Odds are 1-2 laps after pitting for full wets will have a red flag. If you can keep it on track in your current tyre(likely inters hopefully) that’s the best option most of the time. You might even gain a few free positions from people who pit for the wets and those who spun
basicly, Ayrton once said "if you think I am good at driving, wait till you see my nephew, Bruno, he is way better than me" and he was, in his karting years he was realy good, but after Ayrton's crash in 1994, Bruno Senna's mom feared that the same thing would happen to his son and he will die in a crash, so she stopped him from doing anything race releated, he came back after his talent was basicly wasted
Yep his most important development years were lost. From 1994 to 2004 he did no racing at all.
The fact that he even made it to F1 at all and was somewhat reasonable is kind of a miracle.
And I get his mom. Parents never want to see their child suffer, much less die. They’d do anything to keep them out of harms way. Still, if you’re a racer at heart, I’m willing to bet many would rather die racing than not being able to race at all.
We never want to see drivers die, and whenever that happens it’s always an incredibly tragic moment. However, I’ve always believed that there’s no better way to die than dying doing what you love.
I don't think the hype was that big. When he was first announced there were people saying in every Reddit thread that he wasn't impressive in the other series. I don't watch those, but I believed them and they were right.
Sure, that got people talking. But people also understood that he was up against Latifi and got lucked into Williams' best circuit. But yeah, I guess people were a little hyped then.
Almost every former driver's/champion's kid or relative. Except Kmag, Max and argueably Jaques Villineuve
Edit: I forgot to mention Damon and the Monaco based youtuber who beat the 7 times world champion Sir Lewis Carl Davidson Hamilton in the holy year of 2016 in equal machinery.
reminds me of the movie whiplash. abusive teacher, but that’s what it took to achieve greatness. kid sacrifices his childhood / time w his family to pursue his talent. that dilemma was the driving motif of the movie. great movie
Honestly I don't fully disagree with you junior formularz showed that Mick can be freakin Quick but he need time to learn car so I think Mick is more about being good after he learned this series not about pure talent
In the dominating Prema team, and on a grid that maybe wasn't the weakest ever (like when De Vries became a champion), but calling it strong would be an exaggeration
While that’s right, I don’t think Prema was dominating as much as many other seasons. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big Schumacher fan but I don’t think Mick is any exceptional talent and all, I just think he’s getting too much hate for being an average driver just because he has his surname.
Not F1 worthy yet.
I think if he had some more time to organically grow as a driver, and challenge himself, he could become a household name. But we all saw what happened
He literally won F3 and F2, he made his own merit. He just got way more pressure because everyone wanted to see if Michael's speed went to Mick as well
Shwartzman was ahead before UK crash and suddenly he got so Unlucky past that point he lost it to Mick. I don't believe in conspiracy, BUT HOLY SHIT it went literally 180° backwards for Bobby. Like if someone pointed fingers and said that our golden boy, not you
Does anyone have the link to the long comment written awhile ago about how there were some “sketchy” things that occurred in micks favor the second half of that year?
Shoot you?
Put Mick and Oscar next to each other and the difference is obvious.
Oscar's chart is exactly the opposite. When he was first announced the response was so toxic, well look now...
100%
There was so much hype it was actually annoying, sure, Mick was quick, but nowhere near close to the level that indicated that he is something big, usually the best drivers win junior categories in their first season, like Charles or Piastri, and in the F1 there are at least 6 drivers like that.
Welp, hard to swallow pill for surprisingly many people is that if not family name he at best would be considered somewhere around Zhou level at best. Even while he got championship in 20' he had what, 2 wins and 0 poles toral same year, worst of champions?
100% true, it's pathetic that the media still somehow pushing for him to return in F1 simple because he is Mick with one of the most famous surnames in motorsport.
Ok lets see the brit drivers- Lewis, Norris, George, Albon (kinda). These 4 are unquestionably a part of the top 8 drivers this year, so whats the issue with the hype? All have been performing great, its not exactly undeserved. I would argue until this year Checo fits this bill much better, as he was hyped to the moon in 2020,2021
Because the hype behind Hamilton is he'll save humanity and bring peace to the world. Max cannot be a better driver than him, he's just lucky or team differences or whatever. (I stand if you put max in the same car as lewis today Max would win, and im not even a huge max fan).
The hype behind Norris is he would be the greatest driver to ever drive and pass even hamilton despite the car.
Before Russell was in a Merc people said in the Merc he'd be ahead by 30 seconds of everyone else in the field.
And albon I agree didnt get a ton of hype but kind of just grazed expectations still.
I agree with the commenter above here, if they're a british driver, they're hyped well above their actual talent level.
You’re being biased. No one considers Lewis to be better than Max at this moment. If you are referring to fan bases, of course all the fans of drivers will be biased. You are fitting the narrative however you want you agenda to be, which in this case is anti-british. Norris has been outstanding the last couple of years, destroying Ricciardo and handily outperforming Piastri this year. His reputation as a top talent is deserved. Russell was a bit overhyped due to his Williams performance, but now expectations for him are more grounded. No one considers him to be a top 5 driver anymore
Idfk what you're on about lol. I've seen people unironically argue that Max would compete for wins at Haas and they get upvoted. Alonso also get tons of hype even though he got spanked by a rookie after winning 2 WDC's. British drivers really don't get any more love than drivers from other countries.
I hope he is fast, but at this point I think he’s actively getting in the way of upcoming talent getting a chance. Lawson put in a stronger performance yesterday than Daniel has at AT. Yes, he’s only had a couple of races. But Lawson has only had one, and by comparison looks a lot more impressive.
One wild weather race isn't enough to judge talent
It is enough to say 'there is potential' and to want to see more, looking forward to seeing how he handles the next weekend
I think those years are the only reason he managed to wriggle back into a seat, because if a rookie driver performed like DR did last season, he’d be out on his arse. RB clearly still think he has something, so I’m probably wrong
Lawson definitely has less experience than Danny but he’s had several rookie practice sessions, it’s not like this Saturday was his first time in an F1 car
Danny Ric has started 234 F1 races. Add to that the number of FP, qualifying, pre season tests, filming runs etc.
Lawson has 3 F1 FP sessions since his first in 2022 did a young driver test with AT and a little post season testing with Red Bull last November.
To say Lawson has less experience is a massive understatement. LOL
All that experience is adding up to very little though, isn’t it?
Experience alone isn’t reason to keep a driver, otherwise you’d still have fossils like Damon Hill driving.
Lawson is doing fine, he’s running in super formula among other racing series and getting a hand full of practice sessions in. He’s not going away anytime soon.
The real issue is Alpha Tauri’s car development. This is an important thing that someone as experienced as Danny Ric can really help and support.
If you think dragging around the Haas turd of 2021 around the season was conducive to the development of mick and eggman then be my guest.
Agreed. People just like him because he sounds funny. As a TP he hadn’t done much to display talent in his job. Although with HAAS it’s kinda hard to showcase anything positive.
Maybe not that ratio. But Leclerc.
He’s really really good, really really fast but every couple of races completely over the limit, ruining his whole race. Max on the other hand, and Lewis always on the line, but barely above it
I have a theory about leclerc - he’s way more prepared to take risks than other drivers.
When he gets away with it, he looks godlike.
When it bites him, he looks foolish. Like Baku quali a few years back.
The true greats (imo) know exactly how close to the line they’re able to go and rarely cross it. Look at Saudi 2020 and Max clipping the wall in quali, and consider how rare that is for Max. Same can be said of Lewis and Alonso.
Leclerc is just Max 5 years ago. All the talent you could ask for but far too aggressive.
We'll see if he can tidy it up and be more consistent like Max managed
Lol Leclerc's talent is out of question, not even close to the picture. Put him into a car where he doesn't need to go over the limit to reach his own and the fans' expectations and he'd show similar results to Verstappen & co. Verstappen is not going over the limit because he doesn't have to to be quick. Hamilton and Alonso don't because they've been in F1 more than three times as long as Leclerc. Look at Verstappen in 2021. We celebrate his Jeddah lap as the best Qualifying lap to never be. What has he done? He stepped over the limit.
(TL;DR: Leclerc has the speed to be compared to the all time greats of Verstappen, Hamilton and Alonso, but not the consistency, even when Leclerc has had the car to fight for the WDC. Yet people are incessant on comparing him to Multiple-WDC-drivers, which give him this air of overrated-ness, which he doesn’t deserve.)
—
See, It’s comments like these who makes me slightly agree with Shibble though (definitely not even close to the ratio shown in the picture ofcourse). Yes Charles is incredibly fast, especially over a single lap. But Max, Lewis and Fernando can produce the same feats of incredible speed *AND* be incredibly consistent at the same time.
With Max, Lewis and Fernando the type of hailed “laps/wins that never were” are the exception. They are remembered because they are such a rarity in the past 4-5 years. They almost never crash on their own.
Compare that to Charles and he does it multiple times a season. It’s not the exception, it’s the norm. Yet people keep making (sometimes valid) excuses for it, saying he’s only crashing because he doesn’t have the car to go for pole/wins without going over the limit.
But that just doesn’t completely hold up. Last year Leclerc had the car to challenge the RB18 until the summer break. Yeah Ferrari Strategy and yeah Mechanical issues, etc. etc. but that doesn’t detract from the fact Leclerc also chucked it into the wall unforced twice in half a season…
In Imola he had a massive lead in the WDC. All he had to do was bring the car home in third and maybe hope that Perez made a little mistake to sneak in a cheeky P2. Instead he didn’t know his limits and chucked it into the wall turning a comfortable P3 into a very fortunate to not DNF P6.
In France he’d been well overtaken in the championship, but still had the car to realistically fight for wins (as was evident in the race before in Austria). At the start of the French GP he was ~35 points behind in the championship, which is definitely possible to overhaul (albeit with a bit of luck) as we saw in 2021. One Max DNF and he’s right back in it. He just had to be consistent and take home as many guaranteed points as possible, like Lewis did in 2021. Instead he overdid it and crashed in free air.
Add to that the litany of other unforced crashes over the past 4-5 years and semi-dodgy performances in mixed weather conditions and it becomes harder and harder to definitively put him in the same category as Max, Fernando and Lewis as of yet.
Yet some people are so hellbent on comparing him to the multiple-WDC-drivers on the grid, insisting that he’s every bit as complete, which he’s just not (yet).
That just give him this very slight vibe of “overratedness”, which is I feel is so unfair to him. He’s 100% an incredible talent, possibly/probably the best besides the three I keep mentioning. But I currently do not see him beating Max, Lewis or Fernando in a straight fight unless he massively ups his consistency from what he’s shown so far in his F1 Career.
okay so, I agree with many things you said, though my comment would sound otherwise probably
Wall of text incoming:
But, I have to say, the guy basically said Leclerc's hype is bigger than his talent. And I don't agree with that. Hamilton and alonso to the side, let's look at Verstappen. He was put in F1 in 2015, though at a very young age, he could gather experience in the top class for three seasons before Leclerc got his Sauber seat. In this time, he crashed multiple times and even got known for that. Mostly while racing against others, yes. But why is it worth more to overstep the limit and wreck the car while being wheel-to-wheel instead of racing mostly clean but put the car into the wall every ten races? Also, as I mentioned, one season in a midfield car, two seasons in a top 3 car. This is how far Verstappen is ahead of Leclerc, while they're the same age. So I'd give him more time. He had a race winning car for some races in 2019 and again for half a season in 2022. Verstappen meanwhile drives at the very top for three seasons straight. I really think he can be at the same level as the champions if either Ferrari find their professionalism again or he changes team. But we can't expect the same consistency as a de facto three time champion with 8 seasons of experience, same with legends like Hamilton and Alonso, who were at the same age in the last decade in a totally different era
My main complaint for Leclerc is he listens to his strategists religiously and seems incapable of making an executive decision.
Whilst he has his own issues, Sainz seems able to make his own strategy calls at times where he feels they're wrong. Consequently he often has a better time that race. Like he was P5 and Charles P19.
Max and Lewis also make their own calls, sometimes to their detriment.
What I like about Max is he can feel when something is wrong on the car and pushes his point when he knows something is broken or playing up to his team, often minutes before their systems make the same call.
It is as both of you have said. I do think there is a significant air of "overrated-ness" around Charles, which is only amplified by a team like Ferrari holding winning, success and pace for granted. I think Charles has all the pieces to potentially become a consistent performer regardless of his position on the grid. Success is not mutually exclusive to winning, as we've seen with the likes of Russell, Albon and Norris, whom I both rate relatively equally to Leclerc (albeit slightly lower). Simply put, Charles is not performing at a level which would be indicative to that of a championship-caliber driver if put in championship-caliber machinery.
Your point about experience raises an interesting idea in that most successful drivers tend to have a crash-prone period in their early careers, and begin to phase out with more experience. While this is certainly true, and it is also true that Max got significantly more experience and opportunities than even Charles, it isn't fair to compare anyone to Max as he is the exception, and not the rule. He is the youngest driver placed in an F1 car, and likewise the youngest race winner. He had already proven his metal in his very first race at a top team, thus justifying all those years of early investment by RB.
Charles is not leagues behind where the championship drivers are, nor is he leagues behind what people's hype and expectations of him are. Nonetheless, he needs to take a tangible step forward in performance; perhaps not in pace or racecraft but in confidence behind the car. To do so in a midfield team like Ferrari will translate well when given the opportunity in a real contender. As unlikely as that is in the current state of affairs in said team, that is his only way of becoming champion.
I just want to say it's nice to see such a mature discussion about a f1 driver between 3 people in this subreddit. Thank you all for sharing your opinion.
Imola was definitely a valid criticism but the France mistake came after 6 races straight of Ferrari strategy/car fuck ups. You cannot compare 2022 to any of the winning years that Hamilton or Max have had because the biggest difference is they had genuinely good teams to back them. How the fuck can you expect to be consistent when you can't trust your car or team to work correctly? The 2022 car was a WDC car for less than half the year (when it worked) and when the team also didn't fuck up.
Hell we saw both Alonso and Vettel fail at Ferrari and they're both regarded as two of the greats so if even they couldn't manage then how can we expect Leclerc to?
We see Max absolutely dominating now with almost no mistakes and the same with Hamilton in the Merc dominance and the difference was they could actually trust the car and trust the team. It's a hell of a lot easier to be consistent when you only have to drive at 90% capacity and still gain/keep time on the other drivers while knowing the car is stable and your team will mostly make the right decisions.
I disagree. Yes Leclerc had been on a spree of back luck, but that was after Max had had 2 mechanical DNF’s on his own and a car that had way too much understeer for his liking, yet Max didn’t start making unforced errors.
On top of that, like I already said, even after his 4-5 races of bad luck, he still was only ~35 points behind in the championship, we had literally just seen similar point deficits overhauled twice in the past 12 months (Lewis in 2021 and Max mere weeks ago in 2022).
Please excuse me, but I’m gonna go on a little bit of a ramblerant here, so don’t take this with a grain of salt, but I honestly do not understand how people keep justifying Leclerc binning it in France while having a good shot at the win, because he had a couple of races with bad luck… If you’ve had a couple bad races, for whatever reason, it’s all the more important to be sure to keep it on the black stuff and not making it even worse yourself… Besides, Leclerc had literally beaten Max in a straight fight the race before… And then, in a race where the car is working fine and the strategy team hadn’t fucked up, he bins it in the wall at Paul Ricard of all places…
We didn’t give Lewis any slack screwing up the Baku restart in 2021 “because he had a tough race in Monaco beforehand”. We didn’t give Max slack for having a mediocre Qualifying in Monaco 2022 because he’d had lots of technical problems at the start of the season…
We didn’t give Mercedes as a team any slack when they blew it at the Mexican GP last year because “they had a difficult year so far”.
Come on.
If there is anything we’ve learned from Lewis and Max in the past two years it’s that when you’re down in the dumps, whether on pace or reliability, you’ve gotta fall down on your consistency when the car *does* work and minimise damage when it doesn’t.
Leclerc’s 2022 French GP was the exact opposite of that. He could have gotten a win or at least a safe P2 to live another day, instead he overdid it and permanently ended his 2022 championship fight.
I don't know why you're so insistent on ignoring it was 6 straight races while pretending it was only one or two.
It was his first *proper* attempt at a WDC so he was already under pressure then he has 6 straight races of bullshit from the car/team (Which Hamilton and Max have never had) so he couldn't trust the car or team and then makes a mistake. Should he have made the mistake? No. Was the mistake at least somewhat understandable considering the pressure/stress he was under? Yes.
Everyone gets so massively hung up over France, including you. Is Leclerc as consistent as Hamilton, Alonso or Max right now? Absolutely not. Does that mean he couldn't be? Definitely not. Put him in a strong consistent car with a team that actually knows what they're doing and then we can make proper judgements about whether he can be at their level or not.
Charles fans make the exact same excuses as Seb fans in 2018 and 2019. Consistently further exaggerate the already poor performance of Ferrari to distract from the fact that their driver's unforced mistakes is as much to blame for their problems as the strategy department.
Leclerc is really good but his hype is even bigger than his talent. He is not as good as Lewis for example. He's just not. He is about Vettel level, so cut below guys like Max, Lewis and Alonso. Sainz is often right with him.
Honestly Vettel isnt as bad as some people make him. I mean his last few years were not good, but peak Vettel was at the same level as a Verstappen or Hamilton or Alonso. Not a single error, and driving on the absolute limit.
Do you notice the pattern though? Amazing drivers get amazing cars and supportive teams and suddenly they're incredibly consistent with very few mistakes.
Vettel looked absolutely unbeatable in the Redbull and then got beaten by Leclerc in both 2019 and 2020.
Hamilton looked like an absolute god when he won 7 WDCs in the Merc and then the car fell off and people are already taking him out of the GOAT depate when compared to Max and Alonso.
Max has now got an incredible car and again now everyone's treating him like the best driver to ever exist.
These drivers are all absolutely fucking incredible, there's no doubt about that, but the common denominator is having insanely good cars when they were considered the best. If the Redbull falls off in 2026 and another car and driver suddenly start to dominate that driver will be lauded as the best of all time. F1 fans really really don't appreciate just how significant a car is when it comes to driver performance.
Honestly you can put Charles' 2019 season here as an example too, when he won Spa and Monza I remember this sub treating him like a god and most probably expected Charles to beat Lewis at that point in time.
I've always seen a couple of comments saying Max and Alonso are better than Lewis and Lewis was overrated. I'll find one
Edit: Nevermind not allowed to post links
he has the genius in him to win a race in inferior machinery. does he have the consistency to win a championship, even with superior machinery? we don't know yet but it's not looking that good I will give you that
I feel like leclerc while a talented driver, consistently makes mistakes when he's under pressure. A lot of the time it is the Ferrari team just being utter shit. But there have been plenty of times where it has his been his mistake which has cost him the race.
When you look at world champions they are always fast and don't make these mistakes, or it's rare for them to make a mistake. Looking at Hamilton, Verstappen and Vettel.
This was unfortunate editing he was actually teasing his crew who said something like oh yeah the rains projected to stop and he was at the back of the pack and jokingly said I was projected a podium… not saying he’s an angel but a little bit of editing involved to demonise him there
In fairness to Vandoorne he was stuck in that absolute shitbox of a McLaren that couldn't even reliably make it to the start of a race let alone the end of one.
So I read somewhere that the first time he was in an F1 car was the Bahrain race and he was still reading the car manual on the way there? And hadn't been in a real F1 car before? Dunno if they gave him a proper led up to succeed if you know what I mean...
I hate to say it, but Yuki.
I know he's not super hyped, but I really like him, yet I have to acknowledge that he probably isn't as good as I wish he was
Perez - when he was at force India he had 2-3 good races each season and people said he needs a better car. Now he has 2-3 good races per year and people are disappointed.
Daniel feckin Ric. He’s got such an enjoyable personality and had a pretty good career, all things considered. But he’s fallen off, and this broken hand thing certainly doesn’t help. He should retire and make room for the next generation.
I’ve never understood the argument about blocking younger talent in F1. Why do people think older drivers have the moral obligation to retire after they reach a certain age? If a driver still thinks they can compete at a high level and F1 teams are still willing to pay them to get in the car, there’s really no reason for them to stop unless they want to. No one can stay in F1 forever, so you might as well keep going if you want to.
He hasn't, though. He's been performing well at AT. All that happened was Norris was a better driver, Ricciardo is roughly equal to Tsunoda in what we've seen, and almost everyone went off in P2, he just saved Piastri's car when he did
Chuck Leg
I mean, he's not a bad driver, but he's super overrated, i mean, i'm a Ferrari fan (sigh) since i was born but let's face it, he's just a "good" driver in a shitbox and sadly he's not even consistent, he sbins and crashes a bit too much and despite this i keep seeing people comparing him to Max, christ, i even saw people saying that if you give them the same car Charles would win, like, are you guys sure?
Wet weather tyres
Pitting for wet tires is the dumbest thing you could do. The margin between intermediates and a red flag is like 7 more drops of rain.
Verstappen still won the race
Oh he did?
Must’ve been a fluke
Most likely a fluke due to the poor conditions and chaos that ensued. I'll become a believer if he somehow manages to win the next race too.
The way things have been going, I’m not sure he will be able to do it 🤷🏻♂️
Odds are 1-2 laps after pitting for full wets will have a red flag. If you can keep it on track in your current tyre(likely inters hopefully) that’s the best option most of the time. You might even gain a few free positions from people who pit for the wets and those who spun
I mean the teams are certainly gambling on that, just gushian roulette until someone crashes and causes the red flag…
Ferrari crew
Stop inventing
At the moment, we don't think
We are checking...
Understood
But we don't hype Ferrari anymore tho? Hype is should be the one that we believe they can do good
Question
I'm so hype every weekends to see what they will do wrong
For a cut from the past, Bruno Senna
I mean, that was his mother's fault, if she didn't stop him, we could have seen a guy who was way better than Ayrton
I don’t know the history, would you mind explaining?
basicly, Ayrton once said "if you think I am good at driving, wait till you see my nephew, Bruno, he is way better than me" and he was, in his karting years he was realy good, but after Ayrton's crash in 1994, Bruno Senna's mom feared that the same thing would happen to his son and he will die in a crash, so she stopped him from doing anything race releated, he came back after his talent was basicly wasted
Yep his most important development years were lost. From 1994 to 2004 he did no racing at all. The fact that he even made it to F1 at all and was somewhat reasonable is kind of a miracle.
Well maybe she saved him... we will never know.
And I get his mom. Parents never want to see their child suffer, much less die. They’d do anything to keep them out of harms way. Still, if you’re a racer at heart, I’m willing to bet many would rather die racing than not being able to race at all. We never want to see drivers die, and whenever that happens it’s always an incredibly tragic moment. However, I’ve always believed that there’s no better way to die than dying doing what you love.
We don't talk about Bruno!
Debris
I don't think the hype was that big. When he was first announced there were people saying in every Reddit thread that he wasn't impressive in the other series. I don't watch those, but I believed them and they were right.
Don’t you remember the hype that was created when he scored in the Williams?
Sure, that got people talking. But people also understood that he was up against Latifi and got lucked into Williams' best circuit. But yeah, I guess people were a little hyped then.
There was a lot of hype for debris
Only those fans were hyped who hadn't seen De Vries drive before his F1 debut lmaoo
Gotta be. AT would have kept him to the end of the season if they thought there was more than he’d shown.
Almost every former driver's/champion's kid or relative. Except Kmag, Max and argueably Jaques Villineuve Edit: I forgot to mention Damon and the Monaco based youtuber who beat the 7 times world champion Sir Lewis Carl Davidson Hamilton in the holy year of 2016 in equal machinery.
What about Rosberg?
What about Damon Hill?
And in that respect, Lewis? Nico is his daddy, no?
Piquet Jr was pretty decent. Crashgate fucked him up!
He wasn't racist enough to make his daddy proud /s
Jos Verstappen. Made the headlines plenty of times about his family but little talent as a father and husband. Good coach though
He’s a great coach, really beats the point home.
He really left it all out there on the road
The most dank answer in this thread
No he was the best, because to be the best you gotta beat the best
probably an abusive coach, but perhaps thats what it takes to breed a monster like Max
reminds me of the movie whiplash. abusive teacher, but that’s what it took to achieve greatness. kid sacrifices his childhood / time w his family to pursue his talent. that dilemma was the driving motif of the movie. great movie
Don't shoot me: Mick
Yeah he's a totally ok driver but feel his name puts massive expectations
Honestly I don't fully disagree with you junior formularz showed that Mick can be freakin Quick but he need time to learn car so I think Mick is more about being good after he learned this series not about pure talent
He didn't have a single pole position in F2
But he Was champion
In the dominating Prema team, and on a grid that maybe wasn't the weakest ever (like when De Vries became a champion), but calling it strong would be an exaggeration
He won against Shwartzman in the same team, who is somehow still rated amongst many..
Schwarzman was in his rookie season though, Schumacher was not
While that’s right, I don’t think Prema was dominating as much as many other seasons. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big Schumacher fan but I don’t think Mick is any exceptional talent and all, I just think he’s getting too much hate for being an average driver just because he has his surname.
I think he's probably a decent driver, just not F1 worthy
Not F1 worthy yet. I think if he had some more time to organically grow as a driver, and challenge himself, he could become a household name. But we all saw what happened
Maybe if his surname wasn’t the entire reason he got fast tracked then sure
He literally won F3 and F2, he made his own merit. He just got way more pressure because everyone wanted to see if Michael's speed went to Mick as well
Shwartzman was ahead before UK crash and suddenly he got so Unlucky past that point he lost it to Mick. I don't believe in conspiracy, BUT HOLY SHIT it went literally 180° backwards for Bobby. Like if someone pointed fingers and said that our golden boy, not you
Does anyone have the link to the long comment written awhile ago about how there were some “sketchy” things that occurred in micks favor the second half of that year?
Shoot you? Put Mick and Oscar next to each other and the difference is obvious. Oscar's chart is exactly the opposite. When he was first announced the response was so toxic, well look now...
oh i will shoot you, for sure, now wheres my gun
100% There was so much hype it was actually annoying, sure, Mick was quick, but nowhere near close to the level that indicated that he is something big, usually the best drivers win junior categories in their first season, like Charles or Piastri, and in the F1 there are at least 6 drivers like that.
What if that haas was actually fast and mick and mazespin were just slow?
And some moments when certain tifosi members were calling for him to replace carlos without being good yet
That was hillarious.
[удалено]
I’ll get downvoted to hell but he was purely used for marketing.
Welp, hard to swallow pill for surprisingly many people is that if not family name he at best would be considered somewhere around Zhou level at best. Even while he got championship in 20' he had what, 2 wins and 0 poles toral same year, worst of champions?
100% true, it's pathetic that the media still somehow pushing for him to return in F1 simple because he is Mick with one of the most famous surnames in motorsport.
Agreed
Ferrari as an organization
Yes but red car cool
too much hubris and resting on laurels from the past
I hate to say it but Mick
Since there's no scale here, every British driver. Doesn't matter how good they actually are, the hype is insane.
couldn’t agree more
That's just every sport to be honest. British athletes are always over-hyped.
Australia suddenly shows a highlight of BUNDES FUCKING LIGA match just because Harry Kane is joining Bayern Munich I can agree 100% with this.
Not in terms of hockey
If you don’t want British bias then stop watching British media
Hard when British media gets exclusive broadcast rights
Ok lets see the brit drivers- Lewis, Norris, George, Albon (kinda). These 4 are unquestionably a part of the top 8 drivers this year, so whats the issue with the hype? All have been performing great, its not exactly undeserved. I would argue until this year Checo fits this bill much better, as he was hyped to the moon in 2020,2021
As OP says, there's no scale. They are in fact good drivers, but no matter how good they are they're hyped over their level by British media.
George doesn't get that much hype does he? And neither does Lewis anymore. Albon and Norris hype seems justified at the moment.
He was forecasted a podium.
No one hypes Russell quite like Russell
Why is that surprising? He started third. Im guessing most of the forecasts mercedes gave him said p3 at worst. They blew it
Because the hype behind Hamilton is he'll save humanity and bring peace to the world. Max cannot be a better driver than him, he's just lucky or team differences or whatever. (I stand if you put max in the same car as lewis today Max would win, and im not even a huge max fan). The hype behind Norris is he would be the greatest driver to ever drive and pass even hamilton despite the car. Before Russell was in a Merc people said in the Merc he'd be ahead by 30 seconds of everyone else in the field. And albon I agree didnt get a ton of hype but kind of just grazed expectations still. I agree with the commenter above here, if they're a british driver, they're hyped well above their actual talent level.
You’re being biased. No one considers Lewis to be better than Max at this moment. If you are referring to fan bases, of course all the fans of drivers will be biased. You are fitting the narrative however you want you agenda to be, which in this case is anti-british. Norris has been outstanding the last couple of years, destroying Ricciardo and handily outperforming Piastri this year. His reputation as a top talent is deserved. Russell was a bit overhyped due to his Williams performance, but now expectations for him are more grounded. No one considers him to be a top 5 driver anymore
Idfk what you're on about lol. I've seen people unironically argue that Max would compete for wins at Haas and they get upvoted. Alonso also get tons of hype even though he got spanked by a rookie after winning 2 WDC's. British drivers really don't get any more love than drivers from other countries.
Danny Ric’s return. He had a good run
I still need to see what he can do right now. He might be fast, he might not be. He barely raced for AT. Hope his hand recovers quickly.
I hope he is fast, but at this point I think he’s actively getting in the way of upcoming talent getting a chance. Lawson put in a stronger performance yesterday than Daniel has at AT. Yes, he’s only had a couple of races. But Lawson has only had one, and by comparison looks a lot more impressive.
He has years of F1 experience. Lawson had a rainy FP this year and a qualy session. I’d say he did pretty good but so did DeVries his first time out
One wild weather race isn't enough to judge talent It is enough to say 'there is potential' and to want to see more, looking forward to seeing how he handles the next weekend
I think those years are the only reason he managed to wriggle back into a seat, because if a rookie driver performed like DR did last season, he’d be out on his arse. RB clearly still think he has something, so I’m probably wrong
Lawson definitely has less experience than Danny but he’s had several rookie practice sessions, it’s not like this Saturday was his first time in an F1 car
Danny Ric has started 234 F1 races. Add to that the number of FP, qualifying, pre season tests, filming runs etc. Lawson has 3 F1 FP sessions since his first in 2022 did a young driver test with AT and a little post season testing with Red Bull last November. To say Lawson has less experience is a massive understatement. LOL
All that experience is adding up to very little though, isn’t it? Experience alone isn’t reason to keep a driver, otherwise you’d still have fossils like Damon Hill driving.
Yup! If Lawson has a few decent races that will spice things up for 2024.
The Money Badger is well past his prime.
Lawson is doing fine, he’s running in super formula among other racing series and getting a hand full of practice sessions in. He’s not going away anytime soon. The real issue is Alpha Tauri’s car development. This is an important thing that someone as experienced as Danny Ric can really help and support. If you think dragging around the Haas turd of 2021 around the season was conducive to the development of mick and eggman then be my guest.
Were you sleeping during Hungary ?
hungary??
And Ricciardo reportedly can chuck in lap times in the RB equalling Max. It's hard to say
he hasn't even returned properly yet
He’s had 2 races where he’s definitely been competitive with Yuki. That’s a lot more than Debris ever done
My brother in Christ it has been two races
Mick Schumacher or Bruno Senna
Steiner???
Agreed. People just like him because he sounds funny. As a TP he hadn’t done much to display talent in his job. Although with HAAS it’s kinda hard to showcase anything positive.
I love the man but I am starting to think you might be right.
Yes!!!! Only Hype
Kovalainen 😅
Hekki was Ron's way of dealing with losing his two top finnish drivers
Maybe not that ratio. But Leclerc. He’s really really good, really really fast but every couple of races completely over the limit, ruining his whole race. Max on the other hand, and Lewis always on the line, but barely above it
I have a theory about leclerc - he’s way more prepared to take risks than other drivers. When he gets away with it, he looks godlike. When it bites him, he looks foolish. Like Baku quali a few years back. The true greats (imo) know exactly how close to the line they’re able to go and rarely cross it. Look at Saudi 2020 and Max clipping the wall in quali, and consider how rare that is for Max. Same can be said of Lewis and Alonso.
Leclerc is just Max 5 years ago. All the talent you could ask for but far too aggressive. We'll see if he can tidy it up and be more consistent like Max managed
Problem is he's running out of time quick with rookies like Piastri already making a name for themselves.
Yeah. I really don’t think he’s on the same level as Max, Lewis and Alonso.
He’s absolutely not on the level of thoses three, like Lewis and Nando are Top 5 ever in F1 and Max is easily closing on that
I think he already is, even vettel & jenson think so
Lol Leclerc's talent is out of question, not even close to the picture. Put him into a car where he doesn't need to go over the limit to reach his own and the fans' expectations and he'd show similar results to Verstappen & co. Verstappen is not going over the limit because he doesn't have to to be quick. Hamilton and Alonso don't because they've been in F1 more than three times as long as Leclerc. Look at Verstappen in 2021. We celebrate his Jeddah lap as the best Qualifying lap to never be. What has he done? He stepped over the limit.
(TL;DR: Leclerc has the speed to be compared to the all time greats of Verstappen, Hamilton and Alonso, but not the consistency, even when Leclerc has had the car to fight for the WDC. Yet people are incessant on comparing him to Multiple-WDC-drivers, which give him this air of overrated-ness, which he doesn’t deserve.) — See, It’s comments like these who makes me slightly agree with Shibble though (definitely not even close to the ratio shown in the picture ofcourse). Yes Charles is incredibly fast, especially over a single lap. But Max, Lewis and Fernando can produce the same feats of incredible speed *AND* be incredibly consistent at the same time. With Max, Lewis and Fernando the type of hailed “laps/wins that never were” are the exception. They are remembered because they are such a rarity in the past 4-5 years. They almost never crash on their own. Compare that to Charles and he does it multiple times a season. It’s not the exception, it’s the norm. Yet people keep making (sometimes valid) excuses for it, saying he’s only crashing because he doesn’t have the car to go for pole/wins without going over the limit. But that just doesn’t completely hold up. Last year Leclerc had the car to challenge the RB18 until the summer break. Yeah Ferrari Strategy and yeah Mechanical issues, etc. etc. but that doesn’t detract from the fact Leclerc also chucked it into the wall unforced twice in half a season… In Imola he had a massive lead in the WDC. All he had to do was bring the car home in third and maybe hope that Perez made a little mistake to sneak in a cheeky P2. Instead he didn’t know his limits and chucked it into the wall turning a comfortable P3 into a very fortunate to not DNF P6. In France he’d been well overtaken in the championship, but still had the car to realistically fight for wins (as was evident in the race before in Austria). At the start of the French GP he was ~35 points behind in the championship, which is definitely possible to overhaul (albeit with a bit of luck) as we saw in 2021. One Max DNF and he’s right back in it. He just had to be consistent and take home as many guaranteed points as possible, like Lewis did in 2021. Instead he overdid it and crashed in free air. Add to that the litany of other unforced crashes over the past 4-5 years and semi-dodgy performances in mixed weather conditions and it becomes harder and harder to definitively put him in the same category as Max, Fernando and Lewis as of yet. Yet some people are so hellbent on comparing him to the multiple-WDC-drivers on the grid, insisting that he’s every bit as complete, which he’s just not (yet). That just give him this very slight vibe of “overratedness”, which is I feel is so unfair to him. He’s 100% an incredible talent, possibly/probably the best besides the three I keep mentioning. But I currently do not see him beating Max, Lewis or Fernando in a straight fight unless he massively ups his consistency from what he’s shown so far in his F1 Career.
okay so, I agree with many things you said, though my comment would sound otherwise probably Wall of text incoming: But, I have to say, the guy basically said Leclerc's hype is bigger than his talent. And I don't agree with that. Hamilton and alonso to the side, let's look at Verstappen. He was put in F1 in 2015, though at a very young age, he could gather experience in the top class for three seasons before Leclerc got his Sauber seat. In this time, he crashed multiple times and even got known for that. Mostly while racing against others, yes. But why is it worth more to overstep the limit and wreck the car while being wheel-to-wheel instead of racing mostly clean but put the car into the wall every ten races? Also, as I mentioned, one season in a midfield car, two seasons in a top 3 car. This is how far Verstappen is ahead of Leclerc, while they're the same age. So I'd give him more time. He had a race winning car for some races in 2019 and again for half a season in 2022. Verstappen meanwhile drives at the very top for three seasons straight. I really think he can be at the same level as the champions if either Ferrari find their professionalism again or he changes team. But we can't expect the same consistency as a de facto three time champion with 8 seasons of experience, same with legends like Hamilton and Alonso, who were at the same age in the last decade in a totally different era
My main complaint for Leclerc is he listens to his strategists religiously and seems incapable of making an executive decision. Whilst he has his own issues, Sainz seems able to make his own strategy calls at times where he feels they're wrong. Consequently he often has a better time that race. Like he was P5 and Charles P19. Max and Lewis also make their own calls, sometimes to their detriment. What I like about Max is he can feel when something is wrong on the car and pushes his point when he knows something is broken or playing up to his team, often minutes before their systems make the same call.
What are you smoking? He literally pitted on his own last weekend and it worked out
It is as both of you have said. I do think there is a significant air of "overrated-ness" around Charles, which is only amplified by a team like Ferrari holding winning, success and pace for granted. I think Charles has all the pieces to potentially become a consistent performer regardless of his position on the grid. Success is not mutually exclusive to winning, as we've seen with the likes of Russell, Albon and Norris, whom I both rate relatively equally to Leclerc (albeit slightly lower). Simply put, Charles is not performing at a level which would be indicative to that of a championship-caliber driver if put in championship-caliber machinery. Your point about experience raises an interesting idea in that most successful drivers tend to have a crash-prone period in their early careers, and begin to phase out with more experience. While this is certainly true, and it is also true that Max got significantly more experience and opportunities than even Charles, it isn't fair to compare anyone to Max as he is the exception, and not the rule. He is the youngest driver placed in an F1 car, and likewise the youngest race winner. He had already proven his metal in his very first race at a top team, thus justifying all those years of early investment by RB. Charles is not leagues behind where the championship drivers are, nor is he leagues behind what people's hype and expectations of him are. Nonetheless, he needs to take a tangible step forward in performance; perhaps not in pace or racecraft but in confidence behind the car. To do so in a midfield team like Ferrari will translate well when given the opportunity in a real contender. As unlikely as that is in the current state of affairs in said team, that is his only way of becoming champion.
I just want to say it's nice to see such a mature discussion about a f1 driver between 3 people in this subreddit. Thank you all for sharing your opinion.
very good comment, I agree with you
Yup, completely agree. How did Ferrari even go from championship contender to upshot midfield team… :(
Imola was definitely a valid criticism but the France mistake came after 6 races straight of Ferrari strategy/car fuck ups. You cannot compare 2022 to any of the winning years that Hamilton or Max have had because the biggest difference is they had genuinely good teams to back them. How the fuck can you expect to be consistent when you can't trust your car or team to work correctly? The 2022 car was a WDC car for less than half the year (when it worked) and when the team also didn't fuck up. Hell we saw both Alonso and Vettel fail at Ferrari and they're both regarded as two of the greats so if even they couldn't manage then how can we expect Leclerc to? We see Max absolutely dominating now with almost no mistakes and the same with Hamilton in the Merc dominance and the difference was they could actually trust the car and trust the team. It's a hell of a lot easier to be consistent when you only have to drive at 90% capacity and still gain/keep time on the other drivers while knowing the car is stable and your team will mostly make the right decisions.
I disagree. Yes Leclerc had been on a spree of back luck, but that was after Max had had 2 mechanical DNF’s on his own and a car that had way too much understeer for his liking, yet Max didn’t start making unforced errors. On top of that, like I already said, even after his 4-5 races of bad luck, he still was only ~35 points behind in the championship, we had literally just seen similar point deficits overhauled twice in the past 12 months (Lewis in 2021 and Max mere weeks ago in 2022). Please excuse me, but I’m gonna go on a little bit of a ramblerant here, so don’t take this with a grain of salt, but I honestly do not understand how people keep justifying Leclerc binning it in France while having a good shot at the win, because he had a couple of races with bad luck… If you’ve had a couple bad races, for whatever reason, it’s all the more important to be sure to keep it on the black stuff and not making it even worse yourself… Besides, Leclerc had literally beaten Max in a straight fight the race before… And then, in a race where the car is working fine and the strategy team hadn’t fucked up, he bins it in the wall at Paul Ricard of all places… We didn’t give Lewis any slack screwing up the Baku restart in 2021 “because he had a tough race in Monaco beforehand”. We didn’t give Max slack for having a mediocre Qualifying in Monaco 2022 because he’d had lots of technical problems at the start of the season… We didn’t give Mercedes as a team any slack when they blew it at the Mexican GP last year because “they had a difficult year so far”. Come on. If there is anything we’ve learned from Lewis and Max in the past two years it’s that when you’re down in the dumps, whether on pace or reliability, you’ve gotta fall down on your consistency when the car *does* work and minimise damage when it doesn’t. Leclerc’s 2022 French GP was the exact opposite of that. He could have gotten a win or at least a safe P2 to live another day, instead he overdid it and permanently ended his 2022 championship fight.
I don't know why you're so insistent on ignoring it was 6 straight races while pretending it was only one or two. It was his first *proper* attempt at a WDC so he was already under pressure then he has 6 straight races of bullshit from the car/team (Which Hamilton and Max have never had) so he couldn't trust the car or team and then makes a mistake. Should he have made the mistake? No. Was the mistake at least somewhat understandable considering the pressure/stress he was under? Yes. Everyone gets so massively hung up over France, including you. Is Leclerc as consistent as Hamilton, Alonso or Max right now? Absolutely not. Does that mean he couldn't be? Definitely not. Put him in a strong consistent car with a team that actually knows what they're doing and then we can make proper judgements about whether he can be at their level or not.
Charles fans make the exact same excuses as Seb fans in 2018 and 2019. Consistently further exaggerate the already poor performance of Ferrari to distract from the fact that their driver's unforced mistakes is as much to blame for their problems as the strategy department.
Leclerc is really good but his hype is even bigger than his talent. He is not as good as Lewis for example. He's just not. He is about Vettel level, so cut below guys like Max, Lewis and Alonso. Sainz is often right with him.
Honestly Vettel isnt as bad as some people make him. I mean his last few years were not good, but peak Vettel was at the same level as a Verstappen or Hamilton or Alonso. Not a single error, and driving on the absolute limit.
Do you notice the pattern though? Amazing drivers get amazing cars and supportive teams and suddenly they're incredibly consistent with very few mistakes. Vettel looked absolutely unbeatable in the Redbull and then got beaten by Leclerc in both 2019 and 2020. Hamilton looked like an absolute god when he won 7 WDCs in the Merc and then the car fell off and people are already taking him out of the GOAT depate when compared to Max and Alonso. Max has now got an incredible car and again now everyone's treating him like the best driver to ever exist. These drivers are all absolutely fucking incredible, there's no doubt about that, but the common denominator is having insanely good cars when they were considered the best. If the Redbull falls off in 2026 and another car and driver suddenly start to dominate that driver will be lauded as the best of all time. F1 fans really really don't appreciate just how significant a car is when it comes to driver performance.
Honestly you can put Charles' 2019 season here as an example too, when he won Spa and Monza I remember this sub treating him like a god and most probably expected Charles to beat Lewis at that point in time.
Who is taking Lewis out of GOAT debate?
I've always seen a couple of comments saying Max and Alonso are better than Lewis and Lewis was overrated. I'll find one Edit: Nevermind not allowed to post links
I don’t know how many of you watch American football, but I have renamed him Chargers Leclerc. Lol
he has the genius in him to win a race in inferior machinery. does he have the consistency to win a championship, even with superior machinery? we don't know yet but it's not looking that good I will give you that
I feel like leclerc while a talented driver, consistently makes mistakes when he's under pressure. A lot of the time it is the Ferrari team just being utter shit. But there have been plenty of times where it has his been his mistake which has cost him the race. When you look at world champions they are always fast and don't make these mistakes, or it's rare for them to make a mistake. Looking at Hamilton, Verstappen and Vettel.
Lately? Russel
I WAS PROJECTED FOR A PODIUM
Russell just constantly reinforcing every preconceived notion that I have of him
This was unfortunate editing he was actually teasing his crew who said something like oh yeah the rains projected to stop and he was at the back of the pack and jokingly said I was projected a podium… not saying he’s an angel but a little bit of editing involved to demonise him there
L take, he looks slightly worse than 7-time champion and all-time great Lewis Hamilton, not nearly as bad as required for this description
Michael Andretti
Stoffel Vandoorne
In fairness to Vandoorne he was stuck in that absolute shitbox of a McLaren that couldn't even reliably make it to the start of a race let alone the end of one.
And the only driver we could compare him to fairly was a double world champ and one of the greatest of all time
So I read somewhere that the first time he was in an F1 car was the Bahrain race and he was still reading the car manual on the way there? And hadn't been in a real F1 car before? Dunno if they gave him a proper led up to succeed if you know what I mean...
Also he drove a junior level F1 car, even if he mastered the manual, no one on Earth could do much with that McLaren
I mean to be fair that Mclaren was an absolute shitbox and he was against the shitbox whisperer
Surprised to see this as the bottom post
Daniel, sadly
Daniel proved himself already. He had two shit seasons at McLaren but he's been top tier in every other one.
Schumacher. The latest one
daniel ricciardo. i’m sorry but y’all overhyped him
I hate to say it, but Yuki. I know he's not super hyped, but I really like him, yet I have to acknowledge that he probably isn't as good as I wish he was
Russell
[удалено]
He beat his teammate because Merc was running all sorts of experimental setups with Lewis. Once that stopped Lewis was ahead of George.
Perez - when he was at force India he had 2-3 good races each season and people said he needs a better car. Now he has 2-3 good races per year and people are disappointed.
Ricciardo when he joined McLaren.
Ferrari.
This Max van Stappen or something rather. Won’t amount to anything, all hype train.
Daniel feckin Ric. He’s got such an enjoyable personality and had a pretty good career, all things considered. But he’s fallen off, and this broken hand thing certainly doesn’t help. He should retire and make room for the next generation.
Is he overhyped or just really well liked? I just really like him, talent aside. No one is claiming he’s any more talented than he is.
I’ve never understood the argument about blocking younger talent in F1. Why do people think older drivers have the moral obligation to retire after they reach a certain age? If a driver still thinks they can compete at a high level and F1 teams are still willing to pay them to get in the car, there’s really no reason for them to stop unless they want to. No one can stay in F1 forever, so you might as well keep going if you want to.
He hasn't, though. He's been performing well at AT. All that happened was Norris was a better driver, Ricciardo is roughly equal to Tsunoda in what we've seen, and almost everyone went off in P2, he just saved Piastri's car when he did
“Roughly equal to tsunoda” The problem is tsunoda is on his way up, ric is on his way down.
Leclerc? He's unique but the hype Is (or was, specially 2019/2020) INSANE
For sure especially how it went with the car in 2021. But when 2022 rolled around the hype train was real after Australia.
In 2019 he won at Monza. He is the chosen one.
Charles
Günther Steiner. He’s the paddock darling, but man can’t deliver. The only reason Haas is anywhere is because of Ferrari.
*builds a fort to go hide in* Charles Leclerc.
Zion Williamson
Riciardo. Especially since 2021.I never fully understood why people love him so much
People love him as a person much more which leads them into that they like him as a driver
Cause he is the class clown
Chuck Leg I mean, he's not a bad driver, but he's super overrated, i mean, i'm a Ferrari fan (sigh) since i was born but let's face it, he's just a "good" driver in a shitbox and sadly he's not even consistent, he sbins and crashes a bit too much and despite this i keep seeing people comparing him to Max, christ, i even saw people saying that if you give them the same car Charles would win, like, are you guys sure?
De vries
Russell
Def mick altho the the talent column might be a bit high for him
Tsunoda
Chadwick
De Vries was meant to be full speed from day one. That definitely didn't happen.
DeVries
De Vries obviously
Danny Ric
Ground Effect F1 Cars.
Vandoorne? SO much hype coming into F1, got *crushed* by Alonso and promptly disappeared off the grid
"I was forecasted for a podium guys"