Their comments would’ve held some water if they were fighting for wins at least in half the races, they just look like sore losers now.
Reminds me of the “you took everything from me” “I don’t even know who you are” meme
but that’s the point — the rb car is so much better than everything else on the grid, and the complete lack of competition makes the achievement somewhat meaningless in a certain light.
More boring? Absolutely. Meaningless in any way? Absolutely not.
They still have to deliver every race.
Besides, I’ve never heard another team make these kind of pathetic comments about Mercedes’ dominance all those years. This is just salty and stupid because it makes them look like sore immature losers.
Yeah, nobody ever said it’s just the car for Lewis. Get out of here with that.
Yeah, I remember a LOT of the same “it’s just the car” shit in 2015/2016.
From the fans, sure, but he said from the other teams. I can’t personally remember any such comments.
I can’t remember all of them but there were a handful of drivers (Alonso, Max) that said they could win if their car was as fast as Mercedes. It’s normal for drivers to think they are the best and their talents are not the reason for the performence.
Which is different from saying that winning in the fastest car is meaningless
Great competitors acknowledge when a competitor achieves something great.
And here they are arguing that it’s because Max has a bad teammate or whatever. Even then, Red Bull still has more wins in a row now than Mercedes ever did, so what’s their point?
I think Verstappen is a bit of a tool a lot of the time, but there’s no denying his insane talent.
Wether it is greater than the likes of Vettel or Lewis at their peak, who’s to say, we don’t have a time machine to race young Lewis and young Vettel etc in identical cars and see who wins.
But to say that Verstappen is only winning so much because Perrez is bad or the car is good is just them deceiving themselves to sleep better I think.
Perrez is still #2 in the standings, Verstappen has barely made a mistake all season, and Red Bull are killing it with their performance and reliability. They’re just doing everything right it seems, apart from overspending on catering once in a while.
Perez is on the same level as Stroll, who is being dominated in a similar fashion by Alonso. Max is good but Perez’s poor performence is elevating his accomplishments.
Perez is much better than Stroll imo.
Stroll had a few good years in the past where I was starting to believe he was an OK F1 driver, but these last few seasons he’s just not there. He can drive but he just has no drive to become better.
Perez is FAR more motivated and has more racecraft, and probably more speed. The biggest issue with Perez is that he is trying to match Max and Max is just in another tier. Of course the car is made for Max and it doesn’t help that Perez is refusing to compromise on setup. But I don’t think there’s a car out there that Max can’t beat Perez in.
Same can be said for Hamilton & Bottas (and I say this as a massive Bottas fan).
Agreed on literally every count here. I think you’ve nailed it. Perez might not be Max, but he’s at worst a mid-grid driver. Honestly, I’d rank him below only Max, Sainz, Leclerc, Hamilton, and maybe Norris. I’m not sure how I’d compare him to Alonso, but I think he’s clearly better than the rest.
You hurt me by not ranking Alonso with the top.
I honestly still put him in the top tier with Max and Lewis.
I kind of would, but I kind of wouldn’t. AM’s machinery has been so so, therefore I’m in kind of a limbo with how to rank him.
I think you’re selling Perez short. I 100% agree he’s not on Max’s level but if Stroll didn’t bring the money he did, noone in their right mind would put Stroll in a car over Perez.
When Perez was teamates with Stroll and Ocon he had similar performances to them. He wasn’t a standout talent, think about how Russell performed against teammates at Williams, Sergio didn’t have that.
Strange to read given that I heard Brundle (on the sky broadcast last weekend) say that he loved hearing Hamilton not giving his usual “diplomatic” answers when talking about Verstappen’s teammates vs his own. Has this been taken out of context or editorialised?
Yeah. Very weird the tone of those comments. I’ve been a Lewis fan since 2007 and these comments kind of sound strange coming from him now. Toto is Toto. He’ll say anything to show Merc in better light.
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I’m not. Hamilton has a history of this when he has a battle never mind losing. And Wolff bought his way into a team just before their big run, he wasn’t involved in the process of building that team up.
We even saw this attitude during the '21 season.
As far as I know, Merc brought Toto in because they liked what he did at Williams. He did have to show his caliber elsewhere before he could cash in on the Merc train. Don’t forget Max did a good amount of trash talk himself in ‘21. Journalists ask silly questions and drivers respond pettily in the heat of the moment.
Last I checked Max never posted telemetry data online to prove that they were faster than a teammate.
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