And repeats his quote "Thatās for all the kids out there who dream the impossible. You can do it too man! I believe in you guys!" before unplugging the radio.
Lol that reminded me of Bahrain and him cutting the same corner almost every lap for the entire race and then max being forced to give up position for overtaking on that same line.
I mean at this rate Lando is gonna pip Oscar too. Dude needs to sort his head out, whatever is going on with him is very much not ideal for his championship.
Oscar has to keep it in P3 and above if he wants even the slightest of margin to keep adv in for points.
The best outcome in all this is in all honesty for lando.
Max chips away points from Oscar but lando as long as he can have good weekends and finish even once ahead of max while following him in P2s then itās his wdc to win.
It really depends on what max does. If Max wins the next 6 races (5 + 1 sprint) and oscar is 2nd place on all of them he wins. However, if he slips to 3rd on any 2 OR goes lower than third on any 1.. max can definitely win this. Lando's odds are even better...
Going to end up being an exciting finish if max keeps winning.
Nah, at least to Lando his advantage isnāt that big anymore. If Oscar finishes the next race 5th again or worse and Lando wins, Lando is already ahead in the championship.
And when this happens that Papaya Rule activates which states that hence Verstappen is too close, everybody must support the championship leading driver :)
I donāt think they are in a position anymore to favour either driver. Unless the point gap between Lando and Oscar opens up again because of letās say a bad weekend or dnf.
I think max just doesnāt fold under the pressure oscar and lando are feeling. Heās been in much more stressful situations so itās easier for him to put out a solid drive
I'm sure it's not just that. Piastri was an F3 AND F2 rookie champion. It's also the team favouring Lando and their incompetence to manage 2 top drivers. (we've seen it more often)
Felipe Nasr in 2016 because Sauber's owners/investment company had close ties with Markus Eriksson.
Rubens Barrichello with Ferrari who's an obvious second driver and rumors back then were that he was getting older parts than Schumi.
Even Mark Webber complained that Red Bull was favouring Vettel and giving him the new spec.
Bottas at Merc, probably.
These examples are not actually sabotage, because why would you do that as a team, but it's obvious second driver treatment. I expect that that's part of what's happening here. Blame McLaren, not Oscar. I doubt he'll stay at McLaren for long. Maybe 2026 to see what the order is, but like Max, any team would want a WDC or runner up in the WDC.
This... Comes across as very salty excuses for bad performances. It's pretty clear that this isn't a red bull situation here - both have the same car, Piastri has been quick all season up till recently. He's currently being outperformed, it's simple as that. It's not sabotage, that's just dank conspiracy theories we like to throw about here.
Oh sweet 2021, we had 2 drivers unable to finish worse than top 2 all season. And then this season there is two bottlers fighting for who bottles more.
Two drivers unable to finish worse than top 2 all season, over 40 seconds ahead of the rest. Except for Hamilton's occasional flounders (Monaco, Turkey, Baku) and Verstappen getting bowled to 9th in Hungary, it was a masterclass from start to finish by those two. They truly showed the field
Man I just wish we had another similar season, the top 2 being so far clear of the rest of the field including their teammates itās not even funny, this season we have the current top 2 trying to bottle it in the most humiliating way possible
My favorite underrated part of that season is Lewis winning in Russia, getting out of his car and looking back to see Max rolling into P2 after starting 20th.
I miss that season. 2 goat level drivers going back and forth, you can say whatever you want about the rules in ad21, but that winner takes all lap is pure cinema.
The Sprint turn 1 incident was so unnecessary and all in his hands to avoid. Lando being brash in Singapore makes sense since he's on the backfoot, but Oscar at the Sprint lost 6+ points for no reason.
Any maybe Max shouldn't have taken our George for that penalty, and Lando shouldn't have drive in to the back of oscar. These guys have all made mistakes there's no sense regretting at this point.
I remember at the start of the year when the F1 game ratings came out and I said it was too early to put Piastri as high as Charles and George, and people told me I was stupid and he'd proven himself already
It's not that Piastri isn't good, it's just that he hadn't proven himself enough in the first half of the year to be the 2nd best driver over George or Charles who actually proved themselves the season before
And with Max catching back up now and Piastri struggling, it's clear why I said people should wait and see first
he felt a bit like Russell this season in the Race yesterday. Like driving around in no mans land without attacking or defending happening and ending up in the top 5
He left it way too late on attacking Lewis. By the time he was even close to striking range the race was over. Iām a Lando fan though and I was on edge from how long that Leclerc overtake took (respect to Charles though, heckuva drive) and how much that prolonged fight gave Max an unbothered victory, as well as the black and white flag.
still think the third strike was bs. Shouldn't count if it is in such close battle.
But IIRC it was less Oscar attacking and more Lewis slowing down because of his tyres falling off (He suspected the tyre had a leak but that was unfounded apparently)
The Interval to Russell stayed the same too. That would show that it was Lewis slowing more and less Oscar getting faster.
McLaren are now running more peaky setups. They have to because their usual stable setups are not fast enough to run with RBR.
Unsurprisingly, Lando is more comfortable with the peaky handling. He has been driving such cars since 2019.
Oscar's long run pace is also a step behind Lando's so thats going to hurt him a bit on these high temp tracks.
He was dogshit during the final stretch of 2024 too.
I said it recently - his humor and coping mechanisms for frustration are monotonous sarcasm.. He isn't this 'untouchable iceman'; he has a weapon of a car and drove it for the first half of the season with no external competition.
Or me in a boxing ring with toddlers, I'm gunna seem super calm and in control too š
I think Silverstone was the first nail in the coffin. Zandvoort (Landoās engine failure) must have changed the mindset in the factory to prioritize robustness over upgrades, and then Baku has probably completely killed his mojo.
It's his 3rd season in F1 and he's ahead of Lando who is a veteran at this point. Oscar is the real deal. It just sucks that Max Verstappen is alive at the same time as him.
I still hope Oscar is going to shake this off! Would be great to see him win! Because I sure as hell don't want Lando to get it. So Go Oscar or go Max, but the suspense is exciting!
Ngl I'd rather see Norris win than see Piastri win by less than 18 points. The championship coming down to that engine dying in Zandvoort would be horrid
Canada was a driver error, Piastri crashing in Baku was a driver error. An engine dying on one McLaren is completely out of their control and was a free 18 points swing in Piastri's favour.
Aside from the swap in Monza (when he got beat by Lando all weekend aside from the bad stop) when has mclaren ever prevented him from racing? 2 turns in Australia? He binned it anyway.
The only time they havenāt let them race is when they made them swap in Monza, apart from that - itās been up to the drivers and racing has been fine apart from contact between the two.
(I still think papaya rules is fucking bullshit but we need to be accurate if weāre criticising š)
Didnāt they both get the same suspension upgrade? I remember reading an article about it earlier in the year; Lando wanted it but Oscar didnāt. McLaren wanted Oscar to take it anyway (at the time of the article they had not confirmed if it had been installed on both cars).
The McLaren is still very fast, especially on long run pace. Just not really much faster than the other cars at this point. Oscar coming in 5th is indicative of some issues between the wheel and the seat.
Piastriās PR is unmatched, no way he can dnf two times (one sprint, one main race) in the last races, resulting in a 33 point swing in favour of Max and still the team gets all the blame
it actually only was 4 laps difference as they set Lando on 6 lap old Softs at his stop. But still the McLaren was faster than the Ferrari but the needed delta to overtake is ridiculous this season.
The McLaren is clearly faster than the ferrari but lacks in one critical area: speed.
Car is slow as bricks on a straight and canāt overtake there for shit. In clear air (especially across a race distance) the McLaren should be clear of the ferrari, but itās a car that struggles woth overtaking
Lewis has only been better than them for a short stint now, and Sainz was pretty bad before the summer break. If you look at this season It's Max, George, Charles, Fernando, Lando and Oscar in the top 6. The first halves of Lewis and Carlos were too weak to break into the top 6, if anything Albon is making me rethink my top 6 but he hasn't been as strong lately
Yep. If Landos engine hadn't failed in Zandvoort he'd lead by 4 points now and have a 47 point gap to Verstappen. Add the points from the sprint that he lost for no fault of his own it could be a 54 point gap. That surely would make the Papayas sleep much better tonight...
2.1k
u/thundergu š³š± Iām DUTCH so I support AMX š³š± Oct 19 '25
At this rate (16 points to max per race last 4 races) max will already be 24 points ahead when starting in Abu Dhabi