I think it had more to do with the fact that Lando played the team game letting Oscar pit first. In theory, the undercut could have been powerful and that plus a slow stop for Lando (normal slow stop, not what actually happened) could have lost him a place. So by him playing the team game, they were already prepared to have to team orders the situation.
As it played out, the undercut wasn’t in play and the slow stop was a slooow stop. But I think Lando earned himself that bit of goodwill by calling for Oscar to get first dibs on the softs, something he had no obligation to do.
I think he was sort of a prick for running Lando into the grass. Yeah, that’s normal lap 1 stuff, but it’s still a prick move. He’s already proven he’s the kind of guy to leverage the lap 1 leniency to do dirty moves and benefit from 30 laps of clean air, and that’s exactly what he was thinking here. I’m sure of it. Run Lando off the track, and when that doesn’t work, use the runoff to stay ahead. Anything for clear air.
Welp, I saw on racefans.net the entire (broadcast) radio exchange, and they explicitly told Lando that there would be no undercut – that is, they knew the soft wasn’t going to provide any advantage. So I retract all of my commentary on this and I’ll join those who are confused at this odd choice.
That would have been Rubens Barrichello’s first win. Championship battle or not everyone thought it was ridiculous to make a guy give up his first winners trophy.
And there is often an outcry about team orders. There is a large contingent of fans that was unhappy about Piastri being ordered to move over. He had to do it last year as well but Norris was in the title hunt and he wasn’t.
People were not happy with Team Ferrari at Indy, when Schumacher led the whole race, slowed down at the line for a Photo-Finish and Rubens accidentally snuck over the Bricks first. Outcries of “Fixed!” were heard immediately. I thought there was gonna be a riot. I was there.
Well, qualifying for Baku was nuts. Lewis didn’t make Q3, LeClerc and Piastri wrecked, and Lando scrubbed the wall on his only hot lap so he’s starting in 7th. Max got the pole, followed by Sainz (!), Lawson (!!), and Antonelli. Hell, Yuki got 6th and he hasn’t qualified well all year.
McLaren is still a lock for the Constructor’s championship, but the Driver’s championship is still up for grabs and Lando blew his shot at potentially making big gains on Piastri.
Such a clusterfuck of a qualy. But an interesting race…if you forget that max dominated from the beginning. And fair play to him. Lando failed to really capitalize on piasti’s disaster. Love the result for Sainz/Williams tho!
Piastri hasn’t really made a mistake all year, unless you count sliding off on slicks in the rain is Australia. Apparently he was saving all of them for this weekend.
Based on how much trouble Norris had in his McLaren, I doubt the championship points would have been any different even if Piastri remained in the race.
Good race, though I did find myself hoping for rain in the last twenty laps just for entertainment.
And since Lando had another slow pit this week, Oscar will have to swap positions with Lando in Singapore. It’s only fair.
I thought the same thing. The section from turn 9 (or is it 10?) to turn 13 does look narrow, but maybe it’s always been that way. Memory starts to fail with age.
Singapore encapsulated my main beef with F1 as a sport: a lot of it looks scripted. Not predetermined so much as predestined. It looks like they’re legitimately fighting really hard for passes and ultimately just powerless able to make them. I am no fan of NASCAR (especially now ), but you can see their drivers battling for position, and whether he succeeds, fails or causes a massive wreck, there’s always something happening. I heard at least twice how Norris had fresher tires and was going to attack Verstappen near the end…and absolutely nothing came of it; Verstappen’s lock on 2nd was made of adamantium. I don’t doubt for a second that Norris was trying to find an opening (He certainly didn’t look very passive at the start!), but there was none forthcoming. I heard one radio call from George Russell grumbling about backmarkers, and next thing I knew, he’d completed the wire-to-wire victory without being remotely close to threatened even once.
There are going to be good teams and bad teams in any league. I’d just like to see F1’s good teams have to make a little more effort to prove it.
At its core, auto racing involves drivers first determining how fast they are around a particular circuit, lining up in order from fastest to slowest, and then slowly spreading out for as long as the race lasts.
Anything outside of that basic construct is either random chance, artificial tinkering, or aerodynamics ruining the sport.
Random chance could be a change in the weather that benefits one car more than another, driver mistakes, mechanical issues, bad luck with pit stops, etc.
Artificial tinkering is stuff like the F1 mandatory tire change rule, joker laps, speed boosts (formula E) based on fan votes, etc.
And then there’s aerodynamics. F1 has tried to balance this out with DRS and different aerodynamic rules, but it’s always going to make racing less fun. In F1 and most other series, that means watching trains. In NASCAR, that means pack racing and lots of draft-based passing that continously shuffles the order in a way that I personally find meaningless. I never know which passes matter and the current running order always seems arbitrary. At some point the race ends and whatever order they happened to be in at that point becomes meaningful, for reasons that are never clear.
Likewise F1 is relatively boring most of the time. We watch the best drivers make the amazing look mundane, and we hope to see 1 or 2 really amazing moments. For me, this works. I can follow the news, follow the driver/team drama, watch analysis of the 1 or 2 really amazing things, and be happy. But it took me several starts to get “into” F1 in the first place.
), but you can see their drivers battling for position, and whether he succeeds, fails or causes a massive wreck, there’s always something happening. I heard at least twice how Norris had fresher tires and was going to attack Verstappen near the end…and absolutely nothing came of it; Verstappen’s lock on 2nd was made of adamantium. I don’t doubt for a second that Norris was trying to find an opening (He certainly didn’t look very passive at the start!), but there was none forthcoming. I heard one radio call from George Russell grumbling about backmarkers, and next thing I knew, he’d completed the wire-to-wire victory without being remotely close to threatened even once.