Great finish!

An epic champion performance, however this season plays out.

Caught the last 30 or so laps at a beachside bar in Ft Lauderdale. Muted, but still got to watch & mostly enjoy it. Will be watching the full coverage tonight when I'm back home.

**spoiler**

And because Formula One Management blows, here’s a YouTube link to Daniel Riccardo driving Dale Earnhardt’s 1983 NASCAR at COTA:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIZItRqlzwg

It also sucks to be Sergio Perez during this race. His drink system malfunctioned and left him dry during the race.

Drinkless Perez ‘struggled massively’ in Austin heat

https://racer.com/2021/10/24/d...vely-in-austin-heat/

Track temp was over 100 degrees and he had to wrestle a 1,000hp high downforce race car for almost 2 hrs pulling 4 G’s in the turns. I get thirsty after a half hour.

I really enjoyed this race, and Max drove a championship drive. He went fast when he needed, and slowed and saved his tires when he could. He is a "thinking" driver, and truly a match for Louie. I was on the edge of my seat for the last 30 laps rooting Max on. Chico did a great race also, along with Leclerc. I hope the track in Mexico suit the Red Bull cars well. We have a good race for the championship of driver and team.

great job from Max and it warms my heart to see Chinstrip lose yet again

Now that's some commitment - a 1:1 scale piñata!

F1, Red Bull becomes a 1: 1 scale piñata. And you can get inside!

Dude should get an RBR invite to the race

That is one hell of a piñata!!

Woot! Bottas on pole!

Hoping Checo has a great race today, would be great for him to win his home race. Ferrari seems to have more pace than the Papaya cars this weekend.

Read that RBR hasn't put team orders off the table.

In Friday's broadcast, they asked D Hill what he thought about it, if it were him at Silverstone.
His response was effectively "my radio would mysteriously break if that message came through".

I can see Bottas giving up position quickly and holding Max back to give Hammy a nice gap. That said, after VB taking both Red Bulls out earlier this season off the start, he can be only so aggressive. With Perez at Red Bull and Tsunoda screwing his quali, the crowd will be in no mood for shenanigans back from the lead.

Should be an exciting turn 1, we'll see in a few minutes.

First turn exciting. Then boring.

Merc: 478.5
RedB: 477.5

Max +19

quote:

Originally posted by SIGnified:
Merc: 478.5
RedB: 477.5

Max +19

Would have been tied if Max had gotten fastest lap. But they brought Bottas in on the last lap for softs specifically to prevent Max getting the extra point. Bottas and Merc didn’t get the point because Bottas finished outside of the top ten, so all they could do was deny it to Max, who had fast lap up to then.

Yeah, not a great race. Only thing going on was the VB & DR fight.
Bummed VB got spun off at T1.

Hindsight, had he covered Max on the left & forced him up the middle, we'd have had a different race.

So a fast lap earns no point if you finish out of the top ten. It should have no bearing on awarding that point for fast lap because you have nothing to lose going for it. Mostly there's little chance a sub-top ten car has the speed to earn that point but yeah, no risk, no reward, you don't get to play.

It would sure liven up the race if the back 6 all pitted for softs and went for fastest lap. I can't wait for next year with the different aero rules come into play. I'm also looking forward to NASCAR next year when they join the 1990's with sequential gearboxes and top shelf brakes. It might become as enjoyable as sports cars.