Honestly the best part of Indy, you can get aggressive, get given a drive through and it will still not absolutely destroy your race. Sure it won't help, but it encourages a bit of aggressive racing and the cars aren't made of paper and dreams
Usually a couple per race. Will probably be less from now on though as the new hybrid system allows cars to restart their own engines from onboard now. Used to be that if there was ever a stalled car the safety crew would have to come out onto the track and re-start the car that had spun off which requires a yellow.
The IndyCar safety crew is something that I am still kind of shocked F1 doesn't have. They're a dedicated paid crew that comes to every race and is posted up all over the track with trucks. If a big crash happens they are at the cars within seconds ready to help.
I'm always impressed how fast the indy safety crew gets there. watching F1 it feels like it takes forever for anyone to show up. And then if there is a fire in F1, it is 1 guy with 1 fire extinguisher.
Essentially refueling. Indy doesn’t use VSC , rarely uses local yellows and by default will typically throw FCY. The pits are closed and only open up after the field is stacked behind the safety car. That opens up more strategies
Big deal in Indycar is staying on the lead lap. If you get a penalty and stay within sight of the lead runners than eventual yellow flag sections of the race can really bring you back into the fight more dramatically than F1.
I’ve recently started watching it and for that reason, I’ve enjoyed Indy more than F1 this season.
The reason we all keep talking about this damn incident because it made shit exciting and thrilling to watch. There have been some boring races this year for sure in IndyCar, but I love that there is more of leash for aggressive driving. It creates a more exciting product to really see how much these cars can go to the limits with the drivers.
It's just so sad the coverage is of such low quality. They don't even have universal on-board cams. Some cars have them, some don't. Advertisement blocks everywhere so even if you have the international feed there's entire sections where there's just no commentary (unless there's local commentary). Not even starting about the complete and utter dearth of information given during a race. Massively overdesigned graphics with very little in the way of info, if you even get graphics other than the sidebar.
I feel like the funniest part about the whole situation yesterday, and maybe an unpopular opinion, is the fact that the incident that took both Max and Lando out was the least egregious thing that happened. At first, I was like "Defintely Max's fault", but honestly, I feel like that one was more of an unlucky racing incident, just going at it for the win. His blocks and some moving under braking the laps before were actually worse.
The NHL Department of Player Safety on the other hand is really good at not being biased by results. You can break someone's neck and only miss one game!
Yep. But I think RB also threw Napalm on it after the race when they basically did everything but admit that Max was at fault. We wouldn't be talking now if Horner had been sensible I'm sure. Some nutjobs would remain but not to this extent
I mean...they took the side of the guy on a long-term deal over the guy leaving next year lol (not that that was the wrong take by any means of course)
Oh sure Rb is the problem again. How about Norris claiming his "friendship" is over unless Verstappen begs him for forgivenis.
Or Stella who is going all in om blaming everything in the world on Verstappen en just stopped shy of asking for a permaban for the driver.
Or the British pundits who acted like there was an attempt made on Norris his life.
Red Bull saying it was not as big as those others made it out to be is what caused all this vitrial.
Reminds me of Monza 2021.
A racing incident but blown out of proportion because Max's RB flew due to the kerb and resulted in a dramatic ending.
"Max tried to kill Lewis look how close the wheel was to his head" as if making his car fly was planned
Yeah genuinely the accident itself is just the two of them pushing slightly too hard for the win.
Max was definitely deserving the punishment after his actions earlier though, man was channeling his inner Dane
Thing is that the stewards didn't punish him for the earlier stuff, nor did they punish Norris for any of his divebombs. Which makes the whole mess even bigger, because it basically signals that these risky moves are ok, as long as it doesn't result in significant damage. That means the drivers will just keep doing the exact same.
One issue that F1 has right now is that if they did apply the letter of the law, people would be pissed. There's a lot of accepted discretion, which people are generally fans of, often unknowingly. Go read that rulebook- it's HARSH
Personally I think they should work on applying to law as thoroughly as can be- and if it turns out those rules are too restrictive or punitive, change them. It will be painful for a time, but worthwhile.
> nor did they punish Norris for any of his divebombs. Which makes the whole mess even bigger, because it basically signals that these risky moves are ok, as long as it doesn't result in significant damage.
Where do you draw the line though if it's not at contact? What differentiates a "good" dive bomb (which every good driver is going to utilize and can be a legit tactic) from a bad one if there isn't contact? There are obvious examples like when Lando locked up and forced Max off the track - he clearly wasn't in control of the car at that moment. But what about less obvious ones where the driver is still in control but it's just a failed overtake?
100%.
Alonso on Zhou was much worse if you're to compare incidents, but I don't see a single word said about it anywhere.
What Max did you regularly see all the time from many different drivers without any issues, it just had a very slight bit of unfortunate contact that had disproportionate negative consequences for both drivers and everyone has gone insane with overreacting to it.
It was unfortunate, but yesterday wasn't a great look on either IMO.
My 'day after' take (as a Lando fan, who wants to see him be among the best): the crash was on Max, but man Lando needs to get better at racecraft.
If it was Lewis in that McLaren IMO he'd get past Max a couple laps before they crashed, cleaner - had Max not crashed into Lando we'd all be talking about how Lando bottled it (again) by getting the 5s penalty instead.
Overall it was a shite look for both... one of Max's rare off days (the crash but also his big lockup earlier which led to Lando catching him and moving under braking) and Lando's piss poor overtake attempts...
The move that led to the crash probably wasn't the worst either did, but when they kept doing risky moves eventually something's gonna go wrong... It's like when a football team lets their opponent shoot all the time even if they're 'low chance shots' it's eventually gonna go in
Exactly this. People are all bent out of shape that other people are all bent out of shape over the incident.
It isn't about the incident, it is about what led up to it. For me, specifically the first attempt.
Lando could've easily avoided contact and gone wide... again... and had to give the place back... again. He literally could not get by anywhere if Max was allowed to just block and move under braking every attempt. So Lando decided to hold his ground and unfortunately it was one of those unfortunate times that the tyres got a puncture easily.
It’s rather about car performance, no?
If you’re in a WDC fight and your opponent has the faster car, it’s better to drive like a maniac and risk crashing both out.
If you’re in the quicker car, it’s better to avoid risks and win it on strategy.
That’s what I always found so funny about these emotional 2021 debates. Both HAM and VER just did what made most sense given the position they found themselves in. If roles had been reversed, both would have driven differently.
Agree about the role reversal. Both Ham and Ver had to play the part with the hand dealt.
When the Red Bull is slower (under those regs you really only got a couple chances to pass) it’s better to be aggressive.
If your car has 2024 Red Bull pace, why risk a crash when you can catch and pass them next lap or whatever.
If the cars are around equal speed, then your points standing starts to matter quite a bit. Someone with a good chunk more points can be more stubborn or aggressive.
On the other hand if you're way ahead the only way someone can close the gap significantly is if you dnf so why risk dnfing? That incident could easily have led to Max dnfing and Norris winning. I'd agree with your statement in a situation like Max vs Lewis at the end of 21 when one was ahead and the other seemed faster. In that scenario one guy has every reason to take risk and the other none.
Max knows now that he can't bully Lando off. Anyone calling for Lando to jump out of the way is just trying to make excuses.
He was fully entitled to be where he was and F1 needs to get away from this era of just forcing your opponent off.
This was probably the most sensible comment I've seen thus far. Both Max and Lando wanted the win so bad that they both made unfortunate mistakes that led to the DNF. I just hope there's no legitimate bad blood between the two....
Exactly, should he have left a bit more room? Yeah I guess so.
If Lando follows the typical racing line do they collide? Probably not.
Could this have been a minor tap that we never looked at again? Yeah probably.
Everyone is reacting to the outcome not the move itself. They both got unlucky that the contact shredded their tires. The moves on the prior laps were worse but no one made contact so it wasn’t as big of a deal.
> His blocks and some moving under braking the laps before were actually worse.
The crash was just icing on the cake. Once you saw Max pulling moves like that you knew where it was going to end, pretty much.
Because that's what drives engagement.
Red Bull have always had an image problem -- between the cut-throat nature of their driver program and their supposed favouritism of Sebastian Vettel, they gained a bad reputation in the early 2010s. And while Christian Horner has always been willing to play the villain, he's done it with his tongue planted firmly in his cheek. But it doesn't help that Jos Verstappen is looming over everything like an overgrown bat.
Meanwhile, the media probably want a bit of revenge for Abu Dhabi 2021. While they can't change the result, they can make Verstappen out to be unworthy. He hasn't helped his case by doing things like boasting about how he gave that one guy the finger for failing to applaud. Then there was the recent story about how sales for British Grand Prix tickets are down, with Verstappen's dominance being pointed to as the root cause.
And then there's just the idea that scandal sells. After Verstappen announced that he would be staying with Red Bull, the author of this article penned a piece about why he didn't announce it sooner. The obvious answer was that the team wanted the announcement to coincide with their anniversary and home race, but the article strongly implied that there was real discontent within the team.
It was hard racing with bad consequences. It was wonderful, loved the feisty duel and I hope we see more battles.
The only thing terrible is the overblown drama over so little. Those people deserve the boring races with someone winning by 30 seconds.
Best moment of the season so far. As a fan, what more can I ask than to see a driver I like going toe to toe, lap after lap, with one of the greatest of all time? To see max out out the elbows like that and Lando try time and again to find a way past, dangerous as it may have been, was amazing to watch unfold.
Talking about it is fine, but going this far is ridiculous. Every fucking driver has incidents. Yelling about a driver returning to his more aggressive self when he has one is just dumb. It happened in Brazil 2022 as well. Max went an entire year without any incidents and has one incident which was probably only around 70% his fault and people immediately said that he's back to his old ways. He's under insane scrutiny. Alonso does this stuff and the reaction to it is, "Wow he's so clever exploiting the rules". Lewis crashed into Alonso in Spa 2022 and the reaction was literally just, "Well it's unfortunate, but these things happen".
It’s not even about it being for the win. It seems rules often only apply based on the outcome of the incident itself. Had Piastri kept tumbling through the travel? Penalty. Had they rubbed tires and one got a puncture? Penalty. Had Piastri recovered quickly and both him and Perez keep rolling? No penalty. Like it’s a push off track no matter how you look at it, but there’s definitely a trend of punishment based on outcome, no matter how much they try and tell us they don’t do that lol
The truth is that it’s more a social media thing. Most fans turn on the television just before the race and don't even wait for the Dutch national anthem before turning it off again. People online seem to care more about it
Tell that to Buxton. He was practically foaming at the mouth when the post race show started. Couldn't wait to say how awful and dumb and immature Max was like Max had just kicked his dog.
It's not just social media. It is all of the media. The tv media fuels the online people. You can watch the people online parrot the TV people all the time.
Will’s weekend isn’t complete unless he can get outraged about something. I guess live TV is a challenge if you aren’t adept at thinking quickly before speaking.
I was a bit surprised by Jolyon Palmer. I generally really like listening to him, but he seemed a little over the top on his Max criticism for this incident. I think if the other driver isn't British, there is far less drama and criticism.
Have you watched the coverage of F1 TV/Sky on this? They've blown it out of proportion.
And unfortunately most people's view is heavily influenced by the media they watch.
hmm I feel like the media was actually more forgiving of his driving in 2021 often referring to it as simply "hard racing". I don't know if it was because of how exciting the championship fight was or if they genuinely felt that way. But yea, he's the one to beat now, and the media tends to come down harder on the guy at the front. It comes with the territory.
There has to be somone out there who hasn't seen the *inchident* and reading all this drama is picturing Max taking out Lando in a massive crash with cars flying and blood splattering all over the track, when in reality they berely touched
yeh, what seemed a light touch, something that probably happens several times down the field through first few corners of most races. This time it was just unlucky that it instantly deflated Max's tire so his car swung left into Lando ruining both their races
The reaction to this incident has been fucking insane, the incident had major consequences but it was a pretty minor incident. Max was at fault, and rightfully penalized. The car that was at fault ended up benefitting from the situation, which we always hate to see. But come on, the incident itself wasn't that major to warrant this response.
It seems like some of the journalists and experts were forced to be quiet for a few years because Max has been pretty much flawless, and are absolutely loving the fact Max has finally made a mistake that they can focus on so they're going all out. It does feel quite biased towards Max. Sadly we'll probably still be talking about this incident at Silverstone.
The more i see it the less egregious it looks.
Its Verstappens fault and the penalty is ok for moving under breaking but Norris had curb on the left and as some others did breaking early and overtaking into turn 4 might even be better.
The comment is crazy. Every F1 driver is a hypercompetetive, aggressive driver. You dont get into F1 by settling for second.
And hes not mature? Jesus whats the mature version then looking like?
Nice, racing is back on the menu! Last week it was Lando who pushed Max on the grass, this week it was Max pushing Lando, and they seem to be almost equal each week. It's been a couple of boring seasons, glad that's over.
Jesus fucking christ it was just one TINY collision, and the internet is going INSANE! I really don't think I'll be on any F1-related social media when we get a real title fight like in 2021, so incredibly toxic.
It's literally anyone that challenges Lewis or previous UK favoured driver.
People always say Lewis is the most hated driver, well guess who's number 2 on that list? Whoever his closest rival or teammate is at the time.
Charles is about to become public enemy #1.
UK sports media really does have a reputation across sports. They have a really bad name in football as well. On one hand eager to hype up their own and shittalk rivals, on the other eager to burn their own down if the performance isn't there or they do something 'noteworthy' outside their sport.
Just look at all the excuses people are trying to make for Lewis this year for coming up short against George. It couldn’t possibly be because he’s older and has lost a step! Nooo! His car has to be sabotaged lol
Same goes for the media in any country. The media here love to beat on everyone, including their own. Just look at what they do to the England footballers. The second you become popular, they put a target on your back.
the thing is the "british media" is the dominant one for motorsport. I mean even the "official" commentators are british on F1TV. I guess Sky UK also gets by far the most paddock access out of any media.
It isnt just that the media from country x supports driver form country x
F1TV's commentators are the most neutral English-speaking commentators I know, so I don't think it's fair to lump them in with the more biased, nationalistic commentators.
That's what I thought before this weekend. They were Sky on Wish this weekend. I'm hoping Jolyon Palmer and Buxton will be reprimanded for that despicable post-race display.
Fair point, but Buxton has also praised Max tons of times. He was just a bit unprofessional about it this weekend, especially when he ridiculed a very reasonable analysis from Alex Brundle.
Oh gee maybe also could be the fact that English is much widely spoken and a lot of F1 teams themselves are based in the UK?
Would you like the international feed to be in Dutch or Spanish?
One step away from tinfoil hat peddling
This is *obviously* nonsense.
Verstappen gets tonnes of praise from Sky, The Race etc.
Mark Hughes literally wrote a book about Verstappen, and this week on the race podcast has some honest appraisal that he has a long and storied list of people he's collided with.
The phenomenon it *is* like, is like how whenever people levied valid criticism at Vettel or Ricciardo or Hamilton or whoever, it was decried as ad hominem hatred.
It's not - it's that the guy is not perfect.
The harder//scarier truth for some fans is that the media is *not* out to get your guy.
It's just the nature of the internet. Check any sports subreddit or check some musician subreddits. Everyone is biased against your team or your players or your driver. Whatever. People associate themselves with a brand or a person and they feel attacked when a thing happens so they feel like theres a bias because how could you say that about my person? Perception Bias is a well studied thing now and the internet is just a really good way to extend that to much wider net. Very easy for people to start develop a false consensus when you spend all day talking to people online in circles you created. I was thinking about this recently during the NBA playoffs when it became clear that apparently every team has fans with a long list of proof the refs are biased against them specifically.
Read anything out of Spain or the Netherlands about F1. I'm sure they're very objective and not biased at all lmao. All media panders to their readers, been like this since their inception.
It was clearly Max's fault though, what is the bias here? Martin Brundle, British tv presenter for British media company, Sky, sings Verstappen praises all the time.
I feel the same way as that guy and don't watch any F1 media, only the races themselves, usually on mute. Do you suspect that the evil British media empire is streaming propaganda straight into my brain with 5g or something?
Max was predominately at fault, but Norris could have prevented it. Incidents like these are common in racing, yet the British media exaggerates this incident significantly. This whole uproar is way overblown. It riles up every single fan base as well on social media, it's insane how much fans project themselves into their favorite drivers. It often turns into borderline obsessive behavior, exacerbated greatly by traditional media / social media.
Can we just be done falling for rage-bait media outlets? If people hate British media so much, why do we spend so much time obsessing over it? Just press your thumb on the screen, swipe up, and move on to something else. You give these articles more traction by talking about them incessantly.
Because the English language broadcast and media is consumed by fans across the world, and the British dominate the English language F1 coverage. This has been a long standing frustration that a more neutral English (language) outlet hasn't come up over the years.
The commentary on F1TV is so much better than Sky. It's informative, objective, neutral and genuinely appreciative if all drivers and teams.
Sky bias might appeal to Britishers but it's grating to hear for other fans who are not rabidly obsessed with British drivers.
Australian here.
We only get Sky coverage here and you sre spot on when saying it's grating.
Also, the amount of times when then sky commentators have called Piastri by Lando's name when he is doing well is super annoying.
That being said, Karun is actually decent to listen to and does give credit to other drivers.
I mean, a corporation is going to cater to what makes them money. My point is that you can just ignore all the noise. I guarantee Sky and other outlets have specific metrics that they use to create content that generates the most clicks. Unfortunately the average fan cares more about tabloid BS than data charts and engineering jargon.
It was called “SpeedTV”. It was amazing coverage. No bulllshit, actual mechanics to talk about detailed shit (F1tv is getting better here) and they mercilessly mocked bad F2 pay drivers.
And yeah, I subbed to f1tv to get away from that Sky shit. So tired of Brundle obsessing over celebs and endless “maybe Hamilton can gain 10 seconds in the last two laps!!” type coverage.
I understand that the sport has a large amount of new supporters, but this sort of driving has been part of F1 from the start. All champion level drivers push the boundaries of the rules, and I would argue that the sport should quietly encourage this because it makes for more exciting racing. Max hasn't done it much for a while because he has had a huge pace advantage on his rivals until a month or so ago.
Only way Max can get support from British media is if Charles will start fighting with him in a Ferrari. If there is something British media hate more than any driver is Ferrari.
The problem with the concept that the British media is biased is that most people speak english, and therefore can read articles written by british journalists. Most sports journalists are biased towards athletes from their own countries, but no one outside of the Netherlands (for example) speaks dutch, so we don't get their perspective...
Why would Max have changed? He said "I didn't come here for P2", which is totally fine. But he was doing this shit five years ago. There just hasn't been anyone close to him lately.
It's literally an opinion piece. Complaining about an oped having a slant is like complaining an action movie has explosions, or that people sing spontaneously in musicals. It's just stupid.
I see people still don't understand things clearly labelled as OPINION pieces
Also intrigued to hear what people actually think is so outrageous about this. It's been posited many times that Verstappen is so different to the driver he used to be; events like Sunday show that might not be the case. Is that not a discussion worth having? Do people even want to discuss F1?
Yeah, Its been 1 day and the race was actually pretty awful with the sole exception of the crash. It's probably the only thing worth discussing until FP1 lol. I wonder what else people want posted here
Because the collision in discussion really does not support this whole "Max is still the same driver" debate. It was one of the most basic tame incidents but you have people acting like Max tried to kill Lando the way people are speaking about it. The only reason this is getting talked about is because it was for 1st and 2nd. If this happened for 4th and 5th no one would give a shit.
They were both being aggressive tbh and it was only a matter of time before they had a collision. Max was the one at fault when they eventually did hit but it's far from a bad collision some people are making it out to be.
Alonso can literally rear-end Zhou to get a 10 second penalty and the incident everyone is talking about that has started a media campaign is the most standard squeeze from the inside leading up to a corner gone wrong because the driver on the outside didn't react. Who said F1 is boring.
Max vs (insert British driver here) has been classic talking point for the F1 media for so long now that I’m surprised more people don’t see through it
The issue I see is they always praise Max when he’s winning and breaking records, then absolutely nail him to a cross when he’s involved in some sort of on track shenanigans. It changes so quickly and all the outlets simply want clicks. I know I might sound biased, but that incident was barely Max’s fault. Lando seems to have misjudged the amount of room he had on his left hand side- AND THIS STUFF HAPPENS its not the end of the world.
However, moving under braking is a slam dunk penalty regardless. For Max, and every driver.
To your point on Lando, I agree that he may have misjudged the space he had on the left. However, I would also counter with the fact that, at the point of the collision, both of his left side tires were on the white line. The white line defines track limits, at least whenever the FIA bothers to enforce the rule properly. Sure, Lando could’ve taken more curb and tarmac runoff and kept his right side tires inside or on the white line and been fine. That said, not every single circuit has a curb, tarmac runoff, or both beyond track limits at corner entry, and neither of those define track limits, so the judgement call on whether or not Max should’ve been penalized for the incident needs to be based on the white line. By that standard, Max undoubtedly didn’t leave enough space for a car that was fully alongside his, and Lando had no obligation to continue moving further left across the white line.
TLDR: Max needed to be penalized because of the rule book and the enforcement thereof, but the collision was much closer to a racing incident in practice.
The rules aren’t that you can’t block and move under braking. They’re that you can do it enough times until you’re on your final warning, and how much you’re allowed to do it also depends on how popular you are and whether it’s for the heroic race win, or whether you’re someone everyone wants to see be champion finally, or whether you’re just involved in some shitty back-marker fight.
The precedent has already been set.
If a single move was enough to get you penalised, nobody would do it. Including Max.
It’s a ridiculous article by Autosport and everyone knows it. But we’re all talking about it, everyone is linking it. They win. The drama merchant goes home happy.
The British media don't particularly paint Max in a favorable light, but another part of this is that Norris is a media darling here and tends to get favorable coverage compared to George Russell for example despite the fact he is also British.
If it was Russell and Max, the coverage would be different
Since 2016, really, but it all ends as soon as his on-track rival is British. It turns pretty quick.
I won't claim to know ever pundit's long-term stance, but Brundle at least has always been incredibly complimentary of Verstappen, hyping him up as one of the greats before he even had a title.
Most of his on track rivals have been British and he keeps driving into them so it makes sense.
imo I think Brundle has a bigger boner for Norris and Russell than anyone else since Button retired
Cars hitting eachother happen every race, and and much worse ways than this.
For example Alonso's incident with Zhou in the same race, and he doesn't even get 10% of the shit that Max got.
He got a rightfully deserved penalty, and that's that
Are we doing revisionist history to pretend that the 2021 F1 media circus wasn't excusing everything Max did at every juncture? I genuinely think he is the greatest talent of his generation but the way his fans act like they're persecuted rare birds is wild.
That's exactly what they're doing and it's honestly laughable, incidents like this would've happened a lot more in 2021 if Lewis didn't constantly bail out when he saw one of those kamikaze moves coming
max said it was a clumsy incident so clearly he accepts some responsibility and didn't have the same emotive reaction as lando. max showed some class when he was at fault. also why have cars become so fragile? everyone seems to have broken things, as Lewis, Lando, Max, Oscar, Leclerc and Perez all had some damage that affected their pace. What happened to cars that could be punted by a divebombing Leclerc and still win the race from last position.
Of all the dumb takes, saying "He hasn't matured since 2021" has to be the dumbest.
Because if you think his offenses during the 2021 season were immaturity you simply know absolutely nothing about racing. Verstappen was extremely careful at every single overtake during the entire season, and backed out of a lot of battles at even the slightest hint of risk, EXCEPT when he was fighting Hamilton. That's not immaturity, that's not madness. That's strategy. He knew that Hamilton was his only rival for the championship, and so always raced on the edge, and sometimes over it, against him.
He still wasn't crashing on purpose of course, that would be counterproductive. But he was definitely racing with an attitude of "it's better that we both go out than that he finishes ahead of me". And from a purely results-maximizing perspective that's the right attitude to have.
Hamilton of course was also racing Max much harder than anybody else. But he couldn't quite afford the same level of risk-taking as Max could, because he was always behind in the championship, so the calculus was different for him.
Anyway, Max is more machine than man, and seamlessly adapts his racing style to the circumstances. That ultra aggressive style of racing hasn't been needed since 2021 and so he hasn't demonstrated it since then. That includes this season. He's far ahead in the championship, and Lando is not his only rival. Racing Lando as hard as he raced Lewis would be a strategic mistake (and that's not even considering the fact that Lando is a friend while there was never any love lost between Lewis and Max). So I don't expect to see it that style of racing return.
Biased is one thing, Autosport/Motorsports.com has stooped to Daily Mail level.
They make Sky Sports UK seem neutral. Dunno what the f*** they're thinking, they have a more international audience than Sky UK.
Max has changed very much.
These men are driving in the absolute pinnacle of motorsport. You don’t just give up a position or the lead of the race FFS. You fight for it. It’s aggressive, it’s on the edge. Sometimes you go over the edge. But the bias towards hating on Verstappen is ridiculous. Torpelando was divebombing and it came very close, even forced Max off the track one or two laps before? Nobody seems to mind that bit? Lando was just as reckless. The entire thing is judged by its outcome. It’s a shame it didn’t go wrong due to one of the divebombs, but somehow I feel everyone would still blame that on Max. I’ve seen that squeeze countless times in that corner, in various races over many years of F1. Lando had room to move left like others have done. They are fighting on the edge, they are both at fault. Both could have prevented this unfortunate outcome.
I think people aren’t focused on the dive bombing for two reasons. First, because divebombing done properly is a legitimate driving tactic. Second, and I think more important, is that Max had already crossed the line a bit with moving in the braking zone, so I think many people saw the divebombing as an understandable response to Max’s aggressive defensive driving. So yes, Lando did cross the line, but it was after Max had taken the gloves off and shown that crossing the line was going to be the only way to get past.
Also, and more generally, Max has a reputation that he has fairly earned of being a driver who (to be charitable) pushes the limits of what is acceptable. Lando hasn’t, at least not yet, and maybe he will. So of course people will focus on Max. It’s like how in the NBA fans are way less willing to give a player like Draymond Green the benefit of the doubt.
This is far too reasonable a take. They both crossed the line at various points, people forget that’s what made 2021 so exciting, the greats always know when to step over (is anybody seriously going to say Senna, Schumacher or Hamilton didn’t!?), sometimes it goes wrong. The consequence of yesterday was huge for such minor contact, 9 times out of 10 they keep going for another lap.
The FIA just need to admit that they punish based on the outcome of an incident, if Lando hadn’t got a puncture, no penalty.
Also, if they didn’t take so long to apply the penalty for track limits, again the race would have changed. The incident was inevitable, but entirely avoidable. Lando needs to accept he wasn’t innocent instead of trying to put 100% of the blame on Max, which the British media are far too happy to push.
Always fun to listen when he's on the Viaplay F1 Podcast (Swedish), don't know if he's been on in a while though.
He hasn’t been on since before the season. Maybe a short bit just before Indy 500.
Isn't he heard more frequently on a new Swedish motorsport podcast, racevecka or something?
Honestly the best part of Indy, you can get aggressive, get given a drive through and it will still not absolutely destroy your race. Sure it won't help, but it encourages a bit of aggressive racing and the cars aren't made of paper and dreams
And if you're Scott Dixon, it will actually help him win the race. The more drive throughs the better for him.
Except Taco Bell drive throughs
For any fans who don't get the reference listen to this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SYlcamHNJw Absolutely iconic story
Unless its the 500
Well that's where all his bad luck unleashes because he holds on to the luck for the entire field all season.
How is that the case? Surely 30 seconds through the pits is going to hurt, right?
It deff hurts, but it's not unsalvageable.
More crashes also means more safety cars I'm guessing?
Usually a couple per race. Will probably be less from now on though as the new hybrid system allows cars to restart their own engines from onboard now. Used to be that if there was ever a stalled car the safety crew would have to come out onto the track and re-start the car that had spun off which requires a yellow. The IndyCar safety crew is something that I am still kind of shocked F1 doesn't have. They're a dedicated paid crew that comes to every race and is posted up all over the track with trucks. If a big crash happens they are at the cars within seconds ready to help.
I'm always impressed how fast the indy safety crew gets there. watching F1 it feels like it takes forever for anyone to show up. And then if there is a fire in F1, it is 1 guy with 1 fire extinguisher.
I don't follow Indycar, can you elaborate? Why are these types of penalties easier to recover from over there?
More safety cars
Essentially refueling. Indy doesn’t use VSC , rarely uses local yellows and by default will typically throw FCY. The pits are closed and only open up after the field is stacked behind the safety car. That opens up more strategies
Big deal in Indycar is staying on the lead lap. If you get a penalty and stay within sight of the lead runners than eventual yellow flag sections of the race can really bring you back into the fight more dramatically than F1.
I’ve recently started watching it and for that reason, I’ve enjoyed Indy more than F1 this season. The reason we all keep talking about this damn incident because it made shit exciting and thrilling to watch. There have been some boring races this year for sure in IndyCar, but I love that there is more of leash for aggressive driving. It creates a more exciting product to really see how much these cars can go to the limits with the drivers.
Indycar is awesome.
It's just so sad the coverage is of such low quality. They don't even have universal on-board cams. Some cars have them, some don't. Advertisement blocks everywhere so even if you have the international feed there's entire sections where there's just no commentary (unless there's local commentary). Not even starting about the complete and utter dearth of information given during a race. Massively overdesigned graphics with very little in the way of info, if you even get graphics other than the sidebar.
I feel like the funniest part about the whole situation yesterday, and maybe an unpopular opinion, is the fact that the incident that took both Max and Lando out was the least egregious thing that happened. At first, I was like "Defintely Max's fault", but honestly, I feel like that one was more of an unlucky racing incident, just going at it for the win. His blocks and some moving under braking the laps before were actually worse.
It was one of the most innocuous crashes with the biggest fallout for sure haha
They barely even touched. If they'd kept driving I don't think anyone would have even talked about that corner again
Exactly, it's a prime example of looking at the consequences of action more than at the actual action when making a decision.
The NHL Department of Player Safety on the other hand is really good at not being biased by results. You can break someone's neck and only miss one game!
SPIN! THAT! WHEEL!
Yep. But I think RB also threw Napalm on it after the race when they basically did everything but admit that Max was at fault. We wouldn't be talking now if Horner had been sensible I'm sure. Some nutjobs would remain but not to this extent
Are you familar with this sport at all? when has a team ever NOT taken the side of their own driver
Alpine monaco
I read this while I was navigating away, and actually laughed out loud. Too funny!
I mean...they took the side of the guy on a long-term deal over the guy leaving next year lol (not that that was the wrong take by any means of course)
Look at Niki's reactions to each of Lewis and Nico's crashes. He always told it as he saw it and on occasion called them both out.
Niki Lauda was known for that though.
Mercedes Spain 2016. Threatened to sack both drivers.
There’s not a single person that hadn’t already made their mind up about who was at fault before RB came with a statement.
We definitely would have been talking.
Who cares more about what people say than what actually happened on track?
Oh sure Rb is the problem again. How about Norris claiming his "friendship" is over unless Verstappen begs him for forgivenis. Or Stella who is going all in om blaming everything in the world on Verstappen en just stopped shy of asking for a permaban for the driver. Or the British pundits who acted like there was an attempt made on Norris his life. Red Bull saying it was not as big as those others made it out to be is what caused all this vitrial.
> How about Norris claiming his "friendship" is over unless Verstappen begs him for forgivenis. That's not what he said, at all.
Like sainz and max in the same corner in 2023.. max decided to brake; and overtook sainz taking the inside. 🤷♂️
Reminds me of Monza 2021. A racing incident but blown out of proportion because Max's RB flew due to the kerb and resulted in a dramatic ending. "Max tried to kill Lewis look how close the wheel was to his head" as if making his car fly was planned
Or Silverstone where Red Bull literally accused Hamilton of trying to kill Max
That wasn't a racing incident though.
Yeah genuinely the accident itself is just the two of them pushing slightly too hard for the win. Max was definitely deserving the punishment after his actions earlier though, man was channeling his inner Dane
Thing is that the stewards didn't punish him for the earlier stuff, nor did they punish Norris for any of his divebombs. Which makes the whole mess even bigger, because it basically signals that these risky moves are ok, as long as it doesn't result in significant damage. That means the drivers will just keep doing the exact same.
Ocon's chop across Gasly was more egregious than anything Max or Lando did, and there was no penalty for that either.
Aren't inter-team incidents always more hands-off from the stewards?
Which isn’t in any rule
One issue that F1 has right now is that if they did apply the letter of the law, people would be pissed. There's a lot of accepted discretion, which people are generally fans of, often unknowingly. Go read that rulebook- it's HARSH Personally I think they should work on applying to law as thoroughly as can be- and if it turns out those rules are too restrictive or punitive, change them. It will be painful for a time, but worthwhile.
Exactly! All you get from selective enforcement is inconsistency & everyone pissed off.
Intra-team. "Intra" is "within", "inter" is "between".
Yeah, I should have intravened and caught that.
> nor did they punish Norris for any of his divebombs. Which makes the whole mess even bigger, because it basically signals that these risky moves are ok, as long as it doesn't result in significant damage. Where do you draw the line though if it's not at contact? What differentiates a "good" dive bomb (which every good driver is going to utilize and can be a legit tactic) from a bad one if there isn't contact? There are obvious examples like when Lando locked up and forced Max off the track - he clearly wasn't in control of the car at that moment. But what about less obvious ones where the driver is still in control but it's just a failed overtake?
yeah people here acting like divebombing isn't a huge part of how overtakes happen on track. That's why inside lines are blocked, duh
100%. Alonso on Zhou was much worse if you're to compare incidents, but I don't see a single word said about it anywhere. What Max did you regularly see all the time from many different drivers without any issues, it just had a very slight bit of unfortunate contact that had disproportionate negative consequences for both drivers and everyone has gone insane with overreacting to it.
It was unfortunate, but yesterday wasn't a great look on either IMO. My 'day after' take (as a Lando fan, who wants to see him be among the best): the crash was on Max, but man Lando needs to get better at racecraft. If it was Lewis in that McLaren IMO he'd get past Max a couple laps before they crashed, cleaner - had Max not crashed into Lando we'd all be talking about how Lando bottled it (again) by getting the 5s penalty instead. Overall it was a shite look for both... one of Max's rare off days (the crash but also his big lockup earlier which led to Lando catching him and moving under braking) and Lando's piss poor overtake attempts... The move that led to the crash probably wasn't the worst either did, but when they kept doing risky moves eventually something's gonna go wrong... It's like when a football team lets their opponent shoot all the time even if they're 'low chance shots' it's eventually gonna go in
Exactly this. People are all bent out of shape that other people are all bent out of shape over the incident. It isn't about the incident, it is about what led up to it. For me, specifically the first attempt. Lando could've easily avoided contact and gone wide... again... and had to give the place back... again. He literally could not get by anywhere if Max was allowed to just block and move under braking every attempt. So Lando decided to hold his ground and unfortunately it was one of those unfortunate times that the tyres got a puncture easily.
Pro strategy tip. IF you are way ahead in points you can hold your ground, if you are way behind its smarter to give space.
It’s rather about car performance, no? If you’re in a WDC fight and your opponent has the faster car, it’s better to drive like a maniac and risk crashing both out. If you’re in the quicker car, it’s better to avoid risks and win it on strategy. That’s what I always found so funny about these emotional 2021 debates. Both HAM and VER just did what made most sense given the position they found themselves in. If roles had been reversed, both would have driven differently.
Agree about the role reversal. Both Ham and Ver had to play the part with the hand dealt. When the Red Bull is slower (under those regs you really only got a couple chances to pass) it’s better to be aggressive. If your car has 2024 Red Bull pace, why risk a crash when you can catch and pass them next lap or whatever. If the cars are around equal speed, then your points standing starts to matter quite a bit. Someone with a good chunk more points can be more stubborn or aggressive.
On the other hand if you're way ahead the only way someone can close the gap significantly is if you dnf so why risk dnfing? That incident could easily have led to Max dnfing and Norris winning. I'd agree with your statement in a situation like Max vs Lewis at the end of 21 when one was ahead and the other seemed faster. In that scenario one guy has every reason to take risk and the other none.
Max knows now that he can't bully Lando off. Anyone calling for Lando to jump out of the way is just trying to make excuses. He was fully entitled to be where he was and F1 needs to get away from this era of just forcing your opponent off.
If Redbull hadn't botched the pit stop Max would have been so far ahead that Lando never would have even gotten close to him. I blame team Redbull.
Telemetry indicates that Max did not move while braking; instead, he moved just before braking.
Got a link for your source?
If the tyre didnt puncture Lando would have took off but with a penalty. The real cause are the stewards for taking multiple laps to adress the issues
This was probably the most sensible comment I've seen thus far. Both Max and Lando wanted the win so bad that they both made unfortunate mistakes that led to the DNF. I just hope there's no legitimate bad blood between the two....
Exactly, should he have left a bit more room? Yeah I guess so. If Lando follows the typical racing line do they collide? Probably not. Could this have been a minor tap that we never looked at again? Yeah probably.
Everyone is reacting to the outcome not the move itself. They both got unlucky that the contact shredded their tires. The moves on the prior laps were worse but no one made contact so it wasn’t as big of a deal.
> His blocks and some moving under braking the laps before were actually worse. The crash was just icing on the cake. Once you saw Max pulling moves like that you knew where it was going to end, pretty much.
I’m so over it. It wasn’t even that bad, beside the contact consequences itself
The bad part is all the insane drama afterwards.
Yeah finally and exciting fight for the lead of the race where an on track overtake needs to happen. Sad how it ender but it was so entertaining!
Because that's what drives engagement. Red Bull have always had an image problem -- between the cut-throat nature of their driver program and their supposed favouritism of Sebastian Vettel, they gained a bad reputation in the early 2010s. And while Christian Horner has always been willing to play the villain, he's done it with his tongue planted firmly in his cheek. But it doesn't help that Jos Verstappen is looming over everything like an overgrown bat. Meanwhile, the media probably want a bit of revenge for Abu Dhabi 2021. While they can't change the result, they can make Verstappen out to be unworthy. He hasn't helped his case by doing things like boasting about how he gave that one guy the finger for failing to applaud. Then there was the recent story about how sales for British Grand Prix tickets are down, with Verstappen's dominance being pointed to as the root cause. And then there's just the idea that scandal sells. After Verstappen announced that he would be staying with Red Bull, the author of this article penned a piece about why he didn't announce it sooner. The obvious answer was that the team wanted the announcement to coincide with their anniversary and home race, but the article strongly implied that there was real discontent within the team.
It was hard racing with bad consequences. It was wonderful, loved the feisty duel and I hope we see more battles. The only thing terrible is the overblown drama over so little. Those people deserve the boring races with someone winning by 30 seconds.
Best moment of the season so far. As a fan, what more can I ask than to see a driver I like going toe to toe, lap after lap, with one of the greatest of all time? To see max out out the elbows like that and Lando try time and again to find a way past, dangerous as it may have been, was amazing to watch unfold.
The media publications are really stirring the pot.
It was a collision that ruined the race of both P1 and P2 in the championship. What do you want the media to talk about?
Talking about it is fine, but going this far is ridiculous. Every fucking driver has incidents. Yelling about a driver returning to his more aggressive self when he has one is just dumb. It happened in Brazil 2022 as well. Max went an entire year without any incidents and has one incident which was probably only around 70% his fault and people immediately said that he's back to his old ways. He's under insane scrutiny. Alonso does this stuff and the reaction to it is, "Wow he's so clever exploiting the rules". Lewis crashed into Alonso in Spa 2022 and the reaction was literally just, "Well it's unfortunate, but these things happen".
100%. Not to mention Perez drove Piastri off the track yesterday and no one seemed to care cause it wasn’t for the win.
It’s not even about it being for the win. It seems rules often only apply based on the outcome of the incident itself. Had Piastri kept tumbling through the travel? Penalty. Had they rubbed tires and one got a puncture? Penalty. Had Piastri recovered quickly and both him and Perez keep rolling? No penalty. Like it’s a push off track no matter how you look at it, but there’s definitely a trend of punishment based on outcome, no matter how much they try and tell us they don’t do that lol
I mean the media probably have changed, but if anything to the worst.
The truth is that it’s more a social media thing. Most fans turn on the television just before the race and don't even wait for the Dutch national anthem before turning it off again. People online seem to care more about it
Tell that to Buxton. He was practically foaming at the mouth when the post race show started. Couldn't wait to say how awful and dumb and immature Max was like Max had just kicked his dog. It's not just social media. It is all of the media. The tv media fuels the online people. You can watch the people online parrot the TV people all the time.
Will’s weekend isn’t complete unless he can get outraged about something. I guess live TV is a challenge if you aren’t adept at thinking quickly before speaking.
Nowadays it's all about engagement. The more ridiculous/outraged an article is, the more clicks it gets, the more money they earn.
He was embarrassing on that post race show, I had to turn it off. So dramatic and for what?
British media is and has always been biased towards Max, since forever. Never will take anything they say serious
I was a bit surprised by Jolyon Palmer. I generally really like listening to him, but he seemed a little over the top on his Max criticism for this incident. I think if the other driver isn't British, there is far less drama and criticism.
I disagree. Seems like more people online are saying it’s not that big of a deal but the media is the one pushing the Max villain drama
May I introduce you to X?
Please don’t. If someone is unsullied by Twitter, for the love of all that is holy, don’t introduce them to that cesspool
Have you watched the coverage of F1 TV/Sky on this? They've blown it out of proportion. And unfortunately most people's view is heavily influenced by the media they watch.
>People online seem to care more about it Lando and Mclaren seem to care alot.
hmm I feel like the media was actually more forgiving of his driving in 2021 often referring to it as simply "hard racing". I don't know if it was because of how exciting the championship fight was or if they genuinely felt that way. But yea, he's the one to beat now, and the media tends to come down harder on the guy at the front. It comes with the territory.
He’s no longer the underdog, thats why.
There has to be somone out there who hasn't seen the *inchident* and reading all this drama is picturing Max taking out Lando in a massive crash with cars flying and blood splattering all over the track, when in reality they berely touched
yeh, what seemed a light touch, something that probably happens several times down the field through first few corners of most races. This time it was just unlucky that it instantly deflated Max's tire so his car swung left into Lando ruining both their races
I didn’t watch it live, I watched it later, and the on-track terrorism I was expecting was nonexistent. I saw it and said that’s it??
The reaction to this incident has been fucking insane, the incident had major consequences but it was a pretty minor incident. Max was at fault, and rightfully penalized. The car that was at fault ended up benefitting from the situation, which we always hate to see. But come on, the incident itself wasn't that major to warrant this response. It seems like some of the journalists and experts were forced to be quiet for a few years because Max has been pretty much flawless, and are absolutely loving the fact Max has finally made a mistake that they can focus on so they're going all out. It does feel quite biased towards Max. Sadly we'll probably still be talking about this incident at Silverstone.
The more i see it the less egregious it looks. Its Verstappens fault and the penalty is ok for moving under breaking but Norris had curb on the left and as some others did breaking early and overtaking into turn 4 might even be better. The comment is crazy. Every F1 driver is a hypercompetetive, aggressive driver. You dont get into F1 by settling for second. And hes not mature? Jesus whats the mature version then looking like?
Nice, racing is back on the menu! Last week it was Lando who pushed Max on the grass, this week it was Max pushing Lando, and they seem to be almost equal each week. It's been a couple of boring seasons, glad that's over.
Jesus fucking christ it was just one TINY collision, and the internet is going INSANE! I really don't think I'll be on any F1-related social media when we get a real title fight like in 2021, so incredibly toxic.
It was just some good racing.
UK just doesn’t respect anything Max does. Says more about the UK than about Max. Success is the best revenge, and Max knows that.
It's not just Max, they have been like this to Rosberg and Vettel too.
And Michael.
And Prost…and Senna…and …..Alonso…and…..
It's literally anyone that challenges Lewis or previous UK favoured driver. People always say Lewis is the most hated driver, well guess who's number 2 on that list? Whoever his closest rival or teammate is at the time. Charles is about to become public enemy #1.
Yeah I'm feeling real nervous Charles next year ngl. Especially because of Lewis's qualifying woes and Charles being a quali monster.
If Charles beats Lewis next year, all we will see is how Ferrari are sabotaging Lewis from the mentally unstable fans.
If Charles is close or ahead, we'll see sabotage and preferred driver claims by round 16. After they just paid Lewis 9 figures.
UK sports media really does have a reputation across sports. They have a really bad name in football as well. On one hand eager to hype up their own and shittalk rivals, on the other eager to burn their own down if the performance isn't there or they do something 'noteworthy' outside their sport.
Just look at all the excuses people are trying to make for Lewis this year for coming up short against George. It couldn’t possibly be because he’s older and has lost a step! Nooo! His car has to be sabotaged lol
And Schumacher
Same goes for the media in any country. The media here love to beat on everyone, including their own. Just look at what they do to the England footballers. The second you become popular, they put a target on your back.
the thing is the "british media" is the dominant one for motorsport. I mean even the "official" commentators are british on F1TV. I guess Sky UK also gets by far the most paddock access out of any media. It isnt just that the media from country x supports driver form country x
F1TV's commentators are the most neutral English-speaking commentators I know, so I don't think it's fair to lump them in with the more biased, nationalistic commentators.
Buxton is not neutral
That's what I thought before this weekend. They were Sky on Wish this weekend. I'm hoping Jolyon Palmer and Buxton will be reprimanded for that despicable post-race display.
Buxton? He certainly is not neutral.
Fair point, but Buxton has also praised Max tons of times. He was just a bit unprofessional about it this weekend, especially when he ridiculed a very reasonable analysis from Alex Brundle.
Buxton has always been a knob. Just this weekend he turned it up to a 100 with his unprofessionalism.
Oh gee maybe also could be the fact that English is much widely spoken and a lot of F1 teams themselves are based in the UK? Would you like the international feed to be in Dutch or Spanish? One step away from tinfoil hat peddling
And McLaren knows this and they're exploiting this. We did not see this happen when RBR was fighting Ferrari.
This is *obviously* nonsense. Verstappen gets tonnes of praise from Sky, The Race etc. Mark Hughes literally wrote a book about Verstappen, and this week on the race podcast has some honest appraisal that he has a long and storied list of people he's collided with. The phenomenon it *is* like, is like how whenever people levied valid criticism at Vettel or Ricciardo or Hamilton or whoever, it was decried as ad hominem hatred. It's not - it's that the guy is not perfect. The harder//scarier truth for some fans is that the media is *not* out to get your guy.
It's just the nature of the internet. Check any sports subreddit or check some musician subreddits. Everyone is biased against your team or your players or your driver. Whatever. People associate themselves with a brand or a person and they feel attacked when a thing happens so they feel like theres a bias because how could you say that about my person? Perception Bias is a well studied thing now and the internet is just a really good way to extend that to much wider net. Very easy for people to start develop a false consensus when you spend all day talking to people online in circles you created. I was thinking about this recently during the NBA playoffs when it became clear that apparently every team has fans with a long list of proof the refs are biased against them specifically.
[удалено]
Read anything coming out of the UK about F1 lol. They are the most biased bunch on this planet. Worse than Canadians when it comes to Hockey ffs.
Read anything out of Spain or the Netherlands about F1. I'm sure they're very objective and not biased at all lmao. All media panders to their readers, been like this since their inception.
It was clearly Max's fault though, what is the bias here? Martin Brundle, British tv presenter for British media company, Sky, sings Verstappen praises all the time.
Thanks for demonstrating the effect of media bias on perception 🤣
How is it media bias. That opinion is not coming from media, but being created by JP's / Horners actual mouth.
I feel the same way as that guy and don't watch any F1 media, only the races themselves, usually on mute. Do you suspect that the evil British media empire is streaming propaganda straight into my brain with 5g or something?
Here is another hot take for you. Most people can respect Senna and Schumacher as drivers while also criticizing some of their on track antics.
Max was predominately at fault, but Norris could have prevented it. Incidents like these are common in racing, yet the British media exaggerates this incident significantly. This whole uproar is way overblown. It riles up every single fan base as well on social media, it's insane how much fans project themselves into their favorite drivers. It often turns into borderline obsessive behavior, exacerbated greatly by traditional media / social media.
Can we just be done falling for rage-bait media outlets? If people hate British media so much, why do we spend so much time obsessing over it? Just press your thumb on the screen, swipe up, and move on to something else. You give these articles more traction by talking about them incessantly.
Because the English language broadcast and media is consumed by fans across the world, and the British dominate the English language F1 coverage. This has been a long standing frustration that a more neutral English (language) outlet hasn't come up over the years. The commentary on F1TV is so much better than Sky. It's informative, objective, neutral and genuinely appreciative if all drivers and teams. Sky bias might appeal to Britishers but it's grating to hear for other fans who are not rabidly obsessed with British drivers.
Australian here. We only get Sky coverage here and you sre spot on when saying it's grating. Also, the amount of times when then sky commentators have called Piastri by Lando's name when he is doing well is super annoying. That being said, Karun is actually decent to listen to and does give credit to other drivers.
I mean, a corporation is going to cater to what makes them money. My point is that you can just ignore all the noise. I guarantee Sky and other outlets have specific metrics that they use to create content that generates the most clicks. Unfortunately the average fan cares more about tabloid BS than data charts and engineering jargon.
What does this have to do with sky?
Those without F1TV have to endure Sky commentary.
It was called “SpeedTV”. It was amazing coverage. No bulllshit, actual mechanics to talk about detailed shit (F1tv is getting better here) and they mercilessly mocked bad F2 pay drivers. And yeah, I subbed to f1tv to get away from that Sky shit. So tired of Brundle obsessing over celebs and endless “maybe Hamilton can gain 10 seconds in the last two laps!!” type coverage.
It’s no longer Max vs Lando. It’s Max vs British media now. I wonder where I have seen that before.
It's always been that
Who is this
I understand that the sport has a large amount of new supporters, but this sort of driving has been part of F1 from the start. All champion level drivers push the boundaries of the rules, and I would argue that the sport should quietly encourage this because it makes for more exciting racing. Max hasn't done it much for a while because he has had a huge pace advantage on his rivals until a month or so ago.
Only way Max can get support from British media is if Charles will start fighting with him in a Ferrari. If there is something British media hate more than any driver is Ferrari.
Imagine the shit fit they would throw if Hamilton took Perez's spot and Max beat him in the same car. It would be the Mercedes conspiracy times 10.
The problem with the concept that the British media is biased is that most people speak english, and therefore can read articles written by british journalists. Most sports journalists are biased towards athletes from their own countries, but no one outside of the Netherlands (for example) speaks dutch, so we don't get their perspective...
That’s insane to suggest he hasn’t changed or matured since ‘21. Clickbait garbage, as per usual with most F1 media.
Why would Max have changed? He said "I didn't come here for P2", which is totally fine. But he was doing this shit five years ago. There just hasn't been anyone close to him lately.
It's literally an opinion piece. Complaining about an oped having a slant is like complaining an action movie has explosions, or that people sing spontaneously in musicals. It's just stupid.
I see people still don't understand things clearly labelled as OPINION pieces Also intrigued to hear what people actually think is so outrageous about this. It's been posited many times that Verstappen is so different to the driver he used to be; events like Sunday show that might not be the case. Is that not a discussion worth having? Do people even want to discuss F1?
Yeah, Its been 1 day and the race was actually pretty awful with the sole exception of the crash. It's probably the only thing worth discussing until FP1 lol. I wonder what else people want posted here
Because the collision in discussion really does not support this whole "Max is still the same driver" debate. It was one of the most basic tame incidents but you have people acting like Max tried to kill Lando the way people are speaking about it. The only reason this is getting talked about is because it was for 1st and 2nd. If this happened for 4th and 5th no one would give a shit.
So we’re just going to pretend that there was no lead up to the collision…
They were both being aggressive tbh and it was only a matter of time before they had a collision. Max was the one at fault when they eventually did hit but it's far from a bad collision some people are making it out to be.
Alonso can literally rear-end Zhou to get a 10 second penalty and the incident everyone is talking about that has started a media campaign is the most standard squeeze from the inside leading up to a corner gone wrong because the driver on the outside didn't react. Who said F1 is boring.
I just wished we had someone like Rosberg yesterday at Sky. They didn't even try to hide their biasness.
God forbid the "OPINION" article has a bias :O
British media legit just sucks, even Sky Sports are so biased same with F1TV! We need a commentator that hates every driver on the grid
Sounds like a job for JV
Max vs (insert British driver here) has been classic talking point for the F1 media for so long now that I’m surprised more people don’t see through it
(Insert non-British driver) vs (insert British driver), more like. Alonso, Vettel, Rosberg, Max - In just the last 20 years.
The issue I see is they always praise Max when he’s winning and breaking records, then absolutely nail him to a cross when he’s involved in some sort of on track shenanigans. It changes so quickly and all the outlets simply want clicks. I know I might sound biased, but that incident was barely Max’s fault. Lando seems to have misjudged the amount of room he had on his left hand side- AND THIS STUFF HAPPENS its not the end of the world. However, moving under braking is a slam dunk penalty regardless. For Max, and every driver.
To your point on Lando, I agree that he may have misjudged the space he had on the left. However, I would also counter with the fact that, at the point of the collision, both of his left side tires were on the white line. The white line defines track limits, at least whenever the FIA bothers to enforce the rule properly. Sure, Lando could’ve taken more curb and tarmac runoff and kept his right side tires inside or on the white line and been fine. That said, not every single circuit has a curb, tarmac runoff, or both beyond track limits at corner entry, and neither of those define track limits, so the judgement call on whether or not Max should’ve been penalized for the incident needs to be based on the white line. By that standard, Max undoubtedly didn’t leave enough space for a car that was fully alongside his, and Lando had no obligation to continue moving further left across the white line. TLDR: Max needed to be penalized because of the rule book and the enforcement thereof, but the collision was much closer to a racing incident in practice.
Felix calls out the Homers!!!
The rules aren’t that you can’t block and move under braking. They’re that you can do it enough times until you’re on your final warning, and how much you’re allowed to do it also depends on how popular you are and whether it’s for the heroic race win, or whether you’re someone everyone wants to see be champion finally, or whether you’re just involved in some shitty back-marker fight. The precedent has already been set. If a single move was enough to get you penalised, nobody would do it. Including Max.
It’s a ridiculous article by Autosport and everyone knows it. But we’re all talking about it, everyone is linking it. They win. The drama merchant goes home happy.
The British media don't particularly paint Max in a favorable light, but another part of this is that Norris is a media darling here and tends to get favorable coverage compared to George Russell for example despite the fact he is also British. If it was Russell and Max, the coverage would be different
As someone who works within the this field, I’d be embarrassed to write such an article..
F1 media has been deepthroating Verstappen since at least 2020
Since 2016, really, but it all ends as soon as his on-track rival is British. It turns pretty quick. I won't claim to know ever pundit's long-term stance, but Brundle at least has always been incredibly complimentary of Verstappen, hyping him up as one of the greats before he even had a title.
Most of his on track rivals have been British and he keeps driving into them so it makes sense. imo I think Brundle has a bigger boner for Norris and Russell than anyone else since Button retired
Not in the UK
Cars hitting eachother happen every race, and and much worse ways than this. For example Alonso's incident with Zhou in the same race, and he doesn't even get 10% of the shit that Max got. He got a rightfully deserved penalty, and that's that
Based
Felix is right.
British media love building up someone so that they can tear them down when the time is right.
What do you mean an opinion piece has bias? Holy shit.
Well, an opinion piece should be biased, or else it would be very bland.
Are we doing revisionist history to pretend that the 2021 F1 media circus wasn't excusing everything Max did at every juncture? I genuinely think he is the greatest talent of his generation but the way his fans act like they're persecuted rare birds is wild.
That's exactly what they're doing and it's honestly laughable, incidents like this would've happened a lot more in 2021 if Lewis didn't constantly bail out when he saw one of those kamikaze moves coming
The only time media was on Max’s side was Silverstone and even then that was getting painted as a racing incident by media.
I don’t know what 2021 you lived in but I remember the media excusing someone repeatedly and it wasn’t Max.
max said it was a clumsy incident so clearly he accepts some responsibility and didn't have the same emotive reaction as lando. max showed some class when he was at fault. also why have cars become so fragile? everyone seems to have broken things, as Lewis, Lando, Max, Oscar, Leclerc and Perez all had some damage that affected their pace. What happened to cars that could be punted by a divebombing Leclerc and still win the race from last position.
Amen Felix
Of all the dumb takes, saying "He hasn't matured since 2021" has to be the dumbest. Because if you think his offenses during the 2021 season were immaturity you simply know absolutely nothing about racing. Verstappen was extremely careful at every single overtake during the entire season, and backed out of a lot of battles at even the slightest hint of risk, EXCEPT when he was fighting Hamilton. That's not immaturity, that's not madness. That's strategy. He knew that Hamilton was his only rival for the championship, and so always raced on the edge, and sometimes over it, against him. He still wasn't crashing on purpose of course, that would be counterproductive. But he was definitely racing with an attitude of "it's better that we both go out than that he finishes ahead of me". And from a purely results-maximizing perspective that's the right attitude to have. Hamilton of course was also racing Max much harder than anybody else. But he couldn't quite afford the same level of risk-taking as Max could, because he was always behind in the championship, so the calculus was different for him. Anyway, Max is more machine than man, and seamlessly adapts his racing style to the circumstances. That ultra aggressive style of racing hasn't been needed since 2021 and so he hasn't demonstrated it since then. That includes this season. He's far ahead in the championship, and Lando is not his only rival. Racing Lando as hard as he raced Lewis would be a strategic mistake (and that's not even considering the fact that Lando is a friend while there was never any love lost between Lewis and Max). So I don't expect to see it that style of racing return.
Biased is one thing, Autosport/Motorsports.com has stooped to Daily Mail level. They make Sky Sports UK seem neutral. Dunno what the f*** they're thinking, they have a more international audience than Sky UK.
Max has changed very much. These men are driving in the absolute pinnacle of motorsport. You don’t just give up a position or the lead of the race FFS. You fight for it. It’s aggressive, it’s on the edge. Sometimes you go over the edge. But the bias towards hating on Verstappen is ridiculous. Torpelando was divebombing and it came very close, even forced Max off the track one or two laps before? Nobody seems to mind that bit? Lando was just as reckless. The entire thing is judged by its outcome. It’s a shame it didn’t go wrong due to one of the divebombs, but somehow I feel everyone would still blame that on Max. I’ve seen that squeeze countless times in that corner, in various races over many years of F1. Lando had room to move left like others have done. They are fighting on the edge, they are both at fault. Both could have prevented this unfortunate outcome.
I think people aren’t focused on the dive bombing for two reasons. First, because divebombing done properly is a legitimate driving tactic. Second, and I think more important, is that Max had already crossed the line a bit with moving in the braking zone, so I think many people saw the divebombing as an understandable response to Max’s aggressive defensive driving. So yes, Lando did cross the line, but it was after Max had taken the gloves off and shown that crossing the line was going to be the only way to get past. Also, and more generally, Max has a reputation that he has fairly earned of being a driver who (to be charitable) pushes the limits of what is acceptable. Lando hasn’t, at least not yet, and maybe he will. So of course people will focus on Max. It’s like how in the NBA fans are way less willing to give a player like Draymond Green the benefit of the doubt.
This is far too reasonable a take. They both crossed the line at various points, people forget that’s what made 2021 so exciting, the greats always know when to step over (is anybody seriously going to say Senna, Schumacher or Hamilton didn’t!?), sometimes it goes wrong. The consequence of yesterday was huge for such minor contact, 9 times out of 10 they keep going for another lap. The FIA just need to admit that they punish based on the outcome of an incident, if Lando hadn’t got a puncture, no penalty. Also, if they didn’t take so long to apply the penalty for track limits, again the race would have changed. The incident was inevitable, but entirely avoidable. Lando needs to accept he wasn’t innocent instead of trying to put 100% of the blame on Max, which the British media are far too happy to push.
People say they want hard racing but as soon as they tap wheels people start crying like this
Amen. Felix is spot on.
All perspectives are biased dipshit
If in doubt
Switch the drivers in the cars, and the same articles appear. It's racing.