2026 Dutch Grand Prix Zandvort

[Mogster]

Aye. At this level no driver is bringing a second. However the gap can be made artificially larger by providing a car that leans strongly towards a particular drivers skill set.

[Paa]

Bottas outqualifying Perez four races in a row now.

Yeah but, IIRC, it was by like 0.1s, right? From what I remember watching, almost all team mates were within 0.1s from each other, or thereabouts. But the key thing here is that even Tsunoda and Lawson were 0.1s slower, ie, they stepped into a car they never drove before with only 1 Practice and very limited sets of tyres and are immediately on pace What does that tell us about F1 now ?

Last year, Lawson was like 1s slower than VER despite doing pre season testing and etc. Now he´s keeping up just like Hadjar has been. The driving challenge aspect of F1 is almost dead now

The issue of Max's team mates failing at Red Bull was entirely for the fact that the previous cars were exclusively built for his driving style. The new gen cars are in some way, moved away from those specific elements that gave Max the strength. Hence, his team mates are now closer, including Hadjar. It wasn't that they were bad drivers. The current gen cars are obviously not what instinctive drivers want, but there is still racing element in them. Blaming the new regs for reduced gap between Max and his team mates now, is too simplistic.

At the same time the car has become less competitive.
This has always been the same story and discussed many times. The car more on the edge can be faster, but more challenging to drive, therefore bigger gap.
"Built for his style" basically just means too much front end, that others can't handly anymore. Like Albon described it very precisely.

[Artur Craft]

Blaming the new regs for reduced gap between Max and his team mates now, is too simplistic.

It´s a significant part of the story as other team mates are way too close as well