Official 2021 Portugal Grand Prix Thread **SPOILERS**

[TheDeuce]

Exige77 said:

TheDeuce said:

LaurasOtherHalf said:

TheDeuce said:

LaurasOtherHalf said:

Max Verstappen said:

If you say it's the car you are stupid, I made no mistakes but in the finer margins Lewis is a millimetre better in every department, I think we had similar pace but much respect to Lewis. He truly is one of the greats & congrats on his 97 today. The better man won.

Good for him. I think at the level at which Max and Lewis are fighting, it would be a huge mistake for Max to not respect Lewis. It's also been the case that Lewis has shown max a lot of respect and even support over the years, despite max being on tradjectory to potentially interfere with his record breaking run.

It's 100% a case of drivers seeking to better themselves by being honest and fascinated about one anothers strengths.

One thing I mentioned to my Dad today (we had to watch separately instead of together this week) is rather than Lewis losing to Max, I think the more pertinent point is that for Max, it's probably going to be very important to beat Hamilton before he retires.

Because if one thing is certain, people will use it as a stick to beat him with in the future if he never beat Hamilton in a straight championship battle.

Totally agree - in fact if he doesn't beat Lewis, it'll kind of feel like his time hasn't begun. He's supposed to beat the 'old man' as part of is own formative journey.

The only problem is a lot of patience may be required. Looking at Lewis's drive today, I would say he's definitely not 'peaked' just yet. He made two race defining passes today - both perfect, the second of which he apparently didn't even realise was for a racing position.. https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2021/5/2021_Port...

You know you're pretty good at F1 when you're overtaking the lead driver without noticing

Max hit the nail on the head. Lewis is just that tiny bit better here and there and makes less mistakes. No one is perfect.

Lewis can turn up the wick when it’s time and keep his powder dry when he needs to. When things go wrong, more often than not, he somehow seems to limit the damage and still get a few points.

It will pain Max incredibly if Lewis retires unbeaten by him in a straight fight over a season.

This season is shaping up to be a cracker.

Isn't it a genuinely interesting thing though... Max can't hope to beat Lewis without learning from and respecting Lewis. For all his hot headedness I do believe Max is humble and does have a huge respect/fascination for Lewis, and he will beat him at some point. Not in a this seasons championship I don't think... But assuming Lewis hangs around, Max will eventually beat him, and will do so by employing at least some of what he has learned from Lewis.

Same as Lewis learned from Senna and Schumacher, albeit less directly.

[jimothyc]

Deesee said:

jimothyc said:

Is there anyway of betting a large amount of money on Bottas not winning? Asking for a friend.

You can lay almost any event, to win a grand on any other driving winning would be a £4200 stake (returned if he does not win).

Easy money thanks

[CoolHands]

8 points ahead. And I’m sure if Lewis could have pulled away, and it was the best thing to do, he would have. We don’t know. In the words of kimi, he knows what he’s doing.

By the way did Bottas have an exhaust temp problem or was it just a sensor error in the end?

[LaurasOtherHalf]

TheDeuce said:

Exige77 said:

TheDeuce said:

LaurasOtherHalf said:

TheDeuce said:

LaurasOtherHalf said:

Max Verstappen said:

If you say it's the car you are stupid, I made no mistakes but in the finer margins Lewis is a millimetre better in every department, I think we had similar pace but much respect to Lewis. He truly is one of the greats & congrats on his 97 today. The better man won.

Good for him. I think at the level at which Max and Lewis are fighting, it would be a huge mistake for Max to not respect Lewis. It's also been the case that Lewis has shown max a lot of respect and even support over the years, despite max being on tradjectory to potentially interfere with his record breaking run.

It's 100% a case of drivers seeking to better themselves by being honest and fascinated about one anothers strengths.

One thing I mentioned to my Dad today (we had to watch separately instead of together this week) is rather than Lewis losing to Max, I think the more pertinent point is that for Max, it's probably going to be very important to beat Hamilton before he retires.

Because if one thing is certain, people will use it as a stick to beat him with in the future if he never beat Hamilton in a straight championship battle.

Totally agree - in fact if he doesn't beat Lewis, it'll kind of feel like his time hasn't begun. He's supposed to beat the 'old man' as part of is own formative journey.

The only problem is a lot of patience may be required. Looking at Lewis's drive today, I would say he's definitely not 'peaked' just yet. He made two race defining passes today - both perfect, the second of which he apparently didn't even realise was for a racing position.. https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2021/5/2021_Port...

You know you're pretty good at F1 when you're overtaking the lead driver without noticing

Max hit the nail on the head. Lewis is just that tiny bit better here and there and makes less mistakes. No one is perfect.

Lewis can turn up the wick when it’s time and keep his powder dry when he needs to. When things go wrong, more often than not, he somehow seems to limit the damage and still get a few points.

It will pain Max incredibly if Lewis retires unbeaten by him in a straight fight over a season.

This season is shaping up to be a cracker.

Isn't it a genuinely interesting thing though... Max can't hope to beat Lewis without learning from and respecting Lewis. For all his hot headedness I do believe Max is humble and does have a huge respect/fascination for Lewis, and he will beat him at some point. Not in a this seasons championship I don't think... But assuming Lewis hangs around, Max will eventually beat him, and will do so by employing at least some of what he has learned from Lewis.

Same as Lewis learned from Senna and Schumacher, albeit less directly.

This is why I argue you can't compare racers across the ages. Not because it's impossible but because it's impossible for drivers not to learn from what went before.

Sling Fangio, Clark, Stewart, Lauda, Senna, Schumacher, Hamilton and Verstappen in the same unknown car and you'd have an amazing imaginary race but Verstappen knows infinitely more about how to tackle a race than Fangio ever did.

[anonymous-user]

LaurasOtherHalf said:

This is why I argue you can't compare racers across the ages. Not because it's impossible but because it's impossible for drivers not to learn from what went before.

Sling Fangio, Clark, Stewart, Lauda, Senna, Schumacher, Hamilton and Verstappen in the same unknown car and you'd have an amazing imaginary race but Verstappen knows infinitely more about how to tackle a race than Fangio ever did.

Verstappen wouldn't have a clue how to tackle a race in a Fagio era car, most modern drivers cant even get the things in gear without wiping out the dogs or a clutch. Each to their own speciality.

[LaurasOtherHalf]

jsf said:

LaurasOtherHalf said:

This is why I argue you can't compare racers across the ages. Not because it's impossible but because it's impossible for drivers not to learn from what went before.

Sling Fangio, Clark, Stewart, Lauda, Senna, Schumacher, Hamilton and Verstappen in the same unknown car and you'd have an amazing imaginary race but Verstappen knows infinitely more about how to tackle a race than Fangio ever did.

Verstappen wouldn't have a clue how to tackle a race in a Fagio era car, most modern drivers cant even get the things in gear without wiping out the dogs or a clutch. Each to their own speciality.

Nah, verstappen could learn while chewing up a couple of replaceable parts very quickly. Fangio wouldn't learn 50 years of incremental gains in driver performance as easily.

[WickerBill]

Can we just agree that there is no such thing as a GOAT?

Let’s be honest.

1) We will never know if Fangio could have the fitness or mental agility to cope with modern day F1 and all it’s technology, press requirements and incremental gains

2) We will never know if Hamilton could survive the 1950s long enough to become a great.

Let’s just appreciate the best of every era. There are drivers from each decade that stand out. We should celebrate each of them rather than trying to rank them

[Henson]

Derek Smith said:

I would expect Merc to win at the slowest speed possible, but Hamilton kneeded a bigger gap from MV, but seemed reluctant to push for it. Or could not. MV knew he hadn't got a hope of passing LH on the straight, so he was going asslowly as he could.

Am I right in thinking that you claim to be a writer? Jesus, it looks like something Welshbeef would post.

[Ian974]

TheDeuce said:

Isn't it a genuinely interesting thing though... Max can't hope to beat Lewis without learning from and respecting Lewis. For all his hot headedness I do believe Max is humble and does have a huge respect/fascination for Lewis, and he will beat him at some point. Not in a this seasons championship I don't think... But assuming Lewis hangs around, Max will eventually beat him, and will do so by employing at least some of what he has learned from Lewis.

Same as Lewis learned from Senna and Schumacher, albeit less directly.

I would agree with this, there have been some post race interviews in the last year or so where it seems both of them seem to see what they're both up against and I think there is probably a lot of genuine respect between the two of them.
My thought is that reliability/ incidents has the potential to be a massive deciding factor this year, probably more so than general driver performance.
I'm not worried either way which of them wins the championship really, I'm just looking forward to it staying close and hopefully going to the wire.
It's going to be a nigh on unbeatable record for Lewis, or a well earned first championship against a true great for Max.

[rscott]

LaurasOtherHalf said:

Max Verstappen said:

If you say it's the car you are stupid, I made no mistakes but in the finer margins Lewis is a millimetre better in every department, I think we had similar pace but much respect to Lewis. He truly is one of the greats & congrats on his 97 today. The better man won.

Spartan and DeltonaS, reading this quote from Max:-

[McLarenarama]

jsf said:

I think the most important question of the weekend is who the hell drinks Heineken 0.0?

Heineken 0.0 is awful stuff, who tests this stuff and says 'OK that's nice, sell it'? They were giving it away at the Singapore F1 race in 2019 (the last race here). I tried one, then went right back to buy the proper version at $10 a pint (which for SG is a super cheap promo price).

Interesting race, Mazepin really doesn't seem to have the pace. Go Lando! Silly mistake by Kimi. Good win for Lewis/Mercedes. Bottas needs to up his game in the race IMO.

I wonder if Mercedes has updated their cars enough to stay a smidge ahead for the rest of the season (I know it will vary track to track).

[DeejRC]

I think it’s quite easy to say that Fangio would learn to cope and drive today’s cars very quickly. Fitness. In his mid 40s he pounded round the Ring like a man obsessed. In his earlier days he was doing races across Mexican tracks for 100s miles. Targa, MM, etc. Yeah I think Fangio would cut it somehow.

Hamilton is absolutely at the skill level of being dropped in to any other era and working out/learning how to compete.

The entitled arrogance of Max has diminished. There is a realisation now that he is up against the very best there has been, as such his job is to learn everything he needs in order to beat him.

Hamilton has turned himself into a hybrid of Senna and Prost. That makes him a more complete, quicker driver than I’ve ever seen. Ive always said, if I had one guy to drive for my life and win...it was be Moss. It’s Hamilton now. He’s Federa in a car. Haven’t a clue how Max beats him over a season, but if/when he does I bet he has one hell of a forehand top spin and speaks fluent Spanish...

[HighwayStar]

rscott said:

LaurasOtherHalf said:

Max Verstappen said:

If you say it's the car you are stupid, I made no mistakes but in the finer margins Lewis is a millimetre better in every department, I think we had similar pace but much respect to Lewis. He truly is one of the greats & congrats on his 97 today. The better man won.

Spartan and DeltonaS, reading this quote from Max:-

If they crawl from under their rocks to post their usual waffle, that quote from Max has to be Thee template response.

[Derek Smith]

Henson said:

Am I right in thinking that you claim to be a writer? Jesus, it looks like something Welshbeef would post.

Thanks for the feedback.

I don't claim to be a writer. I am. If you want me to write pristine prose, you'll have to excuse me while I make my way to my desktop and a proper keyboard, which I do not to boot that up for anything less than £100 per 1000 words. (That's a negotiable base. I'm available.)

[Blue62]

HighwayStar said:

If they crawl from under their rocks to post their usual waffle, that quote from Max has to be Thee template response.

I think Max is maturing and now that RB is on more equal terms perhaps he is becoming more self aware, which is a big step in his development. I’d love to see CLC in the fight, it would be fascinating to watch how they react to one another on and off the track.

[Teddy Lop]

Flooble said:

I wonder if this is the year when Mercedes may be forced to address their shortcomings on strategy and pitstops? They are regularly 0.5-1.0 second slower than Red Bull in the stops and most years make a few howlers on strategy (nearly giving away the fastest lap point to Max is minor compared to their usual paralysis over whether to pit when there is a safety car ... or the reverse of pitting when the pitlane is closed .

I also wonder if Bottas, being more than an entire race win behind (and to be fair, he still would be even if he and Russell had not come together at Imola), may be asked very early to be the "Number 2" driver in order to ensure Mercedes win at least one of the championships. With Perez looking likes he's settled in, Red Bull seem likely to consistently maximise their points so Mercedes may need to play the team game.

Much as i loath the shameless 1-2 driver thing, I'd hate to see the championship decided by red bull throwing Perez under a bus to assist max while mercedes ditheringly play fair to a fault with bottas. With max so close this year Hamilton cannot afford the draggy starts he's had in previous years because he needs to deny bottas and show merc they have only one dog in this fight and they need to focus on him beating max. With bottas potentially having one of his occasional upper hand events, yesterday was a very important win for ham, perhaps the most important race he wins this year.

[VladD]

Derek Smith said:

Henson said:

Am I right in thinking that you claim to be a writer? Jesus, it looks like something Welshbeef would post.

Thanks for the feedback.

I don't claim to be a writer. I am. If you want me to write pristine prose, you'll have to excuse me while I make my way to my desktop and a proper keyboard, which I do not to boot that up for anything less than £100 per 1000 words. (That's a negotiable base. I'm available.)

[Exige77]

VladD said:

Derek Smith said:

Henson said:

Am I right in thinking that you claim to be a writer? Jesus, it looks like something Welshbeef would post.

Thanks for the feedback.

I don't claim to be a writer. I am. If you want me to write pristine prose, you'll have to excuse me while I make my way to my desktop and a proper keyboard, which I do not to boot that up for anything less than £100 per 1000 words. (That's a negotiable base. I'm available.)

I have al me posteds vitted by my prof reader and layers before pisting.

It is Pistheads after al.

[swisstoni]

Exige77 said:

VladD said:

Derek Smith said:

Henson said:

Am I right in thinking that you claim to be a writer? Jesus, it looks like something Welshbeef would post.

Thanks for the feedback.

I don't claim to be a writer. I am. If you want me to write pristine prose, you'll have to excuse me while I make my way to my desktop and a proper keyboard, which I do not to boot that up for anything less than £100 per 1000 words. (That's a negotiable base. I'm available.)

I have al me posteds vitted by my prof reader and layers before pisting.

It is Pistheads after al.

You owe me 20p.

[CustardOnChips]

WickerBill said:

CustardOnChips said:

But everyone has been saying the RB is the fastest car. And should have been on pole and got fastest lap.

Other than a couple of max mistakes, they would have.....

So, the Redbull would be the faster car if they had a driver who could maximise its potential? Like Mercedes have!