You could tell in that era when people were backing off, as Eddie Irvine would then be able to match their lap times.
You could tell in that era when people were backing off, as Eddie Irvine would then be able to match their lap times.
I still can't fathom how he got so close in 1999.
Those yellow square numbers and the graphics really take me back to childhood.
Not sure anyones linked this. It's fantastic stuff. I'll wear my Verstappen fandom on my sleeve but 20 minutes of onboard with that fightback in the rain.
That was a great drive. I can't decide whether I like Verstappen or not. His fanboys are fucking annoying in the way that Raikkonen's used to be, and I'm Hamilton 4 lyf so as long as Lewis is out there I am probably going to have to despise Max by default.
I like Max. He's the only person of the current crop (that isn't Hamilton) who has that kinda of raw talent. Leclerc's second on that list but you can just tell that when those two get together, Charles will bottle it.
He's excellent but his attitude is still that of a very young man to which everything has come very easily (see his reaction to Bottas being in the wall in Mexico for example).
It's another cracker this evening, regenmeister origin story.
You heard it here first.
Not sure if I can sit through that although my extremely detailed F1 brain tells me Pedro Diniz finished in the points. I did watch the full race of Donington '93 the other night. As much as Senna was unbelievably good in the wet, Prost was equally terrible, seemingly through a lack of courage (James Hunt, in one of his last commentaries, wasn't afraid to get stuck into him for that).
Why can't they just let people watch them whenever suits? 'Premieres at 7pm' my hole.
Hunt would have poleaxed Diniz for similar, I'm pretty sure he trundled around for the last portion of the race.Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
These are all available on demand once they've 'aired' but I'm not sure why they don't do one every day, there's upwards of 1000 races it's not like they'll run out.
Because they'd rather people paid for F1TV.
i did this, didn't i?
Watching the 1994 Japanese Grand Prix and I'm starting to really think the whole Benetton had a blown diffuser has some truth to it. Under braking, that car definitely sounds like there's a little misfire. The blown (or was it double) diffusers of the Red Bull era sounded like machine guns when they hit a heavy braking zone.
What a proper car and what a proper driver Schimi was.
There's probably an argument that 1994 was Schumacher's best season, given that that Benetton wasn't necessarily the class of the field, although as ever he spoiled it for himself by being a cheating cunt at least 2-3 times.
He also must have had the slowest/oddest array of team mates that year that a top driver has ever had.
Hill was a weird driver. Entered the sport in his mid thirties. Good in '93, excellent in '94, dogshit in '95, supreme in '96, good in '97 and '98 in slow cars, and then completely lost it in '99.
I love Damon's journey to the top but these races really make me appreciate Schumacher. Benetton couldn't pick a second seat filler but Herbert did alright. I thought JJ Lehto was highly rated but his results look dog rough. Aside from that podium in a Scuderia Italia. I probably need to seek that weirdness out.
Schumacher should've had an easier time in 94. I still can't for the life of me wrap my head around the formation lap in Britain.
1994 in general was a complete mess of a season. The stuff that happened at Imola had the weirdest knock-on effects with chicanes going in everywhere for no real reason (including at Eau Rouge, of all places), people getting race bans and black flags all over the place, cars going on fire, and everyone swapping their drivers constantly (literally every race, for some teams). It was generally a rapid era shift with the Prost/Senna/Mansell period ending quite suddenly, and mainly a load of playboy choppers, Japanese idiots and fresh-faced novices being the ones to step in.
94 is also a decent point to mark the transition from garagista dominated grids/teams to a more corporate outlook, Williams would trade off their position for a while but teams like Mclaren and Ferrari were just about to realise that oily hands didn't often scrub up terribly well. There's increasing amounts of money sloshing about from better tv deals and an influx of more business oriented thinking to make the most of it. You also have the GPDA being reformed and a general realisation (or acknowledgment) that safety had to be tackled from multiple angles, it's probably the point at which the basic structure of the sport took on the modern template.
Yeah, it was 14 teams in 1994 and only ten by the end of 1996, the era of going racing to go racing basically stopped overnight. Plus - and I can't really word this tastefully - Senna's death must have been terrible for business.
'94 the last season for Lotus of course, epitomising that shift perfectly.
Of course it was good old Ron who managed to bridge the gap better than anyone.
Even if Senna carried on, he wasn't far off retiring. I never considered how that era all retired at once.
Suspect Senna had a couple of years in him. He would have pissed the '94 title in spite of that bad start, the Williams was too good a car.
It was either Senna or three or four lesser drivers, that's what it would have taken to get the same sort of changes in place. Those cars had reached a point where they had outgrown the circuits, Wendlinger nearly killed himself at Monaco of all places in the very next race. And yes, unpleasant or otherwise the truth is the impact of driver deaths was far greater because the sport was far more reliant on sponsorship and tv (ie exposure). The last big one was Villeneuve a decade earlier and the era before that was littered with fatalities that had little to no impact beyond annoying Jackie Stewart.
The other thing 1994 had was perhaps the best sounding of all F1 engines, in the back of the Ferrari.
Ironically yesterday on IG the algorithm posted a compilation someone made comparing the V12,10,8,6 from Ferrari over the years that I promptly watched repeatedly for the next 30 minutes.
That V12, though.
The sound of it going up the gears, each time convincing me it can't sound any more frantic. Then it changes up again.
Noise nerd time: Mazda 787b and Corvette C6 I could also listen to indefinitely.
The three litre Matra V12, as found in the MS650 and MS670.
Then there are Porsche engines which just sound like this guy:
Toggle Spoiler
I'm rather partial to this bad boy as well:
I've always liked that ridiculous old, British engineering at its best/worst BRM V16 and its weird small man in a box echo. Honourable mentions in the Great British wheezes list go to the race trim Jaguar V12, and the three litre V6 they built for the Metro 6R4. That was a brilliant engine, and had a sensible company built it they would still be using derivatives of it today (how is that possible?).
Was it BRM who tried an H16? Lotus certainly used one for a bit and it sounded ridiculous, although never for very long.
The gas turbine Lotus rolled out briefly sounded cool.
Yeah, and they stuck it in that shitty Lotus. The Rover-BRM turbine cars that went to Le Mans with Graham Hill and friends were stupid as shit, even if it technically won its class first time out. The Howmet TX at least looked great.
#Rumours
Even if some of that happens, they are having a laugh if they think Singapore is going to be barriered up for a car race in September.
European GP at Donington and English GP at Brands Hatch, pls.
Double Hungary though
If the US one has no fans I say it doesn't happen, they're in trouble as it is.
If it came to it they should just have about six in the UK and the others at the RBR. I'm honestly not sure how all those people are going to be jetting around the world this side of Christmas.
Fog race at Snetterton in November, sign me up.
Man, that 1999 European Grand Prix was special. I know the result was daft but there's some really good drives out of that. Both Stewarts, Schumacher and Frentzen before he gimped his anti-stall were sound. Gene and Badoer running 4th and 6th was daft and we had some atrocious drives from top talent. Coulthard pushed his luck, Irvine was Ferrari'd by pit crew and Hakkinen was awful.
I had it in my head the Irvine shambles was intentional (because they'd rather have Michael break the drought) but the Salo one beforehand was a complete clusterfuck as well.
Wanky online gubbins aside the Brazil virtual GP is worth watching just for battle between Leclerc and Albon, 15-20 laps absolutely nose to tail.
Also, lol at Simon Pagenaud the whiny little bitch.
Yeah, although the Lando fanboys/girls are out in force against him. The internet is a piranha tank. Ferucci did a similar thing in iRacing which erm... people weren't best pleased with.
Santino Ferrucci in 'being an asshole' shocker.
All the ones of those I have watched have been defined by literally all of them (including Lando) being whiny little bitches, which basically confirms everything I thought I knew about grand prix drivers.
I think it's worse now because they're so fucking young.
Yeah, in the good old days you'd have had to do your time and become a man before you jumped in an F1 car. Comes with the technology improving - they are physically a piece of piss to drive. All you have to be is light, as far as I can see, and then it's just down to skill and how much moolah your dad has.
It used to be that breaking in at a young age signified your talent and maturity, too.
Age at first GP
Fangio 39
Moss 22
Brabham 29
G Hill 29
Clark 24
Stewart 26
Lauda 22
Piquet 26
Prost 25
Mansell 27
Senna 24
Schumacher 22
Hakkinen 23
Raikkonen 21
Alonso 19
Button 20
Hamilton 22
Vettel 20
Leclerc 20
Verstappen 17
You can basically map the trend against the relative importance of aero vs mechanical grip in the respective eras.
I watched that Fangio documentary a few weeks ago, and it left me wondering whether he was great because he didn't crash or he didn't crash because he was great. It seems to me that there were a number of occasions where he was done by people in comparable machinery who were willing to push it further (notably Stirling Moss), so maybe it was experienced consistency more than anything.
He definitely wasn't as flat out quick as Ascari, but probably had the measure of Moss. He had great - I don't know whether you'd call it luck, but maybe timing? He also burgled his Ferrari title by jumping in other people's cars.
Nonetheless, being that quick in so many different cars and that averse to disaster throughout the 1950s makes you pretty great.
I think of that era whenever people bemoan modern F1 because the drivers aren't going flat out from lights to flag, there must have been a fairly short window when the cars were safe/reliable enough and the tyres durable enough for that to have been the case. Basically, if Alain Prost was 25 years younger nobody would ever have beaten him.
I doubt anyone has ever gone flat out from lights to flag apart from possibly Senna in his McLaren heyday, and maybe early Hamilton on the grooved tyres. It isn't a great idea really in long form motorsport. Christ knows how Jim Clark managed to stop those Lotuses from falling to bits going at that pace.
All the greats have some element of risk management, except maybe Senna. He thought God would protect him. Hawthorn had a death wish because he knew his kidneys would off him early.
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