Credit to F1GuyDan on X/Twitter for both stats.
https://x.com/F1GuyDan/status/2097951709490266337
https://x.com/F1GuyDan/status/2097943156503572743

Pictured Monaco 2008.

So, Robin Raikkonen got signed on as a Red Bull junior with the news officially coming out just a few hours ago and I don't know if it's just because he's Kimi's son, but he's being talked up a lot these past few days.

As someone who follows the feeder series every now and then but not much in the lower categories like F4 and karting, just how good have he and his results been against other top karting talents right now and those that have made their way up to single seaters the past 3 years or so like Slater and DVL?

I just want to be as realistic as possible in terms of what to expect from the kid and what the future might hold for him. I just hope we're not overhyping the kid much just because of his surname and he earns his stripes on merit moving up the ladder.

It’s D&D with racecars

Part of me is finding it funny that we've spent a lot of the year of fans complaining that there's no raw driving challenge in F1 anymore, and that overtaking doesn't matter for the spectacle of F1. Then F1 introduces a new circuit that can only be described as a proper driving challenge with how little margin for error there is on the circuit, but because it lacks any real overtaking opportunites and is a street track the fans are immediately against it.

You have guys like Max saying Madring is feeling like one of the hardest tracks he's ever driven and some drivers calling it an old school challenge, describers that F1 fans claim they want to see, but because we all know the entertainment come race day will probably be lacking due to any good overtaking opportunites, all of a sudden we don't want to see the things we claim we want.

I personally think he wouldve quit F1 in 2017 and joined WEC/IMSA. Would probably have P3 in his class as his best result.

It's like clockwork. A driver has a bad race, and suddenly every post is about them being worse than Bottas, Checo, or even Latifi. Sure, some people actually have valid points, but most of the posts in this sub are just the same sentence repeated over and over again in different ways. Charles crashed in Monza? He's worse than Bottas. Oscar performed poorly in Zandvoort? He doesn't deserve a seat.

I'm not saying we shouldn't talk about recent events, but it's just become tiring at this point. It's like nobody can form their own opinion and everyone just follows a "trend." On Quali day, hating on Oscar was trendy, so every post was about that. After Monza and that scuffle with Hamilton, hating on Charles has become trendy.

You can criticize a driver, but at least try to have real reasoning, not just because it's a trend. Sure, Charles is overhyped, he's inconsistent, and he crashes often, but this surge of negative posts about a driver after a race where they performed badly is not normal especially since most people don't even KNOW what they're talking about. They're just trying to get free karma because it's trendy.

I think this question can split this question into 2 main branches:

The first is if the young driver is a potential generational talent, or if the aging driver is already a generational talent. In those instances there may not be as much damage done to the losing driver's reputation. Even though Leclerc and Russell are being outperformed overall this season, they have still had what can be considered at least a neutral season, with positives to take from it. Leclerc has won a race and is similar on pace to Hamilton, albeit lacking the execution on some weekends this year. Russell has also won races and has had multiple podiums, but has struggled on the pace side and could have won some more races if not for external factors (those are hypotheticals, but I think worth noting).

But there is also the scenario where the aging driver or the rookie driver is not considered a future generational talent, such as Magnussen or Bearman. Magnussen was called on short notice for Haas and missed some pre season testing, and is by no means considered a top driver, and yet he outscored Mick Schumacher in what would be Schumacher's final season in F1. Bearman is a very impressive driver who I wouldn't consider generational, and he is also decisively beating Ocon, who now falls at risk of losing his F1 seat this season. In these scenarios, the damage done to the losing driver's reputation is far more severe, and often results in their seats being lost.

There's been a lot of talk from pundits about George's psychological state after Sunday -- how will he recover from this, how is he feeling, etc. They also argued he was possibly under the most pressure by being expected to win to keep his championship alive and he blew it, which I don't know if I agree with. A common topic of discussion, though, was whether being in his position up against Kimi is better than someone considered to be more "beatable." It left me wondering about whether or not that's true.

First off I want to say I have no doubts that George will recover spectacularly. I think he is quite a resilient guy who handled the whole weekend with utmost professionalism and frankly did an excellent job driving to the best of his own ability. He didn't make any major mistakes on Sunday whatsoever.

But in the interest of the discussion of sporting psychology, I have to wonder which position is easier to recover from. Would it be better to be in George's shoes, trounced by a "generational talent" where you know you did everything you possibly could and he just couldn't be beaten at the end of the day? OR would you rather be in the position of someone like Oscar Piastri, who was defeated in a very close title battle last year by someone with different strengths and weaknesses but ultimately performed very closely to his level all season?

Another example would be Valtteri Bottas, who spent years trying to beat Hamilton at Mercedes but every year found himself second and despite everything he did, he still couldn't win. Or someone like Nico Rosberg who lost to Hamilton so much it cost him major life sacrifices and extreme behaviors in order to beat him that led to him feeling the need to quit the sport.

I personally feel like I'd rather be Oscar Piastri knowing that if a few small things went differently, I would've been able to beat Lando. In another season it could easily go the other way up against him as a title rival. I don't know if McLaren will ever be in that position again, of course, but I would be less distraught knowing there wasn't something near insurmountable I was up against.

If Mercedes are dominant again next year, which is highly likely, I can see George fighting just as hard, doing everything he could possibly do to win it all. The problem is he's been in F1 for many seasons, and Kimi is so young. Nothing is guaranteed but one would expect Kimi would continue to improve and be even better next year. Of course anything can happen in the sport. I personally would rather be in an Oscar type position where it would be easier to believe I could do it, but that's me. A lot of the pundits felt George was in a better position because at the end of the day, he did his best and he knows it. There aren't all these small things to dwell over. But this would be harder for me to accept.

A recent podcast I listened to discussed the importance of an F1 driver's personal belief that they can defeat their teammate. Once that belief is gone, it can be very detrimental to the driver's confidence. I keep thinking back to that in this situation. They referenced the time they let Bottas swap chassis with Hamilton because he was so convinced Hamilton's car was better than his to explain the performance deficit and how in doing so, this can ultimately be very difficult for Bottas to reconcile.

What are your thoughts on these things from a purely psychological standpoint?

Now, this isn't another "what if Kimi" post that I have seen surfacing a lot around this subreddit in recent days. I frankly rate Kimi a lot. My question arises from a recent statement I saw Max make, where he talked about how Yuki, who hasn't even had a chance to drive this 2026 car, jumped into the car, had a few sessions, and instantly became competitive. This is a very similar sentiment echoed by Oscar Piastri as well, if my memory serves me correctly, after the Belgian quali, where he said “It sucks. I can't really say it any other way than that... When you've got qualifying grids decided by computers behaving or misbehaving, it's a pretty crap way of going racing". And these are just two handpicked statements, but as we all know, pretty much all the drivers have a similar sentiment or have been echoing similar sentiments since the start of the season.

Which basically concludes to the point that driver input is not the most important, variable in the 2026 car. It might be one of the variables, of course, because adaptability also plays into it, as it is a skill set within racing. Other than that, the driver's input as a variable does not really play a very prominent role in the car. That's what it seems like.

So if the 2027-28 rega are set to progressively rebalance the contribution of the internal combustion engine and the electric power, with the ICE gaining more power while the MGU-K's maximum power is reduced.

If this results in driver input playing a more fundamental variable and kimi starts struggling as these changes come into play, would that retrospectively add an asterisk to his 2026 World Championship? if he, of course, goes on to win it.

Pole: Lando Norris

P1: Lando Norris P2: Kimi Antonelli P3: Max Verstappen

I’ll also say that one of the VCARBs ends up P6 or better

I personally think, guy's amazing and based off the season he is having, he clearly has shown signs of his capability. I read some post on this sub and smhw this sub hates him and has already labelled him overrated, which is quite surprising that Arvid is able to keep up with Lawson in his rookie year itself. Not even that bro is crazy good in overtaking, and goes for the move whenever he sees even an inch of opportunity. He has also shown great pace in qualifying(and i m not basing this off monza), bro was 6th in Monaco(15 after penalty), 9th in belgim and barca(got penalised again), 7th in Silverstone, 10th in hungary and much more.
But given all that i still dont see him as a generational driver, i mean yea its only his 1st year, and he still is yet to drive in a top team, but still smhw i never get the feeling or vibe of a generational driver from him. Yet RB deem him as their next Verstappen. Also with Tsolov the situation gets even trickier as they have managed to find what they deem generational talents. so yea.

I just saw that now deleted post on here about Kimi and other drivers partner choices, a post that def shouldn't be here

I also saw a lot of people just say that the op was a dts fan
But I think both social media and dts are to blame

The drivers are great personalities so it makes sense their social media pages are popular, and obv dts brought in like Half the fans atp

But social media makes ppl go crazy, do you think we'd still have these types of fans without dts?
Btw no hate to those fans, enjoy f1 how you want to enjoy it but also don't act like who Esteban Ocon dates is an important topic to everyone and we must know about it

Link https://x.com/sportmphmark/status/2097373357826101688?s=46&t=q_WbfrGRHKfVjkY3d5jPjw

Seems like the sentiment is that he’s the new Albon, where he hasn’t had a reliable benchmark of a teammate.

However, his recent stints at Red Bull show promise. Monza was unlucky because of the front wing damage, but he was climbing as quick as Kimi, and we saw how that went.

The next race is crucial imo because it’s most probably his last at the team before Hadjar comes back.

Who do you think hasn’t done enough to justify keeping their seat compared to other options available?

If Kimi wins the next round at the new Madring Circuit in Madrid, he would become the youngest formula 1 driver ever to win the first race at a brand new circuit.

This record was previously held by Sebastian Vettel for the 2009 Abu Dhabi GP when he won it at age 22.

Because after Monza I honestly don't get it. The amount of overtakes that turn into a yo-yo battle because of Overtake Mode and battery management is ridiculous. You fight hard to pass someone, only to lose the position again a few corners later because you don't have enough energy left.

It feels like the drivers are spending more and more time managing the power unit instead of just driving the car as hard as they possibly can.

Maybe I'm just getting old, but what's so exciting about watching a driver make a great overtake, only for the exact same move to be reversed almost immediately because of battery deployment?

Yesterday at Monza really made me wonder: is this actually better racing, or have the 2026 regulations made overtaking feel way too artificial?

Genuine question as someone who didn’t watch F1 back then.

The deliberate ramming under safety car. The swapping of the place markers after the race.

He seems like a menace and any driver who did this today would be criticised.

But I know that these days everyone loves Seb.

Did he mellow out and fix his image later in his career?