2024 F1 General Discussion Thread

Newey is of retirement age and they've been succession planning for this for years. You can find interviews going a good few years back from Horner and from Newey himself talking about how Adrian's been stepping more and more away from the frontline and Pierre Wache (who has been Technical Director since 2018) and his team have been doing the vast majority of the design work with Newey pitching in here and there. For all the drama the media have tried to create around it, the reality looks far more relaxed when you see that someone like Max, who's never been one to mince words, is not overly concerned.

I get that the Williams is not a great car at the moment and he's very loyal, but at some point Vowles is going to have to do something about Sargent... He's going backwards...

If Kimi Antonelli becomes available on a 2.5 year deal say, he should jump at it.

Presumably if you're Mercedes you wait to try to get Verstappen. And if you're sainz you wait to see if Verstappen doesn't go, then they'll take you.

Everyone would be mad not to follow the process. If max goes to Mercedes then Sainz is out of luck.His only options are poor teams. But he hasyo bet on Mercedes.

If Max heads to Mercedes, do you not think Carlos would be top of the list to replace him?

Max will not leave Red Bull. He would be mad too and even crazier to go to Mercedes. As someone else said before its been 3 years now and Mercedes are still none the wiser on how to get there car to work good. It's still a donkey of a car 3 years after the new regs came in. Of course there is the new regs from 2026 but for this year year and next year Max would be wise to stay where he is to get these two WDCs anyway and he will have 5 WDCs then which is more than Vettel but not quiet to Schumacher or Hamilton level yet. After the new Red Bull Ford engine comes in then it will be interesting to see what happens will Red Bull continue winning or be on the back foot like Mclaren Honda were from some years back?

Magnussen got 2 penalty points for yeeting Sargent in last night's race which puts him on 5 for the weekend and 10 total. He'll need to be very careful that he doesn't get another 2 or he'll get a 1 race ban.

Does make me wonder - if he did something to attract penalty points in the middle of a race weekend, does the ban apply for same weekend's race? Or subsequent race?

Why were some of the Mclaren pit crew in yellow jumpsuits?

Awe OK. Is it the same on every team then? Never noticed before.

great to see mclaren getting back to the front of the grid, hope this continues, rb dominance is getting a bit tiring now!

For those who are fans of both F1 and Lego…

https://www.lego.com/en-ie/product/aston-martin-safety-car-amr23-76925

Hopefully it means a big scale version of the AM on the way also.

I was watching some of the Italian F4, the commentary mentioned an announcement soon about Antonelli but stopped himself from saying anything, could Sargeant be getting the boot? . At around 25 minutes in he says it

Yeah he isn't 18 until mid August but apparently the FIA received a request to grant him the super licence as he already has the points. He's had 4 top 10 finishes and one retirement in 6 races, his results have been a lot better than Bearman. If you are good enough to accumulate the points then you should be given the super license. There's also F2 on at Imola next weekend

Leclerc is getting a new race engineer starting at Imola, I'm going to miss hearing "we are checking"

Nah, I reckon if he sticks with the form he's had last 2 races he'll keep his vcarb seat. But his chance for red bull is surely over.

I was starting to.believe after he got a new chassis and immediately out performed yuki.

But a great result in the sprint followed by nothing in the grand prix..... I don't know.

He was class. But couldn't handle or didn't want to handle the pressure of red bull becoming max's team. If he had stayed put he'd have a few more wins to his name and possibly would have been in a better position to challenge max at start of last season, but unlikely to have actually beaten him.

Still, he's extremely popular and has made a hell of a lot of money, he'll be grand.

I think you're missing the point that he's not good anymore. He's not pushing to the limit of his ability and falling short. He's not able to push to the limit of his ability anymore.

I think he's just finished. I wonder if he just re evaluated his life and realised he's grand and doesn't have to push himself to the limit anymore.

Hard to explaina guy who was class and made a fortune, lost his place in F1, came back and was not really good enough. All in his prime years.

How do you know he's not pushing to the limit of his ability & falling short? How do you know he's not able to push to the limit of his ability? Do you know the limit of his ability? Sure he hasn't had great performances, I recall reading an article somewhere when he moved to McLaren and he was saying the biggest difference between Red Bull, Renault & McLaren was braking and he is having to adapt to a car which behaves differently under braking, he could be trying to still get used to this.

I don't have an explanation for it but if you go back and watch quali from Monaco 2018, highlights are on youtube, it's like watching a different driver. Maybe he has just lost his confidence during the Mclaren stint and never got it back.

I agree that he's no where near as good as he used to be. The point I'm trying to make is we don't know why Ricciardo has fallen from grace so spectacularly, but you have flat out said he's not able to push to the limit of his ability anymore - how do you know this?

I refined the position in my last post. Either his level of ability has changed or he can't reach his level of ability anymore, or maybe he just can't adapt to the cars anymore.

What other possibilities are there?

Watching the Monaco historique race, it's some shambles of a race

true, and i would give some young driver a chance at getting a seat.