The problem for me is that Lando hasn't come close to maximising his potential. Not all of it is down to him, and that would take some reflection of the season and the races and not just anecdotal recollection, to answer fairly. What I would say is that I'm disappointed we don't have much more, I'm not sure how much of it is on Lando, but a reasonable portion of that responsibility would be.LionsHeart wrote: ↑07 Jul 2024, 14:31Reasonable and sensible.mwillems wrote: ↑07 Jul 2024, 14:25Ahahaha I love watching you two argue
It's a very difficult and subjective answer though. It might be better posed as, should Lando, in his 6th year of racing in F1, be sufficiently be prepared to take a championship level car and get the maximum out of it consistently. And the answer this year is probably Yes. Is he quite there? Probably not.
It's very fine margins, and he has improved. But I was making this point consistently last year... Lando is up against one of the very best, and he has to get close to the limits, consistently, and maximise all of his opportunities if he wants to be a world champion. The person who comes back from a position behind the other cars to win anyway, is still Max, sadly. And it isn't just luck.
Lando, for me, could certainly have done more this year. On the one hand, I look at this like a practise year for Lando, to grow into that world champion elect headspace. But should he need that time, should he already be doing more now?
But it is worth mentioning that the team haven't always helped, nor have circumstances. But Lando also needs to up his game against somebody who will be spoken about in the same breath as Senna, Schumacher and Hamilton. We've no right to expect that from him, but if he wants to be WDC and keep being WDC, there's more room for improvement.
As for which year is the worst for Lando, that is honestly a horrible question with no sensible answer, and would likely see many different versions of the truth contested until the end of time! ahahaha
And for Balance, I'd also say Oscar has been "OK", this year, relative to the talent he showed last year. Tyre management and his racecraft have all got better and he's only in year 2. But it would also have been nice to see a little more from him. But he has not embarrassed himself against Lando, he's stood up to the challenge and given a good showing and to be fair, he was extremely unlucky not to be the one winning in Miami because of luck that favoured Lando, and unlucky not to have won last week when he was penalised in Austria and lost his Q3. Whilst I think it was not right his lap was ruled out, he also needed to make sure it wasn't in question.