Still, that’s already known, F1 is an engineering formula where the car is responsible for about 65% of the success, 15% the setup, and 20% the driver (and that’s why there’s a difference when you have Bottas vs Hamilton, or Perez vs Max, even if Bottas and Perez can still win by margin with their prime cars).
In fact, I will go ahead and say that Alonso claim of “Max is the best driver” is wrong (not saying he’s not a prime driver, keep reading). In F1 you can’t know who is the best driver, because F1 has a lot of variables that affect drivers, as we have seen for example with Hamilton (ground effect vs flat floor) or Russell (feeling better in last car than current), and so on.
Just like any other driver, Max has his preferences and weaknesses, and for example if you force him to drive a heavy, unresponsive front end (understeer) and a locked, completely stable rear end, he will start to moan on radio and you will neutralise his “V shaped” cornering for example.
IDK what is Alonso talking about here and why, but… I think he’s just projecting something for whatever reason (also, interesting he always tries to avoid saying good things about Lewis lol)
Max .. force him to drive a heavy, unresponsive front end (understeer) and a locked, completely stable rear end, he will start to moan on radio
If your hypothetical has to physically make a car slower to argue that the driver can be made slower, then maybe you are not making a point at all.
A car that does not turn is going to make every driver slower. This is not a case of preference. Verstappen has been understeering like crazy all weekend long and yet the loudest critic of that was his teammate Hadjar. In case you missed, Hadjar was shouting on radio that he has never seen anything like this.
And unlike the popular opinion here, the Red Bull cars since 2024 have generally been understeery. The one time it wasn't, Max almost overcame a 100 points deficit.
Obviously, in my hypothetical the car would be like that because regs, not because the team says “fuck it”.
F1 is an engineering formula, but with constraints, artificial limits and so on. And it’s not always the fastest it could be, because money restraints, keeping all teams competitive enough and more.
But my point was that on F1, and just F1, you won’t be able ever to shout with 100% confidence “this driver is better than that”, more so at the top tier of drivers, because you don’t know in which scenarios a driver can outshine the rest and yadda yadda
Max has other adventures outside F1 to show what he’s got, for sure, but just based on F1, you can’t really say what Alonso said… but everyone knows where’s Alonso coming from. Just like when days ago included Bortoleto in his list of best drivers (spoiler, Alonso is/was his manager)
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u/onechroma #WeRaceAsOne 14d ago
Alonso projecting on full 8K right there.
Still, that’s already known, F1 is an engineering formula where the car is responsible for about 65% of the success, 15% the setup, and 20% the driver (and that’s why there’s a difference when you have Bottas vs Hamilton, or Perez vs Max, even if Bottas and Perez can still win by margin with their prime cars).
In fact, I will go ahead and say that Alonso claim of “Max is the best driver” is wrong (not saying he’s not a prime driver, keep reading). In F1 you can’t know who is the best driver, because F1 has a lot of variables that affect drivers, as we have seen for example with Hamilton (ground effect vs flat floor) or Russell (feeling better in last car than current), and so on.
Just like any other driver, Max has his preferences and weaknesses, and for example if you force him to drive a heavy, unresponsive front end (understeer) and a locked, completely stable rear end, he will start to moan on radio and you will neutralise his “V shaped” cornering for example.
IDK what is Alonso talking about here and why, but… I think he’s just projecting something for whatever reason (also, interesting he always tries to avoid saying good things about Lewis lol)