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Nov. 29th, 2023 12:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chiyouhis best weekends overall:
- R01: BAHRAIN
- R02: JEDDAH
- R09: AUSTRIA
- R18: AUSTIN
- R20: SÃO PAULO
- R21: LAS VEGAS
missed the entirety of pre-season testing(!) - that's worth 200 laps. despite free practice being the first time he got to drive the AMR23, he was top 8 in all three sessions. qualified P8, and after a first-lap contact with fernando, brought the car home in 6th. interestingly, he later said that he thought bahrain was a bad race for him - the race itself was the first time he ever ran mediums, and grained them as a result. he was able to cut the gap to lewis in the end, but it was too late.
was genuinely close to getting pole before he made a mistake in the last corner, netting him p5 on the grid. after cooking sainz on the first lap for P4, an ERS issue kicked in and he started losing 1.5s per lap, eventually retiring.
outqualified fernando for the first time on merit, and finished P4 in the sprint. he was keeping up with alonso the whole race until a late strategy call and an unlucky safety car timing made him lose 8 positions in the pits, forcing him to spend the rest of the race in traffic clawing back up to the points. AM got rightfully cooked for messing this one up.
double Q1 knockout for the first time this season. was 3 tenths off alonso in qualifying and <1 tenths in sprint shootout, which is very impressive considering lance did only a total of 5 laps in free practice. drove a very strong race from the pitlane to p9.
was on fire throughout qualifying, and his banker lap right before a biblical storm set in got him a p3 start. despite his poor starts in the race, he quickly recovered the places he lost. at one point checo was 4 seconds ahead, but a slow pit stop allowed checo to be ahead in 13 seconds, with sainz closing in on lance behind him. after cooking sainz once again and easily extending that gap, he quickly cut the 13 second gap to checo & fernando in half before the the chequered flag was waved. his last two stints were truly incredible.
tbh lance's qualifying was pretty bad (5 tenths off of fernando) and got a 5 place grid drop for overtaking under yellows. in a funny twist of fate, fernando's spin was what allowed lance to make up as many places as he did, which sealed the rest of the race for him. strategy this time was very very good, and a safety car window allowed him to change out of crusty old hards, and he easily drove his way to p6 from p19, later being promoted to p5. probably the race where he outdrove fernando on pure merit.
i think abu dhabi was fine considering the AM was 5th best at the most, but certainly nothing to write home about (was still beaten by fernando). special mention just bc lance once again decided that he never gets tired of cooking sainz, who was on the same strategy in the 2nd best car.
lance is probably right up there when it comes to unlucky drivers this season, along with charles esteban and yuki. i think about weekends like jeddah and austria and think about how easily points were lost (max p4 and p6 respectively.) that's not even counting canada and silverstone where he got unlucky with the safety car timing.
here's a list of all the mechanical issues he suffered this season. this does not include strategy blunders, or car issues produced by driver error (ie. running over lando's debris in monaco, causing floor damage.)
- Bahrain: in addition to missing pre-season testing, he missed 40 minutes of FP1 because there was a problem with his car's ignition. this pretty much sets the tone for the rest of his season.
- Jeddah: retires on lap 18 after a ERS issue.
- Baku: both cars had DRS issues after introducing new front wings. aston martin did not get it fixed and the problem was intermittent throughout free practice and qualifying, with fernando towing lance into Q3 when lance's DRS gave out.
- Monaco: he reported brake issues just a little before the rain came down. this led to him sliding around and hitting the walls, eventually retiring the car from damage.
- Zandvoort: misses FP1 after a problem with his power unit.
- Monza: handed his car over to drugovich for FP1, but was not able to set a time in FP2 thanks to a fuel system issue.
- Singapore: during FP1, he was sat in the garage for a while as his mechanics worked on his car.
- Suzuka: lance retires from the race after a rear wing failure.
- Mexico: free practice time interrupted because of car problems.
- Austin: after suffering from brake issues in FP1, lance retires from the sprint because of it.
that's 10/23 weekends of mechanical issues. compare that to the amount of times fernando's had them:
- Baku: DRS issues (same as lance.)
- Mexico: free practice time interrupted because of car problems, later retires from the race due to floor damage from split testing the upgrades.
yeah.
i think lance is one of, if not the worst, qualifiers on the grid, taking his experience into consideration. he's never outqualified a teammate before, including a rookie sirotkin, and was pretty badly beaten by checo (who himself is a notoriously weak qualifier, handily beaten by both esteban and hulk.) a reddit user posited to me once that the problem isn't inherently lance's pace, rather that it was warming up his tyres. so when the time comes to put together a fast lap during qualifying, he isn't able to do it because his tyres aren't ready unlike everyone else. i'm not sure if im fully convinced, but i do think it's part of the reason.
i've always joked that the AMR22 was basically lance's driving style as a car; absolutely no qualifying pace with lance and seb constantly getting knocked out in Q1, but come race day they would tear through the field from the back with no problem. they also used to do this weird thing where lance and seb would run through a new set of tyres in free practice for the sole purpose of heating them up, and then start the race with those used tyres. now that the AMR23 doesn't suffer from that problem, i suspect lance is having a hard time getting his tyres to warm up normally again.
i've seen numerous people talk about this but i cannot, for the life of me, find a source since it most likely isn't in english to begin with -- but supposedly one of the reasons helmut marko passed on lance as a Red Bull junior was because despite being extremely quick, his one-lap pace wasn't very good, and marko believed that one-lap pace isn't something you can learn (as opposed to race pace, where you can eventually pick up on tyre management and racecraft in f2/f1). apparently marko didn't explicitly name names, but when people narrowed down the younger guys on the grid, it would make sense for it to be lance. marko said he made the right decision to not take on that driver because when he eventually entered f1, his quali pace was indeed still his biggest weakness.
not to go back to tyres, but i also think his bizarre driving style also makes him chew through his tyres quicker than usual. i've read somewhere that he likes driving with the power steering turned down so he can make micro-corrections - this leads to him quite literally "sawing" at the wheel. when he was a rookie it literally looked as if he was constantly fighting the car (i suspect it was half because he couldn't handle it physically yet, and half because that williams was just a dog to drive post-austria). as the years went on, rather than changing his driving style completely, he sort of just adapted it. obviously a smoother driving style a la jenson button or lewis is faster overall, but i appreciate lance making it work lol.
funnily enough, his driving style reminds me of fernando alonso's in the renault. there used to be a very good youtube video about it that's now deleted, but the reddit discussion post is still up. when f1 stopped using bridgestone tyres and pirelli was introduced, mark webber found that it didn't mesh with his driving style at all while it did with sebastian vettel. since then, the gap between the two teammates became larger and larger. similarly, if michelin was still around, would lance drive better with them than pirelli? makes you THINK.
(also not to say he's completely hopeless at tyre management - he used to be really bad at it but i'd like to think he picked up a few things along the years from tyre whisperer checo.)
people say that lance's meltdown in qatar was the turning point for him. after losing his head, he went on to defend beautifully from checo and pierre the next day while quite literally blacking out in the corners, dragging the car up to p9 from the back of the grid, and since then it's been a good run of results from him. he had sat down with the press before the race in qatar and admitted that the last time he felt comfortable in the car was austria, which confirmed my suspicions that he and checo (who had requested to return to the RB's pre-spain spec instead) both suffered from the same problem: the upgrades meant that the cars no longer operated in a window that suited lance and checo's driving styles, and that they weren't able to drive around it whilst their teammates could. obviously adaptability is what separates the great drivers from the good ones.
lance and checo's seasons has been very similar in a lot of ways; both midfield drivers beaten by their world champion teammates, their struggles with their respective car's upgrades, both having their heads called to be replaced by reserve drivers.
that stretch of terrible results for lance (silverstone to qatar) was painful to watch. the RB was consistently fast despite checo's struggles, but the dip in performance for the AMR saw lance struggle along with it. i dont think the upgrades suited fernando's driving style in particular, but he was able to make it work since he has a decade of experience extracting the most out of shitboxes anyway.
ren was telling me a while ago that we'd probably see more inter-team battles between lance and fernando next season. they've only fought on track once in austria this year, where lance finished ahead of him in the sprint. lance seemed genuinely upset that day about dilano's death, refusing to talk about his race to the media afterwards, instead paying his respects. i remember reading a reddit comment that said fernando's driving that day seemed "almost fatherly" bc he definitely could've overtaken lance if he tried (they were taking different lines, with fernando being advantaged on the regular racing line and lance deliberately taking lines to cool his tyre).
if the AMR24 turns out to be a midfield car we'll probably see squabbling, but i'm more interested to see what happens if they're consistently fast. i'd love to see what lance can do when taking the fight to ferrari and mercedes, with fully functional wrists this time. i'm saur sick of him battling those goddamn alpines and the occasional alphatauri. when was the last time we saw a lance/lando battle? or a lance/charles battle even?? (eventhough those two can never go wheel-to-wheel cleanly for some reason.. see: australia this year and russia 2020).
there are a lot of positives to take from this season, but overall i think - and lance would probably agree - that 2023 sucks ass. tbf unless your name is max verstappen and mclaren i dont think anyone is happy with this season. hopefully lance will carry the momentum of the last 5 races into 2024.
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Date: 2023-11-28 05:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-11-28 05:44 pm (UTC)