Rana

Neutralised Leclercs's talent??? Did we watch a different Chinese GP because he still looked pretty talented wheel-to-wheel with Lewis? Sure Max has a bad car but you can't blame the regs for Red Bull getting it wrong combined with a new engine project.

formula 1 >>> football

It's no surprise that the discourse will lie somewhere on the lines of "Drivers have been neutered before" "What about DRS/KERS" "WIndsor is a Max fan" "Won't be complaining if they had the best car" "Look at the racing" etc etc. All fair/unfair, it's on you to classify it in whichever compartment you want. With the new cars, if we focus on the key points that are being made here instead of the hubris of personal attacks, the points are worth considering. The cars are being run well within themselves during a lap, which is significantly reducing the impact a driver can make. You look at the onboards, be it qualifying or races, what we're looking at is a scenario where drivers are being ....well...as Windsor or Hill or so many others at this point have said, "Neutered" what that means is some of the skills where they made a difference have been diminished. Now, this doesn't mean that elite talents will not eventually find a way and once again rise to the top, they will. But would the scope be diminished? Yes! But what that also means is, we're limited in how much of an impact a driver can have on the overall performance. A few years back, Bottas made a claim in an interview that 90% of the overall result is the car, with the current set, that "90%" figure might end up getting a bump and i'm not sure if that's the right thing. Do I want a sport where driver impact on the overall performance is reduced? No. For "wheel-to-wheel" action, do I prefer drivers being forced to drive well within themselves for the entire lap? No but then, that's my preference. It doesn't have to be yours, and if you prefer something else, IT's FINE! F1 has a critical call to make here. Far too often, there has been a tendency with sports across the world where a direction has to be chosen, keep the essence of the what "the sport" is, or go with the "mainstream" appeal Currently, the sport is at that crossroads. -On surface, what we have, looks great -The driver fans of top 2 teams and maybe a few others are cheering it on on the other hand, -There's a clear diminishing of driver impact -We're looking at some of the key skills being left off the table At the end of the day, it's a call that the custodians of the sport have to make.... pick a side, whichever suits them 🙂 P.S: I'll be making the same statements if it was someone else winning, my "Favorite" driver retired in 2012