2025 F1 General Discussion Thread

Anyone have any tips for watching races stateside, saw there is F1 arcades in both Washington and Boston but theyre looking for 50 quid to just get in the door, is it going to be like that everywhere or would run of the mill sports bars have it on?

It would be amazing if Max won the championship by a point and both McLarens ended up tied on points. Max winning by a point will show how stupid the team have been all year with their papaya rules rubbish, the drivers ending on the same points would probably mean they'll carry on the same rubbish next year of not prioritising a driver ( i.e. Oscar) and end up blowing another chance of getting the WDC, although who knows how good the McLaren will be next year so this could be their best chance for a few years.

Imo after the summer break is when McLaren should have backed/prioritised Piastri for the championship, and if not then definitely after Zandvoort. They probably thought Max was far enough back that he couldn't catch them. If Piastri doesn't make good points today Max will be like a shark with blood in the water. If things finish like they start today Max "only" needs ~8 points per race over Piastri to win the championship.

Imagine if Piastri was to not score today, Max 30 points back with 5 races and two sprints to go.

"People keep asking if I'm back, and I haven't really had an answer. But now, yeah, I'm thinking I'm back." John Wick Max Verstappen.

If the drivers finish where they qualified today then Verstappen will be 38 points off Piastri and Norris will be 12 points off Piastri. It's crazy to think at one stage Verstappen was 90 odd points off Piastri but since the summer break Verstappen has been clawing back the two Mclarens

Verstappen has taken 49 points of Piastri from Monza and it looks like he'll take another 10+ of him today.

I've wanted Piastri to win it this year but unless he finds some decent form again soon he doesn't deserve it. At this rate he could yet finish 3rd in the championship and may never get another chance like this again.

Really feels like a big race. Will Piastri crack again under the pressure or will he get a decent result and see out the rest of the championship.

Hes like the feckin terminator

Mexico,Brazil, Abu Dhabi are tracks where he's extremely strong at and you could probably throw Qatar in there too. Mclaren need to have the chat that Verstappen is very much in this championship now

Hamilton now has the record for the longest streak as a full time Ferrari driver with no podium.

Interestingly, the bookies have Oscar as favourite and then Max with Lando third.

I suppose it makes sense - Oscar just needs to beat Lando down the stretch but Lando needs to beat both Max and Oscar. And considering the next few tracks haven’t been kind to the McLaren you wouldn’t bet on either of them finishing ahead of Max.

Whatever happens, I hope McLaren don’t meddle to try and guarantee a WDC by picking a driver to favour.

Out of the last 4 races, I think only 2 have been really poor for Oscar - Baku and Austin. Monza he was there or thereabouts and had to hand Lando his place back as well as helping him out in quali with a tow. Singapore was really unfortunate - contact pushing him behind Lando at a track where overtaking is incredibly difficult. He also had a slow stop but I don’t think it mattered at that stage.

So I don’t think it’s outside the realms of possibility that if he gets the car dialled in properly that he can race Lando competitively, even if the car itself can’t compete with Max in the RB.

After Singapore I felt Max needed an Oscar DNF to get himself right back in the mix. It may as well have been a DNF this weekend with the amount of points Max gained on him there. Lando too is so close to overtaking his out of form teammate. I hope the last 5 weekends can live up to the setup here. It's too perfect. The out of form but hugely talented table topper, his teammate with the momentum swing and the reigning champ overturning a 100+ point deficit. With three races to go it could easily be neck and neck and neck. What do McLaren do then?? You have to think if Lando continues to outperform Oscar, they'll back him. He's 'their guy' and it would make sense if he's in form (and at that point likely the table topper).

Especially if Max wins

With Max's form McLaren may have already done the terminal damage. It would be hilarious if the same team nearly 20 years apart with entirely different staff made the same championship ruining blunder.

i don;t think mclaren have blundered in terms of management - some pit stops and strategies yeah.

IMO they were right to not prioritise either driver this season as they were 1 and 2, and so close. IMO they should have prioritised Lando last season when he was the only one with even a slim shot at the title.

If Lando and/or Oscar lose the title this season, it will be down to themselves imo. Both drivers could and should have got better results recently and didn't due to their own driving or bad luck - not because o McLaren. McLaren didn't cause Oscar a DNF in azerbaijan. McLaren didn't cause Oscar to dive back on an undercut on turn 1 of lap 1 thinking no one would be there. McLaren didn't cause Lando to utterly fail to take advantage of Oscar DNFing in Azerbaijan. They may have 'cost' him th Dutch GP (was it engine failure), Lando driving into Oscar was his own fault in Canada.