Poll: Official Chinese Grand Prix 2025 Thread - Shanghai International Circuit, Shanghai- Race 2/24

Rate the BY race out of ten

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Heard Horners interview I think it was after the race and his words about Lawson certainly were more 'buck your ideas up or you're out' than 'he needs time to bed into a new team'

Some rumours reckon Colapinto is in the running as well, not that I'd expect him or Yuki to do anything there either.
 
Seeing the mess at Alpine, both on and off the track, along with Piastri's win today reminded me how funny that Alpine/Piastri tweet drama was :D
 
Psycho Ned said:
Heard Horners interview I think it was after the race and his words about Lawson certainly were more 'buck your ideas up or you're out' than 'he needs time to bed into a new team'
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Yes certainly seemed that way. Honestly, as harsh as it would be, they can't afford another season of waiting like with Perez. No harm in giving Yuki his shot (for RBR).

A very boring race in the end unfortunately, disappointing weekend overall. Little bit of a flat start to the season.
 
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Tigget said:
Yes certainly seemed that way. Honestly, as harsh as it would be, they can't afford another season of waiting like with Perez.
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Surely there's a middle ground between a season and dumping after two races? They can't fix past mistakes, but dumping Lawson for Yuki now is only going to compound them.
 
Mr Jack said:
Surely there's a middle ground between a season and dumping after two races? They can't fix past mistakes, but dumping Lawson for Yuki now is only going to compound them.
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I'm sure there is/should be yes. But lack of decision played a large part into them losing the constructors last year and I would say their car looks even further behind this year. So they need 2 drivers in the points from the get go to have any chance of competing for 2nd etc.

Not saying it's fair by the way, as it's not - cut throat business.
 
Tigget said:
I'm sure there is/should be yes. But lack of decision played a large part into them losing the constructors last year and I would say their car looks even further behind this year. So they need 2 drivers in the points from the get go to have any chance of competing for 2nd etc.

Not saying it's fair by the way, as it's not - cut throat business.
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Given the state of the car, with even Max saying it's a challenge to drive, and especially for someone new to the team, the drivers shouldn't be the ones suffering.

Whatever happens, Lawson should get a full year out of it. Honestly, they should have brought in someone like Alonso or Sainz if they wanted to make that 2nd seat work.
 
Tigget said:
I'm sure there is/should be yes. But lack of decision played a large part into them losing the constructors last year and I would say their car looks even further behind this year. So they need 2 drivers in the points from the get go to have any chance of competing for 2nd etc.
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The trouble is: after Gasly, Albon, Pérez, and now Lawson, what reason is there to believe that throwing an unprepared Yuki in is going to actually deliver better results? Yuki was better than Lawson when they were together last season, but in '23 Lawson actually got more out of the car than Yuki - and both times that was despite Lawson getting no preparation time and having no F1 experience. Putting him in is just rolling the dice and hoping for the best; and if you're trusting to hope why jump so fast? Unlike the first two tracks, Suzuka is a track which Lawson knows extremely well from Superformula so, to me, it makes sense to at least wait until after that race (and probably the rest of the triple header) before putting Yuki in. That also gives more time to prepare Yuki to replace him.

But, ultimately, if they want to have both drivers delivering they need to address the problems with the car instead of frantically hitting "re-roll" on the driver and hoping for the best.
 
Mesai said:
Given the state of the car, with even Max saying it's a challenge to drive, and especially for someone new to the team, the drivers shouldn't be the ones suffering.

Whatever happens, Lawson should get a full year out of it. Honestly, they should have brought in someone like Alonso or Sainz if they wanted to make that 2nd seat work.
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Mr Jack said:
The trouble is: after Gasly, Albon, Pérez, and now Lawson, what reason is there to believe that throwing an unprepared Yuki in is going to actually deliver better results? Yuki was better than Lawson when they were together last season, but in '23 Lawson actually got more out of the car than Yuki - and both times that was despite Lawson getting no preparation time and having no F1 experience. Putting him in is just rolling the dice and hoping for the best; and if you're trusting to hope why jump so fast? Unlike the first two tracks, Suzuka is a track which Lawson knows extremely well from Superformula so, to me, it makes sense to at least wait until after that race (and probably the rest of the triple header) before putting Yuki in. That also gives more time to prepare Yuki to replace him.

But, ultimately, if they want to have both drivers delivering they need to address the problems with the car instead of frantically hitting "re-roll" on the driver and hoping for the best.
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Completely agree with what you're both saying. It's clear the car is a huge issue and Max is helping cover those cracks as he's simply that good. My original post was just a scenario I can see happening, not something I necessarily want to see. I think it would be very sad, especially if e.g. Yuki then struggled too.

How Max keeps the car on the track when he's pushing as hard as he does is impressive tbh, whenever there's an onboard shot you can see him wrestling it round.
 
Tigget said:
Completely agree with what you're both saying. It's clear the car is a huge issue and Max is helping cover those cracks as he's simply that good. My original post was just a scenario I can see happening, not something I necessarily want to see. I think it would be very sad, especially if e.g. Yuki then struggled too.

How Max keeps the car on the track when he's pushing as hard as he does is impressive tbh, whenever there's an onboard shot you can see him wrestling it round.
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Reminds me of the 2014 Ferrari and Alonso wrestling that thing into the points (the RBR definitely isn't this bad).

 
The question is have RB made a very twitchy car that way to suit Max’s driving style or have they built a car that’s very quick when setup up perfectly and an utter dog when it isn’t?

Either way, I think it’s apparent that you need to have Alonso/Hamilton/Verstappen level talent to get it into the top 5 on a bad day.
 
Mesai said:
Reminds me of the 2014 Ferrari and Alonso wrestling that thing into the points (the RBR definitely isn't this bad).
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Interesting comparison. I looked up the results for China 2014 and, what do you know, the gap between Alonso and Räikkönen was ballpark the same as the gap between Max and Lawson this year (53s vs 105s).
 
Terminal_Boy said:
The question is have RB made a very twitchy car that way to suit Max’s driving style or have they built a car that’s very quick when setup up perfectly and an utter dog when it isn’t?

Either way, I think it’s apparent that you need to have Alonso/Hamilton/Verstappen level talent to get it into the top 5 on a bad day.
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It's set up for Max, you can be brutal with it apparently and it isn't very smooth. Could explain why other drivers struggle with it. The analogy i heard was it more like a muscle car than a european car.
 
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Anyway, i think Max will be heading over to Aston.....esp as Newey is there now and with all the money etc being thrown into the team.
 
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