Topic: Push Square Formula 1 thread - F1

@AdamNovice Could you imagine if in the future you could watch that in VR. That would be amazing and terrifying.

The Monaco grid is an absolute joke, get the celebrities out of there.

Wow this qualifying is throwing up some surprises without the rain. Come on Lando.

Interesting qualifying session. Red Bull is still so superior. Will be another Sunday cruise for Verstappen tomorrow.

@KAIRU Yeah I tend to ignore Verstappen at the moment as he's in a different league in that car. The race from 2nd down though is looking nicely mixed up. Pleased to see Lando right near the top, I hope that McLaren is as good in the race tomorrow. Maybe some rain again to really spice it up.

@BearsEatBeets Yeah, I’m hoping Alonso, Hulk, and Gasly can all work miracles tomorrow as they’re in my Fantasy F1 team.

Shame for Norris on Lap 1 but he didn’t react quickly enough to cars ahead that were always going to break. Interesting that both Mercs got ahead of both Aston Martins with DRS.Definitely an upgrade for them. Russell got a Mario kart like turbo boost off the line.

@BearsEatBeets Agreed Max and RBR in another league. The fact they didn’t even have to put in a final Quali lap despite the track improving and STILL beating everyone by half a second is crazy.

@themightyant yeah gutted for Lando. Strangely not been doing much since the nose change stop either, ending up pitting again before some had even done one stop.
Cracking race so far though, overtakes all over the place. Mercs looking strong.

Pretty good race to watch. Great race for Mercedes, especially George. To think he actually started outside the points and behind Perez so outperformed a RB.
I wonder if Max will beat the record for earliest title win, I have to imagine he will be close.

@BearsEatBeets yes indeed. Though most of that was on Lap 1 for George, thought he was a little lucky not to get penalised, as even if he (debatably) didn’t gain a position by going off track, he definitely gained an advantage by being clear of who he was competition with. But it was a marginal call, could go either way and oroby better than the likely accident alternative. From there Perez was faster and made up more places.

Regardless a massive step for Mercedes, they will hope it’s not just a one off and it wasn’t just because the track and temps suited their car. I agree it was enjoyable race.

If Mercedes keep up this form, there’ll be a few changes made to my Fantasy F1 team.

@KAIRU 😂

A friend was at mine during qualy and stated that they should just give Max the 25 points and have the race without him as it would be a better, more competitive spectacle. After watching the race yesterday I think he might be on to something.

@sorteddan Sad but true. I find myself hoping something happens to his car, a damaged wing, a collision on the first corner, just to give us a better spectacle. Even a heroic recovery from Max, charging through the field having been a lap down on Lap 1.

Sergio's a good driver on his day but is just not consistent enough, he'll win a race or two but not much more. Add to that Max is at the top of his game in a car that suits his driving style. He's like Hamilton, Schumacher and a few others, breathtakingly fast over one lap, but more crucially relentlessly consistent, lap after lap, race after race.

I guess we're just waiting for the weekend Max DNF's so we can have a proper fight for a race win. If only I could predict if and when he'll DNF so I can take him out of my Fantasy team that weekend.

@KAIRU it will likely be the weekend Checo is on it and it will still be an easy, if less emphatic, RBR win. I still think RBR and sandbagging a bit. We would need a double incident. Aston and Merc should gang up and take them out. For the team!

@themightyant Agree with you regarding the sandbagging. I think they've got more power in that car than they're letting on. And it would be typical that Checo would be absolutely flying if Max were to have an incident.

Maybe we need the Red Bulls to emulate the Mercedes' collision at Spain in 2016...

@KAIRU Was thinking this when Checo was briefly competing, a few RBR teammate collisions would give us incredibly tight racing. It's generally been so close behind.

Alternatively what we as fans need is Max to have a more consistent teammate who at least makes it closer to a fight. But I understand why RBR and Horner wouldn't want that. You want a Bottas more than a Rosberg (and that was only really one season).

Almost impossible to have two top drivers competing for the title and not self sabotaging. Look what happened in 2007 with Alonso and Hamilton! They fought so much, split so many wins, and Lewis in particular got some pretty bad luck in the last 2 races which let their competition Kimi Raikkonen come and win the drivers title at the final race. It also caused a schism in the camp that led to Alonso moving on, bad blood. Great for us, but terrible for the team. Kicking themselves!

@themightyant It would be nice to see someone other than a Red Bull win a few races, to be honest. Even if it were only once or twice.

It actually has been quite competitive and close in the midfield this season. Didn't all constructors and most of the drivers have points on the board after the third or fourth race? Great stuff!

It's good to see Mercedes become a bit more competitive now. Ferrari seem to be stuck in their ways and I worry they're going to continue to fall behind Mercedes and Aston Martin if they don't sort themselves out and, speaking of Aston Martin, I hope Spain was a one-off poor performance for them. I really hope we'll see them fight with Mercedes a lot more this year.

@KAIRU Yes exactly, all constructors had points after a few races. If someone messes up even a little in qualifying it might mean they don't get into Q2 or Q3 and have to start down the grid. Last race top 6 quali places were taken by 6 teams.

At least in the past we had random races where like Gasly winning in Monza or Checo winning in Sakir (pre-red bull).