[supermax]

Originally Posted by ds.raikkonen

Vintage Fernando rolled back the years big time!

Thanks to him, I did not stop watching the race, which was quite boring otherwise (except for the start). And there were no surprises when LEC's car grind to a halt and he was left contemplating what could have been. VER probably has more pace which he did not need as nobody could even come close (perhaps Adrian Newey is too good for others to beat now). I can only hope the likes of LEC, ALO, HAM and RUS challenge VER at least in some races so that 2023 is not decided alf way through the season.

The scrap with HAM was amazing, and would have been quite humbling for HAM. Still remember when Alonso said that HAM only knows how to start from 1st

Nando did indeed seem to roll back time, or at any rate create an illusion that time hasn't passed so quickly for him! With major rules and engine development freezes, and cost caps, what we see is that it's easier to keep making small updates to an already fantastic package than to completely reinvent everything. All the teams besides Mercedes struggled at the onset of the turbo hybrid era, but Mercedes had done their homework already, and began what would be near total domination for eight years. Redbull made the right design calls to go with the change in wheelbase and other tech requirements. Newey's experience tackling porpoising came in real handy; it made me think of the scene from Ironman where Obadiah Stane's body suit freezes up at the higher altitudes, but Tony's doesn't, because he's factored for that already. Even Newey would be hard pressed to come up with solutions if their basic product is a dud, like the W13 was.

Originally Posted by TROOPER

This race was the usual F1 semi-borefest, the usual elements

- Max winning by a mile.
- One Ferrari conking off.
- Fernando as usual entertaining, stopping you from falling asleep.
- Stroll torpedoing someone, almost ended Fernando's race today. This was hilarious. Fernando asked who it was and there was radio silence from the team. He found out in the cooldown room and just stared at the screen. The Strolls need to be aware this is not Vettel. Expect retaliation if the antics don't stop.
- One team going full clown mode. It was Alpine today.
- Haas being Haas and losing a wing.

Only outlier was Williams. Unexpected and Sargeant too was exceptional this weekend as a rookie.

Sargeant was quite a revelation, wasn't he? He had a cracker of a qualifying performance where he equaled Lando's time in Q1, and went to to have an exceptional race for a rookie in F1.

Regarding the snooze-fest, domination is not in itself something that makes proceedings less interesting for me, as much as watching a race with no overtaking opportunities, like in Monaco. Despite the festive atmosphere and everything, the Monaco GP action pretty much gets over with the Saturday qualifying, with the race just being a procession, with the only exception being if there's rain or a sudden safety car to help juggle the order a bit. The domination we're now seeing with Redbull is something we've witnessed to an even bigger extent with Mercedes from the onset of the turbo-hybrid era, and also seen it for shorter durations, at the cost of others, like when Brawn GP came up with their blown double-diffuser which gave Button his only WDC. It's the ebb and flow of the sport.
Ocon definitely had some hard luck yesterday, but he's going to get a reality check this year is what I'm guessing. The only reason why his numbers seemed respectable in comparison with Alonso in the past years was because he had the better luck with mechanical failures and the like plaguing Alonso's side more often. If both cars have similar reliability this season, I fully expect Gasly to mop the floor with Ocon this year.