[Hatari]

Great drive by Perez, keeping Max away, he really enjoys street circuits!

Quite impressed with Alonso managing to keep inside Perez's DRS window for all those laps in the 1st stint. He had to push, to build a gap to Russel behind him, before the pit stops. Shame about Lance, the battle for P2 in the Constructors will depend greatly on reliability.

As expected, Safety car brought the pack together. For a change not too dramatic changes in position. Lewis lost out, as he was going long on the slow starting Hards.

What surprised me was Ferrari's pace dropping off, they couldnt match the Mercs.
Alpine now firmly slotted into P5. Another nightmare race for McLaren.

Lastly, a highly avoidable saga on Alonso's 10 second penalty. Hope the FIA now issues the required clarifications to the rules to set it right.

[chandrda]

The advantage Red Bull has is too good for the F1 sports. If this is what we are to expect for the rest of the season, then its better Mercedes and Ferrari start looking at 2024 than try to bring updates to the current season.

The race speed of Red Bull is too much to bridge by updates.

Only hope for the season - Mercedes decides to provide more powerful engines to Alonso and Perez doesn't fall off the performance.

Regards

[drmohitg]

Perez is not at the same level as Max in that redbull car. To make life difficult, he misses on qualifying. And in the rare instances when he does start at the front, he always has a horrible start. And more often then not loses the lead in first 2 corners. He was lucky yesterday that there wasn't another safety car or else Max would have toasted him.

Max is absolutely flawless in that car. Its almost becoming robotic like Hamilton.

[prashant316]

The race was underwhelming for me on a whole, so i switched my attention to figuring which set of commentators provide more entertainment, analysis, facts and insights.

Since most of us watch on F1 TV Pro now, we get the option of the F1 TV broadcast and the Sky sports broadcast. And here is what i felt between the two:

F1TV:
The pair of Collins and Palmer provide a good insight into what's going on in the race and details of things happening that we dont always see. Somehow I have never been a fan of DC's accent and his style of delivery.
Overall, i felt the insights were good, but lacked an entertainment factor. Maybe that was down to this particular race not having much to deliver on anyway.

Sky:
I am used to listening to Crofty and Brundle. They sound like the voice of F1 to me. Especially David Croft. Martin seems to have an air of knowledge and 'awareness before it happens' around him, that has the tendency to become an anti climax as he already mentions what we fans are still anticipating, but his knowledge is supremely impressive and worthy of admiration.
I love Ted. Love his inputs in between the race and his real time updates from the pitlane. Something i sorely missed in the F1TV broadcast.
I find more entertainment quotient in Sky right now and very similar level of insights in both the broadcasts.

Holding on to giving a verdict as i want to now do this for a few more races before i stick to one of them.

Any thoughts or preferences from other F1 fans here?

[sri_tesla]

Here is the complete conversation of 2 Redbull drivers with their respective race engineers. On lap 39, both drivers were asked to maintain the same pace and lap time (1:33) by their respective engineers. So, the team did not prioritize any driver and wanted them to finish with Checo at 1 and Max at 2. This may be due to some sort of issues being reported by both drivers just before that and the team wanted to finish the race without pushing each other. Before that also, there were no team orders to Perez and neither did max ask for preferential treatment.





When Max was asked to maintain 1:33, he just stayed silent while Checo was worried about Max pushing. Actually, both were pushing and the actual lap time was 1:32.6. Checo is being continuously updated about Max lap times and he was even told that he is free to push in lap 33 with the gap still at 5 seconds. Max and Check both asked for the fastest lap times and they both have the same information (1:32.1). Both pushed for the fastest laps in the last lap, but Checo had bad sector 1 and sector 2 times. If he thinks he will be gifted a point by a teammate or any other driver then he is just a bad actor. After the chequered flag, he immediately asked his race engineer if he got the fastest lap, and he was told that he was pipped in the last lap. He continued to act shocked when David Coulthard told him the same in a post-race interview despite him already knowing that from his race engineer. He was still asking Max the same and acting when Max told him the same.

If anything, it was Perez who was favored by the team in this race and Checo still wanted max to not go for a fast lap. If anyone that is crying despite winning the race it was Checo. He deserved the win though as he is able to maintain the gap between him and Max after the restart but he is also lucky that Max has issues in qualifying and Aston is much slower than Redbull.

Cooldown room conversation:
https://twitter.com/F1/status/1637589012448956416

[aim120]

Originally Posted by ds.raikkonen

Even Checo was told to slow down which he did not do with good reason (knowing that the team can hang him out to dry).

Perez race engineer is soley there to help Max win and nothing else. Its just the second race and they are asking him to drive more then half a second slower then Max, which would have been enough for Max to get within DRS with several laps to spare. Like Max is going to listen to Team orders.

Originally Posted by ds.raikkonen

RUS kept HAM behind on the hard tyres quite easily in the end, shows that Red Bull is the only team with a mega-DRS advantage (Brundle mentioned 17 mph). TeamLH would have set Twitter on fire demanding RUS's head on a plate by now..

Russel didn't want to fight and he wanted to hold position. On Lewis side if he attacked and passed Russel, he would have had to stop once more, since those medium tires would have gone off the clip and he would have been passed by both ferrari who where on the hard tires. So lewis was conserving his tires.

[sri_tesla]

Originally Posted by aim120

Perez race engineer is soley there to help Max win and nothing else. Its just the second race and they are asking him to drive more then half a second slower then Max, which would have been enough for Max to get within DRS with several laps to spare. Like Max is going to listen to Team orders.

Don't judge based on just what is shown on TV. Most of the time, TV directors show only part of the conversations or only 1 of the driver's team radios. As I posted above, both drivers were asked to maintain the same lap times (1:33) in the same lap (Lap no: 39). So, the team was actually trying to help Perez (race leader) by asking Max to maintain the same lap time. Checo was even told that he is free to push in Lap 43, with no such directive for Max.

Redbull rightly allowed both drivers to push and slightly favored Perez to get the best possible team result. None of the drivers listened to the team orders and were making faster lap times than the requested time by the team. Max slowed down in the final few laps to get the batteries charged and pushed for the fastest lap and he was successful. Luckily unlike earlier Hotstar/Sky coverage, we now can see live races with different driver options, an F1 tv commentary option instead of biased Sky commentary, multiviewer app with an F1 TV subscription.

[rdtechy]

I had such high hopes for this race but that safety car kinda ruined it. The sad thing is that it only needed to be a VSC imo as Lance was already parked away from the track and no marshall would have had to enter the track (which is when you'd need the actual safety car).

The whole musical chairs with the final podium place was quite comical but in the end I am very happy that Fernando got to keep his 100th podium.

This is going to be a very lackluster season at the top but very exciting in the midfield once we get going. I do think RB are a bit too strong to catch but the fact that AM, Merc and even Ferrari are there if/when they slip up can be exciting. The battle for P2 and below will be a great fight if Alpine also manage to get in there a bit more.

Heartbreaking as a Ferrari fan because it just doesn't seem like the car has it, which is a shame because it 'looks' like the fastest car on the planet.

The whole Max vs Checo thing is a bit overblown IMO, you heard every driver that was behind or ahead of the team mate plead their case, only difference here was neither RB drivers listened to the team and went for it.

Looking forward to the more 'traditional' tracks after Albert Park, but the fact that there are so many 'outlier' tracks nowadays, they can't really be called outlier anymore.

And praise be for Alex Jacques, Jolyon Palmer and David Coulthard. Hearing commentary without 'God Save The King' playing in the background is refreshing!

[Hatari]

Originally Posted by drmohitg

Perez is not at the same level as Max in that redbull car. To make life difficult, he misses on qualifying. And in the rare instances when he does start at the front, he always has a horrible start. And more often then not loses the lead in first 2 corners. He was lucky yesterday that there wasn't another safety car or else Max would have toasted him.

Max is absolutely flawless in that car. Its almost becoming robotic like Hamilton.

Agree, but Perez was very impressive last evening. Unfazed when he was being hunted.

And wasnt he unlucky with the 1 safety car to begin with?

[aim120]

Leaving aside the Scottish accent of David Coultard, he sucks up nicely to RedBull and Max.
Why, because he still does Redbull events with their v10 F1 cars and after every single race he gets a free ride aboard Max Verstappen personal jet. Plenty of plane spotters youtube channels show him boarding Max private jet in every race David Coultard is present.

Checo and Stroll have their own jet. While other F1 drivers, Team principle, Adrian Newey use F1 team jet or charted jet.

[amitoj]

When the most excitement from a race comes from stewards' flip flops and over enthusiasm, you can tell how uneventful and boring the race was. Kudos to the commentators who tried their best to generate interest, to the extent that they were hyping up the battle for the last place towards the finish line.

Only positive takeaway for me was to see Aston Martin, specially Alonso, continue its form, even though the other AM had to retire.

[Joeboy]

After last year's Brazilian GP the relationship between Max and Perez has soured but it was played down by the team to the media. Max does not like perez and he was cribbing after the race that he is not there to finish 2nd and did not congratulate Perez. So unprofessional and childlike behaviour from Max. Unfortunately this year it seems that he will take another championship victory and so another boring season is on the cards.

[adwaith]

Originally Posted by amitoj

When the most excitement from a race comes from stewards' flip flops and over enthusiasm, you can tell how uneventful and boring the race was. Kudos to the commentators who tried their best to generate interest, to the extent that they were hyping up the battle for the last place towards the finish line.

Only positive takeaway for me was to see Aston Martin, specially Alonso, continue its form, even though the other AM had to retire.

Not to mention that the battle for 15th, 16th and 17th was the biggest highlight. Everyone else were practically in a queue. Even the safety car did nothing but take Stroll out of the race.

Originally Posted by aim120

Leaving aside the Scottish accent of David Coultard, he sucks up nicely to RedBull and Max.

Some of his questions to Checo at the post race interview didn't sit right with me.

Hamilton is really disgruntled with Mercedes and for obvious reasons. His 8th might not become a reality and I fear that he might go the Vettel way.

But it's Leclerc I really feel bad for. Ferrari seems to struggling with the same problem as Mercedes last year. Results in the wind tunnel aren't translating on track. Hopefully Vassuer will turn things around by the end of the season.

[ninjatalli]

Originally Posted by adwaith

Even the safety car did nothing but take Stroll out of the race.

Err, no. It did a lot more - playing havoc with the pit stop strategies and being beneficial to a few (Verstappen, Alonso, Hamilton, etc) and detrimental to others (both Ferraris, nearly for Perez, etc). But agree otherwise, overall the race was boring with respect to most drivers. Without the safety car, we might definitely have got to see a fight between Leclarc and Verstappen for sure (same for Sainz and Verstappen). He got a nice lift over those who took the pitstop prior to the safety car.

[saats07]

Originally Posted by ninjatalli

This video says it all!

Joe Verstappen's sore loser reaction

What a parent to have - no wonder Max acts the (selfish) manner he does when it comes to being a team player. The on board commentary was worth hearing towards the end

t

I recently saw another video from different angle where Jos congratulates Perez. This video cuts short when Perez moves towards Jos and he congratulates Perez.

However what I didnt see was Max congratulating Perez. Even in cooldown room I only saw him congratulating Alonso but not Perez, may be it happened off camera, but didnt see it on camera.