Obi-Jiff Kenobi

Well, if you include Albon (Anglo-Thai), that’s all four British drivers in the top eight. Great race, deserving winner, good racing throughout the field, but what the heck happened to the Ferraris?

Well, that was an exciting qualifying session! Silverstone delivers once again.

For those who have the channels, the Monza WEC race is live on Eurosport 2, and Viaplay Xtra are showing 3 hours live of the Mosport IMSA round, both on Sunday.

My solution: don’t go back there. It’s a silly little track, full of vociferous orange people who have no interest in F1, only in one driver.

Despite the changes (i.e. sprint qually & race now having no influence on grid for main race) I still find the sprint races a pointless waste of time.

Some of us (and I include myself in this) are beginning to notice that we are ageing. I mean, I used to come here when it was all just jokes!

Oh, the humanity.

Yes, disappointing that Hulkenberg got a 3 place grid penalty for exceeding the speed limit under red flag conditions, while Sainz got the same penalty for dawdling about on the racing line at the last corner as Gasly came through, at top speed, and had to take to the runoff in order to avoid the mother of all shunts. Perhaps the FIA should take a leaf out of the Mikado’s book, and let the punishment fit the crime.

I certainly didn’t notice it on any channel other than Eurosport.

I’ve just finished watching the entire race (recorded from Eurosport and watched over several sessions  when I found time), and it was the best race in years. Close racing throughout the fields, issues for all the top contenders, weather making it unpredictable, and all the major Hypercar manufacturers took turns at leading the race on merit. The icing on the cake was a thoroughly deserved overall win for the AF Corse Ferrari team, which will ensure the next race at Monza is a sell-out! Who needs F1, sulky Verstappen, and Whinger Spice?

Almost as good for me was the Corvette winning in GTE-Am, after going two laps down early on, but being able to fight back through a combination of performance and luck regarding safety cars.

I’ve got three:-

Mallard in pre-war Garter Blue

Seagull to match

Mallard in BR green l/c

I really need another 33, all in LNER pre-war liveries. I think I may have a problem...

“Failed to slow down sufficiently” must be code for “came tanking in at full speed with complete disregard for waved yellows.”

I can hardly wait for Le Mans, especially with the (slightly controversial) changes to Balance of Performance, which should make the racing amongst the Hypercars even closer than it has been. I know it’s a big if at the moment, but if Ferrari were to win the centenary Le Mans it could send sportscar racing stratospheric.

On 28/05/2023 at 21:57, Oldddudders said:

From Pitpass

 

George Russell:  If you touch the white line when it's wet, it's like ice. 

Nigel Mansell learned that lesson at Monaco in 1984. It’s all just a little bit of history repeating.

7 hours ago, SR71 said:

I can't decide if it was the race or the coverage that was poor. Early on there seemed to be an awful lot of very close shots that made following the order hard and then also cutting away from interesting things. Two wide in the background but the camera panned to follow a Ferrari through the corner for instance.

I think it was poor coverage of a dull race around an uninteresting track.

The worst offence, for me, was when Verstappen came upon the duelling Leclerc and Magnussen. The trackside camera showed the cars start to go three wide, so we cut to Max’s onboard camera, which showed (big surprise) an empty track in front of him. It took the director a moment to realise the pointlessness of that, so we cut back to the trackside camera, but it was all over by that point, so we missed the highlight of the whole race.

At least we were spared the horrors of a sprint race this weekend.

Perhaps Verstappen’s engine will imitate Musk’s last Starship launch...

On 30/04/2023 at 22:35, 57xx said:

 

Part of me thinks it would be too obvious, the other wouldn't be at all surprised if something like that did happen.

 

That’s some bad hat, Harry.

18 hours ago, Thorness said:

If the English teacher was being really pedantic, she would complain about the lack of capitalisation in the caption too!

Interesting set of wagons, but they could probably do with considerable weathering, as they probably wouldn’t be that clean had they survived to 1953 😉

20 hours ago, OnTheBranchline said:

Bahrain GP overreactions: Lewis Hamilton might never win F1 race again

Interesting. Another story I don’t give much credence to is the one that claims Mercedes (the car company) have told Mercedes (the F1 team) that unless they are better at the next race, they’ll have to give their best engines to Aston Martin and throw all their weight behind Alonso for this year.

Fried bread for me, please.

In days of old,

When knights were bold,

And lavatories weren’t invented,

They dropped their load,

In the middle of the road,

And went away contented.

Maybe I have odd musical tastes, but I really like William Shatner’s version of Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. Much more interesting than the Beatles’ own dirge.

Break My Strider

Better that any problems surface in testing, so they can be addressed before the racing starts. Of course, any problems mean less testing mileage, so what you may gain on the one hand, you lose with the other.