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  • Red Bulls Checo Conundrum

    Unless you’ve lived in a hole the last few months speculation has been rife that Red Bull intend to replace Sergio Perez with either Liam Lawson or Yuki Tsunoda.

    The Background

    I first wanted to briefly touch upon the decision by RB earlier on in the season to renew Perez’s contract. Perez had, had a tough run of races and it was a surprise to many when RB announced at The Canadian Grand Prix the contract extension that would take him through to at least the end of the 2025 season and into the 2026 season. I can only assume the reasoning behind this was the hope it might give him a bit of a morale boost and give him a platform to go and kick on from. Unfortunately, that hasn’t been the case, not only did he have a weekend to forget in Canada, but the remainder of the season was shocking as well.

    You could argue until you’re blue in the face that his struggles have come due to the performance of the car or if he has even been given an equal car. However, you do have to assume that upgrades went to Max first based on his position in the championship but that doesn’t mean Perez didn’t get them, at the end of the day the goal for RB is to win the constructors championship. Despite popular belief, it is not in RB’s best interest for one of their drivers struggle, they’ve now gone from 1st to 3rd in the standings which whilst it will mean an increase in wind tunnel time and development hours, it does mean they will have less prize money to use on the car.

    The Options

    The replacement options being considered come in the form of Yuki Tsunoda or Liam Lawson. For me I don’t think either of them are of the level that RB need to get back to the top of the championship. You look at Ferrari and McLaren, both of their drivers are generally closely matched and consistently scoring good points.

    Tsunoda has had some flashes of brilliance but for me he lacks the consistency, and he also seems quite hot headed. He also doesn’t strike me as being the most constructive driver when it comes to feedback for the engineers on car set up and development.

    Lawson seems like the chosen one, personally I don’t think he’s shown enough in his time in F1 to really be the man to go up against Verstappen. He stepped in for a few races last season for the injured Daniel Ricciardo and then this season he replaced him completely after Singapore. For me he hasn’t really set the world alight. He does however seem to have a strong character about him which he will need going up against Verstappen. He does come across as a bit arrogant and he certainly doesn’t seem to mind ruffling some feathers, if he gets the move to RB and starts ruffling Max’s feathers that won’t sit well, and he won’t last long.

    The Problem

    Red Bull have themselves a problem and I am not talking about who they pick as a replacement. I am talking about Perez himself. At the time of writing Sergio Perez has a contract to race next season, he is not just going to give that up. Obviously, I don’t know the ins and outs of his contract, but unless RB have some get out clauses within it, it could be hard for them to get out of it. I read a rumour that it could cost Reb Bull up to $80m to cancel his contract, if that is true not only is it a huge sum of money but it might also suggest that there are in fact no performance based “get out” clauses in his contract. Not only that, but Perez also comes with significant sponsorship backing. RB are obviously not short of a penny, but they need to make careful decisions because the drop in prize money, the loss of the sponsorship from him and any monetary payments they must make to terminate the contract could all be factors for next seasons budget.

    Final Thoughts

    Ultimately, I think RB will still replace Sergio Perez. They could go for something they have not done since they joined Formula 1 and give both drivers a go next season. For those who may not know, when RB joined F1 in 2005 they had David Coulthard as their main driver and the second seat they were due to swap between Christian Klien and Vitantonio Liuzzi. That season Klien ended up doing more races that Liuzzi, but it is something they could consider doing again.

    I think they will go with Lawson, he seems to be the chosen one at the moment after Verstappen and they seem to have a lot of faith in him. However, that could also be said of Kvyat, Gasly and Albon all of which seemed to be in the good graces at the time of moving to the main team but in the end they didn’t have the best of times in the other Red Bull and ultimately left for other teams.

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  • Abu Dhabi Grand Prix

    The 2024 Season Comes to a Close

    The final race of the season is complete and whilst it wasn’t a classic, it will be remembered for being the race where McLaren secured their first Constructors Championship since 1998. Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri were not even born in 1998, and it was the year I started watching the sport. Knowing the cars were carrying more downforce than the Ferrari’s, I was slightly worried they would be mugged down the back straight. Thankfully that didn’t happen, largely in part because of the contact between Max Verstappen and Oscar Piastri which gave Norris a good gap that he was able to maintain and extend.

    First Corner Shenanigans

    “Move of a world champion that one”

    Oscar Piastri

    If you’ve got your tin foil hat on, you may buy into the conspiracy theory that the contact between Vestappen and Piastri was and intentional attempt to thwart McLaren from winning the Constructors Championship. The reasoning behind this is due to the “bad blood” between Zak Brown and Christian Horner. I do not buy in to this however it is another example of a typical Verstappen “I am coming through, if you don’t get out the way we will make contact” lunge up the inside. After the race he confirmed that it was his mistake and that he had tried to get out of it but could not. I find this is an odd thing to say considering during the race he thought the penalty was ridiculous. It didn’t really help Piastri who lost more time than Verstappens 10 second penalty and then caused a collision of his own. Still, he managed to fight his way back into the points.

    Leclerc Inspired Drive Not Enough for Ferrari

    Starting at the back of the grid Leclerc had a phenomenal race finishing in 3rd, he managed to avoid the contact at turn 1 and really stepped up to help put his team put McLaren under pressure. I will say however that the Ferrari is clearly much quicker than most of the cars out there so we shouldn’t be surprised that he managed to get on the podium, it’s not the first time we have seen this happen from a driver out of position, Verstappen and Hamilton have done it many times. I can be quite critical of the Ferrari drivers at time, they always have a mistake in them, but neither of them did make any mistakes, unfortunately for them it wasn’t enough.

    A Weekend of Goodbyes and Potential Goodbyes

    It’s not unusual for people to move around in F1, but we seem to have had more after this weekend than in previous seasons. Several goodbyes and not all of them went out on a good note. Colapinto ended his 9-race run with Williams retiring with an engine issue. Bottas ended his disastrous spell at Kick Sauber by putting Perez out of the race and then slamming into Magnussen, who left Haas finishing a lap down in 16th but claiming the fastest lap. Zhou Guanyu didn’t fare much better in 13th. Checo Perez retired after contact with Bottas, at the time of writing remains contracted to Red Bull for next season, but there are strong rumours this was his last race for RB. On a more positive note, Hulkenberg finished 8th in his last drive for Haas and Hamilton drove a great race to finish 4th in his last race for Mercedes.

    A Farewell to Hamilton

    I just wanted to quickly mention Hamilton. Obviously, this weekend was his last race for Mercedes, its forged one of the most memorable partnerships in F1 history with multiple Drivers and Constructors championships. Watching from the outside it feels like the right time and it seems like Hamilton needs a new challenge. Whilst it is a big deal all of the coverage, events and media attention it received this past weekend is ridiculous. After the race he was given a spot alongside the top 3 on the grid, he was supposed to have his own post-race interview that was cancelled. Anyone would think he was retiring from the sport, he’s only leaving Mercedes. A lot of the TV coverage as well particularly after the race was focused on this and I kind of felt it took away from discussing McLarens achievement. If they are like this with him moving to another team, I can’t imagine what they will be like when he actually retires.

    Results

    1stLando Norris11thAlex Albon
    2ndCarlos Sainz12thYuki Tsunoda
    3rfCharles Leclerc13thZhou Guanyu
    4thLewis Hamilton14thLance Stroll
    5thGeorge Russell15thJack Doohan
    6thMax Verstappen16thKevin Magnussen
    7thPierre GaslyDNFLiam Lawson
    8thNico HulkenbergDNFValtteri Bottas
    9thFernando AlonsoDNFFranco Colapinto
    10thOscar PiastriDNFSergio Perez

    What Is Next?

    With the season now finished, attention turns to the post season test, then all eyes will be on 2025 which starts in roughly 90 days. I will post my thoughts on any rumours or gossip circulating in that time. But I also intend to write some team-by-team reviews on how I feel they performed during this season. I will release these during the off season. Hopefully next season the blog can grow and improve.

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  • Handbags at Dusk

    Max vs George

    If this was WWE Teddy Long would be booking a tag team match. In one corner we have Verstappen and Christian Horner, the other Russell and Toto Wolff. If you were not aware after the last race Max spoke to the media about some shenanigans that went down after qualifying and accused Russell of doing his best to get him a grid penalty.

    George has responded this weekend by stating that Max was in the steward’s room swearing and arguing with them about the penalty, he has also suggested that Max has threatened to “put him on his head in a wall”. Obviously, this can’t just stay between the drivers as Horner and Wolff have gotten involved with the latter calling Horner a “little Terrier”.

    Max has hit back calling George a liar, which itself is a significant accusation. I do think to myself, why would the president of the GPDA lie about such things in a very public forum. However, I would like to think that Max would have a bit more about him than to swear at the stewards and make threats to George, at the very least you would assume there was an RB representative on hand to make sure these things didn’t get out of hand.

    Russell has further stoked the fire by suggesting that Max is also a bully within the team and earlier on in the season other teams such as McLaren, Mercedes and Aston Martin were inundated with RB engineer’s CV’s. He didn’t stop there, however. Referring to Max’s 2021 title win. George suggested if it happened the other way around then Michael Massi the race director at the time would have “feared for his life” from the Verstappens.

    I obviously have no contacts in the sport so I must take what you hear from the media with a pinch of salt, we know they are not always correct in their reporting and any information they get will be second or third hand information. What I do think however is that Max is clearly a tougher person than George, we all know the tough bringing up he had regarding his dad, and we all know the stories about how his dad has acted in the past. So, for me it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that Max may have been sterner in his approach to the situation. It’s not the first time we have seen fireworks between drivers, Schumacher marching to the McLaren garage at Spa in 1998 springs to mind. However, threatening to harm another driver on track, if true, is another level.

    For me, instead of joining in the tit for tat. The team principles should be looking to nip this in the bud and not fanning the flames just because they also don’t like each other. Maybe it’s all a show to generate some talking points and get more people to tune in. I do think however that this needs to be dealt with harshly. If it’s true and I were to threaten someone I worked with, I’d be sacked or suspended immediately. They should be thrown into a room to discuss it like adults and get over it.

    Other drivers then chime in on the situation with Lando saying that Max only talks the truth, which would suggest he thinks George is lying. I am unsure who to believe to be honest, they are very different people and if there was a physical altercation I would put my money on Max to come out on top. It will be interested to see what happens in the race if they are close together that’s for sure. Let me know what you think in the comments section.

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  • Qatar Grand Prix

    Max Wins – Simply Lovely

    I wasn’t expecting to have much to write after the Sprint Race, however Red Bull managed to find the cars pace in time for qualifying and in the end partially because of Lando’s penalty he had a comfortable win. I don’t think McLaren had the pace to beat Max, I felt that he was managing the gap when he needed to. Below are some of my thoughts after the race and I will try not to waffle too much…

    Sprint

    As we had a sprint race, I will quickly touch upon it, not a great deal happened during the race, there were a couple of overtakes, mainly from the Red Bull not performing very well. However, it was a well work team victory from McLaren. George Russell’s post-race comments about the teamwork ruining the “spectacle” for the fan are a fair point. However, it is a team sport and you can’t tell me that in the same position Mercedes wouldn’t have done the same! I don’t know if it had been discussed before the race, but it was a nice touch by Lando to return the favour from Brazil with Oscar Piastri and one I wasn’t expecting.

    Qualifying

    Quali was interesting to watch, after the sprint we all thought the fight would go down between Lando and George. Red Bull however found the pace in their car and came to spoil the party. Unfortunately for Red Bull their pole position was taken away from them after Max was given a 1 place grid penalty for driving unnecessarily slowly. The strange thing here is that both drivers were on a slow lap and George seemed to speed up as Max was in the corner, immediately complaining to the stewards. Max seems to think that George has made the most out of this situation and rumours that when both drivers were with the stewards, George was playing on the situation as much as he could to get Max the penalty. This resulted in a reported heated exchange between the two and prompted Max to comment after the race that he had lost respect for George after doing his best to get him penalised. Personally, I find these comments quite interesting because during the race Max was very quick to mention on team radio, he knew Lando hadn’t slowed under the yellow flags. However, we all know that this sort of thing goes on between all the teams and drivers every race weekend, so I am not sure why Max took exception this time. It’s just like footballers, they shake hands before the game, as soon as the whistle goes, they are all trying to cheat each other out of the match. It’s the same here.

    The Race

    Thankfully for the fans at home and in the grandstands the main race was more entertaining and there was plenty of action throughout the field. Russell didn’t make the most of his gifted pole position and was passed by both Max and Lando. The Alpine of Ocon and Williams of Colapinto came together bringing out the first safety car. From there, I will discuss some of the key points from the race and give my opinion.

    Russells woe

    Mercedes race seemed to start to unfold when the pitted George Russell ridiculously early to remove the medium tyres and put on the hard. The gap they were trying to feed into was relatively small and unfortunately an issue with the rear right meant they missed that window and came out being Alonso. After that Russell struggled with the tyre and was not able to get past Alonso. The other cars in front meanwhile stayed out for several more laps and it really benefited them. This meant that when the safety car was finally deployed (will come on to that shortly) for the broken Williams wing mirror he was always going to struggle to get back into the podium slots, especially after they pitted him again under the safety car and put the hard tyres back on, I can only assume this was because they had no mediums available. I can only assume they were trying to get an undercut on Lando however Its a decision that ultimately backfired and cost them a podium.

    Hamilton wants an early bath

    Whilst on the subject of Mercedes, let’s talk about Lewis Hamilton. While you cannot deny he is one of the greatest of all time, there are sometimes where you can’t help but look at him and think “what a baby”. Over the years I have watched F1 I have seen this side of Hamilton on the odd occasion. It always seems to happen when he is outside the top 10 and is struggling with the car. For a multiple world champion, for him to keep radioing to the pits asking to retire the car is an embarrassment. For starters, you are paid several million a year to drive these cars, pull your socks up and get on with it. Secondly, you don’t know what is going to happen and you could still end up in the points. I understand that he’s had it tough of late and the love from the team has naturally faded away over the course of the season and I don’t doubt that George may have a slightly different car, but that is to be expected. You can’t expect the team to keep you updated on developments and future projects when you are leaving for one of their main rivals. On this occasion fair play to them not letting him retire the car.

    The FIA Conundrum

    This is the biggest talking point of the race because it also affected the outcome of the race. When Alex Albons wing mirror flew off down the main straight the put the yellow flag out. Watching on TV and seeing where it was on the straight you immediately think to yourself “that has to be a safety car”. Yet the race continued for several laps, we saw on TV from the graphics that one minute the yellow flag was out, then it wasn’t, then it was again, then it was double waved yellows and the safety car was only deployed after Bottas ran over it and Sainz and Hamilton seemingly got punctures from the debris. There has been a lot of chop and change at the FIA recently and the new Race Director has to also preside over some of the other formulas that raced that weekend. At this point the race became farcical, for a sport that claims it is the “pinnacle” of motor racing, they certainly know how to make themselves look stupid. I don’t know what their thought process was during this phase but to me it’s simple. Deploy the safety car for a couple of laps, get them to go through the pits, send a marshal onto the track to pick up the wing mirror. Sorted. Can’t help but think the turmoil in the FIA at the moment as played a hand here with the lack of experience and decision making.

    McLaren Shoot Themselves in the Foot… again

    After the sprint race it looked like McLaren were the team to beat. Then when the main race came around it went to pot. First of all, Piastri was caught out pitting a lap before the safety car was deployed, McLaren had a good enough gap to double stack under the safety car, but I guess at the time they didn’t know what the FIA were going to do (because the FIA didn’t know either) and couldn’t have known the safety car would be deployed a lap later. Then we come onto Lando Norris. A bit of a rookie mistake to be honest was the first my impression, however after seeing the replay on TV, the yellow flag came out just as he was getting to the marshal post, I guess at this point he might not have seen it. However, he did not slow down and was given a penalty. The stewards awarded the penalty as per the rules and it’s hard to argue against that. You could say that they could have used common sense to apply part of the rule, after all there was no marshal on track and there was no danger to anyone. I do think the penalty was harsh, I was expecting a 10 second time penalty not a 10 second stop/go and it really killed off a race that could have been spicy at the front for the last few laps. It was a harsh penalty but equally it was a needless penalty to get given. McLaren had a great chance this weekend to put some distance between themselves and Ferrari and once again have not capitalised on the performance they had. However, unlike Hamilton wanting to retire the car Lando got his head down and at least managed to score some points.

    Final Thoughts

    I feel like I have waffled on a fair bit here so I will keep this short. I think overall the race was enjoyable. It’s nice to see the drivers able to push on the tyres with low degradation, having to sit and watch Formula Tyre Save can be very frustrating. However, there is only really the main straight and turns 1 and 2 where you can overtake so that can make it a bit of a struggle at times. Fair play to Red Bull for sorting their car out. There’s been a fair bit of titty babbying between the drivers this weekend, maybe it’s a bit more predictable because Netflix was around so we have to ramp up the drama a bit. Hopefully McLaren and Norris won’t dwell on the mistakes this weekend and they can secure their first constructors since 1998. Would be great to hear other peoples thoughts and comments. Please keep them clean. Thanks for reading.

    Results

    1stMax Verstappen11thValtteri Bottas
    2ndCharles Leclerc12thLewis Hamilton
    3rfOscar Piastri13thYuki Tsunoda
    4thGeorge Russell14thLiam Lawson
    5thPierre Gasly15thAlexander Albon
    6thCarlos SainzDNFNico Hulkenberg
    7thFernando AlonsoDNFSergio Perez
    8thZhou GuanyuDNFLance Stroll
    9thKevin MagnussenDNFFranco Colapinto
    10thLando NorrisDNFEsteban Ocon

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  • We’re On The Grid

    We’re On The Grid

    Welcome to The DRS Zone and to our first post!

    I have been toying with the idea for some time now to start a blog and I have finally made the decision to start one, so here we are.

    It’s probably a strange time to start a new F1 blog since there are only a couple of races left of the season, but there was a Black Friday offer, so I thought well let’s get started.

    I will try and keep the format of the blog simple. I will post a review of the race weekend hopefully on a Monday or Tuesday, once I have had time to think about what I want to write. I also intend publish my thoughts about any interesting news or events from the F1 world that may occur between race weekends or off season. As I am starting the blog very late into the season I will start with a review of this weekend’s Qatar Grand Prix, following that up with a review of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. Once the season has ended, I will release my thoughts and review on each team’s season, this will probably be done on a weekly basis.

    If you have got this far and you would like to be kept up to date with the latest posts, please use the subscription option below. Subscription is free!

    I intend to have the ability to comment on the blog posts, I would love to hear what other people think. Do we agree? Do we disagree? Please remember it is ok for people to have different opinions, please keep replies to posts and or comments polite.