F1 2023 thread

It's ok. Lawrence will leave a tennis racket under the tree for him.

Bottas is only there to make up numbers at this stage, it's about time he left and let a seat free up someone else

All this madness with Massa and now caught the eye of Mercedes it seems.

I really can't comprehend all of this, it is truly bizarre.

After Lawson getting into the groove, will he stay at least for Suzuka? 2024 he put down his card and will be hard to ignore.

I'd caution getting too excited. DeVries put down a good marker in Monza last year and look how that went. AT are getting a change at the top as well next year with Franz Tost retiring.

Was listening to BBC Chequered Flag Podcast qualifying review and within that Andrew Benson said something very concerning. He reckons once the Strolls get over their delusion that Lance will ever be a World Champion, Lawrence will sell the team to the Saudis.

Did not hear anything. Lawson is doing a great gradual improvement without breaking things. Giovanazzi was similar then started breaking things.

Why is that concerning? The Saudis have already bought into F1. Stroll is just a money man. He's not a designer or engineer or anything.

Interestingly, Stroll has been in F1 since the 90s so he might be committed to F1 for himself, even if Lance isn't his driver.

My ethical viewpoint about Saudi Arabia and how it flexes it's muscles in the men's sports mostly. Look at how many world famous soccer players are linked to Saudi money these days.

They're already bought into F1. Or to put it the other way, F1 has already sold out to The Saudis.

Sportswashing works.

Hilariously I wondered how old he was and thought he was 30, but he is only 25. He did some great rides like Turkey some years ago, he scored podiums and so on. I think he deserves his place in F1 and he is still young as weird as it sounds as he is also amongst the most experienced drivers ever. For now he is the driver that fits Aston, this can change quickly.

If Stroll Snr is serious about Aston Martin being competitive then he's going to have to eventually evaluate his sons position, they went from looking very good to finish atleast P3 in the constructors but Lance pissed away their early season advantage. With 7 races left and Mclaren only 70 odd points behind in the constructors championship Aston could also be leapfrogged by them which at the start of the season was unthinkable. But Lance ain't going nowhere for obvious reasons.

He's only had 5 teammates (aside from temporary covid replacements and the like who he has generally beatan) - of those he was neck and neck with Massa and scored a podium despite being a rookie in a poor car, he beat Sirotkin, he was behind Perez (who had also beaten both Hulkenberg and Ocon repeatedly for the previous 4 years and was well embedded in that team before Stroll arrived), and then in the last two years he lost to the two most talented drivers of their era by far - there's only one or two drivers on the grid who would have had a chance of coming out on top there.

He also won the championship in every Formula he competed in prior to F1, he's scored multiple podiums in midfield cars, and a pole position in tough wet conditions without a top car too. He gets ridiculously harsh judgement because of who his father his and he has no doubt had many advantages from that, but in reality he's never looked like bottom 20% in his time in F1.

He was nowhere near "neck and neck" with Massa. Massa out qualified him by an average of 0.7 seconds over the season. The only reason he was anywhere close wrt points scored was because of Massa's bad luck, such as Baku where he would have won the race but for a mechanical, ironically resulting in Stroll getting his much lauded first podium.

Sirotkin beat Stroll 13-8 in qualifying. Stroll beat him 9-8 in races where they both finished. So he was on a very similar level to a rookie pay driver, who rightly didn't keep his seat for more than one year.

Perez is an average driver. Can't hang with the best, as has been proven by Max. He was on a very similar level to Hulk. In their time as team mates Hulk beat him 35-24 in quali, 23-22 in race finishes. Ocon also got the better of him in their second year together. Yet Perez had no problems dominating Lance.

Vettel was already past his prime at Ferrari, being beaten by an inexperienced team mate.

Alonso is on the decline too at his age. I highly doubt Ocon would have gotten nearly so close to 2012 Fernando.

So in short, in his seven years in F1 (assuming he makes it to the end of this one) he'll have only once (barely) beaten a team mate. Has there ever been a driver with a worse record?