbating things. Normally the engineer is there to calm things down and get the driver back in the right head space, but GP seemed to just want to antagonise Max further and make the frustration worse as the race went on, it was bizarre. I'd be very curious to know how that debrief went down.

As for your final point about different teams, I don't think chasing performance by moving to whatever team you expect to have the best car defines a great champion. Helping lift your existing team into a competitive place and showing loyalty is equally if not more valid. No two situations are the same so it's a completely arbitrary metric to use honestly.

i have always had good time for Norris but this race showed a dark side to his character….he done everything to steal piastris limelight. not a good look for him at all.

Best race I've seen in a long time. Drama and storylines all over the top of the grid.

It was a fairly **** race. I don't watch F1 for team radio "drama".

Hopefully Spa we see more racing instead of that bull*hit yesterday. I really hope sky lose the rights the next time they are up for auction. Fcuking atrcious

Lando didn't win as he's not able to get a good start. The tripe from Croft(I think) about Lando's amazing start, so amazing he was lucky not to be third.

We don't need every little "how's things" radio call. It should be kept to any significant

Sky are ruining this season for me. I have a VPN, I'm going to see if i can pick up a broadcast from a different country going forward

Ye actually, i think the sky coverage is the global feed (well for English speaking countries)

Thanks, i'll look in to F1 TV, even if i have to pay for the sub.

The anti Max bias has reached fever pitch. The fact he has been dominating since 2021 has meant they haven't really had a chance to show their true colours.

Unfortunately you can't get F1TV in Ireland because of Sky's exclusivity rights. Obviously there are always work arounds with VPNs etc but even then I think you need a payment card from that country, I tried it in the past and there were too many barriers.

Sky's coverage that is 99% driven by xenophobia is horrific though. Crofty just can't get over his seething hatred of Max and literally every single incident they automatically assign blame to him regardless of what happens, just like they always did to other non-British drivers who were successful in prior years.

Brundle does call things out sometimes as he can't help it as a racing driver, like he noticed Hamilton moving in the braking zone to block Max illegally and said it, but then he always stops himself from going all the way and backtracks a bit with a "well that was on the limit" kind of dismissal and moves on, where they'd be talking about it for the next ten laps if it was the other way round.

i have f1tv pro and the commentary is more mundane than sky. They still talk about UK drivers too much but it's far more balanced. Only bad thing is they don't have the same level of info as sky i.e. Ted in the pits etc.

I sub through Turkey via google play store and watch via vpn. It's very handy for watching a race after it's finished (in the max dominance days) when you knew it was status quo and you could keep jumping 10 mins ahead.

Have to say when 1 driver is in a title fight and the other isn't, i think the title driver should be given priority.

My only real issue with Verstappen on team orders came when he didn't swap back to help his team mate get second in the championship, when he already had the title in the bag.

I Lando was to lose the title by 7 points, you could point to this race as the one that lost it or him.

As for losing the race in the first corner - were they actively racing each other or covering off those behind for a 1-2? Lando had closed the gap before the first pit stops, and was signficantly faster than Piastri after - though that could easily be because Piastri was managing his types (under instruction) and Lando was not (which was clear by radio coms).

I do wonder if he had let Piastri pass near immediately (as requested) would have had the pace and permission to try take the position 'legitimately'.

That was a **** way for Piastri to win his first race, and I wonder if there was a bit of resentment on Norris's part, him only getting his first F1 win 11 weeks ago, in his 6th season in F1. And here comes his "rookie" partner in only his second season of F1 and gets his first win already. Great entertainment, will he? wont he? Id say some damage done to relationship already, but might not be permanent, depending on rest of season.

I agree that the smart thing Lando should have done was to give the place back immediately and then prove he was capable of actually winning fair and square by catching and passing Piastri, rather than refusing for the rest of the race then giving the place at the last moment and leaving a sour taste in everyone's mouth. I think the reality is that he knew he wouldn't be able to pass Piastri given that overtaking is nearly impossible at the Hungaroring so holding on to the position he was gifted was the only way he could win.

I would argue that the 7 points lost is a drop in the ocean compared to the long term impact that could come out of a complete breakdown of trust within the team and with his teammate that will have resulted from his selfish behaviour. The team now know that Lando will put himself above the team and above what's right, so what will they do the next time they have to make a call about who to prioritise in pit strategy knowing they can only trust one of their drivers? What is the impact on the morale of the engineers working their ass off to bring upgrades, it's finally rewarded with a 1-2 and instead of celebrating the fruits of their labour without any caveats they're just seeing all this toxicity dominate the headlines out because of a driver putting himself above the team.

If Norris does get into a title fight, why would Piastri play the support role and sacrifice himself for Norris when he now knows Lando would never do the same for him? And this is also all on the assumption that Norris catches Verstappen and Piastri doesn't catch Norris in the championship - there is a much bigger gap from Lando to Max than there is from Oscar to Lando.