He didn’t have to have fastest lap. He was winning the race. He was saving tires and running at a consistent pace.

The entirety of this was true last year as well. Hell last year he also had a black and white flag shown for track limit violations which would have meant that any further track limit violation would result in a penalty and yet he went for a fastest lap and got it by beating a time set by Perez on new tyres with DRS. Verstappen no longer has the kind of car advantage (or even any discernible advantage based on the last 5 races) that he had last year. If you aren’t able to realise that, I can’t help you.

If that was true, Verstappen would have taken the fastest lap like he did last year. He was clearly pushing hard and couldn’t do that this year because he didn’t have the car under him

If 2 seconds is a long time, then what is the 20+ second Verstappen was winning by earlier¿? 2 seconds over 66 laps is just 0.03 seconds a lap - a difference so small that wind, dirty air or track temp will have a larger effect.

The gap that red Bull had was so marginal that I don’t think Verstappen could have overtaken Norris if he had been behind Lando after lap 1

Max just walked away after regaining the lead.

What do you mean. Lando was only 2 seconds behind him. One slightly slower stop (2.9 seconds instead of the 1.9 second stop that he had at the 1st stop) and Lando would have been on him at the end. I understand that people are traumatized by Verstappen’s dominance but he did not walk away from anybody. Infact like in 2021, it could argued that both Red Bull and McLaren are so close now that the faster car varies from stint to stint

No the softs did around 20 laps in the 1st stint. They should do 20 again without issue now that the cars are lighter

I think Norris is a little too far away. Hoping though

Perez is getting lapped today. I am calling it

Edit - Perez has picked up the place since I made this comment

Oh. That’s my bad. I hope that the mercs have comparable race pace. The fight will be crazy of they do

I find how easily you have dismissed the Ferraris very offensive

Frankly merc were always strong in Spain, even in 2022. They have improved massively but I still don’t think they have cleared ferrari. I guess we will learn more in this triple header

He has been struggling the whole weekend

Damn Norris pulled that out of the hat. Both him and Verstappen have been a cut above the rest throughout the week

I am not. Aston never looked quick in the FP sessions

So weird to see two alpines in Q3

No worries. Thanks for all the hard work

Edit : lol

Yeah. Hopefully they progress through the year. Then we can have a battle throughout the grid for all positions.

Still looks like the slowest of the top 4 teams

How have V-CARB managed to go backwards

There wasn’t a qualy thread so I made it

Why is Mexico that expensive¿?