Motorsport Off Topic Thread

McLaren showing they're pretty ruthless with their driver moved in Indycar (Binning Lundgaard) who's having a great season with 2 wins so far - so I wouldn't rule out something similar in F1.
I would imagine they would happily pay off Piastri when they're not having to buy Max out of his contract.
 
CaptainRAVE said:
Piastri has been useless for a while, it would be refreshing to see max in a new team at least.
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He’s got the same number of wins and podiums as Norris this year and not that far behind him on points. Maybe there’s some delayed fallout from the 2025 internal politics that is unresolved.

If you had a venn diagram of British McLaren fans and Hamilton fans, there’s probably quite a big crossover. It’ll be interesting to see the reaction there.
 
Scam said:
He’s got the same number of wins and podiums as Norris this year and not that far behind him on points. Maybe there’s some delayed fallout from the 2025 internal politics that is unresolved.

If you had a venn diagram of British McLaren fans and Hamilton fans, there’s probably quite a big crossover. It’ll be interesting to see the reaction there.
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Certainly I would not say that Oscar has been useless at all. Can't see any reason why that conclusion can be reached.
 
cuke2u said:
Certainly I would not say that Oscar has been useless at all. Can't see any reason why that conclusion can be reached.
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Useless is a total exaggeration but I would say he's had a fairly disappointing season. It feels more like a continuation of his weak form from the latter part of last season that the long period where he was comfortably the better McLaren driver.

Scam said:
I can see Weber wanting to get Piastri into a RB seat and therefore trying to force the issue. Or at least persuading Piastri that it’d be a good idea (it’s not). Hmn.
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There seems to be a fair amount of backroom discontent going on. Even if McLaren bring a better car next season, is Piastri going to be able to thrive and win against Norris against that background? Red Bull aren't as mighty as they once were but I think it'd be foolish to write them off on the basis of one bad season. Without an established driver already in the team, Piastri has a chance to pull the team around him and become their new lead driver in a way that McLaren doesn't support.

Max vs. Papaya Rules would be hilarious though.
 
I think Zac Brown would be on Zanax PDQ if Max took Oscar’s seat for 2027.

Personally, I think RB will have the boffins working around the clock trying to fix the RB21’s issues so that he stays.
 
McLaren’s win last year was the first for a customer car in many, many years. I suspect that is also on Webbers, and therefore Piastri’s mind. It appears, at least so far, Mercedes aren’t fully playing ball with McLaren and others in terms of full and complete engine and software parity.
 
MissChief said:
It appears, at least so far, Mercedes aren’t fully playing ball with McLaren and others in terms of full and complete engine and software parity.
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They have to, by letter of the sporting regs. Since 2019 (I think it was) all engines supplied by a manufacturer have to be in parity. Very few things can be changed from OEM spec, mostly with the engine mapping, but that's at the team's discretion.

If Mercedes are supplying de-tuned engines to another team the FIA would tear them a new one.
 
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GravyMonster said:
They have to, by letter of the sporting regs. Since 2019 (I think it was) all engines supplied by a manufacturer have to be in parity. Very few things can be changed from OEM spec, mostly with the engine mapping, but that's at the team's discretion.

If Mercedes are supplying de-tuned engines to another team the FIA would tear them a new one.
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There have been suggestions from Mercedes customer teams that Mercedes can do things they cannot. This may be down to information exchange between Mercedes and their engine department being far easier and sooner than happens to customer teams as well as improvements being communicated earlier to the works team. And, of course, what the rules state and what actually happens can sometimes differ.
 
They have to provide the same engine, yes, but this year's rules mean that a lot of it is about battery management details they don't have to share. That's on top of Merc being better able to tune their car to the engine from earlier in the development process.
 
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