I was not a Rosberg fan after his antics in the Spain and Austria rounds, which are the races where he won the World Championship by making it almost impossible for Hamilton to beat him. I'm actually quite happy to see the back of him. I think Pascal Wehrlein will be called up to the main team - he's a product of Mercedes' young driver program and showed some good speed for Manor, even getting a 10th place in one race and getting into Q2 multiple times, which is a great feat considering Manor are one of the lower-budget F1 teams (though they do get wind tunnel assistance from Mercedes, who also supply them with power units). He'd be a good No. 2 to Hamilton.
No talk of the current season? That doesn't bode well for my request, but: Are there any torrents or other ways to watch the Shanghai race on April 9th? My dad missed it thanks to his satellite service shitting the bed that night, and it was supposed to be a great race. I'd like to hook him up if I can...
I get mine from a private tracker, but if you can't find it, I'll upload it for you and send you a link. Let me know.
For anyone awake, the Monaco Grand Prix will flag off in about ten minutes. This is not the most exciting motor race of the year or maybe even of the day, but it is unbelievable to me that it is still run under the safety concerns of today and the speed of modern F1 cars. Indy and the World 600 to follow.
I don't know how many of you follow F1, but this has been one of the most exciting/bizarre years ever for the sport. Today was the last race in Abu Dabi, and it was absolutely full of controversy and excitement. I won't spoil who won the championship just yet in case you haven't caught up, but regardless, with Hamilton and Max going into the last race absolutely tied for points, it was going to be a good one. It's just too bad that Race Control had to be so caught up in the final outcome. We will be hearing about that final safety car for years to come.
I do not think there is any controversy about having the safety car come out. Certainly what happened during the safety car will be discussed long after I leave this earth.
I'm new to F1, and I found the end of that race baffling. The race director clearly didn't want the season and title fight to end in a safety car, but to only allow certain cars through and not let them fully unlap themselves... how is that not manipulating the race results? If Mercedes had know that was going to be the procedure they would have pitted Hamilton for a fresh set on that final lap. Which would have been awesome to watch. The scenario we got was just annoying because you knew what the end result would be. When you don't follow your own rules/guidelines to set up a specific scenario that is very atypical it seems pretty shady. What are some of the worst calls by the FIA historically and how does this one compare?
Except Perez got ahead of Hamilton and slowed him down by 6 seconds. That meant that if Hamilton pitted he would have come out behind Max.
I meant that if Mercedes knew they would restart the way they did that it would be preferable to be on fresh tires behind Max than old as hell tires in front of him.
So... not sure how many of you are following F1 this year, but HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Holy shit, there is so much going on. Major car changes, and Mercedes is way off. So much so that today Hamilton didn't get out of Q1. He was P16 and didn't make it through. Ferrari and Red Bull are fighting hard, and Botas is kicking some ass. It's a REALLY interesting start to the year, to say the least.
Not to mention that there is even going to be a race tomorrow morning after a missle attack in Saudi Arabia on Thursday I believe. It is going to be an interesting year.
Watching Hamilton finish behind Russell so often this season has been hilarious - Hamilton is 19 points behind Russell as of the most recent race, the Austrian Grand Prix from the Red Bull Ring. Carlos Sainz getting his first race win was fantastic for him. Leclerc has been excellent, when Ferrari haven't goofed on their strategy. Max Verstappen looks to be winning his 2nd title in a row and Perez has been a very capable 2nd driver for Red Bull.
Yeah, it's been a hell of a ride this year. Mercedes is sucking hind tit, to say the least. The best part was the start of the year where Botas was kicking Hamilton's ass... despite being in a tier 3 car. It's been an interesting year, to say the least. And watching it on F1 TV online, via the app, has been absolutely amazing... they knocked it out of the park.
I know it's not F1, so my apologies for clogging up this thread. But, did anybody see the NASCAR finish yesterday, and the video game (turbo button!) move that Ross Chastain did to edge Denny Hamlin at the finish line and make it into the final four? That was bonkers.
I saw that circulating in the news, it looked wild. I bet a rule change is coming, or you'll see it a lot more. He picked up five positions in the last two turns(one turn, really) and half a front stretch.
It was one of the craziest things I've seen. It for real looked like video game, and somebody had found a cheat code. The potential for it to have gone completely wrong and wrecked a bunch of cars may indeed result in a rule change. I used to watch NASCAR a lot more regularly, but this season I've found a way to really enjoy it more. I record the race and watch it later in the day. It's not in the national news cycle, so I'm usually able to avoid spoilers. But, that way I can fast forward through the monotonous parts, stop and back up if something exciting happened. The playoff races have all had pretty exciting finishes and this one was just crazy when he did that. ETA: The multiple angle replay is just bananas. https://www.nascar.com/video/franch...ins-last-lap-move-to-advance-at-martinsville/
Finally watched the clip and it reminded me of a track in the original Gran Turismo video game (maybe it was GTII), my brother had some sports car and was all about hitting the apexes, following the correct lines etc, I had the '67 Vette and just let the walls keep the car pointed somewhat in the right direction and just dominated him. He was not amused.
I just saw it this morning... and holy shit, it is the thing legends are made of. He literally did it from his past playing video games... and it was only something that would work on the last lap because you can already see tires failing and the body is falling off from his in-car. The car he barely beet at the finish line was the one he needed to score more points than in order to make it to the championchip race. I really want to know if his crew knew what he was going to do, and see their reaction to it. There is a racing book I love called The Unfair Advantage, and part of it is about the formation of NASCAR, and how they started with simple rules and had to keep adding on to them because drivers, at every race, would show up with some sort of new, "unfair advantage", in order to win, so NASCAR had to clamp down on that because it wasn't against the rules yet. Like the refuelling rigs... they now have a max height above the car they can be, because at one race, Mark Donohue (author of the book), engineer by trade, racing with Penske, showed up with a race can on a 50' pole... the head pressure caused him to be able to refuel in a pit stop 5 seconds faster than everyone else. Unfair advantage, insert rule. Then there was the time they cryogenically froze the fuel... it went in as cold as they could make it, so it was denser, lasted longer, resulting in fewer pit stops. Big problem they ran into was they refuelled, then went out under a yellow safety car... well, they weren't burning it fast enough, and the fuel was expanding as it was warming up... they almost blew up the fuel system as a result. Unfair advantage, insert rule around fuel temps. Then there was the car's frame/chassis being used as supplemental fuel tank... bigger tubes in the chassis construction, fuel tight, filled with gas, allowed them to run longer, requiring fewer pit stops. Unfair advantage, insert rule. Great book, highly recommend it. https://www.amazon.ca/Unfair-Advantage-Mark-Donohue-Valkenburgh/dp/0837600693