No F1 thread?

[Zonda_]

Looks likely Perez is finally getting the boot if the rumours circulating are true.

Good but who will they put in his place?

[integrale_evo]

Liam Lawson probably.

Would struggle to find anyone much worse than Perez has been in the second half of the season.

[jamcg]

Promote Lawson leaving yuki sat there wondering why redbull hate him

[Mito Man]

Proper handbags at dawn

If this weekend ends with anything less than Max and George punting each other off I'll be disappointed!

[integrale_evo]

Max is such a tit. Complains like hell about George grassing him up but whinges like a little girl about the yellow flag.

[Gavin]

They all whinge on track, sometimes in post race interviews as well, but most seem to reconcile before the next race weekend, remember the media will be bigging it up as much as possible. Even the FIA might be quite glad given te new Race Director's performace and the top boy, looking more and more of a dick.

Fact is, nobody has ever had a grid penalty for getting in the way of another, when neither was on a timed lap, so I can absolutely see Max has a point, maybe not at George, but then I don't know how much he was lobbying against him in the backgrouund.

It is just the standard handbags though, it seems to be Geroge who is escalating it with comments to the media of how nobody ever stood up to Max apart from Lewis and then "that" decision in 2021 came, rather implying the FIA was with Max.

More and more I watch the race and swiucth off all other content as I just cannot be bioetherd with inane questins being asked week after week.

I find it quite refreshing when Max and occasionally others say "you asked that question last week, use another"

[MikeHunt]

Another season that seems to have flown by, we can forget 22/23 as this turned out to be up there with 21.

Fred will be chuffed with Charles and Lewis drives today, I do wonder if redbull coming 3rd will be a big enough financial hit for Perez to leave.

Amazing to see Crashley has become the first driver to not damage his car for the whole season.

[integrale_evo]

Seems to be pretty much an open secret that Perez is out, it’s just a matter of how RB do it. They had hoped getting him locked in early when his performance took a bit of a dip would take off the pressure and he’d get back to just concentrating on being a decent driver.

Unfortunately his performances have pretty much nose dived since then.

RB want him to retire, he still has a contract for next year so isn’t going to want to go without some sort of compensation. Seems a bit of a catch 22 both ways. Was he purposely shite because he wanted to go and knew RB would have to pay to force him to leave? Did RB somehow dull the performance of his car to make his performances worse so he’d think about just giving up? Is there a balance somewhere in the middle of that??

I guess we’ll just have to wait and see. There’s no way RB can keep him in a seat without looking very silly.

[jamcg]

A believable conspiracy theory- Did redbull deliberately make him shite to finish lower in the championship to gain more wind tunnel time for the new regs so max was free to win the drivers championship?

[Mito Man]

That or Perez really is some next level marketing for Latin America Red Bull sales. The rumour was would he either willingly retire and become a Red Bull ambassador or get pushed so I'm guessing we're at the get pushed stage now. I don't think any of the other Red Bull replacements are very good either. They all need to be scrapped with some new talent.

[MikeHunt]

Each place in the constructors is worth $9m and I doubt the sponsorship makes it worth finishing 3rd.

There were similar conspiracy theories about Hamilton, the cars and setup could well suit one driver more than the other but the teams are far too competitive to ever purposely hold back one of their drivers, its jut not in their DNA.

[duncs500]

There were similar conspiracy theories about Hamilton, the cars and setup could well suit one driver more than the other but the teams are far too competitive to ever purposely hold back one of their drivers, its jut not in their DNA.

Surely there's a load going on that we can't see with parts for the car? I would imagine there'd be little bits and bobs they'd be looking to collect data and driver feedback on for next season, they're not going to put anything like that on LH's car because whilst he can't take data to Ferrari, I expect they will be trying to download everything LH has seen and heard just in case there's some competitive advantage in there.

[duncs500]

Pleased to see McLaren win by the way, nice to see a bit of a changing of the guard for one season at least. Next season has a lot of potential!

[integrale_evo]

Perez officially oot

[DeskJockey]

Long overdue. He's been no help to the team for at least this season, probably nearly two.

Looks like Lawson is next in the cursed seat.

[Mito Man]

Looks like it's just going to be Max on his own
https://www.redbullracing.com/int-en/team

[jamcg]

I mean he was fifth in the constructors this year by himself

[mik]

No real surprise that The Stapp applies similar tactics in the virtual racing world. YouTuber missed the obvious-to-us (c)Maurice "Verstapp0wned" video title.....

Vid should start at the point where there is "another dude" between the camera car and Max. He succumbs to the pressure and totally misses his braking point. The Stapp is then, immediately, The Stapp.

Analysed from different angles from approx 18mins.

[Jimmy Choo]

Perez officially oot

Lawson in. I'm shocked by this. Shocked to my very core.

[Delphi]

I think Yuki's done a good enough job to deserve that seat at Red Bull, but then again, who would really want it as you'll be Vertsappen's perennial bitch?