Verstappen’s record lap puts Ferrari and Mercedes further behind than last year

13 comments on “Verstappen’s record lap puts Ferrari and Mercedes further behind than last year”

1. 

   Mayrton
   9th March 2024, 8:27

   With Perez in 2nd the team starts to get resemblance of the 8 years Mercedes. Luckily we will get a regulatory change before they can reach a similar amount.
   1. 

      miciek (@micio)
      9th March 2024, 8:43

      It’s completely different than 8 years of Mercedes. I can’t recall any single year where the first driver in the Mercedes had 300 points more than the second driver.

      Three hundred points.
      1. 

         Mayrton
         9th March 2024, 9:13

         That’s because it’s a mix of Mercedes-like dominance with the Max (consistency) effect. But the good thing remains they have learned from 8 years Mercedes borefest and will shake things up already halfway, after 4 years for RedBull (ref 2026).
         1. 

            miciek (@micio)
            9th March 2024, 9:47

            So the 300 points difference has everything to do with Red Bull dominance and Max’s consistency, but nothing with the quality of the second driver?

            I just don’t buy it. It’s hard to believe that Max would be as consistent if a good driver was in the second seat.
            1. 

               ludewig
               9th March 2024, 10:43

               @micio

               The problem with the theory that Perez is horrible is that we’ve had Albon and Gasly in that seat as well, and they looked similarly horrible, but are suddenly regarded as perfectly fine drivers at Williams and Alpine.

               And I also think that his exceptional consistency is very obvious, so you just seem to latch onto something that can’t firmly be disproven, but seems quite obvious to most.
            2. 

               F1 Fan
               9th March 2024, 11:46

               I am not sure how long you have been watching F1, but you can go all the way back to 2017/2018 to actually see how consistent Max was even when he had a teammate who was then rated quite highly. And it is not like 2021 just did not exist. He was under a decent amount of pressure every weekend and just so you know, he finished P1/P2 every race that year except Hungary where half his bargeboards went missing because of Bottas’ bowling.

               So it is not beyond the realm of possibility that he will still be this consistent. That said, he obviously won’t be winning as much, as when you have another top driver next to you, you can’t just win like he won at Miami last year on a normal race weekend. I would absolutely expect him to finish P2 at worst every weekend however making it a complete nightmare for the other driver since consistency wise Max could be the best of all time.
            3. 

               miciek (@micio)
               9th March 2024, 11:47

               It’s not that far fetched conclusion. Humans make mistakes. They make more mistakes under pressure. If I need to choose between the two reasons for Max dominance:

               1. He is perfect. We have never seen a driver like that in 75 years.

               2. He is just cruising without any pressure.

               I feel the second is more probable :)
         2. 

            DEfusion (@defusion)
            9th March 2024, 9:58

            Changing the rules every few years does not shake things up, it just gives one team who gets out of the gate better than everyone else a longer advantage.

            Stable rules mean the field catches up, we always have more competitive years just before a rule change. Other than Max you can already see that happening throughout the field and next year I expect it to be even closer. Then in 27/28 we’ll be having the same conversations about x team being so dominant it’s getting boring.
            1. 

               miciek (@micio)
               9th March 2024, 10:03

               I think that’s good. What we miss is rules about drivers. I proposed that on different occasions but one of the simplest one would be:

               If a driver looses to his teammate 150 or more points in total over two seasons, he can’t be the active driver for that team

               We can add more rules like that and teams and contracts will just comply, just like NBA teams comply with draft rules.

               Then, in the years of dominance, we will have a chance for some competition.
            2. 

               S
               9th March 2024, 11:10

               @micio A better version of your cunning plan would be to shift out the driver who is dominating their team mate.
               If you are going to go all socialist with F1 driver market, you might as well at least to it the right way – cut down the tall poppy, not the short one.

               Anyway – now back to reality where the teams are individually-owned and operated entities, each with huge commercial contracts, and very deep into the management of F1 as a commercial business.

               @defusion – Sorry to burst that bubble, mate – but you don’t think that it’s a bit of a coincidence that there’s only one year (at most, if any) of decent competition right before the regs change?
               Keeping the rules static enables teams to maintain their advantages for longer and often even build on them. F1 isn’t going to keep those rules static for more than a handful of years as they constantly need to keep reeling them in for reasons of safety and on-track racing quality (among others).

               If the rules were changed substantially every year, nobody would be getting ahead for extended periods unless they were simply better at developing their cars every time.
            3. 

               miciek (@micio)
               9th March 2024, 16:10

               If you are going to go all socialist with F1 driver market, you might as well at least to it the right way – cut down the tall poppy, not the short one.

               You mention socialism but I don’t think you know what it means.

               In sports, rules are created to promote competition. Rules usually relegate bad performers so that there’s always place for fresh blood that may be more competitive. That’s all.
            4. 

               S
               10th March 2024, 10:25

               In sports, rules are created to promote competition.

               So you see the logic behind cutting down the tall poppy first, then… Good.

               Rules usually relegate bad performers so that there’s always place for fresh blood that may be more competitive.

               Not in motorsport they don’t. Football, baseball, others – sometimes they do, but it depends on the rules of that particular sport, and specifically, the individual series.

               You seemingly just don’t like Perez and also don’t think that the team are prioritising his team-mate over him – despite all the evidence, and even the team’s own admissions…
2. 

   Aquila_GD
   9th March 2024, 13:47

   Applause for Alpine. They managed to go slower in a year. Very difficult to do for a formula 1 team

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