The last contract he signed has performance clauses that could allow him to leave if the car isn't competitive enough, potentially could pick team with fastest car
Season can't come soon enough so many unknowns
Poll: Official 2025 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix Race Thread - Yas Marina Circuit - Race 24/24 - Showdown in the Desert
- Thread starter chrismscotland
- Start date
- Status
The last contract he signed has performance clauses that could allow him to leave if the car isn't competitive enough, potentially could pick team with fastest car
Season can't come soon enough so many unknowns
He does talk a lot of nonsense, if he didn't give two hoots about F1 anymore then he wouldn't have spit his dummy out in a fit of rage and crashed into Russell.
Point for clarification #23 - Max got more poles than either McLaren driver
Just goes to show how good Max is at driving the dog of a car around, and compared to his team mates.Point for clarification #23 - Max got more poles than either McLaren driver
Last edited:
Soldato
- Joined
- 22 Feb 2014
- Posts
- 3,093
how can you be saying Max's car was a dog ?
It was clearly faster in the last 3 races, it might be difficult to drive, but its not a slow car.
as for max taking more poles, yes he took more than either Mclaren driver individually, but if either of those 2 had a team mate who was as far apart from them as max's was then they would have taken more poles as well.
Max's stats are inflated by not having a competitive teammate.
It was clearly faster in the last 3 races, it might be difficult to drive, but its not a slow car.
as for max taking more poles, yes he took more than either Mclaren driver individually, but if either of those 2 had a team mate who was as far apart from them as max's was then they would have taken more poles as well.
Max's stats are inflated by not having a competitive teammate.
I'm referring to the whole season, not cherry picking individual races. Of course there were times where the car was better suited to the conditions present and it did also seem better over race conditions than single laps, this can occur, but, as all the pundits have stated, those who have a racing background, the car was not good at all and certainly nowhere near the performance of the McLaren's.
It was obvious from the behaviour of the car when watching it on track that it presented challenges and it was only the brilliance of Max who dragged it up higher than anyone else could.
The Ferrari's also experienced something similar.
Soldato
- Joined
- 22 Feb 2014
- Posts
- 3,093
I don't believe that for a second.
The car cannot win races if it isn't fast enough. Your ferrari example highlights this, LeClerc and Hamilton produced very little in the way of results this year, and LeClerc has shown himself to be capable in previous seasons, even if Hamilton is now on a decline.
There is no denying Max's talent, but 2nd half of the season RedBull had obviously caught up somewhat (I also read that Mclaren stopped working on this year's car much earlier) and he wasn't a million mile off at the start of the season either.
Yet many in this forum have stated in the past that Lewis was more than capable of dragging a poor car around the track and make it perform better than it should and win races.
I agree with your last statement, but so did many other teams which could be seen by how close it became between each car in qualifying and in the races. However I'm sure you must realise that any development isn't a spur of the moment occurrence, they are planned months before, sometimes even before the season starts. I wouldn't be surprise if Christian had a hand in this as well.
The point you make about the McLaren's is true, though it is only obvious that any team who continued with any improvements to their cars will always catch up with a team that doesn't.
Same with the Brawn in 2009.
Last edited:
Ferrari in 2004 too, the BMW by season end was certainly up there with the F2004, and that is probably the greatest car ever built. Even the greatest cars will get caught up if you stop developing it.
Last edited:
If I ever have a spare $10-20m lying around I would love to own that car.
It's really bizarre I think the way that everyone seems to think the Red Bull was a bad car this season.
Verstappen's first three races of 2025....
2nd, 2nd, 1st
Yeah such an awful car to drive - finishing on the podium in the first three races. LOL.
It's just another thing that the media have tried to weave - this notion that it was the greatest come back of all time. Not it wasn't ffs! The car was very strong a lot of the season.
I think it's just a narrative that the media and F1 tries to spin to get viewers to tune in personally. And they don't half exaggerate how good Verstappen is - he had a dominant car in 2022/23/24 when he won his three titles. And he bloody well did not have a bad car this season.
Verstappen's first three races of 2025....
2nd, 2nd, 1st
Yeah such an awful car to drive - finishing on the podium in the first three races. LOL.
It's just another thing that the media have tried to weave - this notion that it was the greatest come back of all time. Not it wasn't ffs! The car was very strong a lot of the season.
I think it's just a narrative that the media and F1 tries to spin to get viewers to tune in personally. And they don't half exaggerate how good Verstappen is - he had a dominant car in 2022/23/24 when he won his three titles. And he bloody well did not have a bad car this season.
No it was not, his results for the first third of the season was:
| 2 | 43 | 1P | 6 | 2P | 4P | 1F | 4 | 10 |
Comparing that to Lando:
| 1PF | 28 F | 2 | 3 | 4F | 21 F | 2 | 1PF | 2 |
Edit: this copy and paste didnt come out nicely, not fixing it for people who cba to even Wikipedia for their stats.
Max had only won 2 races until the Dutch GP, Mclaren won the rest up to the Dutch GP apart from one where Russell did, fancy making more nonsense up?
Last edited:
Man of Honour
- Joined
- 21 Nov 2004
- Posts
- 47,908
And for anyone who missed this:
I was not talking about how many race wins he had and didn't say that either so I'm not sure why you are arguing a statistic I didn't even bring up ! 
I simply said that Red Bull had a strong car throughout a lot of the season, which they did.
Taking the sprint weekends out of the equation the car achieved
2nd, 1st, 6th, 2nd, 1st, 4th, 10th (when he had a brain fart and decided it was bumper cars), 2nd, 5th, 9th, 2nd, 1st, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 1st, 1st.
He and / or the car improved in the second half of the season but the car wasn't bad in the first half of the season.
I simply said that Red Bull had a strong car throughout a lot of the season, which they did.
Taking the sprint weekends out of the equation the car achieved
2nd, 1st, 6th, 2nd, 1st, 4th, 10th (when he had a brain fart and decided it was bumper cars), 2nd, 5th, 9th, 2nd, 1st, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 1st, 1st.
He and / or the car improved in the second half of the season but the car wasn't bad in the first half of the season.
I'm no Verstappen fan - far from it - but the man is clearly incredibly talented and one of the all-time greats. I think he's a ****, but the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.
However, it's clear he's immensely talented, ferociously quick and incredibly consistent.
Surprised no one mentioned his NLS race in the recent discussion.
However, it's clear he's immensely talented, ferociously quick and incredibly consistent.
Surprised no one mentioned his NLS race in the recent discussion.
Thats not exactly the same thing now is it.
Why? So it backs up your nonsense? Why take out a sprint and normal race which is relevant to the discussion and year.
I love it how Norris fan's have to yap about max and have to get a dig in even after their guy wins the championship.
How dare you show a mature view in this thread...
Soldato
- Joined
- 9 May 2022
- Posts
- 2,737
- Location
- London
The field was pretty uncompetitive outside of Verstappen. Sports car racing even at its highest level is full of drivers deemed not good enough for F1 so it's no surprise the best F1 driver cleaned up in a relatively uncompetitive low-level field.
Don't get me wrong, I'm fully confident he would do very well in a full-strength field with the best GT3 racers out there, it's just his NLS result was the expected result looking at the field.
Last edited:
I was talking about his lap record straight out of the box.
- Status