re: 2025 Formula 1 Season Thread

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Damn, Ferrari SHOULD come in 2nd in constructors right?

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I dunno man, once upgrades start coming there will be a shuffle

With Ferrari stepping all over their own dicks at the start isn’t helpful for them

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Hill and Jacques won F1 titles, while Michael Andretti won multiple CART titles. They had legit talent.

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I didn't say they weren't legit, I was just giving another example of drivers that I believe were able to keep moving up for reasons other than merit. Let's look at Damon Hill for example. He had a completely undistinguished junior career. I have included some excerpts from wiki below.

To his credit, Hill didn't have money or a major personal sponsor. But he got at least one job because of his name, he didn't win any championships in the junior categories, and didn't win any F3000 races. He was also old, 32 yrs old when he entered his first F1 race with Brabham. The wiki doesn't explain how he got to race for Brabham (a seat opened up because another driver's sponsorhip dried up), it might have been Williams. Wiki also doesn't explain how he got hired as a Williams test driver, although apparently back then test driver was not seen as a path to a race seat.

I also acknowledge that Hill might not be the best example of my point because Frank Williams never really liked Hill and actually hired his replacement before Hill's 1996 championship season.

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Hill finished third in the 1988 British F3 championship.

Midway through (1989), an opportunity arose at the uncompetitive Mooncraft F3000 team. The team tested Hill and Perry McCarthy. Their performances were comparable but according to the team manager, John Wickham, the team sponsors preferred the Hill name.

He took three pole positions and led five races in 1990, but did not win a race during his Formula 3000 career.

Hill started his Grand Prix career during the 1991 season as a test driver with the championship-winning Williams team while still competing in the F3000 series. However, midway through 1992 Hill broke into Grand Prix racing as a driver with the dying Brabham team... Hill matched his teammate, Eric van de Poele, by qualifying for two races, the mid-season British and Hungarian Grands Prix.

When Mansell's teammate Riccardo Patrese left Williams to drive for Benetton in 1993, Hill was unexpectedly promoted to the race team alongside triple World Champion Alain Prost ahead of more experienced candidates such as Martin Brundle and Mika Häkkinen.

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Now, looking at it from another direction, you have F2 champions Felipe Drugovich and Theo Pourchaire, who may never get a chance at an F1 race seat. Outside of fast-rising superstars like Max, Kimi (Raikkonen), Schumacher, Senna, etc., it's not as much of a meritocracy as you would expect, simply because racing is so expensive. People with money, or other attributes that can attract sponsorship (having a famous name, or being Danica Patrick) get seats over guys who don't have those attributes.

My earliest memory of being dumbfounded why an accomplished junior racer couldn't get hired by the big leagues was David Empringham. The guy won two Toyota Atlantic championships (equivalent to F3), and then won an Indy Lights title, and never sniffed a CART seat. I still don't know why he was never given an opportunity despite being a great driver.

It's officially official...

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Yuki about to get redbull back in the constructors hunt



And I think Lawson is about to look much quicker in a easier car to handle

That Honda money sure is sweeetttt

Red Bull has made so many mistakes recently.
Re-signing Checo
Toying with Danny RIC only to have him break his wrist and throw that wrench into their “plans”
And now this correction two races in is crazy.

Hope Yuki performs well to spite the team at this point. Liam too.

To me it’s a win win for the fans

Either Yuki likes the setup and drives well or he hates the setup and won’t pull punches in the interviews like Lawson

Which ever way it falls entertaining for us

My chaos prediction:

Max qualifies P3
Lawson P8
Yuki P11-12
Yuki gets a good start, but bowls through the pack at T2 and takes out Lawson.