F1 The Wash Up - Previous 2024 Race Weekends

[Ram-Man]

Congrats to Oscar. Fifth Aussie to win an F1 race. Incredible achievement. McLaren with their in race calls have potentially cost him a podium in Melbourne and a win in Silverstone so it was good to see him be on the right side for once. A great young man and ambassador for his country. Kudos too to Mark Webber who has done an incredible job guiding him this far.

 

[Festerz]

Speaking of Sky F1 and Croft- how many times did that idiot go on about Max not having a good night's sleep because of his sim racing and it affecting his racing and temperament? Reckon he made the same point about 20 times during the race.

Not just boringly repetitive but simpleton nonsense from someone whose never performed in any sport at an elite level level let alone F1 (unless you count darts commentating as a sport). Making comparison to how he feels on a Sunday morning having rolled his 120kegs body out from under the doona after he's spent a night on the brews wasn't funny the first time let alone after the 20th time.

 

[Festerz]

And who else liked the sweet irony of Oscar 's first winning trophy being made in the same designer factory who did the artwork for the race helmet of his team-mate who tried to screw him over for the race win?

Glorious!

 

[smasha]

Look, I get it, Oscar won, but I wanna see him win purely on merit.

This ain't a meritorious win, whichever you wanna boil it down and dissect it.

Fact! Lando was clearly faster at the end of the race, 6 seconds up the road, Fact!

Piastri was following team orders by protecting his tyres.
Lando was not.
Piastri should have got first pit rights also.

 

[Pablito]

Look, I get it, Oscar won, but I wanna see him win purely on merit.

This ain't a meritorious win, whichever you wanna boil it down and dissect it.

Fact! Lando was clearly faster at the end of the race, 6 seconds up the road, Fact!

You're ignoring the facts being presented to you again and again. Norris was only in front to protect the 1-2 as ordered by McLaren. It was always part of the teams plan to give it back.

On pure pace for 2 thirds of the race Piastri was faster.

Your boy is a nonce and the whole world saw it today.

I guess some poms are still crying about the euros and losing the Tories. I suppose It's an emotionally charged time for you lot, losing again and again.

 

[DamoESP]

Seems we're no the only one that was asking questions about why RIC got the botched pit strategies.....

 

[DamoESP]

I reckon Dan knows how important this weekend was for his possible promotion to the RBR team so can understand his anger given that the team ****ed his race.

Angry Daniel Ricciardo lashes out after bad strategy call

Daniel Ricciardo was angry and frustrated after the Hungarian GP. Image: Rudy Carezzevoli/Getty Images/Red Bull Content Pool Ricciardo finished a

speedcafe.com

 

[Peter Sidorkiewicz]

Oh fm Sky overdoing the Lando love how great a team man he is.

He 100% proved he was a great teammate. Apart from lap 1, Norris was the better driver. If he was allowed to properly race piastri properly, I think Lando overtakes Oscar easily and wins that grand prix.

Norris is a young Sir Lewis Hamilton, with the same humility.

 

[Festerz]

He 100% proved he was a great teammate. Apart from lap 1, Norris was the better driver. If he was allowed to properly race piastri properly, I think Lando overtakes Oscar easily and wins that grand prix.

Norris is a young Sir Lewis Hamilton, with the same humility.

 

[Bestbird]

DannyRics pitting on mediums at the same time after being passed by the soft tyres cars made no sense at all, completely baffling strategy.

On Piastri, Peter Windsor youtube was doing some serious mental gymnastics in support of Norris saying that Pastri should have re addressed on the first corner pass due to forcing Norris off the track LOL

 

[Neale4brownlow]

DannyRics pitting on mediums at the same time after being passed by the soft tyres cars made no sense at all, completely baffling strategy.

On Piastri, Peter Windsor youtube was doing some serious mental gymnastics in support of Norris saying that Pastri should have re addressed on the first corner pass due to forcing Norris off the track LOL

Norris almost bottled the start for Mclaren being slow off the start and pushing Piastri wide to try and defend him. Max almost waltzed through.
In a perfect world he'd just worry about max and let his teammate through unimpeded.
But it never goes that way at this level.

 

[Jatz]

Well what a cluster**** that was.

McLaren need to have a very good think about whether they think Lando can genuinely compete with Max for the Drivers Championship. It'll be unpopular around here but if I was McLaren, I'd have been telling Oscar, sorry, we need those points for Lando.

They've got the car to challenge now, those extra points could be vital in the end. Especially with Max falling apart.

If they decide Lando is too far back, let them genuinely race each other. Which order they finish 1/2 makes zero difference for them in the Constructors Championship.

 

[Jatz]

As for Verstappen, wow. He's lost all composure. Blaming Hamilton for that is just absurd, even for him.

I'd be having a very tough conversation with him around professionalism. How many other drivers are up until 3 in the morning, with their mind on something else entirely? He gets away with it when they're winning but with the car where it is, they need Max at 110% and I'm starting to doubt that's where he is.

Then there's the blatant disrespect over the radio. I get it, shit strategy. But you win and lose as a team.

Can see him ending up at Mercedes sooner rather than later if they don't get on top of this.

 

[happy_eagle]

Well what a cluster**** that was.

McLaren need to have a very good think about whether they think Lando can genuinely compete with Max for the Drivers Championship. It'll be unpopular around here but if I was McLaren, I'd have been telling Oscar, sorry, we need those points for Lando.

They've got the car to challenge now, those extra points could be vital in the end. Especially with Max falling apart.

If they decide Lando is too far back, let them genuinely race each other. Which order they finish 1/2 makes zero difference for them in the Constructors Championship.

Part of me does wonder what the reaction on this board (notoriously pro Australian for obvious reasons) would have been if the roles were reversed and Oscar had to give back P1 to Lando after an undercut.

 

[Festerz]

DannyRics pitting on mediums at the same time after being passed by the soft tyres cars made no sense at all, completely baffling strategy.

On Piastri, Peter Windsor youtube was doing some serious mental gymnastics in support of Norris saying that Pastri should have re addressed on the first corner pass due to forcing Norris off the track LOL

RB were clearly being used by their sister team to frustrate the Mercedes drivers. It worked to a certain extent with leaving the patched up car of Tsunoda out there as long as possible on dead tyres until Mercedes faked a pit stop which lured RB into pulling Yuki in.

But the Ricciardo strategy makes zero sense at all. And RB have admitted it, with team principal Laurent apologising to Danny Ric...


“We got it wrong with Daniel and pitted him too early in heavy traffic, which lost him a chance to fight for points,” Mekies said.

“His pace had been extremely strong all weekend long, and he demonstrated that again in the final stint of the race when he was finally able to find some free air and fight his way back. We certainly share his frustration."

 

[Forward Press]

Let's try to see it from Lando's perspective (bracing for dislikes):

• Oscar nailed the start, and overtook Lando fairly, no issues there
• He lucked out at the second pit stop, but this was because of the team not because of Lando's pace or Oscar's lack of.
• He is also closer to the WDC than Oscar (however unlikely or improbable it may be)
• Lando was having good pace and well on track for maximum points, this was not due to any fault on Oscar's part but rather being a beneficiary of the right strategy call from his team

From Oscar's perspective (I know we are going over the same things here):

• Oscar nailed the start, and overtook Lando fairly, no issues there
• McLaren (not Oscar, or Lando) made the call to give Lando, who was clear 2nd at the time, the undercut - this is where it falls apart
• He therefore deserved to win even if it's a bit 'hollow' as it was not due to Oscar's pace but rather Lando being ordered to, and McLaren made the wrong strategy call because it is almost customary that the lead car has first dibs on optimum strategy
• Oscar was informed about a swap therefore his pace was not as 'hot' as it could have been, no point sacrificing tires if your teammate up the road is being told to swap

Of course, the whole thing would have been avoided if Oscar pitted first for the last stint, but now we have this mess because McLaren botched it and ruined their own potentially perfect weekend with this unnecessary inter-driver argument.

Onwards to Belgium, imagine if we have a similar situation towards the end of Spa with Lando again P1 and Oscar well clear in P2 due to a botched strategy, there wouldn't be enough popcorn.

 

[Forward Press]

Part of me does wonder what the reaction on this board (notoriously pro Australian for obvious reasons) would have been if the roles were reversed and Oscar had to give back P1 to Lando after an undercut.

I like to think that - even with the obvious bias - there would be fewer issues if Lando just handed it back over within a few laps instead of racing away, and then Lando overtook later on genuine pace.

 

[Vader]

Piastri has been pineappled by McLaren so many times in the past, that it was great to hear all the calls to Lando from the pit wall, pleading with Lando to let Piastri past again.

Lando was extremely reluctant, but the McLaren team were VERY insistent - and he eventually capitulated.

Very happy for Piastri, and it was nice to see him getting the benefit of team orders for a change, rather than suffering from team **** ups.

 

[skam85]

Let's try to see it from Lando's perspective (bracing for dislikes):

• Oscar nailed the start, and overtook Lando fairly, no issues there
• He lucked out at the second pit stop, but this was because of the team not because of Lando's pace or Oscar's lack of.
• He is also closer to the WDC than Oscar (however unlikely or improbable it may be)
• Lando was having good pace and well on track for maximum points, this was not due to any fault on Oscar's part but rather being a beneficiary of the right strategy call from his team

From Oscar's perspective (I know we are going over the same things here):

• Oscar nailed the start, and overtook Lando fairly, no issues there
• McLaren (not Oscar, or Lando) made the call to give Lando, who was clear 2nd at the time, the undercut - this is where it falls apart
• He therefore deserved to win even if it's a bit 'hollow' as it was not due to Oscar's pace but rather Lando being ordered to, and McLaren made the wrong strategy call because it is almost customary that the lead car has first dibs on optimum strategy
• Oscar was informed about a swap therefore his pace was not as 'hot' as it could have been, no point sacrificing tires if your teammate up the road is being told to swap

Of course, the whole thing would have been avoided if Oscar pitted first for the last stint, but now we have this mess because McLaren botched it and ruined their own potentially perfect weekend with this unnecessary inter-driver argument.

Onwards to Belgium, imagine if we have a similar situation towards the end of Spa with Lando again P1 and Oscar well clear in P2 due to a botched strategy, there wouldn't be enough popcorn.

All fair points but these teams discuss so many scenarios prior to every race, so both Lando and Oscar would have been aware of what was expected in these exact circumstances.

And with the many radio messages, this is clearly what was agreed to. Lando, as any competitive driver would do tried to argue and keep a win, but in the end he did exactly what the team discussed and expected of him.

 

[Forward Press]

As for Verstappen, wow. He's lost all composure. Blaming Hamilton for that is just absurd, even for him.

I'd be having a very tough conversation with him around professionalism. How many other drivers are up until 3 in the morning, with their mind on something else entirely? He gets away with it when they're winning but with the car where it is, they need Max at 110% and I'm starting to doubt that's where he is.

Then there's the blatant disrespect over the radio. I get it, shit strategy. But you win and lose as a team.

Can see him ending up at Mercedes sooner rather than later if they don't get on top of this.

Some say Verstappen has matured and is no longer the petulant teenage prodigy.

Others say Verstappen simply got away with it because his car was well ahead of the rest and that when he's dragged back to the rest of the pack, the true Max emerges - 'you yield or we crash'.

I think it's somewhere in between and this weekend was simply almost the worst possible race for him, short of a DNF.

 

[Forward Press]

All fair points but these teams discuss so many scenarios prior to every race, so both Lando and Oscar would have been aware of what was expected in these exact circumstances.

And with the many radio messages, this is clearly what was agreed to. Lando, as any competitive driver would do tried to argue and keep a win, but in the end he did exactly what the team discussed and expected of him.

Would have been far less aggravation and happier drivers on the top two steps of the podium if Lando let Oscar past within a handful of laps after the last pit stop, then had a good clean battle towards the end.

 

[skam85]

Would have been far less aggravation and happier drivers on the top two steps of the podium if Lando let Oscar past within a handful of laps after the last pit stop, then had a good clean battle towards the end.

And with the large gap to Hamilton, Lando may have even had the chance to open a gap and go for a late fastest lap for an extra point.

 

[Festerz]

Part of me does wonder what the reaction on this board (notoriously pro Australian for obvious reasons) would have been if the roles were reversed and Oscar had to give back P1 to Lando after an undercut.

Well if they did what they did this week, giving their leading driver the second pit entry, at the Silverstone race it would have likely seen Piastri win the race given the tyre choice he made.

So we would have been well pleased.

We are notoriously consistent for obvious reasons.

Was great to have McLaren Team Principal Andrea Stella giving the post race summary of the team's position on Sky rather than Zac Brown. What we got was an honest and frank assessment of why the team insisted that Norris give back the place to Oscar, rather than the bland team-speak nothingness from Brown. Seems that a couple of posters here did not see it so I recommend going back to look at the post race interview if you haven't already.

"The way to win a championship is not by yourself. It's with the team,"

Speaking of Stella and his boys...

 

[Vader]

By the way. Oscar has said **** all. Compare that to the two children in Max and Lando.

We really don't know what Oscar has been saying over the radio. SKY don't broadcast all the team radio conversations, they are very selective. They obviously chose to broadcast a lot of the Lando conversations, but we don't know how many Piastri conversations they chose not to broadcast.

 

[Forward Press]

Well what a cluster**** that was.

McLaren need to have a very good think about whether they think Lando can genuinely compete with Max for the Drivers Championship. It'll be unpopular around here but if I was McLaren, I'd have been telling Oscar, sorry, we need those points for Lando.

They've got the car to challenge now, those extra points could be vital in the end. Especially with Max falling apart.

If they decide Lando is too far back, let them genuinely race each other. Which order they finish 1/2 makes zero difference for them in the Constructors Championship.

On this point, even if Max finished outside the top 5 for the next 5 races (even with this nightmare race, he still finished P5 for some perspective), Lando would need to be P1 to even match his points tally.

A 3 race win buffer is insurmountable imo in the age of ultra reliable cars and Max in a RB. Yes, I have written off the WDC for this year.