Motorsports (NASCAR, F1, etc) Discussion Thread • Page 94

An incredible Daytona 24 Hours this past weekend; think I watched a good 18 hours of it, haha. Great recap here

 

It was very entertaining. Had a nice battle at the end for 1st overall..... also, fuck BMW.

 

Yeah that was a pretty shitty move by Farfus, going slower than needed around that corner. Iconic moment when Milner flipped the bird, haha.

GTD Pro battle was incredible as a whole though; so many hard chargers the whole race. Can't wait for the rest of the season

 

Williams and Atlassian Announce Title Partnership to form Atlassian Williams Racing

 

FIA President Open to Return to Roaring V10 Engine for Formula 1

 

Incredible finish to today's Supercars race at Sydney Motorsports Park

 

Damn, this sucks; as an F1 pundit he was always a fun listen

Eddie Jordan: Former Formula 1 boss dies aged 76

 

I met Eddie once in a professional setting. Lovely man, came across as a proper people-person, who he wasn’t afraid to speak his mind. RIP.

 

Wild

Liam Lawson: Red Bull set to replace New Zealander with Yuki Tsunoda for Japanese Grand Prix

 

I fell off F1 hard the last couple of years. I’ve been working my way through the drive to survive doc. How’s the start to this year been in F1?

 

Melbourne had a bunch of rain, so made things fairly unpredictable and chaotic throughout. China was a bit more standard fare, with McLaren at the top, Ferrari and Red Bull close behind, and then the rest, per usual. As my 1,456 posts above show, I'm much more into sportscar racing instead, but still try to watch every F1 race I can. Hopefully the rules reset in 2026 brings a much more jumbled order of winners.

 

Not sure I agree with that assessment of China. Mclaren look to be the fastest package overall (which is what everyone was pretty much expecting coming into the season), Mercedes with Russell had a strong weekend, Red Bull are struggling, with Max moving heaven and earth to be anywhere near the front, whilst Lawson drives around in a daze at the back and Ferrari seem to have made some sort of diva car which works in a specific window, because Lewis dominated sprint quali and race, but then struggled horribly on Sunday, whilst Charles didn't qualify especially well and then looked strong in the race, with a damaged car.

Then, in true Ferrari fashion, both cars got disqualified, but for two different reasons.

Overall, hard to know where we are for now, as Australia and China are completely different tracks and the rainy conditions in Melbourne created chaos there. Mclaren look quickest, with Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull looking like they'll be wrestling over second for now.

Of other note, the Racing Bulls looks really solid (so Yuki getting "promoted" is a real shame), even if their strategy calls are staggeringly bad. Albon has had a really strong start as well. Only team who look entirely dead and buried are Stake and even they managed to stumble into some points in Australia.

 

This whole situation is absolutely diabolical by Red Bull. The way they've repeatedly chewed up young drivers this way, without ever seemingly looking inwards, is shocking. I feel like there's only a few logical answers left to this now:
- Max is either so good that he can carry an absolute dog of a car to dominant world titles.
- Max has a driving style like absolutely nobody else and they've developed the car such that nobody else can live with it.
- Max's side of the garage doesn't share anything about setup and the car has been developed to his liking, meaning that in the churn of drivers, he's managed to stay on top of a difficult car, but nobody else can get it in a window which works.

The car definitely has some issues (rumours were that they had an emergency meeting about just how badly balanced it is early this week), but when you watch Lawson, he's not just slow, he looks like he simply can't drive. He looked more at home being parachuted into races at short notice last year.

I'm very worried for Yuki here.