Also 4th in constructors is up for grabs, should make for a good race.

Not a good start for Ferrari as Carlos stuffs it hard into the soft wall . Must suck wrecking the car in practice .

What's with Verstappen passing 3 or 4 cars in the pit out P2
actually squeezing them to the wall. Rude if nothing else. Not nice for a champ IMO

What I have been saying. The guy is a total dick.

I agree the passing on pit lane was extreme, but what he did was not against any rule.

Must not be as he's done it before.

Agreed.


F1 has really picked up it's game with the TV coverage although some of the non race related stuff is a bit much. The "beautiful people" I can do without.

A couple of races back they started to put up tire age by lap next to the drivers name and I found that to be interesting. When theres a head to head drag down the straight and they have the side by side scrolling numbers, I find it impossible to watch both numbers for a top speed and thats what the purpose is but the slowing numbers distract from that, why not change the color of the top speed and freeze it, so theres a side by side top speed advantage stat. Do the decelerating numbers on a seperate bit, its too much info too fast and you don't take much away from it. It's always shown numerous times during the race but not at Vegas and that was hyped as the track with the highest top speed but nothing was mentioned about the top speed on the main straight.
There was an all time fastest 4 tire pit stop a few races back, a pretty amazing feat IMO, why don't we have the fastest pit stop times posted?? Why not have a season long total time or fastest time per team per race and have some sort of recognition for the pit crews and an award (money) for the best/fastest team that year, providing Toto allows it, I wonder if his middle name is Richard, Toto Dick, I like it, has a truthful ring to it. I'd like to see more of Sam C., more Bernie and Natille P. and way less Danica.

How did LeClerc pull that lap out of a hat?

Final race should bring no surprises.

Fight for constructor #2 should be a battle with both Ferrari and Mercedes having only one driver reach Q3.

Watch out, McLaren could just snatch 2nd, that would be amazing and hope they cause a huge upset...

Don't often quote press articles but this is 100% accurate

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/alpine-lacked-enthusiasm-and-drive-to-progress-in-f1-fry/10551458/

It is kinda funny that F1 folks scheduled Abu Dhabi a week after Vegas. They are as far apart as is physically possible for time zones, a full 12 hours apart. That has to be hard on every team member.

I wish F1 would have more European races, and forget China, and Singapore and the Arab venues with no history of car manufacture. Monaco is only on the calendar because it has the long history of racing there for the last 80 years. But I guess as long as the various countries throw billions at F1 races we will see them on the calendar.

I have to admire the Dutch GP with zero government funds spent on the race.

I like that Williams might be consistently up the front half of the grid if it works out. They should grab Alonso too. A great way to finish a career would be to help a team move up to be a top contender. I know FA has a contract through '24 and he will be 43 during the season. But it doesn't seem that keeping Logan Sargeant will help with a team climbing the ladder.

Sorry, but he's a last place driver driving for a struggling team.

Logan had a great time excluded from exceeding track limits. I say give him another year. Pretty hard to come into a bottom team and get results.

Zeke. Alonso is doing what you speak - with Aston Martin.

If Sergeant keeps his seat, that means not one team is changing the driver's lineup.

One other weird fact the announcers mentioned is if no Brit wins the race tomorrow it will be the first time since 1952 that the British national anthem was not played at the podium. Pretty amazing streak of winning.

And the season is over 😔 . Let's hope next year has better racing with less dominance by one team . But I wouldn't bet on it .

I'm here for a spoiler, crib notes of the race because....
How did everyone like the kids calling the race today?
Is F1 trying to get more 10 year old's to watch racing?
I found it unwatchable.
Cartoon graphics and munchkins for commentary.
Totally trivializing F1, thanks for explaining what bottoming out means.
Turned it off after fast forwarding and found it was going to be a long race with kids that sounded like their lungs were full of helium.

Anthony Davidson in the pre race show with the ghost car qualifying lap overview was the only segment worth watching. :)

It was horrible. I turned the sound off after realizing it was not going to be a five lap novelty. The graphics were an insult to anyone not in kindergarden.

Huh, I luckily did not have that experience with my viewing through the ESPN app.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

That sounds terrible. F1TV used their regular commentators.

Think next year should be slightly different

Redbull, Honda and Verstappen broke every record going, once in a lifetime season :cool:

If ever there was the perfect example of lucking in with the right time and the right place, this is it :D

My F1 career goes downhill from here ;)

2024 Entry fees, due by 12/10
 

The FIA have updated their Sporting Regulations and added a 6.5% increase (the US Consumer Price Index) to the entry fee required from each team next season.

The winners of the constructors’ championship, Red Bull, must fork out $657,837 (£543,294) plus an additional $7,893 (6,518.67) per point scored this year.

The other teams must pay $657,837 (£543,294) plus an additional $6,575 (£5,429).

So, based on every team's final points tally following the F1 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, the invoices stand at...

Red Bull - $7,445,817
Mercedes - $3,347,012
Ferrari - $3,327,287
McLaren - $2,643,747
Aston Martin - $2,498,837
Alpine - $1,446,837
Williams - $841,937
AlphaTauri - $822,212
Alfa Romeo - $763,037
Haas - $736,737

Max lead for 1,000 laps this season.

Only 11 drivers have led more than a 1,000 laps in their entire career!

Career laps in the lead:

Lewis Hamilton: 5,455 laps
Michael Schumacher: 5,111 laps
Sebastian Vettel: 3,501 laps
Ayrton Senna: 2,931 laps
Max Verstappen: 2,806 laps
Alain Prost: 2,683 laps
Nigel Mansell: 2,091 laps
Jim Clark: 1,943 laps
Jackie Stewart: 1,919 laps
Fernando Alonso: 1,773 laps
Nelson Piquet: 1,600 laps

Another astonishing statistic, Max is the ONLY driver that finished every lap of every race. Proving the old addage: To finish first, first you must finish.

A success tax! The FIA are no dummies when it comes to making money.

I noticed the same. Immediately. I use YouTube TV as my provider and went back and noticed that there were actually FIVE viewing options - the first option was "ESPNU" and the second was just plain 'ol 'ESPN". I had just grabbed the first one, and and quickly realized the error of my ways, lol. I went back and selected the second option - basic ESPN - and was presented with the normal hosts.

Stay away from ESPNU if you're older than about 5 years of age.

We watched it on ESPN and it was all the adult announcers. No way at all will I ever listen to kids for a race announcers.

I will pay attention to this option now. I don't know if the scars will ever go away.

Some of the records from this year.

Full list of every record broken by Max Verstappen in 2023
Highest percentage of wins in a season
Most wins in a season
Most points in a season
Most consecutive wins
Most podiums in a season
Most laps led in a season
Highest percentage of laps led in a season
Most consecutive wins from pole
Most wins from pole in a season
Biggest points gap between 1st and 2nd in standings.
Most consecutive races as championship leader
Most consecutive points scored
Most consecutive top-two finishes
Most hat-tricks in a season
Most pitstops by the winning driver in one race
Only driver to win 3 times in 1 country
Only driver to lead 1000 laps ever in a season

^^ Amazing domination, but boring as could be for anyone NOT a RBR fan. With that said, congrats to a job very well done by RBR and Max. It's up to the other teams to try to catch them.

I wonder how he’d do in the Williams next year. It be tough and that’s one reason to tip the hat to all the midfielder runners. Chasing that RB car with little hope must be a challenge.

Much like the years Mercedes was just the fastest thing on track. The domination is boring for all but Max's fans.

Maybe the other teams can step up. They are not even close right now. When Red Bull has more points than the 2nd and 3rd place teams combined, it is not a real contest.

Mercedes won it all for what 8 years?

Wow :eek: that's total domination

From this long list my favourite record broken has to be 'highest % wins in a season' set by Honda in 1988 and broken by Honda 35yrs later :cool:

And Ferrari had their heyday with Schumacher. If Porsche killed CanAm, as some people think, RB could do big damage to F1 if they repeat this year.

An overall comment, not aimed at RB or anyone in particular, when is fast fast enough?

For so many years Mercedes was just in a class of their own. It is not the winner's fault that figured out the right formula to win. The others need to step up.

Here's a 1350hp blast from the past:

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/9t4yfHfTfDs?si=MR9GPdJcB3Xgwnlq" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Posting just because this is comment 993 in the list....

Need to take away Newey's pencil if folks want to regularly poke around the front of the grid. That guy has an pack of championships to his credit - not solely as a result of his designs, of course, but a review of his resume is enlightening.

the rules are designed to prevent that.

Limits on spending,
limits on testing,
limits on wind tunnel work,
all maintain the status quo.

Before anyone calls for Adrian Newey's forced retirement, don't forget the driver of the second Red Bull only just managed to get second in the championship. I am not Max's biggest fan, but the combination of car and driver made the difference, just as when Hamilton and Mercedes or Schumacher and Ferrari were winning and raising a great whining noise in the "fan base".

Best
Les

Glorious, thanks for posting.

And wow, those rules were so effective in 2023.

it would seem they were effective at preventing improvements,
as only McLaren managed to make
any sizeable improvement during the 2023 season.

Of course, red bull exceeded the spending limit
but I believe that happened in 2022.
just prior to the total dominance referenced above.


F1 was always about the best.
The fastest, the most technologically innovative,
the most daring. Racing at the limits of what is possible.
That is what made it so interesting.

Now it's all about business.
Not racing.

Hoping the news I've just heard from a very well connected friend is wrong

Andretti/GM will not be pleased :(

Stinks for so many reasons and will send out an extremely bad message for many years :mad: