Motor Sport
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Bummed that Yuki is off the grid though. Was looking forward to seeing his fans go nuts next March in Suzuka.
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@Bridger LOL
Yeah I always liked Yuki, but when he joined RB proper, he kinda counterintuitively was not really in the spotlight. Of course this is because he was overshadowed by the champ, and compared to all the other #2s, but i haven't noticed them showing him much. Shame he wont have a seat. Hadjar will probably be exactly the same. -
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@Bridger I've been assuming that is the case but have they confirmed the cars favor Max at the expense of the #2? I've always wondered how different the cars can actually be. I know they run various downforce, suspension settings, wing settings, etc from session to session, but i have no idea how customizable per driver they are in reality. whatever RB is doing, its DEF negatively impacting their WCC results. Max is carrying them all. I guess i wonder how much is him and how much is the car favoring just him.
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@WhiskeySandwich I watched an analysis of Red Bull's car and Max's driving style confirming that the car is designed for him. From what I recall, he prefers a tight on rails front end and a loose rear end where it's always on the verge of breaking loose. This allows him to aggressively attack the corners and maximize speed coming out of them.
The problem is that it's barely controllable for Max and at one point was even too much for him. The other driver's don't have fast enough reflexes to recover as well as he does creating a lot of problems. They have to drive slower and not push the car as hard to keep it under control.
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@goosehd maybe they need more sims lol
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When you’re a good as Max, I presume you benefit from a car that is extremely responsive. When you aren’t, it amplifies your imperfection.
It seems to me they don’t need to tailor the car to the greatest driver in the world. Just make it within 5% of the field and the guy will win and his teammate might get some points too.
Think it, be it.
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I agree with that
️Now if only they could make a car good enough to afford that wiggle room without sacrificing their first driver. I think they had that when Checo was peaking, then fell off
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Maybe the new regs will fix that issue of floors/ride heights making the car so finicky and they can focus on a consistent balance more
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@WhiskeySandwich It will be interesting to see how the next season progresses. Hopefully it will not be another season of cars porpoising uncontrollably and that the adaptations to competitiveness is quick.
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@goosehd yeah I wanna see good battles first and foremost. What I dont want to see is more bizarre wings from around the 2018 era lol
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Speaking of good battles, I really hope they figure a way to fix the race to the apex issue with the rules. I can’t think of anything on that one other than punishing contact or forcing off track more severely
It kinda blows my mind that something like that is rarely much worse a penalty than a false start, track limits, cutting, or passing off track. Like ocon got a 10 second stop go because they dropped his car? I might have my details wrong tho
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@mclaincausey I would love to see Lewis put back into a car that is competitive with a competent management team. Exceptional driver who has lost his confidence in his ability compounded by a mediocre car and a horrible management team. He could and should do so much better than he is.
Lando I feel is a very good driver in an excellent car with a mediocre management team. He has potential to grow as long as he stays out of his head and his team makes the right decisions.
Max is an exceptional driver, good car, and good management team. His attribute is he know’s what it takes and isn’t afraid to challenge the team to do better or question their calls.
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I can’t remember if I shared it here but I built a model of F2 driver performance from 2019 to Brazil this year that controlled for differences in equipment, strategy, and pit performance to assess qualifying and racing performance. When I plotted that out it was Max on his own in both categories, then a cluster of elites including Charles, Lando, and Russell, with Lewis on the cusp of that tier because of the shit seasons he’s had of late. I don’t think he’s there anymore and Ferrari did their thing where they destroy WDC champs. Sadly, I think Merc did too because they wouldn’t listen to him about the car until it was too late and he’d resolved to leave. I really hate what the teams and to some degree probably age have done to him.
McLaren has built a great car but handicapped it with poor strategy. Red Bull’s car suffered for a while but they’ve always excelled otherwise. Ferrari is a dumpster fire.
I think Lewis is done and it’s really sad what F1 did to him screwing him out of a WDC, and teams did to him after that. The only way I see him getting back to form is if he sneaks over to A-M and Newey nails the 2026 regs. -
@mclaincausey You mentioned the model but if you shared it I must've missed it. It'd be cool to see the data. All that sounds very legit.
I still think McLaren just happened to get lucky with their windfall of car performance and the whole team still doesn't quite know what to do with it. I kinda doubt they'll be fortunate enough to carry it into 2026 regs.
It is sad to see the decline of Lewis, that's bound to happen when people stay in long enough, like any sport. Its rare to see people get out at their peak, and the drop is inevitable. I just wish he was having as much fun as Alonso seems to have in the late stages of his career.
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And before anyone asks--yes, I am currently unemployed and thus had time to put this together
Think it, be it.
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@mclaincausey dude thats crazy detailed. Good analysis! There were a few surprises in the data but generally it confirmed a lot of the preconceptions I had about most of these guys. I think you did a great job with your methodology, controls, and balancing factors, etc. The only way we could really know for sure is by giving them all spec'ed cars, but that would take the fun out of it!
My buddies have all talked about how it'd be cool to have all the F1 drivers do a race or two in identical cars each year for bragging rights, but I think the closest we'll get to that was the Lego race.
Thanks for sharing your research! -
@Bridger yeah that’s an artifact of the timeframe starting in 2020. If it went back further you’d see Kimi go way up.
I one day will update my retrieval script to get more data. Maybe like go back to 1980 or something. It would be really cool to compare the greats of past eras to Max. I think I’d need to adjust the model though to account for differences in the sport when going back that far.
No problem @WhiskeySandwich ; I agree that the model results mostly don’t surprise, which is one thing that makes me think it is solid. I didn’t try to fit the outcome in any way to what i think but it came out close.
