Welcome to Sunday’s edition of the RaceFans round-up.
Comment of the day
Aston Martin’s latest technical reorganisation won’t address the team’s biggest weakness, says Leroy:
None of it will result in a constructors’ championship until they get rid of Lance.
They can throw all the money in the world into every other part of their organisation, and more power to them if they do. Unfortunately for them, the weakest link on the team is one of the two people behind the wheel who are most directly tied to scoring the points that win you a championship.
Lance has been in F1 since 2017. He has had plenty of time to prove himself and what he has proved to be is a driver that can be quick on occasion but overall lacks the consistency, drive, and racing talent to compete with the best of the best for an entire F1 season.
They can restructure as many times as they want and throw as much money as they want into their team but until they get rid of Lance, they won’t win a constructors’ championship.
Leroy (@G-funk)
Happy birthday!
Happy birthday to Abdurahman, Brian Frank and Al!
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El Pollo Loco
12th January 2025, 0:21
One of the worst COTD’s I’ve seen picked in a long time. First of all, whether they have a good car or not will not depend on Lance at all. Second of all, Aston Martin has not had any big structural reorganizations in a long time. So, this isn’t like Alpine changing TPs and structure every other week.
Third of all, they have/had Andy Cowell, Mike Krack, Bob Bell, Tom McCollough, Enrico Cardile and Adrian Newey. Of course they were going to need to clear some people out of the way. And if anyone actually cared to read the details of what and why Cowell has done what he’s done is that after three months in the team he’s seen there’s a problem with overlapping and an unclear delegation of responsibilities. What he’s done and is doing is to make it extremely clear who is responsible for what. This is a team that will now be making their own gearboxes, rear suspension, etc. for 2026. That’s a lot of added complexity. So, changes are a must.
Finally, back to the subject of Lance. If RBR could easily win WCCs with Checo as the second driver in a crazy dominant car, there’s no reason to believe even lazy Lance wouldn’t be capable of the same. But the WDC is really all that matters. So, while a WCC is icing, it’s not the end of the world to not have it.
pastaman
12th January 2025, 1:00
But it got you responding, which is the whole point of the new format
An Sionnach
12th January 2025, 8:42
The responses to this comment from before already discredited it as far as I was concerned.
El Pollo Loco
13th January 2025, 2:59
Have to say, it’s hardly rare for me to be surprised by what they consider an insightful comment.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
12th January 2025, 3:27
Well, you need a really dominant car to win with a 2nd driver that does nothing, and red bull had verstappen who was excellent.
Even if aston came out with the best car, I have a hard time seeing red bull, mercedes, ferrari and mclaren all coming up with terrible cars, because if there’s not much performance difference, stroll is obviously gonna get beaten by many drivers in those cars.
But as you said, it could be they don’t care about the constructor’s championship, like red bull in 2024, else they could’ve easily won it by being more decisive perez-wise.
El Pollo Loco
12th January 2025, 3:42
Indeed. And even if we were to accept the argument that Alonso is not on the tier of your Leclercs or Norrises (which I disagree though he’s obviously not at his peak anymore) it kind of doesn’t matter in the event they get a dominant car. He’s still incredibly consistent and with a dominant car, all you need to be is good and consistent to win most races. A dominant car + a tier 1 driver = win most races + finish 20-40 seconds ahead of your nearest competitors which is what Nico and Lewis were doing, what Max was doing, etc.
So, even in that scenario, you’re still hauling down huge points. While he got crushed by Alonso, he wasn’t pulling a Checo and failing to score or getting knocked out in Q1 left + right. If Lance looked like he actually cared, he wouldn’t get the level of derision and disdain he does and deserves, but it’s this antipathy that leads to people going so overboard in just how badly they rate him.
El Pollo Loco
12th January 2025, 3:45
When got crushed by Alonso in 2023 when the car was actually good*
El Pollo Loco
12th January 2025, 7:09
PS: Just watched the ‘14 British GP. Here is how dominant the Merc was: in just 15 laps Nico + Lewis pulled 31.5 secs ahead of the field. They were often nearly 3 secs a lap faster than the next quickest car w/identical tire compounds + age. Any lineup would win a WCC w/that.
BasCB (@bascb)
12th January 2025, 22:00
And then we now know they weren’t really allowed to go full beans with the car to avoid the FIA stepping in to level the playing field a bit with that Merc in 2014 …
Rick Gomez (@rgomez13)
12th January 2025, 12:39
Why don’t you blame Alonso instead of Lance? It’s much more about the car than the driver.
Leo B
12th January 2025, 18:18
What a head of hair that guy Lance has. Like more than twenty average people put together.
El Pollo Loco
13th January 2025, 1:43
For someone so rich, it’s amazing his mom still cuts his hair using the upside bowl method.