2024 F1 General Discussion Thread

I can see McLaren being close and Ferrari. Aston MIGHT but it is a big question. Mercedes have to be closer, they really have to, they have barked on enough about this new car concept so they have no excuses now.

Don’t see anything other than another straightforward enough championship for Max. RB are years ahead of everyone with this car and as a driver he’s peerless right now.

Would love for McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes to push them closer this year though and have a car capable of winning races - even if they can’t catch Max, they’re the 3 most interesting driver combinations on the grid, watching those teams compete for race wins against eachother could be great entertainment.

I'd disagree with the RB car being way ahead tbh. I think they only had a slightly faster car than everyone else last season. The reasons they finished so far ahead IMO:

• They had no single rival. Several teams had the second fastest car at different points in the season, so no one team was able to accumulate points to get anywhere near RB.
• The crew didn't make mistakes. Almost every other team had multiple instances of crappy pit stops or strategy calls. I don't remember this happening to RB.
• Car reliability was excellent.
• Max is a beast. In a field of equal machinery I don't think anyone could beat him to a championship at the moment.

So basically a perfect storm allowed them to run away with the championship, not some uber-dominant car that was miles faster than the rest.

"I'd disagree with the RB car being way ahead tbh. I think they only had a slightly faster car than everyone else last season. The reasons they finished so far ahead IMO:"

I disagree with that. Even when Ferrari or anyone else got ahead of Red Bull by getting a pole for instance Max still managed to come through and win.

The only time any driver from any other team won was at Ferrari and it was Carlos at Singapore only because the track was the only one that did not suit the Red Bull.

I don't really see much difference from last year. Look they'll never be able to go all the way back to a very silver heavy livery unless the Mercedes-Benz team pulls out and makes McLaren their defacto works team again. It's a testament to their success that they have a healthy number of sponsors on the car compared to 5 or 6 years ago.

It's a testament to Zac Brown there I think...

It won every race but one. Some of those races they finished almost a pit stop ahead, and the others they were managing the pace.

It’s EXACTLY like the 2004 Ferrari or the dominant Merc. If you just use Perez for your point…you are blissfully ignoring what Max was doing.

This is baffling.

And it won the Qatar race, yeah it was a really terrible car and it only JUST won all those races…

whatever you say.

As previous seasons have shown, Max is really the only driver capable of handling the characteristics of the RB. Perez won races in this car, by the way, so your point isn’t making sense.

Jesus, not this again...

At this rate it will be all street circuits soon...

Yeah and it's usually crap. Old guard should mean nothing if its not entertaining.

With that said, I'm not a huge fan of street circuits. Some are fine. Baku is usually pretty good. If they're designing a street circuit, I really hope they've got it right this time. Otherwise its replacing one dud with another.

I wonder will Formula E race on that new circuit too. It would suit them.

Heading to Barcelona next season so glad to get that in before it gets axed.

Definitely feels like they’ve gone over the tipping point for street circuits though. Presume it’s the cheaper option for cities looking to cash in on F1. It’s a shame because there’s a few actual tracks that I’d love to see back on the calendar.

Yep that’s the case, which I think is crazy, but thankfully it’s a trip with herself so I’ll manage until we get back to Barcelona in the evening, will make it a cheaper trip anyway!

You pine for the 20th century but we're almost a quarter of the way through the 21st. There needs to be a balance in my view and we should start looking to visiting venues every second or even 3rd year and capping the season at 20 a year. If it gets as high as a 26 race calendar, that's the equivalent of a Grand Prix every fortnight all year around.

That is a genuinely horrific name, to the point their shoukd be some rule against a team name being that terrible.

Even just VCA RB would be tolerable, but that... Unbelievable.

Terrible name. I can see the commentators with there jokes now. Here comes Visa dont forget visa, Well Tom are a you a Visa or a Mastercard guy? oh Mastercard all the way for me Dav lol.

"Riccardo and Tsnouda are off the Keto diet because they have plenty of V-CARBs."

Ah, that's interesting but you can't avoid the conservative instinct of the average F1 fan. Fans supported Australia being the first race of the year. It's boring and a terrible race pretty much every year, but they didn't like it losing its place as first race of the year. Similar to Barcelona. Terrible race pretty much guaranteed, but, it's what fans are used to so they don't like to see it drop off the calendar. Las Vegas is even tackier than Monaco so once its been on the calendar a decade I'd imagine fans would hate to see it removed.

If the survey asked how entertaining each race is, distinct from how attached they are to the races, the results could be very different.

Visa Cash app RB, that's some mouthful.