Welcome to Saturday’s edition of the RaceFans round-up.
Comment of the day
Lance Stroll picked up a rare grid penalty for an incident which occured during practice. Did he deserve a grid drop for colliding with Charles Leclerc?
Though a penalty for such a thing in practice is rare, I think in this instance it’s fair. Charles had nowhere to go but hit him. Yes, it’s Monaco and Lance is blind to seeing what’s coming behind, but so Blanchimont, you can’t just pull on the racing line at slow speed and leave the driver behind with no options.
It’s one place, but more of a (expensive) reminder to him and his engineer about communication.
@Bernasaurus
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Bullfrog (@bullfrog)
24th May 2025, 0:19
Still smiling at that podium shot. Did he stand like that throughout the German national anthem?
And wondering if (following his performance at the Monaco Historique last year) Newey would be better off in the car. Even if he inherits a one-place penalty.
Jere (@jerejj)
24th May 2025, 6:43
COTD: Indeed fair in the end, given the precise factor for the collision, & fortunately, it happened at the entry to the championship’s slowest corner, but doing the same at the likes of Blanchimont, 130R, Copse, etc., would lead to a rather different outcome than only front-wing & rear-end damage.
2015 Monaco GP: Rather ‘sure’ than ‘likely’ victory was lost to an unnecessary pit stop no one else at the top was going to do.
At least he got to experience victory in Monaco twelve months later at the expense of Ricciardo’s infamous lengthy pit stop.
Jere (@jerejj)
24th May 2025, 10:05
I could’ve added the first time around that the 2015 race is also when I first started to find certain personality traits annoying regarding Max since he had the guts to make such a serious accusation as claim Grosjean brake tested him despite having zero evidence to back that claim due to not having access to the relevant team’s telemetry data, which ultimately proved him totally wrong.
He would’ve been better off immediately accepting full responsibility & apologizing for a rear-end collision that solely happened due to misjudgment on his part rather than because of anything Grosjean did, especially given the immediate obviousness in the footage & such obviousness should be equally clear from the driving POV.
Ferdi
24th May 2025, 8:56
Ah that podium picture brings back bad vibes. I know it is a controversial opinion, but I am not particularly impressed by either Seb and am by Lewis but not to the extent of 7 champsionships. I feel both their stats are flattered by their car and a period in F1 that saw unparalleled dominance. Seb achieved little if not starting from pole (which his rockets ship delivered). Fast over a single lap on an empty track though he certainly was, but mediocre at any wheel to wheel situation. Lewis is WDC material and not comparable to Seb but still I think his total stats are heavily driven by an even longer dominance streak of an entire regulatory period in which no-one could even get close to that Mercedes engine. Without that streak Lewis would imho still be good for 2 maybe 3 championships. They both basically drove championships against only one person (their team mates) instead of 19, which I feel should be taken into consideration.
Jere (@jerejj)
24th May 2025, 10:01
Valid point
PeteB (@peteb)
24th May 2025, 11:13
I was just reading some comments from Newey that made me laugh….
He talked about how he’d always wanted to work with Alonso and then said:
“I think Lance is much better than people who’ve been very poor.”
That’s like saying a number is higher than 0 or that something is more colourful than black….
High praise there Lance! Newey thinks you’re in the top 99% of F1 drivers!