2024 F1 General Discussion Thread

I can see that Mark Webber will always be in Oscar's ear about strategy and how to maximise winning/gaining positions, even against his teammate. And it is certainly possible that Webber is ensuring that the Papaya Rules are exploited for the benefit of Oscar. I think this is what was interesting about the first lap at Monza: Whoever is leading after Lap 1 gets preference, so that puts the emphasis on the driver ensuring they are ahead of their teammate by that stage. Oscar did not hold back on taking that place as soon as he could. But we know it hampered a 1-2 finish for McLaren (so not quite a 'team' approach by Oscar). I expect fireworks before the end of the year within McLaren, resulting from Lap 1 incidents!

Yeah it might be too late already. They're transitioning from not being a championship contender to championship contender in-season. So they're having to change the rules they set at the start of the season. In the past, mclaren would have been about prioritising the total team points rather than pushing for one driver to get maximum points over the other.

I presume they'll have a more formalised approach next year.

They have more long term faith in Oscar and don't want to alienate him?

F1 is setup that way on purpose. The money is in the constructors championship, McLaren built a car and have 2 drivers that are capable of delivering that. Considering how strong they’ve gotten mid season I’m sure that’s the priority.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure they want to find a way to get Lando a WDC too but primarily that’s Landos job to execute. If he continues to have poor starts or gets outpaced by Piastri, it doesn’t look great if they’re going to continually ask his teammate to back down so maybe he can get a WDC.

And it will ruin the idea that they have 2 number 1 drivers if they ask Piastri to sacrifice a third of his season. Wouldn’t be surprised to see RB/Aston sniffing around Piastri if they thought he was unhappy there.

I agree with what Buxton says, I’d love to see a title fight with a few races to go, but I don’t want to see one where one driver really isn’t performing and is only there because the other one is forced into team orders. I want to see Lando sort out his starts and have more dominant races like Zandvoort.

I could see Max at AM 100%, they are really making moves lately and the team they have assembled is quite impressive. He has a good relationship with Newey already, and is very popular with Honda. Could see him taking over from Alonso.

Think that’s an exaggeration. Look at the last 4 races.

Hungary - long way behind Verstappen in the drivers championship and denying Piastri his first ever win makes little sense.
Belgium - Norris was nowhere. Multiple cars between them.
Netherlands - Norris won.
Italy - here it would have helped Norris.

Just had a look at the points tally after round 6 when Norris got his first win and the gap to Verstappen was 53 points. I think it’s pretty clear that the McClaren has an edge over the Red Bull on average over the 10 races since. Gap is now 62 points.

People can make excuses until the cows come home but he hasn’t been good enough up to this point. He’s failed to make himself the obvious lead driver. He’s the full backing now so I hope he gets going to make it a proper title fight.

Hungary would have helped. That's 2 out of four races. If Piastri could help directly by giving points in half the races, that's a huge impact.

You're not making the case that they ought not have team orders by pointing out that Piastri could only help by gifting points to Norris in half the races.

Deserve's got nothing to do with it. It's about winning the championship. I understand Mclaren not wanting to do team orders, but I think they'd be mad not to do it.

If I were piastru, I'd want iron clad, written giarantee that it goes back to normal next season and he's not going to be seen as no.2. Probably easier said than done though, so he should fight tooth and nail to avoid it.

There are a lot of competing forces. Ultimately, mclaren will need to make the decision

If Piastri backs Norris for the rest of the year and Norris wins the WDC, there is not a hope Norris starts anything other than #1 driver next year! The team can call it what they like but once a #1 driver has been established it very rarely if ever just switches to the other driver, and I don’t think a reigning champion has ever been demoted to #2. So it’s not really in Piastri’s best interest going forward to back Lando in such a way. Now is the time for him to establish himself as the more valuable driver, not next year when he could potentially be racing with the champ*

*still can’t see Max being caught!

Why would they want to demote Norris to No.2? That would be madness. They could start again at equal status. Rules about who gets priority pitstops and Hungary rules when they take pitstops out of sequence and gain track positions, qualifying running order, equal access to new parts etc.

Why do you think it involves Norris becoming no.2 next year?

I think Norris has said himself in the last day that it isn't about gifting wins - but (and this is my reading) that in a situation like Monza they would look to swap the drivers - where the extra points for 2nd is a boost to Norris but the prestiege of finishing 3rd vs 2nd is far different from giving up 1st.

I would assume we might also see it early in races where if the two are on different strategies they would ask Piastri to let Norris through to not damage his strategy. Monza, with Piastri attacking Norris at turn 3/4 probably also won't happen - and it seemed implied after the race that McLaren thought his actions there already went against what they had agreed, especially as it put Norris behind le clerc too

It’s going to be spicy! I’d expect fireworks between Lando and Oscar before the season is out.

That’s true, we’re going back a few years so I can’t remember strategy per se but wasn’t Hamilton still favoured, but Rosberg just kept fighting?!? Edit: it also got very toxic between them with Toto saying after Rosberg’s retirement and Bottas’ signing that they wouldn’t let that happen again.

Ironically enough I was at AD when Rosberg won his title!

Ah cool, I can’t remember so thanks. My point still stands tho, the example given is one that got very toxic so I can’t see McLaren doing that in the even of Norris winning the WDC, they’ll say it in public no doubt, but 50/50 calls won’t be 50/50 in my view. Suppose time will tell.

I reckon Haas should just leave Bearman in for the rest of the season.

Thoughts?