2024 F1 General Discussion Thread

I was thinking about how red bull have handled their drivers over the last few years, and apart from Verstappen they have been horrible.

Checo is under constant pressure, probably shouldn't be in that seat but has had Helmut Marko make racist references about him.

Yuki seems to be in a position where he could win multiple races and still not get a promotion to red bull (although I reckon the way he carries on over radio like he did yesterday points to a wider issue with his temperament behind the scenes).

Ricciardo has been brought it but looks like he's going to be bombed out with a few races left in the season, and it seems to be just hanging there over him rather than it being a done deal.

Lawson has been blocked from a seat for a year now.

Red bull have 4 seats and they can't seem to look after their drivers or have themselves set up either. What's that about?

I wonder if Lawson and his team are threatening to go elsewhere if he isn’t on the grid before the end of the season. RB can’t really afford to lose him.

Not sure what they should do massively differently. Checo is under pressure but surely he should be, they're fighting for the constructor's title. The only way to take pressure off him is to provide a more competitive car which is no easy task when they're operating with a development handicap. I don't think there's anyone on the grid who's available that would do better in that seat, the car just isn't where it needs to be.

Tsunoda seems to be doing pretty well. Worthy of a promotion to the top team? Maybe if Perez chooses to retire, but not as a replacement for Max. I can see why they're keeping him around as a back up plan. He doesn't seem to be courting other teams or agitating to get out of his current position so don't see the problem here.

Then you're simultaneously complaining that they've gotten rid of Ricciardo too quickly and haven't put Lawson in the car quickly enough. Surely you can see that you can't have one without the other? Personally I'd have ditched Ricciardo at the beginning of the season and had Lawson in from then but it is what it is. Daniel is a big PR draw and I can see why they've kept him around and tried their best to nurture him and bring him back to his former best as that would come with a huge upside, but ultimately he just looks like he's past it the same as he did at McLaren before they dumped him, and his performances can't justify keeping that seat any longer, while participating in the final leg of the season is the perfect opportunity for Lawson to get prepared for next year.

My point was about how red bull have treated the drivers. They don't seem to have any plan for any of them (apart from max, obviously)

Sure Horner has already said that George Russell will be out of contract in 26, so you could see a swap happening if max wants out and Kimi Antonelli goes well at Mercedes.

I can't see them going for Colapinto, they have Hadjar coming through in F2. If they signed Colapinto over Hadjar they may as well shut up their junior driver program.

I saw some f1 cars yesterday and today. Went to the f1 exhibition in London yesterday. It was good, some cool exhibits. Got to see how bloody big the current f1 cars are (this is the rb16b, Max's championship car).

They also had Grosjean's car from his crash in 2020. It's unbelievable that he got out of it and survived when you see the damage.

I forgot to take any other photos. But it's cool to see. Only downside was 2 lads who were there at same time as me were quite loud and at least twice pointed out that they had the information wrong because it said that Lewis was a 7 time champion and they thought it should have said 8 time. 🙄

I was in Silverstone today. Museum wasn't as good from a story telling point of view, but way more cars to look at. Some examples are Damon Hill's championship car, Daniel Ricciardo's 2014 red bull (which is beautiful in person, the purple is class) and Nigel Mansell's championship Williams and championship indy car side by side (f1 cars are better).

The bonus today was that there was some private testing going on the track, so I got to see somebody (no idea who) do a few laps in a 2021 McLaren, was able to stand at Luffield.

I had a car, so had a nose too at Aston Martin's factory (huge), Mercedes (boring) and Alpine's (such a random location in middle of nowhere).

A good couple of days. If in London I'd definitely recommend going to the exhibition.

Because it's €240 for a photograph. Save your money.

Can't say I am surprised. Lawson does look legit, so he will have to live up to this decision.

It was a weird return that only really came about because RB butchered their graduates recently.

For a career that started of so good its sad to see it end. He came into Red Bull and beat the then WDC Vettel in the 2014 Red Bull and Daniel was looking like a future Red Bull WDC champion even getting noticed by other former F1 WDCs.

Then it all started to go wrong. First Max joined the team and after a couple of years of Max favoritism Daniel decided he had enough of it and he left Red Bull. Maybe he did not realise how good he had it at Red Bull even if they were favoring Max at the time and you can not blame him for wanting to go elsewhere. Renault was not too bad but then he made an even bigger mistake by Making a sideways move to Mclaren. This is where it really started to go wrong for Daniel and where the most damage to his F1 career would be done. After leaving Mclaren Horner took him back into the Red Bull family out of sympathy but it would be to little to late as the damage to his driving style was done at Mclaren and he would never recover from it and the car they gave him was not good.

It's a sad way to end on F1 career that when he joined F1 at the start had a driver like Lewis even saying that Daniel was a potential F1 champion if giving the right car.

So here is a great interview with Clair Williams if you have an hour to spare.

In it she says that if Covid had of happened 1 year earlier they would not have had to sell Williams and is convinced that it would still be owned by the Williams family,

Confirmed that Hadjar is new reserve driver for red bull.

This suggests that the lineups next year will either be Max/Checo and Yuki/Liam or else Max/Liam and Yuki/Isack.

Lawson said he’s known for 2 weeks he was getting the VCARB seat post Singapore, Ricciardo only officially told post race Sunday despite the whole media knowing and he getting a send off without being made official, such a bizarre way of doing things from Red Bull and another unnecessary negative headline for them this season.

Seems it was Pato O Ward and believe it or not Zak brown that were testing the mclarens at Silverstone.

Brown was in Ricciardos race winning car.