2024 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix - Imola, May 17 - 19

[Sieper]

Despite what the usual crowd would have you think, Verstappen did an incredible job eaking out the win. Didn’t set a foot wrong those last 25 laps and that enabled him to just stay ahead. McLaren is right there so the season will be a lot more tight then people think.

[Veteran]

How can anyone fault Lando for pushing??? He had to take massive risks in order to have any chance, but even then it would be extremely hard to overtake anyway. Had he gone off track and lost several seconds, that’s something else, but this?? People are hellbent on finding something to complain about all the time, it’s unbelievable.

Its anger because they are dissapointed Max won. Its the same reason the criticism is so harsh about Perez because he shows how good Max is. You cannot fault Lando he pushed as hard as the car would allow with the grip the tyres allowed and up against the best driver on the grid and on a track where overtaking is tricky without a significant tyre offset.

[siskue2005]

Team radio between Russel and Team regarding their pitstop and how he wants Lewis to move over!

[Dee]

Max did not manage his race well.

You must be joking right?

Perez was ten seconds off Hamilton on the hards, that's when I knew that RB weren't going to be as good on them as they are on the medium.

Max did brilliant, another driver in that car wouldn't have gotten pole or the win.

[Vettel165]

Max did not manage his race well.

You must be joking right?

Perez was ten seconds off Hamilton on the hards, that's when I knew that RB weren't going to be as good on them as they are on the medium.

Max did brilliant, another driver in that car wouldn't have gotten pole or the win.

Indeed. Max has race craft/pace the same as Alonso had in best years, in qualy like fast young Hamilton. The combination is just amazing.

[Dunlay]

Max was just brilliant. That car this weekend had no right to be in the top 3. Yet Max took Pole and won.

That's over the top statement. Nobody can take a NOT A TOP 3 car and put it on pole. They didn't get the car working out of the box on Friday. That's about it. They took the data and got it sorted for Saturday and Sunday. Max did what he does.

[avantman]

Max was just brilliant. That car this weekend had no right to be in the top 3. Yet Max took Pole and won.

That's over the top statement. Nobody can take a NOT A TOP 3 car and put it on pole. They didn't get the car working out of the box on Friday. That's about it. They took the data and got it sorted for Saturday and Sunday. Max did what he does.

do you realize there are two cars in all teams? Third fastest car, means 5th fastest car if we count both cars of two fastest teams. Of course if there are people who believe there is no difference between the drivers, say in top 8, who think they are equally fast on any given weekend, then fine. It's impossible for anyone to perform better than other drivers on any given weekend, and the end result is always the ultimate representation of car genuine pace. But that doesn't make too much sense given the fact we see drivers on equal cars (driving for one team) finishing 10-15 seconds apart of each other way too often.

[venkyhere]

My takeaway from the race :

1. Redbull team has finally come under proper pressure this season. Their usual data crunching algorithms which told them a guesstimate of where the "not-run-in-practice" tyre on a race weekend would be, is getting exposed (it might have had the same problem last season as well, but they had such a performance margin that this chink never came to light) - iirc, it's the 3rd time this has happened this season.

2. Surely something has happened with RB20 or it's two major updates , to the effect that the typical RedBull trait of 'setup from sim runs works straight out of the box on friday, then gets tuned accurately at the end of FP3, to land up in an optimized setup where quali and race requirements are bridged' is no longer there. I have a feeling that the RB20 in it's current form doesn't have the 'wide working window' that the RB19 had, and is getting exposed when the competition has caught up.

3. McLaren have achieved the reverse of 1 and 2 above. Their car works right out of the box on friday, they systematically optimize it before quali and nail their race pace. And they have made tremendous progress on tyre life.

4. I still think the RB20 is feebly ahead of the MCL38. However, I expect Redbull to get their game together as they have proven time and again that 'getting the act together when chips are down' is their forte. If that doesn't happen, and McLaren continue their amazing progress, I wouldn't be surprised if after the summer break, MCL38 is the faster car by a clear margin, on every track.

5. So much needless negative rhetoric about Ferrari - if we look at their car purely engineering wise, without the media hype and Tifosi deliriousness, the car has definitely made progress, they suffered in Imola purely because they weren't more brave with their wing level choice, they didn't gain anything by having longer tyre life, because they are anyway countering undercut attempts by others around them. Their tyre deg woes from last season are completely gone, they just lack that final 2-3% optimization towards matching the RB20 (which McLaren have managed to do).

[ringo]

The reason i said Max did not manage the tyre well is based on the data or lack there of.
RB20 still the fastest car but the driver didnt optimize the tyre. Could be lack of practice on the hard and thus lack of data.
But Max misused the tyre at the middle of the stint. He improved some laps from the end and was able to stabilize his pace.
Hamilton had not business being just as fast as Max on pace on the hard tyre. So clearly Max didn't have a great day in the office.

He is simply having to push harder now that Norris has a tool he can use. So we will see more races like this where both Mclaren and Redbull will need perfect weekend. Both the race team and the drivers.
If Piastri did not get a penalty, McLarren would/could have won today. Strategy and using the pace of both cars to force redbull's hand would have given Piastri the win.

[PlatinumZealot]

Norris did way too many mistakes in the last laps, without those he might have won it. At this point I think the RB isn't even the better car now, but you need a better car to beat Verstappen.

The RedBull is still too fast on the strights. He only could have won if Max made a mistake.


A very important factor is the tyres. The RedBulk is still head and shoulders above when ut used the C4. On the C3 on this track at least, it had problems managing pace. Lando seemed to keep his tyres better on the C3 but ultimate pace it seems RB still ahead.

[PlatinumZealot]

Despite what the usual crowd would have you think, Verstappen did an incredible job eaking out the win. Didn’t set a foot wrong those last 25 laps and that enabled him to just stay ahead. McLaren is right there so the season will be a lot more tight then people think.

Max has like the last 30 wins mate
You make it sound like he wasn't gonna win today!
Pole.. Lead an easy 7 second gap in the first stint. Norris did an undercut.. There was traffic got closer into Max's lead.. All down to Norris? Or the RedBull struggling on hards? Or Max having an off day? Who knows!! But.. Max and RedBull did enough in the first stint to secure the win. Norris was never going to catch and pass unless Max royally screwed up.



We NEED Mclaren to be waay faster by some amount to have Lando and Piastri finishing one two so we can have a championship fight. If the McLaren is only equal or just barely ahead Max will manage to keep the 60 point gap. He has more championship experience and he's more used used to his car's handling traits that have a lineage of evolution over the years, than Lando's McLaren which is like an all new car to him.

[chrisc90]

I dont think any of the top 4 were overtaking each other all race. Terrible track really in that respect.

[Silent Storm]

The RedBull is still too fast on the strights. He only could have won if Max made a mistake

Apparently RB was as bad as Mercedes this weekend and it was only Max who manages to win with it. Nevermind Perez being stuck in traffic first, then faster than Max in the final third of the race

Facts!

[Elite]

Max is a great driver and very consistent. But he's not god, we saw what happened when the car wasn't up to par on Friday.

I think the majority of us would respect him more if it wasn't for his insufferable fan base

The excuses and mind games they like to post makes the board bad to read sometimes...

[Silent Storm]

Max is a great driver and very consistent. But he's not god, we saw what happened when the car wasn't up to par on Friday.

I think the majority of us would respect him more if it wasn't for his insufferable fan base

The excuses and mind games they like to post makes the board bad to read sometimes...

Says a Lewis fan...