It's back next year isn't it?
Just in time for Alpine to have made their great leap forward and put Zhou on the podium.
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It's back next year isn't it?
Just in time for Alpine to have made their great leap forward and put Zhou on the podium.
No it is not April 1st, Aston Martin really have appointed Mike Krack as their new team principal. Presumably to work alongside Jacques Strap as head of aero and new press officer Hugh Jarse.
He looks alarmingly like Mark Rylance's tech weirdo in Don't Look Up.
I enjoyed the photo they used in the press release, which is just him in a BMW shirt with the logos shopped out.
In more Alpine based photo fun, they told outgoing TP Marcin Budkowski that was 'outgoing' on the same day they took their team photo. If you look closely there's a subtle clue as to his mood.
https://i.imgur.com/1F0kWZ8.png
I'm going to assume white shirt man and baldy are best buddies.
I hadn't realised until I seen it on Twitter this morning that Hamilton was still having his 'taking my ball and going home' strop. Is there a real chance he doesn't drive in 2022?
Nah. Mercedes are too clever to be this close to pre-season without two drivers. Last year was the same situation (albeit different circumstances), where Lewis wasn't signed yet but he was 100% going to be there.
I feel like out of everyone at Mercedes, Lewis handled the fiasco the best in the immediate aftermath. While he probably is pouting still, his "strop" is a bit of an act (fully supported by Mercedes) to strongarm the FIA into sorting their shit out. If he committed right away, the FIA would probably think it vindicated their circus a bit.
I'd say there's a reasonable chance of it. Mercedes will have their back up plan well in hand(Nyck de Vries) at this point.
As mentioned above though they are trying to use this to push the FIA into making some changes. Hamilton has star power the rest of the grid can only dream of, but I do think that itch to get the title wins outright will see him back for one last crack at it.
I don't believe for a second that he won't be there, but it will be interesting to see what his attitude is. The FIA investigation is clearly bollocks (it ends on the first day of the season) so we'll see if they actually bother doing anything.
Shades of Senna having a paddy in winter 89/90, although this time the driver has all the power rather than some French bond villain.
It's the same kind of timeframe to that. All sorted one day prior and McLaren had submitted a potential driver line-up of Berger and Palmer.
I dont think Hamilton will retire. He still has to have a go in the Williams.
Aston Martin
https://youtu.be/VLfbm5ViYfs?t=927
Is that a better shade of green? Last year's car looked (and performed) dreadful.
Interesting sidepod inlet concept, although it's probably just an early idea. At least they didn't just throw the livery on the stock concept car like Red Bull.
I think the AMR21 looked the same colour in promotional material as well. Complete opposite of Alpine, which just popped in real life.
Speaking of Alpine, there's a lot of buzz they might be frontrunners.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
This is the north-south divide.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ben
The North :cool:
Lando Norris £20m per year for four years. That puts him third highest on the grid.
I guess McLaren's money concerns are well and truly behind them. Zak Brown could blag me a sponsorship.
I suspect there’s a lot of bullshitting going on with these reveals. That Red Bull for example looks remarkably like the concept/show car the FIA dragged out.
The Red Bull is the concept car. They just did a livery reveal.
That's why Aston Martin made a point on Twitter to say that they'll be revealing their actual car. Which to be fair looks like they did to a large degree (front wing, sidepods are different) but I would expect it will still change a lot before Bahrain.
Alpeen as a front runner would be funny, especially if Ocon shades it.
The Aston Martin car looks beautiful
It's clear now where the real work has been done over the last year.
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Looking like 2008 Seb :drool:
He's on a full Prince William style trajectory so fighting it is a bit sad.
There's been worse hairlines in F1.
Late career Denny Hulme had F1's finest. Bald, greying, long hair and bushy mutton chops, all mixed into one glorious getup.
Teo Fabi, king of the combover.
Ah, that's the name I was after. Kubica's hair seemed to vanish with that potential Ferrari drive.
McLaren car reveal 7pm tonight. Rumours they, like Aston Martin, will actually reveal a working version of their 2022 car rather than just a livery like Red Bull, not least because they - and Alfa, I believe, who will not reveal anything until first test - were the only teams not to purchase concept cars from FIA so whatever they parade tonight will have to be built from scratch.
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First image of a 2022 car going out on track. My word they look nice, even if the wheel covers make it look like the hubcaps have been nicked off the wheel.
That's a lovely looking car.
Thats lovely, imagine it without all the logos desperately shoved all over it.
The real cars don’t look near as good as the stock photos of the slick shape that were put out last year.
After time your eyes just stop seeing those.
The McLaren looks decent with a bit of that blue from the Monaco edition last season sprinkled in.
The stock car was designed entirely for aesthetics and didn’t push the regulations to the limit to maximise performance, so that’s to be expected. And really, we should be thankful that’s the case because if they weren’t then it would be a sign the regulations don’t allow innovation and it’d be a glorified IndyCar.Quote:
Originally Posted by Giggles
I see on twitter that #VoidLap58 is trending and they are all deadly serious about it. I mean, I'm a very pro-Hamilton man but Jesus wept I stopped seething about an hour after the race, to still be going two months later is a fine effort.
All the DTS effect I suppose and people being heavily invested in it who have no idea about sport more widely.
I expected to see a few tweets when I looked, but that's some seethe right there.
I'll be happy when we get to the point where every driver is no longer being asked about it in every interview.
When they’re done I want them to get on rescinding every international soccer result since Thierry Henry’s handball, and also crown Louth as 2010 Leinster champions.
Idiot at work nearly had a breakdown over it, and was still responding to fuck ups and the like with 'Is Michael Masi doing that/working there...' well into January. It got so boring that I felt compelled to throw job security to the wind and stick this on my side of the plastic covid screen.
It was over the moment they set the fireworks off and anyone expecting any sweeping changes has never watched a sport before.
On the new cars, they look fine but I'll reserve judgement until we've actually seen the proper ones. The new wheels look shit though, like someone stole the hubcaps.
They should just go with Enkei RPF1s, aerodynamics be damned.
It's good to see a variance of ideas in the cars seen so far. The Aston, McLaren and Haas all seem reasonably different. I think the Alpha Tauri looks a little more as the Aston does, but good we dont have the same car 10 times over.
AlphaTauri seems very much an early prototype. Telling that they only released renders rather than showing the physical car. I would expect the wings at least will be quite different come the first test.
The last time I was excited, was around 12 years old and my dad bought me a blue diamondback BMX. Stunt pegs on the front and back which I had to convince him to get. I'm looking forward to this season with the new changes and all. The Aston Martin looks great :drool:
Okay, so the furore about Abu Dhabi is still rolling on because the Rich Energy bloke 'spoke to a number of F1 engineers' who reckon Max should be stripped of the title and Masi fired. Move along, folks.
The Rich Energy bloke? Good to see he's still not found another sport to try and defraud.
How is that charlatan still getting involved?
Hard