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Originally Posted by Sneaky Pete
Not totally sure..it seems in practice sessions when if the car is not to Verstappens style he can struggle with pace.
On Hamilton, again going back to his first year in F1 with no experience in setting up the car he took whatever set up he was given by the team..usually a copy of Alonso's set up...until after Silverstone (When Alonso refused to keep on sharing his set up) where he took the default set up for the track they were racing on. And we know how that year played out.
My son-in-laws friend Neighbour and mutual friend was a design concept engineer for Mercedes and spoke of how highly the F1 team regarded Hamilton as a racer and as a person.
During the period when the new regs caused massive porpoising..especially in the Mercedes..it was Hamilton that was given the job of running all the experimental set ups trying to improve the way the car handled. He didn't care that George was getting an optimised more standardised set up for the track and was therefore apparently performing better.
Sadly the engineer has since been poached by Alpine and moved down near Oxford so we don't see him anymore..though we still exchange whatsapps but its not the same as face to face..
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When does Max stuggle with pace? You must be confusing him for Ham who usually doesnt have much of it. Honda requires that the engines be turned down for practice sessions, yet Max is THE ONLY one who goes to practice sessions and usually leads or is near the top of them. Usually his times on Hard or Medium tires is as fast or faster than those on Softs. Albon has said when he was there, Max would get the car set-up in almost no time at all which was astonishing.
Well, we know Ham got a WDC winning car right away, and only won because of blatant cheating (that result should have been voided knowing there was cheating going on). Beyond that, I've heard he got upgrades Alo didnt because they were favoring him and he still didnt beat him on points. Max at the same age, same car would have destroyed Alo or Ham. That's why Ham always had a 'no Max' clause. He was terrified of his talent.
It's always funny the excuses we hear about why Ham isnt fast. His setup had experimental parts, he chose a 50/50 setup and lost (every time??), he went the wrong direction on the front wing. It's like he will make any excuse to deter from the fact that is it glaringly true that when he doesnt have a material advantage like he did with the MB of 80-100 hp over every other car, he just isnt that good. And if you remove the 2014-2021 time frame, he had a dominant Mclaren in 07-08 and only won because of cheating, and then 2009-2013 (2nd best car), and 2022-2023 (2nd best car) and so far 2024 his stats are overwhelmingly poor at best.
Max can and would outdrive him in any car, any day of the week. I'd love to see them both in spec cars and watch the excuses from Ham on why he cant put up the pace.