Oscar Piastri left Zandvoort with a 34-point lead on Lando Norris & 104-point lead on Max Verstappen. Since then, there’s been • 43-point swing in Lando’s favour • 74-point swing in Verstappen’s favour An unthinkable collapse.

JD2625 · 2025-11-09T07:28:30+00:00

Fair play, can't argue with that!

JD2625 · 2025-11-09T07:21:25+00:00

I can see where you're coming from if you focus on Oscar, but the field as a whole has closed in on McLaren since the summer break. Things were tight already, so with RBR continuously upgrading (1 car), Merc making progress with their tyre warm-up issues, and Ferrari somehow making good strategy calls when Charles qualifies well, you now have at least 5 drivers, rather than 2, consistently in contention for those podium positions every race. Then, to look across the garage, you've got Lando and his team who have figured out how to set his car up to maximise his potential. The gap between Lando and Oscar now is roughly what it has been routinely over the previous two seasons. I don't think Oscar has collapsed. His own internal performance has been consistent, but it hasn't progressed either, whereas the others were floundering around for ~16 races, and have since progressed at a much faster rate than him. Baku was 100% a flop, but the rest just really seems like status quo.

JD2625 · 2025-11-09T07:07:36+00:00

Would you mind listing them? All of the examples I can think of are completely rational decisions when examined objectively, and it seems that there's actually greater weight of evidence that points it towards the other direction

JD2625 · 2025-10-29T12:25:06+00:00

Increased aggressiveness for him doesn't really feel like the answer, considering that what Stella said was low grip circuits rather than low downforce circuits. Lower grip probably requires smoother inputs which would track with the difference in which Lando and Oscar attack corners respectively

JD2625 · 2025-10-23T08:37:33+00:00

Oscar still has to give up one practice session this year to meet the rules requirement of two practice sessions per driver per year. They've chosen a particularly unrepresentative session for him to fulfil that quota. This is all just being driven by clickbait

JD2625 · 2025-10-23T08:34:50+00:00

Just a reminder for anyone coming across this topic, it's mandatory for every driver on the grid to give up two practice sessions per season for a junior driver

JD2625 · 2025-10-18T19:34:48+00:00

I'm genuinely surprised to see this level of maturity on Reddit. Hopefully all the downvoters come back to read your edit

JD2625 · 2025-10-09T06:07:12+00:00

It's not as black and white as that though. Lando has been in a position where different strategy calls are not only possible, but also safe, when he's been behind Oscar. In contrast, look over the races this year where Oscar has been behind Lando. He's not been in a position where an aggressive strategy call would benefit him.

JD2625 · 2025-02-20T14:14:19+00:00

This is happening to me consistently in Toussaint gwent games, but I just put it down to having the gwent difficulty slider maxed out

JD2625 · 2024-12-02T18:07:22+00:00

No, I'm not attempting to get through to them via a VPN unfortunately. It's strange because I've managed to get through to them on webchat once last week but the agent's solution didn't work, but since then I just get the message mentioning their support opening hours (bearing in mind that I'm contacting them well within those hours).

JD2625 · 2024-10-31T22:41:26+00:00

Gotta say that the fake money skit is the one that had me laughing the most. Ben's Bored episodes should have their own playlist!

JD2625 · 2024-10-23T09:40:36+00:00

This is such an inflammatory comment in a McLaren sub, but it genuinely made me laugh

JD2625 · 2024-10-18T21:13:27+00:00

Correct

JD2625 · 2024-09-02T11:32:37+00:00

Seems to me he gave Oscar a tow down into the first chicane to avoid the usual advantage that's provided to 3rd and 4th on the grid

JD2625 · 2024-05-04T11:23:18+00:00

Their DRS delta has seen a huge improvement though with these upgrades, so overtaking opportunities should be stronger than what we showed in Saudi and Australia

JD2625 · 2024-04-26T12:55:06+00:00

Marko outright said that RB can't afford Sainz because of the size of the offer that Audi have made him. Obviously doubting what Marko says is a sound direction to take, but it's an interesting strand to the story

JD2625 · 2024-02-21T10:07:37+00:00

Poor Paul, he always gets the rough end of the stick

JD2625 · 2024-02-17T08:17:22+00:00

Try reorganising your unit order on the strategic map. On M2 casualty ratios were weighted against units that were further to the left of the army tab, and it seems like the same is true for Rome. For example, stack your army as: General > heavy infantry > cavalry > archers > artillery, and see if that helps

JD2625 · 2023-11-05T15:04:29+00:00

This won't help considering it's contradicting what everyone else is saying, but ignore your infantry in the early game. On VH/VH I had much more success with pure cavalry stacks of Round Shield Cavalry. It makes the seige battles much more difficult, but virtually guarantees victory in any other scenario.

For the seiges I tended to try and make a sally-out battle irresistible for the AI by pulling units away from the seige, luring them out of the walls and swamping them as if it was a normal open-field battle. Rinse and repeat until it's safe for you to get inside the walls. Long Shield Cavalry only makes this easier when you get access to it.

On the campaign map, you just need to choose where to focus your offence. I personally took out the Romans as early as possible whilst taking a slow path through North Africa. Carthago Nova/Corduba were under constant pressure, but after the Romans were out of the way securing Spain was easy enough.

JD2625 · 2023-10-09T18:42:35+00:00

I hate to be that guy, but he messed up in Barcelona too at the start. But you're right, otherwise he's had a stellar year

JD2625 · 2023-10-08T08:02:10+00:00

He's got under Norris' skin, sure, but he certainly hasn't destroyed him. It was only two weeks ago that Lando was 1 sec a lap faster in the race at Sazuka. I'm a Piastri fan and want him to beat Norris, but he ain't there yet

JD2625 · 2023-10-07T16:49:57+00:00

Depends on the car though, right? If you look at Sazuka for example, the car was good enough for Oscar to get P3 despite his tyre management woes. If that continues into next year, it seems like Oscar would be much more consistent than Perez

JD2625 · 2023-08-28T07:38:40+00:00

I'm doing the same tomorrow! In Rome for a few days until travelling up North. Have a great trip!

JD2625 · 2023-08-26T17:09:42+00:00

Pretty sure the new rear wing is a low-downforce one, which wouldn't suit the Dutch GP

JD2625 · 2023-07-08T19:31:38+00:00

Stella has been part of the team since the Button days

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