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[Vettel165]

They threw away a potential win and gained nothing in my opinion. Even lost a P2.

The win was fool's gold. Lando was managing early in his final stint, and Max didn't have tyre life to defend.

It still doesn't change the fact that they didn't even bother trying though. What did they have to lose by staying out? A late SC is perfectly beneficial. They have track position. Norris has to pass Max, not on entirely new tires but at least somewhat used tires.

But there was no SC if we look back. There was no difference between P2 or P3 for me today from the pits. Just an absolute mega drive by Max, one to remember. Lando would always win today, he was just saving his tyres, Max had to use his tyres and was always in traffic. This is why they they boxed him early in that stint, Lando was gaining more that 0,5-0,6s per lap, also they had to cover Piastri. And also remember, Leclerc would probably be on the podium this race without that crash with Piastri. And Piastri without his penalty would have been P2. We were slightly lucky, but Max with his determination/skill/clean overtakes made it work.

[f1isgood]

I think a win was on without the puncture and at least a fight for P1 was on without the last pitstop. I will stop my contribution on this topic after this as I have made my point many times. I think Max was there today to win.

[Sergej]

Another negative point, the Mexico floor is definitely rubbish at this point....which poses more concerns about technical team.

[Emag]

Staying on the hard for a bit longer and then taking the medium-medium to the end would have been faster. The soft wasn't a good tyre either as we could see at the end. I'm not sure what would have been possible if he had not had that puncture but Lando would have been sweating that's for sure.

I don't think hards were good enough to make that work as well as the eventual strategy panned out. If he doesn't overtake cars like he was overtaking, then the podium goes further and further away. You spend 1 lap behind the lower midfield and thats 1 second lost to the lead.

It's not about the hards being good, it's about not doing an extra pit stop and losing a bunch of positions. Doing 10-15 more laps on the hard and then medium-medium to the end would have been preferable.

How many positions did he lose though? He was on hards behind a bunch of cars. He would have been on a DRS train with suboptimal tires (Max even said so himself, the car didnt feel good on Hards). He then pits, comes out a couple of positions behind, but in VSC or SC conditions, so he didn't lose out as much time as you would normally lose from a pitstop. After pitting he not only has tire delta, but he is also on the best tire of the weekend, while being free to push as hard as he could. He was essentially in sync with the front runners at that point, but with tire delta while also having gotten rid of one of the worse tire sets of the weekend, so he could keep fitting mediums if he wanted to.

It's just hypotheticals at this point, but I don't think he would have made the podium with hards-medium-medium. Or if he did, it wouldn't have been as "easy".

[Vettel165]

I think a win was on without the puncture and at least a fight for P1 was on without the last pitstop. I will stop my contribution on this topic after this as I have made my point many times. I think Max was there today to win.

For me there was no fight, Lando would just pass him easily like he did in the middle stint. A combination of poncture and VSC was quite good for Max, as they lost 10 seconds less. Without it he would just extend the stint on the very slow hard tyres, which had poor grip and was always in a DRS train...

[f1isgood]

Another negative point, the Mexico floor is definitely rubbish at this point....which poses more concerns about technical team.

Good point. But they did qualifying on the Monza floor lol

[AR3-GP]

Another negative point, the Mexico floor is definitely rubbish at this point....which poses more concerns about technical team.

Good point. But they did qualifying on the Monza floor lol

Yeah but they changed the setup to Yuki's feedback...

[Badger]

They threw away a potential win and gained nothing in my opinion. Even lost a P2.

The win was fool's gold. Lando was managing early in his final stint, and Max didn't have tyre life to defend.

It still doesn't change the fact that they didn't even bother trying though. What did they have to lose by staying out? A late SC is perfectly beneficial. They have track position. Norris has to pass Max, not on entirely new tires but at least somewhat used tires.

Norris passing Max would have been easy once he started pushing with the tyre delta. But yeah, it may have been easier to get P2 by staying out, all depends on the tyre life.

[euv2]

Nobody carves up the field quite like Max, incredible amounts of skill. Never really wastes time overtaking cars, always gets the pass done. Surpassed my expectations today.

The mediums on the second stint were clearly falling off, Max was in full push mode all the time, so he stressed his tires more compared to the others. He started sliding a bit in sector 2, so they made the right call. He was trending towards 1.14s and was only going to get worse, Lando and Antonelli were doing 1.13.3-13.5s and would have passed him. It's a shame the soft didn't hold on a bit more.

[f1isgood]

Another negative point, the Mexico floor is definitely rubbish at this point....which poses more concerns about technical team.

Good point. But they did qualifying on the Monza floor lol

Yeah but they changed the setup to Yuki's feedback...

I mean that's what they tell.... I don't buy that much. Yuki's data and Yuki himself are both useless and I said this yesterday as well. Anyways, it's done and dusted. Some decent points recovered, some poor strategy given they didn't even have anything to lose.

Also P3 in the WCC apparently lol.

[Vettel165]

I don't think hards were good enough to make that work as well as the eventual strategy panned out. If he doesn't overtake cars like he was overtaking, then the podium goes further and further away. You spend 1 lap behind the lower midfield and thats 1 second lost to the lead.

It's not about the hards being good, it's about not doing an extra pit stop and losing a bunch of positions. Doing 10-15 more laps on the hard and then medium-medium to the end would have been preferable.

How many positions did he lose though? He was on hards behind a bunch of cars. He would have been on a DRS train with suboptimal tires (Max even said so himself, the car didnt feel good on Hards). He then pits, comes out a couple of positions behind, but in VSC or SC conditions, so he didn't lose out as much time as you would normally lose from a pitstop. After pitting he not only has tire delta, but he is also on the best tire of the weekend, while being free to push as hard as he could. He was essentially in sync with the front runners at that point, but with tire delta while also having gotten rid of one of the worse tire sets of the weekend, so he could keep fitting mediums if he wanted to.

It's just hypotheticals at this point, but I don't think he would have made the podium with hards-medium-medium. Or if he did, it wouldn't have been as "easy".

Fantastic analysis as usually, nothing to add. I learned a lot of new things from you in the last years. Keep up the good work.

[euv2]

Another negative point, the Mexico floor is definitely rubbish at this point....which poses more concerns about technical team.

Do we have pictures confirming this? They said he was running the Monza floor but from the broadcast it looked like the Mexico floor to me.

[f1isgood]

The win was fool's gold. Lando was managing early in his final stint, and Max didn't have tyre life to defend.

It still doesn't change the fact that they didn't even bother trying though. What did they have to lose by staying out? A late SC is perfectly beneficial. They have track position. Norris has to pass Max, not on entirely new tires but at least somewhat used tires.

Norris passing Max would have been easy once he started pushing with the tyre delta. But yeah, it may have been easier to get P2 by staying out, all depends on the tyre life.

Norris passing Max on brand new tires versus Max on old tires is very different from Norris passing Max on basically at least 10+ lap old mediums imo. Also, people really underestimate how good Max is at following and passing cars. It's happened so many times at this point that it's hard to ignore. Norris is not the greatest at that either.

For me regardless of whatever happened, what it is somewhat weird that Red Bull took a safe route when they had nothing to lose. It's not like others weren't driving on 50+ old laps.

[TNTHead]

Well executed race and an impressive turn around compared to yesterday.

Ideally, I think the last stint on softs for 16 laps was 4 to 5 laps too early.
At least we had an enjoyable race.

[Gillian]

I think a win was on without the puncture and at least a fight for P1 was on without the last pitstop. I will stop my contribution on this topic after this as I have made my point many times. I think Max was there today to win.

For me there is zero doubt he could have held on for P1 without that last stop. It felt like unwaranted fear for the tire to dropoff or something. P3 is awesome after yesterday ofcourse but it seems to me a win is thrown away this weekend.