2025 Qatar Grand Prix - Lusail, Nov 28 - 30

[Henk_v]

Mysterious left front puncture for Isack Hadjar while running in P6....

It smacks of tire structural failure.

Imagine if that had happened on lap7 and Hadjar had stopped on the track.
Hulkenberg and Gasly, unintentionally, quashed an opportunity for the conspiracy theorists. It wouldn't still get into their heads that it isn't just enough to Flavio-Piquet a deliberate DNF, it also requires hypnotism/black-magic-spell/sorcery to be performed remotely, to cause brain-dead decision making at the McLaren pitwall.

The SC was not a lucky SC for RBR. If all had pitted, we'd have the most boring race ever.
If you read the reporting, MCL were debating wether to come in. RBR just asked Hannah and she called it correctly as did 8 other teams.

[Juzh]

The one time there actually was a fight, this year, between Max and the Racingbulls Max did not get through. That was in Hungary. The other times was on a way different strategy or just blue flags. It was a disgracefull post.

We also have Lawson holding up Tsunoda for half the race for P5 in Baku.

[SiLo]

The only thing interesting about this race was McLaren not pitting under the safety car. If they had just pit like everyone else, it would be an absolute snooze fest.

I sort of understand their logic in some ways because track position really was king here.

[Skywalker12]

They committed on doing 50 laps with two stops, while everyone else had one stop. Not sure how they planned to gain back 25-6s on Max, when they were 2-3 tenths faster at best.

[Ferry]

Who do people think is the most deserving champion this year?

The one with most points at the end. Everything else is subjective. It's the whole package, including being in the right team. Just look at Alonso.
The easy answer is of course Max. Why isn't he sitting in the Mclaren?

[mzso]

If Norris wasn´t so unlucky on Holland, he would have been champion already in Vegas(maybe Mclaren wouldn´t have risked so much with Lando having a huge lead, as he should have)

Unlucky? He's driving an MCL39.

So what? There's no relation whatsoever... It doesn't matter which car you drive if it breaks down, or the team puts you in a loosing situation, etc. Not that the MCL39 was ever neat as much above the field as the Red Bull two years ago, or Mercedes in most of the championship winning years.

[mzso]

It´s incredible how Andy Ant has screwed Max over this season. First, he wrecked him out on lap 1 of RB´s home race and now he chokes in front of Norris giving him the benefit of finishing P3 to become champion in Abu Dhabi.

Austria was a coincidence. And Qatar doesn't even qualify. He lost points he didn't want to lose.

[venkyhere]

They committed on doing 50 laps with two stops, while everyone else had one stop. Not sure how they planned to gain back 25-6s on Max, when they were 2-3 tenths faster at best.

Upon SC=>green on lap10, there were 47 laps to 'pull away from Max and squeeze in a 22 (or was it 25) seconds pitstop' on Max. That would have meant ~0.5s/lap pace advantage over him. Perhaps they thought they had it/more sufficiently. In reality it was more like ~0.3s advantage for Piastri & ~0.05s advantage for Norris, over Max. Whether it was them having less pace / Max having more pace, w.r.t their estimated numbers, we won't know. But they played with fire, and got burnt.

[mzso]

Unlucky? He's driving an MCL39.

So what? Every season someone gets to drive the best car and Mclaren is nowhere near as dominant as Mercedes, for instance, from 2014-2021. Without his car failure on Netherlands, Lando would have been champion already. Oscar would be a horrible champion, he doesn´t deserve it

He did far more than Norris this year for it, Norris was just blundering around for 3/4 of the season...
Not to say that, I'm particularly impressed by either of them. I think there are 5-6 better drivers on the grid.

[Vettel165]

Now we need some magic from Leclerc to be in the mix for Abu Dhabi. But most probably being 10 or 12 points behind Lando with Max wouldnt make the difference. Why? Because Max and Lando, Piastri are usually always ahead by quite some margin from everyone else. Its nearly a given Lando would finish at least P2,P3. Even if Piastri was second, he would just let Norris go. For Max we need a big mistake by Norris or a Russel, Kimi between him and Norris, maybe Charles. In other scenario maybe they dont find a good setup, but this Mclaren is very easy to setup, comparing to a diva like Red Bull.

But Max, Piastri are still the outsiders, they can risk it more. The pressure is on Lando now to deliver. Its still 10% for Max, 5% for Piastri and 85% chance for Lando to take the title…

Also if Mclaren doesnt win it would be the biggest blunder of the century, if Max wins it would have been the best title of the century.

[mzso]

I’d love to see a post summer break table of F1 points.

How McLaren have effectively thrown it away (the haven’t as Norris likely to be WDC in AD) but the amount of errors, strategy and team decisions has cost him wrapping the WDC up about 4 races prior.

-309 OP
-275 LN
-205 MV
-185 GR

Max has outscored OP and LN by 108 and 58 points respectively... in 8 races... against a dominant car.

It wasn't eve a dominant car. It was a faster car. Earlier in the year. Nowadays depending how set-ups turn out it's either slightly faster or slightly slower than the Red Bull.

Yeah, that’s just insane. Especially given the dominance of the Mclaren.

The last time McLaren was dominant was in the 80s. The last time an F1 car was dominant was in 2023, the Red Bull.

[chrisc90]

I’d love to see a post summer break table of F1 points.

How McLaren have effectively thrown it away (the haven’t as Norris likely to be WDC in AD) but the amount of errors, strategy and team decisions has cost him wrapping the WDC up about 4 races prior.

-309 OP
-275 LN
-205 MV
-185 GR

Max has outscored OP and LN by 108 and 58 points respectively... in 8 races... against a dominant car.

It wasn't eve a dominant car. It was a faster car. Earlier in the year. Nowadays depending how set-ups turn out it's either slightly faster or slightly slower than the Red Bull.

Yeah, that’s just insane. Especially given the dominance of the Mclaren.

The last time McLaren was dominant was in the 80s. The last time an F1 car was dominant was in 2023, the Red Bull.

I’d say the vegas McLaren update in 2024 made it a dominant car. They were easily faster than the others.

[mzso]

He is one with his car. Do not underestimate that Max and RedBull has honed a driving characteristic to a his, the number 1 driver's liking, over several consecutive years. In contrast other teams have two competing drivers and not even the same drivers for any stretch of time so you get a car whose handling DNA is bastardised.

You can see from the onboards, from trackside even more how much in control Max is and how much front end grip that car has when it's on song.

By "bastardized", you mean a handling that's good and not with an insane characteristic...

[mzso]

One of the most nail biting race of the reason from start to finish. Without the 25 lap tire limit, the race would have been less exciting.
Lap 7 SC pit stop was timed to perfection with 25 + 25 to complete the race, not a lap short or extra.
Mclaren thought by not pitting, they have the soft tire option to play, but it was hard that really deliver on this track.

Flawless drive from Max and its situation like this that he always deliver. Masterclass.

If you bite your nails out of boredom. The race was decided in Lap 7. After that you only had the prescribed pit stops, which everyone did together. And Piastri deciding in desperation to change tires early, when the race was done and dusted already.

[basti313]

I’d love to see a post summer break table of F1 points.

How McLaren have effectively thrown it away (the haven’t as Norris likely to be WDC in AD) but the amount of errors, strategy and team decisions has cost him wrapping the WDC up about 4 races prior.

-309 OP
-275 LN
-205 MV
-185 GR

Max has outscored OP and LN by 108 and 58 points respectively... in 8 races... against a dominant car.

It wasn't eve a dominant car. It was a faster car. Earlier in the year. Nowadays depending how set-ups turn out it's either slightly faster or slightly slower than the Red Bull.

Yeah, that’s just insane. Especially given the dominance of the Mclaren.

The last time McLaren was dominant was in the 80s. The last time an F1 car was dominant was in 2023, the Red Bull.

Strange comment. McLaren owned completely the first half of the season until Monza. With two good drivers and decent strategies, this could have been only 1-2 finishes excluding Kanada and even in Kanada one needs to ask the question what would have been possible without fumbling Q3.
Same, not only faster, but dominant pace they held in Maxico, Brazil and Qatar, but fumbled with at least one car in all of these. Especially Qatar showed this in the first stint, they gapped the competition on older tires by a large margin.

I think it is simply wrong to talk down this car. This is clearly one of the best cars in F1 history, clearly the best of this rule set.