Formula 1 Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix 2024 (Saturday race)Formula 1 

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I finished watching the recorded race and we didn't have any retirements (aside from Stroll spinning, I don't believe any driver was completely facing the wrong way at any point). Still curious what happened to Sargent that caused the stop off of turn 4 and how RB managed to get BOTH drivers angry after a poorly executed driver swap.
 
I see a lot of comments from people saying that "what about when Lewis and Mercedes dominated the sport?" anytime someone says something against Max and Red bull winning and the above point you made seems to be the thing that a lot of people just choose to forget.

When Lewis was "dominating", there was always competition. Yes, it was intra team but at least someone else besides Lewis was winning. When Rosberg left, Vettel and Ferrari stepped up and we also had Max and Red Bull always there or there about. But now, we've got nothing at the front besides one driver literally winning everything. I'm not taking anything away from Max because he's driving very beautifully and Red Bull as a team are firing on all cylinders right now. A very impressive showing indeed and hats off to all of them because not even Mercedes was that good during their winning years. But still, today performance already made me a lot more pessimistic about the rest of the season...I hope the other teams and drivers will prove me wrong.
The only real advantage Mercedes had back then was the engine. The aero concepts were "traditional", so because Merc was so powerful they could be a little more aggressive with aero. Ground effect aerodynamics is notoriously difficult to model and validate but something about RB's system is simply better than literally the greatest car manufacturers in the world, and plus they've got what has become the best engine in the Honda. I think the majority of RB's advantage is their underbody aero and CFD methods. It's still kind of crazy to think they've cracked some sort of code but I really do think they have. Plus Max is just robotic.

Honda/Braun did a similar thing back in the first half of 2009 before everybody else caught up, but again that was merely an interpretation of otherwise traditional aerodynamics.
 
Come on people... Was anyone really expecting this season to be any closer than last year?

RBR were already so far ahead of the entire field last year, there was no way others could make up that much of a gap.
I think Practice & Qualifying got the better of people again, esp. when one of the Ferraris had a faster Q2 time than Max's Q3 pole-defining time.


I'd be really curious to see how viewership holds up halfway through the season if it's a repeat of last year & Max is putting out 5 second leads just laps into the race.
 
WEC and IMSA are feasting on F1's lack of parity. Gotta be honest, my main fascination with F1 is the presentation/announcers and technical presentations.
 
When Rosberg left, Vettel and Ferrari stepped up
I wouldn't call winning a lot at the first half of the season and then bottling it completely during the other half stepping up a.k.a. 2017-2018

While other people got to snatch a win or two during Hamilton's dominance and he did have competition, it was dominance regardless. If anything, it's at least just as exhausting to get your hopes up for a season only to have Hamilton win for the bazzillion time. Even 2022 is guilty of this, one would think we were in for a close Ferrari /RedBull fight while watching the first races of that year.

The only thing that has substancialy changed between Hamilton and Max's dominance is the number and color of the car and the national anthem played in the podium ceremomy.
 
Horner so happy he's going for a bowl of Coco Pops in the plane bog.

At least we know where Red Bull's catering overspend came from....

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The difference between this Verstappen dominance to say Schumacher, Hamilton and Vettel dominance is the pure nonchalance of the team and driver towards it.

When Schumacher won races with supreme dominance, he was always pleased and understood the significance of his success. When Vettel was breaking records, he actually cared and made it clear that he wanted every stat possible from it. Hamilton seemed to celebrate every victory like it was his first, always on the team's side. These drivers all had iconic celebrations that irked non-fans. The Schumacher podium jump, Vettel's P1 finger and Bono's "Get in there Lewis". Compare this to Max and GP. Post-race team radio is always a deadpan "another day at the office" and Max has repeatedly publicly said how much he doesn't care about all the records he is setting. Max's trademark victory insignia is the "Dutch National Anthem", something which is played by regulation after him winning, not because he has come up with a celebration.

Dominant cars exist, always have done and always will. The McLaren MP4/4 was just as boringly dominant as the RB19, but it had the quirk of having the best two drivers on the grid who went toe to toe with each other and hated each other. The Mercedes dominant years of Hamilton vs Rosberg was similar.

Even in the Hamilton/Bottas years, Bottas was an equal to Lewis in Qualifying, and made Lewis have to work for victories even when Ferrari and Red Bull weren't close to the Mercs. Sergio just isn't anywhere near Max's level, which is the big problem because we just aren't getting the team mate pushing him. Perez is awful in qualifying, meaning any chance he has to keep up is gone as it takes 10 laps to get into 2nd place, by which time Max is already a pitstop ahead (exaggeration but you get the point). Max is driving perhaps at the greatest level we have ever seen in Formula 1 which cannot be criticised because why would any driver not want to do that, but he could really do with acknowledging it.
 
I c
The difference between this Verstappen dominance to say Schumacher, Hamilton and Vettel dominance is the pure nonchalance of the team and driver towards it.

When Schumacher won races with supreme dominance, he was always pleased and understood the significance of his success. When Vettel was breaking records, he actually cared and made it clear that he wanted every stat possible from it. Hamilton seemed to celebrate every victory like it was his first, always on the team's side. These drivers all had iconic celebrations that irked non-fans. The Schumacher podium jump, Vettel's P1 finger and Bono's "Get in there Lewis". Compare this to Max and GP. Post-race team radio is always a deadpan "another day at the office" and Max has repeatedly publicly said how much he doesn't care about all the records he is setting. Max's trademark victory insignia is the "Dutch National Anthem", something which is played by regulation after him winning, not because he has come up with a celebration.

Dominant cars exist, always have done and always will. The McLaren MP4/4 was just as boringly dominant as the RB19, but it had the quirk of having the best two drivers on the grid who went toe to toe with each other and hated each other. The Mercedes dominant years of Hamilton vs Rosberg was similar.

Even in the Hamilton/Bottas years, Bottas was an equal to Lewis in Qualifying, and made Lewis have to work for victories even when Ferrari and Red Bull weren't close to the Mercs. Sergio just isn't anywhere near Max's level, which is the big problem because we just aren't getting the team mate pushing him. Perez is awful in qualifying, meaning any chance he has to keep up is gone asii
it takes 10 laps to get into 2nd place, by
I completely agree with everything you have written. A shorter way of putting it is that F1 has been utterly boring and sanitised for years.
 
Max is driving perhaps at the greatest level we have ever seen in Formula 1 which cannot be criticised because why would any driver not want to do that, but he could really do with acknowledging it.
Absolutely can be criticized because I don't agree that this is the best driving ever seen. This is standard "I have the best car by a mile so I don't have to do ****" driving. Any one can look squeaky clean when your car is out in front like this. Schumacher, Hamilton, Vettel, and now Max. It's as unimpressive (for the driver) as it has always been. Shall we look how the RB's pass everyone in the straights? The team caters to him at the detriment of his teammate so we will never see him be actually pushed by a teammate in equal equipment. A Red Bull team policy at this point. The fact Perez is as mediocre as he is and still P2 says everything about this car. Put any other top driver in Max's seat and they win the WDC. Everyone is acting like something magically happened to Max in the past couple years where he's some type of God. His driving is pretty much the same (running others off the road included). Only thing that is different is the fact he has the most dominant car the sport has ever seen. The team has always been consistent and crazy with pitstops even with a weak car so nothing new there either.
 
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What mistakes has Max made? Since 2023 we haven't seen anything like Vettel throwing away Canada 2011 or Germany 2018. Hamilton's 2018 season is about the only time we saw a driver go through a season without barely ever damaging his car and being pretty peerless, but even then Hamilton has always had an off weekend every year where he was nowhere. Schumacher liked to crash his car in practice to know the limit. Max doesn't need to do that. He has battles through the pack a few times with ease to strong together . The team are working peerlessly, the worst thing that happened in Bahrain to Max was a 2.9s pitstop. We haven't seen them do a classic blunder like Merc Germany 2019 or Sakhir 2020.

Give me a example of a driver doing a better season than Max 2023 and I'll shut up, but you won't find one. There's one season which could be argued, I doubt you'll find it.

Put I this way, if the Red Bull worked at Singapore, Max would be on a winning streak of 19. Hamilton never got near that level. Schumacher never got near that level. Vettel was only derailed by a regulation change. Inflated calendars may be bulking Max's stats up, but that doesn't belittle the achievement.
 
Give me a example of a driver doing a better season than Max 2023 and I'll shut up, but you won't find one.
Alonso almost winning WDC in that ******* of a Ferrari. Max in 2021.
It's easy to drive mistake free when there is no need to push at all. Especially when you have a world class team that is on the ball every race. If Max had someone up his ass the whole time and was still putting out this performance we'd be having a different discussion.
 
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Max is driving perhaps at the greatest level we have ever seen in Formula 1 which cannot be criticised because why would any driver not want to do that, but he could really do with acknowledging it.
Max and his emotions is something typical Dutch, we have a saying : Doe maar normaal, dan doe je al gek genoeg : Just act normal, that's crazy enough.
 
Give me a example of a driver doing a better season than Max 2023 and I'll shut up, but you won't find one. There's one season which could be argued, I doubt you'll find it.
Jim Clark, 1965.

10 F1 races, 6 wins. Didn't compete at Monaco as he was away winning the Indy 500. The other 3 were car failures when he was either in the lead or having a battle for the lead, and after he had claimed the championship. Also had class wins the BSCC.
 
As always, the elephant in the room is, if you want to know who the best driver in the world really is, you need to go to a spec-series, or near-spec, as many other major championships have done.
Look at someone like Hulk who is clearly talented enough to win it all, but will never amount to anything because he’s never gotten a top-tier seat.
 
Alonso almost winning WDC in that ******* of a Ferrari. Max in 2021.
It's easy to drive mistake free when there is no need to push at all. Especially when you have a world class team that is on the ball every race. If Max had someone up his ass the whole time and was still putting out this performance we'd be having a different discussion.
Well seeing as this discussion is about dominant cars and you've just mentioned two non-dominant ones, good start.

Alonso's start crash at Suzuka that year is already more damage than Max did in 2022 and 2023 combined

Max in 21 drove into his rival at Monza and Saudi Arabia, threw away a win in Bahrain due to track limits and was beaten comfortably a few more times through the year. None of these compare to 2023 Verstappen.

Jim Clark, 1965.

10 F1 races, 6 wins. Didn't compete at Monaco as he was away winning the Indy 500. The other 3 were car failures when he was either in the lead or having a battle for the lead, and after he had claimed the championship. Also had class wins the BSCC.
This is the only answer that is comparable.
 
Give me a example of a driver doing a better season than Max 2023 and I'll shut up, but you won't find one. There's one season which could be argued, I doubt you'll find it.

Ascari in 1952. Didn't enter the first race as it clashed with Indy 500 qualifying, and in that race he had a mechanical DNF. Once back in Europe he won every remaining race with fastest lap, and was only beaten to pole once. He scored 100% of the potential points and his 2 dropped scores were both victories with fastest lap. From lap 2 of round 3 to the first lap of the final race, noone else even led a lap.
 
Perhaps look at the image closer.

Stewart might have gotten ahead of Tyrrell this time, who's at least ahead of Jordan. I wonder if they'll get bailed out by a rich Canadian, just like Wolf?
 
I don't think that this race is a clear indication of incoming dominance. I highly doubt there will be as big of a gap as last season. The fact that this is a preseason track where the teams have racked up loads of mileage really lended itself to a predictable outcome. I do also think that there might have been some sort of competition for the lead if Leclerc did not have the brake issues, at the very least in terms of strategy. Everyone except Perez and Sainz pretty much got behind Max and spent the rest of the race nursing car problems to the finish.

We'll see, though. There's always WEC/IMSA where there is no dominance of one car.
 
On Sunday the Telegraaf reported that Max Verstappen had been asked by Mohammed Ben Sulayem, the president of F1's governing body the FIA, to back Horner publicly.

BBC Sport has independently verified the story.

Ben Sulayem's approach came after Max Verstappen gave only qualified support to Horner when asked four times in the lead-up to the Bahrain Grand Prix on Saturday whether he had full faith and confidence in him.
MBS is just cancer. Which seems to be a common theme for those three letters.
 
The WEC is way more fun to watch because there's a lot more going on. The only thing in F1's favour at the moment are the race lengths.
 
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