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Model Citizen
Join Date: May 2007
Location: The Voodoo Lounge
Posts: 19,332
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You might be right about the slowest time needing a stewards exemption to make the grid; There was definitely a 107% rule when 30 cars would show up to race, but those days are long over and these days, no matter how slow, everyone still makes the grid.
For an example, a quick look at Monaco '22 and '23 shows that in '22, Sainz captured the pole in 1'11.6xx; Zhou was last at 1'14.2xx.
2023 PP was Verstappen at 1'11.3. So, yeah, faster, but not an order of magnitude.
(And I'll grant you that this is a slow circuit. The parameters would obviously be different on the faster circuits,)
The cars definitely get faster, but lots and lots of money gets spent to chase tiny increments.
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"I would be a tone-deaf heathen if I didn't call the engine astounding. If it had been invented solely to make noise, there would be shrines to it in Rome"
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