Max Verstappen won the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix by patiently working himself into a position to take advantage of his Drag Reduction System on the start-finish straight.
Until that decisive move was made on the 46th lap of the race, the Red Bull driver had spent the best part of 80 minutes staring at the F1-75’s rear wing.That gave him plenty of opportunity to observe what Leclerc was up to. He tried to turn that to his advantage as well, highlighting any possible infringement by the Ferrari driver which the stewards might pick up on: The lights on his car, his line on the main straight, his observance of yellow flags.
Eventually Verstappen’s race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase urged him to “calm down” and “let us do our work.” But Verstappen always seemed to have his driving under control, and eventually teed Leclerc up for a race-winning pass.
Before that, the pair of them had to get into position to win the race. Pole-winner Sergio Perez led the opening laps, but behind him second-placed Leclerc was eager to apply strategic pressure, urging his team to consider a pit stop in an attempt to get ahead of the leader. But Red Bull pre-empted the move, bringing Perez in first.
| Lap | Red Bull speaker | Message | Ferrari speaker | Message |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Lambiase | Mode seven what you can. | ||
| 1 | Lambiase | And brake bias offset Max, brake bias offset. Display eight when you can, display eight. | ||
| 1 | Lambiase | Strat six please Max, strat six. | ||
| 1 | Lambiase | Bias is still minus two. | ||
| 1 | Lambiase | So just forwards on your tools for the moment. | ||
| 2 | Lambiase | And display five position three for increased diff support, display five position three when you can. | M.Padros | Take care of the tyres at turn 22. Gap to Verstappen behind 1.6. |
| 3 | M.Padros | And we need to look after the tyres at turns six, seven, 10 and also 22. Gap to Verstappen behind 1.5, Perez in front of 1.8. | ||
| 4 | Verstappen | The lights of Leclerc don’t work on the back of this car. | M.Padros | At the moment we are thinking plan A, plan A. |
| 4 | Lambiase | Confirm, they do not work? Question. | ||
| 4 | Verstappen | Yeah, they don’t work. | ||
| 5 | Lambiase | Understood. Thank you. | M.Padros | Tyre phase update when you can. |
| 6 | M.Padros | And tyres are good to push. | ||
| 7 | M.Padros | You are doing a good job on tyres, continue like this. | ||
| 8 | Leclerc | Stop speaking in the first corner, please. | ||
| 8 | M.Padros | Got to Verstappen behind 1.5. We are going plan A and our degradation is better than Red Bull. | ||
| 9 | Verstappen | Mate, front starts to slowly give up. | M.Padros | And try to increase pushing status. |
| 10 | M.Padros | You are doing a good job, continue like this. | ||
| 10 | Lambiase | Think about the pull toggle at turn 16 if it’s convenient. | ||
| 11 | Verstappen | Ah mate I can’t do shit, it’s just understeering. | M.Padros | And tyre phase update when you can. |
| 11 | Lambiase | Okay so come back on some of the tools that you closed up before. | M.Padros | An increase pushing a status a bit more. |
| 11 | Leclerc | I can’t. | ||
| 12 | M.Padros | And tyre life is plus four compared to pre-event, plus four. | ||
| 13 | Leclerc | Consider box to overtake. | ||
| 13 | M.Padros | Understood. | ||
| 14 | Lambiase | Can I have a front wing update for the next stint please, Max. | M.Padros | And box to overtake, box to overtake. |
| 14 | Verstappen | The tyres just have died, the front wing is actually okay. | M.Padros | And stay out, stay out, stay out. |
| 14 | M.Padros | Push for over-cut. | ||
| 14 | Leclerc | Copy that. | ||
| 15 | Lambiase | Okay so Checo in pit lane. | M.Padros | And Perez pitted for hard. |
| 15 | Lambiase | Leclerc 35.2, 35.2. | Leclerc | What are we doing? |
It turned out that way because the Safety Car appeared moments later, allowing Leclerc to make his pit stop while losing less time, and take the lead.
Verstappen pitted too, discarding his medium compound tyres for the hard rubber. “I didn’t really feel that happy on the medium,” he explained. “All the time, when you would get close to the car ahead the tyres would die.
“So there was not much racing going on there. It was a little bit frustrating to just sit there and wait for the right lap to pit so you could go onto the other tyres, because as soon as we went on to the hard tyre I had a much better feeling.”
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| 15 | Verstappen | My right-front is dead, mate. | M.Padros | Standby. |
| 15 | Lambiase | Understood. | M.Padros | Double yellow, double yellow, turn 27, double yellow, turn 27. And debris exit 27 on the outside. |
| 15 | Lambiase | Virtual Safety Car deployed, Max, VSC deployed. Box and pit confirm, box and pit confirm. Just keep your dash positive. Dash plus one. | M.Padros | And box now box. |
| 15 | Lambiase | Strat… Safety Car Deployed, Safety Car Deployed, strat 12 in pit lane. | Leclerc | Box. |
| 15 | Lambiase | Strat eight, white line on the exit. | M.Padros | Box now box. |
| 15 | Lambiase | Torque nine, torque nine and white line on the exit. | M.Padros | Charge button on, charge button on. |
| 15 | M.Padros | And radio off, radio off. | ||
| 15 | M.Padros | Charge button on, charge on. | ||
| 15 | M.Padros | Okay track is clear, track clear. | ||
| 15 | M.Padros | You can press SOC seven. | ||
| 16 | Verstappen | Did someone start the race on the hard? | M.Padros | So everyone around you is hard, everyone behind you on hard. |
| 16 | Lambiase | Yes, they did. | M.Padros | And keep working on these tyres, please, keep working on the tyres. |
| 16 | Verstappen | Mate how did that pace look? | M.Padros | We need to work on the front tyres. |
| 16 | Lambiase | Difficult to say, really, they were in traffic at the time. All cars around here are on the hard tyre now. | M.Padros | And try to target minus 15 on tyres. |
| 16 | Lambiase | Strat five. | M.Padros | And less braking, please, take it easy there, less braking. |
| 16 | Leclerc | Can the Safety Car push a bit more in the straights, please? | ||
| 16 | M.Padros | Copy, we’ll ask. | ||
| 17 | Lambiase | Okay Max so you know what the base plan will be at this stage. So like I say, bring these tyres in nicely as they come up to temperature. Watch your slip on the front-right. Let’s try to get the deg down on this set. | M.Padros | Keep working on the tyres as you are doing, good job. |
| 17 | Verstappen | How are the brakes? | M.Padros | And good job on tyres. |
| 17 | Lambiase | Stabilised. Still a little bit warmer than we’d prefer at this point. If you can try to keep the speed up without using them at the moment. Air speed up. | ||
| 17 | Lambiase | Mode three please Max. | ||
| 18 | Lambiase | Good job on the front brakes, Max. | M.Padros | So on the hard we see warm up on sector one and then stronger tyres than expected after that. |
| 18 | Leclerc | Should I stay mode charge? | ||
| 18 | M.Padros | Yes, stay in charge. | ||
| 18 | M.Padros | So when we restart, it will be K2 on and then K2 off at turn one, please. | ||
| 18 | M.Padros | And if anything, we should work on turn two, that’s the only place we are losing. That’s compared to Sainz. | ||
| 19 | Lambiase | Okay Max let’s have some straight-line braking, please. Nice and positive on the brakes. Straight-line braking. | M.Padros | So if it is easier for you after the restart you can do K2 off into turn four. |
| 19 | Lambiase | Okay the safety car is in this lap Max, Safety Car, is in this lap. | M.Padros | Safety Car in this lap. Safety Car in this lap. |
| 19 | Lambiase | Okay so for the restart it’s just recharge off and your brake bias offset as you need it for the opening lap. A reminder you are unable to overtake until the line. We are racing only from the line. | M.Padros | So next car behind is Verstappen. Behind Verstappen there’s Perez and then Sainz. Everyone on hard. |
| 19 | Lambiase | Safety Car is at turn 26. | M.Padros | It will be K2 on for the restart. |
| 19 | Lambiase | Safety Car at turn 27. | M.Padros | Safety Car exit 27. |
“I tried to stay close with Charles after the Safety Car restart and I was just trying to keep the gap more or less the same,” he said. “And that was basically it, just trying to match the lap times, trying to get a bit closer, then he was pulling away a bit. I got a bit closer again.”
Their cars’ strengths lay on different parts of the track, Leclerc noted. “It was very difficult because we had two cars that were in a very different place. I was very strong in the first sector, in all the corners, and basically much less strong in the straights.”
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| 20 | Lambiase | Car behind is Sainz. | ||
| 20 | Lambiase | And brake bias offset Max. | ||
| 21 | Verstappen | Leclerc crossed the white line on pit entry. | M.Padros | And SOC 6 when you can. |
| 21 | Lambiase | Understood, thank you. | ||
| 22 | Lambiase | DRS are enabled. | M.Padros | And DRS enabled, Verstappen behind 1.5. |
| 24 | Lambiase | Strat four. strat four. | ||
| 25 | Verstappen | It’s pretty hard to follow. I think we’re quite quick but hard to follow. | M.Padros | And we need multifunction D O position four, D O position four. |
| 25 | Lambiase | Understood. just look after the front-right. | ||
| 25 | Lambiase | Watch your braking and traction metrics as well for the rear. | ||
| 25 | Lambiase | All of Leclerc’s lap time is in that first sector. Five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, as you’d expect. Let’s see how long he can keep it up. | ||
| 26 | M.Padros | And diff in plus one, suggestion. | ||
| 27 | Lambiase | Okay Leclerc 33.2, you 33.0. Sainz 33.7. | ||
| 29 | Lambiase | Engine 13 position five, when you can. Engine one three position five, when you can, Max. Trying to improve energy. | M.Padros | And tyres are good to push, continue like this, you’re doing a good job. |
| 30 | Lambiase | OK, that’s 30 laps complete, Max 20 remaining. | ||
| 30 | Lambiase | Hamilton has completed 30 laps on his first set of hard tyres. | ||
| 30 | Lambiase | Strat three, please Max. Strat three. | ||
| 31 | Lambiase | Leclerc 33.0 | ||
| 31 | Lambiase | Let’s just keep it sensible in the high speed for now, we can put pressure on later in the race. Let Leclerc use up his tyres for the moment. | ||
| 31 | Lambiase | Engine one, position five. Engine one position five, when you can. | ||
| 32 | Lambiase | So Hamilton and Magnussen still yet to pit on their start tyres. They are green on their last laps. | ||
| 33 | M.Padros | And good job on tyres, continue like this. |
The race’s second interruption came when Fernando Alonso and Daniel Ricciardo slower, the latter coming to a stop in the pit lane entrance, triggering a Virtual Safety Car period.
Verstappen said he hadn’t been trying to game the system to get closer to his rival while obeying the delta time intervals applied during the VSC period.
“To be honest, I was a little bit surprised myself that it did look a little bit closer, but I don’t know how close Charles was to zero with the delta,” he said. “That’s always a bit of a question mark.
“But also, sometimes it depends a bit where the restart is: If it’s in a corner for somebody in front or not. I think I was still on a bit more of the straight side and I had a bit of a better run into turn four as well.”
| 35 | Lambiase | 15 laps remaining. | ||
| 36 | Lambiase | Okay Max, Alonso is moving very slowly ahead, he’s on the approach to turn 22. Alonso at 22. | M.Padros | And Alonso slow in front, is now at turn 20, be careful with him. |
| 36 | Lambiase | We’ve got yellows where you are at the moment. | M.Padros | Ricciardo stop in pit entry. Gap to Verstappen behind 1.3. |
| 37 | Verstappen | I don’t think he lifted. | M.Padros | Virtual Safety Car deployed, Virtual Safety Car deployed. Pit lane is closed, pit lane is closed. |
| 37 | Lambiase | Okay understood thank you. | M.Padros | And charge button on, charge on. |
| 37 | Lambiase | Okay Virtual Safety Car deployed Max. Target positive, dash positive. Stay out, stay out, the pit entry is closed, you are staying out. | M.Padros | So pit lane is closed, Alonso and Ricciardo stopped there. |
| 37 | Verstappen | Yeah tyres are fine anyway. | ||
| 37 | Verstappen | Yeah understood. | ||
| 37 | Lambiase | Recharge on. Recharge on. | ||
| 37 | Lambiase | We’re looking into your last comment about the yellow there, Max as well, thank you. | ||
| 37 | Verstappen | There’s oil in the last corner. | ||
| 37 | Lambiase | Understood. | ||
| 38 | M.Padros | They have cleared Ricciardo’s car but Alonso still there pit entry. | ||
| 38 | M.Padros | And for tyres, we can push ’til the end. Try to keep some temperature in the fronts, if you can. | ||
| 38 | M.Padros | Pit entry is closed. And less braking, easy on brakes. | ||
| 38 | M.Padros | They are starting to push Alonso’s car out of the way. | ||
| 38 | M.Padros | And when we restart it will be K2 on. | ||
| 39 | Lambiase | I don’t think this will be too much longer Max. | M.Padros | You are doing a good job on tyre temperatures, they are okay to push on tyre temperatures. |
| 39 | Lambiase | Cars look like they’re getting cleared at the pit lane entry. | M.Padros | And we think it will be soon. |
| 39 | Lambiase | Be aware we’ve lost quite a bit of temperature in the tyres, biased to the front axles. So fronts will be cool. So think about your braking offset. | Leclerc | Why is Max much closer? |
| 39 | M.Padros | It’s okay now, should be fine. And left toggle off, left toggle off. | ||
| 39 | M.Padros | Virtual Safety Car ending, Virtual Safety Car ending, K2 on. | ||
| 39 | M.Padros | DRS enabled, Verstappen behind 1.2. |
The VSC period ended with 11 laps of racing to go and now the fight for victory was on.
“So, I just wanted that, DRS, so on the first lap, I braked very early and I got the DRS and manage to overtake back on the run to turn one.”
Verstappen took note of his rival’s DRS tactics but also the power of Ferrari’s hybrid system when pushed to the maximum. “Like Charles said you always try to have a good run with the DRS into the final zone, where then you have a lot of fast corners where you cannot pass. So Charles played it very smart there.
“But also it seemed like their defence [and] attack mode is very powerful. So, for me also, even more top speed. It was very hard to nail the overtake.”
| 40 | Lambiase | Okay VSC ending, Max. Recharge off, Virtual Safety Car ending. Focus. | M.Padros | Verstappen behind with DRS. |
| 40 | Verstappen | What’s the gap? | M.Padros | Verstappen behind with DRS. |
| 40 | Lambiase | 1.1. | M.Padros | And SOC eight when you can. |
| 40 | Lambiase | Brake bias offset. | ||
| 40 | Lambiase | So you’re on DRS. | ||
| 41 | Lambiase | You have DRS. | M.Padros | Verstappen behind with the DRS. |
| 41 | Lambiase | Mode seven Max. | M.Padros | Verstappen behind with DRS again. |
| 42 | Lambiase | Press and hold the overtake. | M.Padros | Verstappen behind with DRS, Verstappen behind with DRS. |
| 42 | Verstappen | Gap? | M.Padros | Verstappen behind with DRS again. |
| 42 | Lambiase | One second. | M.Padros | Verstappen behind with DRS. |
| 42 | Lambiase | 0.5. | M.Padros | And SOC eight when you can. |
| 43 | Verstappen | He crossed the line again. | M.Padros | Verstappen behind with DRS. |
| 43 | Lambiase | Copy that. Thank you, we’ve seen it. | ||
| 43 | Lambiase | You calm down, let us do our work mate, just keep your head down. | ||
| 43 | Lambiase | Mode eight Max, mode eight. | ||
| 44 | M.Padros | Verstappen behind with DRS and five laps to go. | ||
| 45 | Lambiase | Okay that’s five laps remaining, Max, five laps. | M.Padros | Verstappen behind with DRS. |
| 45 | Verstappen | Mode seven, I want? | M.Padros | Verstappen behind with DRS. |
| 45 | Lambiase | Mode seven, yep, mode seven. | M.Padros | And SOC eight when you can. |
| 45 | Lambiase | Gap 0.8. |
On his third significant attempt, Verstappen finally executed the crucial move on Leclerc. Soon afterwards, Alexander Albon and Lance Stroll collided at the first corner, bringing out the yellow flags.
“I tried to have the DRS in the last corner, it worked twice but it didn’t the last time, and then obviously there was this yellow flag,” he said. “I think the one where I could have had a chance to at least be alongside was the one into turn one I had no DRS there, so this was a little bit of a shame. But it’s part of the game.”
Now Verstappen sprinted for the line. “Once I was ahead it was really like four laps flat-out trying to stay ahead because Charles was consistently in my DRS,” he said. “It was quite tough out there.”
With one eye on the red car in his mirrors, Verstappen suspected Leclerc had not lifted as much as he did through the yellow flags on the final lap, and warned his team on the radio.
| 46 | Verstappen | Gap? | M.Padros | And SOC six when you can. |
| 46 | Lambiase | Showing 0.8. You are fuel free, Max, fuel free. | M.Padros | And three laps to go. |
| 46 | Lambiase | 0.8. | ||
| 47 | Verstappen | Gas? | M.Padros | Double yellow turns one and two. Double yellow turns one… Now it’s clear, clear, clear. |
| 47 | Lambiase | 0.7. And that’s a purple lap. | M.Padros | Single yellow, turn one, single yellow, turn one. |
| 47 | Verstappen | How many laps? | M.Padros | And SOC five when you can. |
| 47 | Lambiase | Three remaining. | ||
| 47 | Lambiase | 0.6. | ||
| 47 | Lambiase | 0.5. | ||
| 48 | Lambiase | Okay we’ve got yellows at turn one-two. Yellows turn one-two. | M.Padros | And last lap. |
| 48 | Lambiase | Track clear. | M.Padros | Double yellow turns eight and nine. |
| 48 | Lambiase | Okay two more laps. | M.Padros | And SOC three when you saw three. |
| 48 | Lambiase | Mode six. | ||
| 48 | Lambiase | 0.7. | ||
| 48 | Lambiase | 0.7. | ||
| 49 | Lambiase | 0.7. | ||
| 49 | Lambiase | This is the final lap. | ||
| 49 | Lambiase | So we’ve still got yellows, six, seven, eight, nine, 10 double yellows. | ||
| 49 | Lambiase | Double yellows eight, nine, 10. | ||
| 49 | Verstappen | How’d he close up? That’s so unfair. | ||
| 49 | Lambiase | Mode four. | ||
| 49 | Lambiase | Gap a 0.5. | ||
| 49 | Lambiase | 0.5. Need a clean exit. | ||
| 49 | Lambiase | 0.4. Press and hold the overtake. | ||
| 50 | Verstappen | Haha! Nice! Fucking hell. That was good, | M.Padros | And charge button on, P2. |
| 50 | Lambiase | That was good. Okay, 2022 has started. | Leclerc | Yep. Well done to Max, that was nice. Ah, we lacked a little bit of straight-line speed. |
| 50 | Horner | Wow, that was close. Wow. Unbelievable. Well done, Max. Great. Great job. | M.Padros | Still double yellow turns six, turns eight and nine, turns eight and nine. Be careful, turns eight, nine please. |
| 50 | Verstappen | That was good racing, holy shit. Nice. Good job, guys. We are back on track. | Leclerc | Yeah, copy. |
| 50 | Lambiase | Still got double yellows eight, nine, 10, Max. Fail 84, fail 84. | M.Padros | You’ve done a great job. Charge button on. And we have the fastest lap. |
| 50 | Verstappen | I mean that last one mate that really difficult what to do because I’m fully lifting in both corners. | M.Padros | Do you want positions? |
| 50 | Lambiase | Yeah I understand, Max, I understand. It’s always going to go that way presumably. But there was no outwitting you today. So top job. You played that final stint perfectly. | Leclerc | Well I know. Can I have the fastest lap of everyone please? I mean of the top four. |
| 50 | Verstappen | That was exciting. | M.Padros | So Verstappen, 31.7, Sainz 32.6 and then Perez 33.1. |
| 50 | Horner | Well done mate that was very tactical, you timed it perfectly, absolutely perfectly. | Leclerc | Copy. |
| 50 | Verstappen | What was the finishing order in the end? | M.Padros | Correction Sainz 31.9, Verstappen, 31.8 and Pirelli 32.0. |
| 50 | Lambiase | So yourself, Leclerc and Sainz. So spare a thought for Checo today in fourth. So basically what happened to him was I think he came out literally a tenth or two behind Sainz at the Safety Car line two. That was unfortunate for him. | Leclerc | And me 31.7? |
| 50 | Verstappen | That’s really unlucky man. But we have a lot of races, we can make it a one-two. | M.Padros | 31.6 for you. |
| 50 | Leclerc | Okay. | ||
| 50 | Leclerc | It’s not on the track, where do we go? | ||
| 50 | M.Padros | Into the pit lane, into the pit lane. |
Having been unable to make a pass stick on Leclerc in Bahrain, Verstappen got his own back in Saudi Arabia. He did it by throwing everything he had at his rival, on the track and on his radio.
NB. The transcripts above discount some routine messages such as those about gaps between drivers.
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2022 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix
- Vettel will return to race for Aston Martin at Australian Grand Prix
- Mercedes “a second per lap” off Red Bull’s pace – Russell
- Transcript: How Verstappen fought Leclerc on his radio and on the track in Jeddah
- F1 intends to keep racing in Saudi Arabia despite missile attack
- Paddock Diary: 2022 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix
Matthijs (@matthijs)
30th March 2022, 7:47
Ah this is pure gold, thank you. Some minor bugs with quoting the wrong person (driver or pit) but we know who said what.
MacLeod (@macleod)
30th March 2022, 7:48
Strange Charles never got a penaulty by crossing the Pitline while Yuki got twice 5 seconds penalty for the same thing.
Rules changed orso?
SjaakFoo (@sjaakfoo)
30th March 2022, 8:43
From what I understand it was explicitly stated in the race director’s notes that it wasn’t allowed. So I do wonder why there was no reaction from race control on it. Though it could be Ferrari were told to stop doing that, as we’re no longer privy to race director communications, there’s no way to tell.
drmouse (@drmouse)
30th March 2022, 14:12
They don’t ban the crossing of the solid white line on pit entry except when entering the pits. If you are not entering the pits, you can’t put any part of the car over the dotted line which angles across the pit entry. AFAIK Charles never crossed that line, just the solid one.
https://www.fia.com/sites/default/files/decision-document/2022%20Saudi%20Arabian%20Grand%20Prix%20-%20Event%20Notes%20v2.pdf
wsrgo (@wsrgo)
30th March 2022, 9:02
@macleod Yuki got a penalty for crossing the line whilst going into the pits iirc. There’s no automatic penalty for one offence of going over the line when you’re racing. Massa got a penalty for this in Brazil once, after he did it 3 times.
jff
30th March 2022, 8:31
I’ve got two questions:
1) were the lights working on Leclerc’s car?
2) what is K2 (not the mountain)?
MattDS (@mattds)
30th March 2022, 9:21
@jff K2 is a button linked to ERS usage.
petebaldwin (@)
30th March 2022, 9:34
Ah yeah – I just looked at their steering wheel from last year and there’s a big K1 button (I guess that’s the overtake button) and then a smaller K2 button which is likely a similar setting for restarts.
jff
30th March 2022, 9:42
thank you.
petebaldwin (@)
30th March 2022, 9:29
As a guess, perhaps K2 relates to the MGU-K – full deployment at the restart?
Stan (@)
2nd April 2022, 20:24
No, lights were not working for some time, but then they seem to fix it.
Tony Mansell (@tonymansell)
30th March 2022, 9:49
If they are dicing then i guess however its happening doesn’t matter but anybody else have a heart synch reading any of this, which is effectively, coaching. I didnt read it all, too much like pulling back that curtain. Maybe i’m naive but i dont get much thrill from knowing this is how its done
M
30th March 2022, 13:35
F1 it’s a team effort but there’s still a large difference between how well certain drivers are able to execute the strategy. For me it doesn’t take away anything from what we’ve seen
JustSomeone
31st March 2022, 17:39
For me it a actually does… Drivers should not get hints on tire and brake temps telemetry, and ideally not on engine modes – – but that’s where the manufacturers will NEVER concede.
(I.e. I agree with an old Ham qoute about getting rid of going back to “driver feel”)
David BR (@david-br)
30th March 2022, 13:54
@tonymansell TBH, yes, a bit too much information – for us and for Max and probably all the other drivers: it does seem to verge on coaching or having a virtual co-driver. I think they should be left on their own bar exchanges for safety reasons (warning of some imminent failure, VSC etc.) or instructions to pit.
The Dolphins
30th March 2022, 15:30
I agree, I don’t like this driver coaching/virtual co-driver and there was a point in 2014/15 where instructions like which racing line to take were banned and the driver was expected to drive unaided but, obviously, they returned. Nico Rosberg comes to mind as a driver who relied on this quite a bit.
Robbie (@robbie)
30th March 2022, 16:03
I don’t disagree, but I don’t know how they would stop this, and let’s be ever mindful that during races pit to driver communications are revealed to us selectively to create a narrative, so sometimes it may appear like a certain driver is getting or ‘needing’ more coaching than others, when they all are likely having equal communications all race long. Did Nico Rosberg really rely on it any more than any other driver, or is that just the narrative we were fed?
I realize that this isn’t just about what we hear though, and is also about what we get to read such as in the article of this topic, where after the fact we get to glean it all. Just as it would be interesting to see them racing without DRS, it would also be fascinating to see how the teams and drivers would do if much of this communication could be eliminated and the drivers left much more on their own, like F1 has been in the past.
baasbas
30th March 2022, 19:09
@The Dolphins:
It was actually Rosberg in 2016 in Baku who managed to select the correct mode in the Mercedes and Hamilton who failed, while his team were not allowed to tell him. He had a miserable race from then on while Rosberg won.
I’d say roughly all drivers are basically nowhere if they are not told what to do. I don’t like that. I don’t mind the ‘radio silence’ trialed in 2016. If the drivers can’t handle all these settings, then the engineers will just have to simplify the cars.
Avto
31st March 2022, 15:30
Seconded! Nico definitely looked better during that short period of radio communication/coaching ban. Only after Lewis got schooled by him did he begin putting more effort into those technical aspects of the car.
Asanator (@asanator)
30th March 2022, 15:59
you say pre-empted….I would say we’re forced.
erikje
30th March 2022, 17:03
Nope, that was only the impression the director created. Perez pitted as planned.
erikje
30th March 2022, 17:04
Interesting that the fight max had with the tear off stuck in his cockpit did not resulted in any remark.
roadrunner (@roadrunner)
30th March 2022, 21:36
Great work, thank you very much. It’s always funny to see the difference between the drivers on the radio. Leclerc barley talks or gets emotional whereas Verstappen is going through all the highs and lows with his engineer.
Stan (@)
2nd April 2022, 20:21
Quite telling how much more spare mental capacity Max has when driving. His communication with GP are not only much more extensive but also productive. He can process more information without being distracted from driving.