F1 2023 thread

Red Bull need a driver to replace Perez in 2025. Tsunoda and Ricciardo don't look good enough to step up to the main team. Lawson needs more seat time to prove himself. He's going to waste another year on the side-lines by the looks of it. It would make sense to loan him out to Williams for a year or two.

Williams must be on the lookout for a new driver for next year. Sergeant isn't confirmed as far as I know, and he is doing a Mick Schumacher on it this year, not fast and causing a lot of expensive crash damage.

Agree completely. Ricciardo is a popular driver who beat Max at one stage and has race wins. Feels like an age in racing terms since he had form though. The win in 2021 was a big exception in a year Norris had the better of him. His confidence seemed shot at McClaren in 2022.

Looks past it as you say but given the longevity of some drivers these days and the ability of some in the lower half of the grid, don’t see why he can’t earn a place on the grid for a while yet.

Along time ago since ricciardo was in the red bull but he was successful in Renault.

The mclaren was a write off but he looked OK in the AT until his injury so jury is still out.

So max can win the title in the sprint race in 2 weeks time

I've looked it up now, the last time someone won the title on a Saturday was at the '82 Caesar's Parking Lot GP.

You'd think that but the second red bull seat is a bit toxic. If you look at the drivers who have failed in that seat but we they're good drivers because they do well elsewhere after being dropped in ignominy. Gasley and Albon spring to mind form recent years. But then there's Ricciardo, Vettel and now Perez.

Who was the last driver who actually excelled in the second seat? Webber is probably the last one.

Ferrari are poor in lots of regards but they are getting decent results from both drivers. Sainz was probably behind Leclerc but he's done well to get ahead of Leclerc as this season progressed. Mercedes are getting good performances from both drivers. Same with mclaren.

I think red bull need to look at their own systems and how they can support both drivers. I'd say Lawson would be swallowed up if he went to the Red Bull second seat, no matter how good he is or how much potential he has.

How come Red Bull were allowed send there second car with Perez back out after retiring it? Surely this should be illegal and not allowed.

I am sure there will be a lot of teams not too happy that they done that.

I guess they are unhappy the for reasons about serving the penalty, but I wouldn't have thought that sending a fixed car back out is beyond the realm of possibility.

I thought that happened back in the days of high dnf where you could get back in the points by finishing.

Will see how they address it anyway.

The 107% rule relates solely to qualifying no? Not sure if it also impacts the race but don't think so

Think you have to complete 90% of the race distance to be classified. Remember in the 90s you'd often have nom classified finishers.

I take your word for it on the 90% rule. I'll the 90s and 00s you also had cars classified who retired a few laps from the end. How that worked was always a mystery to me (and the commentators as I recall)

Thats simple, they got classiffied by virtue they could have done say 68/70 laps yet you could have cars finish the race 3 or 4 laps down, thus finishing only on their lap 66/67.

So the car that managed 68 laps would have to be classed ahead of the ones that only did 66/67