Not at all. I'd figure in a modern context, more black drivers would be forthcoming. The other six black Cup drivers have only managed one start each. One start in a season that's like 35 races long.
Not at all. I'd figure in a modern context, more black drivers would be forthcoming. The other six black Cup drivers have only managed one start each. One start in a season that's like 35 races long.
Oh. I see what you are saying.
It's sort of the same but I would argue the barrier for entry (ignoring race for a moment) into stock car racing is much much lower than F1. The feeder series are far cheaper to get involved with and I think there's a far greater proportion of ethnic minorities in its traditional heartlands (The US South) than there are in western Europe. F1 should have more representation but stock cars should have waaay more than a handful ever.
What is the entry pool for F1 in the UK, a few thousand people tops, 95% of them relatively rich?
It's more on the engineering side of things where F1 actually fails.
NASCAR only just banned confederate flags on cars and being flown by fans, add in this sort of thing and the message seems very much that blacks just aren't welcome.
Especially when you consider Wendell Scott was doing it week-in-week out in the 60's.
Motorsport is more of a saddo hobby than a traditional spectator sport, so unless you get into it through your dad (steady) where is a black lad in America (or elsewhere) going to develop an interest from? There aren't many black snooker players either, presumably for similar reasons.
I learned something new today: Damon Hill brought the Sega money to Williams in 1993. I was genuinely surprised by that.
The FBI found that that 'noose' was part of the garage door.
Fuck me, that's amazing.
Pushing him down the grid looks pretty stupid now. I'm waiting for the fans to come back and then get kicked out with all their confederate flags.
Hey, a lovely gesture is still a lovely gesture. In other news, I'm at Imola '94 in Damon's book. You can really see why Senna and Prost didn't get on. Their personalities were so different and I've never really bought the idea of Prost being a master politician. Senna was way more into that.
Last edited by Shindig; 24-06-2020 at 05:16 PM.
Fuck.
Another Andy Goram.
Prost wasn't really a master politican so much as he was French at a time when Jean-Marie Balestre was also French.
I enjoyed the hypothesis Damon put forth about Senna's Indy test putting pressure on the FIA to nerf Williams, right in time for him to join them
Domination has always been cyclical, teams break up, people retire or are tempted away to other teams or regs change and someone else has the brightest idea.
I'm legitimately disappointed with that ending.
Could you really do the whole esses in the same gear? He must have the clutch control of God himself.
Did he ever work for Mclaren?
Nope.
March --> Williams --> Haas (the first one) --> Arrows --> Jaguar (the Le Mans one) --> Bennetton --> Ferrari --> Honda --> Brawn --> Mercedes
Was it Brawn that phonics is thinking of?
I presume he said McLaren when he meant Mercedes, but I don't know the answer to the question.
Brawn and Merc world be the same thing anyway aren’t they? Wasn’t there some technical thing early with the car in the Brawn year that made them (Button) unstoppable until everyone else caught up?
There was no loophole fr Mercedes, they just did a better job on the hybrids in pretty much every conceivable category.
The double diffuser (my understanding of it begins and ends there).
Yes, the double diffuser which Brawn nailed and I think Toyota had one? 2009 was weird. Having to develop their own KERS meant some teams didn't bother, etc.
I went down a team history rabbit hole there and just copped that Force India are gone. What happened there? They looked they likely ones to break into the big teams for a time.
Lance Stroll's dad happened.
The whole Brawn thing was brilliant, the best bit being that Toyota had wasted a fortune on their team only to sell it for a pittance when it was basically on the cusp of donning everyone senseless. And then Brawn sells it for eleventy billion quid to the reich a year later.
Honda's staff went from the Earth car to a not-quite factory Merc in a matter of months.
It's owner went bankrupt and is being chased by the Indian government for eleventy billion dollars. It's been bought by a group led by Lawrence Stroll (the guy behind Tommy Hilfiger) who also now owns a significant slice of Aston Martin. The team might become an AM 'works' team if the rumours about them building their own engine are true. They might also be far more competitive whenever we get going due to a deal with Mercedes which has seen them basically copy last year's title winning car (hence them being dubbed Tracing Point).
Watching some VLN endurance racing now and they've went with two-phase pit-stops to give it some social distancing. They change tyres in the paddock and then refuel on a service road. They've been joking about how it could effect F1.
He's apparently stable but the Italian doctors aren't going to give any updates unless something significant changes.
Mercedes have changed their livery for 2020 and it looks great, who knew black was so cool all along.
Also, Codemasters reaction is quite good.
Mercedes-Benz, fighting discrimination since 1933.
That said, the great man tweeted out something in support of Pride yesterday and the comments below were truly something. I thought that stuff was restricted to third world football fans.
The Bernie Ecclestone stuff was a bit mental. Not least because it's Bernie Ecclestone mate relax, but in actively refuting his comments, rather than just saying it's Bernie Ecclestone mate relax, Formula 1 has seemingly taken the official position that he was right, he just got the races the wrong way round.
Bernie was probably right before he started making any excuses.
Looks like Mugello and Portimao are getting races. I don't know much about Mugello, but Portimao is an absolute beauty. Hopefully there's a good race and they do a deal to stay there.
I like Mugello a fair bit. I don't know much about Portimao but it's one of the free tracks in RaceRoom. I should get some laps in.
Is this back next week? That Netflix thing has got me interested again.
I can't think of a track like it. On the overhead it's just a sort of Barcelona type thing with cut out and keep corners, but all of it is run over sweeping undulation and massive elevation change, into dips and up steep rises into blind braking zones. Beautiful to drive on a sim, hopefully the F1 cars aren't too quick for it. They might have to tighten up T1 as it's quickish off a long, long straight.
Yep, Austria this weekend, and 8 races confirmed so far: Austria x2, Hungary, Britain x2, Spain, Belgium and Italy.
Nice one. Might grab a Now pass for the first few and see.
I heard rumours they might turn Bahrain into a indy style circuit race for one.
Do i need to keep quiet on Imola?
No fly aways planned as yet so lots of European places are in with a shout if they want to get to 15 rounds.