Aston Martin with a great call on the mediums. Pathetic from Ferrari. Carlos Sainz really settling into Williams now isn’t he! Solid from Gasly and Hadjar too
That was a decent race. McLaren should’ve swapped the cars immediately imo. There was no way Piastri was holding off Lando on cooked tyres so why even do it? By the time Lando got past, max was 4 seconds away. Ferrari had really good race pace which is promising. Front wing TD should hopefully bring them back into it again. Leclerc shouldn’t have had to give that position back though. That was bullshit. And, that was a great drive from Max.
Enjoyable race, Verstappen's opening overtake on Piastri was worthy of a race win by itself. Decent battles further down the track, with different strategies coming into play, a VSC and an SC. Thought McLaren could have been more decisive to switch Norris for Piastri, to perhaps pressure Max, but they typically just let their drivers scrap it out instead. Not sure it cost them a race win but it would have been an interesting finale.
Let's hope this puts to bed to nonsensical notion that Max is in a shit box. When Lando got passed Piastri, the gap to max still grew. As many have said, Max is in a race winning car that will be challenging for the drivers title due to the fact that his 2 rivals race on the same team.
Encouraging for Red Bull. Like Suzuka and Jeddah, the RB21 is much more competitive when there’s more fast and flowing corners but this was the first time that Max was able to build any sort of gap over the McLarens. The real test of whether they’ve caught up with McLaren will be in Monaco and Canada, circuits with more traction zones etc. For now, I am a bit more optimistic than I was after Miami…
Anyone who says Lando bottles starts but praise Oscar from now on can get to ****. Oscar gifted that corner to Max, braked far too early and bottled the corner.
What was Piastri supposed to do? He keeps his foot in and both of them are out of the race because max is max and won’t yield. He clearly didn’t think at that point the Red bull was faster. So it was a live today fight tomorrow scenario. And Piastri didn’t bottle the start. He was ahead going into the corner but max did a lunge.
He bottled the start, said so himself he braked too early. Even George had a go as soon as he did it because that cost George second. It was a great move by Max but it was only on because Oscar gifted it him. If he hadn't braked early Max either wouldn't have gone for it, or gone for it and ended up in the gravel the same as Albon did. Jeddah already showed Max that Oscar wouldn't yield, but now he's shown that he will.
He did bottle it, it’s not just about who gets off the line quicker. He was ahead into T1 and behind before T2. But it was in his best interests to avoid an incident and he’s not as experienced as Lando so I don’t think there’s a need to compare. He’ll learn for the next time.
If that’s the mentality you just back out of every battle to “avoid a crash”. You shut the door on him and send him into the gravel like Leclerc did with Albon. He was penalised for that obviously but that was a stupid call. Oscar started well and hit the corner first on the inside line, it was his corner to hold - if you want to split hairs over what you want to call it, bottling or otherwise, whatever, but he gave the position away too easily.
I don't like Verstappen but that corner is the difference between a world champion and everyone else. It was a good move, didn't think it was dangerous or a lunge. Piastri braked too early but should have block him off before they even got to the corner. If either one of the McLaren drivers want to win the WC, they have to be making moves like that. The problem is, Verstappen wouldn't allow that to happen. Norris and Piastri need to take it in turns to be as aggressive as Verstappen, and take him out of the race if need be.
I’m not saying it wasn’t a great move. It was brilliant it’s just that Piastri had to back out. He had no choice. and there is absolutely no way they will ‘take turns and take him out if need be’ lol. They might be on the same team but they are also fighting against each other.
He didn't need to back out, he should never have been in a situation to back out, he was so far ahead before the braking zone that Max should never have had the chance to go round the outside. Anyway my major beef with it is if it was Norris instead of Piastri the whole narrative would be about how Norris bottled it again.
