Vettel hopes Verstappen reaches 16 wins this year after breaking his record

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In the round-up: Sebastian Vettel isn’t disappointed the record of 13 wins in a season he shared with Michael Schumacher has been broken.

In brief

Vettel wants Verstappen to reach 16 wins

Max Verstappen scored his record-breaking 14th win of the season on Sunday. Verstappen, a previous holder of the record, offered his congratulations and says he hopes the world champion can add two more before the season ends.

“Well done,” said Vettel. “I think he’s had a hell of a season, so hopefully he gets 16 at the end of the year. Everything else will be a disappointment, no?”

While Verstappen and Red Bull have become increasingly dominant as the year has gone on, Vettel pointed out they also won races when their car was less competitive. “Obviously they have momentum from last year, the car this year is incredible. They won races even though they were heavier than everybody else. I think by now they probably got the weight out so the car is there but Max is doing an amazing job.”

Vettel drove for Red Bull between 2009 and 2014 and wore a tribute helmet to the company’s late founder Dietrich Mateschitz last weekend. He said their success this year is “Great for the team, I still know some people there so I’m really happy for them.”

Perez targets race pace improvements in 2023

Sergio Perez says he needs to switch focus to improving his race pace next year. The Red Bull driver has won twice this year, but his team mate has a dozen more victories.

“I think the lesson from this year is that, you know it’s been a great year as a team, [but] I do need to step up a bit my race pace, mainly. Where last year was more the qualifying, I think.

“With these cars, you are able to race a lot closer, so I think we need to step up that race pace. The understanding with the team, with the car, I think that has come better in the last few races. So, I believe we are heading on the right track.”

Szafnauer urges Gasly to take care

Pierre Gasly needs to “be a little bit more careful” to ensure he doesn’t collect a race ban says Alpine team principal Otmar Szafnauer. Gasly picked up his tenth superlicence point in Mexico, leaving him two away from an automatic ban, after he forced Lance Stroll off the track.

Gasly will retain those points until after he makes his debut for Alpine at the start of next season. ”
I saw what happened today and at this point I’m not biased, it looked 50-50 to me,” said Szafnauer. “But he will just have to be more careful.”

Pourchaire gets Alfa Romeo reserve role

Theo Pourchaire, who had his first run in an official F1 practice session for Alfa Romeo in Austin last month, will be the team’s reserve driver next year. Pourchaire lies second in the Formula 2 standings with one round to go, though the title has already been won by Felipe Drugovich.

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Comment of the day

Fernando Alonso’s criticism of Alpine is borne of his frustration at missing an opportunity to close on Esteban Ocon in the championship.

What vexes Alonso the most is that he’s behind Ocon when he feels he should be ahead and I think we’d all say that’s true today but 10 years from now people will just look at the numbers.

He probably can’t catch him now and may lose the combined point comparison. I’m sure he wishes he could go back to Hungary 2021 and wave Lewis by.
Michael (@Freelittlebirds)

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday to Joe Jones, Rits and Tara!

On this day in motorsport

  • 60 years ago today Ricardo Rodriguez died in a crash in practice for a non-championship race at his home track, which is now named the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez after him and his brother Pedro

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24 comments on “Vettel hopes Verstappen reaches 16 wins this year after breaking his record”

  1. That Nascar move is just mental, so dangerous and yet ballsy and impressive. Probably worth adding a rule against it for the future but leave him with his one moment when it worked.

    1. I’m sure there’s a catch-all “not driving the vehicle in a dangerous manner” which would be applicable that rivals could lobby against, it doesn’t take a rocket surgeon to see how that could damage a suspension component and send the car careening across the track.

      It’s incited such excitement from the world, who wants to be the detractor to that? In an entirely logical world they would have been disqualified and probably given a short ban.

      Not following rules that are already written and getting specific for this and specific for that is what leads to Formula 1’s 180 page bloat. And they still don’t penalise for specific situations that are clearly covered by catch-all’s. If anyone was actually punished for “driving unnecessary slowly” there would be zero dramas at all in qually, ever.

      It all comes back to at the end of the day, motor racing not just being a purely sporting pursuit. There’s a seriously important element of entertainment. Looking back I think that was Masi’s point when he told Wolff they went car racing.

      1. @skipgamer @slowmo Yeah, no doubt it can’t really go unpunished. I don’t know how NASCAR’s are built but it’s gotta be dangerous. But sat in bed with my morning tea it did put a smile on my face to actually see it done in the real world. *you’d be annoyed if someone did it in the virtual world let alone real.

        What surprises me the most is that it actually worked! And if so, why has no one done it before? Maybe they have, or maybe everyone has just respected the reasons above since forever.

        I don’t think he deserves a pat on the back, but I won’t pretend I’m not impressed. Whomever has the maintain the track walls probably isn’t.

        1. @bernasaurus Others have tried it before — most recently Kyle Larson at Darlington last year — and it hasn’t worked. The geometry, low speeds, and heavy braking at Martinsville make it maybe the track best suited for this kind of thing. But it also seems likely that the new spec car that Nascar introduced this year contributed. It’s much more robust and rigid (which is also why it’s unsafe and drivers are getting concussions from seemingly minor incidents). I don’t think it would have worked nearly as well with previous generations of cars.

  2. Has anyone from the media asked Sir Lewis Hamilton what he thinks about Max winning 14 races in a season, when during 7 years of Mercedes domination Sir Hamilton managed to get “only” 11 victories? Or is asking difficult questions like that straight way to blacklist hell?

    As for The Tyre Whisperer Perez: when you are finishing the same tyre stint lenght 5-10 seconds behind, there’s a thing or two to learn from your team mate. Sainz, Ricciardo, Gasly and Albon were in the same situation before :)

    1. Well, no, gasly and albon were on another planet than verstappen; sainz, ricciardo and perez at least got respectable results for their car.

      1. @esploratore1 sainz qualified ok but he always qualifies better than he races, on avg he was .2 behind in Q but he was over a pitstop behind on avg on race pace. Gasly and Albon couldn’t hide away in the midfield like sainz on the STR and Pérez at least knows he can’t be worse than 6th because there is only six cars at a comparable pace

    2. Andy (@andyfromsandy)
      1st November 2022, 11:28

      Why don’t you ask him?

  3. The nascar chase system is, has always been and will always be the stupidest system in Motorsport.

    The champion should be the driver who does the best job over a full season and not get reset a few times for the last races to guarantee a final race play off.

    And the whole nascar points system is so convoluted now that the whole points system as championship is basically completely irrelevant.

    You can’t call nascar a sport, you can’t call its standings system a championship and you can’t really call whoever ends up 1st at the end a champion.

    The 2021 F1 championship may have ended up in a bit of an unsatisfying way but at least the best drivers over the whole season were the ones who were fighting until the final lap which isn’t always the case with the silly nascar chase playoff nonsense.

    1. Do you also disagree with NHL, NBA, MLB, NFL playoffs? They are super rigged to ensure a final series/game show down.

      Its different from what you like. Doesn’t make it stupid, just not your preference.

    2. Absolutely agree, the original chase system was already terrible but when they changed it to its current form NASCAR lost all credibility as a motorsport. The one thing I do disagree with you on is ‘will always be the stupidest system in motorsport’ as there is always room to make something worse. Maybe one day the champion will be decided on a fan vote…

      Having said that, the Ross Chastain move was simply brilliant. It reminded me of Lucas di Grassi pitting in London under the safety car, overtaking the field and almost winning. It was a moment of genius that deserves to have been rewarded, but the organisers now need to prevent it ever happening again.

  4. nascar thing pure bliss.

  5. This is all the moms out there who said playing games won’t take you anywhere.

    No. To be serious. It was quite epic

    1. Max and RBR did an amazing job this season and i can see them getting the 16th easy, the only One that can get a word on it should bem Perez.
      Amazing caption between Perez and Hamilton dads, that’s what sport is all about too. I miss a bit off that also, F1 as been on somekind polarised between some sides and as a fan i think anyone can have their choices respecting the others. Hope to see more on that.

  6. If Gasly gets 2 penalty points in Brazil, he will mis the season final. But he will start te year at Alpine with zero penalty points.

    If I was Otmar I would say to Gasly: do some off tracks in Brazil to get 2 penalty points, miss the last race (put de Vries in early) and begin the 2023 season with a clean sheet.

  7. Nice words from Vettel but even as a Max fan I don’t want to see him dominate the last two races as he did this season after the summer break. MB seems close and hope Ferrari had a one off at Mexico. We need some competition I hate dominant seasons in F1.

    1. Unfortunately I do not think MB are close. I think that performance was track specific and they will be further back at others

  8. but 10 years from now people will just look at the numbers.

    Tell that to Montell Griffin :) People will always remember.

  9. Easy for Seb to say, although I’m unsure if RBR necessarily were the heaviest team at any point.

    While race pace improvement is a good target, I reckon he won’t outscore Max over a season in any case.

    Gasly indeed needs to be careful, as he won’t lose a single penalty point until the post-Emilia Romagna GP Monday.

    Creative driving by Ross Chastain.

    1. @jerejj
      That was confirmed by Helmut Marko at the beginning of the season after some rumours broke in the pre-season testing. RBR started the season something like 15~ kg off the minimum weight. The telemetry analysis throughout the year showed that Ferrari held the upper hand in the low/medium speed corners, both teams were eventually matched in the high speed corners with RBR being mighty on the straights.

      RBR cut the weight to ~7kg with the upgrade package in Spain and then again regained some weight with the upgrades they have introduced after that. Finally in Hungary they met the minimum weight and since then they never stopped winning. This is also confirmed by the pattern change in competitiveness, RBR kept their advantage on the straights and become more than a match for Ferrari in the slow/medium speed corner.

      1. @tifoso1989 Yes, I remember those estimates, but my specific point is whether they were the outright heaviest or only among the heaviest.

        1. @jerejj
          There were reports made by Auto Motor und Sport in the pre-season testing claiming that RBR did have a serious weight issues and certainly were among the heaviest. There was another analysis at the start of the season that put Aston Martin (815 kg) as the heaviest F1 car followed by Red Bull (810 kg). Mercedes (806), McLaren (805), Haas (803). Alfa was the lightest car (just below 800 kg) and Ferrari tips the scales at a reported 800kg.

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