Topic: 🏁🏎️ Sportsbet.io🏁 FORMULA 1 2023 Season🏁🏎️Prediction Pool Discussion Thread - page 58. (Read 20701 times)

The qualifying was lovely last night. Ricciardo was just incredible by that high level pace. I was quite shocked to see an AlphaTauri being this strong.    He finished the session in 4th place right behind Verstappen. But I guess that Ricciardo would experience the same thing Ferrari do regularly.    I think that he will also stay slower in racing pace but maybe he can still get one point at least.

Verstappen was quite slow compared to Ferrari drivers. His last sector was quite slow and that was the main reason.

However I believe Verstappen will overtake both of them in the race. I'm just wondering whether Perez and Hamilton can also do the same.  

From what I am seeing him doing in the Practice 2 and now live in Practice 3 it is showing that he is there 4th or 5th and I believe starting from such position if he manages to also do well in the Pole Position which starts just 2 hours from now I see him doing well in the race and why not achieve a much much needed podium after his disastrous recent races,if he cannot put up a good show even at home soil then I think it will be game over for him and he may be replaced despite having signed a contract for 2024.

Redbull has done it several times changing drivers in the middle of the season,they always leave a clause in their contract that if the driver does not do a minimum required from him he may be fired for the moment like happened with Albon not long ago.

Thanks for reminder, jeremypwr. I actually somehow forgot about qualification and didn't even submitted picks on Superbru, despite watching practice yesterday. Now everything is fixed . Picks on Superburu submitted, prediction contest too.
Difficult to expect something unexpected to happen when you see what Verstappen is doing in practice. I only hope that Perez will have decent race at home soil, it's needed that much for home in such difficult season.

Let's see what the most mediocre driver of the all grid which is Perez who is racing at home will do in such track as he too has a Redbull car to drive.In the last 10 races or so he has been consistently the worse driver of the grid but I think in this one at least in front of his public if the car feels well,he can surprise us for the good to give a strong fight in the race for getting at least in the podium,it should not be that difficult with a car being in perfect condition for such track.

For the picks I will wait to see the end of the free practice after about 30 minutes and then will decide but most likely going with the same picks I have had during much of the season except I need to replace Stroll with someone else,he looks like he is in great contention with Perez as who is the worse driver of 2023 season.

Good reminder from above -- if you've paid, put your picks, and then predictions on forum My picks in long before I went to bed last night, but if I'm not mistaken, we still get the chance to change our picks today based on practice results?

Oh wait, practice showed Max to be the quickest. Big surprise, there. Perez got a respectable third, so I'm wondering if I should give homeboy a podium right next to Max. And Yuki moved out of 10th after his big penalty haha.

Max Dominating free practice 2.

I think there will be no contender today, RBR seems to be very fast on the track.

Reminder to the following people to make your Predictions before the Qualifying session on Saturday 
Future F1 Prediction Contests will be non-exclusive if more people don't participate (you've already paid; can't understand why you wouldn't make a Prediction...)

yeah, Albon is doing a great season so far.

But keep in mind that we are near the end of the season and the teams are using low RPM on their engine to avoid penalties, so the free practice can be really wrong as timing.

Albon's pace in Free Practice 1 session was really impressive. For now it looks like Perez is ambitious for his home Grand Prix.    But Free Practice can be quite misleading about some drivers and let's see if Perez will disappoint his fans in qualifying.

I saw Theo Pourchaire driving an Alfa Romeo in this session. He had only 4 laps though and no time set but I think he has a big potential. I see him as the most promising F2 driver now and he might also find a chance in Formula 1 just like Piastri in a couple of years at worst.

2023 F1 Mexico City Grand Prix - Free Practice Results (1)
Pos    Driver    Nat.   Team    Time
1   Max Verstappen   NED   Oracle Red Bull Racing   1m19.718s
2   Alex Albon   THA   Williams Racing   1m19.813s
3   Sergio Perez   MEX   Oracle Bull Racing   1m20.015s
4   Lando Norris   GBR   McLaren F1 Team   1m20.237s
5   Charles Leclerc   MON   Scuderia Ferrari   1m20.297s
6   Oscar Piastri   AUS   McLaren F1 Team   1m20.463s
7   Carlos Sainz   ESP   Scuderia Ferrari   1m20.479s
8   Daniel Ricciardo   AUS   Scuderia AlphaTauri   1m20.568s
9   Esteban Ocon   FRA   BWT Alpine F1 Team   1m20.677s
10   Lance Stroll   CAN   Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant Formula One Team   1m20.687s
11   Lewis Hamilton   GBR   Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team   1m20.724s
12   Nico Hulkenberg   GER   MoneyGram Haas F1 Team   1m20.968s
13   Zhou Guanyu   CHN   Alfa Romeo F1 Team Stake   1m21.219s
14   Logan Sargeant   USA   Williams Racing   1m21.157s
15   Oliver Bearman   GBR   MoneyGram Haas F1 Team   1m21.313s
16   Fernando Alonso   ESP   Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant Formula One Team   1m21.347s
17   Isack Hadjar   FRA   Scuderia AlphaTauri    1m21.941s
18   Jack Doohan   AUS   BWT Alpine F1 Team   1m21.2109s
19   Frederik Vesti   DEN   Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team   1m22.937s
20   Theo Pourchaire   FRA   Alfa Romeo F1 Team Stake   No Time Set


1st hour done, a lot of young drivers (they need to race for the regulation from FIA).

It seems it will be a Redbull dominance, source : https://www.crash.net/f1/results/1039292/1/f1-mexico-city-grand-prix-2023-friday-practice-results

I'm afraid Stroll has just been a big disappointment for Aston Martin so far.    I don't think he would have been able to stay much long at a team whose owner isn't his father. Even his father must be really fed up with his bad performances. Because Aston Martin made an insane progress before but only Alonso took advantage of it.

Stroll wasn't an unskilled driver actually. I don't know what is going wrong on his side. Maybe he has concentration issues because he makes simple mistakes which costs him points.

Perez has always been very motivated and good for a podium finish at the Mexico Grand Prix, but at the moment, although he is second in the championship, he is not very good in the races and makes mistakes. Maybe the home race will be the right time for him to come out of his slump.

Absolutely true,Stroll I don't know what he does racing in F1 as clearly this is not his passion at all otherwise with that car in the early part of the season at least he should have done similarly well to Alonso,not quite well as Alonso as he lacks experience but similarly he should had done.

In this second part of the season Stroll has been really weak in every official qualifying and also in every race that followed,I think he only got into points in these last race because of Alonso failure and 2 disqualifications that happened to drivers in front of him.

By the way there has been a really big rate of drop in Alonso's performance for quite many races. Until Zandvoort GP he got 7 podiums in 14 races. This is a really magnificent performance. Aston Martin made a huge progress with big updates on the car in the first times of the season.

However after leaving the first half of the season behind Aston Martin started to fall behind a lot. Alonso's best ranking was 6th place in the last 5 races. Aston Martin also admitted that their simulation data misled them on this road.

Still I really admire Alonso as he is really carrying the team by himself in the standings. 

I thought that 10 points in this round was bed result, but obviously two disqualifications made life miserable for most in the pool
nevertheless, stuck at 15 place in general placement, and can hardly go anywhere from there (I think that last 10 races I am on position 15)

have to say that season was really boring, with Max winning every race, and occasionally being far from top in qualifications, so you can watch him overturning lower cars, as they are driving scooters compared to him
hope that next season will be better

Well those disqualifications made the top standings very interesting up to second place from 8th place at least,anyone having a real chance to jump positions in these last 4 races remaining.I thought I would do really bad with only 9 points but I see I am 6th and just 2.5 points away from the top three spots which is a real objective.I thought I would never be fighting for a top 5 spot in here after this race but those disqualifications gave hope to me and many other people who were not thinking at all to be able to fight for those spots just 2 races before.

In fact, according to what I read, if the team didn't make that blunder/error, not only they wouldn't have caused Hamilton to be disqualified, he would have found the race easier to complete and even won it.

So they actually admitted this and so I don't think any amount of complaining can help them now.

The result defeated me too, I thought I got back to 2nd position but now went back down to 3rd.

It is a new race week now! Mexico Grand Prix is up next and this is a special race for Sergio Perez absolutely. I haven't been satisfied with his performance in the recent times though. He has been struggling a lot and it has been quite much time since we saw him on podium the last time. 

But maybe this race would be some extra motivation for him to do a good job in qualifying and go for podium in the race as well. I checked the statistics of the most recent race weekends here in 2021 and 2022. The podiums were idential to each other - Verstappen won and Hamilton - Perez duo were coming right behind respectively. Let's see what happens this time. 

Superbru is now up to date with the points and Ulven has taken first place by a large margin, congratulations.

Yes, Hamilton and Leclerc were diqualified because of the skid block, I also read today that Mercedes has accepted the verdict and will not appeal.



EXPLAINED: Why Hamilton and Leclerc were disqualified from the United States GP

The race got quite interesting indeed after the changes made which affected the podium directly at the same time. Hamilton really deserved that position and even a win maybe. Because he could have made it if there was even one more lap. But instead he got disqualified. I guess that they complained to FIA already but I wouldn't expect the decision to change.

Now we are in another race week indeed. Mexico is home country for Perez but I doubt him a lot anyway. I doubt him but I still continue to add him into my podium picks though.