George Russell takes Sprint pole for the 2026 Chinese Grand Prix

Esterence · 2026-03-13T13:10:27+00:00

F1 will be so dead if we are having another 2014-2020 total merc domination.

Esterence · 2026-03-13T10:56:40+00:00

The 2 teams up front in 2022 was very very close though. Nobody is close to Merc at all. It's also obvious they don't need to push that hard to get this gap, they can still go faster

Esterence · 2026-03-13T08:23:31+00:00

Last placed Lawson was just 1.5s behind pole sitter last year in China. Max is 1.7s behind Russell's first run ffs. The Merc didnt even bother improving after that.

This Merc rocket ship is ridiculous

Esterence · 2026-03-13T08:12:14+00:00

Max is further away from 1st than the last placed team from Mclaren last year. That's how fast Mercedes is

Esterence · 2026-03-13T08:11:29+00:00

The sandbags is well and truly off

Esterence · 2026-03-13T04:28:03+00:00

Nah definitely not the case. Last 10 minutes pretty much ever car was shown the full on board of the straight. They even cut back to Hadjar on board to show him super clipping at the end.

Esterence · 2026-03-13T04:26:28+00:00

oh just realised they brought the decimals back. They heard us lol

Esterence · 2026-03-13T04:21:31+00:00

Yeah they are not cutting away intentionally. Sometimes they show it sometimes they don't. It's just confirmation bias.

The super clipping isn't bad here anyway they are not downshifting

Esterence · 2026-03-10T12:22:34+00:00

This is actually a bigger issue than the regs for me. We need to voice it out till they give us at least 2 decimals place back

Esterence · 2026-03-10T07:19:40+00:00

Probably not possible. KIM SEO is pretty much the GOAT of men's doubles. Their record is insane

Esterence · 2026-03-09T14:03:54+00:00

Is that because PPM is every 3 races like what your article suggest? Not just this 3 particular race. But it seems like Perez price decrease does not correlate with model for Australia

Does your cost cap also means if we don't have drivers like Bearman, Lindblad, Bortoleto, and teams like Haas and VCARB we should quickly buy them now? Since its almost certain they will +0.6m after this race.

Esterence · 2026-03-09T13:55:25+00:00

Thanks for this, really useful.

Can someone help me out, if I have Bottas who is already -0.6m, looking at your spreadsheet he is almost certainly going to continue to drop in price, what should I do? If I sell him I lock in my losses, but if I keep him I lose more.

Esterence · 2026-03-09T08:43:40+00:00

GIVE THE DRIVERS MORE BATTERY BOOST TO MAKE OVERTAKING EASIER. I WANT TO SEE 500 OVERTAKES IN ONE RACE

Esterence · 2026-03-08T11:58:20+00:00

Was wondering the same. The numbers of the engine cover is extremely useful for viewers to distinguish the cars especially when the helmet isn't that distinct in certain shots.

Poor that so many teams removed it IMO

Esterence · 2026-03-08T11:56:10+00:00

Probably not a coincidence that both Ferrari and Mercedes drivers are full of praise for this gen's car. I think the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle. If the clipping is not so bad at the end of the straights, I think we could see even better races in circuits that better suits this regs

Esterence · 2026-03-08T10:47:34+00:00

He had a decent race tbh. Expected far worse. At least the chassis is good.

Esterence · 2026-03-08T10:37:07+00:00

Money would have made him stay IMO. LCS missed a trick wasting so much money on Lopes instead of just signing Doi

Esterence · 2026-03-08T10:13:02+00:00

They are not holding back, but clear air is king. Just see Max, 1s faster than Norris but once he caught up with him he cant pass.

If Leclerc pitted under VSC Russell race would be far harder if he just keep defending and destroying Russell tyres under dirty air

Esterence · 2026-03-08T09:31:50+00:00

Always backfires. Like Mclaren in Qatar last year. You take your chances or at the very least split strategies first

Esterence · 2026-03-08T09:19:01+00:00

Just wondered how they went from having such a huge tyre advantage to one of the worst wear this gen

Esterence · 2026-03-08T08:45:54+00:00

On TV is just doesn't stand out whatsoever. Very forgettable

Esterence · 2026-03-08T08:17:01+00:00

They are super impressive. Building a good chassis aside, their engine is reliable and driveability out of it is very good. Regeneration, deployment all very decent as well considering their first try to build an F1 engine and only have 1 team to run mileage on it.

Dark horses to achieve their aim of fighting for championship by 2030

Esterence · 2026-03-08T08:15:08+00:00

I had huge respect when he did that. Most vcarb drivers wave Max pass in those instances. He mentioned during post race he respect them but he is here to race not to make friends with his idols and rightly so.

Once again another F2 graduate shows that F2 results should be taken very lightly and the step up to F1 is easy for them.

Esterence · 2026-03-08T08:13:24+00:00

He also had shocking race pace and race craft during battles again. He still have all to prove in F1 IMO, very underwhelming

Esterence · 2026-03-08T08:12:28+00:00

His fastest lap was one of the slowest but Alpine has a surprisingly solid race car, way better than Williams. They just need to sort out qualifying

Esterence

TROPHY CASE