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?

---------------------
Obviously White

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

<-- Dave Thomas knows what's up...
__________________________

Jay: Look here homie, any nigga can get a hit record. This here is about respect.
Game: Like Gladys Knight.
Jay: Aretha Franklin.
Game: Word, I like her too.
Jay: Nigga...

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

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

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!!!!!

<-- Dave Thomas knows what's up...
__________________________

Jay: Look here homie, any nigga can get a hit record. This here is about respect.
Game: Like Gladys Knight.
Jay: Aretha Franklin.
Game: Word, I like her too.
Jay: Nigga...

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


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

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.

<-- Dave Thomas knows what's up...
__________________________

Jay: Look here homie, any nigga can get a hit record. This here is about respect.
Game: Like Gladys Knight.
Jay: Aretha Franklin.
Game: Word, I like her too.
Jay: Nigga...

http://i.imgur.com/vPqCzVU.jpg

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.

http://i.imgur.com/vPqCzVU.jpg

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.

---------------------
Obviously White

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

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

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

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

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.

<-- Dave Thomas knows what's up...
__________________________

Jay: Look here homie, any nigga can get a hit record. This here is about respect.
Game: Like Gladys Knight.
Jay: Aretha Franklin.
Game: Word, I like her too.
Jay: Nigga...

>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

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

Whew.

http://i.imgur.com/vPqCzVU.jpg

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

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

http://i.imgur.com/vPqCzVU.jpg

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

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

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.

---------------------
Obviously White

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.

http://i.imgur.com/vPqCzVU.jpg

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

<-- Dave Thomas knows what's up...
__________________________

Jay: Look here homie, any nigga can get a hit record. This here is about respect.
Game: Like Gladys Knight.
Jay: Aretha Franklin.
Game: Word, I like her too.
Jay: Nigga...

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.

---------------------
Obviously White

>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.

---------------------
Obviously White

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)

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

so he can impressively pass lots of cars at the start

(he does seem to do that often)

---------------------
Obviously White

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

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.

---------------------
Obviously White

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


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

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

<-- Dave Thomas knows what's up...
__________________________

Jay: Look here homie, any nigga can get a hit record. This here is about respect.
Game: Like Gladys Knight.
Jay: Aretha Franklin.
Game: Word, I like her too.
Jay: Nigga...

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

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

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

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

http://i.imgur.com/vPqCzVU.jpg

I didn’t see it before.

http://i.imgur.com/vPqCzVU.jpg

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.

---------------------
Obviously White

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

---------------------
Obviously White

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.

---------------------
Obviously White

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).

<-- Dave Thomas knows what's up...
__________________________

Jay: Look here homie, any nigga can get a hit record. This here is about respect.
Game: Like Gladys Knight.
Jay: Aretha Franklin.
Game: Word, I like her too.
Jay: Nigga...

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

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

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.

---------------------
Obviously White

IN NEW YORK!!!

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

http://i.imgur.com/vPqCzVU.jpg

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.

---------------------
Obviously White

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)


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

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.

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

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

<-- Dave Thomas knows what's up...
__________________________

Jay: Look here homie, any nigga can get a hit record. This here is about respect.
Game: Like Gladys Knight.
Jay: Aretha Franklin.
Game: Word, I like her too.
Jay: Nigga...

Musta thought they were free and clear for a few days

http://i.imgur.com/vPqCzVU.jpg

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

http://i.imgur.com/vPqCzVU.jpg

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.

"Sean sparks like John Starks, nah, Sean ball like John Wall" - Rest In Power Forever Sean Price.

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

<-- Dave Thomas knows what's up...
__________________________

Jay: Look here homie, any nigga can get a hit record. This here is about respect.
Game: Like Gladys Knight.
Jay: Aretha Franklin.
Game: Word, I like her too.
Jay: Nigga...

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.