Official 2024 Miami Grand Prix Thread ***SPOILERS***

[StevieBee]

honda_exige said:

A simple way to make races more interesting is just have the starting grid less staggered, in most cases 1st and 2nd enter the first corner in the same order which is for a large part replicated down the grid - for the top 10 anyway.

Just having each row be less staggered will mean more cars out of position relative to Qually pace and more overtakes, pit strategy etc.

Bit like Rallycross.

Would be exceptionally dangerous. There'd be no room to avoid a poor-starting car.

[g4ry13]

paulguitar said:

g4ry13 said:

Really not convinced that there's such a huge differential.

Also impossible to make that statement when one driver is getting all the upgrades to run and the other is running older parts.

That's a good point. They are not driving equal cars.

It may have been Australia, but the team ordered Piastri to swap positions with Lando. Lando didn't make any progress and never gave back the position.

One would hope that these arrangements even out between teammates but often not the case.

[wevster]

SmoothCriminal said:

Not sure if I missed it in-between all the triggered posts and tears about a democratically elected former president visiting a garage in his home state.

But

Sainz 5 second penalty for his red mist overtake damaging Piastri's car and ruining his race.

Kmag is now on 10 penalty points after his crash into Sargent.

Standard penalty is 10 seconds but that would have promoted Lewis as well, 5 seconds just promotes a Red Bull...

[honda_exige]

StevieBee said:

honda_exige said:

A simple way to make races more interesting is just have the starting grid less staggered, in most cases 1st and 2nd enter the first corner in the same order which is for a large part replicated down the grid - for the top 10 anyway.

Just having each row be less staggered will mean more cars out of position relative to Qually pace and more overtakes, pit strategy etc.

Bit like Rallycross.

Would be exceptionally dangerous. There'd be no room to avoid a poor-starting car.

No the gaps between rows stay the same but position 1, 2 and 3,4 etc aren't so staggered. So a slow starting car shouldn't be more dangerous, if anything it's safer as there is more room between rows. More cars out of position will create more racing. Qualifying becomes a little bit less 'fair' but it's a minor trade off.

[740EVTORQUES]

Finlandese said:

honda_exige said:

Shame McLaren have made a seemingly big PR blunder by enthusiastically hosting Trump in the garage.

Lots of yank fans kicking off BIG time on social media saying they no longer support the team etc.

They released a statement saying the FIA asked them to host Trump but the damage has been done.

Lando somewhat compounded it post race by saying it was 'an honour to meet Trump', 'you have to respect him and his work ethic' etc

McLaren statement was pretty good, but Lando´s was a big mistake. I am probably not the only one that had the pleasure of Lando finally getting his first win tainted by Lando saing it was a honor to meet Trump.

Yes Lando was either just caught up in the moment or incredibly naive to make that statement.

Whatever your views on Trump it’s not hard to realise that he’s incredibly divisive and loathed by a lot of people. To associate your company with him is just dumb. Fo you think Lewis would have said that? Bad decision by McLaren management.

Edited by 740EVTORQUES on Monday 6th May 14:52

[isaldiri]

thegreenhell said:

That was one race, but what about all the others where they've had equal cars? Lando has finished ahead of Oscar in all but one race so far this year, and that's not all car inequality. And he gets those upgrades first when there is only one set because he'll make better use of them.

Exactly- I did exclude this one but say in the last race where the upgrades weren’t in yet, piastri was very much slower in the race and that absolutely is not uncommon so far where Norris definitely has the legs more often than not. At least so far - Piastri clearly has ability though so he might get there but he certainly isn’t at Norris level yet.

[Big Nanas]

740EVTORQUES said:

Yes Lando was either just caught up in the moment or incredibly naive to make that statement.

Whatever your views on Trump it’s not hard to realise that he’s incredibly divisive and loathed by a lot of people. To associate your company with him is just dumb. Fo you think Lewis would have said that? Bad decision by McLaren management.

Edited by 740EVTORQUES on Monday 6th May 14:52

I would expect the drivers had a social/PR team to handle the Social media posting. I can't imagine any of them (not least Lando) would have had any time to do that over the weekend.
So whoever made that specific post was not very well thought through.

Edited by Big Nanas on Monday 6th May 15:10

[rdjohn]

wevster said:

SmoothCriminal said:

Not sure if I missed it in-between all the triggered posts and tears about a democratically elected former president visiting a garage in his home state.

But

Sainz 5 second penalty for his red mist overtake damaging Piastri's car and ruining his race.

Kmag is now on 10 penalty points after his crash into Sargent.

Standard penalty is 10 seconds but that would have promoted Lewis as well, 5 seconds just promotes a Red Bull...

Lewis gets a drive-through for speeding in the pitlane behind the safety car, but is required to keep 10 car lengths gap. Carlos destroys Piastri’s race and gets 5s. but remains 0.1s ahead of Lewis.

Great result for Lando, my little birdy at McLaren (the first guy to congratulate Lando) reckons the full update was worth 0.5s per lap.

Even so, I suspect that this was a RB failure to work the tyres, rather than something that will necessarily be repeated at the next race. We can live in hope that the SC can manage a repeat performance sometime.

[Frogmella]

Hate to say it, but Trump is extremely popular here in the US. If it was Obama or Biden wouldn’t be similarly annoyed?

740EVTORQUES said:

Finlandese said:

honda_exige said:

Shame McLaren have made a seemingly big PR blunder by enthusiastically hosting Trump in the garage.

Lots of yank fans kicking off BIG time on social media saying they no longer support the team etc.

They released a statement saying the FIA asked them to host Trump but the damage has been done.

Lando somewhat compounded it post race by saying it was 'an honour to meet Trump', 'you have to respect him and his work ethic' etc

McLaren statement was pretty good, but Lando´s was a big mistake. I am probably not the only one that had the pleasure of Lando finally getting his first win tainted by Lando saing it was a honor to meet Trump.

Yes Lando was either just caught up in the moment or incredibly naive to make that statement.

Whatever your views on Trump it’s not hard to realise that he’s incredibly divisive and loathed by a lot of people. To associate your company with him is just dumb. Fo you think Lewis would have said that? Bad decision by McLaren management.

Edited by 740EVTORQUES on Monday 6th May 14:52

[paulguitar]

Frogmella said:

If it was Obama or Biden wouldn’t be similarly annoyed?

Neither of those two has been found liable for rape and attempted to end democracy.

[g4ry13]

Can we stop with the politicking?

A former President and candidate for the next election congratulated Lando. Lando said it was an honour to meet him - he doesn't spend his life on #45 or reading every allegation.

Lando doesn't even have GCSEs and has far more interesting things to do with his time and money than worry about this stuff.

[TheDeuce]

paulguitar said:

Frogmella said:

If it was Obama or Biden wouldn’t be similarly annoyed?

Neither of those two has been found liable for rape and attempted to end democracy.

And yet... Half the country seems to like him.

Specifically the half which are concentrated in the southern states where NASCAR is a religion, one that F1 would very much like to displace.

I did a road trip across a number of the southern states a few years ago, it was an eye opener.

[paulguitar]

TheDeuce said:

paulguitar said:

Frogmella said:

If it was Obama or Biden wouldn’t be similarly annoyed?

Neither of those two has been found liable for rape and attempted to end democracy.

And yet... Half the country seems to like him.

Specifically the half which are concentrated in the southern states where NASCAR is a religion, one that F1 would very much like to displace.

I did a road trip across a number of the southern states a few years ago, it was an eye opener.

Yes, I've spent most of the last 25 years in the US.

Mrs Guitar is American, but one of the sensible ones.

[Frogmella]

All are equally divisive in the US.

paulguitar said:

Frogmella said:

If it was Obama or Biden wouldn’t be similarly annoyed?

Neither of those two has been found liable for rape and attempted to end democracy.

[paulguitar]

g4ry13 said:

Lando doesn't even have GCSEs

Really? Why not?

[paulguitar]

Frogmella said:

All are equally divisive in the US.

As I said above, I've been there mostly for the last 25 years.

[hot metal]

Nothing will ruin my day

[740EVTORQUES]

g4ry13 said:

Can we stop with the politicking?

A former President and candidate for the next election congratulated Lando. Lando said it was an honour to meet him - he doesn't spend his life on #45 or reading every allegation.

Lando doesn't even have GCSEs and has far more interesting things to do with his time and money than worry about this stuff.

But that’s why you pay PR people (including at weekends) to help handle your media.

Saying it’s ok because your driver is uneducated and ignorant of the world around him is not a good look.

Bring an F1 driver is about a lot more than just driving fast. Vettel and Hamilton show that it’s possible to aim higher.

There’s no excuse, doing something like this that would be predicted to alienate large numbers of your audience is inexcusable and amateurish.

[Frogmella]

My apologies, wasn’t really referring to you. Just laughing at how sanctimonious and frothy mouthed our home country gets.

paulguitar said:

Frogmella said:

All are equally divisive in the US.

As I said above, I've been there mostly for the last 25 years.

[paulguitar]

Frogmella said:

My apologies, wasn’t really referring to you. Just laughing at how sanctimonious and frothy mouthed our home country gets.

Things have been massively different since 2016, I think. Hard to see how the US is going to make its way back to 'normality'.