2023 Sao Paulo Grand Prix Heroes and Zeroes

[Jericoke]

Preface:  I'd written an essay about Alonso's fight with Perez, but my kitten, Mika, managed to wipe it out.

Heroes

Max/Newey.  My favourite story of the weekend was Max admitting he almost drove off track while watching Perez and Alonso fight on the big screens.  What other sport has the star/champion so dominant they can slack off in the middle of a competition?

Norris/McLaren.  The team and driver are working so well together.  Piastri isn't quite there yet, and had rotten luck to show for it this weekend.

Alonso.  I had more to say, but his race craft is ridiculously good.  He made a veteran driver in a superior machine look like a fool.  I'm sure that Perez didn't make a single decision in that fight, and rather did whatever it was Alonso wanted him to do.

Stroll.  What are all the youtube pundits going to talk about now that they can't just say Stroll doesn't belong in F1?  He's got the skills.  Sure, he's not Alonso, but the number of drivers who could have matched Alonso in the AM already have lucrative contracts elsewhere.  Stroll needs to figure out how to access this performance every race.

Aston Martin.  They've made some bad moves this year, but I think overall they've been moves that will strengthen the team.  Mercedes is so afraid to make mistakes, they're conservative and the car is 'fine' but doesn't progress.  AM made BIG mistakes, and they struggled for it, but I think (hope?) that they've learned from those struggles, and will be in a better position to build going forward.

Race Control, again quickly making decisions to ensure the race can go forward in a safe manner without leaving fans wondering what's going on.  In the past red flags always come minutes after every fan knows there should be one, so it's nice that they're getting thrown right away.  No one wants 5 laps behind the safety car just to realize maybe the track workers need 10 minutes to focus on fixing something.

Zeroes

Perez.  He's a race winner.  He's been in the sport a long time.  Why was he letting Alonso control his race to utterly?

Running three wide.  Seriously, the GPDA needs to sit down and discuss how this is going to work.  It's happening too many times and being chalked up as 'racing incidents'.  Three wide racing should be exciting, not an automatic crash.

[Willy]

Once again Max ran away with it and we rarely saw him after that. No surprise this season.

Perez on the other hand has worked very hard to be mediocre at best in a car that has shown to clearly be the class of the field.

Alonso is an amazing driver and I for one am so glad he is still racing as we get to see masterclasses like he did in Interlagos on Sunday.  He made it look easy and how much closer can the finish be after 71 laps.

Stroll has the skills but he needs to find a way to access them every race as he is not doing that. He reminds me of Kimi is that regard. He can be great but if his head is not in it, he is just another also-ran.

Norris has been given a car that can compete and at one point I believe he had Max breaking a small sweat as Lando put on amazing pressure.

I like this track for the elevation changes and very long run to the line from turn 12.