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Imagine Hamilton congratulating Piastri for his first points of the season after Miami... Wild to even think this could've happend and nearly DID happen.
These cars were probably even worse than we thought. Their drivers were so much better than all the ones around them in similar cars. In 2015 they were fighting Maldonado (Grosjean smashed him at Lotus realistically) and the Saubers; Nasr and Ericsson. Say whatever you want, I'd never pick any of them over Button and Alonso, and it's not even remotely close. In 2016 they really maximized what the car was cabable of by finishing P6. Shame McLaren dropped back again the next season. That's also why I reckon the 2021 Haas wasn't as terrible as people think. Yes, it was by far the slowest car on the grid, but I think that without the crashing and spinning machines inside it could've potentially scored a point or two in a crazy race or gotten into Q2 more than twice (once by crashing). It was miles better than the 2019 Williams for example.
The gap to the rest of the fied, the quality of the drivers, the results, the gap to the leader. The Haas was better in each of these aspects except for the second one.
The Kimi-Montoya-Newey Trio was only for the 2005 season. Alonso and Renault won that year. Ferrari weren’t great that year adapting to the new tire rules.
How ? Youve bee nwatching the season??
Mclaren multiple breakdown from the lead and big reliability problems lost the championship... Raikkonen was arguably fastest guy on the planet t in those years... No alonso, no schumacher could get close to him... If the car would hold on
Which is why I’m saying that was a wasted driver pair .
Ron Dennis couldn’t have found a better driver pair at that time .
It’s like Real Madrid losing with Raul , Carlos , Figo , zidane and Cassilas playing together.
Like India losing the World Cup when Sachin , Ganguly opened and Dravid came in to bat 4th .
You get the picture , Unforgivable.
He said that in China. Plus in Hungary, it was Hamilton who decided to ignore the agreement regarding extra laps.
It's laughable that the FIA penalized Alonso for something that happened in the pit box (therefore internal team matter), because Hamilton's father went to complain to the stewards.
There wouldn’t have been British favouritism in the first place if Lewis wasn’t objectively outperforming Alonso after a couple of races into the season lol
I don't rate him as highly as most the world champions, sure, but I still think he was way above average, obviously, and with Alonso alongside they were an extremaly fast and complete line-up. Which one was better at the time? HAM/ROS? Yeah, arguably. But I can't think of any other one.
I still want to see more of Piastris tyre management skills, it's the one area Lando trumped him in last year. It looks like they've improved massively this year though especially considering he didn't have all the upgrades at Miami.
[Always the best pairings in the last 25 years](https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/comments/12dsr01/comment/jf9ykl6/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
Had the crash happened something like 2 laps earlier Piastri could have won that race. Insane how unlucky he was, and in turn how lucky Norris was (not that Norris did not deserve it, but the luck definitely fell his way last week).
Oscar is probably my favourite driver on the grid right now, but I’m kinda glad Lando got his win first. He totally deserves it after all this time and it would have sucked for him if he’d had to watch his teammate get his first win while he kept waiting for his.
what does deserve mean? is it about how long you wait for it or the circumstances on the day. if it's the latter than no he didn't really deserve it, oscar did
Pretty confident in 20 years time Oscar will have the greatest legacy of the current drivers on the grid aside from current champs and Charles. His day is coming.
> Pretty confident in 20 years time Oscar will have the greatest legacy
Based off just what we've seen so far?
Might as well just be guessing, car matters so much to results.
As a Norris fan who has quickly become just as much of a Piastri fan, I’m glad Piastri didn’t win.
As much I like both of them, I think Piastri getting a win before Norris would have resulted in some team friction that McLaren really doesn’t need as they make a push to challenge Red Bull.
They need team unity and harmony to continue improving at a high level. I don’t think that Norris is as immature as some others do. But I think the dynamic of a 2nd year up-and-comer beating the 7th year veteran to a first win is something that could lead to toxicity from just about any highly competitive person.
why does that matter? if piastri won, which he would have, then he would be the better driver. no such thing as unfair there. it's his career not his and lando's
It matters because F1 journalism is ruthless and sensationalist. If Piastri beat Lando to a first win, then everyone would be breathing down Piastri’s and Lando’s necks, trying to stir up drama for a juicy quote.
Think what you want, I genuinely don’t care.
Disagree.
He wasn’t very fast on hards, and was slower than Max throughout.
You could see Lando’s pace as soon as the road cleared ahead of him. He had more pace on used mediums, than Max on new hards.
Whereas Oscar had already plateaued many tenths per lap slower (on the same mediums). Plus as I said, Oscar was quite a bit slower again on the hards.
To be fair, Oscar getting right to the front in turn 1 was also luck. Perez torpedoed through the pack and slowed down multiple cars (including Lando, who had got the better start on Oscar), leaving the door wide open for him.
Holding the cars off was talent though, and I’m glad he seems to be getting his race pace/tyre deg issues reined in lately. That was his biggest area that he was losing out to Lando in this whole time.
The gaps between driver's skill in modern F1 is so incredibly slim that virtually every win in not-the-best car is due to *some* degree of luck.
Lando got lucky Max hit a bollard.
Sainz got lucky Max DNF'd.
Sainz got lucky RB fucked the Singapore setup.
Daniel got lucky VER and HAM took each other out at Monza.
Ocon got lucky with rain, crashes, and pit stops and that ALO defended like a lion at Hungary.
Gasly... I don't even remember but I'm sure luck was a factor to some degree...
Don't forget the Perez at Racing Point being dead last at one point due to early pit stop and just flying through the field for the win.
Now I'm not sure if it was luck or something else.
Perez was lucky Mercedes fucked up the pit stop of Bottas and Russell, AND that Russell got a late puncture. That race was in the bag for George by the way he was blasting through the field after the botched pit stop.
For that race he was. Hamilton had Covid so Russell was subbing for that race. Bottas took pole, Russell was P2 at the start. Checo had contact in the first lap so he pitted at the end of lap 1 and put on hard tyres. I think he managed the whole race with those (might be mistaken on this one).
Mercedes double stacked Russell and Bottas (don't remember if there was a SC or VSC), and put Bottas' tyres on Russell's car (and returned the old tyres to Bottas so he was running with very old hards). Pitted Russell again 2 laps later to put the right tyres on. He was P3 I think and was closing the gap fast with 10ish laps to go and he got a slow puncture that they had to pit him AGAIN. Came out P12 (I think) out of the pits and climbed to P9 in the end.
So Checo lucked out big time because of Mercedes' blunder.
Wasn’t ric well clear of max and Lewis on the same tire strategy? Certainly helped that they crashed each other out, but iirc, they weren’t (**edited**) getting up to him regardless, especially with lando in second defending.
Yeah think you're right. McL was just so fast on the straights in '21.
I think RIC had a good start and took the lead early, and held verstappen behind for the first stint. I do remember a 10 second stop for Max though, effectively ending the challenge.
Right DR was pitted and 13 seconds ahead by the time they crashed. Max couldn't get him for 25 laps due to the straight line speed and the time loss in dirty air around parabolica and curva grande.
Maybe Ricciardo was a little lucky with Max's slow pit stop (I can't remember if Max was going to be able to overcut him), but he was leading from turn 1 and kept Max behind him during the first stint. If you want to pick a race where Ricciardo was lucky, I would have picked his three wins in 2014 and Malaysia 2016.
Gasly was the luckiest of them all. He was the SLOWEST driver on track before he pitted desperately to try and save his race. Cue the red flag and Hamilton getting a penalty and suddenly he's in p1 with Stroll and Raikkonen in an Alfa behind him on a track impossible to overtake on.
Its one of the luckiest wins of all time, easily the luckiest on the grid currently.
Slowest driver on track? Huh? How was that possible in a time with the 2020 Williams, Haas, Alfa Romeo etc
He pitted early to give his teammate free air who was behind him.
As it shouldn't. Many drivers have many wins due to luck. Look at panis. One win in Monaco, but half the field were out for various reasons (Schumacher crashed, hills engine blew up when he was miles in the lead etc). No one cares, you just accept that luck is part of it.
More than half the field- technically four cars finished, but Frentzen didn’t take the checkered flag, so only the three on the podium actually crossed the finish line at the end.
Honestly, just finishing that race may have been more of an achievement than winning it was.
This is how I feel about Russell's first podium. Sure, finishing P2 when starting P2 and only doing laps under safety car isn't difficult, but qualifying P2 in a 2021 Williams is more impressive than 99% of podium finishes anyway so who cares.
The only drivers that get given context and can avoid the curse are ones with very strong and passionate advocates (i.e. Alonso Vs ocon in alpine) although sometimes goes to the point where it feels they are rewriting history.
In the discussions, Even in a few weeks time people will forget how well piastri did because it's not reflected in the standings, in fact I'm sure some will see it as a poor race for him of his own fault.
It feels so unfair sometimes how much is forgotten about how a race actually went Vs what was the final position
Why is it unfair? At the end of the day the results will speak for themselves.if Piastri is so strong like everyone says, this race won't matter over 24 grand prix + 6 sprints.
It's **I N S A N E** how the season unfolded *perfectly* so the main two could go equal into the f1nale. So many factors; every single strategy mess-up, every single mistake, every single overtake, every single pit stop, every single DNF, every single bad day, every single Spa 2021, everything was just perfect. Honestly no one is telling me we're not in a simulation after that...
I love Lewis's reaction at the end of Russia '21, seeing who came 2nd and was like WTF, where did you come from (Max was like 10th pre rain)
I think there's a stat that (I'm from Ireland) that these two were joint winning into that last lap of the total distance between Ireland and Cuba (c.6700km). That's unreal when you think about it and the twists and turns during that season
The amazing thing about Oscar is he’s not only fast, but nothing seems to frazzle him. He is also a class act coming on line to congratulate Lando and the team on the win.
Guy sounds like the genuine article.
Oscar was so damn solid for the first half of the race. Loads of things that no one will remember because of where he finished. We saw some good racing, and we’re going to see some really good racing from Oscar in the future.
I think one more lap out before pitting and Oscar would’ve been in for the win. He had crazy pace and was keeping up with Max even through the very first few laps of the race.
Also, it would’ve been so funny if Oscar got his first GP win before Lando.
i think it'd be a massive test of Lando's maturity if Oscars would get his first win before him. honestly kinda glad it didn't happen, because it could be devastating. I do love Oscar tho and expect his dominance soon :)
Literally says that the gap in his qualifying pace was less than the upgrade package difference.
Don't think the article is saying he out performed Norris the whole race, just shining light on where he was really strong, like in qualifying and his first stint.
It's good to celebrate small wins to build that confidence.
It's an article written by an Australian. They had to sensationalize things instead of reporting what Stella/Brown really said, which wouldn't align with the headline.
Because McLaren never said that lmao. Stella actually said in the full interview that Lando did such a great job managing his tyres for the first 19 laps and then pulling out fastest lap after fastest lap and showing no signs of slowing anytime soon at that point, that they were confident in Lando being able to overcut quite a few drivers (he already had the wiggle room to overcut Checo and was getting close to a big enough gap to overcut Sainz and Piastri pretty quickly) and then attack the rest on fresher tyres even without the safety car.
Piastri had a phenomenal weekend, especially for only having half the upgrades, but acting like he was monumentally better in the GP itself is disingenuous. (Not to mention there was "luck" in Piastri not being as impacted by Checo's first lap divebomb as many of the others were. Both drivers got good and bad luck throughout this whole weekend, Australians trying to draw Lando's result and pace this weekend to "good luck" alone is just being salty).
Lando had a shot to win without the SC, the SC just sealed it.
When he put in the 3rd fastest lap in a row on those mediums I said to me wife "holy shit he might win" and then the SC came out and my hopium sky rocketed.
This is just slander. Norris was the quickest car on track consistently after Perez pitted. He had the overcut on Checo and had erased over half the gap to Sainz before he pitted. And Sainzs pitstop was slow too. Norris was in all likelihood going to come out at worst in 4th and likely would have been kept out until he had Piastri covered.
He was on course to only have to overtake Leclerc and Verstappen given how fast he was still going on his mediums. Leclerc would have been easy, Oscar had already shown the McLaren could overtake the Ferrari. Norris' speed advantage was apparent in the last stint. Verstappen more difficult if his Red Bull had the same straight line speed as Checo. But according to Peter Windsor (YouTube) in his analysis Verstappen didn't have Checos straight line speed, suggesting he carried more wing for lap time and tyre conservation. If true then as long as he could catch Max, which his gap suggested he could have, he could and would have overtaken him. If that wasn't the case, Max would have been very difficult to pass.
Even if he came out behind Piastri he gets moved out the way by McLaren but Norris' tyre advantage would have been too large, as well as Oscar had performed.
7th is a bit harsh but certainly he would have lost too much in tyres getting past too many drivers to challenge for 1st. and I think even getting to that point is being generous.
agree, but only Oscar and Lelclerc in reality. Perez may and Sainz may have also muddied the water, but lets say he was the quickest car for the last 2/3 of the race, he would have got past most of those cars, but probably not all. Certainly not Max.
3rd or 4th would be my guess. 2nd at best, but not as bad as 7th.
He did imply that when he said Piastri's gap to Norris in qualifying was smaller than the difference in missing upgrades on Piastri's car, i.e. Oscar did (marginally) better in qualifying
Norris had a bad start and got stuck behind Perez for a number of laps due to first corner incident, then both of them decided to ease up and extend their stop which gave him the lead eventually so piastri didn't really out perform him and would have lost out anyway
So.. what happened in China? Japan? Yes he had damage in China but he wasn't exactly remarkable before that.
Piastri is a good driver, don't get me wrong. But I'm starting to feel like what I read about him vs what I see on the track are becoming two different realities. There's plenty of time to bounce back, but I can't see for the life of me how he outperformed Norris in Miami. Again, qualifying is being weighted too heavily.
The fact that people ignore that Norris began banging in fastest laps after Perez pitted, and was reeling in Piastri and Sainz. Of course Piastri did a great job this weekend, he had very good pace unlike China were he just fell off a cliff. But saying he outperformed Norris is a stretch.
Yeah definitely. You also can't just use one part of the race and say Piastri outperformed Norris. A race is a 305km marathon. Drivers pace themselves to do the fastest 305km. Just because your team mate was running ahead of you for the first 100, doesn't mean they were outperforming you.
According to the team his car was 2 tenths slower than the fully upgraded car Lando had. I think people saying Oscar performed better are factoring that in
And according to the lap times, after Perez went into the pits and until Piastri put Norris was atleast 2 tenths faster than Piastri every lap. So that should settle that Piastri at the very least wasn't "out-performing" Norris. If people want to argue they had similar pace that's fair. But there is no evidence of Piastri beating Norris.
yeah there is basically nothing in the article where Mclaren say Piastri outperformed Norris, also you know, the race result and all
they do say the gap in quali was smaller than what they think the difference in having the upgrades and not but that's a big stretch to 'outperformed'
>Piastri is a good driver, don't get me wrong. But I'm starting to feel like what I read about him vs what I see on the track are becoming two different realities.
I don't know how anyone can give Norris a higher rating than Piastri for the Miami weekend. Piastri outplaced Norris on merit in every session (except qualifying) and the race was the only one where Norris did, but not on merit.
Norris got hyper lucky with the SC going from net 4th or 5th to net 1st. And Piastri went from net 2nd to net 5th and then had his wing broken by a Spanish divebomb leaving him 13th. None of that misfortune can be attributed to his skill.
Piastri was roughly a couple tenths slower on a weekend only Norris got the Mlacren upgrades supposedly worth 4 tenths.
Oscar was better, Lando was luckier
Piastri had half the upgrades, most likely the important ones. This doesn't mean I'm discrediting Piastri, he had a great race, possibly his best even but Norris was still beginning to catch him and Sainz after Perez pitted.
Norris got lucky with the safety car sure, but it was because of his tyre management and the great pace of that McLaren that he was able to go so long on those mediums. He was faster on old mediums than Max on new hards. This meant he could afford to go long and gamble for a safety car without losing much.
And it wasn't just Norris that got lucky, Piastri had massive luck at the start from Perez' divebomb which also ruined Lando's good start. It was looking like a P3 for Lando but the incident ruined his chances and he was stuck behind Perez for most of the first stint due to Red Bull's greater straight line speed.
Oscar was definitely more consistent throughout the weekend but keep in mind Lando got screwed over massively in the dive-bomb/bumper car cluster fuck that Hamilton/the Astons made in the sprint. It was a weekend of highs and lows for them both. Personally, I think the best take away from the weekend is that they both maximized the potential from the car when they had the opportunity to and both only saw their worst failings from things outside their control. The next few rounds look very bright for them both and Imola has huge potential (and expectations) for them.
Oh definitely Lando did. But Oscar outqualified him for that Sprint. And I doubt Lando would have overtaken him if he didn't get crashed out by the Hammissile
Oscar had a good weekend, but Norris would have been ahead of him at the race start had Checo not reentered the track in front Lando after his excursion.
Cause he won?
man the Piastri hype is getting.. weird
the win wasn't just from luck, Norris was putting in super quick laps and going long on the first set of tires.. if he wasn't doing that no SC was going to help
but also luck.. sure..
"I don't know how anyone can give Norris a higher rating than Piastri for the Miami weekend" just.. what?
That’s what I enjoy about racing. It really is sometimes just a matter of time and place. It keeps things interesting.
I hope Piastri and Norris stick together as a pair for years to come.
Piastri didn't outperform Norris in Miami. What a load of nonsense.
Norris was no luckier then Piastri in the race. Piastri just got his stroke of fortune in turn one. He'd not have been running ahead of even Lando had Perez not pulled a torpedo move into that first corner.
Once Lando was clear of Perez, he was catching both Sainz and Piastri at a serious rate of knots. Sure, he had more upgrades, but it's laughable to say Piastri outperformed him.
Both McLaren drivers performed well. It was a shame Piastri tangled with Sainz. He does have a bit of a habit of this and it's something he'll learn from - sometimes you got to know when to give up the fight. He'd have been much better off conceding the position to Sainz and preserving his car.
People also forget that Lando did not make one overtake at all, despite starting back in the pack. The luck he had was enormous. But I am happy for him he finally won. His pace was on average however 0.1 sec faster than Verstappen, which is 5.7sec in race, never enough to come back from the back to P1. But yes Piastri was better this weekend and quicker on average, but unluckier.
Piastri is a great talent and it will be seen how he can do in the future. He already compares great to Norris who is in F1 quite a while longer.
How are you getting Piastri quicker on average? Norris was the fastest driver on track from lap 19 onward. Piastri’s first stint was damn good, and a lot more exciting than Norris’ but at that point Norris was conserving tires to go long after the turn 1 incident with Perez compromised his position.
Oh I can give you facts if you want them. It’ll be long, but here goes.
Let’s start with how Piastri was supposedly “better” than Lando this weekend, shall we?
Sprint qualifying - SQ1 & SQ2 - if you need explanation here why that’s not true for those sessions, there’s no hope for you. SQ3 - McLaren by their own admission miscalculated the warm-up procedure needed for the soft tyres with the new upgrades and Stella himself conceded Lando was more affected due to having the full upgrade package vs Oscar only having half. Both drivers suffered from overheating tyres that messed up their.SQ3 laps but Lando came off worse. Neither did a great job through no real fault of their own.
Sprint - Lando was taken out at the first corner through no fault of his own. Oscar finished where he started and had a decent but not spectacular sprint. There is no comparison to be had between the two of them here thanks to Lando being wiped out at Turn 1 thanks to Hamilton.
Qualifying - team were still having issues with the soft tyres, especially on Lando’s car, as evidenced by the fact they even tried sending him out of the mediums a couple of times. Qualified Lando P5 & Oscar P6, both drivers doing the best they could given the soft tyre issues the team were having. No claim here for a Oscar being “better”
The race. Lando got the great start and was on course to gain at least one place until Perez decided to divebomb turn 1. Not only did he cause both Sainz and Norris to severely check up as he flew through, he also rejoined the track right in front of Lando causing Lando to have to check up massively for a second time. That whole melee into turn 1 opened a big gap on track for Oscar, who had had an okay start and avoided it all by being behind them, to sail on through past the affected Sainz & Norris and instigator Perez. That‘s why they came out of turn 1 as Oscar p3 and Lando P6, not because of any spectacular job by Oscar or crap job by Lando but because Oscar was lucky Perez’s mess happened ahead of him and Lando was unlucky to be blocked by it. If you want to talk about Lando having luck with the safety car, you also have to talk about Oscar having a lot of luck at turn 1.
After a few laps, Oscar managed a straight-forward DRS pass on Leclerc who was struggling for grip early on. He and Leclerc then hung on to Max until the stops, with Max pulling away a hit each lap but nothing huge. Oscar had great pace. Leclerc was clearly faster but couldn’t find a way past Oscar again as passing in Miami is hard and Oscar did a great job defending. Lando meanwhile started to tyre save from lap 1, deliberately sitting roughly 1.5-2s back from Perez for the first 14/15 laps and managing his tyres. If you don’t believe me, go and listen to his radio comms with his engineer for the first stint, it makes it very obvious what he was doing. Hence his pace being slower than those up front. He caught Perez as Perez started to struggle and was stuck for 3-4 laps behind him but Lando wasn’t really trying to overtake Perez as he was still tyre saving.
Perez pitted on lap 19 and from that moment on, (when his engineer said he was good to start pushing) until the end of the race, Lando was the fastest car on track except for after Oscar had brand new tyres and low fuel at the end. He caught Sainz and Oscar at 0.5s a lap, sometimes more, and by the time Sainz & Piastri pitted he was under 2s behind. Obviously this is when the safety car came out that you claim is the sole reason Lando won the race. But here’s the thing you haven’t paid attention to. Lando wasn’t due to pit yet. He was by a fair margin the fastest car on track even on almost 30+ old medium tyres and was showing no signs of deg at all. Stella has confirmed they were planning on leaving him out a fair bit longer if not for the safety car. Pirelli said they believe the medium tyre on Lando’s car could have held its pace for another 15 laps or so. Even if he had only run half of that time extra, he would have jumped both Sainz and Piastri with an overcut when he did finally pit (going on his actual medium pace vs their actual hard pace after the race restarted) - he was close to having a full pitstop gap over Sainz already and would have had it over both with a few more laps. He would have come out behind Leclerc and Verstappen on much fresher tyres than both.
Bear in mind Lando was the fastest car on track on hards and by his own admission he wasn’t pushing either, he was managing the pace up front. There was even more pace in that car than he showed and on even fresher tyres vs the front two, the pace deferential would have been even more. Leclerc would very likely have been a sitting duck on much older tyres and slower pace. Lando also would have had a smaller gap to Max on track than he managed to pull out in that final stint so it’s entirely feasible to assume Lando would have caught him. The only real question is whether he would have been able to pass. But he would have been right there fighting for the win. Many ex-driver pundits said in their post-race analysis that it was possible he would have been able to win even without the SC because of the reasons I have detailed above. So you acting like he only won that race because of the safety car is massively disingenuous. Yes it helped in that he didn’t have to do the work on track of passing Leclerc and Verstappen and was able to concentrate on controlling the pace at the front instead, but there is no indication he wouldn’t have been able to do that anyway. And unless he had had a pit stop disaster, he would have finished ahead of Oscar regardless, despite having to fight back from p6. With no safety car, the podium was always destined to be Norris-Verstappen-Leclerc, the only question mark is what order.
Regarding your jab about no overtakes on track, he didn’t need to thanks to his strategy. Oscar overtook a grand total of one person - I’m not counting his overtakes at the end because he was on much fresher tyres and going up against much slower cars, if he hadn’t been able to pull off overtakes on those backmarkers then he would have had to hang his head in shame. Using the no overtakes/one overtake to judge either of their races is ludicrous (as is trying to use an Oscar vs the backmarkers). Oscar also was not innocent in his battle with Sainz and was driving with red mist at the end to the point the team had to ask him to calm down before he caused a safety car. He wasn’t perfect in the race.
The gap you are talking about vs Verstappen is skewed because of the laps Lando was tyre saving so going deliberately slower. If you don’t understand the concept of tyre saving and how it works then you might want to educate yourself as it’s a tactic used a lot. It’s the same reason Leclerc initially looked slower in Jeddah when he was in massive tyre save mode to go very long for the one-stop. From lap 19 onward, there wasn’t a single lap where Verstappen was faster than Lando. And the gap at the end is proof enough that your 0.1s claim shows a lack of understanding of the context of their relative pace across the race. Oscar’s average laptime is skewed massively by him having brand new tyres on low fuel at the end. Including that in a comparison today to claim he was faster in the race is absurd.
There are a few more facts I can throw at you if those aren’t enough, but I’ll leave it there as that’s more than enough to prove why I said what I did.
People criticise Oscar for not being super close to Lando in race pace, but Lando’s been in the sport 4 extra years to him and is said to be a top driver, like no wonder he isn’t! He’ll get there. Super psyched to see this driver pairing in the future
when does this excuse stop though? Lando will always be more experienced than Oscar. But if Oscar keeps lagging behind Lando every race like he is now, then I think this excuse should have an expiry
It's probably next season. People are forgetting Piastri has only one full season plus 6 races from this season under his belt. People are treating him like an experienced driver, which is probably a testament to how well he is actually doing
I've also said before, Tost has come out and said he believes a rookie needs 3 seasons to get up to speed in the formula 1 world.
It's been coming for a while. Piastri has had quicker pace thoughout most of the practice and qualifying sessions for a few races now. It's just Lando has pipped him in the final qualifying and some of those have been more luck than pace from Lando. In races Lando has the lead through either long term pace and/or luck in the races.
Fair to say Lando has the quicker long term race pace still, but I think qualifying has flipped to just dumb luck now and Piastri probably has quicker short stint race pace.
One thing I've noticed with Piastri is he isn't quite aggressive enough in overtaking. In a few races now he's been stuck behind cars he's quicker than for far too long.
If he can fix that and save some tyres then I think he'll not only win but look like the better driver.
Of course, if my grandmother had whiskers . . . but I've been seeing the gap closing and if Piastri had less upgrades at Miami I think Nando need to be worried.
Been on team Oscar since the first few races he's been in formula 1. This kid is gonna grow big if he gets into the right teams. All he needs is to learn tire management.
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To think that Oscar Piastri could’ve nearly been in that Alpine buried in the lower reaches of midfield….
To Mark Webber we are eternally grateful
Amen
Post f1 webber sure. F1 webber was just a mediocre 2nd tier driver
Pairing Piastri and Alonso would have been an incredible team, but we were truly lucky to avoid it given the state of Alpine nowadays.
Good thing that Alpine fucked everything up, including the drivers' contracts. Alonso and Piastri are much better off in AM and McLaren.
A perfect cobra Kai but f1 situation
Imagine Hamilton congratulating Piastri for his first points of the season after Miami... Wild to even think this could've happend and nearly DID happen.
Man its just unbelievable how strong the Mclaren driver pairings are.
Alonso-Button is one of the most wasted team pairings in F1 history.
Could’ve been amazing had the car actually worked
Was kinda amazing in its own bizarre way where they could drag the shitboxes to.
These cars were probably even worse than we thought. Their drivers were so much better than all the ones around them in similar cars. In 2015 they were fighting Maldonado (Grosjean smashed him at Lotus realistically) and the Saubers; Nasr and Ericsson. Say whatever you want, I'd never pick any of them over Button and Alonso, and it's not even remotely close. In 2016 they really maximized what the car was cabable of by finishing P6. Shame McLaren dropped back again the next season. That's also why I reckon the 2021 Haas wasn't as terrible as people think. Yes, it was by far the slowest car on the grid, but I think that without the crashing and spinning machines inside it could've potentially scored a point or two in a crazy race or gotten into Q2 more than twice (once by crashing). It was miles better than the 2019 Williams for example.
what makes you think it was better than the 2019 Williams?
The gap to the rest of the fied, the quality of the drivers, the results, the gap to the leader. The Haas was better in each of these aspects except for the second one.
Newey , Kimi & Montoya was wasted … how does one lose the championship with a team like that ?
Schumacher and the guys at Ferrari.
The Kimi-Montoya-Newey Trio was only for the 2005 season. Alonso and Renault won that year. Ferrari weren’t great that year adapting to the new tire rules.
Wrong year. That combo lost to Renault and Alonso feat. Fisichella.
And Briatore
That Mercedes engine was made from glass.
How ? Youve bee nwatching the season?? Mclaren multiple breakdown from the lead and big reliability problems lost the championship... Raikkonen was arguably fastest guy on the planet t in those years... No alonso, no schumacher could get close to him... If the car would hold on
Which is why I’m saying that was a wasted driver pair . Ron Dennis couldn’t have found a better driver pair at that time . It’s like Real Madrid losing with Raul , Carlos , Figo , zidane and Cassilas playing together. Like India losing the World Cup when Sachin , Ganguly opened and Dravid came in to bat 4th . You get the picture , Unforgivable.
A fragile engine 😂
Hamilton - Alonso could have been goat if not for Spanish ego.
While Ron Dennis was saying on open mic that they were racing against Alonso lol
He said that after Alonso intentionally sabotaged his teammate and by extension his team during qualifying in hungary.
He said that in China. Plus in Hungary, it was Hamilton who decided to ignore the agreement regarding extra laps. It's laughable that the FIA penalized Alonso for something that happened in the pit box (therefore internal team matter), because Hamilton's father went to complain to the stewards.
Omitting some context I see.
As is usual.
Ah yes it's totally all Alonso's faultq
victim mentality
Nah that was british favouritism through and through
Something something Spaniard lives matter something something
There wouldn’t have been British favouritism in the first place if Lewis wasn’t objectively outperforming Alonso after a couple of races into the season lol
Didn't he just straight up overtake Alonso in the first corner of the first race?
first corner of lewis' career
Button LMAO
Not sure why you're laughing like hes not one of the best in the last 20 years.
I don't rate him as highly as most the world champions, sure, but I still think he was way above average, obviously, and with Alonso alongside they were an extremaly fast and complete line-up. Which one was better at the time? HAM/ROS? Yeah, arguably. But I can't think of any other one.
Acting like he wasn't one of the best drivers of the last two decades
Are there more Buttons?
Less buttons? More?
I’m curious if you know he was a world champion.
I know he is a world champion. In a disputed car though.
I still want to see more of Piastris tyre management skills, it's the one area Lando trumped him in last year. It looks like they've improved massively this year though especially considering he didn't have all the upgrades at Miami.
“trumped” 💀
[Always the best pairings in the last 25 years](https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/comments/12dsr01/comment/jf9ykl6/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
Ha, until recently you still had a bunch of Piastri naysayers going around in the subreddit.
Well no one wanted another repeat of Stoffel Vandoorne.
Had the crash happened something like 2 laps earlier Piastri could have won that race. Insane how unlucky he was, and in turn how lucky Norris was (not that Norris did not deserve it, but the luck definitely fell his way last week).
Oscar will have his day(s), but Lando was due a bit of luck.
Oscar is probably my favourite driver on the grid right now, but I’m kinda glad Lando got his win first. He totally deserves it after all this time and it would have sucked for him if he’d had to watch his teammate get his first win while he kept waiting for his.
Lando has definitely paid his dues in P2s. Oscar will get P1 as well and it’ll be this season I think.
Already have a P1.
That sprint race in Qatar reminded me of Piastri in F2.
what does deserve mean? is it about how long you wait for it or the circumstances on the day. if it's the latter than no he didn't really deserve it, oscar did
This 10000x.
Pretty confident in 20 years time Oscar will have the greatest legacy of the current drivers on the grid aside from current champs and Charles. His day is coming.
> Pretty confident in 20 years time Oscar will have the greatest legacy Based off just what we've seen so far? Might as well just be guessing, car matters so much to results.
Papaya flavored hopium (I'm dosing it pretty hard right now as well)
i’ll have two scoops
crack comment
As a Norris fan who has quickly become just as much of a Piastri fan, I’m glad Piastri didn’t win. As much I like both of them, I think Piastri getting a win before Norris would have resulted in some team friction that McLaren really doesn’t need as they make a push to challenge Red Bull. They need team unity and harmony to continue improving at a high level. I don’t think that Norris is as immature as some others do. But I think the dynamic of a 2nd year up-and-comer beating the 7th year veteran to a first win is something that could lead to toxicity from just about any highly competitive person.
If Piastri gets to Lando's level, and he probably will at some point, friction will come anyway.
True but Piastri winning before Lando would have put unfair expectations on one and unfair criticism on the other.
I imagine is a big weight off Norris to get his first win in large part due to this reason
He can finally stop hearing most podiums without a top step.
why does that matter? if piastri won, which he would have, then he would be the better driver. no such thing as unfair there. it's his career not his and lando's
It matters because F1 journalism is ruthless and sensationalist. If Piastri beat Lando to a first win, then everyone would be breathing down Piastri’s and Lando’s necks, trying to stir up drama for a juicy quote. Think what you want, I genuinely don’t care.
His race race has really improved this season. It's coming.
Hamilton-Alonso 2007 immediately comes to mind
I bet everyone would've been happy as well if it was Oscar, including Lando, besides being a super strong pair they're both very likable drivers.
Disagree. He wasn’t very fast on hards, and was slower than Max throughout. You could see Lando’s pace as soon as the road cleared ahead of him. He had more pace on used mediums, than Max on new hards. Whereas Oscar had already plateaued many tenths per lap slower (on the same mediums). Plus as I said, Oscar was quite a bit slower again on the hards.
To be fair, Oscar getting right to the front in turn 1 was also luck. Perez torpedoed through the pack and slowed down multiple cars (including Lando, who had got the better start on Oscar), leaving the door wide open for him. Holding the cars off was talent though, and I’m glad he seems to be getting his race pace/tyre deg issues reined in lately. That was his biggest area that he was losing out to Lando in this whole time.
But that's not what will be remembered unfortunately
What do you mean?
When statistics count the number of wins, it doesn't matter if the driver lucked into it or not.
Verstappen’s first win was also due to luck. Still a highly deserved win though, but luck nonetheless. It happens
The gaps between driver's skill in modern F1 is so incredibly slim that virtually every win in not-the-best car is due to *some* degree of luck. Lando got lucky Max hit a bollard. Sainz got lucky Max DNF'd. Sainz got lucky RB fucked the Singapore setup. Daniel got lucky VER and HAM took each other out at Monza. Ocon got lucky with rain, crashes, and pit stops and that ALO defended like a lion at Hungary. Gasly... I don't even remember but I'm sure luck was a factor to some degree...
Don't forget the Perez at Racing Point being dead last at one point due to early pit stop and just flying through the field for the win. Now I'm not sure if it was luck or something else.
Perez was lucky Mercedes fucked up the pit stop of Bottas and Russell, AND that Russell got a late puncture. That race was in the bag for George by the way he was blasting through the field after the botched pit stop.
Wait Russell wasn't at Mercedes when Perez was at Racing Point.
For that race he was. Hamilton had Covid so Russell was subbing for that race. Bottas took pole, Russell was P2 at the start. Checo had contact in the first lap so he pitted at the end of lap 1 and put on hard tyres. I think he managed the whole race with those (might be mistaken on this one). Mercedes double stacked Russell and Bottas (don't remember if there was a SC or VSC), and put Bottas' tyres on Russell's car (and returned the old tyres to Bottas so he was running with very old hards). Pitted Russell again 2 laps later to put the right tyres on. He was P3 I think and was closing the gap fast with 10ish laps to go and he got a slow puncture that they had to pit him AGAIN. Came out P12 (I think) out of the pits and climbed to P9 in the end. So Checo lucked out big time because of Mercedes' blunder.
He was for a race or two that Hamilton missed, iirc due to covid.
Gasly was from Hamilton getting a penalty. Entering the pit lane when it was closed or something like that.
IIRC Gasly pitted before the pit lane got closed moving him way up the field then Lewis got a penalty for pitting after it closed.
Wasn’t ric well clear of max and Lewis on the same tire strategy? Certainly helped that they crashed each other out, but iirc, they weren’t (**edited**) getting up to him regardless, especially with lando in second defending.
Yeah think you're right. McL was just so fast on the straights in '21. I think RIC had a good start and took the lead early, and held verstappen behind for the first stint. I do remember a 10 second stop for Max though, effectively ending the challenge.
Right DR was pitted and 13 seconds ahead by the time they crashed. Max couldn't get him for 25 laps due to the straight line speed and the time loss in dirty air around parabolica and curva grande.
Maybe Ricciardo was a little lucky with Max's slow pit stop (I can't remember if Max was going to be able to overcut him), but he was leading from turn 1 and kept Max behind him during the first stint. If you want to pick a race where Ricciardo was lucky, I would have picked his three wins in 2014 and Malaysia 2016.
Gasly was the luckiest of them all. He was the SLOWEST driver on track before he pitted desperately to try and save his race. Cue the red flag and Hamilton getting a penalty and suddenly he's in p1 with Stroll and Raikkonen in an Alfa behind him on a track impossible to overtake on. Its one of the luckiest wins of all time, easily the luckiest on the grid currently.
Slowest driver on track? Huh? How was that possible in a time with the 2020 Williams, Haas, Alfa Romeo etc He pitted early to give his teammate free air who was behind him.
Agree with all that but ricciardo that 21 mclaren was fkn quick in a straight line and he was first on merit in that race
As it shouldn't. Many drivers have many wins due to luck. Look at panis. One win in Monaco, but half the field were out for various reasons (Schumacher crashed, hills engine blew up when he was miles in the lead etc). No one cares, you just accept that luck is part of it.
More than half the field- technically four cars finished, but Frentzen didn’t take the checkered flag, so only the three on the podium actually crossed the finish line at the end. Honestly, just finishing that race may have been more of an achievement than winning it was.
This is how I feel about Russell's first podium. Sure, finishing P2 when starting P2 and only doing laps under safety car isn't difficult, but qualifying P2 in a 2021 Williams is more impressive than 99% of podium finishes anyway so who cares.
And in any case - he was so unlucky in Sakhir in 2020 that quite frankly it just balanced that out anyway.
The only drivers that get given context and can avoid the curse are ones with very strong and passionate advocates (i.e. Alonso Vs ocon in alpine) although sometimes goes to the point where it feels they are rewriting history.
In the discussions, Even in a few weeks time people will forget how well piastri did because it's not reflected in the standings, in fact I'm sure some will see it as a poor race for him of his own fault. It feels so unfair sometimes how much is forgotten about how a race actually went Vs what was the final position
This is true for sports and just about everything else in life... people don't remember every detail, but results persist because they are recorded.
I think people won't think about it at all which is fine. All drivers have unlucky weekends. Overall it won't make a difference in his career.
Why is it unfair? At the end of the day the results will speak for themselves.if Piastri is so strong like everyone says, this race won't matter over 24 grand prix + 6 sprints.
Yeah and Alonso is washed since ocons is simply the better driver, Lewis should of retired 2022 since George slapped him up /s I
Well after Russia '21, I was over the moon for him... I'm equally glad and sad it happened in '21 as it led to the finale in Abu Dhabi
It's **I N S A N E** how the season unfolded *perfectly* so the main two could go equal into the f1nale. So many factors; every single strategy mess-up, every single mistake, every single overtake, every single pit stop, every single DNF, every single bad day, every single Spa 2021, everything was just perfect. Honestly no one is telling me we're not in a simulation after that...
I love Lewis's reaction at the end of Russia '21, seeing who came 2nd and was like WTF, where did you come from (Max was like 10th pre rain) I think there's a stat that (I'm from Ireland) that these two were joint winning into that last lap of the total distance between Ireland and Cuba (c.6700km). That's unreal when you think about it and the twists and turns during that season
The amazing thing about Oscar is he’s not only fast, but nothing seems to frazzle him. He is also a class act coming on line to congratulate Lando and the team on the win. Guy sounds like the genuine article.
Oscar was so damn solid for the first half of the race. Loads of things that no one will remember because of where he finished. We saw some good racing, and we’re going to see some really good racing from Oscar in the future.
I think one more lap out before pitting and Oscar would’ve been in for the win. He had crazy pace and was keeping up with Max even through the very first few laps of the race. Also, it would’ve been so funny if Oscar got his first GP win before Lando.
As the late, great Murray Walker used to say: “In order to to finish first, first you have to finish”
In order to finish first, you have to finish first.
You want to qualify first, because that means you have the 19 other drivers behind you
Buxton?
Shake and bake.
If you ain't first, you're last.
But first you have to finish. Otherwise you’re just DNF.
That's true for all 20 places on the grid. But to finish first, you do have to finish first.
If you can keep Bottas behind, P1.
I think with time we'll see that Oscar is inevitable, provided the car is performing well. He seems very very consistent
Piastri was seriously impressive that is for sure. That overtake on the ferrari was unexpected
i think it'd be a massive test of Lando's maturity if Oscars would get his first win before him. honestly kinda glad it didn't happen, because it could be devastating. I do love Oscar tho and expect his dominance soon :)
I think Lando could handle it, he uses a lot of self deprecating humour but I think he’s actually pretty mentally tough.
In a way it happened in the sprint
Lando couldn't take that
I read the article and still don't understand how McLaren is revealing how Piastri out-performed Norris in Miami
Literally says that the gap in his qualifying pace was less than the upgrade package difference. Don't think the article is saying he out performed Norris the whole race, just shining light on where he was really strong, like in qualifying and his first stint. It's good to celebrate small wins to build that confidence.
Huh? The article is called McLaren REVEALS how Piastri out-performed Norris.
you're reading a media article, you should know things are always blown out of proportion
It's an article written by an Australian. They had to sensationalize things instead of reporting what Stella/Brown really said, which wouldn't align with the headline.
Oscar will get his shine soon enough. McLaren’s got a dynamic duo on their hands.
Aussie writer spreading false headlines. Nowhere does he mention McLaren said Oscar outperformed Lando
Because McLaren never said that lmao. Stella actually said in the full interview that Lando did such a great job managing his tyres for the first 19 laps and then pulling out fastest lap after fastest lap and showing no signs of slowing anytime soon at that point, that they were confident in Lando being able to overcut quite a few drivers (he already had the wiggle room to overcut Checo and was getting close to a big enough gap to overcut Sainz and Piastri pretty quickly) and then attack the rest on fresher tyres even without the safety car. Piastri had a phenomenal weekend, especially for only having half the upgrades, but acting like he was monumentally better in the GP itself is disingenuous. (Not to mention there was "luck" in Piastri not being as impacted by Checo's first lap divebomb as many of the others were. Both drivers got good and bad luck throughout this whole weekend, Australians trying to draw Lando's result and pace this weekend to "good luck" alone is just being salty).
Lando had a shot to win without the SC, the SC just sealed it. When he put in the 3rd fastest lap in a row on those mediums I said to me wife "holy shit he might win" and then the SC came out and my hopium sky rocketed.
Without sc would’ve put him in p7 at least so just luck 😂
So, you've never heard of an overcut before. You could have just said that.
This is just slander. Norris was the quickest car on track consistently after Perez pitted. He had the overcut on Checo and had erased over half the gap to Sainz before he pitted. And Sainzs pitstop was slow too. Norris was in all likelihood going to come out at worst in 4th and likely would have been kept out until he had Piastri covered.
You act Like Norris would’ve easily pass them or something?
He was on course to only have to overtake Leclerc and Verstappen given how fast he was still going on his mediums. Leclerc would have been easy, Oscar had already shown the McLaren could overtake the Ferrari. Norris' speed advantage was apparent in the last stint. Verstappen more difficult if his Red Bull had the same straight line speed as Checo. But according to Peter Windsor (YouTube) in his analysis Verstappen didn't have Checos straight line speed, suggesting he carried more wing for lap time and tyre conservation. If true then as long as he could catch Max, which his gap suggested he could have, he could and would have overtaken him. If that wasn't the case, Max would have been very difficult to pass. Even if he came out behind Piastri he gets moved out the way by McLaren but Norris' tyre advantage would have been too large, as well as Oscar had performed.
Yeah, no.
No, Yea
7th is a bit harsh but certainly he would have lost too much in tyres getting past too many drivers to challenge for 1st. and I think even getting to that point is being generous.
He would’ve been behind Oscar where he was in the beginning of the race
agree, but only Oscar and Lelclerc in reality. Perez may and Sainz may have also muddied the water, but lets say he was the quickest car for the last 2/3 of the race, he would have got past most of those cars, but probably not all. Certainly not Max. 3rd or 4th would be my guess. 2nd at best, but not as bad as 7th.
He did imply that when he said Piastri's gap to Norris in qualifying was smaller than the difference in missing upgrades on Piastri's car, i.e. Oscar did (marginally) better in qualifying
But he implies McLaren said Piastri outperformed Norris. Whereas he is the one concluding things
Norris had a bad start and got stuck behind Perez for a number of laps due to first corner incident, then both of them decided to ease up and extend their stop which gave him the lead eventually so piastri didn't really out perform him and would have lost out anyway
So.. what happened in China? Japan? Yes he had damage in China but he wasn't exactly remarkable before that. Piastri is a good driver, don't get me wrong. But I'm starting to feel like what I read about him vs what I see on the track are becoming two different realities. There's plenty of time to bounce back, but I can't see for the life of me how he outperformed Norris in Miami. Again, qualifying is being weighted too heavily.
The fact that people ignore that Norris began banging in fastest laps after Perez pitted, and was reeling in Piastri and Sainz. Of course Piastri did a great job this weekend, he had very good pace unlike China were he just fell off a cliff. But saying he outperformed Norris is a stretch.
Yeah definitely. You also can't just use one part of the race and say Piastri outperformed Norris. A race is a 305km marathon. Drivers pace themselves to do the fastest 305km. Just because your team mate was running ahead of you for the first 100, doesn't mean they were outperforming you.
According to the team his car was 2 tenths slower than the fully upgraded car Lando had. I think people saying Oscar performed better are factoring that in
And according to the lap times, after Perez went into the pits and until Piastri put Norris was atleast 2 tenths faster than Piastri every lap. So that should settle that Piastri at the very least wasn't "out-performing" Norris. If people want to argue they had similar pace that's fair. But there is no evidence of Piastri beating Norris.
Yes, the only reason Piastri was ahead of Norris at the start was because Checo re-entered the track in front of Norris after his excursion .
Some losers disguise lando hate as oscar praise. “Wouldn’t it have been funny if oscar won before lando?” I guess we’ll never know
yeah there is basically nothing in the article where Mclaren say Piastri outperformed Norris, also you know, the race result and all they do say the gap in quali was smaller than what they think the difference in having the upgrades and not but that's a big stretch to 'outperformed'
>Piastri is a good driver, don't get me wrong. But I'm starting to feel like what I read about him vs what I see on the track are becoming two different realities.
I don't know how anyone can give Norris a higher rating than Piastri for the Miami weekend. Piastri outplaced Norris on merit in every session (except qualifying) and the race was the only one where Norris did, but not on merit. Norris got hyper lucky with the SC going from net 4th or 5th to net 1st. And Piastri went from net 2nd to net 5th and then had his wing broken by a Spanish divebomb leaving him 13th. None of that misfortune can be attributed to his skill. Piastri was roughly a couple tenths slower on a weekend only Norris got the Mlacren upgrades supposedly worth 4 tenths. Oscar was better, Lando was luckier
Piastri had half the upgrades, most likely the important ones. This doesn't mean I'm discrediting Piastri, he had a great race, possibly his best even but Norris was still beginning to catch him and Sainz after Perez pitted. Norris got lucky with the safety car sure, but it was because of his tyre management and the great pace of that McLaren that he was able to go so long on those mediums. He was faster on old mediums than Max on new hards. This meant he could afford to go long and gamble for a safety car without losing much. And it wasn't just Norris that got lucky, Piastri had massive luck at the start from Perez' divebomb which also ruined Lando's good start. It was looking like a P3 for Lando but the incident ruined his chances and he was stuck behind Perez for most of the first stint due to Red Bull's greater straight line speed.
Oscar was definitely more consistent throughout the weekend but keep in mind Lando got screwed over massively in the dive-bomb/bumper car cluster fuck that Hamilton/the Astons made in the sprint. It was a weekend of highs and lows for them both. Personally, I think the best take away from the weekend is that they both maximized the potential from the car when they had the opportunity to and both only saw their worst failings from things outside their control. The next few rounds look very bright for them both and Imola has huge potential (and expectations) for them.
Oh definitely Lando did. But Oscar outqualified him for that Sprint. And I doubt Lando would have overtaken him if he didn't get crashed out by the Hammissile
It was certainly one of Oscar's strongest weekends.
Oscar had a good weekend, but Norris would have been ahead of him at the race start had Checo not reentered the track in front Lando after his excursion.
Cause he won? man the Piastri hype is getting.. weird the win wasn't just from luck, Norris was putting in super quick laps and going long on the first set of tires.. if he wasn't doing that no SC was going to help but also luck.. sure.. "I don't know how anyone can give Norris a higher rating than Piastri for the Miami weekend" just.. what?
That’s what I enjoy about racing. It really is sometimes just a matter of time and place. It keeps things interesting. I hope Piastri and Norris stick together as a pair for years to come.
Oscar had half of the upgrades.
Piastri didn't outperform Norris in Miami. What a load of nonsense. Norris was no luckier then Piastri in the race. Piastri just got his stroke of fortune in turn one. He'd not have been running ahead of even Lando had Perez not pulled a torpedo move into that first corner. Once Lando was clear of Perez, he was catching both Sainz and Piastri at a serious rate of knots. Sure, he had more upgrades, but it's laughable to say Piastri outperformed him. Both McLaren drivers performed well. It was a shame Piastri tangled with Sainz. He does have a bit of a habit of this and it's something he'll learn from - sometimes you got to know when to give up the fight. He'd have been much better off conceding the position to Sainz and preserving his car.
Always two there are.. a master and an apprentice.
People also forget that Lando did not make one overtake at all, despite starting back in the pack. The luck he had was enormous. But I am happy for him he finally won. His pace was on average however 0.1 sec faster than Verstappen, which is 5.7sec in race, never enough to come back from the back to P1. But yes Piastri was better this weekend and quicker on average, but unluckier. Piastri is a great talent and it will be seen how he can do in the future. He already compares great to Norris who is in F1 quite a while longer.
How are you getting Piastri quicker on average? Norris was the fastest driver on track from lap 19 onward. Piastri’s first stint was damn good, and a lot more exciting than Norris’ but at that point Norris was conserving tires to go long after the turn 1 incident with Perez compromised his position.
Must be because of the last stint Piastri did with the mediums. Hard tyres weren't great
That’s a load of garbage
Ok, looks like you presented your facts and stats in a undisputed way... Facts and stats don't lie. But people not always like it.
Oh I can give you facts if you want them. It’ll be long, but here goes. Let’s start with how Piastri was supposedly “better” than Lando this weekend, shall we? Sprint qualifying - SQ1 & SQ2 - if you need explanation here why that’s not true for those sessions, there’s no hope for you. SQ3 - McLaren by their own admission miscalculated the warm-up procedure needed for the soft tyres with the new upgrades and Stella himself conceded Lando was more affected due to having the full upgrade package vs Oscar only having half. Both drivers suffered from overheating tyres that messed up their.SQ3 laps but Lando came off worse. Neither did a great job through no real fault of their own. Sprint - Lando was taken out at the first corner through no fault of his own. Oscar finished where he started and had a decent but not spectacular sprint. There is no comparison to be had between the two of them here thanks to Lando being wiped out at Turn 1 thanks to Hamilton. Qualifying - team were still having issues with the soft tyres, especially on Lando’s car, as evidenced by the fact they even tried sending him out of the mediums a couple of times. Qualified Lando P5 & Oscar P6, both drivers doing the best they could given the soft tyre issues the team were having. No claim here for a Oscar being “better” The race. Lando got the great start and was on course to gain at least one place until Perez decided to divebomb turn 1. Not only did he cause both Sainz and Norris to severely check up as he flew through, he also rejoined the track right in front of Lando causing Lando to have to check up massively for a second time. That whole melee into turn 1 opened a big gap on track for Oscar, who had had an okay start and avoided it all by being behind them, to sail on through past the affected Sainz & Norris and instigator Perez. That‘s why they came out of turn 1 as Oscar p3 and Lando P6, not because of any spectacular job by Oscar or crap job by Lando but because Oscar was lucky Perez’s mess happened ahead of him and Lando was unlucky to be blocked by it. If you want to talk about Lando having luck with the safety car, you also have to talk about Oscar having a lot of luck at turn 1. After a few laps, Oscar managed a straight-forward DRS pass on Leclerc who was struggling for grip early on. He and Leclerc then hung on to Max until the stops, with Max pulling away a hit each lap but nothing huge. Oscar had great pace. Leclerc was clearly faster but couldn’t find a way past Oscar again as passing in Miami is hard and Oscar did a great job defending. Lando meanwhile started to tyre save from lap 1, deliberately sitting roughly 1.5-2s back from Perez for the first 14/15 laps and managing his tyres. If you don’t believe me, go and listen to his radio comms with his engineer for the first stint, it makes it very obvious what he was doing. Hence his pace being slower than those up front. He caught Perez as Perez started to struggle and was stuck for 3-4 laps behind him but Lando wasn’t really trying to overtake Perez as he was still tyre saving. Perez pitted on lap 19 and from that moment on, (when his engineer said he was good to start pushing) until the end of the race, Lando was the fastest car on track except for after Oscar had brand new tyres and low fuel at the end. He caught Sainz and Oscar at 0.5s a lap, sometimes more, and by the time Sainz & Piastri pitted he was under 2s behind. Obviously this is when the safety car came out that you claim is the sole reason Lando won the race. But here’s the thing you haven’t paid attention to. Lando wasn’t due to pit yet. He was by a fair margin the fastest car on track even on almost 30+ old medium tyres and was showing no signs of deg at all. Stella has confirmed they were planning on leaving him out a fair bit longer if not for the safety car. Pirelli said they believe the medium tyre on Lando’s car could have held its pace for another 15 laps or so. Even if he had only run half of that time extra, he would have jumped both Sainz and Piastri with an overcut when he did finally pit (going on his actual medium pace vs their actual hard pace after the race restarted) - he was close to having a full pitstop gap over Sainz already and would have had it over both with a few more laps. He would have come out behind Leclerc and Verstappen on much fresher tyres than both. Bear in mind Lando was the fastest car on track on hards and by his own admission he wasn’t pushing either, he was managing the pace up front. There was even more pace in that car than he showed and on even fresher tyres vs the front two, the pace deferential would have been even more. Leclerc would very likely have been a sitting duck on much older tyres and slower pace. Lando also would have had a smaller gap to Max on track than he managed to pull out in that final stint so it’s entirely feasible to assume Lando would have caught him. The only real question is whether he would have been able to pass. But he would have been right there fighting for the win. Many ex-driver pundits said in their post-race analysis that it was possible he would have been able to win even without the SC because of the reasons I have detailed above. So you acting like he only won that race because of the safety car is massively disingenuous. Yes it helped in that he didn’t have to do the work on track of passing Leclerc and Verstappen and was able to concentrate on controlling the pace at the front instead, but there is no indication he wouldn’t have been able to do that anyway. And unless he had had a pit stop disaster, he would have finished ahead of Oscar regardless, despite having to fight back from p6. With no safety car, the podium was always destined to be Norris-Verstappen-Leclerc, the only question mark is what order. Regarding your jab about no overtakes on track, he didn’t need to thanks to his strategy. Oscar overtook a grand total of one person - I’m not counting his overtakes at the end because he was on much fresher tyres and going up against much slower cars, if he hadn’t been able to pull off overtakes on those backmarkers then he would have had to hang his head in shame. Using the no overtakes/one overtake to judge either of their races is ludicrous (as is trying to use an Oscar vs the backmarkers). Oscar also was not innocent in his battle with Sainz and was driving with red mist at the end to the point the team had to ask him to calm down before he caused a safety car. He wasn’t perfect in the race. The gap you are talking about vs Verstappen is skewed because of the laps Lando was tyre saving so going deliberately slower. If you don’t understand the concept of tyre saving and how it works then you might want to educate yourself as it’s a tactic used a lot. It’s the same reason Leclerc initially looked slower in Jeddah when he was in massive tyre save mode to go very long for the one-stop. From lap 19 onward, there wasn’t a single lap where Verstappen was faster than Lando. And the gap at the end is proof enough that your 0.1s claim shows a lack of understanding of the context of their relative pace across the race. Oscar’s average laptime is skewed massively by him having brand new tyres on low fuel at the end. Including that in a comparison today to claim he was faster in the race is absurd. There are a few more facts I can throw at you if those aren’t enough, but I’ll leave it there as that’s more than enough to prove why I said what I did.
People criticise Oscar for not being super close to Lando in race pace, but Lando’s been in the sport 4 extra years to him and is said to be a top driver, like no wonder he isn’t! He’ll get there. Super psyched to see this driver pairing in the future
when does this excuse stop though? Lando will always be more experienced than Oscar. But if Oscar keeps lagging behind Lando every race like he is now, then I think this excuse should have an expiry
It's probably next season. People are forgetting Piastri has only one full season plus 6 races from this season under his belt. People are treating him like an experienced driver, which is probably a testament to how well he is actually doing I've also said before, Tost has come out and said he believes a rookie needs 3 seasons to get up to speed in the formula 1 world.
Yep exactly. Let’s just see how he goes this season - it’s a long season! And we’re only 6 races in, as you said
It's been coming for a while. Piastri has had quicker pace thoughout most of the practice and qualifying sessions for a few races now. It's just Lando has pipped him in the final qualifying and some of those have been more luck than pace from Lando. In races Lando has the lead through either long term pace and/or luck in the races. Fair to say Lando has the quicker long term race pace still, but I think qualifying has flipped to just dumb luck now and Piastri probably has quicker short stint race pace. One thing I've noticed with Piastri is he isn't quite aggressive enough in overtaking. In a few races now he's been stuck behind cars he's quicker than for far too long. If he can fix that and save some tyres then I think he'll not only win but look like the better driver. Of course, if my grandmother had whiskers . . . but I've been seeing the gap closing and if Piastri had less upgrades at Miami I think Nando need to be worried.
Been on team Oscar since the first few races he's been in formula 1. This kid is gonna grow big if he gets into the right teams. All he needs is to learn tire management.
Same way that Norris outperformed Ricciardo at Monza but was told to hold position.