2024 F1 General Discussion Thread

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?

Lando technically still has the world championship in his full control. 7 races left, plus 3 sprints. If he wins every race and takes the fastest lap, and Verstappen finishes 2nd the gap will close by 59 points (7 points difference per race, 7 fastest lap points, 3 sprint points). They would then finish tied on points and Lando would win on count back with more race wins.

Do technically if Lando does everything he can, there's nothing Max can do to stop him. Technically.

Oh I agree. At this point it's probably more likely that Lando could win every race than max finishing 2nd. That red bull has really gone off badly.

It's the shadow, no?

there’s also videos of the wing doing this at monza too. Assume the fia will be swift to stop this mini drs or will they also say it’s fine like their flexi front wing. Not wanting to intervene now that there’s competition. They were quick to shut down the last team with a flexi wing mid season.

While Red Bull has gone down hill, Max was rubbish today. Perez was legitimately faster than him, which means Max was off the pace.