Miami GP: Quali Recap

Kmag setting the fastest lap, Mclaren WCC, Ferrari double podium, Colapinto's thank you to Williams, Hamilton overtaking Russell on the last lap, Toto Wolff's "if we can't win...you should win" ...WHAT IF I CRIED

Some quick doodles while I work on something for Sukuza 👍

I swear people on skysport's instagram commenting under Max's win saying F1 is boring now probably didn't even watch the race because so much happened and yet they're all going "boo max is winning again, I cant believe I woke up at 6 for this, what a snooze fest" ???

Did we even watch the same race? If you focused on any of the actual racing you'd be surprised at how Verstappen winning all the time doesn't take away from the competition in other parts of the race. Yuki finished in the points, Sargeant did several overtakes crashed AND DIDN'T DNF (all with a repaired chassis btw), Alonso defended wonderfully, Leclerc stayed in P4 on a one pitstop strategy, Sainz has a 100% podium rate for every race he's started this year, etc etc etc. but apparently the race is boring because Max won again.

Is the podium all they focus on? Actually, is first place all they focus on? Because if that's it, then maybe F1 isn't the sport for you. It's always been like this. You want more variety in winners, go watch motogp or indycar, where the cars are almost identical and so drivers can compete without the cars being as big of a factor to their performance. But stop complaining about Max's dominance I am so sick and tired of hearing it.

why i believe alex replacing logan is the worst possible decision williams could make

#1: logan’s confidence

we saw this exact thing happen with checo last year. after his brief stint of trading wins with max, max continued to consistently wipe the floor with him via the gap in their performances. this continued to eat away at checo’s confidence until, by the end of the season, he was t-boning alex albon in singapore for no reason and somehow retiring twice in suzuka. now that there has been an extended break and he has had the chance to grind and truly work on himself nonstop, he has returned with incredible form. but who knows how long this will last? as soon as there’s a race that isn’t a red bull 1-2, he will be completely torn into and i believe the downward trajectory of last year will repeat itself.

this is very similar to what logan went through last year. once he was announced, there was so much hope for an incredible debut season, but that never came his way. i think the first big nail in the coffin was getting his first p20 at his home race and i think the biggest hit was qatar. even though he should never ever be ashamed of putting his safety first, i understand why, from an athlete’s perspective, he would look at that race as a failure.

fortunately for him, he has had a team with incredibly strong leadership backing him up. giving him the opportunities he needed, never giving up on him, celebrating the single point he scored last year like he lassoed the fucking moon, and re-signing him because he has such incredible potential as a formula 1 driver. everything went wrong for logan, except for williams, who did everything right.

except now, williams has publicly stated that they have no faith in him to score points. now the only support logan has is random fans at races, strangers on the internet, and his own friends and family. that must feel fucking awful. logan has been so positive throughout the struggles of this year and last, but he has to be hurting right now. there’s no way he isn’t.

logan sargeant is not a bad driver. you can disagree with me as loud as you want to, but i won’t hear a word of it.

absolutely stunning junior career aside, logan showed incredible improvement towards the end of the season. not only did he score a point in austin, but he came unbearably close in mexico, and if it weren’t for a hydraulics failure, he very easily could have had two points finishes in a row.

this year may seem like it has gotten off to a bad start for him, but i heavily disagree. in bahrain he had great pace and was steadily climbing closer and closer to the points when he had a brake failure. the car switched his balance completely on its own and made it literally impossible for him to turn. even max couldn’t recover from that.

in jeddah his pace was wonderful again. i think his biggest struggle currently is qualifying, but he was overtaking beautifully and making his way up the field. while 15th isn’t a spectacular finish, he was matching alex quite well throughout the whole race. (also jeddah sucks so he gets a pass 👎)

george russell did not score a SINGLE point during his rookie season for williams and he is now a race-winning future championship contender and beating his 7x wdc teammate in the standings at p4. logan has already beaten that AND he has an experienced driver that he seems to get on with quite well as a teammate to mentor him, which george didn’t have; he was william’s number one driver from day one. logan has so much potential that is only being hindered by his lack of confidence, unpreparedness (reminder he was brought to f1 an entire year earlier than he was originally supposed to be; they planned for him to be a 2024 rookie), and a shitty car.

#2: alex albon

now poor alex is in the worst position of his life. brother already probably feels like shit for putting logan through this (even though it is NOT his fault and he has absolutely zero say in this decision) and if he doesn’t score any points this weekend, he will be torn to shreds by the media.

i have already seen multiple posts including alex in their list of fuck yous. this will do incredible damage to him pr-wise and will also make him feel even worse if he doesn’t somehow pull off a miracle performance.

#3: albert park

alex is an incredible driver, constantly pulling a back marker car into the points. however, this is a track that he has historically struggled at (in the exact same turn might i add!!) for multiple years in a row. who’s to say this mistake could not be made tomorrow or sunday as well? that will make everyone involved look and feel horrible.

not to mention that the fw46 is NOT SUITED for albert park. AT ALL. vcarb’s official website describes it as a ‘medium-high’ downforce track, which is exactly what the car is suited to struggle with, making it nearly impossible for albono to score points (which, like stated before, will be terrible for him) as well as making this gp a likely inconsequential race! meaning this is the perfect opportunity to let logan drive on the limit and really showcase his true talent and capabilities as a driver.

but now williams has chosen to do the complete opposite and ruined logan’s trust in his team as well as any other offers from rival teams for him for the 2025 season. if logan’s own team would bench him for his teammate, why should they take him over a talented upcoming rookie? (this is a rhetorical question; i truly believe he has the potential to, with a good enough car and team behind him, become a race-winning driver in the future.)

#4: james vowles and the future of williams

james has justified this decision by mentioning how every race counts and that a single point can make a world’s difference in the midfield. while this is true, james has also been on the record multiple times saying that he doesn’t give two shits about this season (as well as the next few). he has stated that his goal is long-term, to rebuild the team and return it to its former success of the 90s and early 2000s. so why ruin the reputation of your driver who you have been supporting since his junior career over the possibility of a single point or two? that is a short-term solution, not a long-term one. james is usually a wonderfully eloquent speaker, however, he has completely contradicted himself here.

in my opinion, the best decision would be to race logan. while i love alex to death, he’s the one who crashed his car, completely on his own with no fellow drivers or failures on the car’s side to blame. logically, he should be the one to sit out the race, no?

like i briefly touched on before, i also think this is a golden opportunity to put logan in a race where they will most likely come away with nothing anyways and give him the opportunity to pull off something incredible (which he absolutely can under the right circumstances). if he was able to have a good drive on sunday, he would be a star and williams would look like geniuses. with this decision, everyone just looks like an asshole.

final thoughts

to conclude, i am no certified expert, but this decision makes zero sense to me, as it also does to many others from what i’ve seen. i usually wholeheartedly agree with all of james’ decisions, but this one beats me. i cannot for the life of me figure out why williams would choose this.

there is a part of that hopes williams will reverse this decision before sunday in order to save themselves from all of the pr backlash they are facing, but i understand that that is very much wishful thinking. the only good thing that can come from this is williams finally learning how to be prepared and/or logan being able to channel his frustration into motivation (although i don’t think there’s any way for him to possibly work harder than he already has).

if anyone disagrees with me and thinks this is the right decision for williams to make, i would love to hear why. no one has to agree with me, these are just my personal thoughts on the situation.

-avis 🏎️💨

Alex just extended his contract with Williams and if you haven't seen it yet apparently he was on his way to kiss stringray when they called him? They couldn't have given him a heads up 😭😭?? ​This team is so unserious sometimes (affectionate)

Gold star ⭐ to everyone who made it to the end of this crazy weekend

Previously an F1 blog but I'm lowkey a fandom jumper...

My F1/Prev-F1 favs (not in order): MV1 • DR3 • OP81 • ZG24 • AA23 • LS2 • NR6

Current interests: F1, Apothecary diaries, HSR

Thank you, Kyle

Verstappen on his way to put in fastest lap after fastest lap in Q1, even though he has a 10 place grid penalty:

Drive to Survive will pay for convincing people through one heavily edited race that Yuki was "thoroughly outperformed" by Liam and Liam had his heart broken in Suzuka when the literal facts are

-Liam was told he would not be getting the seat before Singapore. This was literally said by him and also Yuki's manager. The rumor that Honda intervened in Suzuka to renew Yuki is blatantly false and nothing like what DTS showed.

-Yuki won the qualifying head-to-head 4-1. The one quali that Liam beat him at (Singapore) Yuki was impeded by Max in Q2 and looking at his Q1 time, he would have easily made it to Q3. Fair play to Liam though, he performed well in Singapore across the whole weekend.

-Monza and Singapore we weren't able to compare because Yuki didn't get to complete a single lap due to a DNS and DNF from Perez ramming into him. In races they both completed, Yuki placed ahead in Zandvoort (before a post-race penalty) and in Qatar after Liam crashed out. In Suzuka he finished one place behind because despite lapping faster, he was told to hold position and Alphatauri were coaching Liam to defend against him. So it's a mixed bag but Yuki comes out ahead.

Yes, Liam was the only one to score points in their 5 shared races. Fantastic work by him and something the team desperately needed. But in the 3 races where the AT had the best chances of scoring points (Zandvoort,Singapore and Monza), Yuki was not even able to start at the latter two and had some bizarre strategy in the first where he was kept on softs for 28 laps till he inevitably fell out of the points

-Yuki was the faster driver in terms of pace across all 3 races they shared.

Now let's be clear here: Liam did a fantastic job for someone who had to jump in at very short notice. He absolutely deserves a spot in F1. However, it's not Yuki who "stole his spot" by any metric. Look at the results of the four AT drivers last year. Yuki's points haul would have singlehandedly kept the team ahead of Alfa Romeo in the constructors. Not to mention he scored points and dragged the car to P11 multiple times at the beginning of the season when it was at its worst. He earned his renewal solely on merit.

Some of you are either a) so eager to discredit Yuki or b) so bored with current F1 that you need to artificially create narratives. Let Liam develop like a normal rookie instead of expecting him to beat an experienced teammate and then inevitably shitting on him when he doesn't. Has no one learned anything from the whole saga of "Nyck is gonna be team leader at Alphatauri and destroy Yuki". He is not the easy target y'all think he is.