#oscar doing the most in getting ferrari that wcc

[charles-leclerc-official]

2024 Japan Grand Prix Race Analysis

My analysis of the 2024 Japan Grand Prix. Table of contents below detailing the order of the post. We have a lot to cover as this was an eventful race so I am not going to waste time making introductions.

Table of Contents  Ferrari – Race strategy: qualifying and tyre management – Charles: his qualifying and his race – Carlos: his race – In depth data and pace analysis Mclaren – Race strategy – Tyre management/Charles – Pace VCARB – Yuki: his race – Daniel: his crash with Alex Red Bull Mercedes Williams – Logan: his race – Team car problems Stake Concluding Thoughts

Ferrari

Ferrari had Carlos start in P4 and finish P3. Charles started P8 and finished P4. They both further secured Ferrari's lead for second in the constructors as well as keeping the WDC and WCC still competitive against Red Bull.

This race highlighted some areas that need to be improved on the SF-24 but more importantly it also showed some of the massive improvements that Ferrari has made in development and that is what made this race very exciting for Ferrari fans.

Once again the Ferrari strategy was great. It would have actually been good to mid if it were not for Charles having the skill and confidence to go for the one-stop strategy. But this is another race where I don't think they could have done anything better.

As it was with the starting grid positions Charles was looking at maybe getting P7 or P6 with a 2 stop strategy. And that strategy was most likely given the track and how much deg there usually is at Suzuka.

The reason Charles made it to P4 was because of his superior driving and tyre management, and Ferrari listening to him when he said he wanted to go for the one-stop strategy. They listened and it was 100% the right call on Charles’ part. 

Charles outperformed what should have been possible. If you don’t believe me just look at what Max, Lando, Oscar, Checo, Mclaren, and Red Bull are saying about his tyre management. Charles in the SF-24 was the only one who could have pulled that one-stop off. Seriously, the fact that Max didn’t think he could have done it is really all you need to know. They saw that and were genuinely impressed not only by the car but by Charles, because we saw that with Carlos he was struggling more with tyre deg and that was with a two-stop approach. 

So not only was this the best strategy to maximize points for Charles this race given his starting grid position, it was also just a truly phenomenal drive from Charles himself. 

And once again we are seeing incredible strides being made at the Ferrari pit wall in terms of timing and strategy. The pit stops for both drivers were on point. They listened to Charles and went with the strategy he wanted and it worked! 

Everything I saw this race was so promising for the trajectory of Ferrari and Charles’ season, and beyond into 2025 and 2026.

Charles: Race, Qualifying, and Free Practice

Charles ran a truly insane race. The only reason he gained all of the positions he did was because of his choice to do the one-stop and not only that but making it work! He gained every position it was possible for him to take and then some. His tyre management on this high degredation track was borderline supernatural.

Charles pulled off zero to negative tyre degradation on both sets of his tyres. (Negative deg is when faster laps are set as the tyres age) This was without question the best tyre management performance we have seen from a driver in 2024. It is something that no other driver could pull off (either due to skill, driving style, or machinery) and that is why Charles is Ferrari. 

Have I waxed on long enough about Charles and his tyres? Just wait till you get to the Mclaren section.

I also have a lot more to say about his pace and tyres in the data section.

For now let's move on to some of the questions people might have about what happened to Charles in qualifying and FP3.

Charles qualifying position was decided in free practice. I want to try to be brief, so here is a quick timeline of why Charles’ didn’t have the optimal setup for qualifying (this also applies to Carlos because both Ferrari’s underperformed in qualifying, there was a difference of 1/10th between them so it really was just a matter of the field being so tight)

Suzuka is colder during the day than any race we’ve had so far this year. With the SF-24 being so good with tyre deg that is actually a problem because it means that getting the tyres to warm up takes longer. 

The loss of all of FP2 due to rain was a big blow to Ferrari and especially Charles.

Charles has been having more issues getting his qualifying settings right to manage the tyre warming issue. This is due to his personal setup choices and driving style. Being gentler on the tyres in a car with less deg is leading to him underperforming in qualifying. 

So we lost valuable time when Ferrari really needed to understand the SF-24 behavior in the colder Suzuka temps. 

FP3: Charles and Carlos both got in some race sim laps, but only got to squeeze in 1 or 2 flying lap tests at the very end. Charles especially was frustrated by this. I believe that this came from not having the time to complete all of the program they had outlined to prep for qualifying and the race. 

Going into qualifying Charles didn’t have enough data to guide his settings for Q1. They went with a certain setup they hadn’t gotten to fully test and it didn’t work. Which led to them having to send Charles out again in Q1 with a different setup on another set of softs to try to set a better lap in Q1.

In Q3 Charles only had 1 set of softs remaining to set his best lap. It was okay but not enough. I do think that over qualifying he did get settings better on the car and if he’d had another set of softs he might have made it up to P6 (possibly P5) the middle of the field was very close so I don’t think this qualifying placement and time was as bad as it looks. It certainly isn’t great, but compared to his teammate and the rest of the top teams it wasn’t so concerning. 

So the lack of enough free practice to figure out the best qualifying setup for Charles in the colder temps is really what cost them here. I think this is why we saw Charles very frustrated at not having the time to do more flying laps during FP3 and Fred also not happy with the program they ran during all free practice sessions.

All of this does apply to Carlos as well. We’ve seen him qualify better in 2024 too so this was just a matter of the SF-24 settings on flying laps given the colder temps and the track. 

This is a current issue for the SF-24, but it is something that can be developed and I think there are certain upgrades that will address this. It is better to have a car base that is too gentle on the tyres than the other way around. The SF-24 tyre treatment is a good base to work with. This weekend just highlighted areas where improvements need to be made. The unfortunate part was the loss of FP2 because that was going to be important for colder temp data gathering.

I want to once again now take the time to shut down some narratives about Ferrari's race specifically relating to Carlos' lap 46 pass on Charles:

The reason Charles and Ferrari let Carlos pass was because Carlos was on newer tyres and thus had overall faster lap times.

It’s insane to expect a team to keep the car that has faster pace behind. I could see it if it was a difference of 1/10th or something or if it was the last lap of the race, then it’s up for debate. That wasn’t the case here, Carlos with the tyres that were 10 laps newer was almost 1 second faster. Keeping him behind would have not only compromised his race but also possibly Charles’. We don’t want a car just hovering behind the other. As we heard on the radio the main concern was keeping Lando behind. As far as gaining significant placement this race goes we always knew Lando was going to be Charles' competition. If the cars were fighting over pace with this big of a discrepancy in the pace we would have seen disastrous results. 

Charles knew this and this is why he let Carlos by. He was never intending to race Carlos(he literally said this in interviews after). With the way they started on the grid it was not going to be in the cards this race. Charles said as much and he isn’t upset about it. 

“Carlos overtook Charles”: No, Charles let him pass because that was strategically optimal for both Ferrari drivers. 

“Carlos’ pace was better”: No, he was on a completely different tyre strategy, the only reason he was faster is because he did two stints on mediums and then finished on newer hards. Charles overall race pace and tyre management was better. This is just a result of 1. Different starting positions and 2. Different tyre strategies. It’s very hard to do a driver-to driver comparison with blanket statements when they are on different strategies.

“Ferrari gave the order to switch with Sainz”: No, they just didn’t do that, I don’t know what race you were watching.

“They should have told Carlos to defend”: That would have been a bad strategy choice for both drivers. There is a lot more than current track position that goes into strategy calls.

"Ferrari strategy screwed Charles over again": No, Charles chose his strategy(and it was the right call). Ferrari did great in supporting him.

I don't understand why people want to run this narrative that we keep getting Silverstone 22' level strategy calls when that is just not happening.

Now Charles radio after the race may have sounded disappointed and in the heat of the moment he probably was. However in interviews after the race he was very happy with the car (I think he realized just what a good performance he put in) but also I think his big takeaway from this race was that Ferrari have given him a strong base to work with(finally) and he has been only saying more positive things since then.

Ferrari did amazing supporting both drivers. Especially Charles because it was his call to do the one-stop and they listened to him and supported him perfectly throughout running that strategy.

Carlos

Carlos ran a clean race. He gained the one position which is about what we'd expect from the car he was in and his starting position. His performance also gave us really good baseline data for the SF-24.

His race was mostly decided in qualifying and also the fact that Mclaren struggled far more than expected on this track. Ferrari initially thought he might have to fight Lando more for that position but Mclaren's struggle was Carlos' gain.

I also think that just this race in general from him and his driving style was really good data for the SF-24 to inform development and that is awesome!

I don't have a ton to add, it was good, got those WCC points for Ferrari and that's exactly what we want to see from him.

In Depth Data Analysis

The name of the game here is tyre wear. The SF-24 (especially in Charles' hands) has had phenomenal race pace and that is due to the fact that this car is so easy on the tyres. However Charles is the driver who has been able to pull this feature out of the car due to his driving style and tyre management skills.

We are going to look at a comparison of Charles' and Carlos' data to highlight exactly what was so interesting about Charles' pace. And then also adding in Max, because as the driver to beat he is a good benchmark(as well as showing the top performance of the RB-20)

Here is a comparison of lap times between Charles and Carlos, corrected for tyre age(because they were on different strategies)

For the medium tyre I used both their first medium stints. Carlos did two stints on mediums, I used his first stint for comparison because it means both tyres were subject to the same time of day and track temps and conditions. 

Now the lap times themselves here aren’t as important. Carlos and Charles were in different spots on the track and Carlos was in much cleaner air even on that first stint. The real thing to look at is the way Charles lap time stays consistent, and even gets faster as the age of the tyres progresses, while Carlos starts off with his best speed and then gradually gets slower. Carlos’ pace here is an example of what we expect to see - as tyres age they get slower so his pace on these tyres is perfectly normal, by the time he got to lap 14 before he pitted he’d lost more than a second of pace on those tyres (which is normal and expected). Then we can then look at Charles who is getting almost the exact same lap time out of his 11 lap old mediums as the first lap. Where Carlos has lost more than a second, Charles has lost nothing. Furthermore you can see multiple instances of an increased speed on his previous laps, which indicates negative tyre degradation. This goes against general tyre wear behavior and can only be attributed to Charles’ skill in extending the pace of his tyres.

I want to add that both driver’s pace was excellent and that both their performances would not have been possible without the massive leap Ferrari has made with the SF-24 and race pace tyre degradation. 

Again looking at the hards the actual lap time is not important here, Charles and Carlos were running very different strategies at this point. Charles was racing to extend the life of the tyres to pull off a one-stop and Carlos was trying to regain position near the front. What we are looking at is once again the way the lap times increase for Carlos steadily, and just don’t for Charles. 

Charles once again was pulling essentially the same lap time on 11 lap old hards, while Carlos had lost a full second. The sheer consistency here is what is scaring the other teams. 

I want to note here that none of this is meant to make Carlos look bad. I think his runs and tyre treatment were pretty good overall, but when your teammate is defying the laws of physics in the same car it can even make a good drive look not as great. But I have no issues with how Carlos managed, he gave a good example of what I would say is the base deg for the SF-24.

Now I want to compare Charles’ pace to Max’s, again correcting for tyre age. 

This is helpful because this is where we can get a look at match-ups for the future, the strengths of the SF-24 compared to the RB20. 

Here is where it gets interesting. Max on the hards was managing degradation amazingly, right on par with Charles. 

The big difference is on the mediums. After 11 laps Max had lost over a full second of pace on the mediums and Charles had not. 

This gap is where we are going to see big results come in from the SF-24 in the future. If I were Red Bull I’d be worried about this. And this is why they are also specifically worried about Charles, because we see that the SF-24 in Carlos hands is behaving as expected as far as tyre deg goes, the real threat based on the data is the combination of Charles Leclerc and the SF-24. 

Deltas Δ

Now let's take a look at what the change in pace lap to lap looks like for Charles, Max and Carlos. Again using those first 11 laps on the mediums.

Lap deltas are the change in lap time lap-to-lap, and this is a metric that shows if a driver is keeping pace, gaining pace or losing pace. Positive numbers mean a loss of pace, negative numbers are a gain. This is calculated by the equation of (Lap time B - Lap time A = change in pace or the delta Δ) So it's just the time difference lap to lap. This is how we can take a look at the actual pace and correct for lap times (which are not important here)

On it's own this doesn't look like much, yes Charles is managing best, but Carlos is also ahead of Max. This is showing where the SF-24 is better than the RB-20. The fact that of these three drivers Max is the worst on this metric is notable.

However the impressive part of Charles' tyre deg is not in these first 11 laps. Because after these laps Max and Carlos had to pit because they were losing time and their tyres were done.

Charles kept going.

Here is what Charles' full stint on the mediums looked like.

Charles continued to achieve faster laps and negative deltas well into the life of the tyres, and that is what is setting him apart from Carlos and Max.

Not only was Charles achieving negative deltas, he was doing it more consistently as the tyres aged.

For comparison here is Carlos' and Max's data overlayed on Charles full medium stint.

While the first graph on the mediums shows that both Ferrari's were outperforming the RB20 in terms of deg(or at the very least Carlos was on a very similar delta to Max), this is where you see the difference in the drivers. Because Max and Carlos had to pit because they were rapidly losing performance on those tyres(see above time sheets) Charles was not, and he only improved. He more than doubled the life of his tyres in comparison to the other two.

This is the graph that really matters because it shows what each driver was able to do with one set of mediums. And as you can see it's not even close.

This is where you can see the impact of the negative deg over time. Compared to the normal deg we see with Max and Carlos it serves to highlight exactly how outside of the norm Charles was operating.

Charles only continued to improve well beyond the other two. That's what was insane about his tyre management.

Neither Carlos or Max were going to be able to continue their pace (hence the pit)

I feel like the data really speaks for itself. Max and Carlos are good comparisons here, Carlos is a good driver in the same car as Charles, and Max is the current top driver on the grid and is known for his tyre management.

I want to finish this section with the sentence that is chilling the blood of every other driver and TP on the grid: Charles set his fastest lap of his race on 25 lap old hards.

Mclaren

So what happened to Mclaren?

A lot of people were expecting Mclaren to be the second strongest team on this track. And qualifying certainly made it look like that might be the case. With Lando being ahead of Carlos in P3 and Oscar being ahead of Charles in P6 on the starting grid.

So why did both Mclarens get easily defeated by the Ferraris?

I think there are 2 main reasons.

The Mclaren car is not even close to the SF-24 when it comes to tyre deg, that car loses pace much faster so it just cannot fight when a Ferrari comes up behind it.

Charles 1 stop strategy really messed up the team's pit strategy with Lando. 

In Mclaren’s defense no one thought anyone would be crazy enough to try a 1 stop around Suzuka, let alone have zero tyre deg on a high deg track. 

They seemed to be managing their pit strategy with Lando under the assumption that Charles was going to pit twice, and I think they were very worried about an undercut in the pits (after they didn’t get away with it in Australia I think they were very keen to make sure they kept their position)

But Charles didn’t do a 2 stop strategy. He stayed out and his pace on the hards was unbelievable. 

There was really no way for them to see that coming. It’s kind of hard when your main competition decides this is the weekend he’s going to challenge the laws of physics.

(And you thought I was done talking about Charles’ tyre strategy)

Here is a graph of Lando vs Carlos. That was the spot he lost, and you can see that the pit strategy is really what cost Lando the spot. Carlos came behind him on much fresher tyres and by then he'd lost the pace. He pitted too early, and that was due to Mclaren not understanding that Charles is on another level.

His pace was okay on newer tyres, but once they age the drop off was pretty bad. So the Mclaren car needs to improve in the tyre deg department if they want to see either of their drivers beat a Ferrari any time this year.

Furthermore Oscar once again struggled more because he is still the weaker of the two Mclarens when it comes to tyre deg, and on this track that really showed. 

But I think the fact that Mclaren kept trying to figure out when Charles was going to pit for his second stint and then he just didn’t really threw them off and had them making some weird pit calls. 

VCARB

Yuki

Yuki ran what was in my opinion the second most impressive drive of the race. He qualified P10 and finished P10. However to keep that position he pulled of some truly perfect overtakes. He was fighting to finally get that home race point. I was so excited seeing him put on that good of a show for his home fans.

In this race he became the first Japanese driver to score home race points since 2012, and that is just so exciting for Yuki and his fans. It really made that single point mean a lot. I don't think I have ever been more excited for a P10!

Yuki has really been showing what the VCARB car is capable of and it looks really promising. He seems comfortable and I think we will be seeing a lot more points from him this season.

Daniel: Crash with Albon and DNF

Going to be covering Alex and Daniel's crash this section.

On lap 1, Daniel and Alex made contact going into turn 3, resulting in both cars going off the track and ending up in the barriers. Both drivers had to retire from the race.

To me this looked like a result of crowding into that turn in the mid field with neither driver at significant fault. I don't think Daniel was trying to push Alex wide, and I also don't think that Alex mistook that corner. The FIA and stewards agree and Alex and Daniel's story of what happened make sense.

Going into the turn Daniel had the outside line, and he was trying to give room to the Aston Martin(Lance) on his inside. He didn't see Alex on his outside and his wheel made contact with Alex's front wing, causing his car to spin and pushing Alex of the line and into the gravel.

Alex thought he had the outside line to overtake and was in the process of attempting that when Daniel went to give space on the inside, this resulted in the contact and Daniel forcing him wide.

This crash really just was a result of crowding in that corner, Daniel was trying to give space to one driver and inadvertently crowded out another. There wasn't space so he was kind of in a lose-lose situation there.

I agree with the stewards that no penalty for either driver was warranted and that this was the result of midfield crowding, and some bad luck for both drivers. It wasn't a result of bad driving on either Daniel or Alex's part. Even if Daniel had seen Alex I am not sure what he could have done if he also needed to give room to Lance.

Ultimately I am glad both drivers are uninjured. Hopefully they have some better luck in future races.

Red Bull

I don't have a ton to say about Red Bull. My comparison in the Ferrari data section is what was most interesting about this race from the data standpoint.

They didn't do much, the Red Bulls started ahead and finished ahead as expected. Max and Checo both ran a really clean race. Again showing the power of the RB-20.

I will add that this was a really good race for Checo(probably his best this year), and it was nice to see him have redemption after Suzuka 2023.

Nothing terribly exciting to add. Max won again, well done Max!

Mercedes

Mercedes didn't have a great race, but considering that both their drivers DNFed in Australia it was good for the team to get some points. Lewis started in P7 and finished P9, while George started P9 and finished P7. So they swapped positions.

It seems that the Mercedes car might be better on those qualifying laps than the race pace (and even then it's qualifying has been inconsistent)

The most notable thing about Mercedes' race was when Lewis asked if he should let George pass when George came up behind him, and George did in fact make the pass. This was done simply because George's pace was better. Lewis knew this so it was best for the team.

I think that so far we have seen that the W15 is struggling in a lot of areas, and as far as drivers go George has been more comfortable in the car(could be driving style, setup, a combo of the two) than Lewis.

Both are solid drivers, and hopefully they can guide Mercedes into making improvements to the car to get them closer to top points. At this point the car Mercedes has made seems to have fallen short of expectations. Make no mistake though, Lewis and George are both drivers who are much better than the car they are in at the moment.

Williams

I covered Alex's crash with Daniel already so we are going to talk about Logan.

Logan honestly did about the best he could do in the car he had. After damaging both his front and rear wing in free practice and still using the repaired chassis from Australia his car was not in the best shape already going into the race. Additionally the Williams really struggled with grip in the rears and has been all over the place. Suzuka especially seems to have not been suited to it.

Yes on lap 41 Logan went off track into a gravel trap, but that was on a corner that had given more skilled and experienced drivers trouble this weekend so I am not going to fault him too much for that in the car he had. Better cars were having problems there too.

He did have a really strong first stint and was pulling some overtakes. Most of his positions were lost when he did get undercut by some pit stops, and then of course losing time to the gravel trap.

The win is that he finished the race and the car is intact. That may not seem like much, but given the state of things at Williams it's important.

There were some highlights for his race and I will say in terms of raw performance he has not been far off Alex this year. That car of Williams is really hindering both drivers.

Stake

Stake actually had pretty good pace overall. The car is not as bad as it has looked on paper. The main issues has been their slow pit stops (caused by incompatibility between the bolters and the tyre covers apparently) Zhou and Valtteri both showed some pretty good pace and were in positions for overtakes.

Zhou unfortunately had to retire his car due to gearbox issues.

Stake has really been a mess and we have not seen what that car can actually do in terms of performance overall, or what what their drivers are capable of in that car.

They are making attempts to address the pit stop issue and I think if they do that, then we will see both drivers picking up some P10 points at the very least.

Final Thoughts

I think we can all agree that Suzuka was the best race of the year so far from a pure racing standpoint!

Whew, that’s all I got on this race, so I will leave you with this final thought. 

This race was a warning shot from Ferrari.

[redsnowdrop]

HUNGARIAN GRAND PRIX - brainstorming -

To my -> F1 Masterlist <-

Here we are with the new brainstorming about the latest GP!

I think we can all agree this was the race with the worst strategies: Red Bull made Max receive an undercut; Charles was a rocket ship with hard tyres and made him pit with Lewis to put on mediums (he did more laps with the yellows and less with the withes…); Norris pits before Oscar (nonsense).

Red Bull is not the fastest car anymore, we already had 7 different winners since the beginning of the season and Norris could compete for the WDC. McLaren is for sure the fastest but its drivers are not the best on the grid. Lando and Oscar are amazing drivers, absolutely, but Norris still makes silly mistakes which a champion shouldn’t make and Piastri is still unripe (congratulations for his maiden win but he’s still very young and the journey is still very long).

In this moment we can see the difference between being the (one of the) best drivers in a good car and being a good driver in the fastest car.

Whatever Ferrari did to the car for this GP worked and it’s already something (which is actually humiliating because Ferrari, the most longed-lived and loved scuderia, is not supposed to “just do something that works well enough” but whatever). Charles is an adult driver but his mindset is not mature enough to pit on his own -Lewis, Fernando and Max have the experience and/or the right knowledge to call the pit on their own. Charles still needs more time-. He could have MAYBE scored a podium but strategies and the car didn’t help at all -in my very personal opinion-. Checking the WDC points he could still fights for the title but he would need Lando and Max to retire the car and win the next race to get close to Norris. It is basically impossible but if happens something like in Austria he would have a slight chance to compete for the title (again, almost impossible but I’m still free to dream).

Mercedes is on top, congratulations Lewis for his 200^ podium! Well done and well deserved, I can’t wait to see him wearing red next year hoping they will give him a good car! An amazing job made by Russell, amazing amazing amazing! He has WDC material but he needs a better car and maybe more mindset (but still I can see him a winner!). Also amazing job made by Perez, that was great!

I wasn’t sure if it’s ok to talk about Max behaviour but I think I will anyway. It is totally unacceptable. Lambiase, his race engineer, was right about his behaviour being childish. He’s always complaining about things when they are not as he expect them to be and always blaming other drivers whenever he’s not winning. I understand the adrenaline, the rage… drivers MUST BE ARROGANT and have the “I’m the best” mindset but this doesn’t mean they are allowed to be disrespectful nor insulting towards others. Alpine and Haas’ drivers know their cars’ limits and accepted the fact they are not racing to win a WDC nor a WCC. Being self aware or confident is not an excuse for not being wise. The incident was his fault and he already didn’t get penalties (over the years) even when he deserved them so the whole “Lewis’ fault” for the collision is absolutely ridiculous, as well as his manners.

I have found this online, IF IT’S TRUE IT IS NOT GOOD!

Aston Martin’s upgrades are working, still a long way but they managed to score a point! Stroll has done so but apparently I read online (so please correct me if this info is not true) he should have given the position back to Alonso. I’m not sure and my source wasn’t clear so correct me if you know best. But anyway congratulations to the team and good luck!

It’s race week and see you again in SPA!

xoxo

[lousycapy]

Who has the best driver lineup for 2025?

I saw James Vowles’ statement from the Beyond the Grid podcast that Williams had the best pairing coming into 2025 and thought he was crazy, so I’d be interested to read everyone’s opinion about it 😅

However, as much as I think people’s opinion are interesting, I got curious on what argument he could use to justify his claim and went down a spiral of what would consist of the best pairing so if you wanna go down the rabbit hole with me here is what I came up with :

Just for reference, the 2025 lineups are as follow:

Ferrari - Lewis Hamilton & Charles Leclerc

McLaren - Lando Norris & Oscar Piastri

RedBull - Max Verstappen & Sergio Perez (Checo has a contract so we will consider it has sound even though there have been echoes of a replacement)

Mercedes - George Russell & Kimi Antonelli

Aston Martin - Fernando Alonso & Lance Stroll

Alpine - Pierre Gasly & Jack Doohan

Haas - Esteban Ocon & Oliver Bearman

Williams - Carlos Sainz & Alex Albon

VCARB - Yuki Tsunoda & ?

Sauber Kick wtv - Nico Hulkenberg & ?

Before starting analyzing I just want to exclude some pairings so I don’t have to go through everyone for every argument because it’d take wayyyy too long.

Thus, Sauber and VCARB are obvious contenders to be excluded since we don’t know what their lineup will be. I also want to exclude the pairings containing rookies, since we have no measure of how good they will be. We’ve seen promising rookies end up being terrible and not so promising rookies absolutely kill it, so due to their absolute unknown value they shouldn’t be considered for the best lineup on the grid. That means Mercedes, Alpine and Haas are out of contention for 2025.

I also want to exclude RedBull and Aston Martin, since they are pretty much one-man shows. Are they capable of great results? Yes, but the point is to find the best DUO, not the best RESULT, and as much as in a dominant car they can win it all, we’ve seen it this year you need two competitive drivers to bring home the WCC and I do not believe it to be the case for RedBull and Aston Martin. There are other aspects to a lineup than the performance, but at its core it is the most important argument when it comes to determining the best of the best. A number 1/2 lineup is great to win a WDC, not so much to win a WCC.

This leaves us with Ferrari, McLaren and Williams.

Alright, now that this is out of the way here are the main arguments I think could be used to find the best lineup:

Performance; so how well the drivers by themselves can drive, their raw pace, tire management, wheel-to-wheel abilities, strategical thinking, febrility, basically what they can achieve on their own on track

Public image; what they bring to the team in terms of sponsors, money, their popularity when it comes to the fans… let’s not forget teams are in F1 to advertise and make money at the end of the day

Compatibility; how the drivers work together, do they get on? can they bring a positive atmosphere to the team or are they at each other’s throat? How well do they work with the team, are they screaming at the engineers that something’s wrong?

Development; how good the drivers are at developing the car, at guiding their people in the right direction. Do they give similar feedback or is the team obligated to choose in which driver’s direction they should develop?

Other factors could come into play, such as the longevity of the lineup, but when we are talking about 2025 specifically, how the drivers evolve in the future is irrelevant.

Let’s start with performance. In theory, Ferrari has the best duo in terms of performance. Lewis is statistically the best driver to ever grace this sport and Charles is very solid as well. McLaren would come second, because Lando is also very solid and Oscar can absolutely hold his own. That would leave Williams in third, since Carlos would probably be around Oscar’s level right now and Alex would end up further down, performing greatly against poor teammates but a bit disappointingly against the likes of Franco.

I’m saying in theory because two of those drivers are unknown values in the car they will be driving next year, we don’t know how well Lewis will adapt to the Ferrari nor how well Carlos will adapt to the Williams. Doesn’t matter how theoretically they should perform, we’ve seen with Daniel in the McLaren that if you don’t gel with the car, despite how well you were performing with another car, the performance you can extract can plummet dramatically. However, we know Carlos is pretty adaptable since he’s changed teams a few times already, so I’m not too nervous about how he’ll do in Williams. Lewis is more of an unknown, having changed teams only once a decade ago and never to a Ferrari engine.

All in all, I don’t think there is an argument to be made for Williams to be the best lineup performance wise. Even if we assume that Lewis in Ferrari will absolutely stink (which to me is an absurd assumption to make and has, like, close to no chance of actually happening) and that Carlos will be absolutely stellar in the Williams, the McLaren lineup blocks it from being the best, because Lando ranks above Carlos and Oscar above Alex.

Then if we take into account their public image, assuming no one does something crazy such as dropping a slur and getting themselves cancelled until 2025, Ferrari comes out on top pretty evidently. Lewis is the biggest brand on the grid, everyone knows his name, and we’re talking about one of the biggest transfer of driver in F1’s history. Charles also has a very large audience as shown by his social media following, and he brings with him many sponsors.

I’d say McLaren is second, with Lando pretty similarly to Charles having a vast audience and many sponsors. Oscar doesn’t bring a lot of sponsors himself, but I feel like fans have really fallen in love with him this year and he’s become pretty popular in the F1 sphere, but not really outside of it.

That would leave Williams third again, with Carlos doing the heavy lifting. He brings some good sponsors, and has a great following, kinda somewhere in between Lando and Oscar. However, Alex doesn’t have much sponsors and having spent a year out of F1 and then being stuck in a backmarker, his popularity with the fans isn’t as great as the other drivers being discussed. This is not an argument for Williams being the best pairing in 2025.

Compatibility is more difficult to assess, since two of the lineups haven’t been tested yet. For this reason, I’d put McLaren first here. We know Lando and Oscar have a perfectly fine working relationship, they might not be bestfriends but they keep it civil, have a laugh and chat together, and take the time to acknowledge each other’s and the team’s accomplishments. We often see them discuss with their mechanics in the garage and fist-bump everyone before the sessions begin, as well as reference to their hard work in their round-ups at the end of weekends. Moral seems high at McLaren and I don’t see anything that indicates incompatibility between the drivers and the team.

Ferrari and Williams are more difficult to evaluate. We’ve seen Lewis and Charles chat a lot recently, but we all know that two drivers’ relationship can change dramatically when they become teammates. Both Charles and Alex have a pretty strong relationship with their team, although Charles seems to gel more with Ferrari, to bleed rosso corsa himself where the partnership between Alex and Williams sprouts more from a marriage of convenience. Which is also the case of Carlos with Williams, since he didn’t want to leave Ferrari and had to choose the least terrible option offered to him. Lewis chose to go to Ferrari.

However, we can expect more tensions between Charles and Lewis than between Alex and Carlos, because they’ll have to fight for more significant points, for podiums, for wins, Lewis to end his career with a bang and Charles to proves he is absolutely ready to win a championship, maybe they’ll even fight FOR a championship. The stakes are way higher than at Williams, where fighting for an 11th or 12th place doesn’t matter as much. Alex will be fighting to prove himself, but Carlos doesn’t really have much to fight for. Williams is sort of his waiting room, until a better seat becomes available to him. I wonder how motivated Carlos will be to perform at Williams. If it is better to have low motivation and low fighting or high motivation and high fighting in terms of compatibility in between drivers and a team, for me it is a mystery. I guess Vowles could value the former more. Personally I believe the latter is better, because it pushes the drivers to bring the best out of each other, as long as the fighting is dealt with correctly.

All in all, it’s difficult to argue that a partnership that hasn’t been tested will be better than a partnership which HAS been tested already and has proven to work well. I don’t think this is a great argument to justify Williams being the best lineup for 2025.

Finally, development. It’s all nice to be an incredible driver, but without great feedback development of the car becomes difficult for the team. We’ve seen this kind of thing with Fernando; no matter how good he is on track, the teams he joins always seem to be led astray.

Similarly to the previous point, two of the teams are unknowns, so the assessment is once again difficult to be made. Which means I’d be tempted to put McLaren in first here as well. Ever since Lando and Oscar have been teammates, the car has gone from the worst on the grid to leading the constructor’s championship. Of course other factors such as team personnel and equipment come into play, but one thing’s for sure, they’ve been able to lead their engineers in the right direction. Stella has said before that they have very similar feedback, and I’d be inclined to believe him seeing how good they both are at driving the MCL38. We’ve seen with Lando and Daniel that two drivers giving different feedback make for a difficult job to build a good car, so they’ve definitely found something solid in their current lineup. Maybe they’re not the most experienced and knowledgeable of how different cars and teams work, but their feedback is without a doubt good enough for what McLaren needs it to be. They’re also both very clean on track, which means instead of spending money from the limited budget cap on repair damage the team can put it in development.

As long as we haven’t seen Alex and Carlos drive the same car or Charles and Lewis, determining how compatible each pairing’s feedback is won’t be doable. We know Carlos has great feedback, he’s done a good job in the past and knows how multiple teams work, he’s received compliments on that before. As for Alex, he didn’t really have much time in RedBull and his Williams stint hasn’t been convincing much. However, this could also simply be due to the Williams philosophy of throwing every year until 26 in the bin so, difficult to evaluate. Important to note that Carlos and Alex have been a little messy this year on track, each costing a pretty penny for their reparation work, which is not what Williams needs.

I’d say Charles and Lewis are okay-ish in terms of feedback? They haven’t been part of many teams so that makes it difficult to determine. Ever since Charles joined Ferrari the team has been pretty stable, good but not great. Although his teammates have been Seb and Carlos, which are both great when it comes to development. He’s difficult to judge, but I’d say he seems reasonably solid. Lewis was in a dominant car, which he helped develop so he seems solid as well. However, a big part of that dominance was due to the engine which his feedback has no impact on, and ever since 21 Mercedes has been in a similar position to Ferrari. Although he has been saying that the team isn’t listening to his demands, so that could make him seem not as good as he actually is. I don’t think his McLaren stint is relevant because it was greatly affected by the scandal. Charles seems a bit more crash happy than Lando and Oscar, but Lewis is in their league so they’re not too bad in terms of money spent on reparation instead of development.

Basically, this argument as well doesn’t seem to verify the claim that Williams has the best duo in 2025.

To conclude, none of these arguments are viable to place Williams as the best lineup in 2025. Even if we try to argue they could be the best in general, they finished 3rd in the first two arguments and 2/3 in the two others, which leaves them at the bottom when compared to Ferrari and McLaren. Putting out this kind of statement seems silly from Vowles, and I get that hyping up his team is a great way to motivate his people and fans, but in being so outlandish he only apppears to be delusional and disconnected. If you have any conclusive idea of how Vowles’ statement could be justified I’d love to read it, because I sincerely cannot see a way to make it right!

[ninetqs]

ugh just got reminded why I don't go on twt

thing is, I do rate carlos I think he's like around lando lvl or better but like, it's so irritating when he finished higher than charles in one competitive session after nine of consecutively finishing decisively behind him, and I have to hear all that ferrari hired the wrong driver he deserved a top seat he's so underrated ferrari betrayed him they should have told him before signing hamilton why did they keep charles over him etc etc and then he goes back to finishing behind charles another 8 times

I think they're close enough in performance that if charles is not on top of the setup and carlos is then he can take advantage and do well but I feel like I've at least conclusively known who was the better driver like objectively since 2022 even with everything that happened that year

I don't hold it against him bc I feel like it's dumb to hold annoying fans against the driver but it is a bit irritating especially regarding that dc comment like. i can assure you that charles is not the one who's particularly mistake prone this year

and again with that he deserved a top 4 team seat like. he had an entire year to try to get one, his father literally leaked the hamilton deal to wolff I'm pretty sure to try and do a direct switch in seats redbull didn't want him mclaren is locked in where exactly was he supposed to go

he's aggressive yeah fine sure (but usually towards one guy but your teammate is your biggest opponent yada yada makes sense whatever) but it's so frustrating when ppl start going after charles for not being the same way like, it's valid to some extent like you said after the cota sprint, but ppl start acting like trying to not crash out both cars that are fighting for a wcc is some fundamental weakness that he can never overcome and thus will never win a championship and I'm like dude cmon

it's frustrating when he overmanages yeah but I also see it work to his benefit so like the extreme doomerism from CHARLES FANS (not you i agreed with what you said) about how they're losing faith and how hes passive and not assertive enough and etc etc I feel like at this point just go support another driver

sorry for rambling I just started having thoughts after reading your Mexico and austin posts <3

i honestly don't have much to add except that i agree 😭 i think naturally the drivers of the top teams will always be difficult to objectively rate, i.e. since they're featured a lot, people will always have strong feelings about them. charles is one, carlos is another, lando and oscar, and so on. unless they're clearly very good like max, it's really hard to have a productive conversation with their fans (or even non-fans)

i haven't seen the ferrari fired the wrong driver thing in awhile but i did see a reddit comment that was like "carlos is more consistent, charles is too crash prone" to which i replied with their crashing stats this year and needless to say it wasn't positive for carlos. to be fair i got like 80 upvotes and they got equal as many downvotes so at least most readers of r slash formula1 know basic statistics, but it's still irritating to see that rhetoric. guy who has crashed 4 times since the break (all in competitive sessions) vs guy who has crashed once (in a free practice) i wonder who's more crash prone... <- the absolute funniest part of this narrative to me is that people use france and imola 2022 as their reasoning and completely ignore the fact carlos was going into the gravel basically every other race that year. but i digress. i do rate carlos pretty highly as you know so this isn't entirely shade to him but also...... yeah

trying to not crash out both cars that are fighting for a wcc is some fundamental weakness that he can never overcome and thus will never win a championship and I'm like dude cmon

i kinda feel this way about lando as well... i think one thing lando and charles have in common that has helped them on sundays (vs. their teammates) is they are both cautious. i KNOW this is something people hate on them a lot for and i am not an exception because, like you say, i was hating on charles for being too safe in cota!!! but i also think As A Whole, i.e. mindset-wise being careful is not always a bad thing. it's a huge part of the reason why they're above their overly aggressive teammates, because while oscar is racking up penalties and carlos is going into the wall lando and charles are cruising to podiums. i think they both should step it up for next year when they have an actual chance at a wdc but it's also unreasonable to expect either of them to crash out with their teammate when they're realistically fighting for the wcc and not the wdc

CHARLES FANS (not you i agreed with what you said) about how they're losing faith and how hes passive and not assertive enough and etc etc I feel like at this point just go support another driver

i agree completely. i mean i'm biased bcs the reason i like charles is due to his driving. personally if i see charles losing the dawg in him i will switch to rooting for another driver bcs it's a sport and i want my guy to win!!! i cannot fathom charles fans who don't rate him. he's literally been the second best driver this year if you don't rate him now i fear you never will

[artsimpourtzi]

Hey, so would love to hear your thoughts about Monza. I understand why Oscar made that T4 move and I somewhat understand why MCL played it out the way they did (we have two No.1 drivers), but objectively it’s hilarious they are literally pissing away the WDC.

I’m not too invested in McLaren or LN/OP so it’s been entertaining to watch it pan out, but I know that’s your team so probably a lot more stressful.

I just know next year is going to be epic if MCL and RB stick to their current form.

Haha yes, I'm loving it and hating it right now, my team is baaaaack but they aren't being very smart. Imagine the scenes in December though if we get a double, for the first time since I was 4 years old... dare I dream???

The thing is that it's been painfully obvious for too long now that both championships are winnable, but for whatever reason the team is acting like we're still underdogs. I get it to a degree, we were scraping the bottom of the barrel 18 months ago, and we didn't start this year as championship challengers (which is big and I will get back to this later), but at some point since Miami it should have properly clicked and I fear this hasn't happened yet (yes even for the WCC). Which in the end worries me about fumbling both.

Monza is the prime example about this. I will say that almost objectively, the let them race in lap 1 and T4 overtake threw away the 1-2. So it's not just the WDC that took a hit, but also the WCC, because we can't discount either RB or even Ferrari from making a comeback. The thing is, I don't want to see team orders where Oscar gifts Lando a position (like people asking why they didn't switch them in the end, please be for real that would be ridiculous). I just ask that we do what every other team does, and protect the team standing when we are most vulnerable, which is the start. It comes back to a continuous issue we have, which is strategy and kind of seeing the big picture of the race.

Of course if we impose such common sense team orders, inevitably, the team will also be supporting Lando's championship bid. Because regardless of what people say online (why is it so common to devalue his achievements? I don't get it), he has been consistently the top driver at McLaren, outqualifying and outracing Oscar more often than not. He's also been much more consistent in taking the fight to the other teams' top drivers when in position to do so (even if unsuccessful like in Austria). Oscar with the exception of Monaco and Spa, has only been able to get just ahead of Lando when he has outraced him, not more (the best example of this is Monza and also Zandvoort, where in both cases he lost out to a Ferrari, and with Lando's position showing how differently he could handle a race at the front, and with a known strength which is his tire management). Which makes sense, he is much less experienced (though I hope he can show soon that he can sort the qualifying to a higher level, it's been kind of unnoticed how lopsided the H2H is, and basically it's the fact Lando has had the start issues that has masked it but that will only last for so long).

So in my opinion it's kind of a case where if they truly commit to getting the WCC they will also commit to the WDC and vice versa, and the issue so far is we don't see full commitment on either. Letting them invite an opponent between them and then letting them race each other in a high deg race isn't not thinking Lando can be champion, it's amateur hour on maximizing points for the WCC. Painful for me.

Now why are they so reluctant to manage races and set priorities? There are many theories around which I find dumb: no, no way there is a clause in Oscar's contract (why agree to that for an unproven driver?), and no, no way mclaren is throwing a WDC now because they see Oscar as their future WDC. I do think inexperience and a strategy department in need of an overhaul are mostly to blame. My current conspiracy theory as a little something extra is that exactly because they didn't start the year as championship challengers, and they gave preference to Lando in the beginning to maximize points (which they had every right to do), now it's not so easy to sell to Oscar's camp (including Mark "not bad for a number 2 driver" Webber) that based on the standings Lando, and not he, has a valid championship bid that can be supported by the team.

The problem is that as I explained, unless they commit to that, both championships are very precarious to a late surge from another team...

[paddockpr]

I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on the shift in perception on Charles throughout his stint at Ferrari. I got into F1 around the time he joined Ferrari when Seb was still there and saw the shift from very positive (Sauber-early Ferrari days) to quite negative (2019-2020 ish), and now that I'm back into F1 it seems to have gone back to more or less positive. But he seems to be pretty much the same?

Hey anon, thank you for the wait, its finally time to get into Charles Leclerc. One of the easiest ways to understand the nature of his PR image is to consider the term often used to describe him "il predestinato" or the predestined. In sports pr, one of the most powerful things is a good story, a compelling narrative, that positions someone as fated for great heights. We will cover a unique motorsports pr issue for drivers, the implications of that when it comes to narratives in sports around fate, Charles own associated affinity for and with Ferrari and then establish why Charles PR had this transformation.

But the thing about how narratives are crafted around people, being of their own volition or due to other people's interests, one thing remains: when it comes to sports PR, the shift in perceptions and narratives have a lot to do with the ability to walk a tight rope.

In a sport like F1, and actually motorsports as a whole, there is one extra issue that arises that is different from other sports, which is the consequences of your teammate being your biggest competition but belonging to the same team and therefore needing to maximize the team's points for the WCC, but beat your teammate in the WDC. That then crates one very common PR issue for drivers in F1: how do you decide who is entitled to what? And that is what happened and even happens with Charles, There are all of these ideas of fate, and all of the things he is supposed to get, its predestined, it is fate.

Benefits of being a marketable rookie

When Charles first came to Sauber he had a couple of things working in his favor, Number one, people look forward to rookies having their debut, and Charles has the kind of image that appeals to this idea of F1 royalty and I mean that quite literally, but probably not how you may initially think. I want to take you back to the fact that when people think of Charles, they think of this idea of fate and predestiny and a sort of Meant To Be thing. He is from a country with one of the most widely recognized GPs, he is a fast driver for whom many already feel is a future WDC winner, he comes across as relatively mild mannered and playful off of the track, and he seems to have cross appeal regardless of what kind of F1 fan someone is.

The fans who decry a return to "tradition" like the kind of wealth and prestige associated with his country, it is also in Europe, he has the look of drivers before him etc and he is inoffensive to the status quo. Fans that are looking for a personable individual like him because to them he has an ease about him, he doesn't seem to have a particularly antagonistic relationship with any other driver, and he is more accessible than the "tradition" of drivers before him.

He also has a well known love for Ferrari and is all around very malleable. That is not to say that he is bland, but he is unassuming and that also feeds into how some of his behaviors are received compared to other drivers. A perhaps comparable PR example for the 2020s but to a lesser extent is Oscar Piastri, someone who replaces a driver that isn't yet moving to retire, but then having a relatively broad appeal, online presence, and is viewed as competitive without being antagonistic,

It is an appealing position for a rookie in terms of marketing, although it also is a privileged one that isn't afforded to rookies who are marginalized in some capacity (Yuki Tsunoda is a great recent example of this). But it is an PR positioning that is ideal as was the case with Charles, To be seen as having what it takes to be a WDC one day, but not being seen as entitled and also generally having a positive image re other drivers. We will delve into that a liiiittle more before we finally get to Ferrari.

Alfa Romeo and The Rookie of the Year

When he joined Alfa Romeo, he replaced Pascal Wehrlein and it is met relatively positively. However,for newer fans here, it was not as cut and dry as it is now. Paul was injured prior to the 2017 season competing in ROC (Race of champions) leading to him missing 2 rqces and then was replaced in 2018 by Leclerc.

It wasn't so cut and dry because as you probably have seen, motorsports fans often argue about whether or not drivers in various series should do more competing in other motorport events (Daytona 500 and Le Mans are another example of this), so the way that the situation was handled was seen negatively. Often, including in this case, rookies get grace but it is not all sunshine and rainbows, especially since, in Charles' case he was replacing someone outperforming their teammate. Of course when we look back it seems less extreme and nowadays Paul is often used as a cautionary tale for why F1 drivers should not compete in other series whilst still active in F1 but F1 drivers competing in other series was not always unusual. The narrative around all of this re Charles was that he was just that promising. So he joins and its not exactly a WDC or WCC winning car, but it is enough for people to take notice and buy into this sort of destiny branding that began to really solidify.

Charles Leclerc met those expectations for the most part, and was crowned rookie of the year. And all of that romanticism around him being made for F1, and predestined, was in the eyes of many, evidenced by that rookie year, Now it is all coming together, there is just one thing left to really take this romantic destiny/fate idea to really resonate with mainstream audiences: Forza Ferrari.

Ferrari, the Early Days

Now Ferrari is a bit of a peculiar thing when it comes to PR and branding. Like Monaco, Ferrari is glamour, it is wealth, it is prestige and it is history. The race car emoji is red, people recognize Ferrari when race cars are the topic at hand, it has had notable names driving for it in F1, Le Mans etc.

For better or for worse in the eyes of many, Ferrari IS F1 it IS motorsports and it boasts one of the biggest fanbases too. It is red hot, it is passion, it is electric. But Ferrari is also notorious in the eyes of many as being something of an antagonist, and a negative player in more progressive moves in motorsports, and has a very tight leash on its image such as suing people for unauthorized paint jobs or author customizations of their Ferrari like with Daedmau5. There is a very strict approach in Ferrari about how things should be done and that extends to how they expect their drivers to appear. This is relevant to how the promising rookie briefly becomes disliked alongside Vettel.

Okay so he is predestined, he has made his mark as a rookie and replaces 1 time WDC Kimi Raikkonen to be alongside 4 time WDC Sebastian Vettel. You can probably guess what I am about to say, but I will say it anyways: replacing someone with no WDCs is very different from replacing someone with 1 or more. It makes comparisons of performance stricter, it makes expectations higher and it makes people less forgiving. It is also further complicated by pairing alongside someone who has been WDC.

When Charles kined alongside Vettel he was dealing with someone who at the very least had been viewed by the public as trying to push the team culture in a direction that may yield better results, and he had the results to back himself up, But Charles was new and that meant him being assimilated into the team and that impacted his image, He has a 4 time WDC to learn from, in a team that has not won the WCC in a very long time. To audiences, he is not being who they thought he was at his former team.

You see, when people speak of drivers from a PR perspective, there is a lot of emphasis on how they command things, what they are entitled to, and what role they should have.

As the fated one, Charles was expected to be less amicable to Ferrari's team culture especially since a more experienced driver could see clear issues in the team's culture, and audiences did not have the impression that Charles recognized when he needed to be assertive, and when he should back his teammate.

So for a lot of people, he was in the right team, and he had the right talent, but the approach was wrong and he was not taking heed of lessons he could be learning from his more experienced teammate. It is a difficult balancing act PR wise, because of the nature of the PR of the team he is in, and also the way that its branding has made it so personally meaningful to tifosi.

Big fanbase that wants drivers that love the team, and prior to this latest pairing of Leclerc and Sainz, was big on supporting the team not the driver, notoriously so. It would probably have been even more negative of him to seem critical of the team, but it was a Catch 22 because what happened instead was that whilst him and Vettel seemed relatively amicable, only one of them was viewed as trying to win WCC and WDC whilst the other was seen as someone falling short of their potential, in the name of loving a team that had been losing for a long time.

Generally when it comes to Ferrari it is more logical from a PR perspective to be seen as viewing the team the way its fans do. A sort of reverence and pride for its prestige, history and Italian heritage. A sort of serendipitous occurrence in a driver's life.

It is one of the few teams where the team has always come before the driver in terms of priority. It is the expectation at this point. You are not supposed to seem like you think you deserve something when you drive for Ferrari, especially when you are new so it was always going to shake out the way it did from a PR perspective. Either he alienates audiences that feel that Ferrari is stuck in old ways, or he alienates fans for whom ferrari is not just a sports team, but a national institution.

And as long as Vettel and Leclerc were paired up, Leclerc would have negative PR. To replace a WDC to be the teammate of someone with a WDC was never going to shake out well because it made him look like a liability. He did not have the perceived assertiveness or the developed skill to in some people's view, justify what seemed to be a differing perspective from Vettel.

And that will always be a PR nightmare because what is there to defend a driver who is fast but doesn't have the results to show for it? It is one of the recurring issues in this period of time, he and Vettel were amicable but did not seem to have the same sentiments on their team. And just like that the predestined becomes the entitled in the eyes of his detractors. But then, just like that, Vettel is now gone, and in his place is Carlos Sainz. Does not have a WDC or WCC under his belt, and just like that, Leclerc's biggest PR issue seems tp ne a thing of the past.

The Leclerc Sainz Era

People used to want to know why Charles deserved any favor from Ferrari. Sure they liked him well enough, and he was in their view he was a logical choice for the team, Ferrari was in his veins through and through. But you will never be viewed as more deserving of team support than a proven driver with the WDC and/or WCC.

So even as people root for you, they are going to be very questioning about the capacities in which you think you may know better than a teammate, even when the team us Ferrari. But when your new teammate is also considered unproven, it changes the PR dynamic significantly. Whether Leclerc defends the team or not. is seen as assertive or not, it eases suspicions a lot, Now he just wants to win and it is unquestioned when he feels that he deserves something. Now, after all these years, people view him as being back on his fateful path, and it shows.

It is coinciding with the peak of Drive to Survive and a Ferrari that is more open to marketing its individual drivers alongside its rigid team branding and there is a tidal wave of new fans, fans who are unfamiliar with the previous understanding of Ferrari First, who approach it like other teams where you may support a team but it is driver first.

Additionally, the fanbase that IS Ferrari First has a strong association with one driver being Ferrari First in Leclerc, versus driver first in Sainz, thus feeling endeared by Leclerc. You may recall the GQ article last year https://www.gq.com/story/charles-leclerc-carlos-sainz-ferrari which sort of seeks to re-assert Ferrari's position in its branding as the most important part. But you may notice something else, which is how Leclerc is presented as the quintessential Ferrari driver.

At the time of its release, people did note favor towards Leclerc, with the phrase about Maranello "romantically imagining Leclerc a full head taller". But what went over people's heads was that from a PR perspective, Leclerc in a way became Ferrari. He is positioned as the glamour and the luxury and the romance and the European identity that Ferrari has also positioned itself as and you can see it in how people imagine him to be and what they say when they have positive things to say.

Conclusion

When Vettel was around, due to his experience, the romanticism of Ferrari was not the same, and it still is not the same based on that article, and so Charles went from a promising rookie, to a blind admirer of Ferrari and its legacy. But then Vettel was gone and in his place a less experienced driver, and so Leclerc is less irritating as a result to audiences who felt that Ferrari shafted Vettelm and Sainz came in and was viewed as disruptive and entitled but without the results to defend those sentiments. And so it became a matter of Charles is Ferrari and Ferrari is Charles, wouldn't them winning together be so romantic?

That is all for this essay folks. Thank you for patiently waiting for me to make it more coherent without the twitter links, and then waiting for me to make it a little shorter than the so called Director's Cut. As always, questions and comments are welcome.

[diamond-rings-and-gutter-bones]

you post a lot about F1 yet somehow i have not managed to learn ANYTHING about it

(this is me awkwardly asking you how the car sport works and who all these guys are and why they seem like characters and also if the industry is as misogynistic as my classmate who wants to do F1 says it is)

rolls up my sleeves and cracks my knuckles. hell yes (warning: personal opinions incoming)

basically, the car sport is 20 fast cars going at breakneck speeds around a variety of tracks all round the world. somehow this comes along with the most drama ive seen in any sport (altho tbf ive never been this deep into any other sports before). there are 10 teams, each one with 2 drivers. your teammate is both your ally and your biggest enemy; you both are opposite sides of the same coin. there is nothing worse than being beaten by your teammate according to jenson button.

each *driver* is competing to win the world drivers championship (wdc), won by the driver who accumulates the most points throughout the season. but each *team* is competing to win the world constructors championship (wcc), won by the two drivers with the most points added together. basically, the wdc is glory and fame, but the wcc is actual money for the team. so a team can win the wcc without either of their drivers winning the wdc or vice versa.

i do not feel qualified to provide a good explanation of every single team but i will do a couple short ones!

oracle red bull racing (aka red bull): have won the last 3 consecutive championships. drivers are max verstappen (3x wdc) and checo perez. max is the it boy of f1, checo used to be quite good as well but idk whats up with all that currently. red bull are still currently really good but might (?) be getting worse due to car struggles and their rocket scientist car designer leaving and one driver carrying the weight of the whole team. but for a team thats actually just an advertisement for an energy drink theyre good.

mclaren: i fucking hate this ugly papaya team. sorry oscar piastri (driver whom i do actually like but who unfortunately drives for them). it is always a curse for me when a driver i like is in mclaren because i hate having to give a shit about that team. they do however seem to have the currently fastest car, not sure by what margin. their other driver is lando norris

mercedes: before this red bull domination era, merc were The top dogs. theyd won 7 consecutive wdc's (with lewis hamilton winning 6 of his 7 total, and nico rosberg winning the other one [the lore on those two guys is so deep, one post isnt gonna cut it. think satosugu but More so]) and they were just generally unbeatable until suddenly they werent. their current drivers are lewis hamilton and george russell but lewis is going to ferrari (this was probably the most surprising thing that happened all year) and while we don't currently know who will replace him for sure, it seems really likely that kimi antonelli, an almost-18-year-old, will be given the seat à la shinji. lewis is pretty much the goat (he has won over 30% of the races he has entered. thats not something normal people do. what the fuck) and george russell is also quite good (george also says things like crikey and oh sugar unironically. its endearing trust me)

ferrari: ... i typed the word ferrari and then sighed a weighty sigh. my favourite team because i am cursed. the last time they won a wdc was in 2007 with kimi raikkonen and since then, well, its not been the greatest. current drivers are charles leclerc (the sun of maranello, il predestinato, ferraris favourite sacrificial lamb, etc etc) and carlos sainz (spanish) but carlos is leaving at the end of the season because lewis. every great driver wants to be the one to bring glory and prestige back to ferraris name, and every great driver walks into the belly of the beast only to be spat out and mauled and weighed in the balance and found wanting. charles leclerc, on the other hand, has gone on record saying that if ferrari is a cage he wants to stay in the cage forever. he has that haunted saintly charm to him AND he's pretty. so. he is also my favourite driver but thats more because of his actual driving trust me. he IS really good and he DOES deserve a championship, and i do have faith that he will have a championship with ferrari one day.

that was only 4 teams/8 drivers. other highlights include: alex albon (GREAT driver, one of my faves, stuck in Williams, which is a cardboard box of a car unfortunately. silly guy) and yuki tsunoda (also good driver, currently in vcarb which is basically red bull's smaller sister team. also a great cook) but for more information i will add a link to a post that better sums up some other things that im not the best expert on

the drivers seem like characters because more or less they are; the scale of the stories and arcs being played out in real life by human beings is enormous. fiction cannot even begin to emulate real life in many of these scenarios. the best thing in life is being able to tell a friend a story and then say "that really happened in my racecar sport."

as for the sport being misogynistic: yes it is, but also it isnt nearly as bad as it used to be and its getting better!

[f0point5]

Can I just say I am a Lando fan and Mclaren but I don't really like Johnny Herbert because he creeps me out a bit. But that comment that he made about why didn't Max do what he did in Brazil in Mexico. He didn't do the same because they were different races, different circumstances and different strategies.

Also I've just come to realise that Lando hasn't actually said that he was fighting for the drivers championship explicitly in any of his interviews only WCC and it's just the media pushing this forward. I know you haven't said anything about this but just read somewhere about this and with people saying that Lando should have won the WDC in his rookie season or be as good as Oscar was in his rookie season. I dont think people realise that they were two different cars on two completely different levels.

Sorry for the rant, I just know that you will actually reply.

I just generally get irked by all the never-were drivers in the paddock. Like I know they need jobs and they’re uniquely qualified but you can just feel the bitterness in them. I sometimes feel like the ego that drivers have to have to even be drivers makes it uniquely hard for them to fairly comment on other drivers.

I think it’s so funny that Herbert just fully doesn’t understand how cars work. Maybe it’s been a while since he’s driven one. The Red Bull in Mexico didn’t have anywhere near the pace of the Ferraris or the McLaren. Max would have known that. There was no option to do what he did in Brazil. He didn’t even have the pace to keep up with that McLaren and he knew it. How is that not obvious to someone who was once himself a racing driver?

Or does he just want to make Max look like a supervillain who just on a random Sunday in Mexico decided he’d rather get a penalty than win a race.

Moron.

The WDC was always a long shot. But Lando is a racing driver, of course he was going for it. Of course he was keeping an eye on the scores and closing down the gap to Max. We’ll never know how much he believed it was possible but he wouldn’t be where he is if he didn’t at least want it. But I do think the “title fight” thing was kind of a media invention. It was never a fight, it was just the crossing point of trajectories.

But yeah people thinking lando should have won a championship in his rookie season or talking about his early performance is wild. Not only was it still in the Merc era but he was driving a midfield car.

But regardless, people have different trajectories. Success is not linear. Sure there’s drivers who have had standout rookie seasons but they’re standouts because they’re rare. Not everyone can or has to be some kind of wunderkid. (Side note - I really feel like this need for instant gratification that people have with drivers has got so bad. I do believe the great drivers are good immediately but this isn’t a sports movie…nobody wins the championship in their rookie season. Most drivers won’t even win a race in their rookie season. Plenty of drivers have long and successful careers that don’t arrive on the scene in a burst of light and that’s okay and it’s so weird that people demand a superstar constantly)

Lando and Oscar are two different drivers, with two different cars, on two different grids. I understand using some stats to compare them but you have to keep in mind how much you’re relying on the hypothetical.

[aoimeru14]

Hey!

It's a pleasure for me too!

Yeah I agree, double stacking is easier said than done, same with leaving behind the midfield mentality for years... Maybe next year it will be better.

Also, we don't know how the rest of the team is dealing with this much pressure, I believe that none of them was/is prepared for the new "responsibilities" and McLaren is just reassuring them by postponing the battle for 2025 and leaving 2024 as a "learning" phase.

Of course you can do this reasoning only if you can still keep all the major sponsors even after "flopping 2024", and McLaren has to thank their historical brand (and drivers fanbases) for that.

(with that I mean that yes, the glory and money that you get from the WCC are important, and we all want them. But McLaren is a team that can still live and improve even without it thanks to their status as historical team and their sponsors).

Yeah, RB is another type of beast... But really, they are not actually better. Just different.

They look good just because Max is able to make any tractor look like a rocket and Hannah makes really good calls (which is something that McLaren lacks as they are currently only relying on the drivers for the races).

But the engineering of the car has not been their forte for a while (hence the tractor). Max himself often complains about it.

They even had to make him drive again their previous car (the infamous 2022 model) to make him realise that there have actually been some "improvements":

https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/max-verstappen-2022-red-bull-rb18-test/

Speaking of that car, let's not forget that they pushed under the rug all of the mechanical issues that came with it just because Max kept winning!

That said, why I made the comparison? Because RB does not have the privilege of the historical status (which means they get extra money from the FIA for historical significance in the field, Ferrari also has it) so they rely mostly on sponsors and championships for reducing their cost cap.

And they need it, as their car is really lacking mechanical stability (they will also change their engine sponsor from honda to Ford because it didn't provide improvements)

https://www.si.com/onsi/racing/formula-1/red-bull-reveals-major-obstacles-for-2025-f1-car-as-it-shifts-focus-to-ford-collaboration-01ja2qzbht64

That means that they will do anything in their power to get it (Even sacrificing cars and drivers... Daniel, my boy, you didn't deserve that treatment) while McLaren can be more relaxed on it and focus on developing the car/drivers/team. (something that I HOPE they are doing and not just playing Space Invaders during briefings...)

That said, even if they can afford to be relaxed... I really hoped they didn't do this season so dirty, especially for the backlash their drivers received (while, in reality, most of the mistakes were made by them). That isn't good for the team's morale... Maybe the WCC will fix that and boost some confidence! (Like you also said)

Yes Ferrari is still in that phase: good drivers, good car, bad coordination (just sometimes, especially after Binotto left).

The difference is that in this sport everybody is a Ferrari fan at heart so nobody is preying on them too much (just some deluded fans that don't like any good driver competing with Charles or Vasseur/Carlos being true sportsmen and partying with their friends from other teams when they do something good) while it's easy to prey on McLaren for the alleged "British bias" from the media/FIA.

Yeah! Baku felt better for Oscar because he fought hard for it! You can see he was genuinely happier and felt he deserved it!

"No matter how much hate and love he gets (Lando), his biggest and worst enemy will always remain himself "

Well said. I really hope that he stays out of the internet for as long as possible. (And I sincerely hope that nothing happens this weekend... Let him get some peace, he is 25)

"Some of the stuff Andrea says just fuels the haters more and they really should focus on their statements more carefully. It's getting comical "

My god is like the PR team decided to not work anymore and just post cute videos whenever someone says something clearly wrong and avoidable and call it a day. (and then doing absolutely nothing to clear the misunderstandings)

(Videos that I appreciate, but that's not the point)

it's really getting comical... Tragic, but comical.

Completely agree with you for the aborted start discourse, yes, they should know the rules but there must be a pitwall behind to remember them (especially if they know their drivers personality and how clouded their judgement might be in that moment... Especially because of anxiety)

Charles got me laughing out loud, if I was in his place I would have redacted just the same.

"If he dnfs in one of the upcoming races, Max surely gets the title. And I noticed how he races fair and more gently with other drivers but when Lando is near, madmax is coming back."

Yes! At this point I think that the only reasonable way of thinking is "The gap is too wide, the risk too high (for both championships), let's not just risk a fully functional MCL38 (in a DNF with Max) for nothing". Also for Lando, pressuring him now for the title is plain stupidity. Only commentators do that (and just for the panem circensem).

However, If they decide to play safe that I hope someone from the management team will state it clearly otherwise:

- Lando will get the blame for not being good enough

- Oscar will get the title of "championships bottler" for not doing teamwork (in their eyes)

Like, I'm already seeing it on reddit:

It will definitely get worse.

Again, completely agree with your analysis on what happened in Brazil. Let's look at the bright side: we had a wonderful Friday and Saturday and we learned that MCL38 is sort of a cat, doesn't like water.

For the tag... Don't know! Zero imagination. What do you suggest?

Oh, if the next race is interesting I will surely post something! (I believe I've already been blocked by anyone so I feel more confident now haha)

Also you too! If you post something I will be there!

My take on a certain part of the McLaren fandom:

Every tag I open I see parasocial behavior.

Let's just touch grass and stop it. It prevents people from enjoying the sport without cringing (and, moreover, be happy for a team's success).

Why do I have to mute stupid tags (anti...) and block people in order to appreciate F1 in peace? Why do people do not understand that this is an highly mechanical/engineering sport and not only a driving sport? Why do you not understand that drivers are humans too?

But mostly, why does it seem so difficult to root for an entire TEAM?

Like, can't we JUST collectively appreciate everything that happened today? Just for once.

Like:

1. Oscar's sprint pole was a significant milestone for him and his career. (And i would love to see him win the sprint). Although he's still a rookie, he's developing into a really good driver (just needs one or two more years to settle down). Also, he has been maturing a lot since the start of the season and you can see that in the way he speaks about the whole "papaya rules" situation (still hate it, no team orders please... Just tell him to not crash both cars.) now compared to before the summer break. (please Oscar, do not let Mark Webber's delusions get into your brain. Thanks.) Also, nice helmet. Love it.

2. Lando finally looks serene and at ease without succumbing to anxiety for other's expectations. (He also seems to not be willing to give a f*ck about WDC, good for him). I'm also really happy that he's back to eating/drinking before races and can finally enjoy driving again. (Noticed him eating an energy bar before the race in Mexico)

I also noticed that he, just like Oscar, matured A LOT this year, especially after the summer break. (Speaking of the elephant in the room: Despite the team's apparent indifference, I still think that WDC can be achieved if he chooses to. Even if they're not interested in helping him due to different priorities or contract clauses)

And no, he is definitely a First Driver. If you think otherwise you are just living in a delusion, sorry. Telemetry, just like Math, is not an opinion.

Like, look at the last qualy time he did (and aborted) before pitting.

(the green lap records are the last sectors performances set by the driver. Look at them. Just look.)

And yes, if he gets the points he deserves a WDC, if he wants to. He IS a really good driver.

Mentality is a concept as old (and toxic) as Helmut Marko. Please, don't be like him.

3. We are finally seeing what the upgrades were for... Especially after whatever Austin was. (And yes guys, BOTH of the drivers have had the upgrades since Austin. Oscar just got 6 upgrades out of 7 at that time... Not none. Sorry to burst your bubble.)

And no, the upgrades DIDN'T actually upgraded the car's overall performances in Austin, you can clearly see that from the data. They purposely sacrificed it for the next races. See this:

https://f1i.com/news/521800-mclaren-explains-decision-to-delay-updated-floor-in-austin.html

Also they took risks with the floor too in Mexico. And no, they didn't give it to Norris because they hate Piastri. They give it to him mainly because he is more experienced and can provide useful data during practice while Oscar still needs to improve this skill.

4. Also, the team has done a great job in finding a way to change the banned rear wing without compromising performance and exceeding the spending cap. Love it. (also they made a new beam wing configuration specifically for Interlagos and it, apparently, works really well!)

I'm still not convinced that we currently have the best car on the grid (Ferrari looks really solid anywhere) but it's already better than the rocky start we got in US.

Not gonna lie, the moment they sprayed the WHOLE side of the car with the flow-vis in Austin i was like "goddammit, no improvements"... So I'm relieved that it wasn't the case (better sacrifice a race than discard the upgrades package entirely like Ferrari did in Silverstone).

WCC wise, I just hope that today they don't do something silly risking two MCL38 in a multi21. (And that we get some good strategies... Hopefully... Ok, I think I need to start pray some ancient god for that.)

And what If they multi21? Well, it would be really entertaining, but I don't think Lando wants to risk points/DNF for that. It's just not his style. (Mentality again? Go to bed grandpa... And take your medicines)

Let's be healthy fans, guys. Not parasocial delulus. We can rant about McLaren shenanigans TOGETHER.

Like, YES, i'm still convinced that the strategy team/management team is doing a real poor job this year. Both in managing the races and managing the drivers. (Including Bortoleto's contract clauses...)

And last (and least?), I loved the Google chromed livery aesthetically... HATED it aerodynamically. You won't be missed. Sorry Google, I had to say it.

Thank you for reading my rant. Love y'all (even if you don't agree with me)!

[charles-leclerc-official]

2024 Imola Grand Prix Race Analysis

My analysis of the Imola Grand Prix. This race on the surface was as some have claimed "boring" however when you dig into the data a different story emerges, one that promises more competition this season.

Table of Contents Race Overview Ferrari - Qualifying - Charles - Carlos - SF-24 Upgrades Red Bull - Max: vs Lando - Sergio Mclaren - Lando - Oscar Williams Mercedes VCARB Aston Martin Data Analysis Final Thoughts

Race Overview

This race was interesting in the terms of what we learned about the Ferrari and Mclaren upgrades as well as the RB-20. However the race as a whole was mostly uneventful. To put it simply this race was decided in qualifying. Especially at the top of the field. Max’s race was decided there, same with Lando, Charles, Carlos and Oscar. They were close enough in pace that had any one of them been ahead in qualifying that would have likely meant they kept that higher place, or had the win. I’ll go into a little more detail in the team sections, but overall this race was the one where qualifying mattered the most so far this season. 

Because the top three teams were very close this race in terms of pace I wanted to just lump the data analysis into one section instead of making it team specific, that way it’s just easier to read and it didn’t make sense to split it up because one comparison is informing another etc. So team sections as usual, and then data for all of them at the end.

I want to emphasize just how close the top three teams are. Especially Ferrari and Mclaren(again more in data section). The results may not feel like they reflect this, but trust me, the margins are finer than they have been all year. One team is not poised to run away with all the top points. Even Red Bull, while Max is still Max, Checo's performance and the overall performance of the RB20 this weekend showed that the car is not as dominant as previously thought.

Ferrari

Charles qualified P4 and finished P3(after Oscar’s grid penalty) so he started the race in P3 and finished there as well. Carlos qualified P5, moved up to P4 on the starting grid after Oscar’s penalty, and finished P5.

As I predicted the Ferrari strategy this race was pretty straightforward. Charles was supposed to try to catch Lando, while Carlos held off Oscar. It went smoothly and while Charles was not able to catch Lando because their pace was very similar, Carlos did hold off Oscar the entire medium stint. He only lost that place to Oscar when he was undercut in the pits. And even though he did lose the place there that was important because it kept Oscar from putting any pressure on Charles early on. So overall Ferrari strategy was good and they made the correct calls. It just was unlucky with the pit timing. That happens. So overall I am happy with the Ferrari strategy this race.

The biggest thing for Ferrari is now Charles is P2 in the WDC standings, it is early in the season but that is still exciting. This is due to him out-qualifying Checo, which apparently wasn’t that hard to do this race, but we take the win on that. Ferrari and specifically Charles’ consistency is really paying off both in the WDC standings and the WCC. 

Qualifying

Ferrari had issues of getting up to proper speed in qualifying, a problem that was especially costly in Q3. Many have claimed that this was a result of failing to warm up the tyres on the outlap. However that isn't the whole story. Ferrari had a different power deployment approach compared to Mclaren and Red Bull, and that was the cause in the lack of speed going into the lap. Lower speeds would affect the driver's tyre prep. So yes their tyres were not in the right window, but it was not due to the previous warming issues we have seen from the SF-24. Both drivers also struggled with speed on the outlap. Carlos had more issues but Charles was also affected. Ferrari have identified where they made a miscalculation in this area and seem confident they can improve and avoid this in future races.

Now the team has not been very specific about this with regards to the power deployment. So there aren't a lot of answers to be had there. But the statement from Fred and Charles suggest this wasn’t an issue with the upgrades or tyre warming directly, and as I said they seem confident it’s an easier fix.

Impeding during qualifying rumors: I have already discussed the possibility that Carlos impeded Charles’ Q3 outlap thus compromising Charles’ Q3 run extensively on this blog. I will recap quickly because I do not want to re-hash everything again. So I am going to keep it short. There is no evidence this happened. People made the claim and it spread. Charles and Carlos were not close enough on the track for impeding to be possible. If anyone has any real proof I’d be interested in seeing it, but I have been sent a lot of fake proof already and I doubt that is about to change. Don’t believe something just because everyone is saying it, ask for evidence.  Yes they both were noted for failing to keep proper deltas in the same outlap, but that is not proof that the cause of that for Charles was Carlos.  And I have seen the claim it cost 3 tenths. I don’t know where this number came from, but again, I am not seeing where in the data this assumption is coming from.  Charles would have mentioned something in post qualifying interviews if the outlaps were a problem. He might not have pointed at Carlos, but when asked what they could have done better he at the very least would have said they could have done a better outlap etc. He didn't, he said that was all they could get out of that session and that the appearance of qualifying looking lackluster was that the others were faster, not that his outlap was compromised.  I understand some people do not like Carlos and will not give him the benefit of the doubt but this was so far beyond insane. I am by admission not his biggest fan, but I need to see proof that he made an error to properly critique it, otherwise it’s just a conspiracy theory.  I find that this kind of thing spread so widely and so many people believed the claim at face value without seeing any kind of proof to be far more concerning than the claim itself. Ask for sources, look to see if any footage supports a claim, and if there is no proof then it should not be spread. Period. You can think what you want privately all you want. The next time something like this happens please think critically, I am begging.  If new evidence on this issue comes to light I will address it, otherwise it’s past time to move on.

Charles

Charles ran a clean race. He didn’t have the extra pace to be able to catch Lando. They were very close in pace, so it was not going to be possible. I’ll discuss more in the data section. But Charles held the podium spot which is what we wanted to see. First podium for Ferrari at Imola since 2006, so it was a very special moment for the team.

Carlos

Also ran a pretty clean race. He was less comfortable in the car all weekend, especially during the race, however he was still able to hold off Oscar. So I am very happy with his performance and role in the team strategy this weekend. He didn’t lose the place to an overtake, he lost it in the pits and that came down to being undercut by Mclaren, not much he could have done. So as far as driving goes he was solid and did exactly what he was supposed to do in terms of the team strategy. 

SF-24 Upgrades!

The most exciting thing this weekend was that Ferrari finally brought their first upgrades to the SF-24. These upgrades were aimed at improving pace, and targeted some issues the base SF-24 has been mitigating. These upgrades were overall a good step forward and continue to take Ferrari in a competitive direction. 

I will say that this track wasn’t the best for these upgrades and I think we need a few races to fully judge the true performance of these upgrades, so understand that there may be issues or more more gains that we didn’t see this weekend. I suspect that there is more pace in that car. 

SF-24 Upgrade Improvements:

Tyre warming: the upgrade did target and significantly helped the tyre warming prep issue we have seen give very mixed results in terms of qualifying and even some races. 

Low speed corners: Ferrari are now faster than Mclaren on low speed corners, and previously Mclaren were faster in this area. A very positive sign. 

Comfortability for Charles: This is important as he is ahead in the standings and he is the future of the team. They said the upgrades would target his driving style and it seems they have.

Reduced downforce for better straight line speed: The reduction in downforce did improve our straight line speed, that isn’t as clear when compared to Mclaren who have taken a bigger step forward in that department, but this was an improvement on the base we had.

Areas Ferrari Still needs to Target:

Ferrari are in a good place. They could change nothing about the race pace of the current upgraded car and with track position it would very likely be a win. However there are always things to improve beyond just qualifying. 

Biggest thing is still qualifying pace. We took a pretty good step forward in this area, but Mclaren did as well, so we didn’t feel the gain as much as we might have otherwise. However I think we are much closer to getting this worked out. It isn’t so much a tyre warming issue as it is a settings issue. The upgrades mitigated a lot of the tyre warming, it was there yes but nowhere near what we’ve been seeing in earlier races. 

Straight line speed: It’s good, and in some places it’s competitive or right on pace with Mclaren, however ideally we want to be faster, so that is an area to target for improvement. Improved straights would also lead to better high speed corner performance as well. Make no mistake the car did take a step forward in this area, but Mclaren did to so the improvement doesn't feel as significant when looking at the results.

These two should be the primary focus, as well as any adjustments for Charles to get the car to a point of balance that he likes. 

“The upgrades were bad Carlos said he wasn’t comfortable”: Ferrari has made it clear from the beginning that upgrades and the direction of the team would favor Charles. This isn’t surprising and is expected since Charles and Carlos have very different driving styles and preferences. Carlos still was able to keep ahead of Oscar as needed so even less comfortable he was able to do his job. It is not possible to have these upgrades suit both drivers, Charles is the one they are focused on. You can feel however you want to feel about that, but these results in terms of different feedback from the drivers goes support exactly what Ferrari have said they would do.

“The upgrades were bad, we weren't fast”: No, the upgrades added pace in key areas and directly helped issues the base SF-24 had. Mclaren also upgraded their car so that doesn’t mean the Ferrari isn’t good.

“Ferrari promised more pace”: We saw about 2/10ths added in pace this weekend. However this track was not suited to the car overall. I think we need to see a few races before we can accurately judge how much pace was actually added. This much on a less than optimal track is encouraging. 

“The upgrades didn’t do anything”: They did, I’m sorry they didn’t add 20 seconds to the car and make it start flying, that’s not how this works. We saw tangible improvements. There was more at play in the race results, so you cannot judge if the car is good or bad based on that alone. 

“I am disappointed and feel misled by Ferrari about these upgrades”: The upgrades were never a magic bullet, they did a lot of what they promised and it’s the first race with them. Give them some time.

“Tyre warming was a problem again”: No, in fact Charles confirmed this himself in one of his post-race interviews. The problem was more connected to power deployment on the out lap, and this caused the tyre prep to not be as good, but it was not the tyre warming issue we have been seeing in the first 6 races.

Overall a good race for Ferrari. Excited to see what the SF-24 will do in future races!

Red Bull

Red Bull had a very mixed weekend. Between Max not being fully comfortable in the car, and still not having great settings come race day, to Checo getting knocked out of Q3, this weekend showed quite a few cracks in the Red Bull armor. Max still won, and in sub-optimal conditions for him in that car, so even if the RB20 is not perfect for him he proved he can still put it on pole and he can still win. Which of course is going to mean that Red Bull are still competitive even if the car itself isn't the fastest on the field.

Checo's performance was his weakest thus far. That was the worst qualifying performance we've seen from a Red Bull all year. It was out-competed by Yuki in the junior team car. And again this is what cost him P2 in the standings to Charles.

Now on to the main thing everyone is talking about as far as Red Bull's race goes.

Max VS Lando

The big question at the end of this race “Was Lando going to catch Max?” In my opinion no he wasn’t. And even if he had caught up, I do not think he could have actually passed Max. Being fast is only one piece of the puzzle, to actually pass a top driver you need to be good at overtaking. Lando has yet to show me a quality overtake this season against one of the competitive cars in the field. In my opinion Max would have been able to hold him off, yes even struggling.

So was Lando matching Max on pure pace? Was it due to his speed? In part. There were three factors at play that led to him making some gains on Max in the final 10 laps.

The Mclaren upgrades have added good straight line speed

Lando was pushing at an unsustainable rate. He said so himself over the radio that he was at the limit.

Max was struggling with his tyres

So even with Max struggling with his car and the improved Mclaren Lando was unable to catch Max. If Max hadn’t been struggling that gap would have been larger. I do not think this means he will be seriously competitive with Max in every race they are close. If he couldn’t take Max in sub-optimal conditions for Max there is no way Lando is catching him when Max does have his car in the right window. 

I cover this more in the data section. But while he did make good gains on some laps by the final 5 he was not continuing to close that gap, which is what he would have needed to do to catch Max.

“But if Lando had a few more laps he would have caught Max”: I don’t think he had enough in the tyres to keep pushing at the rate he was to close the final gap. And as I said, I am not convinced he would have been able to overtake even if he’d closed the gap.

“Lando was better than Max”: I missed the part where he passed Max then I guess? He had to push to be faster and still couldn’t overtake a car on struggling tyres. If he’d had track position he probably would have stayed ahead. But since this race was decided in qualifying more than anything, and he did qualify behind his teammate(pre-penalty) he didn’t have the qualifying lap to get that place. He had a solid race, that’s good enough.

“X was better than X”: With the top 3 teams being so tight, especially with Charles, Lando, and Max being close on pace this isn’t really a helpful statement to make. Now there are moments when one was stronger and stood out? yes, but on overall performance it’s not clear cut. 

Lando was fast in that final stint and some of that was due to early good tyre management on his part, but the other part was that he was pushing hard. He didn’t have much left and I think if we’d had a few more laps the gap would have stayed the same or he would have dropped off on pace. It wasn’t sustainable. Nice to see a driver push, but you only push like that to make a pass quickly, it isn’t the kind of thing you can keep up forever until you catch another driver. 

Mclaren

This was Mclaren’s best result thus far for both drivers. They have had better positions, however a P2 and P4 is better than the 3-4 from Australia. And of course While Lando won in Miami, Oscar didn’t finish in the points. So as far as placement for the team as a whole goes this was best.

Now it wasn’t perfect. The results and speed I think were a little deceptive and made them look more competitive than they are in reality compared to the other top two teams. The success was mostly due to the straight line speed that their upgrades provided. Oscar seemed like he was the faster of the two with the full upgrade package, which would track given his performance in Miami with only the partial package. But again we didn’t get to see him with that front row start. I do suspect this trend will continue.

Lando

Lando qualified P3, jumped to P2 when Oscar was penalized, and he finished P2. Same story as the other top 3. 

Lando’s race was pretty standard until the last 10 laps of the race when he was pushing to try to catch Max. I explained above my opinions on that match-up, and will be covering the data in the data analysis section. 

It was a strong showing for him. But ultimately he did not have enough pace to fully close the gap to Max and I don’t think he would have given more laps. He was pushing too hard to sustain that pace and he was starting to make more mistakes. Max on the other hand was not.

Oscar

The biggest thing that affected Oscar’s race was the three place starting grid penalty he received for impeding Magnussen during qualifying. It was very clear, so a cut and dry penalty. His time qualified him P2 but he was dropped down to P5 behind Carlos. 

The impeding was really a failure of his team to let him know that Magnussen was coming. Unfortunate to see. Mclaren really fumbled that because they would have had their faster driver starting behind Max. 

And yes between the two Mclaren drivers I do believe Oscar is better suited in terms of overall racecraft to have made the pass on Max. He’s shown he can do it, and with these upgrades he is faster than Lando. We’ll have to see after a few more races if this remains to be true, but he has been more competitive this year when it comes to overtaking. 

He gained a place on Carlos in the pits. His pace was almost identical to Carlos', and Carlos was able to keep him behind. I am not sure how much of trying to avoid a repeat of Miami played a role in this. Carlos has shown he will fight to prevent a pass and that may have been in the back of Oscar and Mclaren’s minds. 

I have more on his pace comparison with Carlos in the data section. 

Williams

Another not great race for Williams. This time the car was slow, and also Alex’s pit crew messed up his pit stop, and didn’t properly attach one of his tyres. The team was penalized for this with a 10 second stop and go penalty for an unsafe release. By the time they had served that time Alex was two laps behind so they opted to retire from the race. 

Logan came in P17.

I don’t have much to say beyond that this season Williams as a team has repeatedly failed both their drivers costing them results. The car is as we have seen by now, not good. Alex is a good driver and is struggling in that car, and it has been so hard to judge if Logan has improved because the car hasn’t been helping us see that. 

Mercedes

The Mercedes upgrades do seem to have improved the performance and reliability for both drivers. Lewis especially seems to be far more comfortable in the car. Lewis started P8 and finished P6. Tied with his best finish for a Grand Prix of the season. George started P6 and finished P7. He lost one of those places to Lewis in the pits. 

Lewis and George were matched on pace on the medium tyres. But on the hards Lewis was noticeably more consistent on pace compared to George, who started losing pace on the hards after 10 laps. He did pit before Lewis. However Lewis maintained better pace on the same age tyres where George started to see a drop in performance. So Mercedes was right to keep Lewis ahead, he was the one with better pace this weekend. Overall they were very close, but Lewis had the edge especially on the hards.

Mercedes still is lacking quite a bit in the competitive speed category but they do seem to have taken a step forward, and Lewis is quickly making up points for the rocky start to his season. 

VCARB

Yuki had a great weekend. He qualified P7 in a very competitive field. And in the race he finished P10, losing places to Lewis, Lance, and Checo. Which was expected, especially the pass from Checo. Yuki is having the best season of his career and the fact he is closer to competing with top teams than the rest of the mid-field is impressive. He has been getting extra performance out of that VCARB car and is carrying his team in the standings. 

Danny started P9 and finished P13, losing places to Checo, both Haas cars, and Lance. Losing places to the Red Bull and Aston Martin were pretty expected. Would have liked to see him more competitive against the Haas cars. He’s going to need more points compared to Yuki to keep up with the team. 

Quick look comparing Yuki to Danny and Checo. You can see Checo was on pace with the two VCARBS during his first medium and his hard stint. Then on the second medium stint he flew away on pace again.

And comparing Danny and Yuki directly. They aren't so far off in overall speed. However what put Yuki ahead and kept him ahead was his consistency. Even his slower laps were less slow than Danny's. And Yuki was slightly faster, by multiple tenths in several places. They are matched on straight line speed(with Danny even being a little faster there) but on a complete lap Yuki was simply more consistent.

Aston Martin

Aston Martin did not have a great weekend. After a FP3 crash, and then losing grip in Q1 and doing a long run into the gravel he took damage and had to start the race from the pitlane. He started P20 from the pits and finished P19 and that was due to the fact Alex DNFed. So he didn’t make up any places. The Aston upgrades do not seem to have been a step in the right direction, at least for Fernando, and that isn’t going to be good for them in the standings as he is their stronger driver. 

Lance had one of his better races. Starting P13 and finishing P9. That’s fewer points than the team want to see in that car. The current competition for the team is VCARB and with Yuki’s performance they cannot just get by with 2 points this race. 

I’ll be interested to see if the team can further upgrade the car, because that qualifying pace was not great and the race pace is middling. They have the potential for a more competitive car but I am not convinced they are going to get it there. 

Data Analysis

And now the part everyone has been waiting for. Just how close are the top 3 teams?

This is going to be a lot of pace comparison. That was the name of the game this race for our top 3 teams. It’s the reason the race was “boring” by some people’s standards. Because they were all so close on pace no one was quite able to catch anyone else to make a pass.

Before we get to the data bear in mind a few things. 1. This was one of Mclaren's stronger tracks 2. This was one of Ferrari's weakest tracks 3. Red Bull was struggling on car settings for this race weekend So these results are going to be skewed in Mclaren's favor and it's not necessarily going to be accurate for future tracks. I think the margins are even closer(at least between Ferrari and Mclaren than this race and the resulting data suggest)

Max Vs Lando

First the full race pace. It’s pretty clear Max was faster on the mediums and then was close to Lando on the first half of his hard stint and then in the second half of his hard stint he dropped in pace. Max noted that it didn’t feel right, likely an issue with the car setup for the weekend, or a combination of the specific deg of the track and the temps and car not being ideal. I think the Mclaren was in a better performance window all weekend so that was reflected here. 

The thing that is most important here is those last few laps where Lando was fastest but the gap wasn't closing. He was dropping off in that faster pace at a similar rate to Max, which does support my claim that he had already gotten everything out of those tyres and with more laps his chances of catching Max were not as good as many sources have claimed.

Fastest Lap Comparison

This is where it gets interesting. We saw this same gap in straight line speed against the Ferraris and it’s present here too. Ferrari said that Mclaren were doing something “weird” to boost their straight line speed and yes, a gap like this raises questions. I don’t have an exact explanation. It is likely linked to engine settings and power unit/battery usage. The point is that this is not Lando being faster than Max, it’s very much the car doing that for him.

All of the points where Lando made his gains to Max were on the straights and high speed corners.

Track dominance to show that this is in fact all the straights and the high speed corners. The losses to Max were in the mid and low speed corners.

Now I want to point out that Lando was on older tyres compared to Max for this fastest lap comparison. He did drive early to preserve his tyres and then was seriously pushing on that lap when he tried to make gains to Max.

In equal tyre age Max was about 1/10th faster. His issue was with deg and grip at the end compared to Lando.

I will be interested to see the actual source of this new straight line speed(it may be they have sacrificed a lot more in downforce than we thought). A jump ahead this big is interesting. However it does mean that most of the Mclaren pace is coming from that straight line speed so on tracks with fewer straights and high speed corners they won’t fare quite as well compared to the Ferrari’s and Red Bulls because they are not faster on the low and mid speed corners, and weren’t all weekend. Every gain they made they lost in the corners. It is one of the reasons Max was able to stay ahead and Carlos was able to keep Oscar behind.

For all these fastest lap comparisons I am less interested in the actual lap time, and more so in the track dominance because that is where we are getting the story of where these cars are more competitive against each other.

Just to be fair here is the lap 38 track dominance for both Max and Lando, and here it is for lap 54 so that we are seeing both their best laps and seeing them on similarly aged tyres. And again we see the same pattern of the Mclaren being faster in the straights and the Red Bull taking the corners.

And again this is what I think matters most. Even on a lap where Lando was almost a full second faster than Max he still was not faster on those low speed corners, even with Max struggling. So I think these laps really serve to highlight where the speed and losses are coming from on both these cars.

It is safe to assume that on tracks that rely more heavily on mid to low speed corners and more frequent changes in direction Mclaren will not have the same advantages in speed we saw on this track.

Charles VS Lando

First race pace comparison

The medium stint is almost identical. And the beginning of the hard stint Charles is faster by a few tenths those first 15 laps after pitting. After that Lando gets a slight edge. Charles was pushing, and so was Lando. As you can see they were close. Closer on pace than Max and Lando. Again this really came down to track position. Lando wouldn't have caught Charles if he was ahead, and it's also why Charles couldn't catch Lando.

Fastest lap comparison

Note that Charles was on much newer tyres. Again I think what this really does is highlight key differences in the car performances. And this is most easily seen again in the track dominance map. The straight where Charles is faster here was due to DRS so ignore that.

But I want to compare their laps right out of the pits to account for tyre age, so here is the track dominance for both on the fresh set of hards. And also looking at both their lap 54 track dominance(this was Lando's fastest lap, and not that Charles also got DRS on the straight there)

On the new tyres Charles still has it on the lowest speed corners, and there are more points on the track where they are straight up equal. And again on lap 54 Charles again has those corners compared to Lando.

Now let's look at over all pace between Mclaren and Ferrari as well as fastest laps

You can see that there is no standout fastest car, the amount of overlap here is considerable. (Also the website made Carlos and Oscar both white lines, I know it's confusing but the website would not change it)

The slowest was Carlos and you can see him falling off the most at the end of the hard stint. But the thing I am really interested in is that medium stint overlap is crazy, especially between Charles, Lando and Oscar. And again we see almost identical pace in the first 10-15 laps on the hards.

Full track dominance. Again the biggest thing here is that Charles is ahead on those corners against both Oscar and Lando. Carlos also getting some good straight line speed coming out/going into the low speed corners which again is very promising.

Fastest lap comparison.

Charles and Oscar both had DRS at the start of the lap. The only thing here is just to show how close Charles is to the Mclarens. Even not having that top speed he is still there.

Quick comparison of Charles VS Oscar because I think this will come up in the future. While Oscar had the better qualifying lap his race pace was slightly worse than Charles almost the entire race. Charles was better on the mediums and the hards. There are some areas where they were close, but Charles also had a sizeable gap for a good chunk of laps especially on the hards.

Oscar is fast but he needs to work on his race pace if he wants to be able to catch cars and also not lose places, because looking at this Charles might have been in the window to overtake Oscar had Oscar been ahead.

Top 3 Comparison

So we have looked at teams and individual battles. However everyone has been talking about a triple head to head of Charles vs Lando vs Max. I think that's a bit overexcited. However I do want to look at the top three to see how close it is.

Race pace. Here Max is clearly ahead on the mediums. Then on the hards Charles and Lando are better. The biggest thing here is just the amount of overlap and the margins are very fine.

Again fastest lap. The tyre ages are very different. But again I am more interested in seeing the fastest laps these cars produced and where they did well compared to the others in terms of speed. Sector 2 is where Max started losing to both Charles and Lando, and sector three that gap increased more.

And what is more interesting is the track dominance.

This is what is promising when it comes to actually taking the fight to Max. This track was not great for overtaking, in fact it is a problem at Imola. On a track where overtaking is easier we are going to see more battles if this keeps up. Like the performance of the Ferrari and the Mclaren were better. The difference was Max in that car.

And to compare the same laps to Max's fastest lap we still see the same pattern.

And again corrected for tyre age.

I think this one is also interesting because it still shows that the Ferrari and Mclaren were by far the most dominant. And in all cases the Mclaren had most of the straight line speed, and the Ferrari had the low and mid speed corners but especially the low speed corners.

Now you could do this for every lap, and there are outliers. I picked laps I thought would show the trends we are seeing in these cars. It was difficult to correct for conditions. But you can see that there is a pattern here across multiple laps that's really the takeaway rather than any one lap in particular. Again I really think it was less about the drivers and more about the cars this weekend in particular.

So the big conclusion from this section is we learned something about all three top cars performance parameters. All teams have areas to improve. And the margins are fine. At this point in the season it is going to come down track position and skill.

I think that these next few races will likely reveal more pace or issues on all of these cars so this is really just the beginning. To see things competitive even when conditions were not great for Ferrari or Red Bull is exciting.

Final Thoughts

While there was minimal overtaking this race showed us some key information about the top three cars. And the rest of the season is looking more competitive with every race. It truly feels like we are on the brink of something this season.

That’s all I got, see you at Monaco!

[charles-leclerc-official]

2024 Austin Grand Prix Race Analysis

Charles brought home his third victory of the 2024 season with an impressive drive going from P4 to P1 in the first corner of lap 1. Behind him Max and Lando continued to battle while this weekend set up a very tight race for the WCC.

Table of Contents Ferrari - Charles - Carlos - Data Analysis Red Bull - Max - Max vs Lando: footage analysis - Data Analysis Mclaren - Lando - Oscar - Data Analysis Mercedes - George Conclusion

The Austin GP set the stage for the final stint of the 2024 season, and it’s looking like it has promised 3 way battles through Abu Dhabi. 

The thing I want to note before getting to the individual team sections is the yellow flag in qualifying. In Q3 George spun out in the middle of the session. After most drivers had put in one lap, but before most could complete their second lap. This impacted the qualifying results of many teams and drivers. Most notably Max who was looking like he was on track to score pole. Both Ferrari drivers were in the middle of good laps as well. And Lando and Oscar were also trying to improve. It interrupted what was already a competitive qualifying session, so it’s impossible to say what might have happened if qualifying hadn’t been interrupted. Max might have been on pole, but either Ferrari might have been able to get there, Lando might have kept it. I just wanted to point this out because I don’t think the qualifying results really reflect the best most of the top 10 had to offer for the session. 

Going off that I won’t be going over too much quali data. Because it wasn’t definitively representative, and it ended up not mattering that much with the race results. 

Final note, I don’t have much to say about the sprint. It happened. The points gained will be important in the WCC, and Max’s win is an important reminder that wins are on the table for him and Red Bull again. 

Ferrari

First thing to note about Ferrari is that while it was widely reported that Ferrari did not bring any upgrades, that isn’t quite true. Yes no aerodynamically new parts were brought to the track, however the front wing in Austin was not the same as the one used in Singapore. Since the FIA gave clarification on the permissible flexibility of the front wings Ferrari made a new wing with a more flexible composite. This wing is the same design as the one used in Singapore, but it’s more flexible. Since nothing about the design changed no upgrades were reported, but this was a key change to the car. 

Overall the car performance at Austin was strong. From free practice, to the sprint, to qualifying to the race itself the SF-24 was in fighting form. 

The pace both drivers extracted from the car this race really showed what the car is capable of, and I think highlighted all of the work the team has done to recover post triple header. Apart from that pesky fastest lap point Ferrari maximized results in the race. 

Charles

Charles qualified P4 and finished in P1 securing his third win this season.

As stated above, Charles’ qualifying was compromised by the yellow flag in Q3 he looked like he was on an improving lap from his first Q3 lap, but he had to abort and ended up qualifying P4.

This ended up working because come the race he was poised to pull off one of the moves of the season. Stealing the lead into turn one, overtaking the top 3 and securing P1 until the finish line. 

The move itself was more than a snap reaction. Charles noted after the race that he’d considered being able to gain places based on what he knew about how Max was going to drive into turn 1. The positioning on turn 1 on this circuit can be big in terms of who controls the front. There’s a lot of space to lose the lead and with the wide runoff a gap can be left. 

Charles made a pretty good prediction about what his opponents ahead would do into that turn and planned on how he wanted to take advantage of that. Excellent strategy. It’s an overlooked aspect of race strategy, it does matter who you are racing and what the stakes are for them, and you can use that knowledge to your advantage if you are really paying attention. 

Now an inside start at COTA is best. So Charles was positioned to be able to pull a move like this. 

I think the footage speaks for itself as far as the execution of this overtake goes. Smooth, perfect line.

Once Charles took the lead the race was over. The SF-24 had excellent pace all weekend, that combined with Charles’ tyre management really allowed him to build a sizable gap to comfortably lead the rest of the field. 

Another stellar performance from him, that brilliant overtake followed by masterful tyre management won him the race. 

Carlos

One of Carlos’ best weekends in some time. He was also on the pace this weekend, which I think highlights that the SF-24 was really suited to conditions on track and the team really got the setup right for both drivers. 

Carlos qualified P3 and again, that might have been better or worse if he’d been able to finish his lap. But a P3 start is solid. He started P3 and finished P2. 

In turn one at the start he was overtaken by Charles when Charles took the front. However because of Max and Lando’s fight going so far off track and Lando falling back Carlos did gain a place on Lando at the start, which would be important later in the race. He stayed P3 with Max ahead, but he was ahead of Lando in the Mclaren, which was a win for Ferrari because keeping the Mclaren cars behind in dirty air is crucial. 

Carlos had a minor problem with his car in the early laps. It was fixed pretty quickly, but that made it so the focus of the team was split on making sure his car was good instead of being able to focus on track strategy. Since he was struggling with power in the car on turns he lost roughly 1-2 seconds which notably dropped him out of Max's DRS.

The interesting thing about Carlos' race that I will dig into a little more with Max’s section is when he undercut Max in the pits. That was when he jumped from P3 up to P2, securing the front of the field for Ferrari. 

After that it was about maintaining the correct pace behind Charles. 

What we saw from this point onward was basically the same pace intervals Ferrari set in Australia just reversed(Australia had Carlos in front, whereas this time Charles was in front, but strategically it’s effectively the same scenario). Where Carlos stayed roughly 5 seconds behind Charles. He needed to stay in clean air, but also be close enough he’d be able to react if something did happen to Charles. Once they were in control of the front they went back to the same strategy and management they used before for the same situation and it worked perfectly. Carlos kept the correct pace, catching up to Charles and then hitting those lap times, and coming in for the 1-2 finish. 

Good drive from him, some of his best tyre management all year I would say.

Data Analysis

Comparison of Charles and Carlos race pace. 

Their pace on the hard tyres was pretty much identical. You can see the way the team were managing to keep them roughly on the same pace through that stint. This is when both drivers had the benefit of clean air. Carlos was far enough back he didn’t have to worry about dirty air off Charles which made things easier for him as well. This is one of the benefits of having control of the front so you can make it so both drivers are getting good conditions to set pace. 

Carlos on the mediums was slower by an average of 3-5 tenths of a second. This is mostly explained by the fact he was further back and needing to deal with more dirty air. Also the mechanical issue as mentioned earlier.

Here is a look at the top 4 on the first stint which I think highlights how powerful that clean air was this race. Carlos, Max, and Lando all getting similar pace on the mediums, while Charles is able to just keep a healthy gap ahead. 

Red Bull

Max

Max had his best weekend in some time. The RB 20 has had some improvements and they seem to have solved some of the issues with the car that were hindering it’s pace and raw speed. He started off with a win in the sprint, starting from pole there. 

Max qualified P2 and finished P3.

As stated above the qualifying interruption forced him to abort a lap some believe would have put him on pole, it was looking like a good lap, but it’s impossible to say for sure as others could also have improved. Nevertheless it doesn’t take away from the fact that Max was back competing at the front this weekend. 

At the start of the race Max went for a move to overtake Lando on the inside. Both ran wide, and Max did overtake Lando into turn 1. Because of how wide he and Lando went that opened the door for both Ferraris and specifically Charles to jump ahead. Max did manage to keep Carlos behind, but importantly Carlos did jump ahead of Lando here.

I will cover his turn 1 overtake in the footage analysis section below. But in short Max was ahead at the apex and had the right to the racing line at that point. 

Max was in P2 until the second stint of the race when he was undercut by Carlos in the pits. I found this to be a strange strategic oversight on Red Bull’s part. They didn’t seem very concerned about that undercut. Which I don’t see the advantage to be gained there. I don’t think this was intentional but instead was a pretty significant mistake on the part of the team. They seem to have underestimated Ferrari’s race pace this weekend. So that is how Max lost the place to Carlos.

While Max was running his best race in a few rounds the car was far from perfect. It struggled with race pace in terms of the tyres. 

Max vs Lando

Turn 1 lap 1: this was the first incident between these two when Max attacked off the line going into turn 1 and ran Lando wide. This was allowed because it was the first turn and first lap so there is a lot more leniency when it comes to incidents like this. Now Max had completed the overtake before Lando went off the track. He was ahead at the apex and stayed on the racing line. He ran wide but not wide enough for it to be penalty worthy.

Here are the key moments of his turn 1 overtake. The key moment is in panel 2 when he has his wheels clearly ahead at the apex of the corner. He also stayed ahead in panel 3, so it's pretty clear he did have the right to the corner and was ahead when it counted.

Lap 52: On lap 52 going into turn 11 Max was the defending driver. Lando on fresher tyres had caught up to him and was trying to make a pass. He’d already made quite a few attempts which Max expertly defended.

Lando stayed ahead and this was rewarded with a 5 second penalty from the stewards. Because of this he finished ahead of Max, but was dropped down a place due to the penalty because he did not finish more than 5 seconds ahead of Max.

Let’s take a look at the footage. This interaction has already been torn apart by many others but here is a quick breakdown of the key moments.

The thing to note here is that Lando was not comfortably ahead of Max in the lead up to the corner as shown in panel 1. He was oscillating with Max's pace, which is pretty normal when you see cars go side by side on these long straights. To say a moment when he was ahead for maybe a second was a complete overtake is not accurate and would completely change the definition of a successful overtake.

Another key moment is shown in panel 3 where Max's wheels are clearly ahead at the apex, again giving him the right to the corner.

Finally the moment that defined this exchange is in panels 5 and 6, where Lando was completely off the track, got ahead of Max. He overtook Max off the track. Which is a very clear cut penalty, especially after Max was ahead.

Max was in the right. He was racing according to the current standard of the rules. Lando did not have a right to that corner, and he overtook off the track. This is a well established precedent that Max and all the other drivers were well aware of. You can take issue with the current rule all you like, but drivers are supposed to drive according to the rules as they are currently understood, and they permit for this kind of maneuver from Max.

I will cover more about Lando and Mclaren’s side of this in his section below.

Data Analysis

Here is Max vs Lando on race pace

I think this shows the lacking pace Mclaren were having on the mediums. They were the weakest out of the top 3 on that compound. The thing to not on the hard stint is that Lando pit later, so when he was chasing Max he was on 6 lap newer hards. But you can see that Max was setting a much slower pace compared to Lando, even before Lando pit, so that was the target pace Red Bull were aiming for, and given Max noted a lack of performance on the hards it makes sense they'd need to slow down to extend the life of the tyres. Max didn't have much of a choice, the tyres and the car decided the pace.

Max's P3 finish and sprint win were important for Max's WDC bid because finishing ahead of Lando in both the sprint and the race itself allowed him to keep his gap to Lando and even increase it by a few points.

Mclaren

Another messy race for Mclaren, which seems to be their calling card this season.

The most notable parts of Mclaren’s race happened on lap 1 and lap 52. 

Lap 1: Lando started on pole, but lost the lead into turn one, to Max and Charles and Carlos. So right away Mclaren lost their lead and had to play catch up in the race.

Lap 52: Lando overtook Max off the track and the team told him not to give the place back. 

The biggest error from the team came with the order they gave Lando to keep the position after he overtook Max off the track. This was an extremely risky call and one they should not have made if they were not willing to face the very likely consequences.

I think the radio exchange between Lando and the team is very telling here.

Here the team is telling Lando he is in the right. And they maintained this after 2 laps when they would have had time to look at the footage and see Max was ahead. I think at this point they were hoping that it wouldn't stick because both cars went wide, not because they actually thought Lando was ahead.

The thing at the end is Lando kind of reviewing what they should have done, and he's right. They took a massive risk and it didn't pay off and it wasn't worth taking. The team should not have supported Lando in a risk like this, he needs them to give him the best information and there was no way for Lando to know any differently until he was out of the car what that pass actually looked like. So jsut bad support and a horrendously bad strategy call from the team.

Mclaren appealed the stewards decision of the 5 second penalty. And they changed their opinion in the documentation. Stating that Lando had already overtaken Max before reaching the corner, and thus Lando was the defending driver. Well during the race they were saying that Lando was ahead at the apex. So they changed their opinion based on the footage. Because they could not argue that Lando was ahead at the apex, he wasn't. But their argument also falls apart because if Lando had already overtaken Max he would have been ahead at the apex now wouldn't he? He wasn't, the footage is very clear on that front.

So they really just wanted to try to bend the rules in their favor. And got very upset when the stewards and FIA didn't do that for them.

Lando

This wasn’t all the team’s fault. Lando is responsible for a lot of the circumstances that led to this issue in the first place. He qualified on pole and finished in P4. 

Lando’s driving this race was sloppy and again showed his lacking abilities at wheel to wheel. First he lost the lead going into turn 1. And again, he didn’t just lose the lead, he lost the lead to three other cars. His pole win in Singapore was aided by the fact the rest of the field saw a drop in performance. When he needs to actually defend the lead it’s fairly predictable how this will go. 

He ran wide in an attempt to defend from Max (which was a very predictable outcome, everyone knew what Max was going to try)

However the other issue came when he was trying to pass Max which eventually led to the lap 52 incident. He was attempting the same pass multiple times and Max easily defended. I don’t know why he kept trying what was essentially the same move. He had a pretty big tyre advantage at that point so his chances of passing Max eventually were high, but he was still struggling. 

I think one issue with his wheel to wheel in this case is Lando seems to assume if there is a big enough pace difference between his car and the defending car then the defending car will go easy or simply roll over. Max was not in a great position pace wise, but he still defended expertly. 

Assuming that a pass should happen or should be easy is not a good way to approach these battles. Especially when a championship is on the line. Max had no reason to make this easy, even if it meant driving harder and burning through his own tyres more. 

This race was a replay of Austria in many ways. Again Lando’s lacking ability at actually competitive wheel to wheel battling on track was the main issue here. 

The rest of the problems came from the team making a very bad call to not give the place back. 

Overall a mixed to lacking race from Lando. 

“Lando was ahead of Max before they entered the turn, therefore he’d already overtaken Max”: That’s not how that works. You need to have the car you’ve overtaken behind you. Being side by side and slightly ahead does not constitute an overtake on a straight. I recommend watching Lando’s overtake of George in the COTA sprint opening lap, he was ahead before the turn, but the overtake was not complete until he managed to make it stick. I also would recommend paying attention to the Ferrari’s (and the Ferraris vs George) that sprint as well to see some examples of when things get close before the overtake sticks. Going side by side and even being ahead does not mean the overtake has stuck, you need to be able to stay ahead at the corner. Or get the defending car fully behind you. Lando did neither of those things. It was not a complete overtake and thus Max remained the defending driver. 

To overtake a car must be ahead of the defending car at the turn (Lando was not in this case)

And the overtaking car must be capable of making the corner (again Lando did not make the corner) A defending driver is allowed to defend their line, so that is part of the necessity to make the corner. Lando did not fulfill. These are well known precedents that Mclaren should be aware of. 

Furthermore this is a harder overtake to make. That corner is one where an overtake on the inside is significantly more advantageous. Max knew that so that’s where he defended. Lando tried for the same less successful overtake approach and it’s not surprising it was difficult to make it stick. This comes down to an issue with his wheel to wheel skills. 

“Max forced Lando off the track!”: Max was the defending driver, he made the apex under control, and thus he gets to determine his racing line. Lando took a risk going around the outside, that is a well known risk on that particular move. 

Oscar

Oscar's weekend was middling. I think that after looking at his first 2 years on this track that Austin overall is not a strong track for him.

He qualified P5 and finished P5.

Now his race was somewhat hobbled by the fact he was asked to slow down by the team. Mclaren did not want him to get the fastest lap (which Lando was holding until it was taken by Franco and then by Este) and also they didn't want him to be too close to Lando in case Lando did get a penalty.

So his race results were a result of his own qualifying and then sealed by team strategy as a result of what was going on with Lando further up the field.

Data Analysis

A comparison of Lando vs Oscar's race pace.

Very similar. Lando got slightly better results out of the medium tyres, but overall they were pretty much matched.

Comparison of Oscar vs Lando's qualifying laps.

The places where Oscar lost the most pace compared to Lando in quali was the low speed corners. Looking at the more detailed telemetry I think Oscar's main problem here was his timing. His throttle, and brake applications were just not timed right at certain corners.

Mercedes

This was a rough weekend for Mercedes. Both George and Lewis had incidents. George spun out in qualifying at turn 19, and Lewis spun out at the very same corner during the race.

The car had been difficult all weekend. With both drivers struggling with the car. The upgrades Mercedes brought to the weekend don't seem to have added any performance to the car and in fact have made it more difficult.

Lewis spoke about how he's never had issues like this at this track before. And I think that is telling. He noted bouncing in the car, making it too unstable.

I think that the current Mercedes car is very sensitive to conditions. There were pretty strong winds at Austin and I think the car was struggling all week being destabilized by the crosswinds. With unstable upgrades and a car that is very sensitive to the wind neither driver had a strong chance to succeed this weekend.

George

After he crashed in qualifying George had to start from the pitlane because his car needed repairs. He managed to finish the race in P6 which made for an incredibly strong recovery drive from him. An underrated drive of the race.

Conclusion

Overall I think this race strengthened Max's WDC bid. It also brought Ferrari closer to the WCC. Not only that Charles is now in the fight for P2 of the WDC. Interesting race from the standpoint of quite a few cars and how they are adjusting to upgrades changes to the cars. This has set the stage for a very competitive final 5 races this season.

That's all I got, see you in Mexico!

[charles-leclerc-official]

So we know Ferrari are bringing updates to Monza and they always turn the engine up there.

Hypothetically, if these are major upgrades and Ferrari manages to leapfrog Red Bull - how do you see the season playing out? Do you think it will be a Max WDC with Charles and Lando taking points off each other?

Do we see Charles potentially taking advantage of Lando's inexperience, and winning more races and potentially getting close to the WDC?

I think that the moment the car is seriously competitive at the front Charles will be capitalizing. Carlos should be up there as well.

Mathematically Max is going to be WDC, something really big has to change for that to not be the case. As in Charles or Lando have to win every race going forward and Max has to drop out of the top 5. Which is just not likely.

So it's really a race for the WCC because that is really on. And also for P2. Lando also has another problem as Oscar is also in the mix and will probably take more points off of him. You could argue the same might happen with Charles and Carlos, but Ferrari have been better at managing that this year.

And I have said it before, if it comes to competing at the front on any metric Charles is going to come out ahead of Lando. If the car is even close to being a front runner Charles will be ahead.

The WDC will probably look close by the end of the year, but how close remains to be seen.

I need to wait and see a few things, but I still think that Max isn't done winning (depends on what they do to that car) But I think there's going to be another for him this year and that would pretty much seal the deal.

You are right though, if Charles and Ferrari come back then the battle for P2 will be pretty tight (because he's got a sizable points gap to close)

It is also important to remember Oscar is a factor here and I think he will also be taking points off of everyone (mathematically) so.

As far as predictions for additional multiple race winners this season.

George (and it will stick this time, I know he won, but this one will go towards his official stats this time) Charles (assuming the Ferrari upgrades take the car closer to the front) Oscar (at the moment this is most likely)

[toffee-and-tandoori]

lmao weirdly enough i was also talking about george's whole role in this current merc thing. and while i'm trying to avoid being all doom-and-gloom about kimi's impeding entry to f1 i do think that the fast-tracking of kimi through the feeder series was very much a vanity project for toto for a couple reasons:

imo toto's obsession with missing out on max all those years ago is not actually about max or any specific driver for that matter: it's about scouting and talent spotting, like @luigihamilton44 perfectly said, finding a "golden rookie" but most importantly? taking a risk on that golden rookie. red bull has had TWO of these with seb and max. mclaren currently has two of these with lando and oscar [and as i'll mention very soon has had a third]. ferrari currently has this with charles. sauber had this with og kimi. hell even alpine had this in their renault days with fernando! mercedes on the other hand? let's talk.

mercedes' main star for so long has been lewis, who entered the team already a world champion with mclaren [and is therefore mclaren's third "golden rookie"]. whose other drivers, due to the mercedes revival only being 12 years old, were already well established at other teams: michael, nico, and valtteri. toto feels that mercedes cannot yet claim they found a "golden rookie" and took a risk on them like other top teams have. also lewis has definitely said multiple times that he was convinced to join mercedes not by toto, but by niki. so toto can't even claim that.

weirdly enough i think george, with his early affiliation to the mercedes junior program, could've easily been the "golden rookie". however, as many people point out, that extra year in williams may have hurt george in the long run and made toto look too risk-adverse. now contrast this with horner who took the "brave risk" of promoting max to red bull after only a little over a year in f1...that luckily paid off for him.

also keep in mind that this is actually the second time (or arguably third if you count pascal) that toto took the less risky option as back in 2017 and 2018 there was a lot of conversation about esteban being promoted to mercedes with toto ultimately deciding he was too young and sticking with valtteri.

this is more of an elaboration to the above points than its own separate thing but another critique that toto often gets is that he only inherited a successful team (brawn) instead of building one from the ground up like christian horner did with red bull. i personally think there's skill to be found in maintaining a team's success during a major regulation change but this is clearly a sore spot for toto.

[sidenote the way toto has been lamenting over this would have you think that he immediately flopped once he took over mercedes...instead of winning the wdc and wcc for 8 years straight because of the decisions he made...]

anyways even though i'm far more of a lewis fan than i am a george fan (not a george anti though!) and do think that toto has been disrespectful at times with lewis' exit, i do think there has also been a lot of mishandling with george's career and i do think he has also been disrespected somewhat with this current situation. and while i don't think kimi will immediately match the expectations that have been placed upon him (because the expectations in question for kimi are literally being god), i don't think it'll be a complete disaster. i just hope that mercedes will actually support their drivers when they can't meet these expectations because the car continues to suck. unfortunately as i literally just explained, i do not have any faith that mercedes will do that.

i agree with merc's driver management anon tbh. i don't even like george and i feel for him a tiny bit here because. let's see.. (bear with me i love bullet lists)

he signs with merc in 2021 when the car was good, and also when it looked like lewis would win the wdc and probably retire. at most he'd stay maybe one or two more years.

neither of these things happen. the car sucks. lewis stays because he's hungrier than ever for the 8th.

that first year, everyone hypes george up a lot. he even gets a win. people talk at length about how george is so much better than lewis but no one takes the extensive experimentation into account.

2023. car still sucks. george does a lie detector and says with his entire chest that he's faster than lewis. spends the year getting soundly beat by him. things at merc seem to be breaking down. george goes into a wall at singapore and the way merc acted you'd think the end of times was nigh. this mistake doesn't do well for his reputation as a driver.

2024. lewis is moving to ferrari. george probably thinks ok, he can finally be the priority in the team. he can be the number 1 driver, the face of the team.

let's take a moment to talk about the rookies who came up with him. lando at mclaren, number 1 driver, who finally got his win this year after a long time of working hard for it. actually quite good at playing the team game. alex, who struggled at rbr but is doing well at williams. they love him so much they fucked over logan for him. he's a solid driver and while he doesn't have any wins yet, his skills are undeniable.

ok back. 2024. mainstream fans on social media have been displeased with george since at least qatar 23 if not earlier: it seems to be hitting critical mass this year. almost all of merc's social media posts, as well as f1 and espn's, are filled with comments about george buckling under pressure, not being as good as he thinks he is, and definitely not being a good teammate. on top of that his boss is trying to offer a metric fuckton of money to get max verstappen into the seat. plays around with the idea of fernando alonso until alonso goes like "lmao girl in THAT wheelbarrow?" and even bringing seb back from retirement. neither of these three are known for sitting quietly and following team orders and would probably laugh george out of the room at the suggestion that he be prioritized over them.

and then there's kimi antonelli. this ask is long enough so i won't go into detail over my feelings on that but at this point, george, who was desperate to be number 1, is watching his boss talk up a child who should be doing Intro to Calculus, while everyone calls him the next hamilton or verstappen.

and no one knows where george is in all this, including george himself. chances are though that he has not been impressive enough to be considered a leader or number 1 by anyone and merc aren't even pretending he might be. they're looking to replace lewis not just as a driver but as a leader and that has got to hurt for george.

*mic drop* 🎤

No but really I had forgotten about Alonso and Seb too like. No wait. Let me sit up for this.

The amount of DISRESPECT George has had to deal with is astounding. And it's coming from all sides. Fans, management, drivers. You can't help but empathise.

He's also so very unlucky! Every time you'd think things are looking up for him F1 throws him a curveball.

I wonder how he deals with this. That might explain some of what some fans perceive as undue confidence / audacity. Like what else are you gonna do in his situation but wall up and assert yourself the best you can, when your worth as a driver is constantly being questioned.

[charles-leclerc-official]

OMG, ANON THAT TALKS ABOUT CONSISTENCY! Same hat (thoughts)! The Red Bull team has the weakest line-up of the top four teams (yes, counting Mercedes in that, because George is also an excellent driver, and you simply need to watch yesterday's drive to see it) and it was okay when Ferrari had the SF-23 and McLaren had the shitty pre-upgrades car, but this year they've been caught out by us.

The thought that we could've had a WDC/WCC contending car if only Binotto hadn't fucked up the SF-1000 and SF-23 keeps me awake at night, because it's a giant what if that I won't be able to get over. We lost a whole season because Binotto and his leadership was a mess.

If not for that, I believe we wouldn't have seen Max's record breaking last season, which was a once-in-a-lifetime, all the stars aligned kind of season.

Regards McLaren, I feel that Oscar is definitely the better driver than Norris, but given that the team is built around Norris it's going to cost them. Norris to me is no WDC material, so I feel they bet on the wrong horse. (On the other hand, this is Oscar's second season in F1, so I completely understand why they wouldn't bet on him)

Personally I can see a three-way WCC fight between Red Bull, Ferrari and McLaren, but the name of the game there will be consistency, as anon said, and no matter what, I feel like Ferrari has been the more consistent of the three teams when it comes to drivers.

Every time Max isn't on the podium or doesn't do well it's an opportunity to close the gap.

I won't say anything because I am Italian and superstitious, but this feels like it's another start of season, when one team was leading with quite a gap while it ended up with them losing both the WDC and WCC to another team.

To conclude, as Hammertime magazine said, 'There's only one car that has ended all the races this season in the top 4 and it's the one with the #16 on it. C like consistency, C like Charles Leclerc'

I have been thinking a lot of the same things. Max is extremely good, but some of last year was due to other teams not being as competitive. Like he had to be good but I think that for the season we saw last year the others also had to struggle in terms of their cars.

And yes, I agree, I have been saying this about Oscar, if I was Mclaren I'd be putting everything into developing him as quickly as possible because I do think he has the better chance of really taking the fight to the other top teams. If they want to back Lando that's on them. They are both good drivers no one take this the wrong way, but I do think between them Oscar is better. Very interested to see how things develop between them in the standings.

With the current gaps the fight is really Red Bull vs Ferrari, Mclaren need to step up in the consistency category if they want to get there.

And before anyone brings up luck, yes luck has been a factor for all teams so far this year. But when it comes to standings the points are the only thing that matters. Capitalizing on luck is part of the sport. Everyone has had bad days with the car and just random things not going their way.

Charles has been the most consistent this season. I'd say followed by Carlos and Max, and then Lando, as well as Yuki. Everyone else has been mixed(Oscar needs to get on his tyres if he wants to achieve that consistency)

Thus far Charles' contest so far this year has been against Checo and that is about to change if it hasn't already.

I have also been thinking the same thing, seeing some parallels to a season that wasn't all that long ago. I think I've seen this film before, and just maybe this time I will like the ending.