What I find kinda interesting: you can overtake but it seems unless you are in a Mercedes or your opponent is having issues you can't pull away from your opponent. Verstappen managed to stick with Hamilton for the last few laps. Almost as if the close air actually cured the cooling tyres. Also Alpine scoring big points, both cars in the Top 10.
it didnt, hamilton built up a gap each lap in the corners but verstappen caught up with overtake mode on the back straight. best race this season so far for sure, i think mercedes might not have such a huge advantage in monaco so things could get interesting
Will be interesting to see how active aero changes Monaco. Potentially makes the run into the nouvelle chicane back into an overtaking place, unless they cuck and won't allow the aero in the tunnel. The difference in deployment migh also make Sainte Devote a bit easier to use for an overtake.
At least we always have the possibility of a total shit show with deployment and clipping creating mistakes. Just think what a Monaco crash will be like if we get a repeat of Colapinto and Bearman at Suzuka with the closing speeds.
for throwing his headrest on the track, he got "fined €5.000, suspended for a period of 12 months subject to no further breaches by the driver of a similar nature."
"The driver explained that he was extremely frustrated having failed to finish the race, and expressed his embarrassment as what subsequently followed. He apologised to the Stewards for his action and acknowledged that it did not set a good example and offered to apologise publicly. The Stewards acknowledged this and accepted his apology."
quite lenient!
Hülkenberg was "out of position at Safety Car Line 1 during the formation lap" and "did not enter the Pit Lane as required by the Regulations"
For that, he got a "mandatory Stop-and-Go penalty imposed after the Race. This penalty is suspended for the period ending at the final race of the 2026 Championship on condition that no further similar breach, by this driver, occurs."
quite bizarre!
I understand why there are penalties for "unsportsmanlike conduct" and I get that George is probably the biggest putz of any driver, but...
Oh, never mind. I was laughing at his retirement, Leclerc being a diva on the radio. If those two fuckers weren't sweating bullets at the prospect of a Piastri WDC last year, they are positively shitting themselves over Kimi absolutely dominating.
I should like Russell: He's British. He has some talent. In opening credits for F1 where I separate the drivers, based on their appearances, into two categories - WW1 fighter ace or twink from a promotional leaflet for a gay massage parlour, he is one of the few to fall into the former category. However, there is some very off-putting about him. In a sport where practically everyone involved is a massive prick, he manages to elevate his inate prickeshness in a way that is hard to define. He is the Aryton Senna of being a prick, mercurial in his raw ability. He doesn't strike me as a very genuine person; we never see the real Russell.
The Canadian GP was a race where the experience of drivers, or lack there-of, was on show and I liked that. I have a feeling that, had Russell not DNFd, Antonelli would have taken himself out. LeClerc increasingly sounds like someone who realises that his moment that has come and gone. He's 28 but he grumbles like a man in his 50s with the kind of chronic back pain that one can only get from driving an Aston Martin. If he owns a front lawn then he would certainly be unhappy about kids playing on it.
F1 exists in a weird space where personalities are just as much on offer for public drubbing as talent is.
My baseline is that everyone's a rich asshole, which is why I have no problem side-eyeing even the drivers I like.
That said: I think we disagree on seeing the "real" Russell. We saw that guy yesterday when his engine failed, and it's not the first time. I've said at least once in this thread that someone like Russell has been resting on his laurels for a while in Max's shadow, and that he's too focused on being seen well as opposed to working on being a winner. He's the guy that thinks because he has all the best attributes (talent, a good car, even being good-looking), he's entitled to win - a mindset that boxes out the idea someone else could have an attribute set that overshadows him.
He's 28 but he grumbles like a man in his 50s with the kind of chronic back pain that one can only get from driving an Aston Martin. If he owns a front lawn then he would certainly be unhappy about kids playing on it.
I think Max is legit the only driver that isn't a rookie (and therefore haven't been chewed up by the F1 machine yet) that is actually happy (I suppose I could make the case for someone like Hulkenberg to be happy, who isn't burdened with the pressure to win and if he has a good race day, everyone's pretty jazzed about it). It isn't entirely because he's a champion. It's because there are so many competing pressures surrounding the top drivers: performance, yes, but also being a personality that people like.
Max has never been burdened with the idea that people should actually like him, and despite this, people actually do like him. And that absolutely fucks with guys like George and Charles, because they're so much weaker personally that they always thought they had to play the game imposed upon them: smile for the cameras, shill the merchandise, and if you have a little time, drive the fucking car to the podium.
Charles spent last year looking at Oscar and turned around and looked at Carlos and is dead certain which one he's closer to in terms of winning a WDC, and is now wondering if his faithfulness to the brand "Ferrari" has been killing him. Even worse, he probably knows it has, and that everyone else caught on before he did and now he's in his "I am stupid" funk.
If guys like George and Charles would embrace being the assholes that they are, I'd have probably no trouble liking either one of them. But they're both trying so hard to hide it that it's impossible for me to get past it.
He's the guy that thinks because he has all the best attributes (talent, a good car, even being good-looking), he's entitled to win - a mindset that boxes out the idea someone else could have an attribute set that overshadows him.
this is 2016-2021ish hamilton in a nutshell. i dont know if this is something daddy toto consciously does to his drivers but mercedes drivers are consistently the most entitled cunts on the grid. russells always been prickly but his move to mercedes really brought out the smarmy english faggot in him. in contrast hamiltons first year at ferrari really humbled him and i would go so far as to say hes somewhat likeable now, though still a nigger
