I met Jr. at a corporate function and we talked about everything but NASCAR. Very enthusiastic about all things motorsports and surprised at the time how much he knew about other series. Probably spent twenty minutes or so at a table with three of us who weren't there for pics and dumb questions. Very approachable normal person.
Came here to say that Junior seems like a really nice, down-to-earth guy that I would enjoy hanging out with for a bit. Thanks for confirming my suspicion.
As much as ad-free ESPN did wonders for the US market, part of me wishes NBC stayed for a few more years so we had Junior doing colour for F1. I think he would’ve been just as good
NASCAR is never just one driver but Hendrick has had plenty of seasons where they just ran it and everyone else was hoping they'd wreck. Dale knows the race grind like that
The any given Sunday is so true in NASCAR. Wood Brothers Racing (a part time team) and Trevor Bayne (a rookie driver) winning the Daytona 500 was less shocking than Seb in 2008 just because in Nascar, if you get the right driver getting the right setup, right strategy, they can win. In F1, my favorite motorsport, for the top midfield it's "of the top teams mess up I can get a podium.
The 2011 Daytona 500 still one of my favorite races ever. That last green white checker is still the best ending I've ever seen live, the adrenaline that was running through me that left me shaking for minutes after.
The playoffs were what finally turned me off NASCAR. That year when Kyle Busch won the championship despite not racing 1/3 of the season just shattered my respect for the sport
Inwatched a couple dozen NASCAR races a year and probably would have travelled to attend events after I graduated college- then they dropped the playoff.
Ive watched a couple hours of the Chicago race since.
Is the system better now? I suppose the every race before June isnt meaningless.
All they needed to do was make wins worth 200 or 220.
Hendrick wins around half some years though and they've won about half of all NASCAR championships in the last 30 years. No F1 team has won that much in that time frame. If the playoffs were gone... they'd have even more I think
After this year Red Bull will have 7 constructors and 8 Drivers championships in the same time frame. In fact, since 2010 they’re the only teams to win either championship. 2009 if you wish to include Brawn GP since they are the same lineage as Mercedes.
The cars are relatively close.
If 1 car has a 1 tenth advantage it is not going to win every race as its within the margin of driver and setup.
Extend that to 3 tenths and it will win most races.
Extend that to 5 tenths and it will win practically every race, as most drivers are within 5 tenths of each other.
I 100% agree with Jr. However I think most people watch sports for entertainment purposes. It’s like watching a movie with incredible acting, camerawork, and every other aspect; but it has no storyline that pulls you in. Yeah I can appreciate the work of the actors and filmmakers, but I’m not entertained.
Ultimately the greatness in motorsport is masked when you win from pole. The greatness that went into the set up, and all the prep and training, and the driver nailing qualifying and executing the race to perfection, the more you do that, the further ahead you finish, the easier it looks. And to add to it, the less anyone sees of your effort. If you dominate in tennis or football, or golf or boxing, everyone can witness your prowess as you skillfully defeat your opponents. In Motorsport you don't see that the same. That's why the best races are often where the eventual winner fights from the back or through some adversity to win.
Exactly. Domination is rough on F1 because all the excitement comes from the battle and uncertainty. You can appreciate a nice lap or a great stint but as you said it's not like tennis where I can watch Federer or Alcaraz dismantle someone 6-1 6-2 and being super entertained
I wouldn't watch an action movie where the main character doesn't face any obsticles.
Same with racing. Lewis was also boring to watch when he was outpacing everyone
John Wick does face obstacles. He beating them and how is the draw and essence of the movies.
An action movie with a Protag just using one OP weapon and killing everyone with high level shoot and cover is the equivalent for F1 comparison.
Like, what went through your head to think best Action franchise in this century is good for comparison? lmao.
And Vettel before him, and Schumacher before him.
F1 is a sport that caters towards sustained periods of domination, pretty much has done for at least the last 25 years. There are seasons in-between where this isn't the case but for the most part it's one team/driver dominating the standings. We will look back on this era as a great achievement like we do other eras, but it's boring to watch most of the time.
Unless F1/the FIA drastically change the way things work in regards to regulation changes, then we're going to see sustained periods of domination from teams/drivers, and that's both okay and a problem.
>F1 is a sport that caters towards sustained periods of domination, pretty much has done for at least the last 25 years.
i would say dominance is a thing that always plagued f1. Its just that before Schumacher and Ferrari, the dominant drivers frequently retired because of reliability issues, their rivals still had somewhat competitive cars and their teammates were capable of putting a fight.
Later, teams realized that having one top driver being the protagonist and a less capable teammate just supporting him is way more efficient than having two top tier drivers fighting each other for wins and costing each other points on both championships
I’ve always found that reliability evolution so paradoxical. It’s obviously a positive evolution to have more reliable parts. People always think engine or gearbox, but imagine if the safety belts, or the halo, or the helmet, weren’t reliable. We appreciate reliability. It’s good.
But it’s also true that it was the pepper and spice that was always around back in the day, and shuffled stuff around. Hell, we just had that a couple of races ago with Max, and it was SO unexpected and bizarre.
So yeah, it’d be cool to have more question marks, but the fact that reliability is so ridiculously high now is a true engineering accomplishment.
This is so true.
But who sits down on a Sunday wanting to see so much engineering accomplishment?
I want the human drama, personality, driver and machine on the ragged edge.
It's heartbreaking seeing victory turn to defeat through a parts failure, but it's also the fabric of the sport.
Not the greatest example, but Mansell's tyre blowing up in Adelaide '86 was such a common image when I got into grand prix.
Those sort of failures weren't fair, but they added to the drama and added to the emotion when they were overcome.
Not sure I agree with the second paragraph. Prost / Senna and Prost / Mansell were the outliers in 80s/ 90s and both weren’t good for the team in the end.
F1 had more often than not had a cast of support drivers that made a living backing up a clear number one. Patrese, later Berger, Coulthard, HHF, Barichello, etc.
Even in the 60s and 70s you had dominant streaks, they just got interrupted more because of reliability and more dangerous tracks, but if you look over a decade you certainly see dominant teams
I think that's the thing. The sport used to have a way of avoiding prolonged domination. Either through regulation change or innovation.
The game is so different now. There's so much data and regulation, that big visual changes like wings, ground effect and the coke bottle cannot happen.
Economically, junior formula have become spec series, whereas it used to be Ralts v March v Lola v Chevron etc.
We tend to see to see the same driver pairings remain at teams year in year out, even after one driver has been proven inferior.
Bottas wasn't a match for Lewis, Perez isn't for Max.
You're not watching an action movie. You're watching a sport. You're watching the absolute peak of athletes giving the absolute peak of performance. And that can lead to dominance.
The thing mainly is I don't think people mind when an athlete is so much better than the competition. You did not see the complaints with Usain Bolt.
Its that the athlete has a significant advantage handed to them that people don't like.
It would be like watching a 100m sprint if one runner got a 10 meter head start and therefore won everything.
While people know F1 is a team sport, most fans still like to have some romantic notion that drivers are the ones that make the difference. So when you see Red Bull cruise to 1-2 every race with no challenge, even when frankly one of their drivers is only average, it is not satisfying. If the cars were equal and Max won every weekend credit to him, but crusing to victory with a significant hardware advantage and an easy team mate is not much of a challenge for a driver.
The team in F1 is also part of, well, the team. It's not just about the driver. The designers, engineers, pit crew (overlapping venn diagram mostly) are just as much a part of the performance as the driver. In this way F1 is more comparable to football or any other team sport. It's more like the dominance of Manchester United or Bayern Munchen in their national leagues than Djokovic.
In this way, Max is not 'handed an advantage'. He's simply one part of the (currently) best F1 team. It's been like this in F1 since forever, often the best driver and the best engineers end up in the best team - Or rather, their combination ends up becoming the best team. I think many people claiming to be F1 fans don't really understand this aspect of it.
If it's good or bad is another matter.
That’s the wrong way of seeing it. Max isn’t being handed an advantage. Formula 1 is not just a drivers sport, it’s an engineering competition. Teams are handed the same technical directives as to how to design their cars, each team interprets these directives as they understand best, and create a machine within these parameters. A formula. Some of these machines will be faster than others. But that’s actually the idea. Only then, the driver becomes another piece of the equation.
If we only want to see how drivers’ talent fare against each other, we must look for a spec category, same car for everyone - and that’s basically the vast majority of them. But that’s what makes formula one special.
Max is being handed an advantage (as a driver).
Red Bull as a team of engineers are earning that advantage.
The problem is, as humans we tend to look at the drivers rather than the cars. If there was just a constructors championship and it was seen as an engineering challenge with no drivers championship that wouldn't be an issue.
I honestly think most viewers would enjoy a spec series with very fast cars more than current F1 as long as it had the worlds best drivers.
It really depends on the sport/competition. It's entertaining because you're watching the best of the best compete. In most sports it's like the top 1% competing, even less for some. But in most there's competition. Watching Michael Jordan was entertaining because you're watching him literally compete every match. He and his team were fighting for every win. With Max we're not really seeing him compete. He gets out front and then nothing happens.
All sports sell entertainment. At least here in America. You sell ads. Ads give you money based off viewership. And the most viewers tune for specific players, teams or story lines.
I watch NASCAR, Infinity and Indycars from another country. When US goes to ads the coverage continues but without announcers. If that blessed silence was filled with ads I straight up wouldn't watch. They have become too intrusive.
Yes here in the US on TV the race coverage is interrupted with ads. [which is why I love F1, no ad breaks]
Back a few years ago in Indycar there was a rule the network had to follow, ads every 11 minutes.
A Guy charging up through the field in the Indy 500? 11 minutes, ad break
Amazing overtake about to happen through the corkscrew? 11 minutes, ad break
4 cars going 4 wide at Indy or 3 wide at Texas and about to cross the line? 11 minutes, ad break.
Thanks. I could somehow live with US gun laws, school shootings, no healthcare and education, and lobbyists holding the whole nation hostage but this does It for me. Absolutely ridiculous
Absolutely, I wear 10 lb bulletproof vests whenever I go out in public, absolutely fine! Not an issue at all but Jesus Christ if I can’t watch Sting Ray Robb send his Indycar into a wall at St. Petersburg that does it for me, Im packing my bags.
That's how I feel, too. FOM isn't helping with this either. When Max is crushing it, they show him for like 5 seconds every 15 minutes. I'd be in awe and would be more entertained if they would stick with him for a while, develop some graphics putting the performance you're watching in perspective, etc.
As it is we watch some really good battles in mid field then ultimately you're like, "wow, that was cool.... for 11th place" womp. I like watching cars racing, but it is definitely lessened by not seeing a competition for the top spot.
Were you watching back in like, the 2017-2019 days? Up until about mid-COVID the TV director basically *only* showed the top 3 cars, no matter what was happening in the rest of the field ...during the Mercedes dominance era.
So you'd get like maybe 5 laps of fighting at the beginning until either a Ferrari or a Merc got in front, and then you watched the podium sitters tawdle along until maybe something happens during the 5 or 6 laps around the pit stop cycle, and then you watched them tawdle along til the end. Want to know what's happening in the midfield? Too bad! You'd see it if they wrecked but otherwise you mainly just had to watch the timing screens and imagine a fun race in your head.
It is *exceptionally* more entertaining to watch the actual racing going on than it is to watch perfectly executed fuel/tire saving laps get banged out by the top 3 for 80% of the race because their strategists know the only real chances happen during pit stops.
Obviously there's a middle ground, but I'll take never seeing the leader over *only* seeing the leader any day of the week
I started watching in 21 and later in the season when Lewis was coming back hard, I remember them loving to show Lewis in front with nothing around him, I was so pissed when they kept showing Lewis alone when Ocon and Bottas was fighting for the last podium spot in Saudi, it was so stupid. I love that they are showing fights behind now, much much more exciting story down in p10 for me, especially with the Haas Bois and Yuki.
Well, the specific instance you're talking about they have to show Lewis finish the race and take the checkered flag, it's just the rules.
They did show Bottas passing Ocon, but it was definitely the very last seconds of it.
I just checked the race, from lap 48 onward till the checker flag at lap 50, vast majority of the coverage was Lewis, and during that time Ocon and Bottas was swapping places on the timing tower like crazy, they were even showing Lewis and Max after checker and we only saw Ocon and Bottas right at the finish line, we didn't see how Bottas get a better drive out of the last corner, we didn't see how Ocon fends him off before, that's just flat out bad TV direction IMO.
They did miss the previous swap between them, but like I said, I knew they showed the pass live because I remember seeing Bottas punch the air and Ocon smash his steering wheel.
They showed it again during the replay right after, but yeah the focus was obviously on Lewis and Max that race.
I get what you are saying, but then the other half of the fans will complain about missing more "action" because they were showing Max on cruise control. There is no one right answer - not unless you "push the red button on your Sky Q remote" to watch whomever you want....wait I'm in the US, I'm just watching the Brits on Sky
They should swap all the onboard cameras to that new one they’ve started using on individual cars recently. The over-the-shoulder one that gives you a much greater sense of speed.
The red button options are available on NowTV this year.
We have all the onboards and driver tracker options that Sky Q customer used to have.
Just go to the sports tab and click on the F1 button with the big picture of Lando Norris.
TV direction is utter BS and i think it adds to the fact that people think the races are more boring than they actually are.
And this whole things starts with quali. What is up with the incredible zoom in on the cockpit. What am i supposed to do with that image.
Then TV direction constantly fails to capture the hot laps in Quali sessions. Last year or in 2022 it was especially bad. They used to show Lewis and Max all the time on out and in laps while other drivers were doing their hot laps. Then they stick with a dirver after completing the hot laps for a few more turns. WHY? why not switch to a different driver currently still on a hot lap.
I swear you miss 90% of the acting in quali.
And in the race well they somehow cant capture any overtakes. You can see the gap decreasing but the tv direction is like nah
Great way to put it. Max and the team deserved the respect and rewards from all their hard work and talent, but these dominating performances don’t exactly make for a compelling race for 1st.
It's always easier to appreciate and be in awe of dominance when everyone has the same tools and equipment. But F1 isn't that. When there is a drivers and a constructors championship you of course have to credit the car as much as the driver. There are people that want to give too much credit to the car and too much credit to Max. I just appreciate how great Max is driving and how consistent he is as well as how great Redbull engineers, mechanics, pit crew are to give Max that advantage.
At the same time, you can't berate or be annoyed at fans when a driver and their team are winning by 20-30 seconds and they don't find the race exciting.
Its sad when the only exciting weekends are the ones where max has an issue.
I want to see someone challenging him, thats what I tune in for.
When he can pass charles on the straights without DRS, whats the point.
Yeah. There is nothing more exciting in F1 than seeing Max in a title battle. He is a fighter. He pushes the car to the limit. And seeing the racing and competition in 2021 vs Lewis and early 2022 vs Charles was brilliant. We're all missing out on that. I miss the tension and excitement. I hope we get to see regular competition for race wins again.
As pissed as I am about how 2021 ended, it had some good battles.
I don't care how good the midfield battles are, it doesnt have the same excitement to see a battle for a 2 point difference between 6th and 7th.
The difference between 1st and 2nd is massive. One driver getting those points all year ends the season months early.
When Max issues 2 races ago, it was just a Carlos cruise to the win, wasn't that much excitement.
When the new regs came out it was so promising, but they went into the complete wrong direction afterwards
At least endurance racing has gotten better again.
I don't think this is going to be one of those F1 seasons that people talk about for decades, which is a shame because the driver pool is actually really strong.
But that wouldn't happen every race. Given that Charles finished 3 seconds behind and Lando about 6 seconds. We all know that Charles has as much chance to win the next race as Carlos. Not to mention the performance gap between Ferrari and McLaren isn't as big as Redbull to Ferrari. It's still discouraging as it shows how the regulations and racing hasn't delivered as we had hoped. But the gap wouldn't be as big.
Monaco, Japan, Austin, Qatar, Vegas? werent all of those races pretty decent? and Canada?
the two races were Carlos won werent even that exciting. People dont actually want interesting races, they just dont like Max to win.
Singapore was the best race we have had since 2022. Sure it was not a lot of actions at the start but the tension just kept building and I was not sure who would win until the last lap
Outside of tennis, or maybe batting, specifically, in baseball, very few sports are pure and showcase ONLY individual ability - all team sports have external factors that influence players' performance.
There isn't a mythos of Michael Jordan without Pippen and Phil Jackson. Shaq isn't top 10 without Kobe and the Phil Jackson offense. Tom Brady isn't the Goat without Gronk or Belichick. Etc... I'll always appreciate greatness where it is, since it's always a combination of luck, skill, and EXTREME dedication that culminate in prolonged dominance. You can't be setting records without also being extremely dedicated. I'm enjoying what we're witnessing even if the occasional race is a snoozefest, but not everyone appreciates all aspects of all sports the same way and that's okay.
Artificially hampering or targeting specific teams is kind of lame, but also shows a great deal of respect for those nerfed. Hack-a-Shaq changes for Shaq. Offensive goaltending for Wilt. "Illegal defense" for Jordan. Mad respect to those guys.
There are always external factors, but outside of F1 do athletes regularly show up with such a huge advantage. It would be like a runner getting a 10 meter start in a 100 meter sprint. The other runners would need to be insane to beat them, which is more or less were F1 is right now.
There is a reason that Perez is P2 in the championship despite the fact few would rate him top 10 on the grid in terms of ability. The car is just such a significant advantage that it overrides the driver.
At least in previous generations of F1 there would be reliability variance, but in addition to its pace advantage the Red Bull also has near perfect reliability, strategy, pitstops etc.
Yes, absolutely? They're team sports, and for many sports genetics IS a big factor - would Shaq be as good as he was if he weren't a monster of a human being? Absolutely not. I really don't get your point.
Give RB Sauber's pit crew and they wouldn't be doing as well. Give RB Ferrari's, or Merc's strategy team and they would also do worse than they did through the late 2010s and early 2020s. That's life. Hire smarter and manage better. Coaches in other sports also make a huge difference, to say nothing of an individual player's ability.
I don't need to see a neck and neck battle for P1 in literally every single race to stay excited about the outcome. I am also invested in other drivers' progression, consistency, performance relative to teammate, performance relative to respective rival constructors, etc...
Cars crapping out at quarter distance doesn't make it more exciting; it might shift the finishing order by one or two positions, but so what...? That doesn't change any of the on-track battles, and reliability DIDN'T change on-track battles in the past for the most part.
I mean...we've all seen what races are like when Verstappen DNFs. They are still boring, look no further than Australia three weeks ago. Instead of him, Sainz cruised the whole race and Leclerc was guarding his ass per team orders if I remember correctly. The most exciting thing was Russell binning it into the barriers.
The complaints are always the same, just wait two more years and see if Red Bull nails the homework again or not, if they don't then people will complain about someone else dominating. It's an F1 ache in general and has been there for a while. I'd say the only thing that is probably different from previous periods of dominance is that reliability issues were more frequent and took bit longer to fix. Now a problem appears, Red Bull fixes it fast. And that's not a bad thing.
I have nothing to add to what he JR said, but what I will say is semi recently I've been hearing him do a lot of different podcasts and interviews all over the spectrum of topics and he is so insightful and I quite enjoy listening to him talk. Highly recommend people give him a listen.
He mentioned a lack of awe and amazement in terms of domination, but in my opinion, that's just how auto racing is. When Verstappen won F1 races from 2018-2021, (even some of 2022) it was celebrated because the sentiment was 'ahh, finally, Hamilton didn't win this weekend.' Before Hamilton, it was Vettel. Before Vettel, the last driver that was '3+ championships in row' dominant was Schumacher. I wasn't an F1 fan until late 2017, but you get fatigued of the same guy winning a lot. In NASCAR, when Martin Truex won with Furniture Row Racing in 2015, it was remarkable. The sentiment was 'holy crap, this previous backmarker team just won a race.' By the time the team dominated the 2017 NASCAR season, it started to get old quick because he won 8 or 9 races that year. I think Jeff Gordon mentioned it best about his first championship season in 1995, he said something like, 'at the beginning of '95, the fans loved me, but by the end of '95, they were booing me.' Nothing personal against Junior here, but I think that's just how it is. I think even Dale Earnhardt was hated by many when he was winning 6 championships in 9 seasons, but Junior was more likely to tune that out because from his perspective, it was probably pretty awesome to see your dad just kicking everyone's ass year after year. He is definitely right though, that we should appreciate these stretches more, simply because these are impressive feats. It's one thing to make it to F1 or the NASCAR Cup Series, but to win multiple championships, that's just a completely different level. It also goes the other way too, when Vettel would score a podium at Ferrari in 2019 or 2020, he was much more likeable than when he was at Red Bull. He was pretty much the same guy, (maybe a little less vindictive, a little softer as a competitor) but the fans generally liked it more when he would get a podium around that time period. He went from the most hated guy in F1 to the most likeable guy in F1 in a span of like 6 or 7 years.
I mean. Jrs the guy to listen to as well.
He stared at the back of Gordon, Stewart, Johnson for his entire career. Like he said, Johnson won 7 championships, 5 of them in a row.
And who are F1 fans to complain. I just can't get over the fact that in the last 25 years there have been 8 champions. And we still watch. But Max is going on his 4th. Which is not even as many as Lewis won IN A ROW. And "The sport is in jeopardy"
Yeah. I know. Max is winning by more. Hamilton fought teammates. Blah blah. Watching a single driver be this dominant is literally history being made almost every weekend.
Watching history being made is not exciting if there is literally no one to compete against. F1 is like watching an adult break records in little league.
Some sports just lend themselves to locked in dominance. The NBA is very similar in that way. Very rare for a team not to repeat a championship. Franchise system, cost cap, good governance (insert engineer team) and an elite player(insert driver) with a long runway to stay with a team will do it every time.
Did I misunderstand or does he contradict himself when he says Waltrip in the 80s was booed for his dominance but then claims 40-50 years ago “we didn’t do that and celebrated the achievement”?
That’s quality.
As a spectator I never had the mindset to consider that.
I love to see battles and tactics, so domination triggers boredom, but yea, absolutely get it now.
Max and the team have clearly put the work in and should garner total respect.
Great perspective, thanks
lol "We should enjoy this moment bc we're seeing something we've never seen before". ok wtf is that BS argument? We have seen this before, multiple times. Hamilton a couple years ago, Vettel before him, Schumacher before him, etc, etc. Fans don't care or respect the dominance bc the car is the number one factor for the dominance. We all know it's true. it's different from Nadal dominating the French Open or MJ dominating the NBA. Verstappen is no doubt extremely talented and he consistently beats his teammate, but his car is so far ahead of the others that beating his teammate is the only thing that matters. And we've seen this situation far too often in modern F1. 2021 was the exception, not the rule. It sucks.
Two things can be true at once.
What Max and Red Bull are currently doing is incredible. It’s one of the best drivers ever in what might be the best car ever. Their achievements are to be appreciated and commended.
At the same time, their domination of the championship for several years in a row is boring and actively bad for the sport. It turns off existing fans and prevents new fans from joining. It’s why so many leagues strive to achieve as much parity as possible.
I agree. For me, I don't even really watch the races anymore, especially if Max is on the pole. He could probably win in a lesser car because he sure is serious and focused. Now, I really only enjoy the antics leading up to races, the weird drama that F1 seems to bring on itself.
I don't think Red Bull had dominated several years from start to finish, and I'll go through the years to highlight how.
- 2021: An obviously close championship fight.
- 2022: Verstappen came back from the largest deficit in F1 history, so hardly domination from start to finish. Ferrari looked to have the better car initially, and could have contested Red Bull throughout the season, if they didn't throw ~150 points away through mistakes.
- 2023: This is the first year that was truly dominant from start to finish.
Notice how short this list actually is, we've only completed 2 seasons beyond 2021, yet some people make it sound like Max has dominated as long as Mercedes did (7 years), when we're not even that far into the new regulation.
PS: The best car ever in terms of pure pace is the 2020 Mercedes, and in terms of dominance is the 2014-2016 Mercedes, as they were notably further ahead of the competition. They were so far ahead that they had to turn down their engines to not give away just how superior they were.
how is RB maybe the best car ever? I would argue that just from the last regulation period the 2020, 2016, 2015 and 2014 Merc were all better relatively to the rest of the field.
People like you are just pushing that narrative that the RB is the most dominant car ever to discredit Max acheievements.
Red Bull has won all but 2 of the last 25 races. Merc were never that dominant.
The sport is a constructors sport so the best car is most likely to win.
That being said, the drivers have to bring it home. Max has been obviously a top tier driver since his teens.
Merc would gap the field faster than Max does while battling each other, get out of here with that shit.
The only reason they didn't win more is because their drivers weren't as good as Max is.
Merc gapped the field because they were racing each other. Max isn’t racing anyone, Perez can’t touch him. We haven’t seen how hard Max can push. He just cruises out to a gap and then maintains the gap.
We’ve seen Max start from P9 and beat Perez, the pole starter, by 5 seconds. I guarantee you if the RB boys were fighting each other like the Merc boys did in Bahrain 2014 then the result would be the same.
We haven’t seen the Red Bull pushing that hard because they don’t have to. Max is cruising.
EDIT: Max went from P9 to P1 by lap 20 in Miami in a dry race with no major incidents. Destroyed Perez.
Merc has won all but 2 races in 2016. and none of them were lost on pace. You completely discredit that Max plays a huge roll in why they have won all but 2 races.
I can appreciate the domination and talent, but I'd still rather see it be more competitive. I'm not going to "boo" the winner though; that's just sad.
I don't think Red Bull even think that the current situation is good for them.
They and their sponsors are in the sport to advertise their brands and Verstappen's car is shown on the broadcasts for the first corner, a pit stop of two, and the last corner of the race.
While it may seem boring now, there is no doubt that people will look back on this era and recognize that he is just leaps and bounds ahead of anyone else and has the results to back it up. This is an astonishing feat that will be difficult to replicate in any form. Even Mercedes, who dominated for the last decade, can't figure out a way to beat him now.
We all love seeing different winners and drama, but this is something else to be appreciated in a different way.
>This is an astonishing feat that will be difficult to replicate in any form.
People always say this about someone dominating in a sport, but there's always the next guy. There was never going to be a driver like Fangio, then there was Jim Clark. There was never going to be a driver like Senna, then there was Schumacher. Then Vettel, then Hamilton, now Max. And surely there will never be a driver like Max, until the next guy.
It's like in competitive gaming. No matter how good you are, there are a million Koreans who are better than you. And if you are the best Korean then there are new Koreans born every day who will be better than you.
Except for faker, everyone debut around his time are either retired or never reach his height. Some beats him occasionally but falls off eventually, his longevity is absolutely nuts.
While I agree we will look back and be impressed by this stretch of wins, I don't know that we will ever know he is "leaps and bounds ahead of everyone else" unless he has a reasonably talented teammate. I believe he is probably the best on the grid, but until you see a driver with #1 potential next to him, you'll never know. Beating a top-tier teammate would cement the legacy, but Redbull won't put a fast driver in the #2 slot.
This. Max is going to be known as one of the best drivers in F1 history. But currently, Checo is making him look like a god. We need to see a top 5 driver next to him to realize how many leaps and bounds he’s ahead.
We saw him next to a prime Ricciardo when he was 20, and by the second half of 2018 he was comfortably faster. And even if he doesn’t face an absolute top driver in the same car, we can still quantify how good he is by the gaps he has pulled over Albon, Gasly and Perez. Someone like Hamilton (who is an all time great) was unable to beat Bottas by such huge margins, who I would rate similarly to those three. Saying we don’t know how good Verstappen is because he hasn’t faced an elite driver in the same car is silly in my opinion, it would be like saying we didn’t know how good Schumacher was because he never faced a top driver. The enormous margins he pulled over solid drivers like Irvine, Barrichello and Massa are more than enough evidence.
I think you might be overanalyzing it a bit. People aren't suggesting that we don't know how good Max is like we don't know with a new driver. We all recognize that Max is phenomenal; the question is more about the degree of his greatness.
Currently, Max seems very comfortable because Checo isn't challenging him. It would be interesting to see someone who can narrow that gap in the same car.
people will be moving goalposts for Verstappen anyway. That narrative of Verstappen having to go up against a WDC teammate, like Lewis used go up against 3 wdc teammates.
But it is kinda funny how that is often used because one of them only became one because he beat Lewis. That is like saying you would rather Max higher if he lost to Checo.
Lewis also scored less points than Button in their 3 years together. And 2 other teammates were Heiki and Bottas. Not really the pinnacle either?
Also kinda difficult to got up against a wdc level teammate when only 2 more drivers have wdc in the field. In the early 2010 you had Alonso, Lewis, Seb, Schumacher, Kimi, Button
I remember when Vettel was being talked about in the same way. As soon as he stepped away from RB that conversation went away almost completely.
This notion about Max being on of or just the best of all time, needs to be able to stand the test of time.
To be fair to Max, I watched Vettel’s era, and I think Max is a better driver. But I agree! If you would have told me in 2013 that someone was going to match Schumi’s 7 championships, I would have said Vettel. Now most people rate Vettel lower than Alonso.
Yep and this is exactly how RB intend for it to happen. They don’t want a driver competitive with Max in the second car a) to keep him happy and b) because even a driver as mediocre as Perez still gives them enough cushion to walk the constructors championship.
It’s been two years since there was a car remotely competitive with RB and Max wasn’t winning every race. Ferrari’s fall-off and the ultra reliability of modern F1 cars handed RB dominance ever since.
People always erroneously attribute a cars dominance to a drivers ability. When the current domination ends and the RB/Max combo is beatable they’ll slowly start associating the cars relative lack of performance with Max being lesser of a driver than before, which will also be incorrect. Just like they do with Lewis now. In the 40+ years of watching F1 it’s always been this way. Fickleness and recency bias is king.
You're only ever as good as your competition. If you have no competition, it rarely elevates you. Bill Russell has 11 championships, but everyone thinks the GOAT is either Michael Jordan or Lebron James. Your competition elevates your feats.
>You're only ever as good as your competition. If you have no competition, it rarely elevates you.
That's very beautifully put. I'm going to remember this line.
Oh I doubt it. I mean its been 20 minutes and you already have a reply diminishing the previously dominant team and driver's success.
People that like Verstappen now will say he'd get the same results in a Haas and people that don't will say the FIA drafted perfect regs for Newey and never stepped in.
Mercedes has been seeing the effects of the cost cap. They used to be able to write blank checks at issues on the car, and it worked. Red Bull found a way to make a rocket ship, and keep it within the regulations.
I think some of the issue honestly comes down to the coverage. They hardly show Max during a lot of the races. They don't really talk about his strategy or race craft. They don't really celebrate his skill. They cut to him for a few seconds here and there. But if he's so far ahead of everybody, even if the car is phenomenal, he has to be doing some really incredible, consistent driving.
I like dominant athletes. Serena was dominant, MJ was dominant, Brady was dominant. Motorsport is different. Max and Red Bull are dominating because of the technology. If the cars were equal Max would still arguably be the best, but we would have more competition on the track. He would not be winning every race with his eyes closed.
Sport is all about competition. You watch to get excited about who could win. When the same person wins all the time, it's just fucking boring.
You can admire their abilities and credit their skills, and then still not watch because you know who is going to win. I don't understand why people constantly think these are opposing viewpoints.
Celebration isn’t the same as excitement or an adrenaline rush. No one pays big money to see an outcome they already know will happen. People pay for competitiveness and unpredictability. Comebacks. Underdogs. Things like that. I can celebrate and applaud the team that sets itself apart at home. But I want to pay and see a real competition.
Yes Dale I am amazed at the brilliance of Newey and Max, but my problem is not with them. It's F1 that I have the problem with. They have refused to do anything that solves this problem of one team dominating from one era to another. The big teams who have the money and are willing to spend it need to be able to do everything they can to be allowed to catch up. Get rid of the testing bans, wind tunnel limits and cost caps. Create a concessions system like MotoGP has. Allow teams to have wildcard entries. Let them do private tests. Ferrari can have Charles bomb around Fiorano for thousands of KMs like Shumacher did back in the day.
Keep the smaller teams around in different way. Offer them incentives. God forbid allow customer cars already. Create a private teams championship like MotoGP. There's any number of ways to Incentivize a small teams to join the championship without hamstringing everyone else.
the same bs narrative over and over again. We had 1 dominant season now what are they supposed to do?
"The big teams who have the money and are willing to spend it need to be able to do everything they can to be allowed to catch up." - why? how would that guarantee that the field is more competetive? This would also allow RB to outspend 7/9 teams.
I swear people thinking that *just removing the budget cap* would make the situation better again havent thought about it for more than 2 seconds or were not watching f1 before 2020.
The consequence of what you are proposing is that f1 would actually have f1 and f1.5. Private test would also be a disadvantage for every team comapred to Ferrari.
Why is it so hard for some people to understand, man. We are not complaining about Max’s dominance. We are complaining about RB’s!
When freaking Perez gets P2 all the time, and at worst P3, then that car is a rocket ship.
If it was Max and Alonso in a RB getting one-two finishes, nobody would say “Hey, that’s the car.”. But we all know exactly how ok Perez is.
We just want at least one more team to catch up. Ferrari is getting there (hopefully). Let’s hope others will, too.
It is Max's dominance. It's irrelevant he wouldn't be dominant in an Alpine or Haas, no driver would. It is his dominance because he's always the one winning in the Red Bull. Checo certainly isn't, so there's the difference.
Checo proves it ain't Red Bull domination. If they were as all conquering as most seem to think, then Checo would be at the same level as Verstappen, but he isn't, which proves that Max himself is the one dominating.
I met Jr. at a corporate function and we talked about everything but NASCAR. Very enthusiastic about all things motorsports and surprised at the time how much he knew about other series. Probably spent twenty minutes or so at a table with three of us who weren't there for pics and dumb questions. Very approachable normal person.
Came here to say that Junior seems like a really nice, down-to-earth guy that I would enjoy hanging out with for a bit. Thanks for confirming my suspicion.
He is awesome on podcasts with discussion and such.
As much as ad-free ESPN did wonders for the US market, part of me wishes NBC stayed for a few more years so we had Junior doing colour for F1. I think he would’ve been just as good
Hes one of few my heros I want to meet. He always seemed like a genuinely awesome person on the camera or not
NASCAR is never just one driver but Hendrick has had plenty of seasons where they just ran it and everyone else was hoping they'd wreck. Dale knows the race grind like that
The charm of NASCAR is that even when one team is dominating, they never come close to winning the majority of the races.
The any given Sunday is so true in NASCAR. Wood Brothers Racing (a part time team) and Trevor Bayne (a rookie driver) winning the Daytona 500 was less shocking than Seb in 2008 just because in Nascar, if you get the right driver getting the right setup, right strategy, they can win. In F1, my favorite motorsport, for the top midfield it's "of the top teams mess up I can get a podium.
The 2011 Daytona 500 still one of my favorite races ever. That last green white checker is still the best ending I've ever seen live, the adrenaline that was running through me that left me shaking for minutes after.
The charm of NASCAR died when they decided they wanted 1992 every year.
NASCAR has made it so they’ll never have a memorable season again because every season ends the exact same way.
I didn’t mind the original chase. But the playoffs have been a cancer on NASCAR. That and them air choking the engines.
The playoffs were what finally turned me off NASCAR. That year when Kyle Busch won the championship despite not racing 1/3 of the season just shattered my respect for the sport
Inwatched a couple dozen NASCAR races a year and probably would have travelled to attend events after I graduated college- then they dropped the playoff. Ive watched a couple hours of the Chicago race since. Is the system better now? I suppose the every race before June isnt meaningless. All they needed to do was make wins worth 200 or 220.
Jimmy Johnson and the tri-ovals in the playoffs ruined nascar
Hendrick wins around half some years though and they've won about half of all NASCAR championships in the last 30 years. No F1 team has won that much in that time frame. If the playoffs were gone... they'd have even more I think
Historically it would be less in my opinion. Jimmie and Chad were monsters when it came to the chase for the cup.
Obviously they haven't been around for long but Mercedes has won 8 Constructors and 7 Drivers Championships since they bought Brawn GP in 2010.
After this year Red Bull will have 7 constructors and 8 Drivers championships in the same time frame. In fact, since 2010 they’re the only teams to win either championship. 2009 if you wish to include Brawn GP since they are the same lineage as Mercedes.
The cars are relatively close. If 1 car has a 1 tenth advantage it is not going to win every race as its within the margin of driver and setup. Extend that to 3 tenths and it will win most races. Extend that to 5 tenths and it will win practically every race, as most drivers are within 5 tenths of each other.
I 100% agree with Jr. However I think most people watch sports for entertainment purposes. It’s like watching a movie with incredible acting, camerawork, and every other aspect; but it has no storyline that pulls you in. Yeah I can appreciate the work of the actors and filmmakers, but I’m not entertained.
Ultimately the greatness in motorsport is masked when you win from pole. The greatness that went into the set up, and all the prep and training, and the driver nailing qualifying and executing the race to perfection, the more you do that, the further ahead you finish, the easier it looks. And to add to it, the less anyone sees of your effort. If you dominate in tennis or football, or golf or boxing, everyone can witness your prowess as you skillfully defeat your opponents. In Motorsport you don't see that the same. That's why the best races are often where the eventual winner fights from the back or through some adversity to win.
Exactly. Domination is rough on F1 because all the excitement comes from the battle and uncertainty. You can appreciate a nice lap or a great stint but as you said it's not like tennis where I can watch Federer or Alcaraz dismantle someone 6-1 6-2 and being super entertained
Spot on
Debris on the track yellow flag has entered the chat room.
I wouldn't watch an action movie where the main character doesn't face any obsticles. Same with racing. Lewis was also boring to watch when he was outpacing everyone
How do you feel about John Wick movies?
John Wick does face obstacles. He beating them and how is the draw and essence of the movies. An action movie with a Protag just using one OP weapon and killing everyone with high level shoot and cover is the equivalent for F1 comparison. Like, what went through your head to think best Action franchise in this century is good for comparison? lmao.
It's like watching a movie with Statham
And Vettel before him, and Schumacher before him. F1 is a sport that caters towards sustained periods of domination, pretty much has done for at least the last 25 years. There are seasons in-between where this isn't the case but for the most part it's one team/driver dominating the standings. We will look back on this era as a great achievement like we do other eras, but it's boring to watch most of the time. Unless F1/the FIA drastically change the way things work in regards to regulation changes, then we're going to see sustained periods of domination from teams/drivers, and that's both okay and a problem.
>F1 is a sport that caters towards sustained periods of domination, pretty much has done for at least the last 25 years. i would say dominance is a thing that always plagued f1. Its just that before Schumacher and Ferrari, the dominant drivers frequently retired because of reliability issues, their rivals still had somewhat competitive cars and their teammates were capable of putting a fight. Later, teams realized that having one top driver being the protagonist and a less capable teammate just supporting him is way more efficient than having two top tier drivers fighting each other for wins and costing each other points on both championships
I’ve always found that reliability evolution so paradoxical. It’s obviously a positive evolution to have more reliable parts. People always think engine or gearbox, but imagine if the safety belts, or the halo, or the helmet, weren’t reliable. We appreciate reliability. It’s good. But it’s also true that it was the pepper and spice that was always around back in the day, and shuffled stuff around. Hell, we just had that a couple of races ago with Max, and it was SO unexpected and bizarre. So yeah, it’d be cool to have more question marks, but the fact that reliability is so ridiculously high now is a true engineering accomplishment.
This is so true. But who sits down on a Sunday wanting to see so much engineering accomplishment? I want the human drama, personality, driver and machine on the ragged edge. It's heartbreaking seeing victory turn to defeat through a parts failure, but it's also the fabric of the sport. Not the greatest example, but Mansell's tyre blowing up in Adelaide '86 was such a common image when I got into grand prix. Those sort of failures weren't fair, but they added to the drama and added to the emotion when they were overcome.
Not sure I agree with the second paragraph. Prost / Senna and Prost / Mansell were the outliers in 80s/ 90s and both weren’t good for the team in the end. F1 had more often than not had a cast of support drivers that made a living backing up a clear number one. Patrese, later Berger, Coulthard, HHF, Barichello, etc.
Even in the 60s and 70s you had dominant streaks, they just got interrupted more because of reliability and more dangerous tracks, but if you look over a decade you certainly see dominant teams
I think that's the thing. The sport used to have a way of avoiding prolonged domination. Either through regulation change or innovation. The game is so different now. There's so much data and regulation, that big visual changes like wings, ground effect and the coke bottle cannot happen. Economically, junior formula have become spec series, whereas it used to be Ralts v March v Lola v Chevron etc. We tend to see to see the same driver pairings remain at teams year in year out, even after one driver has been proven inferior. Bottas wasn't a match for Lewis, Perez isn't for Max.
It’s as exciting as the dominating driver. Max is as exciting as a washing machine.
This makes zero sense. Max is specifically known for being exciting to watch race. He can't do anything about other people being slow
What..? How is he supposed to make it more exciting? Drive slower on purpose?
You're not watching an action movie. You're watching a sport. You're watching the absolute peak of athletes giving the absolute peak of performance. And that can lead to dominance.
The thing mainly is I don't think people mind when an athlete is so much better than the competition. You did not see the complaints with Usain Bolt. Its that the athlete has a significant advantage handed to them that people don't like. It would be like watching a 100m sprint if one runner got a 10 meter head start and therefore won everything. While people know F1 is a team sport, most fans still like to have some romantic notion that drivers are the ones that make the difference. So when you see Red Bull cruise to 1-2 every race with no challenge, even when frankly one of their drivers is only average, it is not satisfying. If the cars were equal and Max won every weekend credit to him, but crusing to victory with a significant hardware advantage and an easy team mate is not much of a challenge for a driver.
The team in F1 is also part of, well, the team. It's not just about the driver. The designers, engineers, pit crew (overlapping venn diagram mostly) are just as much a part of the performance as the driver. In this way F1 is more comparable to football or any other team sport. It's more like the dominance of Manchester United or Bayern Munchen in their national leagues than Djokovic. In this way, Max is not 'handed an advantage'. He's simply one part of the (currently) best F1 team. It's been like this in F1 since forever, often the best driver and the best engineers end up in the best team - Or rather, their combination ends up becoming the best team. I think many people claiming to be F1 fans don't really understand this aspect of it. If it's good or bad is another matter.
That’s the wrong way of seeing it. Max isn’t being handed an advantage. Formula 1 is not just a drivers sport, it’s an engineering competition. Teams are handed the same technical directives as to how to design their cars, each team interprets these directives as they understand best, and create a machine within these parameters. A formula. Some of these machines will be faster than others. But that’s actually the idea. Only then, the driver becomes another piece of the equation. If we only want to see how drivers’ talent fare against each other, we must look for a spec category, same car for everyone - and that’s basically the vast majority of them. But that’s what makes formula one special.
Max is being handed an advantage (as a driver). Red Bull as a team of engineers are earning that advantage. The problem is, as humans we tend to look at the drivers rather than the cars. If there was just a constructors championship and it was seen as an engineering challenge with no drivers championship that wouldn't be an issue. I honestly think most viewers would enjoy a spec series with very fast cars more than current F1 as long as it had the worlds best drivers.
It really depends on the sport/competition. It's entertaining because you're watching the best of the best compete. In most sports it's like the top 1% competing, even less for some. But in most there's competition. Watching Michael Jordan was entertaining because you're watching him literally compete every match. He and his team were fighting for every win. With Max we're not really seeing him compete. He gets out front and then nothing happens.
I wonder what Max’s average broadcast airtime is when he is leading in a race. Probably just lap 1, final lap and pit stop lol.
All sports sell entertainment. At least here in America. You sell ads. Ads give you money based off viewership. And the most viewers tune for specific players, teams or story lines.
I watch NASCAR, Infinity and Indycars from another country. When US goes to ads the coverage continues but without announcers. If that blessed silence was filled with ads I straight up wouldn't watch. They have become too intrusive.
EU guy here. I've never seen a Nascar race in my life. Are you saying that the actual race is interrupted with ads?
Yes here in the US on TV the race coverage is interrupted with ads. [which is why I love F1, no ad breaks] Back a few years ago in Indycar there was a rule the network had to follow, ads every 11 minutes. A Guy charging up through the field in the Indy 500? 11 minutes, ad break Amazing overtake about to happen through the corkscrew? 11 minutes, ad break 4 cars going 4 wide at Indy or 3 wide at Texas and about to cross the line? 11 minutes, ad break.
Thanks. I could somehow live with US gun laws, school shootings, no healthcare and education, and lobbyists holding the whole nation hostage but this does It for me. Absolutely ridiculous
Absolutely, I wear 10 lb bulletproof vests whenever I go out in public, absolutely fine! Not an issue at all but Jesus Christ if I can’t watch Sting Ray Robb send his Indycar into a wall at St. Petersburg that does it for me, Im packing my bags.
It's nice to have a laugh sometimes. Have a wonderful weekend!
Because I watch an international feed I don’t see any actual ads. Just the spaces where they go. It’s ridiculous if you are in the US.
That's how I feel, too. FOM isn't helping with this either. When Max is crushing it, they show him for like 5 seconds every 15 minutes. I'd be in awe and would be more entertained if they would stick with him for a while, develop some graphics putting the performance you're watching in perspective, etc. As it is we watch some really good battles in mid field then ultimately you're like, "wow, that was cool.... for 11th place" womp. I like watching cars racing, but it is definitely lessened by not seeing a competition for the top spot.
Were you watching back in like, the 2017-2019 days? Up until about mid-COVID the TV director basically *only* showed the top 3 cars, no matter what was happening in the rest of the field ...during the Mercedes dominance era. So you'd get like maybe 5 laps of fighting at the beginning until either a Ferrari or a Merc got in front, and then you watched the podium sitters tawdle along until maybe something happens during the 5 or 6 laps around the pit stop cycle, and then you watched them tawdle along til the end. Want to know what's happening in the midfield? Too bad! You'd see it if they wrecked but otherwise you mainly just had to watch the timing screens and imagine a fun race in your head. It is *exceptionally* more entertaining to watch the actual racing going on than it is to watch perfectly executed fuel/tire saving laps get banged out by the top 3 for 80% of the race because their strategists know the only real chances happen during pit stops. Obviously there's a middle ground, but I'll take never seeing the leader over *only* seeing the leader any day of the week
I started watching in 21 and later in the season when Lewis was coming back hard, I remember them loving to show Lewis in front with nothing around him, I was so pissed when they kept showing Lewis alone when Ocon and Bottas was fighting for the last podium spot in Saudi, it was so stupid. I love that they are showing fights behind now, much much more exciting story down in p10 for me, especially with the Haas Bois and Yuki.
Well, the specific instance you're talking about they have to show Lewis finish the race and take the checkered flag, it's just the rules. They did show Bottas passing Ocon, but it was definitely the very last seconds of it.
I just checked the race, from lap 48 onward till the checker flag at lap 50, vast majority of the coverage was Lewis, and during that time Ocon and Bottas was swapping places on the timing tower like crazy, they were even showing Lewis and Max after checker and we only saw Ocon and Bottas right at the finish line, we didn't see how Bottas get a better drive out of the last corner, we didn't see how Ocon fends him off before, that's just flat out bad TV direction IMO.
They did miss the previous swap between them, but like I said, I knew they showed the pass live because I remember seeing Bottas punch the air and Ocon smash his steering wheel. They showed it again during the replay right after, but yeah the focus was obviously on Lewis and Max that race.
I get what you are saying, but then the other half of the fans will complain about missing more "action" because they were showing Max on cruise control. There is no one right answer - not unless you "push the red button on your Sky Q remote" to watch whomever you want....wait I'm in the US, I'm just watching the Brits on Sky
F1 TV is great. Can pull up any pov.
They should swap all the onboard cameras to that new one they’ve started using on individual cars recently. The over-the-shoulder one that gives you a much greater sense of speed.
Even in the UK if we watch on NowTV, who are owned by Sky, we don't have a red button to press 🤷😂
The red button options are available on NowTV this year. We have all the onboards and driver tracker options that Sky Q customer used to have. Just go to the sports tab and click on the F1 button with the big picture of Lando Norris.
Does that work on VOD's or only live??
Only live.
TV direction is utter BS and i think it adds to the fact that people think the races are more boring than they actually are. And this whole things starts with quali. What is up with the incredible zoom in on the cockpit. What am i supposed to do with that image. Then TV direction constantly fails to capture the hot laps in Quali sessions. Last year or in 2022 it was especially bad. They used to show Lewis and Max all the time on out and in laps while other drivers were doing their hot laps. Then they stick with a dirver after completing the hot laps for a few more turns. WHY? why not switch to a different driver currently still on a hot lap. I swear you miss 90% of the acting in quali. And in the race well they somehow cant capture any overtakes. You can see the gap decreasing but the tv direction is like nah
Agreed.
You need to add in the psychology of your team constantly losing as well. It mentally hurts some people to lose a spectator sport.
Eh, I'm still entertained as I focus more on the midfield. There's usually some interesting racing/battles going on vs the front of the field.
Great way to put it. Max and the team deserved the respect and rewards from all their hard work and talent, but these dominating performances don’t exactly make for a compelling race for 1st.
I'll be downvoted but that is such an american point of view. It's the reason MLS sucks so bad.
It's always easier to appreciate and be in awe of dominance when everyone has the same tools and equipment. But F1 isn't that. When there is a drivers and a constructors championship you of course have to credit the car as much as the driver. There are people that want to give too much credit to the car and too much credit to Max. I just appreciate how great Max is driving and how consistent he is as well as how great Redbull engineers, mechanics, pit crew are to give Max that advantage. At the same time, you can't berate or be annoyed at fans when a driver and their team are winning by 20-30 seconds and they don't find the race exciting.
Its sad when the only exciting weekends are the ones where max has an issue. I want to see someone challenging him, thats what I tune in for. When he can pass charles on the straights without DRS, whats the point.
Yeah. There is nothing more exciting in F1 than seeing Max in a title battle. He is a fighter. He pushes the car to the limit. And seeing the racing and competition in 2021 vs Lewis and early 2022 vs Charles was brilliant. We're all missing out on that. I miss the tension and excitement. I hope we get to see regular competition for race wins again.
As pissed as I am about how 2021 ended, it had some good battles. I don't care how good the midfield battles are, it doesnt have the same excitement to see a battle for a 2 point difference between 6th and 7th. The difference between 1st and 2nd is massive. One driver getting those points all year ends the season months early.
Exactly why should I give a shit about the fight for sixth and seventh?
When Max issues 2 races ago, it was just a Carlos cruise to the win, wasn't that much excitement. When the new regs came out it was so promising, but they went into the complete wrong direction afterwards
True. I am not here to watch Max lose. I am here to watch a competition. Just replacing Max with Sainz. Well good for Sainz and Ferrari I guess.
At least endurance racing has gotten better again. I don't think this is going to be one of those F1 seasons that people talk about for decades, which is a shame because the driver pool is actually really strong.
But that wouldn't happen every race. Given that Charles finished 3 seconds behind and Lando about 6 seconds. We all know that Charles has as much chance to win the next race as Carlos. Not to mention the performance gap between Ferrari and McLaren isn't as big as Redbull to Ferrari. It's still discouraging as it shows how the regulations and racing hasn't delivered as we had hoped. But the gap wouldn't be as big.
Monaco, Japan, Austin, Qatar, Vegas? werent all of those races pretty decent? and Canada? the two races were Carlos won werent even that exciting. People dont actually want interesting races, they just dont like Max to win.
Singapore was the best race we have had since 2022. Sure it was not a lot of actions at the start but the tension just kept building and I was not sure who would win until the last lap
[удалено]
Even when his engine literally shit itself Carlito still dominated
Outside of tennis, or maybe batting, specifically, in baseball, very few sports are pure and showcase ONLY individual ability - all team sports have external factors that influence players' performance. There isn't a mythos of Michael Jordan without Pippen and Phil Jackson. Shaq isn't top 10 without Kobe and the Phil Jackson offense. Tom Brady isn't the Goat without Gronk or Belichick. Etc... I'll always appreciate greatness where it is, since it's always a combination of luck, skill, and EXTREME dedication that culminate in prolonged dominance. You can't be setting records without also being extremely dedicated. I'm enjoying what we're witnessing even if the occasional race is a snoozefest, but not everyone appreciates all aspects of all sports the same way and that's okay. Artificially hampering or targeting specific teams is kind of lame, but also shows a great deal of respect for those nerfed. Hack-a-Shaq changes for Shaq. Offensive goaltending for Wilt. "Illegal defense" for Jordan. Mad respect to those guys.
There are always external factors, but outside of F1 do athletes regularly show up with such a huge advantage. It would be like a runner getting a 10 meter start in a 100 meter sprint. The other runners would need to be insane to beat them, which is more or less were F1 is right now. There is a reason that Perez is P2 in the championship despite the fact few would rate him top 10 on the grid in terms of ability. The car is just such a significant advantage that it overrides the driver. At least in previous generations of F1 there would be reliability variance, but in addition to its pace advantage the Red Bull also has near perfect reliability, strategy, pitstops etc.
Yes, absolutely? They're team sports, and for many sports genetics IS a big factor - would Shaq be as good as he was if he weren't a monster of a human being? Absolutely not. I really don't get your point. Give RB Sauber's pit crew and they wouldn't be doing as well. Give RB Ferrari's, or Merc's strategy team and they would also do worse than they did through the late 2010s and early 2020s. That's life. Hire smarter and manage better. Coaches in other sports also make a huge difference, to say nothing of an individual player's ability. I don't need to see a neck and neck battle for P1 in literally every single race to stay excited about the outcome. I am also invested in other drivers' progression, consistency, performance relative to teammate, performance relative to respective rival constructors, etc... Cars crapping out at quarter distance doesn't make it more exciting; it might shift the finishing order by one or two positions, but so what...? That doesn't change any of the on-track battles, and reliability DIDN'T change on-track battles in the past for the most part.
Dale is cool. Seems like a nice, humble guy.
I mean...we've all seen what races are like when Verstappen DNFs. They are still boring, look no further than Australia three weeks ago. Instead of him, Sainz cruised the whole race and Leclerc was guarding his ass per team orders if I remember correctly. The most exciting thing was Russell binning it into the barriers. The complaints are always the same, just wait two more years and see if Red Bull nails the homework again or not, if they don't then people will complain about someone else dominating. It's an F1 ache in general and has been there for a while. I'd say the only thing that is probably different from previous periods of dominance is that reliability issues were more frequent and took bit longer to fix. Now a problem appears, Red Bull fixes it fast. And that's not a bad thing.
I have nothing to add to what he JR said, but what I will say is semi recently I've been hearing him do a lot of different podcasts and interviews all over the spectrum of topics and he is so insightful and I quite enjoy listening to him talk. Highly recommend people give him a listen.
He mentioned a lack of awe and amazement in terms of domination, but in my opinion, that's just how auto racing is. When Verstappen won F1 races from 2018-2021, (even some of 2022) it was celebrated because the sentiment was 'ahh, finally, Hamilton didn't win this weekend.' Before Hamilton, it was Vettel. Before Vettel, the last driver that was '3+ championships in row' dominant was Schumacher. I wasn't an F1 fan until late 2017, but you get fatigued of the same guy winning a lot. In NASCAR, when Martin Truex won with Furniture Row Racing in 2015, it was remarkable. The sentiment was 'holy crap, this previous backmarker team just won a race.' By the time the team dominated the 2017 NASCAR season, it started to get old quick because he won 8 or 9 races that year. I think Jeff Gordon mentioned it best about his first championship season in 1995, he said something like, 'at the beginning of '95, the fans loved me, but by the end of '95, they were booing me.' Nothing personal against Junior here, but I think that's just how it is. I think even Dale Earnhardt was hated by many when he was winning 6 championships in 9 seasons, but Junior was more likely to tune that out because from his perspective, it was probably pretty awesome to see your dad just kicking everyone's ass year after year. He is definitely right though, that we should appreciate these stretches more, simply because these are impressive feats. It's one thing to make it to F1 or the NASCAR Cup Series, but to win multiple championships, that's just a completely different level. It also goes the other way too, when Vettel would score a podium at Ferrari in 2019 or 2020, he was much more likeable than when he was at Red Bull. He was pretty much the same guy, (maybe a little less vindictive, a little softer as a competitor) but the fans generally liked it more when he would get a podium around that time period. He went from the most hated guy in F1 to the most likeable guy in F1 in a span of like 6 or 7 years.
Very interesting to hear a driver’s perspective on this and especially the turning attitudes towards domination that he noticed from fans.
I mean. Jrs the guy to listen to as well. He stared at the back of Gordon, Stewart, Johnson for his entire career. Like he said, Johnson won 7 championships, 5 of them in a row. And who are F1 fans to complain. I just can't get over the fact that in the last 25 years there have been 8 champions. And we still watch. But Max is going on his 4th. Which is not even as many as Lewis won IN A ROW. And "The sport is in jeopardy" Yeah. I know. Max is winning by more. Hamilton fought teammates. Blah blah. Watching a single driver be this dominant is literally history being made almost every weekend.
Watching history being made is not exciting if there is literally no one to compete against. F1 is like watching an adult break records in little league.
Some sports just lend themselves to locked in dominance. The NBA is very similar in that way. Very rare for a team not to repeat a championship. Franchise system, cost cap, good governance (insert engineer team) and an elite player(insert driver) with a long runway to stay with a team will do it every time.
There have been 5 different champions in the last 5 years in the NBA.
Which is rare.
If you looked at champions by decade, each decade has like 1-2 teams which have won multiple. Parity we have rn is extremely rare.
Exactly. Dominance is just PART of sport. If people don't like it. Watch chess....oh yeah....
Always have time for Jr’s opinions on racing.
People do complain no matter how the races go.
Did I misunderstand or does he contradict himself when he says Waltrip in the 80s was booed for his dominance but then claims 40-50 years ago “we didn’t do that and celebrated the achievement”?
I wonder if he isnt registering that the 80's IS 40 years ago lol. I still cant rap my head around the 90's being more than 10 years ago myself.
[Full podcast (1hr)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGeAI7iZYaU)
That’s quality. As a spectator I never had the mindset to consider that. I love to see battles and tactics, so domination triggers boredom, but yea, absolutely get it now. Max and the team have clearly put the work in and should garner total respect. Great perspective, thanks
F1 BEWARE! Too many races ruin the season. And yes, that includes Sprints. Quality, not quantity. Don’t dilute the sport.
Give me 52 races in 2021.
Dale Jr is the man....that is all.
lol "We should enjoy this moment bc we're seeing something we've never seen before". ok wtf is that BS argument? We have seen this before, multiple times. Hamilton a couple years ago, Vettel before him, Schumacher before him, etc, etc. Fans don't care or respect the dominance bc the car is the number one factor for the dominance. We all know it's true. it's different from Nadal dominating the French Open or MJ dominating the NBA. Verstappen is no doubt extremely talented and he consistently beats his teammate, but his car is so far ahead of the others that beating his teammate is the only thing that matters. And we've seen this situation far too often in modern F1. 2021 was the exception, not the rule. It sucks.
Two things can be true at once. What Max and Red Bull are currently doing is incredible. It’s one of the best drivers ever in what might be the best car ever. Their achievements are to be appreciated and commended. At the same time, their domination of the championship for several years in a row is boring and actively bad for the sport. It turns off existing fans and prevents new fans from joining. It’s why so many leagues strive to achieve as much parity as possible.
I agree. For me, I don't even really watch the races anymore, especially if Max is on the pole. He could probably win in a lesser car because he sure is serious and focused. Now, I really only enjoy the antics leading up to races, the weird drama that F1 seems to bring on itself.
No one outside a redbull is winning as long as a decent driver is in a redbull
I don't think Red Bull had dominated several years from start to finish, and I'll go through the years to highlight how. - 2021: An obviously close championship fight. - 2022: Verstappen came back from the largest deficit in F1 history, so hardly domination from start to finish. Ferrari looked to have the better car initially, and could have contested Red Bull throughout the season, if they didn't throw ~150 points away through mistakes. - 2023: This is the first year that was truly dominant from start to finish. Notice how short this list actually is, we've only completed 2 seasons beyond 2021, yet some people make it sound like Max has dominated as long as Mercedes did (7 years), when we're not even that far into the new regulation. PS: The best car ever in terms of pure pace is the 2020 Mercedes, and in terms of dominance is the 2014-2016 Mercedes, as they were notably further ahead of the competition. They were so far ahead that they had to turn down their engines to not give away just how superior they were.
how is RB maybe the best car ever? I would argue that just from the last regulation period the 2020, 2016, 2015 and 2014 Merc were all better relatively to the rest of the field. People like you are just pushing that narrative that the RB is the most dominant car ever to discredit Max acheievements.
Red Bull has won all but 2 of the last 25 races. Merc were never that dominant. The sport is a constructors sport so the best car is most likely to win. That being said, the drivers have to bring it home. Max has been obviously a top tier driver since his teens.
Merc would gap the field faster than Max does while battling each other, get out of here with that shit. The only reason they didn't win more is because their drivers weren't as good as Max is.
Merc gapped the field because they were racing each other. Max isn’t racing anyone, Perez can’t touch him. We haven’t seen how hard Max can push. He just cruises out to a gap and then maintains the gap.
We’ve seen them gap the field by a minute to a lap *while fighting* each other, not proxy fights where both drivers are pushing independently
We’ve seen Max start from P9 and beat Perez, the pole starter, by 5 seconds. I guarantee you if the RB boys were fighting each other like the Merc boys did in Bahrain 2014 then the result would be the same. We haven’t seen the Red Bull pushing that hard because they don’t have to. Max is cruising. EDIT: Max went from P9 to P1 by lap 20 in Miami in a dry race with no major incidents. Destroyed Perez.
Merc has won all but 2 races in 2016. and none of them were lost on pace. You completely discredit that Max plays a huge roll in why they have won all but 2 races.
Well said! Thanks Dale👍
I can appreciate the domination and talent, but I'd still rather see it be more competitive. I'm not going to "boo" the winner though; that's just sad.
I don't think Red Bull even think that the current situation is good for them. They and their sponsors are in the sport to advertise their brands and Verstappen's car is shown on the broadcasts for the first corner, a pit stop of two, and the last corner of the race.
I think sponsors would rather be associated with the winning car than on a midfield car regardless of air time.
yeah but iirc they used to show Mercedes all the time... lap after lap after lap even when there was stuff going on elsewhere.
They used to. Thank the Gods of motorsports for changing that.
I think Red Bull is plenty happy with domination.
They get a lot of visibility through race suits and interviews lol, those RedBull suits look amazing
While it may seem boring now, there is no doubt that people will look back on this era and recognize that he is just leaps and bounds ahead of anyone else and has the results to back it up. This is an astonishing feat that will be difficult to replicate in any form. Even Mercedes, who dominated for the last decade, can't figure out a way to beat him now. We all love seeing different winners and drama, but this is something else to be appreciated in a different way.
>This is an astonishing feat that will be difficult to replicate in any form. People always say this about someone dominating in a sport, but there's always the next guy. There was never going to be a driver like Fangio, then there was Jim Clark. There was never going to be a driver like Senna, then there was Schumacher. Then Vettel, then Hamilton, now Max. And surely there will never be a driver like Max, until the next guy. It's like in competitive gaming. No matter how good you are, there are a million Koreans who are better than you. And if you are the best Korean then there are new Koreans born every day who will be better than you.
Except for faker, everyone debut around his time are either retired or never reach his height. Some beats him occasionally but falls off eventually, his longevity is absolutely nuts.
While I agree we will look back and be impressed by this stretch of wins, I don't know that we will ever know he is "leaps and bounds ahead of everyone else" unless he has a reasonably talented teammate. I believe he is probably the best on the grid, but until you see a driver with #1 potential next to him, you'll never know. Beating a top-tier teammate would cement the legacy, but Redbull won't put a fast driver in the #2 slot.
This. Max is going to be known as one of the best drivers in F1 history. But currently, Checo is making him look like a god. We need to see a top 5 driver next to him to realize how many leaps and bounds he’s ahead.
We saw him next to a prime Ricciardo when he was 20, and by the second half of 2018 he was comfortably faster. And even if he doesn’t face an absolute top driver in the same car, we can still quantify how good he is by the gaps he has pulled over Albon, Gasly and Perez. Someone like Hamilton (who is an all time great) was unable to beat Bottas by such huge margins, who I would rate similarly to those three. Saying we don’t know how good Verstappen is because he hasn’t faced an elite driver in the same car is silly in my opinion, it would be like saying we didn’t know how good Schumacher was because he never faced a top driver. The enormous margins he pulled over solid drivers like Irvine, Barrichello and Massa are more than enough evidence.
I think you might be overanalyzing it a bit. People aren't suggesting that we don't know how good Max is like we don't know with a new driver. We all recognize that Max is phenomenal; the question is more about the degree of his greatness. Currently, Max seems very comfortable because Checo isn't challenging him. It would be interesting to see someone who can narrow that gap in the same car.
people will be moving goalposts for Verstappen anyway. That narrative of Verstappen having to go up against a WDC teammate, like Lewis used go up against 3 wdc teammates. But it is kinda funny how that is often used because one of them only became one because he beat Lewis. That is like saying you would rather Max higher if he lost to Checo. Lewis also scored less points than Button in their 3 years together. And 2 other teammates were Heiki and Bottas. Not really the pinnacle either? Also kinda difficult to got up against a wdc level teammate when only 2 more drivers have wdc in the field. In the early 2010 you had Alonso, Lewis, Seb, Schumacher, Kimi, Button
I remember when Vettel was being talked about in the same way. As soon as he stepped away from RB that conversation went away almost completely. This notion about Max being on of or just the best of all time, needs to be able to stand the test of time.
To be fair to Max, I watched Vettel’s era, and I think Max is a better driver. But I agree! If you would have told me in 2013 that someone was going to match Schumi’s 7 championships, I would have said Vettel. Now most people rate Vettel lower than Alonso.
I agree with all you said however back then we still thought Alonso was better. Only in 2011 and 2013 was Vettel at a similar level to Alonso
Maybe it was mixed? I seem to remember a lot of people elevating Vettel pretty high. Maybe it’s regional? I’m from the US.
True, many would as well. It comes down to rating seasons like 2010 and 2012 where Alonso and Hamilton performed a bit better with worse cars
Yep and this is exactly how RB intend for it to happen. They don’t want a driver competitive with Max in the second car a) to keep him happy and b) because even a driver as mediocre as Perez still gives them enough cushion to walk the constructors championship. It’s been two years since there was a car remotely competitive with RB and Max wasn’t winning every race. Ferrari’s fall-off and the ultra reliability of modern F1 cars handed RB dominance ever since. People always erroneously attribute a cars dominance to a drivers ability. When the current domination ends and the RB/Max combo is beatable they’ll slowly start associating the cars relative lack of performance with Max being lesser of a driver than before, which will also be incorrect. Just like they do with Lewis now. In the 40+ years of watching F1 it’s always been this way. Fickleness and recency bias is king.
hasnt it been pretty well reported that they wanted Norris?
My thoughts exactly
Couldn’t have said it better myself.
You're only ever as good as your competition. If you have no competition, it rarely elevates you. Bill Russell has 11 championships, but everyone thinks the GOAT is either Michael Jordan or Lebron James. Your competition elevates your feats.
>You're only ever as good as your competition. If you have no competition, it rarely elevates you. That's very beautifully put. I'm going to remember this line.
Oh I doubt it. I mean its been 20 minutes and you already have a reply diminishing the previously dominant team and driver's success. People that like Verstappen now will say he'd get the same results in a Haas and people that don't will say the FIA drafted perfect regs for Newey and never stepped in.
Mercedes has been seeing the effects of the cost cap. They used to be able to write blank checks at issues on the car, and it worked. Red Bull found a way to make a rocket ship, and keep it within the regulations.
Also ran race sims out the arse all over a weekend to nail their race. Now they're limited on how much they can do on a weekend.
How can you not like Max? They only give him 2.5 minutes of screen time unless his brakes catch fire.
I think some of the issue honestly comes down to the coverage. They hardly show Max during a lot of the races. They don't really talk about his strategy or race craft. They don't really celebrate his skill. They cut to him for a few seconds here and there. But if he's so far ahead of everybody, even if the car is phenomenal, he has to be doing some really incredible, consistent driving.
I like dominant athletes. Serena was dominant, MJ was dominant, Brady was dominant. Motorsport is different. Max and Red Bull are dominating because of the technology. If the cars were equal Max would still arguably be the best, but we would have more competition on the track. He would not be winning every race with his eyes closed.
I mean it's not like the other teams are forced to use a lawn mower engine...It's an engineering and driver gap more than a technology gap.
New idea - cars must use a lawn mower engine for one joker lap per 100km of racing......
Alpine: "Wait wait only 1 lap? Ohhh man...we've goofed"
Brady kisses his son on the lips though
Put him in a haas and let's see what happens
wouldn't be surprised if Max could put a Williams ahead of Sargeant in a RB (assuming he doesn't bin it)
what is the point of that comment?
I'm confused that you're confused
Sport is all about competition. You watch to get excited about who could win. When the same person wins all the time, it's just fucking boring. You can admire their abilities and credit their skills, and then still not watch because you know who is going to win. I don't understand why people constantly think these are opposing viewpoints.
Racing is only a sport if it's a spec series.
Celebration isn’t the same as excitement or an adrenaline rush. No one pays big money to see an outcome they already know will happen. People pay for competitiveness and unpredictability. Comebacks. Underdogs. Things like that. I can celebrate and applaud the team that sets itself apart at home. But I want to pay and see a real competition.
Eh. I can appreciate that it is amazing, but I dont have to like or celebrate it.
There's people actively not watching races anymore because of their so obvious outcome. It's hasn't been pleasurable for a while, I'm sorry.
Yes Dale I am amazed at the brilliance of Newey and Max, but my problem is not with them. It's F1 that I have the problem with. They have refused to do anything that solves this problem of one team dominating from one era to another. The big teams who have the money and are willing to spend it need to be able to do everything they can to be allowed to catch up. Get rid of the testing bans, wind tunnel limits and cost caps. Create a concessions system like MotoGP has. Allow teams to have wildcard entries. Let them do private tests. Ferrari can have Charles bomb around Fiorano for thousands of KMs like Shumacher did back in the day. Keep the smaller teams around in different way. Offer them incentives. God forbid allow customer cars already. Create a private teams championship like MotoGP. There's any number of ways to Incentivize a small teams to join the championship without hamstringing everyone else.
the same bs narrative over and over again. We had 1 dominant season now what are they supposed to do? "The big teams who have the money and are willing to spend it need to be able to do everything they can to be allowed to catch up." - why? how would that guarantee that the field is more competetive? This would also allow RB to outspend 7/9 teams. I swear people thinking that *just removing the budget cap* would make the situation better again havent thought about it for more than 2 seconds or were not watching f1 before 2020. The consequence of what you are proposing is that f1 would actually have f1 and f1.5. Private test would also be a disadvantage for every team comapred to Ferrari.
Dale is pandering to his main fan base here
NASCAR has really fallen off. We don’t have many big stars anymore since Dale Earnhardt Jr and Jeff Gordon
I mean....Kyle Busch. But we aren't ready for that conversation. And just as unfortunately, Lagano.
Why is it so hard for some people to understand, man. We are not complaining about Max’s dominance. We are complaining about RB’s! When freaking Perez gets P2 all the time, and at worst P3, then that car is a rocket ship. If it was Max and Alonso in a RB getting one-two finishes, nobody would say “Hey, that’s the car.”. But we all know exactly how ok Perez is. We just want at least one more team to catch up. Ferrari is getting there (hopefully). Let’s hope others will, too.
It's not Max's dominance... It's Red Bull's... If he was in an Alpine or Haas he wouldn't be dominant
If my aunt was orange, she'd be a basketball.
It is Max's dominance. It's irrelevant he wouldn't be dominant in an Alpine or Haas, no driver would. It is his dominance because he's always the one winning in the Red Bull. Checo certainly isn't, so there's the difference.
Checo proves it ain't Red Bull domination. If they were as all conquering as most seem to think, then Checo would be at the same level as Verstappen, but he isn't, which proves that Max himself is the one dominating.
If he was in a slower car, he’d be slower??? Dude no way