The joke might be a year early.

Do we talk about Dreamers here, or take it to the Lesson? ;)

Figured I'd start this today, if only as a warning that Qualifying is tomorrow and the race is on Saturday for Bahrain this weekend, and I think the same next weekend. Drivers have apparently already voice concerned about a 24 race season schedule.

I will not get my hopes up over Practice sessions.

I know Daytona 500 happened, but I never turned it on. I think Superbike started, but Moto GP is next weekend.

Who watched Drive to Survive? Is Horner really okay?

Apparently a Google Drive was sent to everyone and their momma (press, team owners, media outlets, Liberty Media) containing the supposed evidence of Horner's wrongdoing. What's true and what's not will be up for debate, and rightfully so. Even if this turns out to be a total setup or smear campaign against Christian, I can't see how he stays as team principal at the moment. Best case he has to step aside for a while and let everything clear up. Worst case, he's toast.

And yeah, none of the lap times mean sh*t until Q3. Q1 will be the first real indicator where the cars and drivers are. Then people can start sniffing the hopeium that Max won't run away with the chip off the break

So I'm sure he has enemies willing to do whatever it takes to harm him.

But the question is, if someone is trying to sabotage the team, would it be more effective to go after Newey?

but I assume either it can't be proven totally or it's dickish but not illegal

so it's all just embarrassing but he doesn't gaf and max doesn't and his red bull bosses have shown they don't, so

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Until sponsors start pulling out this will stay a PR nightmare, but not much else. Will that be enough to move Horner? I doubt it. Marko stay saying wild sh*t and he's still cooking.

We'll just add it to the pile of storylines for this season. I'm sure Netflix will be like a pig in slop when the next Drive To Survive comes out.

Let's just drop the flag on Saturday and get it on. Green, Green, Green, Go, Go GOOOOO!!!!!

what has been mentioned seems to confirm what I was already anticipating -- horner is a real bag of shit, there's not anything criminal and because they don't want to fire him there's not enough to fire him


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Maybe Ferrari or somebody catches up. Maybe a meteor wipes out the city of Milton Keynes. I believe the probability of either of those two events happening is about the same.

Red Bull over everyone. Ferrari, Mercedes, and McLaren fighting for F1.5. Aston is still figuring it out, and everyone else is fighting for 11th place.

Amazing that a mature factory team can be that crappy. Williams running cars out there on the loose change they found in James Vowles's sofa, Haas assembling a chassis with spare parts from Revell models, and the French still find a way to be worse.

I think the whole nation of France needs to start an online petition to bring Flavio back.

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

the reason i ask is because it seems most people are bemoaning Red Bull's dominance the last few years (and it's looking to go that way again).

isn't this normal in F1? like, i'm fairly new to the sport but i am somewhat aware of the history, and isn't it typical that one team dominates for 3 or more years and then another team finally figures something out and it's their turn to dominate for a handful of years?

so is everyone just mad all the time (fans i mean) unless it's the team they like dominating?

There have definitely been periods of it. And fandom (not just Netflix but the popularity doesn't help) does make a lot of driver followings that like to seem to be mad at others. 2021 didn't help. I'll admit I've never liked Verstappen lol and didn't have a terrible problem with Mercedes period, but I think a lot of it also comes down to a sense of the FIA decisions that lead to it (conspiracy theories or not).

A lot of people like to think, after 2021, these new rules also were just hand made for RB lol. For better or worse, it also seemed like bad timing after one of the best seasons in years (regardless of how it ended) as the field usually tightens up later in a generation of rules. There were periods of dominance in the past, but the last two (ground floor rules, and the hybrid engines) do feel more tied to FIA decisions. Yes, they all knew what was coming and the people that got it right did what they needed to do, but they feel like they go more hand in hand.

I know some didn't like it, but I genuinely believe the Merc years were better than this. Was it 2016 Bahrain when Ros/Ham had that race? We're not getting anything like that now. And Ferrari's didn't fuck up until the second half of the season back then.

The four years of Vettel/RB before that were a lot more competitive than the titles make it seem. Even rooting for Hamilton then, I respected Vettel and that car, there was something about a downforce machine that was so good it didn't matter if the engine was slower that was admirable. And just, Hamilton/Button, Kimi/Lotus, Alonso/Ferrari, it feels even better in retrospect. The years between that and Schumacher were actually pretty good. Alonso beating him for two years with Renault arguably defined his success and respect for the rest of his career. There seemed to be some parity in between then too. I wasn't watching before then, but it felt like there were more rivalries back then, real ones, on track.

The racing is really more boring now, and I'd rather have more reasons to hate VER for wheel to wheel antics then whatever we have now lol.

It does kind of feel like the personalities are lacking. I think it's a combination of the 'new/Netflix' fans wanting their person to win, but also racing fans wanting better racing. Even just some kind of head to head at the front. This is just what comes to mind.

the red bull thing is annoying because they really have all the bases covered

verstappen is a little shit, but he can fuckin drive, no one disputes that

checo is a perfect second driver in doing enough to secure the constructors while also not at all bothering max

they have pit stops dialed

their strategy is largely on point

their cars don't break down in bizarre ways


even peak dominant Mercedes would basically pretend to suck to help us all out

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that they cheated on development the first year of the new specs, got a slap on the wrist, and have used that to dominate the era

but tbf ferrari and Mercedes have built some cars that were absolute dogshit

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Like... when Schumacher was dominating you had to be in Europe to follow in real time if you were a fan. Red Bull's run in the early 2010s you could follow if you were internet savvy and has access to the Speed Channel in the states. I dare say Lewis and Petronas' run from 2014-2018 (ish) you still had to be tapped in and dedicated to know what was going on and to actually care. So there were still areas of dominance by one team or driver, but not enough people looking to care.

That being said, there was a lot more on track drama in, say 2016-2021 than one may think. '16 would have been Hamilton's, but a spate of unreliability and a few crappy starts had Lewis desperately trying to set Rosberg up for failure in the last race, as that was his only chance to get the driver's chip. '17 - '19 Ferrari and Vettel was legitimately in the hunt, though their reliability and 'cheater' engine (allegedly) ended up being their undoing. Meanwhile, Max was getting better as a driver and Red Bull were becoming a legit contender. So even though Lewis ended up with the wins, it wasn't exactly the cakewalk we have seen in recent years.

And yes, Red Bull absolutely nailed the new regulations, while everyone else looks like Keystone Cops with their race programs. Petronas was 20+ seconds ahead of the field in 2014 when the new regs came in (though there were a slew of reliability issues up and down the grid that didn't help). While I do believe comp has been better in the past, it just feels worse now because there's much more attention paid to the sport.

Rabid/toxic fanbases also have a lot to do with things, but I'm not going down that rabbit hole.

>isn't this normal in F1? like, i'm fairly new to the sport but
>i am somewhat aware of the history, and isn't it typical that
>one team dominates for 3 or more years and then another team
>finally figures something out and it's their turn to dominate
>for a handful of years?

...the increasingly high barriers to entry.

In the '50s and '60s, the rulebook was pretty wide open, and aerodynamics hadn't really been understood yet. What that meant was that it was really a series where you could innovate, try weird stuff that might or might not work. Much more of a mechanic's game, where real grease monkeys excelled. This also meant that driver skill likely played more of a part, and if you look at Fangio, as the best example: he won 5 championships in 6 years with 4 different constructors. Whatever car he got in, as long as it wasn't horrible, he could win.

It was also pretty cheap, in that era, because cars weren't much more than metal tubes with rudimentary suspensions and as big an engine as you could strap on while keep it somewhat drivable.

Once they figured out aero, in say the late'60s/early '70s, now you had to have an aerodynamicist of some kind, and you had to worry much more about bodywork and packaging. But still, thanks to the Cosworth DFV/DFW engines, any team could be competitive if they built a reasonable chassis around that engine, which was cheap and powerful and gave you an off-the-shelf motor that could match anything Ferrari or whoever had to offer.

As a consequence, no team won back-to-back chips in the whole 1970s. But turbos killed that off in the '80s, and the advent of accessible computer aided design and modeling jacked up the cost of doing business even more. And that's where new technologies (Williams's active suspension in '92-'93, for example) meant a whole new department, and a new layer of costs. So you start to see those 3-4 years periods you mention, like Prost/Senna era McLaren, Brawn/Schumacher Ferrari, and so on, where one team makes a significant leap, and everyone else struggles to make their own solutions.

So basically it used to be that if you could scrounge a little cash to buy some sheet metal and a decent motor, you could get into it. Now it's not whether you own your own wind tunnel, but whether the wind tunnel you own is as good everyone else's.

Anyway, TL/DR: it was anybody's championship until somewhere in the '80s.

https://pasteboard.co/RwRB1i0qVvHp.jpg

The lineage of each current F1 team, as in how Matra became Mercedes. Sort of interesting.

This Bearman kid can drive a car.

Haas look like they've figured something out, or at least how to not qualify 6th and finish 19th.

The RBR thing...I wanna watch the movie someday.

I was like ohhh

we just found out widely what they already knew, dude has something

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Whew.

like man I don't want to see his kids trying to follow in the footsteps of the dad they never knew

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like I love motorsport even though I know there's a chance someone might die


I remember when JD McDuffie crashed, I saw that live on my TV.

but man everything about this feels icky

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I stopped watching Indycar for years after that race.

Not sure where that would be available in the States. The footage isn't even that thorough back then, but man, just seeing the 'result' felt scary.

Wasn't sure what you were talking about until I just searched it.

Gilles crash...I made the mistake of watching the little available footage some years ago, and, yeah, I don't know what else I want to see about that.

It was actually Gilles's Canadian hero status who indirectly got me into F1 as a little kid. My dad took a new job when I was 10 or 11, and his new boss was a recent Canadian transplant with a son exactly my age, so we hung out quite a lot, and he was all Ferrari all the time, thanks to the national Gilles-worship. I didn't understand what he was on about, but I figured I should have a favorite driver too, so I picked Michele Alboreto, who had just started with Ferrari at the time, mostly because I thought he had a really cool name.

But yeah, I'll probably have to watch that doc at some point. Just...whooo....wrenching.

It's not nice to cheer at someone's misfortune, but with Max out of the race the field was wide open for once in the last 2 years (or so it felt). But Melbourne demanded more mechanical sacrifices. So...

- Congrats to Carlos for a cracking drive and win. He's going to be sore all week, but having the win was likely worth it. It's been AGES since we've heard any other national anthems I forgot what his sounded like. Shame he doesn't have a seat next year (at least not yet). His speed hasn't been an issue. Part consistency, part Ferrari being Ferrari, part Italian reliability. He'll end up somewhere

- Sargent, Albon and Williams was a no win situation. Williams without a spare chassis sucks. But they have been on a shoestring budget for a while, and parts aren't cheap. One more headache Vowles doesn't need. Asking Logan to give up his car for Alex had to hurt his pride, but to be fair, Albon is the better driver. Would it have gone the other way? Nope. To top it off, Alex ended up just outside the points, so it was all for naught, ultimately. Yes, it gave them the best chance for that precious constructor point, but nobody feels good now

- Haas double points? Congrats.

- Yuki is driving his a$$ off. Danny is not. How long will Marko let that go on before Ricc is sacked or other changes are made, like:

- Perez. He's got one job, back up Max and get whatever points he leaves. But he hasn't exactly been lighting the track on fire even with that turbine powered rocket car. Supposedly he had damage yesterday, which may help to explain his lack of progress mid race after he passed Alonso. Still, Marko could call Yuki up and swap him and Perez by summer break if the results don't pan out this year. It's an admitted longshot, but given RB history, it could happen.

- Back to Danny for a bit. He has not returned to form ever since he left Red Bull. True, the Renault and McLaren cars he had weren't great or fit his late braking style, but having your teammate beat you out more often than not is never good. I understand coming home to... whatever the team formerly known as Alpha Tauri is comforting, if this seat doesn't work out he could be out of F1 a second time, and for good

- I'm not entirely sure Russell can handle big pressure. Another instance of crashing out while pushing to make the pass late race. Even though he can get along with Mercedes' woeful chassis better than Lewis, he doesn't have his elder statesman's race craft, and it shows. Although...

- Alonso likely pulled a crafty/dangerous move in that corner (depending on how much of a fan you are of Alonso or Russell) to net that 20 second penalty. Telemetry don't lie. I have to hand it to him for hoping on the radio to try and sell his story. I don't totally fault him for George's crash, but I can't say I'm mad at the penalty handed down either. Place drop doesn't matter, but the penalty points on his license do.

- If Lewis doesn't drive the wheel nuts off that Ferrari there will be hell to pay. I understand the drag the last 3 years have been for him, and not a soul alive would say Mercedes has given him a competitive car since the new regs hit. It's still early in the season and there are still upgrades and setup to be had on the car but.... I can't help but wonder if Hamilton hasn't checked out already. Naysayers may even suggest he's lost a step or two. While I won't go that far, I can only hope for better showing as the season goes on and that he can get on with his new team quickly. If not, the vultures will be circling. At least he didn't take a lawn chair to the circuit and watch the rest of the race

- Any race without Max is a good race. Sad it takes mechanical failure to take him out, but I'm sure the other teams, and maybe the sport at large, enjoyed that brief respite. He'll be back to total domination next race.

- This Horner thing isn't going away this season

Yeah, a Max DNF is a race improvement, though it didn't seem like as much of one as I expected. Was cool, maybe I wasn't fully focused, but wasn't really a fight at the front. Congrats to Carlos though, I always remember getting my appendix out in High School, could feel it hurt just walking for a couple weeks, but even when that fades trying to run hurt for a month. Hopefully you don't use your abs too much under G forces keeping your neck in place lol I always liked Carlos, I hope he gets a good gig. Do Mercedes swap him? :) Does Verstappen actually leave a seat for him back in the RB family? lol

I always had hope for a good Danny Ric coming back, and I think everyone would be happy with one, but even I can't imagine it being a thing now. Some of these young guys waiting definitely need a seat, they might not be personalities (which I do think F1 needs a bit more of as we lose characters), but they can drive.

I'm cool with both Alonso and Russell, but yeah, the actual telemetry that made the penalty decision was telling. He was def babbling a lot of defensive made up stuff (if you were doing quali lap after quali lap you wouldn't have done that, and you were definitely looking behind). I'm pretty sure he didn't care about his exit, he cared about messing with Russell's exit to compromise any speed down the back straight.

I gotta mention Moto GPs solid start! Really nice to see the rookie Acosta delivering so soon, already on the podium in the second race, I might be rooting for him the most now. Big Bagnaia/Marquez incident already, though oddly, I think that one is mostly on Bagnaia.

>call Yuki up and swap him and Perez by summer break if the
>results don't pan out this year. It's an admitted longshot,
>but given RB history, it could happen.

Yuki isn't ready. Time sheets maybe, but not mentally or emotionally.

>- Back to Danny for a bit.

He's done. Been done.

>- This Horner thing isn't going away this season

Hasn't it already?

Evidently Liberty Media buying it for $4 billion is all but a done deal. Which probably means a ton more Netflix-style media stuff and a big push to get more market share in the US. Which makes sense with the new TNT broadcast package.

Something else I just read...Trackhouse Racing (NASCAR) gonna field an Aprilia with Miguel Oliveira in 2025? That's an ambitious team, who are doing incredibly well with lesser resources, but it seems a strange move in the sense that there can't be much technical/engineering crossover there. Hendrick fooling with LeMans GT cars makes sense, and McLaren expanding to Indy (and Andretti trying to go the other way) is obvious, but stock cars and bikes...I assume it'll be a whole lot of Aprilia support, since it's going to be a satellite team, but it'll be interesting to see how that works out.

maybe just branding this year. The Only Fans team in Moto 2 might be the best branding lol

Not sure how I feel about Liberty Media lol. They've always wanted more American audience, I thought when Nicky Hayden won the Championship it would help, but they seemed to stop caring pretty quickly the next season. Don't fuck with our stewards and rules.

Williams just can't catch a break. Burning through those chassis...they can't afford much more of that.

And I wish Ric would just retire and move to DTM or LeMans or something. I cannot think of a driver at the top of any discipline who clearly lost it and then actually got it back. Not talking about a guy who had a bit of a dip or lull at some point, but a guy who went way, way off the pace and then managed to find it again. Is there any example? Can't recall even one. You could maybe make a case for Lauda, but that 1979 Brabham was a bad car. At any rate, it's just kind of sad now, and possibly a little dangerous.

Also, I predict that Renault sells off the team within a couple of years.

the sample size this season is big enough that i'm curious what the teams are thinking about him.

there was all this talk that he'd come back to Red Bull to be the #2.

i know Red Bull loves Daniel, but i'm guessing that door has closed, or is close to it?

...in the case that Checo (or Max) leaves, do you hire Ricciardo over Sainz? Over Liam Lawson? Over Yuki? Over Albon? If you could get Bearman, over him?

I might take Ric over Sargeant, but I can't think who else.

BUT

the crash is lance stroll's fault

why? because lance stroll exists. if he weren't in F1, the aston would've been further up the grid and the crash wouldn't have happened.


it is danny's fault, yes, BUT

alex has a weird habit of being on the outside of drivers and assuming they won't hit him when if you think about it for like half of a second you can see he shouldn't be there. it's not his fault, he had a claim, but he shouldn't have put his car on the outside there

and I think we can all agree, if you're daniel ricciardo

and you look to your left and see dumbass lance coming up on the inside, you'd try ot get as far away from that mf as you possibly could

which is why it's lance's fault (even if it's clearly danny's fault)

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so he can impressively pass lots of cars at the start

(he does seem to do that often)

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didn't you hear that radio message! lol

He really has had a habit of making good starts in the past though. He definitely shouldn't be around any more. One of the young guys needs to get the kind of chance he got he got his seat, which was not explicit nepotism. :) I really never realized these French Canadians had F1 team support money back then.

if you have F1 TV watch the onboard from hulkenberg's camera of th next to last lap (hulk passes stroll at the beginning of the last lap before that bitch ass message)


it's not the straights he's catching him on! stroll fuckin sucks


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I kid. Stroll had nothing to do with this race. And for the record I'm not and never have been mad at Lance. He has a F1 seat, and plenty other drivers would love to have, but don't.

That said....

My stance on Stroll is set in stone and nothing has changed. I have no axe to grind against Lance, and he can outdrive me on a bad Sunday afternoon. But nepotism is a thing, and if it weren't for that, Lance wouldn't have a seat. But it is a thing, and he has a seat, so huzzah


Let's get to 2026 and see what happens. I'll watch the next few years, because I do love F1 and the tech and the drivers, even if my favorite driver doesn't have a shot

without being good at all, and is in a decent car and can't do shit with it

latifi at least had the manners to drive a dogshit williams at the back

I am dooooone with this dude

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In fact I actually think he's gotten worse over the last two seasons.

I said he saved a team, more or less.

But the question is, will his father fire him? How does that go down? Clearly he has to go, but...

but like how many of those does he have, and he's been in F1 for SO LONG now, and in a car that doesn't suck

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I didn’t see it before.

If Liberty Media really buys the rights to it, I hope they just promote it by advertising that it is better than F1 during F1 :)

The COTA race was great. They made Vinales work for it with his terrible start from pole pushing him back to 11th, but his pace this weekend was unbeatable. I was kind of hoping his comeback would stop at 2nd, Acosta was close to winning already as a rookie, would have taken the youngest Winner record away from Marquez. He still has a while to do it I think. His race at the front holding off the Ducati's was still stellar.

But yes, I do feel ashamed.

especially since they don't come out this way often (only once this year without Argentina) Like what do you mean the Sprint is at 4 PM??
I get all their Instagram notifications though. and I still use their videopass so I can watch later if I don't live

so the schedule is weird. Sprint Quali was last night, and the weather made it interesting apparently. I copmletely missed it. Sprint is at 11 tonight, which isn't terrible, but Quali is at 3 Am and the Race is 3 AM on Sunday. Set your PVRs.

Hoping China is cool for a race. Not sure in the dry, if even the RBs are behind, that back straight with DRS will just be boring for them. Apparently there's low grip which can help the race.

They painted the surface with some kind of bitumen coating, which seemed to get really slick in the wet, but didn't have much effect in the dry last night. Lewis had a better start than Lando, and they were neck and neck until Lando tried to get outside and ran way off track, which dropped him to 7th or so. Then Max just hunted down Lewis and Alonso and won by 12 seconds or thereabouts. Decent action midpack, with the out-of-place qualifiers working up the field. Other than that, it was all right.

More interesting is why the grass keeps catching fire. They had to have treated it with something flammable.

Haven't watched race qualy yet.

Like, Lance being a rich kid would come out with some karate moves he learned at rich-kid camp and then Danny would just kangaroo-punch once, twice, then put him in the sleeper hold he uses wrestling crocodiles in the bush. And that is content I would pay very good money to watch.

I kid. That was a wild spaced out moment from Stroll though. Had this happened a few weeks ago in Australia, it may have got dicey

I'll be glad when the Eastern swing of the schedule is over. I can't schedule to watch the race live, which I prefer (I'm the weird kind of person that can't watch a sporting event on DVR).

is that ricciardo is fully validated for running into albon to avoid dumbass stroll in japan

because stroll is a dumbass who shouldn't be in F1

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Newey is leaving Red Bull. I don't know what's going to come of this, but if all the pre-emptive twitter stuff about him going to Ferrari come true, that's hilarious.

If Mercedes actually get him (and Verstappen???) after Lewis leaves (and said they should get Newey last year) that would also be hilarious.

If he's just retiring, good for him. The Lewis of aero lol

Miami Sprint this weekend, we'll see if anything this interesting happens on track. Always weird when they come to our time-zones.

IN NEW YORK!!!

Red Bull gonna end up with Horner, Checo and Gasly or Albon?? Comedy

No question that Newey is the best designer alive. But that doesn't mean RBR doesn't have someone to replace him, because you gotta think in the last 17 years or whatever it's been, somebody in that department was learning everything they could from him. So I'm not sure this means any sort of decline for RBR.

But if that decline does happen, surely that condemns Horner to some extent. But even there, team management is a lot more than putting the best-designed car on the track.

If it does trigger Max leaving, I think that crushes RBR's chances a lot more than just Newey going. Max is so good right now that I think if you put him in either the current Ferrari or current McLaren and he still wins most of the races; put another way, I think he's a better driver than the rest of the field by a greater margin than Newey is a better designer than the rest.

That said, from a neutral fan's perspective, yes, Max, please go somewhere with a B+ car and fight it out with the B+ drivers driving A cars...if that makes sense.

If I had to, I'd bet he goes to Ferrari, for the sake of working at least one season with Lewis. But what about McLaren, maybe? Kind of like going home.

However it goes, I'm always happy for the possibility of tightening up the podium fight.

I expect RBR to have a good base and plan. But it would probably have an impact eventually, especially if anyone follows him. 2025 would probably be fine, but when bigger changes happen in 2026, and their Ford thing, they may or may not get it as right as before. May or may not be a Newey thing, but it may affect the plans for their plans.

When I think of Mercedes having a lot of their people poached by RBR powertrains a while ago, while they might not be big names, it feels like that might have hit the most when things changed too, and they've struggled with new engine/fuel regs as well. Change leads to competitive change hopefully.

Max leaving would def mess up their chances, especially since they've clearly thought of his driving style when designing the car this whole time. I'd be interested in Max leaving as well in that sense, and this isn't the hater in me talking, to see how he copes with another car. Even if they accommodate him, another team won't have the history of setting up cars for him, and they talk a lot about the differences in how he feels the limits of the car compared to Lewis/others etc.

he understands how all this shit works together to make the car go faster overall

instead of having downforce you can't use when it counts, or creating something that only works on a few tracks, or being so compromised because you need more cooling or to turn down the engine etc.

beyond just being THE AERODYNAMICS GAWD (read bros book he only cares about aero, thassit)


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he was ahead the whole race, then sargeant crashed which gave Norris fortune to pit (under caution?)...then Max was kinda getting his back kicked in after that?

But then he ran away from Max, and that was pure pace. So combination of fortune and skill, and McLaren getting the hard tires working better after the safety car than the RBR, for whatever reason. Then since Lando's tires were several laps younger, just kept pulling away.

But yeah, sometimes the yellow flag is your friend, sometimes not.

That said, that upgrade package McLaren brought to Miami is the real deal. Zack Brown said is was almost a B-spec car, they brought so much new stuff. So well done to McLaren for that.

(probably from when he hopped the curb??)

and with these cars, the ground effects are everything.

with even just a little damage, it could've still been plenty fast, but not able to take advantage of enough extra to catch and pass norris, or not enough to do it without eating up the tires, etc.

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I also wonder if he backed off in the last laps as it was clear he couldn't quite keep pace with a healthy Lando. Miami isn't a multi-pass track anyway, so...

Regardless, nothing but props and happiness for Norris getting his first win. Doesn't look like there was a driver on the grid that wasn't happy for him, regardless of how their race and team ended up. No notes on this race matter other than his first win. Congrats

Musta thought they were free and clear for a few days

There is the old adage in racing, though: if you ain't cheatin', you ain't tryin'.

That said, usually that means fooling with tire pressures or minimum weights or wing angles, not just pushing the damned button when you're not supposed to. You're supposed to try to not get caught, not do something that's patently obvious on the telemetry.

l

Nice to get the home win.

Not that you can really tell much from Monaco, but my suspicions that Horner was lying about Max's floor damage in Miami are pretty much confirmed. I think RBR are officially caught. Not surpassed, but caught.

80-20 Kmag's fault. Very lucky to not be sitting the next race.

help Russell hold off Verstappen? Seems as if that track in general doesn't allow for many opportunities to overtake folks. Beautiful scenery surrounding the track, but the track itself provided for some boring racing.

The racing was boring before DRS came in, and it would be just as boring if you made the whole track one giant DRS zone. It's just geometry and aerodynamics. If you dig up Monaco footage from the '50s and '60s, when the cars were half as wide as they are now, and didn't rely so much on aerodynamic downforce to go around corners, you see some cool racing. But the cars are relatively enormous now, and since they rely so heavily on clean air across the front wing to get cornering force, and since the whole track is basically a corner, you have neither the room or the downforce to pass anybody, even if your car is miles faster than the guy in front. Daniel Ricciardo even won the thing in '18 while being more or less down a whole engine cylinder. There's just no way to get past guys if they don't want to get passed, unless they make a mistake.

So you occasionally see a pass...think both Saubers got by Sargeant at one point...but basically, Monaco is just a qualifying contest, and then unless somebody blows a tire or engine, or really botches a pit stop call, or puts it in the wall, the race ends up pretty much the same as the qualifying order.

So you have to wake up every Memorial Day and hope it's pouring raining all day on the Riviera. Then you can get real action, in the rain. But if it's sunny, you turn it on, get a book or surf the web, and enjoy the pictures of the ocean and all the big yachts.

There's been an argument for years now that F! should boot the track from the calendar, but there's the celebrities and the media coverage and the overall spectacle, so it hangs on.

To the specific question, nah, unless George caved, Max wasn't passing. Maybe if the race were 20 laps longer, and George couldn't pit again and his tires became completely undrivable, but otherwise.

The larger issue, besides Monaco just being way too small for 21st century F1 cars, is the growing size of the cars themselves (in person they're the size of Yukons and Hummers) and the monstrous downforce they generate, and that they're negatively affecting the racing on what used to be thought of as really big tracks. Spa, for example, was considered a monster track, and Suzuka as well. They're still okay, but we're getting to the point as Spa particularly where it's getting too tight. So you see all the newest tracks being constructed like 4 or 5 car widths across (Texas, Abu Dhabi), which sort of works, but has its own problems. Adrian Newey was just talking about this in an interview recently, and I think the 2026 regulations are supposed to make them smaller. But it's tough, because the modern crash-impact standards necessitate a lot of extra structure, and the complicated three-part engines take up a lot of space. So they're limited there.

Sorry. Rambling. TL/DR: dry Monaco is always boring. But look at all the fashion models.

Side note: I kinda take Magnusson's side in that crash, not because he didn't do something stupid, which he did, but the first lap, when everyone's on cold tires and still getting up to speed, is probably the best chance to pass anybody he was gonna have the whole day. Once everybody gets single-file, that's it for position changes, outside of pit under/overcuts or restarts.

For years this has been a processional race. You finish where you qualify, unless there's rain or an accident to spice things up (or pit and don't have any tires ready...). Remember, Danny won one year with a damaged KERS, so he was 150+hp down. Lewis held on from a hard charging Max with dead tires and survived a lunge at the chicane. Cars too big/too long wheelbase to make racing a thing. But it's the 'crown jewel' of F! for the history and spectacle.

I understand why the race exists, but I can sleep in that Sunday and watch the Indy 500 instead. 95% of the action this year was the first 45 seconds of the race, and it didn't affect the top 10(!!) drivers one place. That's insane

I'll need a few more races to see whether or not RB may have some competition this season or not. Can't take any reading from Monaco, but Max finishing that far down was interesting. Can't say he was actually under pressure in Miami just yet, or whether RB has sent in any upgrades. Let's see after Canada

In a way that even Imola doesn't. Kinda think RBR may still have the edge there, but who knows?

500 was a good race this year. Really wanted Pato to make that last pass stick, but I think he made it one corner too early.

I briefly caught the post-race breakdown for the event and the commentators said either rules forcing another tire replacement for all the drivers or changes to the course itself are needed to make the event exciting.

Have to feel sorry for the announcers for the race since they have to be fully aware that nothing was going to add any excitement to the event after the red flag got waved.

And as a consequence find it hard to shut up.

but tbf this is how it happened to mercedes. the lack of wind tunnel time catches up with you eventually

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

>the lack of wind
>tunnel time catches up with you eventually

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

RB looking like Mercedes at the beginning of the year, just adrift.

Now that they have a winning car, they need to adapt to winning strategies. Pit, man, pit.

Russell wasn't penalized when he made contact with Piastri late in the race.

I wouldn't have been surprised if the stewards gave Russell five seconds, as we've seen that kind of ruling before, but that would be pretty harsh, really. Piastri wasn't damaged, George pulled out of the move, and everybody keeps racing. You gotta let them try stuff.

In the last few years it's probably gone too far the other way, with too many penalties, so I'm happy to see a more lenient approach.

I had a good chuckle with Alonso taking away Max's extra point for fastest lap right at the end.

I want Lando-Max shoving matches and middle fingers in the pit lane, NASCAR style. Brown and Horner squaring up in press conferences. Entire pit crews having to be separated by track security.

but I mainly want competitive racing on Sundays, which appears to be a case as both Norris and Maclaren are improving bit by bit.

Am I wrong for thinking that Max probably would have won yesterday's race even if Norris had managed to pass him due to the track limits Norris was under at the time?

>Am I wrong for thinking that Max probably would have won
>yesterday's race even if Norris had managed to pass him due to
>the track limits Norris was under at the time?

Autosport guys were into all of this on their post-race podcast last night. I mean, yes, except that you could rightly penalize Max for both making double defensive moves AND moving in the braking zone, the latter of which caused the crash. But if they hadn't crashed, say, and Lando passes clean, and Max was penalized for shady defense, then it's Lando's win. Except for the track limits penalty, of course. But is running too wide with no one around you the same as going way off the track when you're in the heat of battle, taking evasive action to avoid a crash? Letter of the law says yes, so Lando gets the penalty. But guys have to run wide to avoid wrecks all the time when they're dicing for position. Not sure that's fair, to penalize for that.

But of course it wouldn't have been an issue if Lando had just kept it between the lines in the preceding 65-odd laps.

So I have no idea how it would have turned out. RBR said they should have told Max about Lando's penalty, because then he could have just given up the lead, stayed within 5 seconds, and there's no crash and he wins. But that assumes he himself wouldn't have been penalized for the double moves/braking zone stuff. He did get 10 seconds in the end, but that was for causing the crash...don't know whether he would have been penalized if he'd let Lando go.

While I still think Max is the car and driver to beat, he's going to have to work for it a bit. I still think there's some updates to be put on that RB, and even if Max ends up with a penalty for another engine swap, he should have the points and pace to keep the driver's chip in his hands. The Constructors chip though? That will be fun to watch. There's 65 points between 1st and 2nd in the standings. If Perez keeps coming in on the bottom half of the top 10, and Carlos and Charles keep their cars on the track and close to each other, that lead RB has will whittle down before the end of the year. McLaren aren't exactly far behind either.

That said, having 3-4 teams in the mix every race is a nice thought. McLaren feels like they are best set to take it to Max, but we shall see if they keep their current form. Ferrari is weird, as I'm not entirely sure they care what happens this year, with Carlos leaving, Lewis coming in, and regs changing after next season. It could be like Lewis joining Mercedes in 2013 before the 2014 regs hit. One can hope, right... Mercedes definitely seems to have found something to tame their car, but it may be too little too late this year. I'm sure whatever it is they will try to tailor it to George's style of driving, because they have to. They have a car that can be in the mix, but either

A. everything has to break their way
B. everybody in front has a brain fart (like the Red Bull Ring)
C. Lewis has to be the crafty vet

The car is better than they were at the start of the season, but it slightly feels like they are in F1.5, much like RB was in, say, 2018-2020. Closer to the front, farther from the midfield, but in a no man's land of their own unless A-C happens.

literally all the stuff we've ever seen max do


is hilarious

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

exciting as qualifiers were today. I am new to the sport; how much can Red Bill work on Max's car before tomorrow's race?

Seems as if the season of misery continues for Perez. Amazing how poorly things are going for him; I remember him racing worlds better last season.

>I am new to the sport; how
>much can Red Bill work on Max's car before tomorrow's race?

But that may incur a grid penalty. Will depend on what the FIA decide to do.

In general, teams can't make any modifications at all to the cars between the start of qualifying and the start of the race. It's called parc fermé. Good explanation of it here: https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/what-is-f1-parc-ferme-police/6863921/

Basically, they should be able to fix any damage, but can't make any improvements.

but I was quite impressed how Max improved at the end of the race with a car that was damaged after qualifying. I'm sure it's already been said before, but Max's Red Bull is a goddamned rocket ship.

I was nervous at the end there for a bit. Hard to think of a more suitable timing. 9 at one circuit. First to win past 300 GPs.

Weather made for a pretty exciting race after Quali as well. I don't actually know what to say about it though.

I really hope Lewis can fix Ferrari lol

More of this at the Hungaroring. Feels like that track could suit this Merc.

A fast car, variable weather, bad strategy calls from other teams, great pit work and just one hell of a drive all came together for Hamilton today. Took 2.5 years to get back to the top step, and you could hear the toll it took on him with his radio messages after taking the flag. For his last race at the track flying the Petronas colors, you couldn't really ask for a better result. It was only right for Bonno to represent the team on the podium with Lewis. Tears all around. Cracking result

it's wild how the experience gap between lewis/max and lando/george/oscar

gets highlighted in such a tricky situation


www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

Questionable team strategy. Hamilton breaking records. Team orders that leave everybody feeling salty. And the return of Crashtappen. Max being called 'childish' by his engineer is the perfect cherry on top.

Congrats to Oscar. More later...

Found myself in those last ten laps saying, "c'mon, Lando, don't do this...give him the spot back, man." Glad he finally did. Sometimes you gotta see the big picture.

Max is not a good loser. But the greats never are. That said, think Marko may have a chat with him about making the team look bad publicly. The crash...I take Lewis's view, really, which was eh, he tried something, shit happens. The constant bitching was the bigger problem.

On the subject of RBR, think they gotta make a change now in the other garage. I've always liked Checo, but if this is what McLaren are capable of, RBR is gonna get caught in the constructor's within a few races. Which suits me fine, as I'm more or less a McLaren fan, but still hate that Checo pretty much has to lose his seat ASAP. Then again, who takes the drive? Is Liam Lawson gonna put up podiums from the get-go?

RB is in a bit of a precarious situation with the Constructors cup. Putting young drivers next to Max has not worked (see: Gasly + Albon). Given the turbulence and Max's state of mind now and putting Lawson in the mix could chew him up and spit him out just the same. Yuki clearly wants the shot, but not sure he's quite ready yet. Maybe next year for a full year, but pulling the trigger now may not help. Danny has the racing experience, and firsthand experience racing with Max, but how many people think he's better than Checo, even with his horrible run of form as of late?

RB doesn't have another driver that can reliably put points on the board beside Max. And with the McLaren team showing pace in both cars that Constructor lead may be gone by Singapore. Making a driver switch could make things worse. I think Checo or Danny end up without a seat by the end of the season, but whether that call is made during the summer break I'm not sure.

Meanwhile it's good to see the real Max show back up. When he's 12 seconds ahead of everyone you forget he's a little shit. When he has to scrap for position, you see and hear what kind of entitled, impulsive, crash happy little shit he has been since 2016. He was absolutely furious with everyone but himself out there today. Trying to blame Lewis for, you know, making a right turn after the straight, while Max overshot the braking point, cooked his brakes and went flying a la Monza '21 was such a Max thing to do. By then his engineer had enough. I'm sure there will be some behind the scenes discussion with Verstappen, but it won't matter. Once a little shit, always a little shit. Gotta love him

Not the kind of organization that normally makes such basic errors.

based on his interview response, which is odd given the huge blow to the Constructor's points as result of that DQ.

He's never been the type to throw people under the bus publicly, even though it was probably a failure of someone on the strategy team to check the numbers. That person may be looking for other work this week, but we'll never know about it. Unless Toto's ripping Horner for something, he doesn't reveal much that he doesn't expressly want the public to know.

Plus, what can ya do? Not a grey area.

could Piastri have won yesterday if he didn't bungle that last pit stop? Mathematically it seems as if the overage for the pit stop and the difference between him and Hamilton was the difference between first and second place.

Depends. Lewis may have been able to push harder on his tires to either put distance between him and Oscar or try and run him down, depending on where Oscar would have come out. We won't know, but either way it would have been tight.

The race result would have been a little sour either way. Lewis was the fastest on the track and deserved the win on performance. BUT... George made a Hail Mary call and pulled it off, so he deserved the right to fight for the win, which he did. Hard tire compound on a track that has been mainly resurfaced? Nobody had the data for that to know a one stop was actually feasible. Now, whether George could have pulled that off if the car was at legal weight is another thing that we will never know.

Either way, one hell of a race. Unless there's some serious upgrades coming, Max has to have a dynamite qualifying run to get at least the front row, as there's no guarantee his car can simply slice thru traffic if he has to make it through the field. Considering he's on engine #5, there likely will be at least one more grid penalty coming for the rest of the season. Either that or they may have to run a less aggressive tune to try and stretch that engine along a little longer.

The driver championship is probably safe. The constructor's cup is absolutely in play. 3 weeks off, and silly season begins. Once driver moves are made (and one possibly as soon as today if Perez gets sacked) I'll look at a debrief before we get back on track.

Possible that if were getting pressed earlier in that stint he would have just sped up. I assume he was doing at least some tire management to have something left toward the end. And Oscar would have still had to get by LeClerc.

But maybe?

from Sunday, especially how he managed to get the fastest lap right at the end, but both Ferrari cars doing so well got my attention a lot more since they haven't looked at great during the first half of the season. Curious if this means they'll properly challenge Mercedes during the remainder of the season.

There's zero chance they'll play spoiler against McLaren and help Red Bull in terms of the Constructors Cup, right?

I wonder how well Hamilton would have done if he didn't get that BS grid penalty, but he did quite well given where he started from.

>There's zero chance they'll play spoiler against McLaren and
>help Red Bull in terms of the Constructors Cup, right?

Ferrari are nowhere near either of those teams in consistent pace, and they don't understand why they're fast on some tracks and slow on others, or at least that's what they've said publicly. And yesterday seemed to be more Piastri not ever finding his groove than Ferrari figuring something out.

And more importantly, if RBR lose the constructor's, that's all on Perez. The ratio of points between teammates in the top 5 teams:

Max 295 Checo 139 = 2.12
Lando 225 Oscar 179 = 1.26
LeClerc 192 Sainz 172 = 1.12
Lewis 154 George 122 = 1.26
Alonso 50 Stroll 24 = 2.08

Nothing Ferrari does in terms of grabbing podiums is gonna change that kind of underperformance.

Plus, Norris won by a LOT yesterday. Unless RBR bring a significant upgrade to Monza, or Checo starts a string of podiums, I don't think anyone stops McLaren from winning the constructor's.

>I wonder how well Hamilton would have done if he didn't get
>that BS grid penalty, but he did quite well given where he
>started from.

Maybe a spot above Russell? But what do you think was BS about the penalty?

Unless Perez has a monster run over the next 9 races, McLaren will walk them down. It's only a 40 point difference now, and the team has one driver they can count on for the points. Max won't be too chuffed, as he should be able to hold on to the driver's chip, but everyone else in the organization may be a bit chuffed if they lose out on that bonus money because Checo isn't driving to his full potential.

Ferrari is just doing Ferrari things. I don't think they really care. Ride out the season, get Lewis comfortable with the team in '25 (it's going to be sooooooooo weird seeing him in red), and nail the new regs in '26. Hopefully. They are in a weird no man's land where they should be faster, or more consistent, but with a team transition coming up, more or less the same rules next year, and the eyes on the new regs, why stress too much, I guess? I hope they have a decent showing at Monza though.

Adios Logan Sargent. Not like we didn't see that coming though. Maybe him and Mick should form a Formula-E team

>>There's zero chance they'll play spoiler against McLaren
>and
>>help Red Bull in terms of the Constructors Cup, right?
>
>Ferrari are nowhere near either of those teams in consistent
>pace, and they don't understand why they're fast on some
>tracks and slow on others, or at least that's what they've
>said publicly. And yesterday seemed to be more Piastri not
>ever finding his groove than Ferrari figuring something out.
>
>And more importantly, if RBR lose the constructor's, that's
>all on Perez. The ratio of points between teammates in the top
>5 teams:
>
>Max 295 Checo 139 = 2.12
>Lando 225 Oscar 179 = 1.26
>LeClerc 192 Sainz 172 = 1.12
>Lewis 154 George 122 = 1.26
>Alonso 50 Stroll 24 = 2.08
>
>Nothing Ferrari does in terms of grabbing podiums is gonna
>change that kind of underperformance.
>
>Plus, Norris won by a LOT yesterday. Unless RBR bring a
>significant upgrade to Monza, or Checo starts a string of
>podiums, I don't think anyone stops McLaren from winning the
>constructor's.


Thanks for that breakdown of the points totals. The points for Ferrari are somewhat interesting since they've seemingly been underperforming this season, yet both drivers have more points than Hamilton. Russell having less points that Checo is a little bit interesting as well; I have to imagine getting blanked on points for the car being underweight for the race before the summer break hurt a ton for his totals. Next year will be an interesting one for both teams for certain.

>>I wonder how well Hamilton would have done if he didn't get
>>that BS grid penalty, but he did quite well given where he
>>started from.
>
>Maybe a spot above Russell? But what do you think was BS about
>the penalty?

I was mistaken in my interpretation of the reasoning behind the penalty; I was under the mistaken impression that intent was the largest motivating factor to determine if Hamilton was going to get penalized or not. Turns out him just being there was enough. Sucks for him since there wasn't much he could have done on his own.

It almost didn't work, but damned if they didn't milk those tires for everything they had. Vasseur must have hired somebody who knows what they're doing, to make that call.

In other news, Adrian Newey leaves, and Max finishes 37 seconds off the lead.

So the question is, did Ferrari actually make a big gain in pace, or was that all down to the one-stop call? Baku is a little harder on tires than Monza, so see what happens there. But now they're only 39 points off RBR in the constructor's, which means it could well end up that RBR finish the season 3rd. Which would be pretty wild, considering at the start of the season they looked like they were gonna blow everybody away again.

F1 is F1ing this week. Aston Martin announce Newey, Horner says he's still working on their car!

McLaren say they'll employ team orders, Norris gets knocked out in Q1 and Piastri qualifies second. Leclerc pole 4th time in a row here I think. Race should hopefully be as fun as past Baku GPs.

The Moto GP Championship is getting on my nerves, I just want Martin to stop throwing stuff away. I kinda want him to win before he leaves Ducati. and hopefully people catch up next year.

Apologies to numba_33 for spouting what now seems to be bullshit, because after this morning, I'm wondering if Ferrari could steal it. Which would be one of the weirder stealthy come-from-way-behind chips in memory.

If the race ends as quali did, with Norris moving up to, say, 8th or so, the constructor's would be:

RBR 466
McLaren 460
Ferrari 448

If Ferrari manage to get Sainz past Piastri, that's a 4 point swing, so MCL 458, Ferrari 450.

But if RBR lose any spots at all during the race, Piastri stays on the podium, and Lando can at least grab a point, it could be McLaren finish tomorrow in the lead.

A legitimate three-way battle...awesome.

The good thing for McLaren, at least, is that they don't have to worry about the team orders thing until Singapore.

And yeah, it would be cool to see Martin pull it out.

For starters, I was just postulating and guessing about Ferrari's chances at the Constructor's Cup; I wasn't making a statement about their chances, so I wasn't too deeply invested in them winning.

Speaking of Ferrari and the Constructor's Cup, I didn't see Sainz potentially making this even easier for McLaren winning it all this season. What an insane crash; it's too bad it occurred because Sainz gaining position towards the end would have made for an exciting finish for sure.

That crash was an odd one unfortunately. In the end, I think they'll both wish they gave each other more space at a point where it was weird to be 'fighting' over space. I think Carlos actual mistake was trying to go outside Leclerc and compromise his line.

The apology is owed to Ferrari, who we can't believe might actually have a solidly upgrade car now. :) I'd be happy if they stay close to the front, especially for next year lol! The Mercs are in a weird place since the break. Norris actually ending up in front of Verstappen was pretty surprising and impressive. If he doesn't screw up future quali's it does feel like RBR could be throwing the driver's away too if they can barely get into the top 5.

>If he doesn't screw up future
>quali's it does feel like RBR could be throwing the driver's
>away too if they can barely get into the top 5.

But if we assume that RBR are now the 3rd-best car, but that Max can generally outdrive the car for at least one finishing place, Baku notwithstanding, then we might think that Max can average P4 points for the remaining 7 races, which is 91 points, which would give him 404 for the year.

Norris is currently on 254, 150 behind Max's possible projected finish, so he needs to average 21.5 points per race to snag the title. That's tough, but possible. He could win 6 of 7 to get there, obviously, but he could also win only 3 and finish no worse than 2nd 4 times, which would give him 147...maybe just about enough? It'd be real close. But I think probably 4 wins is the minimum to have a realistic shot. Hard to see Max, currently on 313, finishing with less than 400.

since I'm too used to the Moto GP points system. Also, Moto GP staying nice and close makes it easier.

While being statistically rational about it feels a bit iffy, I can't help but look at it as just needing one or two races to possibly turn that 59 point gap into something a lot tighter. I think it's telling that Norris could recover from his position while Verstappen could barely do anything. If he pulls a win out on a bad Verstappen weekend it can change the whole picture drastically. Norris could botch it too, but I guess I'm banking on outliers and not averages.

that I've seen in a long time

that didn't involve Romain Grosjean somehow

just absolute moronic shit on both sides

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

>that didn't involve Romain Grosjean somehow

I think what both of them did made sense to them at the time

but we know checo really is fucked in his concentration, he should've backed out and kept a good finish

and carlos should've known perez would be too stupid to do the logical thing

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

https://youtu.be/NNBhqmiPJn4?si=KZl-p7CKW5GVglsQ

Never heard the behind the scenes stuff about the Lotus/Renault situation he was in. He kinda got screwed, it sounds like, but he's also realistic about his own potential, despite the fuckery.

Not much of a race, turned out, but man. Single greatest season of car upgrades ever?

I calculated how many points Checo has probably cost RBR this year. If you assume that Max is probably finishing a place higher than the car naturally deserves, and that Checo could be excused for driving a place lower than the car——so assuming he should have consistently finished 2 spots below Max——then Checo should have about 224 points this year, or 80 more than his actual total of 144.

Apply that 80 to RBR's constructor total and you get 555, compared to McLaren's 516.

In other parts of the track, that Colapinto seems like the real deal.

And news is that Lawson is in for Danny next race...well, he had a good run, mostly. Hate that he's going out mid-season, but it's a brutal business. Maybe he shows up in Indy or NASCAR.

Singapore being Danny's last race was probably one of the worst kept secrets this season. I don't like how it was handled, but the Honey Badger has to take some of the blame for the eventual outcome, I think.

First, I have no clue why Red Bull wouldn't just let Danny finish the season. Unless there was some contractual reason Lawson had to get a drive right now, having Ricciardo finish the season, or at the very least make the announcement and let him get one final drive for his fans, is a horrible look. Mind you, this is RB, who gave Gasley, Albon, Kvyat, de Vries, etc a similar sendoff. While you can argue that these are all business decisions, Danny is one of the bigger faces and definitely personalities of the sport. He deserved some grace, or at least the time for his fans and co-workers to give him his flowers. Imagine the turnout in, say, Austin if that was his last race. He'd do donuts, grab a cowboy hat, and crowdsurf. Instead, we have outside news reports making the announcement and F1 main page saying Danny is 'leaving' RB, not that he got shit canned. Hell, Haas did better with K Mag. Fuck Helmut, fuck Horner, fuck RB management. They all could have and should have done better.

That said....

Danny has been on a downward spiral since he left Red Bull in 2019. His stint with Renault was dismal, though to be fair, so was the team (and they still are in a no man's land). Part of the reason to leave was money, part was because it was blatantly obvious that Max was the chosen one and Danny was clearly second fiddle (after that crash in Hungary between the two of them it was a wrap). Still, the Renault move was puzzling, as they were toward the lower end of the mid pack teams. Even with the car not up to snuff Ricciardo just didn't drive well and made a number of boneheaded mistakes that lead to penalties and, at the end, a disappointing points finish. You could say it was more of the same at McLaren. He got there just before McLaren got good, and was sandwiched between Lando (young rising star) and Oscar (another young rising star). Another set of middling season results did him no favors. After that contract he really could have been out of the sport, as there really weren't any seats. But he chose to gamble and resign with RB, which I never liked. While I get the idea that there was a chance Perez would flame out and Ricciardo would either get that seat or drivers would move around and he'd be entrenched at Toro Rosso/RB/VisaCashApp/whatever the hell the team is called now, that was NEVER going to happen. I wouldn't be surprised if RB management strung Danny along for leaving them in the first place. Still, this was Ricciardo's CHOICE, so he had to expect some bullshit to go along with it. Still sucks though.

Overall, it's a sad day for F1, as they lost a good driver, great ambassador for the sport, and pretty good guy in the most unceremonious way possible. I think Danny still has something in the tank,but given the current landscape, it doesn't fit anywhere. I don't think he's quite got the drive of, say, Alonso. Not many do. He's better than, say, Stroll, but that's not saying much. He wasn't exactly setting himself apart from Yuki, which didn't help. The fact that Perez lasted longer than Danny did this season is wild (but given how that car has been performing after the TD on the brake bias thing, switching drivers would have been a worse look). And honestly, I don't think Max or Danny would have enjoyed pairing up again. Nobody is really shedding tears for Danny. He's rich, he can retire and do whatever, or go race in another discipline. His fans will follow and I'm sure he will be an asset wherever he lands. It just won't be in F1.

Vaya con dios Ricciardo. We'll do a shoey in your honor

Realizing it might really be time to give the new kids a chance.

Also, if anyone else was trying to get him, this might have been what they needed to do to keep Lawson in the fold. Hopefully the young'uns make it fun next year.

Middle of triple header of Moto GP races right now, while F1 takes a bit of a break. Feels like no one wants to win the Championship, the front runners are clearly pushing the limit but everything seems decided by crashing out as a result. Wild stat that Bagnaia has won 7 races this season, but none of his rivals have won more than 2, yet he's still in second due to sprint performances and DNFs.

then they had to let him go for nothing at the end of the year

so really it was just always going to be like this.

the problem is that horner and marko are at odds and neither fully controls the situation, catching danny in the middle

but if he didn't want this bullshit, he didn't have to come back

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

>the problem is that horner and marko are at odds and neither
>fully controls the situation, catching danny in the middle

Outqualified by Yuki 12-6, 12 race points to Yuki's 22. If he wanted to keep his job, you know, drive faster.

he didn't deserve the drive

it was like I was explaining to someone recently....unless you're actively competing for championships, everyone on the grid is essentially a pay driver

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

I'm not saying Danny deserved to keep the seat. Results matter, even if RB has made some moves this year that seem to want to throw team results out the window. Danny didn't make a great case for himself against Yuki. Fine and well.

What's shitty is if you knew you were dropping him, at least announce it before the race so the fans can give him his flowers. Doing it days afterward (and after other news outlets start reporting it) was just a shitty way to let one of the more popular drivers in the sport leave the team. They could have made a killing on Danny Ricc merch alone.

I hope RB loses both the Constructors (currently doing so) and Drivers (long shot, but possible) championships. Fuckers...

I don't know if he gets the yipps when he has the pole (or on the front row), but if he can't figure out how to stay in the lead from Lap 1 he's not going to get the chip. That seems to be his MO this season. As it stands, he will need Max to crash out to have a chance. RB will still lose the constructors, but somehow I don't think Horner or Marko even care.

Ferrari was fast. Mercedes was shit. Penalties made absolutely no sense.

>I don't know if he gets the yipps when he has the pole (or on
>the front row), but if he can't figure out how to stay in the
>lead from Lap 1 he's not going to get the chip. That seems to
>be his MO this season. As it stands, he will need Max to crash
>out to have a chance. RB will still lose the constructors, but
>somehow I don't think Horner or Marko even care.
>
>Ferrari was fast. Mercedes was shit. Penalties made absolutely
>no sense.



Woah woah woah woah woah; Hamilton did wet the bed for the most part last weekend, so you're partially right in Mercedes underperforming, but Russell did damn good considering where he started from, no? He seemed to race damned well with those hard tires from what I remember if you ignore the five second penalty he incurred. I wonder if Russell finishing better than Perez yesterday was the hammer in Perez' proverbial coffin yesterday in terms of keeping that Red Bull seat next year.

Going back to Hamilton, I have to admit I was excited when he shot up to 12th place in during the first lap. What a weekend of highs and lows for him. Have to wonder what's going through his head seeing how well Ferrari has been racing this season; and consistently so, at least from Leclerc's part.

that the new parts were fucked, that's why russell crashed, and that's why hamilton crashed in the race

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

anyone else please share another other podcasts that discuss F1 events, drivers, and/or happenings/changes to cars that are worth listening to.

The sole podcast I'm aware of is the one that's occasionally sprouts up from Dan Lebatard's network; I think it's called DNF.

in a way that some others miss

Shift F1 is a good one to get started on, but I like the community more than the show itself at this point. They just don't put enough effort into it for all the money they're pulling in, often they have facts wrong and I'm like...even I know what actually happened there and I was half paying attention.


The Race F1 Podcast is a good, fairly journalistic show,. they also have The Race F1 Briefing for quick updates and recaps, and The Race F1 Tech Show to get real nerdy about different shit

Bring Back V10s is great if you have time to kill, they go back through big moments and seasons in F1 history,

Collossally....That's History -- very similar to Bring back V10s

F1 Beyond the Grid has some good interviews and is similarly a perfect filler podcast if you have time to kill

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

Cut dude some slack. He'll figure it out in the offseason.

Everything else: yep.

Consistency is simply not a word in the FIA vocabulary. What's considered a driving line, driving another driver off track, and gaining an advantage is so week to week, race to race, driver to driver, it allows these kinds of rulings to happen and people to (rightly) bitch about them. That said.... this is par for the course for Max and his uber-aggressive driving style. So I have no problem seeing him hit with a 20 second penalty. In the end, he still managed to screw Lando's race, minimize what damage was going to be done in the points, and make Checo's contract resigning look like a huge mistake for RB.

Shout-out to Carlos for the win, Ferrari for getting back on track, Haas for double points, and Alonso for longevity, even if he had to retire the car

you can't say you were ahead at the apex if your line takes you off the track. you didn't hit the apex if you don't make the turn. there is no "the" apex, the apex of YOUR turn is somewhere else.

shouldn't even need to be clarified, it should've just been said to max from the start when he tried doing this bullshit

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

I am fine with Max pushing to see how much he can get away with. Plenty of champions have done exactly. That said, I cackled when he got that second penalty. Hilarious, and heartwarming to see him get slapped like that.

That race...craziness.

it's funny how they keep trying to hype it up. Meanwhile Moto GP title contenders just go HAM for the first 4 laps in Sepang.

Honestly don't know who I'd prefer to win Constructors, McLaren or Ferrari. I think I would have appreciated the craziness of that race if it wasn't Verstappen who took advantage of it the most lol but the Alpine podium was cool.

I'm honestly hoping they figure out a way to move this Las Vegas race to a little earlier in the season. I understand the spectacle, but it's too cold this time of year at midnight to get grip on a street circuit. At least it looks pretty.

I suppose having Max with 4 chips matched Vettel, so good for him (even if 2021 is still a sore spot for many, I won't say he's 4 with an asterisk). With next season the end of the current regs he likely will be in for more of a fight, seeing how the field closed up and how RB's form fell off a cliff. We'll get to that later.

The constructors is still up for grabs. Unless Perez has a huge change of pace these last 3 races I don't see RB catching back up. Will Lando lose a bit of form after surely conceding his (already slim) chance at the driver's chip after last race's results? Can Ferrari sneak by and send Sainz off to Williams with a little goodwill?

Let's see what the weekend holds

Don't mind Max getting another chip. He's an all-timer. I think #5 is gonna be the real struggle, given the convergence you mention.

And really, sort of good to get it out of the way, because now it's just straight up Ferrari v. McLaren for the team champ, and that's whole different strategy game. How much will Sainz play for the team he's leaving, if that sort of situation comes up? Then again, he probably has a constructor's chip bonus of some kind in his contract.

Wondering who partners Max next year. I know they just said they'll evaluate Checo after Abu Dhabi, but there's no way that's not already decided. So that means there's Yuki and Lawson, or they could look outside the RBR family, but I don't know who that would be. KMag is available, as is Bottas and Zhou. And Colapinto, but he didn't do himself any favors, again.

To me, that's just a question of, who is the least likely to be mentally destroyed by teaming with Max? I'm thinking maybe Yuki? He's nuts anyway. Hate to see Lawson pushed up too early. Bottas maybe has resigned himself now to being an eternal #2, and probably could at least keep the car in the top 5 without collapsing like Checo and everybody else.

Kinda think Zhou is getting screwed over. Like, did he do a bad job this year? That car is such shit, who knows how good he really is.

Imagine the chaos that would be...

I still worry about putting Yuki or Lawson next to Max, but unless there's someone else in the junior pipeline to shuffle around somebody has to be the lamb to the slaughter. They can't bring Danny back (still mad how that shook out). KMag sounds like an interesting option, but I don't see Marko going for that.

Lewis was flying out there, that's for sure. He was absolutely trying to make a point after his disastrous Q3. I hope Lando takes this season and grows from it. He's got to get better at maintaining the lead when he has pole.

Went back to look at the previous seasons in which the driver's champ wasn't on the winning constructor. Checo has now had the dubious distinction of being the only guy to fuck it up for the team twice...how you feel about Max's 2021 chip, I don't know. But anyway, those years were:

21: Merc; Max (RBR with Perez)
08: Ferrari; Lewis (McLaren with Kovalainen)
99: Ferrari; Hakkinen (McLaren with Coulthard)
94: Williams; Schumacher (Benetton with Verstappen+)
86: Williams; Prost (McLaren with Rosberg)
83: Ferrari; Piquet (Brabham with Patrese)
82: Ferrari; Rosberg (Wiliams with Daly+)
81: Williams; Piquet (Brabham with Rabacque)
76: Ferrari; Hunt (McLaren with Mass)
73: Lotus; Stewart (Tyrrell with Cevert+)
58: Vanwall; Hawthorn (Ferrari with a bunch of dudes)

It gets more forgivable as you go back in time, because it's easy to forget how common mechanical DNFs used to be. Like in '86 Keke Rosberg had 8 retirements out of 16 races.

I did find myself wishing the season weren't quite so long, TBH. 24 rounds...kinda like to see it go back down to 20 or so.

But excited to see what happens with convergance for next year. Haas was looking much stronger toward the end, Sauber weirdly was quick yesterday, I assume Alpine will eventually figure out a way to be less shitty....should be even more names on the podium.

Last year of the regs in '25, and between convergence/driver changes/development on the'26 cars, it's anyone's guess. Probably another season like '21. Still 3.5 teams in the mix for the top spot. McLaren could get the constructors again if Ferrari either has reliability or strategy problems or if Lewis doesn't get on with the car. I think RB is out of it simply by not knowing who is driving beside Max. That and I don't think they really care too much as long as Max has the driver's chip. That said, they did get more wind tunnel time coming in 3rd, so... who knows. Mercedes is going to find out exactly how good Russell is and find out if Antonelli can cut it. I'm sure they will fight as hard as they can, but I see them targeting '26 more than anything.

I liked the Hamilton love and tributes, but also understand if some thought it was too much. He's not retiring, and other drivers are either out of F1 or switching teams and didn't get nearly the fanfare. But none of the other drivers went 6 for 12 and 8 for 12 on chips either, so there's that. You can tell it meant a lot to Lewis, and it was like leaving the family. I could see him signing a one day contract and retiring at Mercedes when his run is over. Either way, his name will ring bells at 3 different constructors. If he does manage to get a chip at Ferrari, that would be unprecedented.

Definitely too many races on the schedule. I think the Dutch race is done in 2 years. I like the spectacle, but Vegas can go. Not sure what else you drop. Imola?

See everyone in 3 months

which they did some this season, but like, in 21 it was when they still could have won the constructors

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

This year he usually wasn't close enough to Max to affect his race one way or the other, unfortunately.

they were still using him for like early tire changes and stuff but it barely even impacted his position

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

He does bring a lot of money to the team, that's for sure.

I imagine the story for the movie will be trash; I'm assuming the main crux of the flick will be the next level special effects.

Also cool that the movie involved a great deal of actual drivers and real race locations.

Nice that the next event for the new season will be next month. Hopefully the season will be a competitive one.

I mean, I'll be open-minded, and if the reviews come out about how great it is, sure. But otherwise, nah.

for the screenwriter and I'm sorry I even posted about the movie on here. Looks as if the screenwriter wrote FOUR of the recent Transformer movies. Not one, but FOUR.

Based on the brief previews focusing on the next level camerawork/cinematography, I was assuming this was a movie I'd have to shut by brain off and just go in to soak up all the special effects.

Don't know if I can support a flick with someone associated with FOUR Transformer movies attached to them.

I'm gonna have to wait for some glowing reviews before I decide to spend dollars on this.

I'm hoping this will get shown at the Lincoln Center IMAX here in NYC; that's probably the only way I'll see this outside of waiting for this to hit the Internets.

I mean, I was talked into seeing Gran Turismo... Pitt is in it, Hamilton put money in it, why not. Should be at least as realistic as Drive to Survive (ha!)

>Should be at least as
>realistic as Drive to Survive (ha!)


but from what little I've seen, that show appears to be melodramatic reality TV nonsense. Is there any type of insight to be gained from watching that show?

>Is there any type of insight
>to be gained from watching that show?

And you do get a sense of the characters and personalities of the drivers. It's not nonsense, but you can only take so much of Will Buxton yapping on about how George Russell is really hoping for a good result or whatever in this particular race because blah blah blah.

It's not a waste of time, but it will annoy you.

If you actually follow F1, the storyline setups will annoy you, as you probably already know most of the facts behind the incident. For those on the fringes of fandom, or just getting into it, it works better, although there IS a serious overdramatization of everything, since that's what reality TV does.

If your significant other or your friends don't understand why you watch F1, it's a good way to get them hooked and get an idea of what's happening. Then you can explain without the extra hyperbole and ween them off it...

It does look really good though. Since they embed their crew within a team each race they can get some incredible race and candid shots.

I don't think I can come up with a better title than the one I did last year lol

Surprisingly Moto GP starts this weekend already, which is unusual, F1 still has the longer season so usually is ahead of all this. The World Champion missing at least the first two races with a testing injury kinda sucks. I don't know how I feel about Marquez looking good in the factory Ducati now, I don't really want him to win more Championships.

'Tis the season