Testing is underway.
If the Red Bull doesn't overheat with these tiny sidepod inlets then it's going to be a bigger drubbing than last year.
Testing is underway.
If the Red Bull doesn't overheat with these tiny sidepod inlets then it's going to be a bigger drubbing than last year.
2 hours into testing, Versteppen with the most laps and the fastest time, come back next year lads.
Quite funny how the Mercedes has tried its best to get to the Red Bull design, but then Red Bull have largely reverted back to similar to what Mercedes had.
They're going to be seething properly if it turns out that sidepodless is the right way to go and they just couldn't make it work.
Mercedes always maintained it was their flawed floor that stopped the zero pod thing working. Red Bull don't have that issue.
More of the same
Early days but the Merc looks an absolute dog again.
I assumed the Merc being a dog was why LH made the move.
Should be a good battle for 13th at most races.
Well this all seems quite ominous.
It’s Norris’ year.
Season predictions
Will Lando win a race - Yes
Will Mercedas win a race - No
Will Ferrari win a race - Yes
Will Sainz finish with more points than Leclerc - Yes
Verstappen to win over or under 15.5 races - Yes
Will Perez win a race - No
Will Albon beat Sargent every race again - No
Will Strulovic finish on the podium - No
Will Haas finish above Kick Sauber - Yes
Everyone getting a lot of laps in today. I expected at least one team to suffer from some gremlins in the system. Some 60 odd laps for Williams even with theirs.
Either that Mercedes is a pile of shit, or it's being sandbagged a lot. Nearly 2.8s off the best lap from Max. If you assume their car is so dominant that it doesn't matter, he's still 1.6s behind Lando.
I haven't seen any interviews with Toto yet though. We could do without another year of depressed Toto.
I think we can park the idea of Mercedes sandbagging, you can only do that coming from a position of strength.
Maybe they're going to roll out a no-sidepod car tomorrow.
We've got another dodgy drain cover debacle going on.
The field have for the most part edged up closer to the times Max did yesterday. We also may have the first bit of petty F1 regulations shenanigans over the Mercedes front wing too.
Looking at that Mercedes, I'd just let them get on with it.
Reasonably impressive time from Sainz with all of the necessary caveats.
Maybe he can Rosberg his way into retirement as world champ at the end of the season.
Wait, the season starts on a Saturday? Is that new? It feels new.
Saudi's asked to have theirs on Saturday due to Ramadan and because they were paid a shit tonne of oil money they said yes.
This also caused the Bahrain GP to be moved as the rules state a GP can't be hosted less than 7 days after the previous one.
Boring time.
F1 rules state there must be at least 1 calendar week between races. Ramadan means the Saudis have said they won't have theirs on a Sunday, which is the weekend after the Bahrain GP. So Bahrain has had to move forwards a day to keep within the rules.
Vegas will also be on a Saturday night for us.
Red Flag for same drain.
Seems to be a bit of an acceptance in the paddock that while the Bulls have gone on parade up the road, your Ferrari, Aston, McLaren and Mercedes would-be challengers are all very similar to each other.
I remember watching onboards last year and seeing how twitchy the rears of the latter two looked. They seem a lot more planted this time around.
It seems like Alpine have responded to all the fans crying about no paint and gone full blue on the nose and front wing, at the cost of 0.03s per lap (I call bullshit on that). Normally that would convert me into a fan of some kind, but it's still a French Renault.
Looks like Christian Horner is free to continue to blight lives worldwide for the foreseeable.
Bad luck Austria.
Motorsport finally getting into the new season so I've been catching up. Fantastic race finish for NASCAR in Atlanta, two good races at Bathurst in Supercars and despite the weird tire shenanigans Superbikes at Philip Island has a cracking finish with the added fun of a returning Iannone. At this rate I might even watch some TCR and WRC.
Was a little bored so went and Wiki'd NASCAR. The 2023 Series Cup champion Ryan Blaney started all 36 rounds, achieved 0 pole positions, 3 wins and 18 top ten finishes, yet managed to win the title with 5,035 points#Winningmentality.
Their points system is all about consistency. Or it used to be, I don't even know how it works nowadays with all the weird stuff they have added.
It's not decided by points exactly, near the end of the season the top 16 (determined by winning races, stages or raw points) enter a playoff with several rounds that gradually whittles them down to 4 and whichever of those 4 finishes highest in the last race wins the title. A weird fit for motorsport but I guess they hate having potentially dead races at the end of the year. I have to date not retained interest in a season long enough to see who wins.
The WSBK tyre thing was a shocker. Hopefully not a long term problem because somehow it managed to overshadow a can't miss weekend with Philip Island and Iannone. Still was good fun, especially with the mixed up order, but what a shambles. The danger now is Dorna seeing the forced pit stop creating some interesting chaos and thinking it's a good thing.
Also, a reminder that the F1 GP weekend is a day earlier (practice today, quali tomorrow, race Saturday).
Practice One is underway.
The Sauber is disgusting
Hang on, what are we doing starting a race weekend in February?
A lot of wrestling is going on. Caused by the wind, allegedly.
Is the race on Saturday? What’s this all about?
Saudi’s requested Saturday GP and you need 7 days between races so Bahrain had to be moved also
Alpine are pretty lol. Apart from the steering wheel, the entire car is new.
Still a tractor.
I can probably sort them for some spares, toutes marques et modèles.
I guess we'll find out tomorrow, but if these FP2 times are near representative(Karun thinks they are), the season could be tasty.
lol, not a chance. Merc will be the same as last year if not worse off because McLaren won’t start as horrendously as they did
from: josverstappen@hotmail.comOriginally Posted by Lofty
A few teams seemed to be carrying around at least a full livery's paint worth of sandbag in that second session.
The few screenshots going around don’t look that bad at all. Just looks like two adults having an affair.
Presume there’s much worse
Tasty, perhaps the rumours of Austria wanting Horner gone have some truth to them. Could be the most interesting fight of the season.
I can't see how this ends any other way than Horner going. Even if it is relatively low-level stuff, it brings Red Bull and F1 into disrepute, and neither will tolerate that if this drags on much longer.
In other news, the Sauber is indeed offensive to look at.
The list of emails the info was sent to exactly matches the list of season pass holders so it was clearly sent by someone with good access inside the sport.
What's a season pass?
Media track/paddock passes I assume. Joe Saward has also teasingly said that only half the story has come out and if the rest does it will be 'really ugly'.
Red Bull are well past the negative PR point now, even if there's nothing concrete to discipline/prosecute him they should still just get rid now. Obviously Jos expected them to realise this and sack Horner before the season started. Alas, the Thais don't give a fuck about this sort of thing, hence the Google Drive leak.
Hopefully a return for at least some of the props from Max Mosley's not-Nazi sex dungeon, F1 has really missed that kind of vibe since the great man's passing. Horner would look good in an armband (we won't talk about Helmut Marko).
The talk is the list of email recipients is: the journos, all the senior F1 staff, and Jos Verstappen.
Covering his tracks excellently.
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