2021 Race 1 Bahrain

[airshifter]

I am not impressed with Perez. He is the guy on the dodge ball team who is most comfortable hanging back, biding his time, waiting for somebody to make a mistake, picking up the scraps.

He is in the car that got pole position, but he ended up 11th in qualifying. Albon qualified 4th in this GP last year.

In the race, I won't ding Perez for the issue on the warmup lap, but you can go into a lap by lap comparison and throw out the pitting, safety car laps and look for comparable lap times between him and Max and you find:

Perez averaged 0.8 seconds behind Max for the race that for total of 38.3 seconds behind max in raw pace in 52 laps.

Albon similarly on the same track averaged 0.52 seconds behind Max using 49 laps for 25.8 seconds. Albon finished 3rd in the race.

Perez has to be better. He has to be in position that if Max and Hamilton take each other out, he wins the race.

Albon only advanced due to the fact the Bottas got a puncture and Perez blew up. Otherwise he would have lost positions during the race. That was after a season and a half in the car. Sergio rolled the dice in qually on the harder tires, and paid the price. But the pre race issues cost him the other positions.

Though he is a more experienced driver, thinking his first drive in a new seat should always eclipse Albon's better drives is just rather reaching IMHO. As compared to the race of Bottas today, Perez was more or less superhuman. Comparing apples to oranges will always skew things.




As for the track limits thing, I think that was Horners way of making sure it was on record that Merc (and others) were breaching the rules. Strange that there was no enforcement until well after he told Max to ignore the rules also. I personally think that when it's been spelled out that clear that they should set the example early in the race and issue warnings on the initial offenses.

[Nitrodaze]

As for the track limits thing, I think that was Horners way of making sure it was on record that Merc (and others) were breaching the rules. Strange that there was no enforcement until well after he told Max to ignore the rules also. I personally think that when it's been spelled out that clear that they should set the example early in the race and issue warnings on the initial offenses.

Well, Horner's complaints about track limits eventually cost Redbull the race. That Verstappen's overtake with 2 laps to go may have been overlooked by the stewards otherwise. And he may have gone on to win the race. As Hamilton with ragged tyres would not have been able to fight with him thereafter.