Topic: Motosport General discussion tread --- Formula1, MotoGP, WTCC, ETCC, DTM..... - page 175. (Read 137833 times)

Leclecr is also the most talented in the grid even over Max as single lap performance, he did so many miracles in these years.

He need to improve in races but he has less expirience over Max, he will have time if he will have a competitive car.

Truthfully it wasn't an impressive race. The first laps of the race was really intriguing but after that it was just boring. There were some nice overtakes to watch. Sainz, Hamilton and Russell put up a good fight against each other. It was an unfortunate race for Hamilton by the way. Because first he lost power and not much time after he had a shifting problem which brought his end in the race. There wasn't much time left for the end of the race actually but he was unlucky. I hoped to see a good rivalry between Leclerc and Perez. But we didn't see any. Leclerc had a clean race and Perez couldn't close up the gap with him any time.

It was a deserved 2nd place for Leclerc so congrats to him. Lastly, it was really emotional to see Vettel finishing his last race in his career. Who knows maybe we can see him back in F1 in the future like Alonso.

I don't we could say that it's really surprsing or 'no one saw it coming'.  At the start of the 2022 season, anybody who follows F1 more closely would already have some sort of inkling that either Verstappen or Hamilton could somewhat win majority of the races with Leclerc as the dark horse.

So who watched the race?  And how was it?  I should have watched it as it was Vettel's final race but I forgot.  Lol.  I already liked him when everybody was annoyed by him and the finger during his younger years.    But in the end he was one of the most liked personalities in the sport.  He's a good guy.

I think it will be very hard for any one to try and break this record as someone needs to win 16 races out of 20-23 that one season will have.This can only happen in a season like that of 2009 where Brawn GP won almost every race of that season and the car was clearly better than any other and Jenson Button made great profit and won himself a super easy title back in that year.Now the competition is much bigger,there are much better drivers than there were in the year 2009 so it will be extremely difficult if not possible to break this record that Verstappen just put right now.

Verstappen won 15 of the 22 races. Is anyone ever going to beat that record again? Certainly at the beginning of the season, no one saw that coming. At the beginning of the season, Leclerc was still able to catch up, but after that it was over for Ferrari. It's a pity for Perez that he didn't manage to get 2nd place, otherwise he would have also taken 2nd place in the general classification. All in all, a supsr season for Red Bull, and let's hope that next season will be a lot more exciting and that Hamilton can also participate in the title fight.

Image source: https://gpracingstats.com/seasons/2022-world-championship/pole-positions/

This image shows the drivers who have taken pole positions so far. Even though Verstappen is already the champion even he is behind Leclerc about pole position statistics. Leclerc has 9 poles while Verstappen has 7 now. This proves how strong Ferrari have been in qualifying sessions so far despite their having weaknesses and making big mistakes in races. On this week Ferrari managed to get past Mercedes. Leclerc is starting right behind Perez which is really going to be interesting.

Both drivers need as much points as possible for securing the second spot in the driver championship. Leclerc is normally a more aggressive driver than Perez indeed. If he doesn't have important problems with the car or any other mistakes by the team then I think he can finish ahead of Perez. But as Perez is a great driver about defense he can make big difficulties for him at the same time. We can watch a wonderful rivalry in this very last race of the season.

There will be drama only if something happens during the start because if they start correctly all of them,the Redbull was better in speed and had better top speed during the DRS zones here compared to Ferrari.Ferrari have their chances if they can follow up closely and then to use the DRS to pass Perez,of course they need to look out for Mercedes drivers too because the pace of the race for the Mercedes team is much better compared to their qualifying pace.

I think Verstappen does not play a role here,if he gets ahead and wins the race then is up to Perez to keep behind the Ferraris and surely Redbull has the pace to do so.

Congratulations to the factory Ducati that today has managed to get two more champions, namely the champion as the best team and also the champion as the best factory in WSBK this season after Race1 Australia ended. This year, Ducati has really succeeded because it has been able to win the MotoGP world title and also the WSBK world champion by bringing home three trophies at once in each championship.

I feel like Mick is just too young to be let go right away, dude was racing with Haas, and yes I agree this year he was terrible, but so far he has not raced with a proper car and let him go? Right away like that? I feel like he is just dealt a bad hand and could come back.

I suggest him to be either in indycar or in even e-formula which would be a lot better. He would both be staying in the formula family, and he would be able to show himself if he is really that good or not. If he wins something, he would have a chance to come back. I disagree on all these reserve driver talks, that is not good, it's better if he drivers in a race all year, would give him more chances to showcase his talents.

I strongly believe that Leclerc will be very keen to finish second, and I hope that he can build on this for the next season because personally I had expected a lot from Ferrari this season but they didn’t live up to the hype. Lastly it’ll definitely be a tough race for Leclerc, because Perez wouldn’t want to let him seal that second spot without a fight hence I’m expecting lots of drama in this race.

Yes... Sérgio Pérez and Charles Leclerc appear tied, both with 290 points. However, the Ferrari driver is ahead because the tiebreaker is having achieved more victories in the season... he has three against two of his Mexican rival.

I still believe that Leclerc will be able to get ahead of Pérez in the next race and take second place, we'll see if that actually happens.
I believe that Verstappen himself will not make it easy for Pérez, consequently helping Leclerc in this achievement.

Leclerc is ahead of Perez now in the driver standings already despite the equal points situation. It must be related to the total wins in this season maybe. Because Leclerc must have one more wins than Perez in this season so far. In case of they stay at equal points then Leclerc must be finishing at the second position.

But I feel like Perez can finish ahead of Leclerc anyway. He seems more ambitious now and he has a car advantage as well.

Important question who will be driver of the day in the last race - Vettel or GOATifi? With all respect to GOAT, I hope that it will be Seb. And it would be nice if he will finish in points tomorrow. But damn, time flies so fast. For me it looks that he started not that long time ago, I still remember his first win with Toro Rosso like it was yesterday.

That's good question. I'm not 100%, but I think that then they will look at h2h results of Perez and Leclerc. Something similar when they decide who will be above when multiple drivers have 0 points.

Max ambitions is one thing, but I don't beleive that Brazil scenario will repeat. It because Red Bull simply need that Perez would deliver 2nd place and I think that they had serious talk with Verstappen about it.

what happens if they will end with the same amout of points?

Anyway RBR is much strongher now he should have a confortable win or second spot.

I think this was because of Mercedes having fewer sets of new soft tires which most likely they are conserving for the race and that is why they were off the pace that they had at Interlagos.I knew that it would have been much more difficult here as Verstappen is if I remember correctly was three consecutive times on pole and two consecutive wins here which tomorrow if every thing goes well may be three victories.A good thing is that after qualifying he shake hands with Perez and they even nearly hug each other which is a good sign that the team work is going well.

^  At this point of the season, I hope something exciting happens.  Lolol.


In the end, it's F1 after all...  And in order to get pole position and win races, you need a really good car besides having a really good driver.  That's why Mercedes dominated the sport for 8 years prior to Red Bull winning it with Verstappen last season.

Anyway here are the results for quali.  I didn't watch it because I...  forgot.  Lmao.  And I didn't really care much about it anymore and had no interest taking a little action in it as the lines really have no value.  The books have gotten really sharp.

2022 F1 Abu Dhabi GP Qualification Results

1   Max Verstappen   NED   Oracle Red Bull Racing   1m24.754s   1m24.622s   1m23.824s
2   Sergio Perez   MEX   Oracle Bull Racing   1m24.820s   1m24.419s   1m24.052s
3   Charles Leclerc   MON   Scuderia Ferrari   1m25.211s   1m24.517s   1m24.092s
4   Carlos Sainz   ESP   Scuderia Ferrari   1m25.090s   1m24.521s   1m24.242s
5   Lewis Hamilton   GBR   Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team   1m25.594s   1m24.774s   1m24.508s
6   George Russell   GBR   Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team   1m25.545s   1m24.940s   1m24.511s
7   Lando Norris   GBR   McLaren F1 Team   1m25.387s   1m24.903s   1m24.769s
8   Esteban Ocon   FRA   BWT Alpine F1 Team   1m25.735s   1m25.007s   1m24.830s
9   Sebastian Vettel   GER   Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant Formula One Team   1m25.523s   1m24.974s   1m24.961s
10   Daniel Ricciardo   AUS   McLaren F1 Team   1m25.766s   1m25.068s   1m25.045s
11   Fernando Alonso   ESP   BWT Alpine F1 Team   1m25.782s   1m25.096s   
12   Yuki Tsunoda   JPN   Scuderia AlphaTauri    1m25.630s   1m25.219s   
13   Mick Schumacher   GER   Haas F1 Team   1m25.711s   1m25.225s   
14   Lance Stroll   CAN   Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant Formula One Team   1m25.741s   1m25.359s   
15   Zhou Guanyu   CHN   Alfa Romeo F1 Team Orlen   1m25.594s   1m25.408s   
16   Kevin Magnussen   DEN   Haas F1 Team   1m25.834s       
17   Pierre Gasly   FRA   Scuderia AlphaTauri   1m25.859s       
18   Valtteri Bottas   FIN   Alfa Romeo F1 Team Orlen   1m25.892s       
19   Alex Albon   THA   Williams Racing   1m26.028s       
20   Nicholas Latifi   CAN   Williams Racing

A very good starting position for Perez to win the runner-up title. Verstappen won't let Perez pass or anything like that, you just have to hope that Verstappen and Perez don't have an accident...

I'm a bit surprised that Mercedes has a bigger gap to RedBull and Ferrari again?

I think that Mercedes did well only in the first practice,in the second one Verstappen was clearly the fastest,we have the third one before the qualification at 11.30 Am European time while the official qualifying starts at 15 Pm European time.It will be interesting to see how drivers will behave in this third practice,most likely Mercedes will push to their 100% as they want to see how much they have improved while Redbull and Verstappen may not give 100% in this third practice and leave everything for the official qualifying.I think in the end it won't be this easy here in Abu Dhabi as it was in Interlagos for Mercedes.

Firstly, the Mexican regretted everything he said about his Red Bull teammate at Interlagos and wants to resume the good atmosphere in the team from now on, even if it's just for one more circuit until they enjoy the holidays and cool off.
However, as hard-headed as Verstappen is, I believe he would follow his team's orders at the end of the day.
Because it's one thing to win a race, it's another to maintain confidence in the team to continue having a good season next year.

Mercedes are just as most people expected. They are stronger from now on and they are again a big challenge for Red Bull drivers. I think we will watch another domination by Russell and Hamilton on podium. This time Hamilton might go for the win on his last attempts for a win in this season. Russell got his first career win in the previous race so he might race a little more comfortably maybe.

I'm curious about what Perez and Verstappen will do this time as well. After the recent incidents I can't predict what can happen if we see some competition between them in the race.