Official Formula One and General Motorsport Thread for 2024!

[Robbo-92]

Albon hates it, the surface is rough and coarse and gets everywhere, he wishes the kerbs didn't kill the front wings and all the rear wings too. Even the chassis don't survive in his hands.

"Why does Albert Park race me so hard?

For the record I've always thought Albon is crap, and Sargeant being worse flatters him.

Albon isn't a top tier driver, very unlikely he'll be a top teams number one again (unless he sticks with Williams and they somehow start challenging for the championships, which is hugely unlikely in the next 5 years), top teams could take him on as a clear number 2, but unless things went massively wrong for their first driver, he'd always play second fiddle to them, if there were 4 tiers of drivers on the grid, I'd put him in the second grouping. Maybe Sargent flattered his performances in 2023, but he had some excellent drives that year in my opinion.

[LewisD]

Didn't Albon nearly do a Zero stop race at Australia last year though, before pitting to avoid penalty? (Or was it year before?)
That's some pretty good tyre management for someone who hates the track.

[Robbo-92]

That was 2022, he binned it in the race last year as well

[LewisD]

Ah.. FFS

[Robbo-92]

The 2023 crash was weird though, turned in as normal and the rear just went round on him, so he was probably taking a bit too much speed in, but still looked odd.

[Victor Mildew]

Oh my god strawberry float OFF.

Can it be 2025 yet?

[BOR]

Just remove Red Bulls, and we will have decent races ahead.

[Vermilion]

Didn't even bother watching on channel 4 this morning, the result popped up on the BBC website beforehand so I just watched the 5 minute highlights reel on YouTube.

[Robbo-92]

Well I was working when this was on (same for the race tomorrow), someone I work with said “he’s on pole again isn’t he?” so I’ll probably skip through it this afternoon when I’m home. I’ll try and avoid the result of the race, but won’t lose any sleep if I hear the result.

Edit, caught up on qualifying, what a dull session Going to be even worse in Suzuka when Red Bull bring their first upgrade package

[Mommy Christmas]

This race has just got interesting.

[GrinWithoutaKat]

Holy gooseberry fool, Lando might win a race. Let’s go!

Edit: Not with that Ferrari pace he won’t

[Cheeky Devlin]

I love Australia!

[Neo Cortex]

Ahahahahahahahaha!!!!

[Cheeky Devlin]

Thought it was going to be another procession till Sainz got past him.

Come on Lando!

[GrinWithoutaKat]

Now Sainz is just a building the gap Verstappen usually has Just put almost 3 seconds on the gap in less than two laps.

Oh hang on, here is Ferrari strategy doing their best to give us a good race by flip flopping on their plan!

[Mommy Christmas]

Hamilton probably saved himself a lot of effort with little reward there.

[GrinWithoutaKat]

I’d say lovely timing on the SC for Alonso, but not sure he really got the full benefit of starting on hards by stopping now.

[Neo Cortex]

Though I've no doubt the engine issue was genuine, if I were Lewis I'd just say "strawberry float it" and park up till 2025. Take a sabattical and force Merc to scramble around for a replacement a year early.

[GrinWithoutaKat]

So far, this is no more exciting than any of the races where Verstappen is still there. I feel there's been many, many races where there was a good battle going on behind him, but this does not seem to be one of them.

[Jam-Master Jay]

Sainz should be top of every teams list for a drive next year.

Oh dear, Russell.