OnTheBranchline

It would have been neat to have Typhoon, Tempest, Lancaster, etc especially since a lot of the regular run of names were for combat aircraft that were a little wanting to say the least (other than Hurricane, Spitfire, Wellington, Swordfish).

I've seen arguments that Crommell is overcredited for his successes in the English Civil War and the credit should go to Sir Fairfax.

The less said about Basil Liddell Hart, the better…

No, that's Lady Godiva... I'll get my coat.

"Meet the new boss Same as the old boss" We Won't Get Fooled Again - The Who

The loco got nervous about spots being on her.

I didn't judge anything - I simply said that other people have different viewpoints.

Considering some historians portray him as a tyrant. im focused more on the name deciding/decision process and the reaction to the name.

Mercedes told me “you’re wrong” about 2022 car’s problems – Hamilton A comment I saw online was “Both Loic Serra (senior Merc engineer) and Lewis Hamilton called out Mercedes for the wrong car design and both of them are off to Ferrari now. They got it right.”

Can we go to 2026 please?

Verstappen would “never say never” to Hamilton-style Ferrari F1 move Sebastian Vettel once said "Everybody's a Ferrari fan. Even if they are not, they are Ferrari fans. Even if you go to the Mercedes guys, even if they say 'oh yeah Mercedes is the greatest brand in the world', they are Ferrari fans”.

The fade from silver to black is a lot more tasteful than whatever Alpine did with their car.

Eventually, it’ll be 18 black cars and Ferrari…

We need paint to be excluded from the minimum weight regulations because most teams are skimping on paint (there's a lot of black this year). It's ridiculous.

I wished that stayed with the pink or the Renault yellow, we have too much blue on the grid.

So Sauber signed a title sponsor who is banned in Switzerland… what is this off season???

And that engineer's name was Mike Elliott... (Mercedes engineer who wanted the zero sidepod concept).

Pipe dream - if Horner is canned, Newey to Ferrari? Hamilton and Newey would be a really enticing combo if not at everyone's favourite team...

Horny Horner takes on a new meaning?

I wonder if Norris is kicking himself for signing to McLaren too early? Sure, McLaren looked better in the 2nd half of 2023 but Mercedes is a works team...

Again, the FIA, who determine the rules of the sport and can bar teams from not competing because they are not competitive enough (i.e. the 107% rule for qualifying), had no problem with the Andretti model. Look at how many teams with existing supplier's engines there are on the grid, it's not like one more would break the camel's back. Let's be honest, Andretti's rejection is about money and more specifically the 200m entry fee which one would have to say is a relative bargain considering the explosion of F1's popularity over the last few years. The existing teams don't want to lose money because of a new entry cutting into their prize money but that's what the entry fee is designed for in the first place. FOM and the teams want to delay Andretti until 2028 when a new Concorde Agreement is reached so they can jack up the entry fee to something like 600-800m as some team principals were saying a few months ago. Or FOM just says no to Andretti because they are a bunch of hillbillies and ignoring that they are one of the biggest names in motorsport history. FOM asked Cadillac if they would partner with any other team which shows how much FOM values Andretti. Remember, F1 is a cartel. They want American money but not American representation (as evidenced by how they half heartedly courted famed NASCAR driver Jeff Gordon in the mid 2000s.

From the rumours I've seen: Lewis wanted a 3 year contract for the F1 team and ambassadorship until 2035 with Merc, but the Merc board refused it (offering a 1+1 year contract). They didn’t anticipate John Elkann (President of Fiat/Stellantis), who apparently only made this last approach a few weeks ago. Ferrari offered Hamilton huge money 100M per year and a 3 year deal plus funding for all his projects (including Mission 44), and Elkann offered him a 250 million fund that he and Lewis will jointly own to invest in Lewis’ brand. Basically making him a sports franchise of his own. Between deals, royalties and likely investments in sports teams, Lewis will probably end up a billionaire out of this deal.

The real quandary for RB is for 2025 - they would want a driver whose good enough to challenge Leclerc and Hamilton but not good enough to challenge Max - that's a difficult ask. Hopefully Danny Ric is up to the task.

It's interesting that FOM deemed Andretti 'not competitive enough' when the FIA approved the entry and the FIA is the one who is enforces the sporting regulations. FOM can't make sporting decisions.