Yes. I despised Hadjar in F2 because he was constantly moaning about how the other drivers were crashing into him. But to some extent it’s misdirection. Lewis Hamilton is famous for complaining about his tires graining and then putting in a couple of fast laps to overtake someone who isn’t expecting him.
Money and driver talent are certainly a large part of it, but far more important is getting the formula right at the outset when the rules change. Brawn was able to win the championship on a shoestring budget (they were easily one of the poorest teams on the grid) because they had cleverly designed an aerodynamic device that the FIA couldn’t ban, called the double diffuser. By the time the other teams had developed their own version and brought Brawn back to the pack they were too far ahead.
It’s long been the story with F1, all the way back to when Lotus put the engine behind the driver, and more recently when Mercedes absolutely nailed the turbo-hybrid formula and was untouchable for nearly a decade. Red Bull got the current ground effect era right but they lost their designer (Adrian Newey) and they went the wrong way on their upgrades so now the car is terrible yet Verstappen is so good that he can still be competitive with a car that nobody else has been able to drive.
New regulations kick in next year. The team that gets it right will dominate, as they always have. I doubt that it will be Haas or Sauber/Audi, but it certainly could be. Mercedes and Ferrari, for all their money, haven’t been truly competitive for years, while Mercedes’ customer team (McLaren) is dominating this year. You just never know.
(the edit is mine)
No, it was Cooper who first put the engine in back. but it’s a total nitpick, and the idea still stands.
Actually, it was Auto Union and Ferdinand Porsche which first put the engine in the back. Cooper was the first to put it in the middle (i.e. ahead of the rear axle).
Totally true.
I’m pretty sure the old Auto Unions had the engine in front of the rear axle, too.
Great race! Sucks to be a Ferrari fan though (sorry catfish). But holy shit, Isack Hadjar! Great qualifying, kept everyone behind, even kept up with max in the A team car. And to be gifted a podium at the end is well deserved.
Hey, it’s okay. I’m riding High from Alabama, Texas and UCLA all losing yesterday. If Notre Dame fails tonight, I’ll forget about the Ferrari Debacle. Not like they were gonna win anyway.
I was amused by Chanduk’s comment about how you never want reliability to be a factor in the championship. Well, for decades it was pretty much the determining factor. To me, this era of the Ultra-reliable Car is somewhat dull. It was always exciting to hold your breath for the last few laps hoping your guy’s car wouldn’t frag itself after leading the whole race.
Even in the “engines blowing up a lot” era, title deciding blowups were pretty rare. Tyre failures seem to be more common deciders.
The 2016 title race is the last one I can think of where engine reliability was a major factor. Hamilton lost 25 points when his engine blew up in Malaysia, and Rosberg got an extra three because he moved up from fourth to third. Hamilton would have been leading the title race at 290 and Rosberg would have been on 285. Instead, Rosberg left with a 23 point lead. He ultimately won the title by five points.
And of course Hamilton lost the 2007 title because of a gearbox problem in Brazil that dropped him from sixth to 18th. He recovered to seventh and lost by one point.
Nigel Mansell’s tyre blowout in Australia in 1986 is an iconic moment. He was running third which was enough to take the title and his tyre gave up 19 laps from the finish.
Mansell’s engine did decide the 1984 championship in a weird way - Lauda took the title from Prost at Portugal because Mansell’s engine failure allowed Lauda to move from third to second.
Woo Hoo! 
I’m thinking 70s-80s, where half the field would fail to finish. It’s impossible to calculate what would have been had everyone finished every race, almost like they do now. The most recent I can recall off the top of my drunken head is Kimi and his black and silver car disassembling itself at inopportune schedules that I’m pretty sure cost him a championship.
Where was it his rear wing decided to fly solo? Was that Hungary?
It was in fact so much a factor that they only kept the top results and threw away the worst 5, leading to occasional anomalies where the driver that finished second in the standings actually scored more points on the season than the winner, like 1988 when Senna beat Prost 90-87 but was outscored by Prost 105-94.
Now things like Lando’s engine failure are devastating. Back in the old days when blown engines were a regular occurrence the result today wouldn’t really hurt him unless it happened a lot.
Fun race. Some drama with the unpredictable weather, lots of close calls and snippiness, and plenty of heated competition even at the very back. Too bad Norris had to have a breakdown at the worst possible time (which all but handed the title to Piastri), but these things happen.
I noticed some pretty nasty videos about Lance Stroll on YouTube. Anyone know what that’s about?
He sucks. He has no business being in a F1 Car. He shouldn’t be allowed to drive an Uber. But Daddy owns the team.
But, this is just like, My Opinion, Man.
It’s fairly common to hate on Stroll, given his father essentially bought him an F1 team to drive on. He’s terribly inconsistent, mixing some actually good driving, especially in the wet, with absolutely boneheaded decisions and mistakes. He’s also not very charismatic or outgoing with the press, so it’s easy to shit on him.
Well, it was exciting at the beginning. Max was sort of a prick. But fair play to him, he gave the place back and retook the lead fairly. Then off into the distance.
I think McLaren did the right thing with the swap positions and then free to race call.
To be fair to Max, he had nowhere to go in turn 1. He could have wiped Lando out after Lando pinched him and that would have essentially ended his season. And, as you said, he did give up the spot.
The Red Bull is likely the fastest car on the straights but it can’t turn. Monza is a perfect track for them.
Just watched the replay. Fair point. I rescind my “sort of a prick” statement. For this one incident, at least.
Near the end one of Norris’ tire changers messed up and delayed his exit by four seconds, allowing Piastri to pass him for 3rd, but then the team principal ordered Piastri to let Norris pass him back, which he did. I remember a situation with Michael Schumacher where his teammate was in the lead in the final lap but then someone ordered him to let Schumacher pass so that the favorite would have a better chance of winning the championship. The fans, as I recall, were not happy about this. Now I hear bosses almost routinely order swaps, and there’s no outcry. How did this become standard practice? I always thought that if nothing else, the beneficiary of the gift would be pretty cheesed off about such a patronizing gesture.
And man, how did Verstappen get that kind of Bill Elliott-esque dominance on speed tracks? He had like 19 seconds on Norris!
Lando was only demoted a place by a team mistake, so the team used that as justification (rightly, I think) to make up for that error. They wouldn’t have done it if it had been Lando’s mistake, and it didn’t hurt Oscar’s chances of catching Max because neither of them were going to do that.
Oscar could have said no, but then you would have had a situation similar to the infamous Multi-21 incident and that would have splintered the team almost immediately.