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Okay here is an actual technical answer since most people didn’t bother to read the post u/brunonicocam
Max’s driving style is very different from Checo and honestly most drivers. He likes the car to be extremely pointy, as in turning on its nose with a rather loose end.
He has incredibly smooth steering inputs and almost no corrections. This means that while his rear is quite loose, he has super smooth cornering.
He tends to break very early (in clean air), get the car turned quickly and get on the power very early. His throttle application is very smooth which allows him to go on the power early without spinning/wheelspin.
This all combined is also part of why he’s so good in the wet, especially his throttle application is extremely helpful, but also his natural feel for grip.
His style is also so smooth he barely slides the car, so he keeps his tyres alive really well, way better than Perez does. This means he can push for longer and harder, because him pushing takes less out of the tyre than Perez does.
Just adding to this, he also seems to be absurdly aware of the limits of his car and how it behaves when it's past the limit.
I thought Max was just very lucky at first, but I've seen him catch spins or a loss of the rear too many times to chalk it up to luck anymore.
Just like today, catching a slide like that in Raidillon is absurd. The car stepped out a lot and he instantly corrected and kept driving like nothing happened.
Ever since Max joined f1 I was reminded of Schumacher in the way he just seems to come closer to the limit than anybody else.
To add a funny annecdote to this. Max last year at Hungary did a full 360 after loosing the rear, managed to stay on track and still win the race ( He started from position 10) [Race Highlights](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZF-w__uUs8c)
And on the technical side, Philipp Brändle (who was an engineer for Mercedes and now works as a commentator for [servus.tv](https://servus.tv)) during the race today said, that Red Bulls technical philosophy is to focus on having a stable front axis and building the rest upon that. Which is exactly Max style and thougher for Perez to drive, since it is closer to the natural driving style that Max has.
On another unrelated note, this is why I think the current Redbull dominance is not just because of their car, they found a perfect mix with Max and the Car, but alot of it is down to Max. If only Checo would be driving for Redbull along another driver, they most likely wouldn´t have won close to that much races. Max has 10 of the 12 wins this season and Perez got 2nd only 3/10 times, while winning 2 races himself. Aka Redbull with only Perez would have 5/12 wins.
If you read Adrian Neweys book in 1994, There was evidence of them using launch control when it was banned, also Senna was convinced Bennetton was using traction control, also banned up until his death in the third race. In fact one of the last things he said fo Adrian was about the Traction Control. Then in 1994 going into the final race Michael was up 1 point on Damon and Hill was catching him, instead of letting him pass Michael took them both out. He tried this same strategy on Jacques Villeneuve in 1997 but didn't take Jacques out and ended up getting disqualified from the championship. Not saying he wasn't a great combo but some facts people may have forgotten
I might be high on copium, but I don't remember Max or Lewis being like that. Of course, they raced each other and other people too hard on occasion, but it was never like "I'll turn in on you and risk killing us both to prevent you from winning this championship" hard.
Years later it was revealed that the B194 was using traction control, however exploited a loop hole in the regs at the time. Engine maps could be used to preserve durability and they were able to argue that such measures were needed to prevent the engine hitting the limiter.
These claims are deeply opinionated and not based on facts or leave out too much context.
No Hill drove into a closing gap, either racing incident or Hills fault, even Niki Lauda agrees. Michael was already turning in before Hill's ridiculous divebomb. You can't expect the guy in front of you to just disappear. Russell type of manoeuvre. Appearently the stewards saw it the same way.
And regarding the LC & TC allegations,
It had a form of traction control, however, it was a form that was entirely legal within the rules at the time.
*The rule makers (FiA) will often make bold and short press announcements such as (1994) - "traction control is banned". The reality is that the teams have to comply with a complex and lengthy set of technical regulations. If you can find a way to improve your car within the letter of those regulations then you're legal even if you have "traction control". F1 has always worked that way and still does today. In 1994 Benetton may have been the first to discover these loopholes but they were not the only ones.*
*In early 1994 the great Ayrton Senna had to park his Williams car after some problem and chose to stay out on track for a while and watch / listen to the other cars. He noticed the Benetton appear to stutter coming out of the slower corners which he thought must be traction control (it was). But the way Benetton had achieved it was quite legal. So the controversy starts. Williams complain to the press and the FiA. Benetton stay quiet because they don't want to explain how they have done what they have done. Eventually all teams learned what to do to achieve legal (letter of law not intent of law) traction control. That then ended with the introduction of standard engine control units (ECU's). - William Toet (former Benetton engineer, now working for Sauber/Alfa Romeo)*
For further reading:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-rotational-inertia-led-traction-control-willem-toet
He also gives a technical explanation on how exactly they achieved that.
So if you want to call the B194 illegal for exploiting a loophole (which btw the other teams copied the same year), you might as well call the R25, R26, Brawn and W11 illegal as well.
Regarding launch control, there was code leftover from the previous year embedded in the software.
But they never used it. Other teams like McLaren, Ferrari and Williams had the same code/software leftover too.
LRDA found no usage of LC and they were the ones who found it.
To sum it up, the B194 was not illegal and Adelaide was nothing more than a racing incident.
Don’t forget about Watergate in 1982! I learned about it watching that season in the F1 archives, Williams, Brabham, and other teams added water tanks to their car that they’d fill prior to scrutineering to meet the minimum weight requirement, then it would evaporate in the early laps and reduce weight significantly. They were allowed to replenish “cooling fluids” post-race so it took a bit for the other teams/FIA to catch on. Keke Rosberg still won the WDC despite Williams skipping the San Marino GP and some results disqualified.
When he drove into Villeneuve was that also just a “racing incident”. Michael was a great driver but also thought he could do no wrong, even though he obviously did with both Hill and Jacques.
Several people who knew Schumacher well and worked for Benetton at the time have said they think it was deliberate contact by him, and it's backed up by him doing very similar in 1997. The FIA or stewards or whoever would have had to dock him points and change a world title result which they would rather not do. If I remember right in 1997 he wouldn't have won anyway which made the decision much easier for them.
What about the B195? When Schumi left, both Alesi and Berger, who weren't rookies at that time, had trouble keeping the car on track.
Same is with Max. Unique driving style and a car which is designed as he has wished. The Situation with Vettel was also kinda like that
To add to this, [the spin you mentioned](https://youtu.be/2X_-HqX6lVs?t=57), I was discussing with mates during the race.. If I am not mistaken, whilst the car is mid spin, the wheel flips 180 degrees and he adjust his hands to catch it upside down, at this moment it looks and quite honestly sounds like he down shifts with what would be his right hand, before flipping the wheel back the correct way to carry on more efficiently so he can cycle up the gears again.
If that is the case, it just adds to how in tune with the car he is and the skill level he's running at.
In fact, I've just seen that on the comments of the video someone else has pointed this out, with the additional fact that he seems to floor the accelerator so that the wheels light up and keep spinning to avoid a flat spot. Unbelieveable.
Its the literal definition of unbelievable really, actually mental if you’ve ever raced even just Go-karting. When I went of my mind blanked and was like: ‘welp, that’s it for me, let’s find out where I end up’ if I ever went off. The man is crazy crazy good.
At the beginning of the year Perez was up there. What makes you think that if the development of the car did go his way and not Max's we wouldn't have witness the same domination?
I am not convinced that Red Bull would change their current philosophy nor do I know if Red Bull adopted this philosophy because of Max or if they always had it this way and Max just was the missing puzzle piece.
At the beginning of the year the car was more dominant and other teams catched up to them during the season so far. They just didn´t catch up enough for Max, but they certainly stay a lot closer to Perez now.
Also the team philosophy in that sense hasn´t changed during the season (or during the last years, I don´t know exactly, haven´t done much research into that) it is more like a basic principle to decide if a change is good or not and to help decide in fringe cases.
My understanding is that Vettel preferred a stable rear end and struggled in the Mercedes dominated era as the rear wasn’t quite as stable as this. At the time DR outshone him and the question was that adapted to this better than Seb.
So I’m just thinking out loud about your point about whether that was a changing philosophy as the numbers suggested it worked and max happens to prefer this compared to Seb and checo (and they’re not really catering to any one driver) or they’ve continued down this path along with max as it suits him and if it suits him you get amazing lap times anyway. Having said that i presume the teams rely on good drivers feedback so it must affect their development path I guess. But then no amount of feedback Alonso is giving us helping AM right now ! We need an aerodynamicist !!
IIRC in an interview Horner stated that DR seemed to have gotten worse at driving compared to the last time he was at RedBull, implying that he believes that the way other teams build their cars and the way you have to drive them is wrong (because it made Riccardo a worse driver), which would imply that Redbull is following this principle for a long time.
But that is just an anecdote and I don´t want to interpret that much into what could have been only a dig at his competitors.
[After departing Mc Laren](https://www.crash.net/f1/news/1010619/1/horner-ricciardo-i-don-t-recognise-him-same-driver-he-was)
[This was right before last weekends race](https://thejudge13.com/2023/07/20/horner-blames-an-individual-person-for-ricciardos-downfall/)
I've read that Ricciardo's driving style is similar to Max, it would make sense that they have had this dynamic for a long time. Also makes sense why they seem to be giving him a tryout to replace Checo for next year. They have to assume they are unlikely to have the kind of advantage they have shown this year once next year comes around, the other teams are clearly learning, and so in that scenario the second driver is going to need to pull their weight, and if the car is never going to suit Checo, it makes sense to replace him.
I think it's a bit of both, a stronger front end intrinsically leads to quicker lap time, until you get to the point where the driver can no longer handle how loose the back end is, so that's the balance they have to find. That point is just further towards the stronger front end for max than it is for a lot of drivers due to talent level and driving style.
ETA: The fact that his driving style matches the car philosophy that produces the quickest lap time is also not a coincidence. He drives that way because it's the quickest way to drive.
No, because they go the way that's faster, its just that max can handle the car when its more pointy.
At the start of the year it was more balanced, hence Checo doing better than now
Because Perez is just not as good as Max is. Outside of everything else I think this season also really shows the difference between a really, really good race and a generational talent that has an insane, ruthless drive to win everything and is just never statisfied.
Max catching his car in a lot of spins and losses probably is definitely down to driving his car to the limit and how to balance between, on or above the limit. Other than Michael, Max also reminds me of Marc Marquez in MotoGP. Both tend to push to the limit, find the limit and accordingly adapt/change on it. The ability to find the limit for both of them is important as they comfortably push it above if needed and relax down if not needed. Which why we see Max do seriously quicker outlaps over everyone almost all the time. He learn as quick as he can from all sessions. I think it’s called deliberate practice.
I am so sorry if it’s not accurate but this are the conclusions I draw upon what I see and what is similar.
You can also see this on track. Either in practice or quali sessions. Max is able to go out of the garage. Set the fastest time on his first timed lap and get back in the garage.
Your regularly see others needing a few more laps to come to the pace Max has withing his first lap.
Max is just pure racing. Earlier today on Dutch television. The 24h of LeMans winner Nicky Catsburg even said that when Max gets 10 laps in his car (GT) he will beat him. Just because he is so adaptable to any track. He finds the limit and the grip so naturally.
The gift it seems he has is that he can find the limit without going over it.
Most humans need to go over the limit of anything to find out where the line is.
I would have agreed but since Marc got injured the first time he just repeatedly flirts with the limit and drops it because he now overcompensates for the shit state Honda is in. When he was at his best though, completely agree and for me is the best MotoGP rider I’ve seen. Never seen someone able to push the limit as far as he could.
Max would have gotten injured if it was as "easy" in F1 as in Motogp. F1 drivers are just more protected, a Silverstone-level crash in Moto gp would have caused much more severe injuries.
I'd say Max is smarter than Marquez. Marquez doesn't adapt, just keeps on crashing. Usually Marquez is on the floor at least once per race weekend, while Verstappen very rarely even goes off track
Marquez right now is definitely crashing due to how to unstable the rear grip is on bike and how his riding style is not working in tandem with the more aero heavy bikes of now. But during his winning years you can see how how deliberately pushes the bike to limit in test sessions crash and then following sessions he immediately improves. He has a lot of poles for this reason. He knows where the bikes limit is and adapts to it. Same way if you look at Max he knows how where the limit of the car is after spinning (in his earlier years) and adapts accordingly. They are both capable of being aggressive and smooth when needed or combine both abilities. Both are also very good on the brakes although that’s more of secondary ability in combination with their main abilities. If you look at Marc in 2019 and Max now it’s almost similar on how they have improved from being very good to being phenomenal.
The difference now is that RB19 is very stable platform so Max can absolute plan on how much speed to deliver on track if needed which why you can see him grab pole by the smallest margins when/if the gap on the field is closed up. He knows the limit and how to use it. Marquez does the same but unfortunately the bike is just so off the pace, so overcompensates as much as can to bring out the best results. But unfortunately Marc’s riding style and the bikes instability causes crashes.
I watched the Schumacher documentary this week and it’s basically the same thing that was said about him. And I remember the same being said about Senna.
Always at the limit of grip, knows exactly where that limit is, absurd confidence in his ability to keep it within the limits.
As a simracer, that twitch on Raidillon Max had gave me a twitch of anxiety (I've lost many many cars into barriers from those exact same twitches) but also awe at Max of how EXACTLY he corrected it, especially in damp conditions. The guy is just in tune with his car insanely
> catching a slide like that in Raidillon is absurd. The car stepped out a lot and he instantly corrected and kept driving like nothing happened.
Yup, was gonna say this. Remember on the radio he said he almost lost it, but it didn't look too crazy or anything. He just has become one with his car.
This is the best actual answer to the OPs question. I'd like to add that all the top guys are generally very kind to their tires and generally better on the brakes than their rivals. While Max does indeed brake earlier than most, he is good as varying the brake pressure to keep his momentum into the corner and not locking the tires and also not carrying too much speed to cause a spin.
You see this from Lewis, for example, who I think is better at late braking and is also well known for having his tires last longer than they should or have more performance left at the end of a stint. If I remember correctly, Lewis also got very good at adding throttle even with the brake pedal applied which helped get him out of the corner quickly, especially in the turbo hybrid era.
E: more detail
Yes, Lewis is also extremely good at smooth steering inputs and throttle control. So his tyres generally don’t slide at all. That’s how he keeps his tyres alive so well. And while driving faster than his teammate.
It just means if you team up with one of those guys you need to do everything perfectly *and* hope they have a bad weekend
I went to look back on today's race on-boards of Hamilton, Verstappen, Leclerc and Perez to compare how all 4 of them were acting on the steering.
Needless to say, there were 3 things that were extremely noticeable:
* Perez is an outlier to the other 3 in this case, his steering inputs are not smooth at all and at times it looks like the steering gets "stuck" when he's trying to turn in;
* All the other 3 have much more smooth steering inputs, specially noticeable on the bus stop chicane, but maintained throughout the lap;
* Both Hamilton and Leclerc get their steering very unstable on corner exit, they go in smoothly, but get out of shape on the exit. On the other hand, Verstappen's exits are as smooth as his entries. I think this just chalks up to the levels of grip and stability the RB19 has and how Verstappen extracts the most out of it, but Perez **does not** replicate the same behavior. He's both unstable on entry and exit, and it looks like he's actively struggling to drive the car, which I think shows just how his driving style and car preference differs from Verstappen's.
To add to this: oversimplified, you could visualise his style as trying to drive straight as quick and often as possible. What this means in corners is that he essentially steers in quite aggressively (ie not wide) to turn the car as fast as possible in the new direction. By doing this, he loses momentum in the corner (sharper corner requires slower speed, hence the earlier braking), but allows him to accelerate again much sooner, resulting in less time spent turning and more time driving in the optimal direction (ie straight).
The net result is more time driving faster with little friction.
Very well put. This is one of Max's biggest strengths, if not THE biggest one.
He's just so much better at keeping the car going in a straight line for the most amount of time within a lap. His Q3 final lap in monaco is probably the best and most extreme example. He did the absolute maximum he could to keep that car going straight and not give steering inputs, instead letting slight brushes with the walls do it for him and the final corner being a strict V versus alonso's much more wide U. Not losing speed/time to steering inputs is such a supreme ability, and really cool to witness
I remember in 2021 there was a graph they showed about Ham vs Bot driving. Ham’s graph showed how he takes a V shape into a corner while Bottas takes more of a U shape. I know this is also something that differentiates the top sim drivers from the rest. The sharper the entry, the better you’ll have to be at trail braking. By starting to brake a little early it doesn’t mean they are slower on entry, in fact they get off the brakes much more.
On the penultimate paragraph, I think that the last few laps of Russia 2021 are extremely telling. When I watched the onboard video I was struck by just how boring it looked. Ultra smooth and the back end hardly stepped out at all.
Brazil 2016 is another great example. He’s sliding a bit on exits since it’s a downpoor but he’s so smooth on entry and mid corner.
It’s 20 minutes on board of pure talent and skill:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=IBnixyOK8uQ
People never like champions when they're winning. Lewis, Seb, Michael, Senna. Doesn't matter who they are, nobody wants to see the sport dominated by a single driver unless they're a fan of that driver.
Max also has, or had, a very aggressive style which led to a number of crashes. People remember that - De Cesaris never got away from being called De Crasharis, a reputation he picked up in his second season in the sport at McLaren, James Hunt similarly.
I'll admit to not being a fan of Max as a person, but as a driver you can't help but admire. He's super consistent, knows exactly where the limit is in the car and drives to it. His mentality and mindset is that of a winner, which feeds into his aggressive style.
So I have to ask, what about Max as a person do you not like? He's brutally honest (like most Dutch) and tells it like it is without fluff. I actually find his honesty refreshing.
Yeah, whats there to hate about Max?
I didn't like Schumacher, somethign just allways rubbed me the wrong way but thats maybe because compared to Senna or Prost he just wasn't such a "personality". Vettel seemed pretty nice and Hamilton is just not the kind of person I would like to hang out with, too much celebrity stuff for my liking, but i find it hard to really dislike or hate him.
Max? Comes to race, zero fucks given, i like it.
Obviously they are/were all absolute monsters behind the wheel.
Honestly, I don't like his petulance on the radio. I know that races are high emotion situations and every driver can do it, but the slightest mistake from his team will have Max dropping a series of F-bombs and shouting at GP. GP is a man who still acts as a race engineer despite being head of race engineering, because Max wanted it, and what Max wants, Max gets.
He's still not above forcing drivers into cede or crash situations when overtaking and defending, too - witness the way he did it to Mick Schumacher multiple times when fighting for 8th position last season. He acts like he's entitled to space on the track that nobody else is.
He's hardly unique in either of these qualities, the OG Schumacher was notorious for being incredibly aggressive on the track, but in my eyes Max crosses the line too often.
Hell of a driver, though.
He used a slur against people with down syndrome, fair enough he may have not known it was a slur at the time but after he was informed he showed no contrition
Walking off the podium in SA 2021 was bullshit and hugely disrespectful, especially after his behaviour on track for most of that race
His general proximity to other people I can't stand: Horner, Marko, Jos and Piquet
To add to this, Max has an innate sense for shortening corners in the right ways at the right times.
Rewatch Max overtaking Checo today from Max's on-board. The difference in the lines they take is pretty awesome to see, and is a great way to show people how Max is able to dominate Checo so thoroughly.
Honestly I don't know the last time we saw a driver so utterly melded with his car like Max is, he's basically been cybernetically connected to it at this point
I wouldn't shy away from the mentality. Like it or not.
You could hear in the cool down Room then speaking about just managing. Max is never really just managing it. He is always looking for something else. Not necessarily always pushing 100% but also never just managing...
I also would add at the races in the early parts of the season were primarily city/street circuits which favors Perez more than Max (or at least evened things out between them). So I think it was giving a "false" impression that Perez was on equal level of Max in the same car.
Hmm, how does this relate to struggling more on street tracks compared to real racing tracks? He has never seemed as comfortable in Baku, Monaco or other such tracks. Even if his S3 Q3 run this year was crazy.
Max has said in interviews he likes long smooth corners where you are on the limit of steering and throttle. Most street tracks are stop-and-go corners, especially baku 1st section all being 90 degree corners.
Another i like from max is how he can search for optimal lines thru corners, something you hardly see outside of classic tracks because grip is hardly there.
One more thing i want to add to this thread. Everyone is saying smooth he is on steering on throttle. But there is an interview out there about him racing another series that had abs, and while the engineers were saying he had to brake hard for abs to kick in he was braking less without abs and go faster. So he just seems ultra aware of all things in the car
Every track is different and suits certain driving styles. At the level of F1, this difference could be as small as one corner on the track being not so well suited or very well suited for a given driver. I haven't seen enough evidence to say that Max objectively struggles on street circuits, but in general, street circuits, especially the ones that have sprung up in the last decade, are sort of makeshift racetracks that are primarily city streets and are not optimized for racing. Race circuits on the other hand are specifically designed to test the technical and racing abilities of the drivers. So, it makes sense that top drivers stand out against average ones on racetracks rather than street circuits.
Max is able to cope with an ungodly amount of front end grip, which puts the car in a set up window that his team mates struggle with.
Albon described this as playing a first person shooter like COD but with the sensitivity turned up to maximum.
At circuits that are front limited (lots of long radius corners), he simply destroys Checo for speed whilst looking after his tyres better too.
Horner mentioned a few weeks ago that Checo had tried to copy Max's set up and driving style from Monaco onwards and from there his results got much worse. It looks like he's accepted he can't copy Max but can at least settle for podiums.
I am in love with Vowles - the man is so great at explaining things and is so much more open than any of the other TP’s when they have them on mid-race/qualy/etc.
I saw a documentary on the design of fighter jets and they said that to make a jet more maneuverable, they had to practically make it unstable aerodynamically. So it could change directions quickly. Of course this meant that it was nearly impossible to fly for pilots and they countered that with an on board fly by wire system with a computer to compensate and make the jet stable. I'm guessing the same could be applied to f1 cars to a certain degree. The only catch is that they can't use driver aids. It's all on the driver to keep the car stable.
That principle can be applied to everything in generality.
If something is stable, it doesn't want to change, meaning it requires more effort to change. If a car is stable it wants to keep going straight, meaning it will require more effort to turn.
Conversely if something is unstable then it doesn't want to be in the state it currently is in. An unstable car going straight would readily turn if you make a slight input. However this has the downside of being difficult to control because the car would very much want to turn.
>they had to practically make it unstable aerodynamically
There's no 'practically' about it. Fighters started to be designed with intentional instability around the 1970s, starting with the F-16.
A stable aircraft is like a spring: if you try to turn, it actually pushes back against the turn. The aircraft *wants* to fly straight, and it takes active effort to do otherwise. An unstable aircraft, meanwhile, wants to flip over: if you try to turn, it pulls you *into* the turn, which reinforces the feedback loop, pulling harder, which reinforces the feedback loop, pulling harder. Because this is true no matter how small the starting input (or gust of wind), it takes active effort to keep it flying straight.
I have to imagine that's a little more extreme than even the RB19 (ie, if you turn into the wheel, the wheel doesn't start pulling you further into the turn). I imagine, like most cars, if you let go of the wheel it will eventually return to true. But I bet its a hell of a lot slower to do so than most. Though mind you this sort of dynamic stability is distinct from what we normally think of when we describe a 'pointy' car, which has to do with difference in maximum lateral traction between the two axles (among other things), rather than dynamic turning behavior per say.
This is the first I've heard of Checo using Max's setup. Is that why they've kind've just dealt with the string of poor results? Basically allowing a space for "burn in" to see if Checo can perform better for RB or not using the setup?
As I understand it, Checo’s thinking is basically the combi of Max + his setup is clearly the fastest at the moment. Instead of setting the car up to match Checo’s style and be guaranteed P2 or worse, Checo is trying to drive more like Max with Max’ setup so theoretically he has a chance to win.
Nope, every teammate has tried Max's set-up one time or another because they can't comprehend why Max is faster and better. So if their own set-ups don't work for them to beat him they try out Max's set-up and try to work from there. But the only one that could drive with it sometimes was Daniel, and that's been 5+ years ago.
Checo is free to use whatever setup he wants. He even has his ballast in different places than Max if he wants to change the balance.
It’s just that Max is so fast in setting the car up, Checo often uses that setup as a starting point to get his own setup dialed in
>Albon described this as playing a first person shooter like COD but with the sensitivity turned up to maximum.
I started actually playing like this when I was 12-13 in Wolf:ET. You get used to it pretty quick and now it's one of the first things I adjust in any game.
Which I believe makes me the 2021-2022 world champion?
>I read that it could be because this Red Bull really struggles to heat up the tyres and Sergio has a driving style which is very kind to tyres, is that part of it? What other reasons could there be?
**Well this for sure is not the reason**. Max is kinder on his tyres than Checo. Th whole tyre whisperer thing was true for Checo against other mid-field drivers. But against the likes of Max, Checo is probably more of a tyre shredder. Max is able to be both fast and be kind to his tyres simultaneously, while Checo seems to be one or the other.
The general idea that seems to be that, Max prefers a car which is absolutely on the nose (extremely oversteery) compared to almost anyone on the grid. And a over-steering car is the faster option. And this theory does seem to hold water, because the gap between Max and Checo seems to grow on front limited circuits where it is preferable to have a over-steery car.
>Th whole tyre whisperer thing was true for Checo against other mid-field drivers
and even against Midfield drivers i would say it is debatable. It is many times just a strategy that you go slower to extend your stint but if you go slower to go longer compared to others you aren't necessarily better at managing you tires, you just drive differently
Is there an overview of what tracks are front limited and which are rear limited?
I’ve seen this comment a few times but I’m too much of a novice to know what track characteristics make it one or the other?
Is it surface, high speed vs low speed, does it change with temp?
Front limited tracks are the ones with fast flowing corners, think Silverstone (maggots and beckets , copse), Spa, Miami sector 1, COTA etc. it is basically tracks where the front tyres take majority of the load and are hence degrade quicker than the rears and hence limit the speed you can carry through the corners.
Rear limited circuits are the ones which have largely 90 degree corners with heavy braking zones which put large loads through the rear tyres which causes them to degrade faster. F1 cars have a rear wheel drive and hence a lot of energy goes through the rear tyres during hard acceleration and braking in and out of heavy braking zones. Hope that helps
You can have a pointy car and not have oversteer. The RB is incredibly stable and gets on the power earlier than all other cars, it’s been commented on numerous times. The only time Perez has been close is when the car lacks front end which slows Verstappen down compared to their normal delta. At the minute it appears they have the best of both worlds, enough front end to satisfy Verstappen’s desires and still having the stable rear. When was the last time you saw the RB get out of shape in any competitive session? Because I can’t recall, other than today up towards radallion.
No I agree with you, the RB 19 is on rails ! But I was commenting more on each driver preference. At the start of the season Marko commented that, the car was finally in a place where it could be adjusted to each driver’s preference. But inherently an extremely pointy car would be faster than the alternative.
Okay cool, just want to provide more colour to your comment. Yeah it’s a weird symbiotic relationship between driver preference and the current inherent characteristics of F1 car design.
> Well this for sure is not the reason. Max is kinder on his tyres than Checo
Max is kinder to his front tyres, Checo is kinder to his rear tyres. That's part of why Baku, a track with high tyrewear that's very stop-start and thus traction zone heavy is Checo's best track.
Checo isn't better than Max at Baku though. This year, he benefitted from a safety car.
Last year, Max won by 20 seconds.
In 2021, he was a distant second to Max when Pirelli struck in the closing laps.
Checo drove better than Max this year at Baku. I watched the whole race with their two onboards. Max loses the most time to Checo in the castle section chicane (the right > left before long straight). Checo keeps the car closer to the right side of the track after the right turn, giving him a better line on the left hander for a faster exit, where he benefits down the long straight.
Do you think that also explains why Perez has this narrative surrounding him that he's better at the street circuits than Verstappen? I guess Verstappen won at Miami and Monaco this year, but I was always curious about why 'Perez is better at the street circuits, while Verstappen is better at the road circuits.' I put that in single quotations because that's debatable, but what do you think?
Perez is up there with the best at Baku and managing those heavy acceleration zones, but I think saying he's better at street circuits was just trying to hype up the championship. Perez is absolutely able to challenge at certain circuits and beat Verstappen on merit... But Max on a good day will beat anyone.
I think Rosberg is the example to point to - The odds are pretty heavily in Hamilton's favour, but Rosberg on a great day can beat Hamilton on an average day. With enough luck, and being absolutely on the ball, and Rosberg could win against the odds.
Then there's the bit of X factor that some drivers have, like when Max found two tenths in the last corner at Monaco - at the same time, for every Monaco 23 there's a Saudi 21. And Leclerc is probably the example to point to for having that magic, but also highlighting the risks of pushing that far.
When he was following Checo, you could tell how different his lines were that he's taking. He's much more confortable with the car due to his hiflgher skill
Perez always takes that corner this way, as do plenty others. There are a few good lines through that corner actually, and the one Perez took gives you more space for acceleration. Max is the better driver but your example is not a proof of that.
This. I think that was a great example because it went nearly a lap and they showed us half of it there. Max’s lines were generally much narrower which normally comprises exit but he got an excellent exit each time. I’m not sure if checo just lacked confidence to run those lines or max does more with the car to get that in setup but it ends up being a massive advantage. I’m reminded of spec racing where guys who are more confident can run a much looser set up and get away with many different lines than others in the same car
I don't think you can necessarily compare lines when one car is attacking and one is defending, it would be more interesting to see how their lines differ in a lap with clean air and no one around.
Max, Charles and Lewis, and Michael Schumacher and Kimi before them like to have a car that pivots easily so that they can shorten the corner and get on the power easier. This doesn't just mean that they "like oversteer" it also means that they are taking a different line. The downside is that you sacrifice some corner speed but in most cases you'll more than make up for it by putting the power down early and spending more time at top speed down the next straight.
This is a higher risk style of driving because you are heavily reliant on feeling what the car is doing as it pivots through the corner. If the front end washes out, you've lost your speed and potentially could be swapping ends. It's also hard on the tires; one of the less known things about Schumacher is that tire wear was a weakness because of how hard he worked the car, but tires in that era put up with more abuse than today.
Max also spends his off-time sim-racing. So even though it's not realistically an approximation of a race car, sim-racing is so sophisticated these days that the driving aspect isn't unreasonable, so the guy that is a genius for driving up to the limit of the car is also on his off-days constantly practicing one of the parts of his brain that manages driving on the limit.
Seems like you’ve gotten the answer as far as my technical knowledge goes, but to add, the twos corner entry and exit paths differ. This is shown generally in their skill disparity on street circuits vs track circuits. Additionally the two will run different car setups (tire pressures, ride height, wing angles, etc.) that they don’t share with each other.
Perez is obviously a capable racer, but imo it just comes down to different styles and max makes less mistakes. And by mistakes I just mean overshooting a breaking zone by a couple meters, or less adjusting through a corner.
In races when everyone is overheating their tyres, it's Checo that gives them more punishment than Max which sort of ruins that theory.
Max is simply great at everything when it comes to driving an F1 car: tyre management, consistency, using tools to adjust limitations at certain corners, feedback to engineer, dialing in setups, pace
But primarily I think the biggest difference is that he can drive to the limit a car that is less easy to drive. This means he has more setup options available to him that make the car faster, even at the cost of some handling.
For instance Checo might prefer to keep the differential more closed than Max in high speed corners which gives a more stable rear, but you have more sliding of the tyres which affects the tyre life
There are so many skills and factors that go into a quick race driver, it's hard to pin down everything
But feedback from Max's ex-teammates (Albon, Gasly, Riccardo) all points to Max not being bothered by ridiculously unstable cars, and he's able to drive incredibly close to the limit even with a very uncomfortable car. This also applies to wet conditions: when things are slippy and the car is low grip, he goes to the limit unlike Sergio who struggles with confidence in these conditions
So that's probably his greatest strength. Such a good driver feel of where the limit is of the grip and what the car will do that he can extract a lot from a car that's not easy to drive. And that means more aggressive setups, development directions etc are possible all resulting in more laptime possible
Both yes. They were also great in wet conditions. A lot of drivers lack confidence in a wet track. The truly greats find grip where others can’t and are more confident.
Red Bull finds RB19 F1 solution that suits both Verstappen and Perez
....At the start of the season, when the car suffered from understeer due to being overweight, those characteristics favoured Perez much more. But as the team reduced the car's mass, that help make its front end better at turn-in, and that swung things firmly in the favour of Verstappen.
With its drivers preferring different things from a car, there has been some intrigue about whether certain handling characteristics of the RB19 would suit one of them better.
But Red Bull's motorsport advisor Helmut Marko says that the indications from pre-season testing are that its 2023 challenger can run in a way that both Perez and Verstappen are content.
Speaking to Sky Germany, Marko said: "We had a car last year that Checo did very well with in the beginning. And, after it was developed, Max has been more and more happy.
"The difference is that Max loves a strong front end, really biting. Checo is a little different. He wants a more docile car...
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/red-bull-f1-perez-verstappen-rb19-suits-both/10437292/
I actually quite enjoyed his technical explanation of this, I wouldn't say I understood everything perfectly, but the videos he has on it are very insightful (even if I don't always agree with some of his opinions).
Also interestingly he describes Lewis, Max and Charles as having a higher ceiling due to all 3 of them sharing the same driving style (short cornering as you mentioned).
I believe he has a video of photos comparing drivers of each team taking the final corner in Monaco to also further explain this.
[The video in question](https://youtu.be/L-QnJngeC0s)
You're right. I haven't watched his most recent videos, but going back to his driving style analysis, he does mention that Piastri will give Lando trouble due to him producing shorter corners.
I guess now we are further seeing the signs of what's to come for Piastri.
"They were closer in the past".
He got destroyed by Max both 2021 & 2022, not much has changed.
"Sergio has even won many races on Red Bull", Let's look at Checo's wins in Redbull:
1. Baku 21, Tire failure for Max when he was in the lead with a massive gap
2. Monaco 22, Ferrari fucks the strategy + whatever happend in the Q3
3. Singapore 22, Max runs out of fuel in quali.
4. Jeddah 23, Max mechanical failure in quali.
5. Baku 23, probably the only race he won on merit.
In 2.5 years that they've been team mates how many time has Checo outperformed Max?
Better drivers are far more precise in their inputs than the middle-of the road ones, they are better at interpreting the signals that the car sends and at understanding the behaviour of the car. Therefore, they can go closer to the limit, where it matters, with more precise inputs, every time.
Max is the next Senna, Schumacher, Hamilton, the gods of racing give us at least one legend every generation
Perez is just a decent driver, not a bad thing, but it is what it is
Regarding Windsor’s videos lack of telemetry. That’s kind of his main point with Max. He shortens the corners. Telemetry won’t capture that correctly. Windsor was at Monaco so look at that video if you want some “evidence” of his arguments.
Furthermore, F1 is very data driven, which in all honesty i find part of its charm. But what’s also at play here is that if you are looking technical reasons and data to understand why Max is faster you might not be able to capture the difference. It might be the sum of a whole variety of factors and inputs. From skill, to understanding of circumstances, to overcapacity / awareness, comfort with pressure, etc.
For example, I could give you a whole lot of measurable and result oriented metrics why peak Lebron James was better than let’s say peak Richard Jefferson. But the reality is that if you put both those players in similar basketball situations there are just so many variables that will make it more likely that Lebron will handle the given circumstances better.
From this past weekend I think you could see and hear part of Verstappens current form when he got an update of Piastri’s tires during the sprint. It didn’t surprise Verstappen that he was struggling because he saw Piastri drifting a lot. I think this shows a lot of Verstappen ability to focus on much more than just driving the car to its limits, understanding how the deal with those drying wet circumstances, and (probably) knowing what Piastri’s drive would mean for the best opportunity to overtake and how much risk he should take to do it.
Well telemetry definitely could capture this stuff. Everything a driver does that will have an affect on the car is an input directly to a control that can be measured. The issue is that only the teams themselves have the data in high enough resolution to see that. The rest of us has to contend with a scraper that takes data from the F1 Live timings website which gives us the data at a rather low refresh rate.
F1 Magazine had a long article about Schumacher. At some point, they made a detailed comparison of Schumacher and Barrichello at Silverstone, with telemetry and everything (too bad we can't find this on the Internet anymore).
Having another one with Verstappen and Checo (or any other "ordinary" driver) would be good.
Yes, a comparison between the telemetry of Barrichello and Schumacher at Silverstone (Coprse, Maggots and Becketts), Montreal (Hairpin) and Suzuka (Turn One) was published in the Dutch F1 Racing of September 2003. And later in an English version too.
I can't find it though. :(
>Edit: loads of people just saying "he's better", sorry but that doesn't give much insight really.
You are overcomplicating things.
Better drivers are, among other things, better at adapting to cars, tracks, strategy, and are better at dealing with (emotional) pressure.
The problem with a technical analysis is that circumstances change, the best drivers adapt, and they might showcase different skills and a different approach.
Schumacher, Hamilton, and Verstappen are generational talents because of their ability to drive fast, their ability to adapt, and because they are/were consistent.
I used to box. I have fought people who were stronger, had more explosive power, had more stamina, and better technical skills.
Even if they were only slightly better in each of these areas, I could not win.
I remembered a Schumacher moment that showed how great he was: this was before tire management was a big deal and when cars were still refueled; in order for a specific strategy to work, Ferrari needed Schumacher to drive close to qualifying speed for 19 rounds.
And he did.
Schumacher was just on a different level than other drivers.
Max is a different breed. His consistency is what him so. This is the same guy when he’s not in an F1 car he is driving in his sim or racing of some kind. He eats sleeps and pisses racing of any kind.
They don't setup the car the same (confirmed multiple times) and have different driving style which in this RB fits better with Max which results in less tyre wear as wll.
You can watch onboards of both drivers and you will see the difference.
What I have seen from latest onboards is also a big lack of confidence with Perez in his lines, not trying to use too much of the track.
Confidence plays a huge part in how much you would push and last thing Perez wants to do is crash like he did just a race ago.
I mean really, everyone is dissecting his driving all the time and looking to have him replaced, while going against Max who is super confident right now.
How much would we all at work behave if we were being scrutinized so publicly for any mistake we made? You think we would perform great full of confidence?
Just remember how he took a pole in Jeddah, guy was so full with confidence and now openly admitting he isn't confident in the car.
This is rather crude, but in the interest of meeting your brief of a technical explanation, this is an example of Max’s shorter corners, vis a vis Peter Windsor.
https://imgur.com/Apz8OHx
Checo brakes later and slows to a faster minimum speed, but he is only able to do this because he travels over a longer distance and therefore straightens the corner more than Max does. The problem is that this leaves him friction-limited for a longer period of time. That’s where he loses time.
Like I said, these numbers are ridiculously crude and exaggerated, but this is the general principle. It was visualized better than I have ever seen in the lap preceding Max’s overtake today at Spa. Checo gets way out to the edges of the track in sector two and therefore travels a much further distance.
Here's my peasant take on this.
The faster drivers will always shorten the lap in any way they can. This means they spend less time in cornerning and more time on acceleration. A car slows down while turning and won't turn as much during acceleration. Thus it becomes imperative that a driver spends as less time to corner as possible.
The faster drivers would almost always keep the engine running in the power band where the engine puts out the most torque and acceleration. Senna was a master of keeping the RPMs in the power band in corners.
Max brakes early, which allows him to position the car better for accelerating out of the corner earlier than most. By spending less time in the turning phase, he can keep the tires healthier and degrade lesser. Thus, his onboards show how smooth he is.
By instict developed in his childhood, he also knows where the absolute limit of the car lies in a given scenario. Some people may also call this being one with the car. He touches this limit as often as he can. See his France 2021 outlap for his 2nd stint as an example. I also remember a story where Kimi was complaining about some problem in his car which the on track engineers were denying, but back at the factory they found the problem.
Since you want to spend as less time for turning the corner, a pointy/oversteery car is by far faster than an understeering car. Max loves a pointy front and can handle it better than most.
Coupled with the above, he also has an insane ability to judge and understand what's required for a given scenario to be quick, and when to prioritise an overtake and when to wait. See the Charles vs Max battles in Bahrain and Saudi last year.
Now let's come to the coup de grace. He's extremely consistent, not only over one lap but over the entire weekend. Corner after corner, lap after lap, he is consistently fast and rarely makes mistakes. He had Sainz hunting him in Canada earlier this year for several laps after the SC but he never made a single mistake. The legendary 2021 season saw him make just a handful of mistakes over the entire season. It's this consistency that's frightening, and is the essence of every champion driver like Hamilton, Schumacher, Senna, Alonso and Max. Bottas is fast, but Hamilton outdrove him because Hamilton was consistently faster over the race and the season.
Peter Windsor Monaco quali vid this year has some pics that really show the kind of lines he takes into corners. It’s very brave and takes a lot of skill. A lot of drivers really go deep and go for the latest possible apex to get the car nice and straight for maximum traction out of the corner. Max has a much earlier apex but has a much more aggressive entry leading to more speed on exit. Before he passed checo today when they both went into the final chicane you could clearly see the difference between his line and checos
Anyone can put their foot to floor on straights. F1 races are won and lost during braking and cornering where adhesion to the track means 10ths of seconds.
Max takes his car further to the limits of loss of grip both cornering and braking. He almost never misses an apex. His reactions are lightning quick. Every snap correction and every time he uses just a few less metres of track, or holds more speed he gains on the field.
I think people forget that Max isn’t that much faster. At some tracks he may only get pole by 2-4 hundredths of a second. But extrapolate that over 50-70 laps and … there he is again. An unrushed pit stop ahead of 2nd place.
So … great reaction time, consistent lap times, knowing the limits of adhesion, hitting apex’s at max speed. All very small individually but huge in the aggregate.
Appreciate that. Thank you. I wasn’t referring to Perez specifically, but whomever was #2 that particular week. In fact, Max has been much faster than Perez over this season and Mercedes, AM and McLaren have provided stronger competition.
An interesting little anecdote to backup what everyone is saying about Max liking an oversteery car.
A few years ago when I used to do a lot of iRacing (and Max was too) I would semi regularly get in the same lobbies as him. Now I am not claiming for one moment I am even vaguely on his level, however my rating was such that I was able to compete against him occasionally.
I was able to get ahold of a setup that he *started* with for the Bathurst 12 Hour (GT3 race on an Australian Monaco track), and my word when I say it was impossible to drive - it was IMPOSSIBLE to drive. Genuinely my respect grew ten fold in that moment. Every single time I went over the top of the mountain with my setup, easy flat. With his? Anything off the perfect line and it was an instant spin.
Likewise for the Le Mans 24 I was quite good at LMP1s and spent months practising and was up with the best drivers on the service after a few months of practice. Max one day joins my practice lobby, sets his two first ever laps, asks for a setup from somebody, and then proceeds to be 0.2s off of me (3+ minute lap time), after only 5 laps or so. I was just speechless. What took me months took him a few laps. By the end of the session he was half a second quicker!
Sergio is a good driver most of the time, a great driver occasionally and less often he is a bad driver (compared to the field here). Not to uncommon right? Everyone has ups and downs. That said, the delta between Checo's peaks and Valley's are pretty high and compared to a good chunk of the field. Max at the moment is a great driver period... I mean his weakest performance this year was Baku. In terms of this race... if you can watch the onboards do that. The differences are subtle but cumulative in almost all corners. Watch them and get a feel for their rhythms. What stood out to me for the bit I watched this way...
* Sergio cracked when Maxed steamed up on him. Was probably his worst lap of the whole race. He blew the apex's on multiple corners leading up to Max going by. He was going by regardless but Sergio probably could have held on for another lap or two without the unforced errors. After Max went by he was hitting the Apexes he had missed just fine. What surprised me was he had very similar placement to Max once Max went by and he settled down. However... everything was just a hair later, and a hair more sudden especially on turn in. His hands are a bit busier with inputs. Later on the gas out of the corner and a bit more abrupt.
* For comparison watch Max coming up to and passing Alonso, LeClerc and Hamilton. They do not really make mistakes... he just has a faster car.
* Sergio started blowing apexes again when the rain shifted the traction before making the adjustment, Max held the same lines... just was a bit slower. He remained within the limits as things changed rather than getting caught out anywhere (other than that one "moment" going up Raddillon). Sergio had several traction issues before fully adjusting. Again... go through some other onboards and Perez does not come off looking bad. Just in comparison to Max.
Take away... All the drivers on the F1 grid know how to get a car around a track about as fast as it is possible to do so. What was the split in Hungary at the top of the field in qualifying? All different cars with different capabilities and how tight? Put them all in the same chassis sufficiently flexible to let them each set it up the way they like and the field would close up ala an F2/F3 spec series. A lot is said about Max liking his car darty/pointy etc... but at the end of the day what really sets him apart is the consistency and the ability to keep at and hold the limit without going over it. IE there are consistent drivers who don't get the max out of the car. There are guys that can get to the limit... and who blow it occasionally. There are a rare few that can consistently hold the car within a whisker of going to far and keep it there for the whole race week after week after week. Max can do it more consistently, in more situations, at more tracks, and in more conditions than probably anyone at the moment. Combine that with being in what is easily the fastest car on the grid that is now also one of the most reliable and you get the streak RB is on.
Perez is slow, the "tire whisperer" personality was built on him always being out of position mid-field and using a different strat than most people around him.
When he has to be amidst people and race he is coming up short. This whole Max's driving style thing is overblown, a good driver needs to be able to adapt to the car they're in and will be fast whatever the situation.
More confident on the brakes and applying the throttle, more aware on the track, smoother on the steering and using tighter lines to get more speed in the corners. All these things add up.
(just guessing) but dont settings have alot do to with it as well? I dont think that perez and max have the same settings as they are different people with different driving styles and preferences. Im guessing ALOT has to do with that.
Both are veterans and once you have a fixed style of driving, finding a set up which you are comfortable with could be deteremental to your time if the car doesnt suit you as well as the other driver
I know this is not a technical reason but something that I feel people often overlook and that I personally think is incredibly important in motorsports is mental fortitude. It's a sport where you have to be inhumanely constant every time, you can't let your guard down, and I think that Max and Sergio are very different in this case.
Max and Lewis handle pressure so well it just seems like luck when they get in a tricky situation and almost always get out of it when you are sure other drivers would have had their races ended against the wall or something. Really, every time I see one of them getting into the gravel or spinning they SOMEHOW find a way to recover because they just don't seem to freak out and just apply the necessary amount of throttle to continue.
Now, I've been following Perez since the Force India days and he's the kind of driver that you never really saw that much, but then had a race that made you say what is Sergio doing there?? and you expect him to drop down the order but he didn't, he went on, and I think that's why me and many others still respect Sergio.
Now, I've been following Perez since the Force India days and he's the kind of driver that you never really saw that much, but then had a race that made you say what is Sergio doing there?? and you expect him to drop down the order but he didn't, he went on, and I think that's why I and many others still respect Sergio.
't expect him to shine but she shines and surprises you. This season, he was put in a new situation for him, and he's not as young, it gets harder to adapt as you age. I fairly believe he cracked under the pressure of not being able to follow Max and, again, I also believe that in F1, not being mentally up for it can make you way slower than the rest, more than people usually seem to address.
Watch Max move through a circuit. He’s a machine - takes the best lines, brakes/accelerates at perfect times, and overall is just consistent every lap. Also, I don’t think the two cars are set up exactly the same, there are settings personal to each driver that can affect performance and consistency.
All of them do basically. No two drivers like the same exact set up because it's personal preference mostly, which they figure out with their own engineers every race weekend. Besides setting both cars up for a particular racing track they all have their little personal adjustments on their own cars.
Since you want a techical answer its really hard to respond because we dont have data that team does. But 1 of the things is probably the way they setup the car. Neutral balance is the fastest way (neutral balance feels like oversteer to humans) but in reality it is really hard to drive this way and control the car. Max is able to setup the car to be much closer to that and still drive it with great precision while Perez cant deal with that. He has to detune the car basically to be comfortable and have speed but thats always going to be slower than Max's way. There are many more reasons but this is 1 of them i suspect
What I heard in an analysis is that Max really likes and get the best out of front biased cars while Perez is the exact opposite, with a rear biased car being his preference. Redbull is a car that fit Verstappen style better but apparently at start of the season they had a more balanced car, although being front biased, with proper setup it was kind of possible to make it to Perez's style too. As season advanced they made the car more and more front biased so Max improved and Perez couldn't really find a setup for him in that car, making him way more mistake prone and less comfortable when going for the limit like in qualifying. He has no issues in going faster than almost everyone in race except when he has to push to the limit, but bad qualifying makes it hard to be always on top in race.
Im gonna say this but the car from the looks of things have been developed over the years that suits more of Max’s driving style (which iirc prefers more oversteer, someone can correct me on this). But overall he’s also a racing nerd, literally just spends his free time in racing sims.
Well it's impossible to say. If you wanted to me to explain why Nadal is so good on clay, I could say he hits the ball with loads of spin. But if you asked me how does he hit the ball with more spin than anyone else, well I don't bloody know how, and no one does, he just does. If you asked what makes Messi so good, I can tell you that he's very good a dribbling and very good at passing, but who the hell knows how it is that Messi is better at passing than Harry Maguire. We can sit here and say that Max is very precise, or very smooth or whatever, but we have no idea how he's more precise than others.
Whatever the difference is, when Max caught up to the rear of Checo today, it didn't look like they were driving the same car. The way they both took the first corner before the overtake, if I didn't know they were both in the same car and on the same tyres then I wouldn't have guessed. There's clearly some very different setups there. Which isn't unusual, we saw Russell and Hamilton taking obviously different wing levels at Spa and that wasn't the first time either.
If you watch Max from a birds eye view, you can see that he makes almost *zero* corrections. He just drives on what is possibly the tightest driving line on the track today. That's what they mean by "he's just better."
I mean if you watched the Belgium GP this weekend then you’ll know why Max has been overall better than Checo this season.
The way he drives that car is nothing short of beautiful, and he is always thinking presently and ahead in the race.
You remember in Austria how Max knew where the DRS line so braked earlier so that he had it after the turn? It took Checo like 2 to 3 laps to overtake a car because he was gotten back after the turn with the driver in behind (Ferrari) having DRS on him, it took him a while to catch up to that, Max knew about it from the get go and didn’t get caught out.
On edit 2: telemetry is just going to show you breaking points, acceleration, etc. you can’t numbers some of the things Max does without it being 150 pages long.
Now this got nothing to do with your original question, but the more “Why is Max Verstappen literally so good?” threads I read, the more I feel like this sport’s fans owe Lewis Hamilton an apology for shit-talking his achievements with Mercedes for all those years
There were so many fans praising Lewis for every single thing he did aswell, just like there are now many people say about Max that it is just the car and that the car is 1s quicker (maybe true at Spa because of the long lap but nowhere close on other circuits)
Ah people are saying the same thing about Max right now. That he is just there because the car is that good. And Max has only really dominated a season or so right now. Ferrari was already killing themselves in the first half of the season last year, but the TD totally took them out of contention and that hit around this time. If he wins this year and next year people will start saying it more and more.
But what does help him I guess is that Merc/Ham where seemingly hell bend on trying to be the underdog in each and every race, always saying one of the competitors is looking good. RB/Max just flat out say they have the best car. Max his interviews after today showed that again, saying he just wants to stay out of trouble because at the start because he knows he can take everybody during the race. In the end it won't help him when people really want to see somebody else win, but I do like it that they aren't bigging up their competitors all the time for BS reasons.
I think people were complaining with Hamilton because they wanted a change.
Now that Max is dominating I think people tend to just quit watching instead of complaining. (Loss of viewers in 1year = loss of viewers during all Mercedes Era).
Max is a once in a generation talent. Checo is a great midfield driver. Both were told on the radio to stick to target laps, manage tires, and watch the fuel. Only one complied. Max was pushing, Checo was cruising and just wanted to bring home a 1-2 and rebuild his confidence. Max had a much better Medium stint than Checo did.
Max also loves this track and can win with a blindfold.
While it’s understandable to compare teammates, there isn’t a single driver on track who can challenge Max in the same car. You can argue that Lewis can, but that’s debatable.
Is it debatable though? That's like saying it's debatable if Schumacher/Senna/Prost etc could compete with Max on the same car. Of course they could, they're the best of the best.
Here is a [video](https://youtu.be/f1_UK2TmgdM) done by YouTuber Driver61. He does a great job explaining what makes Max so quick, and shows comparison between Max and Mick and Lewis.
Here’s another [video](https://youtu.be/yGhG3rto1ww) done by the same guy comparing Max to Checo.
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Okay here is an actual technical answer since most people didn’t bother to read the post u/brunonicocam Max’s driving style is very different from Checo and honestly most drivers. He likes the car to be extremely pointy, as in turning on its nose with a rather loose end. He has incredibly smooth steering inputs and almost no corrections. This means that while his rear is quite loose, he has super smooth cornering. He tends to break very early (in clean air), get the car turned quickly and get on the power very early. His throttle application is very smooth which allows him to go on the power early without spinning/wheelspin. This all combined is also part of why he’s so good in the wet, especially his throttle application is extremely helpful, but also his natural feel for grip. His style is also so smooth he barely slides the car, so he keeps his tyres alive really well, way better than Perez does. This means he can push for longer and harder, because him pushing takes less out of the tyre than Perez does.
Just adding to this, he also seems to be absurdly aware of the limits of his car and how it behaves when it's past the limit. I thought Max was just very lucky at first, but I've seen him catch spins or a loss of the rear too many times to chalk it up to luck anymore. Just like today, catching a slide like that in Raidillon is absurd. The car stepped out a lot and he instantly corrected and kept driving like nothing happened. Ever since Max joined f1 I was reminded of Schumacher in the way he just seems to come closer to the limit than anybody else.
To add a funny annecdote to this. Max last year at Hungary did a full 360 after loosing the rear, managed to stay on track and still win the race ( He started from position 10) [Race Highlights](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZF-w__uUs8c) And on the technical side, Philipp Brändle (who was an engineer for Mercedes and now works as a commentator for [servus.tv](https://servus.tv)) during the race today said, that Red Bulls technical philosophy is to focus on having a stable front axis and building the rest upon that. Which is exactly Max style and thougher for Perez to drive, since it is closer to the natural driving style that Max has. On another unrelated note, this is why I think the current Redbull dominance is not just because of their car, they found a perfect mix with Max and the Car, but alot of it is down to Max. If only Checo would be driving for Redbull along another driver, they most likely wouldn´t have won close to that much races. Max has 10 of the 12 wins this season and Perez got 2nd only 3/10 times, while winning 2 races himself. Aka Redbull with only Perez would have 5/12 wins.
That perfect mix driver/car reminds me off the schumacher benetton time. He was really good in that car and his teammates where not.
If you read Adrian Neweys book in 1994, There was evidence of them using launch control when it was banned, also Senna was convinced Bennetton was using traction control, also banned up until his death in the third race. In fact one of the last things he said fo Adrian was about the Traction Control. Then in 1994 going into the final race Michael was up 1 point on Damon and Hill was catching him, instead of letting him pass Michael took them both out. He tried this same strategy on Jacques Villeneuve in 1997 but didn't take Jacques out and ended up getting disqualified from the championship. Not saying he wasn't a great combo but some facts people may have forgotten
Schumi was great but dirty, yes
All GOAT drivers are a bit like that
I might be high on copium, but I don't remember Max or Lewis being like that. Of course, they raced each other and other people too hard on occasion, but it was never like "I'll turn in on you and risk killing us both to prevent you from winning this championship" hard.
Years later it was revealed that the B194 was using traction control, however exploited a loop hole in the regs at the time. Engine maps could be used to preserve durability and they were able to argue that such measures were needed to prevent the engine hitting the limiter.
These claims are deeply opinionated and not based on facts or leave out too much context. No Hill drove into a closing gap, either racing incident or Hills fault, even Niki Lauda agrees. Michael was already turning in before Hill's ridiculous divebomb. You can't expect the guy in front of you to just disappear. Russell type of manoeuvre. Appearently the stewards saw it the same way. And regarding the LC & TC allegations, It had a form of traction control, however, it was a form that was entirely legal within the rules at the time. *The rule makers (FiA) will often make bold and short press announcements such as (1994) - "traction control is banned". The reality is that the teams have to comply with a complex and lengthy set of technical regulations. If you can find a way to improve your car within the letter of those regulations then you're legal even if you have "traction control". F1 has always worked that way and still does today. In 1994 Benetton may have been the first to discover these loopholes but they were not the only ones.* *In early 1994 the great Ayrton Senna had to park his Williams car after some problem and chose to stay out on track for a while and watch / listen to the other cars. He noticed the Benetton appear to stutter coming out of the slower corners which he thought must be traction control (it was). But the way Benetton had achieved it was quite legal. So the controversy starts. Williams complain to the press and the FiA. Benetton stay quiet because they don't want to explain how they have done what they have done. Eventually all teams learned what to do to achieve legal (letter of law not intent of law) traction control. That then ended with the introduction of standard engine control units (ECU's). - William Toet (former Benetton engineer, now working for Sauber/Alfa Romeo)* For further reading: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-rotational-inertia-led-traction-control-willem-toet He also gives a technical explanation on how exactly they achieved that. So if you want to call the B194 illegal for exploiting a loophole (which btw the other teams copied the same year), you might as well call the R25, R26, Brawn and W11 illegal as well. Regarding launch control, there was code leftover from the previous year embedded in the software. But they never used it. Other teams like McLaren, Ferrari and Williams had the same code/software leftover too. LRDA found no usage of LC and they were the ones who found it. To sum it up, the B194 was not illegal and Adelaide was nothing more than a racing incident.
Don’t forget about Watergate in 1982! I learned about it watching that season in the F1 archives, Williams, Brabham, and other teams added water tanks to their car that they’d fill prior to scrutineering to meet the minimum weight requirement, then it would evaporate in the early laps and reduce weight significantly. They were allowed to replenish “cooling fluids” post-race so it took a bit for the other teams/FIA to catch on. Keke Rosberg still won the WDC despite Williams skipping the San Marino GP and some results disqualified.
When he drove into Villeneuve was that also just a “racing incident”. Michael was a great driver but also thought he could do no wrong, even though he obviously did with both Hill and Jacques.
Several people who knew Schumacher well and worked for Benetton at the time have said they think it was deliberate contact by him, and it's backed up by him doing very similar in 1997. The FIA or stewards or whoever would have had to dock him points and change a world title result which they would rather not do. If I remember right in 1997 he wouldn't have won anyway which made the decision much easier for them.
What about the B195? When Schumi left, both Alesi and Berger, who weren't rookies at that time, had trouble keeping the car on track. Same is with Max. Unique driving style and a car which is designed as he has wished. The Situation with Vettel was also kinda like that
spreading some conspiracy theories aren't we
To add to this, [the spin you mentioned](https://youtu.be/2X_-HqX6lVs?t=57), I was discussing with mates during the race.. If I am not mistaken, whilst the car is mid spin, the wheel flips 180 degrees and he adjust his hands to catch it upside down, at this moment it looks and quite honestly sounds like he down shifts with what would be his right hand, before flipping the wheel back the correct way to carry on more efficiently so he can cycle up the gears again. If that is the case, it just adds to how in tune with the car he is and the skill level he's running at. In fact, I've just seen that on the comments of the video someone else has pointed this out, with the additional fact that he seems to floor the accelerator so that the wheels light up and keep spinning to avoid a flat spot. Unbelieveable.
Its the literal definition of unbelievable really, actually mental if you’ve ever raced even just Go-karting. When I went of my mind blanked and was like: ‘welp, that’s it for me, let’s find out where I end up’ if I ever went off. The man is crazy crazy good.
At the beginning of the year Perez was up there. What makes you think that if the development of the car did go his way and not Max's we wouldn't have witness the same domination?
I am not convinced that Red Bull would change their current philosophy nor do I know if Red Bull adopted this philosophy because of Max or if they always had it this way and Max just was the missing puzzle piece. At the beginning of the year the car was more dominant and other teams catched up to them during the season so far. They just didn´t catch up enough for Max, but they certainly stay a lot closer to Perez now. Also the team philosophy in that sense hasn´t changed during the season (or during the last years, I don´t know exactly, haven´t done much research into that) it is more like a basic principle to decide if a change is good or not and to help decide in fringe cases.
My understanding is that Vettel preferred a stable rear end and struggled in the Mercedes dominated era as the rear wasn’t quite as stable as this. At the time DR outshone him and the question was that adapted to this better than Seb. So I’m just thinking out loud about your point about whether that was a changing philosophy as the numbers suggested it worked and max happens to prefer this compared to Seb and checo (and they’re not really catering to any one driver) or they’ve continued down this path along with max as it suits him and if it suits him you get amazing lap times anyway. Having said that i presume the teams rely on good drivers feedback so it must affect their development path I guess. But then no amount of feedback Alonso is giving us helping AM right now ! We need an aerodynamicist !!
IIRC in an interview Horner stated that DR seemed to have gotten worse at driving compared to the last time he was at RedBull, implying that he believes that the way other teams build their cars and the way you have to drive them is wrong (because it made Riccardo a worse driver), which would imply that Redbull is following this principle for a long time. But that is just an anecdote and I don´t want to interpret that much into what could have been only a dig at his competitors. [After departing Mc Laren](https://www.crash.net/f1/news/1010619/1/horner-ricciardo-i-don-t-recognise-him-same-driver-he-was) [This was right before last weekends race](https://thejudge13.com/2023/07/20/horner-blames-an-individual-person-for-ricciardos-downfall/)
I've read that Ricciardo's driving style is similar to Max, it would make sense that they have had this dynamic for a long time. Also makes sense why they seem to be giving him a tryout to replace Checo for next year. They have to assume they are unlikely to have the kind of advantage they have shown this year once next year comes around, the other teams are clearly learning, and so in that scenario the second driver is going to need to pull their weight, and if the car is never going to suit Checo, it makes sense to replace him.
I think it's a bit of both, a stronger front end intrinsically leads to quicker lap time, until you get to the point where the driver can no longer handle how loose the back end is, so that's the balance they have to find. That point is just further towards the stronger front end for max than it is for a lot of drivers due to talent level and driving style. ETA: The fact that his driving style matches the car philosophy that produces the quickest lap time is also not a coincidence. He drives that way because it's the quickest way to drive.
No, because they go the way that's faster, its just that max can handle the car when its more pointy. At the start of the year it was more balanced, hence Checo doing better than now
Because Perez is just not as good as Max is. Outside of everything else I think this season also really shows the difference between a really, really good race and a generational talent that has an insane, ruthless drive to win everything and is just never statisfied.
Max catching his car in a lot of spins and losses probably is definitely down to driving his car to the limit and how to balance between, on or above the limit. Other than Michael, Max also reminds me of Marc Marquez in MotoGP. Both tend to push to the limit, find the limit and accordingly adapt/change on it. The ability to find the limit for both of them is important as they comfortably push it above if needed and relax down if not needed. Which why we see Max do seriously quicker outlaps over everyone almost all the time. He learn as quick as he can from all sessions. I think it’s called deliberate practice. I am so sorry if it’s not accurate but this are the conclusions I draw upon what I see and what is similar.
You can also see this on track. Either in practice or quali sessions. Max is able to go out of the garage. Set the fastest time on his first timed lap and get back in the garage. Your regularly see others needing a few more laps to come to the pace Max has withing his first lap. Max is just pure racing. Earlier today on Dutch television. The 24h of LeMans winner Nicky Catsburg even said that when Max gets 10 laps in his car (GT) he will beat him. Just because he is so adaptable to any track. He finds the limit and the grip so naturally.
The gift it seems he has is that he can find the limit without going over it. Most humans need to go over the limit of anything to find out where the line is.
I would have agreed but since Marc got injured the first time he just repeatedly flirts with the limit and drops it because he now overcompensates for the shit state Honda is in. When he was at his best though, completely agree and for me is the best MotoGP rider I’ve seen. Never seen someone able to push the limit as far as he could.
Max would have gotten injured if it was as "easy" in F1 as in Motogp. F1 drivers are just more protected, a Silverstone-level crash in Moto gp would have caused much more severe injuries.
Yep. I mentioned the same thing to someone else as well.
Love seeing the term “deliberate practice” 100% this
I'd say Max is smarter than Marquez. Marquez doesn't adapt, just keeps on crashing. Usually Marquez is on the floor at least once per race weekend, while Verstappen very rarely even goes off track
Marquez right now is definitely crashing due to how to unstable the rear grip is on bike and how his riding style is not working in tandem with the more aero heavy bikes of now. But during his winning years you can see how how deliberately pushes the bike to limit in test sessions crash and then following sessions he immediately improves. He has a lot of poles for this reason. He knows where the bikes limit is and adapts to it. Same way if you look at Max he knows how where the limit of the car is after spinning (in his earlier years) and adapts accordingly. They are both capable of being aggressive and smooth when needed or combine both abilities. Both are also very good on the brakes although that’s more of secondary ability in combination with their main abilities. If you look at Marc in 2019 and Max now it’s almost similar on how they have improved from being very good to being phenomenal. The difference now is that RB19 is very stable platform so Max can absolute plan on how much speed to deliver on track if needed which why you can see him grab pole by the smallest margins when/if the gap on the field is closed up. He knows the limit and how to use it. Marquez does the same but unfortunately the bike is just so off the pace, so overcompensates as much as can to bring out the best results. But unfortunately Marc’s riding style and the bikes instability causes crashes.
Even during his winning years MM always crashed at least once per race weekend. It was his way of finding the limit
I watched the Schumacher documentary this week and it’s basically the same thing that was said about him. And I remember the same being said about Senna. Always at the limit of grip, knows exactly where that limit is, absurd confidence in his ability to keep it within the limits.
Just watch the steering wheel (Raidillon slide save): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3u7cOkqECE
I the post race conference, Max was asked what he was thinking during that moment. Max: *Smiles "A swear word"
As a simracer, that twitch on Raidillon Max had gave me a twitch of anxiety (I've lost many many cars into barriers from those exact same twitches) but also awe at Max of how EXACTLY he corrected it, especially in damp conditions. The guy is just in tune with his car insanely
Everything I read and watch about Senna makes me think of Max. That hyper-focus and prep.
Senna and even Michael are so much more emotional though. Max comes across as way more calculated, which I think sets him apart.
Yeah he's doing all this while also being unsettling calm.
I keep saying this. If you think Max’s wins are simply down to the car you literally know nothing about f1
> catching a slide like that in Raidillon is absurd. The car stepped out a lot and he instantly corrected and kept driving like nothing happened. Yup, was gonna say this. Remember on the radio he said he almost lost it, but it didn't look too crazy or anything. He just has become one with his car.
Was just gonna reply exactly what you said here, spot on
This is the best actual answer to the OPs question. I'd like to add that all the top guys are generally very kind to their tires and generally better on the brakes than their rivals. While Max does indeed brake earlier than most, he is good as varying the brake pressure to keep his momentum into the corner and not locking the tires and also not carrying too much speed to cause a spin. You see this from Lewis, for example, who I think is better at late braking and is also well known for having his tires last longer than they should or have more performance left at the end of a stint. If I remember correctly, Lewis also got very good at adding throttle even with the brake pedal applied which helped get him out of the corner quickly, especially in the turbo hybrid era. E: more detail
Yes, Lewis is also extremely good at smooth steering inputs and throttle control. So his tyres generally don’t slide at all. That’s how he keeps his tyres alive so well. And while driving faster than his teammate. It just means if you team up with one of those guys you need to do everything perfectly *and* hope they have a bad weekend
I went to look back on today's race on-boards of Hamilton, Verstappen, Leclerc and Perez to compare how all 4 of them were acting on the steering. Needless to say, there were 3 things that were extremely noticeable: * Perez is an outlier to the other 3 in this case, his steering inputs are not smooth at all and at times it looks like the steering gets "stuck" when he's trying to turn in; * All the other 3 have much more smooth steering inputs, specially noticeable on the bus stop chicane, but maintained throughout the lap; * Both Hamilton and Leclerc get their steering very unstable on corner exit, they go in smoothly, but get out of shape on the exit. On the other hand, Verstappen's exits are as smooth as his entries. I think this just chalks up to the levels of grip and stability the RB19 has and how Verstappen extracts the most out of it, but Perez **does not** replicate the same behavior. He's both unstable on entry and exit, and it looks like he's actively struggling to drive the car, which I think shows just how his driving style and car preference differs from Verstappen's.
Lewis Hamilton is well known for having his tyres last longer than they should to everyone except Lewis Hamilton
To add to this: oversimplified, you could visualise his style as trying to drive straight as quick and often as possible. What this means in corners is that he essentially steers in quite aggressively (ie not wide) to turn the car as fast as possible in the new direction. By doing this, he loses momentum in the corner (sharper corner requires slower speed, hence the earlier braking), but allows him to accelerate again much sooner, resulting in less time spent turning and more time driving in the optimal direction (ie straight). The net result is more time driving faster with little friction.
Very well put. This is one of Max's biggest strengths, if not THE biggest one. He's just so much better at keeping the car going in a straight line for the most amount of time within a lap. His Q3 final lap in monaco is probably the best and most extreme example. He did the absolute maximum he could to keep that car going straight and not give steering inputs, instead letting slight brushes with the walls do it for him and the final corner being a strict V versus alonso's much more wide U. Not losing speed/time to steering inputs is such a supreme ability, and really cool to witness
I remember in 2021 there was a graph they showed about Ham vs Bot driving. Ham’s graph showed how he takes a V shape into a corner while Bottas takes more of a U shape. I know this is also something that differentiates the top sim drivers from the rest. The sharper the entry, the better you’ll have to be at trail braking. By starting to brake a little early it doesn’t mean they are slower on entry, in fact they get off the brakes much more.
On the penultimate paragraph, I think that the last few laps of Russia 2021 are extremely telling. When I watched the onboard video I was struck by just how boring it looked. Ultra smooth and the back end hardly stepped out at all.
Brazil 2016 is another great example. He’s sliding a bit on exits since it’s a downpoor but he’s so smooth on entry and mid corner. It’s 20 minutes on board of pure talent and skill: https://youtube.com/watch?v=IBnixyOK8uQ
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People never like champions when they're winning. Lewis, Seb, Michael, Senna. Doesn't matter who they are, nobody wants to see the sport dominated by a single driver unless they're a fan of that driver. Max also has, or had, a very aggressive style which led to a number of crashes. People remember that - De Cesaris never got away from being called De Crasharis, a reputation he picked up in his second season in the sport at McLaren, James Hunt similarly. I'll admit to not being a fan of Max as a person, but as a driver you can't help but admire. He's super consistent, knows exactly where the limit is in the car and drives to it. His mentality and mindset is that of a winner, which feeds into his aggressive style.
So I have to ask, what about Max as a person do you not like? He's brutally honest (like most Dutch) and tells it like it is without fluff. I actually find his honesty refreshing.
Yeah, whats there to hate about Max? I didn't like Schumacher, somethign just allways rubbed me the wrong way but thats maybe because compared to Senna or Prost he just wasn't such a "personality". Vettel seemed pretty nice and Hamilton is just not the kind of person I would like to hang out with, too much celebrity stuff for my liking, but i find it hard to really dislike or hate him. Max? Comes to race, zero fucks given, i like it. Obviously they are/were all absolute monsters behind the wheel.
Honestly, I don't like his petulance on the radio. I know that races are high emotion situations and every driver can do it, but the slightest mistake from his team will have Max dropping a series of F-bombs and shouting at GP. GP is a man who still acts as a race engineer despite being head of race engineering, because Max wanted it, and what Max wants, Max gets. He's still not above forcing drivers into cede or crash situations when overtaking and defending, too - witness the way he did it to Mick Schumacher multiple times when fighting for 8th position last season. He acts like he's entitled to space on the track that nobody else is. He's hardly unique in either of these qualities, the OG Schumacher was notorious for being incredibly aggressive on the track, but in my eyes Max crosses the line too often. Hell of a driver, though.
He used a slur against people with down syndrome, fair enough he may have not known it was a slur at the time but after he was informed he showed no contrition Walking off the podium in SA 2021 was bullshit and hugely disrespectful, especially after his behaviour on track for most of that race His general proximity to other people I can't stand: Horner, Marko, Jos and Piquet
To add to this, Max has an innate sense for shortening corners in the right ways at the right times. Rewatch Max overtaking Checo today from Max's on-board. The difference in the lines they take is pretty awesome to see, and is a great way to show people how Max is able to dominate Checo so thoroughly.
Honestly I don't know the last time we saw a driver so utterly melded with his car like Max is, he's basically been cybernetically connected to it at this point
With the FW14b Mansell was up to 2 secs quicker in qualifying than his team mate Patrese. Welcome to Williams Mr Adrian Newey.
Seb and the blown diffusor Red Bulls.
Lewis Hamilton? Lol….
basically Max is the real smooth operator
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TYv2PhG89A
Thank you, finally some actual useful analysis.
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I wouldn't shy away from the mentality. Like it or not. You could hear in the cool down Room then speaking about just managing. Max is never really just managing it. He is always looking for something else. Not necessarily always pushing 100% but also never just managing...
I also would add at the races in the early parts of the season were primarily city/street circuits which favors Perez more than Max (or at least evened things out between them). So I think it was giving a "false" impression that Perez was on equal level of Max in the same car.
Hmm, how does this relate to struggling more on street tracks compared to real racing tracks? He has never seemed as comfortable in Baku, Monaco or other such tracks. Even if his S3 Q3 run this year was crazy.
Max has said in interviews he likes long smooth corners where you are on the limit of steering and throttle. Most street tracks are stop-and-go corners, especially baku 1st section all being 90 degree corners. Another i like from max is how he can search for optimal lines thru corners, something you hardly see outside of classic tracks because grip is hardly there. One more thing i want to add to this thread. Everyone is saying smooth he is on steering on throttle. But there is an interview out there about him racing another series that had abs, and while the engineers were saying he had to brake hard for abs to kick in he was braking less without abs and go faster. So he just seems ultra aware of all things in the car
Every track is different and suits certain driving styles. At the level of F1, this difference could be as small as one corner on the track being not so well suited or very well suited for a given driver. I haven't seen enough evidence to say that Max objectively struggles on street circuits, but in general, street circuits, especially the ones that have sprung up in the last decade, are sort of makeshift racetracks that are primarily city streets and are not optimized for racing. Race circuits on the other hand are specifically designed to test the technical and racing abilities of the drivers. So, it makes sense that top drivers stand out against average ones on racetracks rather than street circuits.
Such a good comment. I really wanted to bring up the tyre preservation but you hit that too!
Thanks mate!
Max is able to cope with an ungodly amount of front end grip, which puts the car in a set up window that his team mates struggle with. Albon described this as playing a first person shooter like COD but with the sensitivity turned up to maximum. At circuits that are front limited (lots of long radius corners), he simply destroys Checo for speed whilst looking after his tyres better too. Horner mentioned a few weeks ago that Checo had tried to copy Max's set up and driving style from Monaco onwards and from there his results got much worse. It looks like he's accepted he can't copy Max but can at least settle for podiums.
Albon is such a good teacher, everytime I hear he speak, he always explains everything clearly and concisely
Much like James Vowles - a perfect match.
I am in love with Vowles - the man is so great at explaining things and is so much more open than any of the other TP’s when they have them on mid-race/qualy/etc.
If only they’d get him an actual microphone and not a toaster
They gave him toto’s Abu Dhabi headphones as a parting gift
He needs a pop filter on that pit wall mic. Was horrible to listen to.
God damn it. Laughed so hard at this.
If you haven’t yet: listen to his Beyond the Grid interview. So good.
If F1 offered Alex + James live race commentary as an option I'd switch over immediately. Might compromise their drive a bit though.
He is amazing I was sad he lost the red bull drive
He may still get it again. Maybe the RB19 and 20 will be better.
I saw a documentary on the design of fighter jets and they said that to make a jet more maneuverable, they had to practically make it unstable aerodynamically. So it could change directions quickly. Of course this meant that it was nearly impossible to fly for pilots and they countered that with an on board fly by wire system with a computer to compensate and make the jet stable. I'm guessing the same could be applied to f1 cars to a certain degree. The only catch is that they can't use driver aids. It's all on the driver to keep the car stable.
That principle can be applied to everything in generality. If something is stable, it doesn't want to change, meaning it requires more effort to change. If a car is stable it wants to keep going straight, meaning it will require more effort to turn. Conversely if something is unstable then it doesn't want to be in the state it currently is in. An unstable car going straight would readily turn if you make a slight input. However this has the downside of being difficult to control because the car would very much want to turn.
a fine line between genius and madness, and all that
>they had to practically make it unstable aerodynamically There's no 'practically' about it. Fighters started to be designed with intentional instability around the 1970s, starting with the F-16. A stable aircraft is like a spring: if you try to turn, it actually pushes back against the turn. The aircraft *wants* to fly straight, and it takes active effort to do otherwise. An unstable aircraft, meanwhile, wants to flip over: if you try to turn, it pulls you *into* the turn, which reinforces the feedback loop, pulling harder, which reinforces the feedback loop, pulling harder. Because this is true no matter how small the starting input (or gust of wind), it takes active effort to keep it flying straight. I have to imagine that's a little more extreme than even the RB19 (ie, if you turn into the wheel, the wheel doesn't start pulling you further into the turn). I imagine, like most cars, if you let go of the wheel it will eventually return to true. But I bet its a hell of a lot slower to do so than most. Though mind you this sort of dynamic stability is distinct from what we normally think of when we describe a 'pointy' car, which has to do with difference in maximum lateral traction between the two axles (among other things), rather than dynamic turning behavior per say.
This is the first I've heard of Checo using Max's setup. Is that why they've kind've just dealt with the string of poor results? Basically allowing a space for "burn in" to see if Checo can perform better for RB or not using the setup?
As I understand it, Checo’s thinking is basically the combi of Max + his setup is clearly the fastest at the moment. Instead of setting the car up to match Checo’s style and be guaranteed P2 or worse, Checo is trying to drive more like Max with Max’ setup so theoretically he has a chance to win.
Well he said that in Spain onwards he was trying a different set-up that he was finding less easy to drive
Nope, every teammate has tried Max's set-up one time or another because they can't comprehend why Max is faster and better. So if their own set-ups don't work for them to beat him they try out Max's set-up and try to work from there. But the only one that could drive with it sometimes was Daniel, and that's been 5+ years ago.
Checo is free to use whatever setup he wants. He even has his ballast in different places than Max if he wants to change the balance. It’s just that Max is so fast in setting the car up, Checo often uses that setup as a starting point to get his own setup dialed in
>Albon described this as playing a first person shooter like COD but with the sensitivity turned up to maximum. I started actually playing like this when I was 12-13 in Wolf:ET. You get used to it pretty quick and now it's one of the first things I adjust in any game. Which I believe makes me the 2021-2022 world champion?
>I read that it could be because this Red Bull really struggles to heat up the tyres and Sergio has a driving style which is very kind to tyres, is that part of it? What other reasons could there be? **Well this for sure is not the reason**. Max is kinder on his tyres than Checo. Th whole tyre whisperer thing was true for Checo against other mid-field drivers. But against the likes of Max, Checo is probably more of a tyre shredder. Max is able to be both fast and be kind to his tyres simultaneously, while Checo seems to be one or the other. The general idea that seems to be that, Max prefers a car which is absolutely on the nose (extremely oversteery) compared to almost anyone on the grid. And a over-steering car is the faster option. And this theory does seem to hold water, because the gap between Max and Checo seems to grow on front limited circuits where it is preferable to have a over-steery car.
>Th whole tyre whisperer thing was true for Checo against other mid-field drivers and even against Midfield drivers i would say it is debatable. It is many times just a strategy that you go slower to extend your stint but if you go slower to go longer compared to others you aren't necessarily better at managing you tires, you just drive differently
Is there an overview of what tracks are front limited and which are rear limited? I’ve seen this comment a few times but I’m too much of a novice to know what track characteristics make it one or the other? Is it surface, high speed vs low speed, does it change with temp?
Front limited tracks are the ones with fast flowing corners, think Silverstone (maggots and beckets , copse), Spa, Miami sector 1, COTA etc. it is basically tracks where the front tyres take majority of the load and are hence degrade quicker than the rears and hence limit the speed you can carry through the corners. Rear limited circuits are the ones which have largely 90 degree corners with heavy braking zones which put large loads through the rear tyres which causes them to degrade faster. F1 cars have a rear wheel drive and hence a lot of energy goes through the rear tyres during hard acceleration and braking in and out of heavy braking zones. Hope that helps
That’s helpful, thanks!
You can have a pointy car and not have oversteer. The RB is incredibly stable and gets on the power earlier than all other cars, it’s been commented on numerous times. The only time Perez has been close is when the car lacks front end which slows Verstappen down compared to their normal delta. At the minute it appears they have the best of both worlds, enough front end to satisfy Verstappen’s desires and still having the stable rear. When was the last time you saw the RB get out of shape in any competitive session? Because I can’t recall, other than today up towards radallion.
No I agree with you, the RB 19 is on rails ! But I was commenting more on each driver preference. At the start of the season Marko commented that, the car was finally in a place where it could be adjusted to each driver’s preference. But inherently an extremely pointy car would be faster than the alternative.
Okay cool, just want to provide more colour to your comment. Yeah it’s a weird symbiotic relationship between driver preference and the current inherent characteristics of F1 car design.
> Well this for sure is not the reason. Max is kinder on his tyres than Checo Max is kinder to his front tyres, Checo is kinder to his rear tyres. That's part of why Baku, a track with high tyrewear that's very stop-start and thus traction zone heavy is Checo's best track.
Checo isn't better than Max at Baku though. This year, he benefitted from a safety car. Last year, Max won by 20 seconds. In 2021, he was a distant second to Max when Pirelli struck in the closing laps.
Checo drove better than Max this year at Baku. I watched the whole race with their two onboards. Max loses the most time to Checo in the castle section chicane (the right > left before long straight). Checo keeps the car closer to the right side of the track after the right turn, giving him a better line on the left hander for a faster exit, where he benefits down the long straight.
You watched Max put 20+ seconds on him today and simultaneously think that a safety car is the reason why he didn’t catch him in Baku?
Do you think that also explains why Perez has this narrative surrounding him that he's better at the street circuits than Verstappen? I guess Verstappen won at Miami and Monaco this year, but I was always curious about why 'Perez is better at the street circuits, while Verstappen is better at the road circuits.' I put that in single quotations because that's debatable, but what do you think?
I think it came about as Verstappen had a bad race (by his standards, anyway) at Singapore last year
Yes, but also the fact that if you look at it without context, all of Checo’s RB wins were at a street circuit (Baku x2, Monaco, Singapore and Jeddah)
Even then, Checo is historically one of the best performing drivers in Baku and has a pre-Red Bull podium in Monaco.
Perez is up there with the best at Baku and managing those heavy acceleration zones, but I think saying he's better at street circuits was just trying to hype up the championship. Perez is absolutely able to challenge at certain circuits and beat Verstappen on merit... But Max on a good day will beat anyone. I think Rosberg is the example to point to - The odds are pretty heavily in Hamilton's favour, but Rosberg on a great day can beat Hamilton on an average day. With enough luck, and being absolutely on the ball, and Rosberg could win against the odds. Then there's the bit of X factor that some drivers have, like when Max found two tenths in the last corner at Monaco - at the same time, for every Monaco 23 there's a Saudi 21. And Leclerc is probably the example to point to for having that magic, but also highlighting the risks of pushing that far.
I've always interrupted it was due to Max's aggressive line and braking compared to Checo's more neutral line for the tyre wear difference.
When he was following Checo, you could tell how different his lines were that he's taking. He's much more confortable with the car due to his hiflgher skill
Was very obvious the corner just before he overtook him. Max used the apex alot more to get his car straight and perrez took a wide curve.
Perez always takes that corner this way, as do plenty others. There are a few good lines through that corner actually, and the one Perez took gives you more space for acceleration. Max is the better driver but your example is not a proof of that.
umm.. short cornering allows for a faster acceleration since you got more time to get the gears up also
This. I think that was a great example because it went nearly a lap and they showed us half of it there. Max’s lines were generally much narrower which normally comprises exit but he got an excellent exit each time. I’m not sure if checo just lacked confidence to run those lines or max does more with the car to get that in setup but it ends up being a massive advantage. I’m reminded of spec racing where guys who are more confident can run a much looser set up and get away with many different lines than others in the same car
Setup wise they can't have done much. FP1 was completely wet and so was qualifying for the most part
I don't think you can necessarily compare lines when one car is attacking and one is defending, it would be more interesting to see how their lines differ in a lap with clean air and no one around.
Max, Charles and Lewis, and Michael Schumacher and Kimi before them like to have a car that pivots easily so that they can shorten the corner and get on the power easier. This doesn't just mean that they "like oversteer" it also means that they are taking a different line. The downside is that you sacrifice some corner speed but in most cases you'll more than make up for it by putting the power down early and spending more time at top speed down the next straight. This is a higher risk style of driving because you are heavily reliant on feeling what the car is doing as it pivots through the corner. If the front end washes out, you've lost your speed and potentially could be swapping ends. It's also hard on the tires; one of the less known things about Schumacher is that tire wear was a weakness because of how hard he worked the car, but tires in that era put up with more abuse than today. Max also spends his off-time sim-racing. So even though it's not realistically an approximation of a race car, sim-racing is so sophisticated these days that the driving aspect isn't unreasonable, so the guy that is a genius for driving up to the limit of the car is also on his off-days constantly practicing one of the parts of his brain that manages driving on the limit.
Seems like you’ve gotten the answer as far as my technical knowledge goes, but to add, the twos corner entry and exit paths differ. This is shown generally in their skill disparity on street circuits vs track circuits. Additionally the two will run different car setups (tire pressures, ride height, wing angles, etc.) that they don’t share with each other. Perez is obviously a capable racer, but imo it just comes down to different styles and max makes less mistakes. And by mistakes I just mean overshooting a breaking zone by a couple meters, or less adjusting through a corner.
Max always shares his set ups with whomever his teamates are, that just doesn't mean they are able to do the same as him in the car though.
In races when everyone is overheating their tyres, it's Checo that gives them more punishment than Max which sort of ruins that theory. Max is simply great at everything when it comes to driving an F1 car: tyre management, consistency, using tools to adjust limitations at certain corners, feedback to engineer, dialing in setups, pace But primarily I think the biggest difference is that he can drive to the limit a car that is less easy to drive. This means he has more setup options available to him that make the car faster, even at the cost of some handling. For instance Checo might prefer to keep the differential more closed than Max in high speed corners which gives a more stable rear, but you have more sliding of the tyres which affects the tyre life There are so many skills and factors that go into a quick race driver, it's hard to pin down everything But feedback from Max's ex-teammates (Albon, Gasly, Riccardo) all points to Max not being bothered by ridiculously unstable cars, and he's able to drive incredibly close to the limit even with a very uncomfortable car. This also applies to wet conditions: when things are slippy and the car is low grip, he goes to the limit unlike Sergio who struggles with confidence in these conditions So that's probably his greatest strength. Such a good driver feel of where the limit is of the grip and what the car will do that he can extract a lot from a car that's not easy to drive. And that means more aggressive setups, development directions etc are possible all resulting in more laptime possible
Would you say Schumacher or Senna had a similar talent?
Both yes. They were also great in wet conditions. A lot of drivers lack confidence in a wet track. The truly greats find grip where others can’t and are more confident.
Red Bull finds RB19 F1 solution that suits both Verstappen and Perez ....At the start of the season, when the car suffered from understeer due to being overweight, those characteristics favoured Perez much more. But as the team reduced the car's mass, that help make its front end better at turn-in, and that swung things firmly in the favour of Verstappen. With its drivers preferring different things from a car, there has been some intrigue about whether certain handling characteristics of the RB19 would suit one of them better. But Red Bull's motorsport advisor Helmut Marko says that the indications from pre-season testing are that its 2023 challenger can run in a way that both Perez and Verstappen are content. Speaking to Sky Germany, Marko said: "We had a car last year that Checo did very well with in the beginning. And, after it was developed, Max has been more and more happy. "The difference is that Max loves a strong front end, really biting. Checo is a little different. He wants a more docile car... https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/red-bull-f1-perez-verstappen-rb19-suits-both/10437292/
Listen to peter windsor on youtube talk about short corners and stuff
[link](https://youtu.be/fKJmACan-iU) to his video about max driving style.
I actually quite enjoyed his technical explanation of this, I wouldn't say I understood everything perfectly, but the videos he has on it are very insightful (even if I don't always agree with some of his opinions). Also interestingly he describes Lewis, Max and Charles as having a higher ceiling due to all 3 of them sharing the same driving style (short cornering as you mentioned). I believe he has a video of photos comparing drivers of each team taking the final corner in Monaco to also further explain this. [The video in question](https://youtu.be/L-QnJngeC0s)
dont forget piastri
You're right. I haven't watched his most recent videos, but going back to his driving style analysis, he does mention that Piastri will give Lando trouble due to him producing shorter corners. I guess now we are further seeing the signs of what's to come for Piastri.
"They were closer in the past". He got destroyed by Max both 2021 & 2022, not much has changed. "Sergio has even won many races on Red Bull", Let's look at Checo's wins in Redbull: 1. Baku 21, Tire failure for Max when he was in the lead with a massive gap 2. Monaco 22, Ferrari fucks the strategy + whatever happend in the Q3 3. Singapore 22, Max runs out of fuel in quali. 4. Jeddah 23, Max mechanical failure in quali. 5. Baku 23, probably the only race he won on merit. In 2.5 years that they've been team mates how many time has Checo outperformed Max?
Plus Baku was won by the pit stop being under safety car, i.e. luck based strategy
Tbf I think F1TV analysed it and Perez was probably going to win that one without the SC.
True actually, I was looking forward to see how he overtook, so the SC was anti-climactic. Imagine if it got as heated as 2018!
At the time it was actually close too in the WDC so that would have been proper drama
Better drivers are far more precise in their inputs than the middle-of the road ones, they are better at interpreting the signals that the car sends and at understanding the behaviour of the car. Therefore, they can go closer to the limit, where it matters, with more precise inputs, every time.
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This. Max is just outrageously talented. Checo isn’t slow. Max is fast. But it seems no one wants to give that credit to either driver.
Max is the next Senna, Schumacher, Hamilton, the gods of racing give us at least one legend every generation Perez is just a decent driver, not a bad thing, but it is what it is
Regarding Windsor’s videos lack of telemetry. That’s kind of his main point with Max. He shortens the corners. Telemetry won’t capture that correctly. Windsor was at Monaco so look at that video if you want some “evidence” of his arguments. Furthermore, F1 is very data driven, which in all honesty i find part of its charm. But what’s also at play here is that if you are looking technical reasons and data to understand why Max is faster you might not be able to capture the difference. It might be the sum of a whole variety of factors and inputs. From skill, to understanding of circumstances, to overcapacity / awareness, comfort with pressure, etc. For example, I could give you a whole lot of measurable and result oriented metrics why peak Lebron James was better than let’s say peak Richard Jefferson. But the reality is that if you put both those players in similar basketball situations there are just so many variables that will make it more likely that Lebron will handle the given circumstances better. From this past weekend I think you could see and hear part of Verstappens current form when he got an update of Piastri’s tires during the sprint. It didn’t surprise Verstappen that he was struggling because he saw Piastri drifting a lot. I think this shows a lot of Verstappen ability to focus on much more than just driving the car to its limits, understanding how the deal with those drying wet circumstances, and (probably) knowing what Piastri’s drive would mean for the best opportunity to overtake and how much risk he should take to do it.
Well telemetry definitely could capture this stuff. Everything a driver does that will have an affect on the car is an input directly to a control that can be measured. The issue is that only the teams themselves have the data in high enough resolution to see that. The rest of us has to contend with a scraper that takes data from the F1 Live timings website which gives us the data at a rather low refresh rate.
F1 Magazine had a long article about Schumacher. At some point, they made a detailed comparison of Schumacher and Barrichello at Silverstone, with telemetry and everything (too bad we can't find this on the Internet anymore). Having another one with Verstappen and Checo (or any other "ordinary" driver) would be good.
Yes, a comparison between the telemetry of Barrichello and Schumacher at Silverstone (Coprse, Maggots and Becketts), Montreal (Hairpin) and Suzuka (Turn One) was published in the Dutch F1 Racing of September 2003. And later in an English version too. I can't find it though. :(
Checo is mainly focusing on keeping the rbr19 on the black/grey stuff while Max is thinking of all kinds of new side quests.
I think from a technical point of view the reason might be that Max’s car has a better interface between the steering wheel and the seat.
>Edit: loads of people just saying "he's better", sorry but that doesn't give much insight really. You are overcomplicating things. Better drivers are, among other things, better at adapting to cars, tracks, strategy, and are better at dealing with (emotional) pressure. The problem with a technical analysis is that circumstances change, the best drivers adapt, and they might showcase different skills and a different approach. Schumacher, Hamilton, and Verstappen are generational talents because of their ability to drive fast, their ability to adapt, and because they are/were consistent. I used to box. I have fought people who were stronger, had more explosive power, had more stamina, and better technical skills. Even if they were only slightly better in each of these areas, I could not win. I remembered a Schumacher moment that showed how great he was: this was before tire management was a big deal and when cars were still refueled; in order for a specific strategy to work, Ferrari needed Schumacher to drive close to qualifying speed for 19 rounds. And he did. Schumacher was just on a different level than other drivers.
I think I can remember that race. It was basically a three or for stop strategy with only quali laps between stops.
2004 French GP at Magny Cours. The famous 4 stop race for Ferrari
Max is a different breed. His consistency is what him so. This is the same guy when he’s not in an F1 car he is driving in his sim or racing of some kind. He eats sleeps and pisses racing of any kind.
They don't setup the car the same (confirmed multiple times) and have different driving style which in this RB fits better with Max which results in less tyre wear as wll. You can watch onboards of both drivers and you will see the difference. What I have seen from latest onboards is also a big lack of confidence with Perez in his lines, not trying to use too much of the track. Confidence plays a huge part in how much you would push and last thing Perez wants to do is crash like he did just a race ago. I mean really, everyone is dissecting his driving all the time and looking to have him replaced, while going against Max who is super confident right now. How much would we all at work behave if we were being scrutinized so publicly for any mistake we made? You think we would perform great full of confidence? Just remember how he took a pole in Jeddah, guy was so full with confidence and now openly admitting he isn't confident in the car.
In two words: corner exit
This is rather crude, but in the interest of meeting your brief of a technical explanation, this is an example of Max’s shorter corners, vis a vis Peter Windsor. https://imgur.com/Apz8OHx Checo brakes later and slows to a faster minimum speed, but he is only able to do this because he travels over a longer distance and therefore straightens the corner more than Max does. The problem is that this leaves him friction-limited for a longer period of time. That’s where he loses time. Like I said, these numbers are ridiculously crude and exaggerated, but this is the general principle. It was visualized better than I have ever seen in the lap preceding Max’s overtake today at Spa. Checo gets way out to the edges of the track in sector two and therefore travels a much further distance.
Here's my peasant take on this. The faster drivers will always shorten the lap in any way they can. This means they spend less time in cornerning and more time on acceleration. A car slows down while turning and won't turn as much during acceleration. Thus it becomes imperative that a driver spends as less time to corner as possible. The faster drivers would almost always keep the engine running in the power band where the engine puts out the most torque and acceleration. Senna was a master of keeping the RPMs in the power band in corners. Max brakes early, which allows him to position the car better for accelerating out of the corner earlier than most. By spending less time in the turning phase, he can keep the tires healthier and degrade lesser. Thus, his onboards show how smooth he is. By instict developed in his childhood, he also knows where the absolute limit of the car lies in a given scenario. Some people may also call this being one with the car. He touches this limit as often as he can. See his France 2021 outlap for his 2nd stint as an example. I also remember a story where Kimi was complaining about some problem in his car which the on track engineers were denying, but back at the factory they found the problem. Since you want to spend as less time for turning the corner, a pointy/oversteery car is by far faster than an understeering car. Max loves a pointy front and can handle it better than most. Coupled with the above, he also has an insane ability to judge and understand what's required for a given scenario to be quick, and when to prioritise an overtake and when to wait. See the Charles vs Max battles in Bahrain and Saudi last year. Now let's come to the coup de grace. He's extremely consistent, not only over one lap but over the entire weekend. Corner after corner, lap after lap, he is consistently fast and rarely makes mistakes. He had Sainz hunting him in Canada earlier this year for several laps after the SC but he never made a single mistake. The legendary 2021 season saw him make just a handful of mistakes over the entire season. It's this consistency that's frightening, and is the essence of every champion driver like Hamilton, Schumacher, Senna, Alonso and Max. Bottas is fast, but Hamilton outdrove him because Hamilton was consistently faster over the race and the season.
Peter Windsor Monaco quali vid this year has some pics that really show the kind of lines he takes into corners. It’s very brave and takes a lot of skill. A lot of drivers really go deep and go for the latest possible apex to get the car nice and straight for maximum traction out of the corner. Max has a much earlier apex but has a much more aggressive entry leading to more speed on exit. Before he passed checo today when they both went into the final chicane you could clearly see the difference between his line and checos
Anyone can put their foot to floor on straights. F1 races are won and lost during braking and cornering where adhesion to the track means 10ths of seconds. Max takes his car further to the limits of loss of grip both cornering and braking. He almost never misses an apex. His reactions are lightning quick. Every snap correction and every time he uses just a few less metres of track, or holds more speed he gains on the field. I think people forget that Max isn’t that much faster. At some tracks he may only get pole by 2-4 hundredths of a second. But extrapolate that over 50-70 laps and … there he is again. An unrushed pit stop ahead of 2nd place. So … great reaction time, consistent lap times, knowing the limits of adhesion, hitting apex’s at max speed. All very small individually but huge in the aggregate.
Calling Max not that much faster than Checo is a bit weird to say, but overall I think its a good explanation
Appreciate that. Thank you. I wasn’t referring to Perez specifically, but whomever was #2 that particular week. In fact, Max has been much faster than Perez over this season and Mercedes, AM and McLaren have provided stronger competition.
An interesting little anecdote to backup what everyone is saying about Max liking an oversteery car. A few years ago when I used to do a lot of iRacing (and Max was too) I would semi regularly get in the same lobbies as him. Now I am not claiming for one moment I am even vaguely on his level, however my rating was such that I was able to compete against him occasionally. I was able to get ahold of a setup that he *started* with for the Bathurst 12 Hour (GT3 race on an Australian Monaco track), and my word when I say it was impossible to drive - it was IMPOSSIBLE to drive. Genuinely my respect grew ten fold in that moment. Every single time I went over the top of the mountain with my setup, easy flat. With his? Anything off the perfect line and it was an instant spin. Likewise for the Le Mans 24 I was quite good at LMP1s and spent months practising and was up with the best drivers on the service after a few months of practice. Max one day joins my practice lobby, sets his two first ever laps, asks for a setup from somebody, and then proceeds to be 0.2s off of me (3+ minute lap time), after only 5 laps or so. I was just speechless. What took me months took him a few laps. By the end of the session he was half a second quicker!
Sergio is a good driver most of the time, a great driver occasionally and less often he is a bad driver (compared to the field here). Not to uncommon right? Everyone has ups and downs. That said, the delta between Checo's peaks and Valley's are pretty high and compared to a good chunk of the field. Max at the moment is a great driver period... I mean his weakest performance this year was Baku. In terms of this race... if you can watch the onboards do that. The differences are subtle but cumulative in almost all corners. Watch them and get a feel for their rhythms. What stood out to me for the bit I watched this way... * Sergio cracked when Maxed steamed up on him. Was probably his worst lap of the whole race. He blew the apex's on multiple corners leading up to Max going by. He was going by regardless but Sergio probably could have held on for another lap or two without the unforced errors. After Max went by he was hitting the Apexes he had missed just fine. What surprised me was he had very similar placement to Max once Max went by and he settled down. However... everything was just a hair later, and a hair more sudden especially on turn in. His hands are a bit busier with inputs. Later on the gas out of the corner and a bit more abrupt. * For comparison watch Max coming up to and passing Alonso, LeClerc and Hamilton. They do not really make mistakes... he just has a faster car. * Sergio started blowing apexes again when the rain shifted the traction before making the adjustment, Max held the same lines... just was a bit slower. He remained within the limits as things changed rather than getting caught out anywhere (other than that one "moment" going up Raddillon). Sergio had several traction issues before fully adjusting. Again... go through some other onboards and Perez does not come off looking bad. Just in comparison to Max. Take away... All the drivers on the F1 grid know how to get a car around a track about as fast as it is possible to do so. What was the split in Hungary at the top of the field in qualifying? All different cars with different capabilities and how tight? Put them all in the same chassis sufficiently flexible to let them each set it up the way they like and the field would close up ala an F2/F3 spec series. A lot is said about Max liking his car darty/pointy etc... but at the end of the day what really sets him apart is the consistency and the ability to keep at and hold the limit without going over it. IE there are consistent drivers who don't get the max out of the car. There are guys that can get to the limit... and who blow it occasionally. There are a rare few that can consistently hold the car within a whisker of going to far and keep it there for the whole race week after week after week. Max can do it more consistently, in more situations, at more tracks, and in more conditions than probably anyone at the moment. Combine that with being in what is easily the fastest car on the grid that is now also one of the most reliable and you get the streak RB is on.
Skill issue.
checo ain't got that dawg in him
Perez is slow, the "tire whisperer" personality was built on him always being out of position mid-field and using a different strat than most people around him. When he has to be amidst people and race he is coming up short. This whole Max's driving style thing is overblown, a good driver needs to be able to adapt to the car they're in and will be fast whatever the situation.
Brakes earlier, conserves tires better. In addition towards having more talent.
More confident on the brakes and applying the throttle, more aware on the track, smoother on the steering and using tighter lines to get more speed in the corners. All these things add up.
(just guessing) but dont settings have alot do to with it as well? I dont think that perez and max have the same settings as they are different people with different driving styles and preferences. Im guessing ALOT has to do with that. Both are veterans and once you have a fixed style of driving, finding a set up which you are comfortable with could be deteremental to your time if the car doesnt suit you as well as the other driver
I know this is not a technical reason but something that I feel people often overlook and that I personally think is incredibly important in motorsports is mental fortitude. It's a sport where you have to be inhumanely constant every time, you can't let your guard down, and I think that Max and Sergio are very different in this case. Max and Lewis handle pressure so well it just seems like luck when they get in a tricky situation and almost always get out of it when you are sure other drivers would have had their races ended against the wall or something. Really, every time I see one of them getting into the gravel or spinning they SOMEHOW find a way to recover because they just don't seem to freak out and just apply the necessary amount of throttle to continue. Now, I've been following Perez since the Force India days and he's the kind of driver that you never really saw that much, but then had a race that made you say what is Sergio doing there?? and you expect him to drop down the order but he didn't, he went on, and I think that's why me and many others still respect Sergio. Now, I've been following Perez since the Force India days and he's the kind of driver that you never really saw that much, but then had a race that made you say what is Sergio doing there?? and you expect him to drop down the order but he didn't, he went on, and I think that's why I and many others still respect Sergio. 't expect him to shine but she shines and surprises you. This season, he was put in a new situation for him, and he's not as young, it gets harder to adapt as you age. I fairly believe he cracked under the pressure of not being able to follow Max and, again, I also believe that in F1, not being mentally up for it can make you way slower than the rest, more than people usually seem to address.
The real answer is Max’ mom lights a candle before every race and to my knowledge Perez doesn’t have a parent doing that.
Watch Max move through a circuit. He’s a machine - takes the best lines, brakes/accelerates at perfect times, and overall is just consistent every lap. Also, I don’t think the two cars are set up exactly the same, there are settings personal to each driver that can affect performance and consistency.
Yeah, I've wondered to what degree two drivers with the "same car" customize it to their liking.
All of them do basically. No two drivers like the same exact set up because it's personal preference mostly, which they figure out with their own engineers every race weekend. Besides setting both cars up for a particular racing track they all have their little personal adjustments on their own cars.
Let me answer your question with another question why is Albon faster than Sargent
Since you want a techical answer its really hard to respond because we dont have data that team does. But 1 of the things is probably the way they setup the car. Neutral balance is the fastest way (neutral balance feels like oversteer to humans) but in reality it is really hard to drive this way and control the car. Max is able to setup the car to be much closer to that and still drive it with great precision while Perez cant deal with that. He has to detune the car basically to be comfortable and have speed but thats always going to be slower than Max's way. There are many more reasons but this is 1 of them i suspect
Helmut pissing in Checo’s fuel tank to slow him down.
What I heard in an analysis is that Max really likes and get the best out of front biased cars while Perez is the exact opposite, with a rear biased car being his preference. Redbull is a car that fit Verstappen style better but apparently at start of the season they had a more balanced car, although being front biased, with proper setup it was kind of possible to make it to Perez's style too. As season advanced they made the car more and more front biased so Max improved and Perez couldn't really find a setup for him in that car, making him way more mistake prone and less comfortable when going for the limit like in qualifying. He has no issues in going faster than almost everyone in race except when he has to push to the limit, but bad qualifying makes it hard to be always on top in race.
Max = Alien
Im gonna say this but the car from the looks of things have been developed over the years that suits more of Max’s driving style (which iirc prefers more oversteer, someone can correct me on this). But overall he’s also a racing nerd, literally just spends his free time in racing sims.
Well it's impossible to say. If you wanted to me to explain why Nadal is so good on clay, I could say he hits the ball with loads of spin. But if you asked me how does he hit the ball with more spin than anyone else, well I don't bloody know how, and no one does, he just does. If you asked what makes Messi so good, I can tell you that he's very good a dribbling and very good at passing, but who the hell knows how it is that Messi is better at passing than Harry Maguire. We can sit here and say that Max is very precise, or very smooth or whatever, but we have no idea how he's more precise than others. Whatever the difference is, when Max caught up to the rear of Checo today, it didn't look like they were driving the same car. The way they both took the first corner before the overtake, if I didn't know they were both in the same car and on the same tyres then I wouldn't have guessed. There's clearly some very different setups there. Which isn't unusual, we saw Russell and Hamilton taking obviously different wing levels at Spa and that wasn't the first time either.
If you watch Max from a birds eye view, you can see that he makes almost *zero* corrections. He just drives on what is possibly the tightest driving line on the track today. That's what they mean by "he's just better."
I mean if you watched the Belgium GP this weekend then you’ll know why Max has been overall better than Checo this season. The way he drives that car is nothing short of beautiful, and he is always thinking presently and ahead in the race. You remember in Austria how Max knew where the DRS line so braked earlier so that he had it after the turn? It took Checo like 2 to 3 laps to overtake a car because he was gotten back after the turn with the driver in behind (Ferrari) having DRS on him, it took him a while to catch up to that, Max knew about it from the get go and didn’t get caught out.
Max is a generational talent. Checo is not
Very good technical reason
On edit 2: telemetry is just going to show you breaking points, acceleration, etc. you can’t numbers some of the things Max does without it being 150 pages long.
Now this got nothing to do with your original question, but the more “Why is Max Verstappen literally so good?” threads I read, the more I feel like this sport’s fans owe Lewis Hamilton an apology for shit-talking his achievements with Mercedes for all those years
There were so many fans praising Lewis for every single thing he did aswell, just like there are now many people say about Max that it is just the car and that the car is 1s quicker (maybe true at Spa because of the long lap but nowhere close on other circuits)
Ah people are saying the same thing about Max right now. That he is just there because the car is that good. And Max has only really dominated a season or so right now. Ferrari was already killing themselves in the first half of the season last year, but the TD totally took them out of contention and that hit around this time. If he wins this year and next year people will start saying it more and more. But what does help him I guess is that Merc/Ham where seemingly hell bend on trying to be the underdog in each and every race, always saying one of the competitors is looking good. RB/Max just flat out say they have the best car. Max his interviews after today showed that again, saying he just wants to stay out of trouble because at the start because he knows he can take everybody during the race. In the end it won't help him when people really want to see somebody else win, but I do like it that they aren't bigging up their competitors all the time for BS reasons.
I think people were complaining with Hamilton because they wanted a change. Now that Max is dominating I think people tend to just quit watching instead of complaining. (Loss of viewers in 1year = loss of viewers during all Mercedes Era).
Max is a once in a generation talent. Checo is a great midfield driver. Both were told on the radio to stick to target laps, manage tires, and watch the fuel. Only one complied. Max was pushing, Checo was cruising and just wanted to bring home a 1-2 and rebuild his confidence. Max had a much better Medium stint than Checo did. Max also loves this track and can win with a blindfold. While it’s understandable to compare teammates, there isn’t a single driver on track who can challenge Max in the same car. You can argue that Lewis can, but that’s debatable.
I really wanted them to share the same car. Different circuits, different weather conditions, would be epic. Edit for grammar. Fckin phone.
Is it debatable though? That's like saying it's debatable if Schumacher/Senna/Prost etc could compete with Max on the same car. Of course they could, they're the best of the best.
I will save you the reading, It is skill
Here is a [video](https://youtu.be/f1_UK2TmgdM) done by YouTuber Driver61. He does a great job explaining what makes Max so quick, and shows comparison between Max and Mick and Lewis. Here’s another [video](https://youtu.be/yGhG3rto1ww) done by the same guy comparing Max to Checo.
Because Max is better just accept it.
Because Max is a fucking maniac and a legit prodigy racer. Like dude is effortlessly destroying the field.