2024 F1 Thread

luckypierre said:
And comments in the press are suggesting that McLaren are going to review Papaya team orders to assist Lando to win the championship.
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Brissy1 said:
Papaya Rules was "explained" on bbc but I didn't understand.
New team orders being talked about is to assist Manufacturers championship I think.
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I know McLaren are copping a lot of criticism for failing to go all in on Lando prior to now, but I've been giving it some thought since last night's race and have formed a few opinions of my own on the matter (as speculative as they may be)...
  • Although McLaren would have been confident they were in with a shot of taking out the Constructors' Championship, it's likely that they've been considerably more pessimistic about their chances of snatching the Drivers' Championship from Verstappen. After all, as much as they may see RBR struggling, I'm sure they expected it to be brief interruption before normal transmission resumed. Consequently, it wouldn't have made too much sense to alienate one of the drivers (i.e. Piastri) by going all in on Norris so early, especially when one or two poor results from Lando would bring Piastri massively back into the equation.
  • With Verstappen and RBR continuing to struggle, I think that McLaren expected Norris to capitalise more effectively (and consistently) than he has. The fact that he has not has kept Piastri in the hunt and also minimised the likelihood of Norris being able to overturn the deficit to Verstappen. That brings us back to the previous point.
  • Finally, I think McLaren - and more importantly, Norris - have likely underestimated Piastri's development this season. Obviously they know he's good, but I think he's proving to have more of a killer instinct when it really matters (vs Norris). Look at Piastri's pass at Variante della Roggia. Norris didn't imagine Piastri would attempt that, but Piastri saw a gap, went for it, made a clean pass and drove away into the distance. Obviously this hurt Norris' race, and in light of this, I think McLaren are starting to realise that with diminishing opportunities (i.e. races) and RBR looking no closer to overcoming their issues, they're going to have to capitalise on every remaining opportunity from here on and this means backing one of their drivers. For obvious reasons, that means Norris.
Bottom line, whilst I think McLaren have actually done the right thing to date, should they decide to go all in on Lando from now and expect Piastri to play the wingman, then I wouldn't argue that it's a bad choice. I think they've done enough this year to prove to Oscar that they're not treating him as a #2 in the team, and Oscar has done more than enough to prove to McLaren and Norris that he will be a force with which to be reckoned come next season and that they should underestimate him at their peril.
 
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I think McLaren have to favour NOR for the rest of the season. It’ll be hard enough for him to overcome VER lead let alone for PIA who is a further 44 points behind NOR.
And team orders will prevent another surprise overtake, which could have taken both cars out, harming the constructors title bid (which is more important to the team than the drivers championship)
 
kelvedon said:
I think McLaren have to favour NOR for the rest of the season. It’ll be hard enough for him to overcome VER lead let alone for PIA who is a further 44 points behind NOR.
And team orders will prevent another surprise overtake, which could have taken both cars out, harming the constructors title bid (which is more important to the team than the drivers championship)
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just tell Oscar to leave the handbrake on for the first 3 laps lol
 
kelvedon said:
think McLaren have to favour NOR for the rest of the season
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The opportunity to do that was many races ago.

Even though the gap has closed many of the remaining races are expected to favor the RB setup and I suspect this will be about as close as Lando gets.

The constructors should be the key aim
 
Yes, not sure he'll enjoy it as much as Carlos's red one he got last time.....
 
Bit a of mini trip report of sorts: I was lucky enough to be at Monza last weekend and it was as you can imagine, epic. This was the tail end of five amazing weeks in Turkiye, Greece, Croatia and Austria.

So accom was Milan Thursday through Mon, it had been booked a long time back. I hadn't been to Monza-town itself before but that would definitely be the place to stay if you can get accom - the town was lovely with a real party atmosphere throughout the various squares. Naturally this reached fever pitch on Sunday night after Ferrari's win, with roving musos and people dancing and waving flags! Additionally of course, Centrale station in Milan was a mess of disorganisation but I was fully expecting that - hey, it's Italy.

Seats were Parabolica stand C and I was comfortable with the AUD$700 spend via Granprixevents.com particularly with how hard it has been to get grandstand tix in Melb. Met one US bloke who was scammed via StubHub and apparently many more were. Steel benches and hot days, but hey when you are at the Italian GP who cares right? One tip for the benches would be a blow-up pillow/pad.

As anticipated queues for food & bev (one to pay; one to receive) were a bit nuts. The biggest queues of all were for the free water refills which given the heat were required. With 25 mins to the race I and about 2,000 people seemingly were trying to squeeze through 4 turnstiles with scanned entry until the gate staff just relented and opened the fence, thank goodness. You know in Italy they will attempt to enforce the rules but after a while it's "non e problemo, mi arrendo" and they give in. Speaking of queues, the shuttle bus after qualifying was the single worst I've ever been in. Felt like 5,000 people corralled through your typical gate system and it was just so hot over the hour it took to reach a bus. After the GP I simply walked back to Monza and it was a really lovely 30 minute walk through the park, and featuring a Peroni stand at the Castello Reale!

Obviously an exiting race with PIA looking good for those 39 laps. But, the opportunity to witness a Ferrari victory is very special. Post-race we made our way to the grid and it was manic down there. Surface of the track billiard-table smooth, checked out the old banking and soaked up the atmosphere. All-in-all it was of course an amazing event and I feel so lucky to have been there. This is the second of the 'big 3' for me, having been to Silverstone previously and very much looking forward to getting to Suzuka. I mean I could have also been at Suzuka this year in fact - found a single ticket and had some accom lined up and (having been made redundant in Feb) I had the time available. Oh well, maybe next year. Next challenge is getting back into a grandstand at Melb as the GA tix from this year just didn't cut it.

Monza.jpg
 

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