Modern Vespa

I've re-watched this race very recently, and I've watched the accident over and over again. I think the stewards got it wrong, and I genuinely believe Max was at fault. Not because I hate Max (full disclosure: I do) but because Max jinked across Hamilton's front corner suddenly.

Hamilton stayed on his line -- Max did not.

Is this not were Verstappen tried grinding Hamiltons head off, saved by the halo.

How about when MV brake tested DR while they were both at RB?

Exactly he had the car to win championships,now he hasn't got the winning car he is very average.

haha. hey remember that time Schumacher won all those championships then ended up driving for mercedes?

What Bill states is true not only Hamilton but all the other F1 drivers are the most talented drivers in the world and that's why they are there racing in formula one.
What you need to look at is the constructors table since 2007 dominated by two, If the constructor can't get the car right doesn't matter how good a driver you are you won't win.
Mercedes will come back albeit without Hamilton.
And this is why I keep saying roll on 2026 the next big change.

Disagree, several get into F1 because daddy has billions and pays for their seat.

Still got to have unbelievable amount of training and hours of experiance to get the F1 licence, daddy can't buy that.

Sure he can. pay for the classes/karting early on, then find and "sponsor" the team (bribe them with loads of cash to let junior drive) to get the superlicense.

it's not like nikita mazepin was a particularly *SKILLED* individual. his dad was just really rich and has friends in the russian government (part of why he was blacklisted in f1--the other being how horrendous he was behind the wheel)

It's an interesting phenomenon where Dad's money will pay for the seat until a driver gets so good that the teams sponsor starts paying him to drive and not the other way around.

Pay drivers nearly always get sussed out for having less talent than the "Naturals", but they serve a purpose which is to keep the team afloat while the more talented driver scores the points while on their way to greatness.

Japanese drivers were notorious for bringing money to a team or engines for that matter but that was more about optics than performance.

Then you get the Damon Hill's who aren't in the same league as the Prosts but win a Championship in an exceptional car but bring no money to the team.

My real problem with Rosberg was that he'd never been World Champion if he hadn't crashed into Hamilton's car when it wasn't breaking down.

Dont forget when he thought he might have car trouble in Monaco during q3 when Lewis was turning a faster time than him....

Oh Yeah, well worth noting which prompts me to point out that many a World Champion have had to resort to playing games or just downright cheating when they didn't really have to.

This is probably why I'm not a fan of Schumacher or Senna as both of them would quite happily crash into someone to win a Championship.

Say what you like about Hill, Prost, Villeneuve and Hakkinen, they raced clean

Nikita placed higher than I believe both Zhou and Tsunoda in F2 before his F1 launch?

His Haas career was quite unfortunate. He started with a flawed chassis which caused his spins. His Dad kept pushing for a replacement and Haas refused. In an attempt to prove there was nothing wrong, Haas agreed to swap the chassis with Mick. Mick immediately had a MASSIVE accident, and completely destroyed the dodgy chassis - proving how badly flawed it was.

Lance Stroll is still the youngest ever rookie to score a podium in F1, and achieved that in a Williams. He also has the same number of pole positions as George Russell.

People assume Lance has a low pressure environment at Aston, but on the contrary - I think the pressure must be immense as its his Dad's dream to secure a world championship.

Lance did perform better at Williams though, where less is expected from their drivers. Albon has been similar, and struggled at Red Bull when the pressure was high.

I think all the F1 drivers have a mix of talent and marketability which guarantees them a seat. Daniel Ricciardo is certainly still in his drive because of his character. Tsunoda was chosen because of Honda etc.

Alpine have gone with a completely French line up for TV adverts.

Even Lewis Hamilton was partially funded in his F1 drive by Lawrence Stroll, through personal Tommy Hilfiger sponsorship.

Yup. 100% correct.

If any of you have time a recent Podcast with David Coulthard, Eddie Jordan and Bertrand Gachot has just been released. Hopefully you can view it.

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Alonso signed to 2026 with Aston Martin apparently.

Oh!

This seems relevant.

Well it narrows down the availability of drivers who will fill the Mercedes Benz seat.

I think that Alonso is doing a very shrewd thing.

I also think that he knows something that we don't.

Or maybe he's just going to be paid a shit load of money.

This. Word is that Lawrence has his wallet out.

And as drivers pay isn't part of the team's budgets the skies the limit.

Probably the same reason Hamilton went to Ferrari.

Seeking a new challenge my arse.

I mean, it's possible. I don't know exactly what Lewis is thinking here (he hasn't been returning my calls lately) but... I dunno. It doesn't seem like money is his main motivation for this move.

I'm sure it doesn't hurt, but if he could win races at Mercedes I think he would stay put.

He's also an off-track Ferrari fan.

It looks to me that Mercedes Benz's lack of performance and their disinterest in making Hamilton the Brand Ambassador prompted him to look elsewhere and in a bizarre coincidence he bumped into Vassuer.

Ferrari were prepared to give him a shit load of money and to keep him on post F1, in a similar way that Alonso has agreed with Aston Martin, so he jumped.

I'm not convinced that the Ferrari / Hamilton Dream Team idea is going to pay off.

I'm with you, I don't think either party thinks he'll bring them another championship in the near term. They want the name/expertise associated with them for long-term development, he wants to ensure steady income flow as long as he can even if he's not driving.

You know that thing when two really attractive people have a really ugly child ?

I predict that happening in 2025 at Ferrari.

It appears that Ferrari have made a big mistake, as next year they will have the slower of the two drivers from two current teams.

They can't help but to make bad decisions.

But I will continue to pull for them.

Bill

Agreed on both counts.

Stroll. Fuck that guy.

It's one thing to make a mistake. It's quite another to blame it on someone else when everyone can plainly see otherwise.

He's a Clown Faced Twat.

Not done Daniel any favours on his way down the ladder.

All drivers secretly want to wear the red suit. It was offered he took it.

But do they ?

Every racing driver knows that when it really matters Ferrari will strategically drop the ball to the point when the driver will have to tell the team what he's going to do and not the other way around.

It's a good pay day but strategy isn't their strong point and talking of which why would you dismiss your faster driver for a whingebag ?

They dropped the ball at Imola at the weekend and lost to Toyota from a badly timed pit stop.They can't help themselves.

Sure they will win the occasional race but not a Championship.

On a lighter note wasn't it refreshing to see Ricciardo really really pissed off for once.

Not for a bs reason like the canadian daddy's boy forgetting about his brakes.

Weird how everyone else managed to avoid crashing into each other. He was the only one.

Maybe he was busy thinking about Avril Lavigne again.

It might just be a Canadian thing.

Villeneuve was pretty good at blaming other people.

They do project a lot.

Just look at how many teams that Jackie Boy has joined and left within a year.

He's got a gob on him.

That name doesn't resonate with me.

Jacques Villeneuve.

Ah gotcha. I was thinkin of the elder V.

"Jackie Boy" That got me confused. I thought he was talking about Indycar or something.

Ferrari is a sporadically great team. The team that has the longest F1 racing pedigree and great share of wins. Most of it a bit in the past. Last great period was when Michael Schumacher drove, Ross Brown was in charge of strategy, Jean Todt team manager and half the old Benetton team (that followed Michael Schumacher to Ferrari) in charge of the car. You could say that since then it's been under a bit of a curse. Now Ferrari is in build-up stage. We'll see if leads to great things, or fizzles out like their last few attempts at building greatness. Including near career ending results with drivers like Vettel and Alonso. Why would Sir Hamilton escape the Ferrari curse?

In the past Ferrari has let good drivers go, including when they fired Raikkonen.

There's a difference between being fired and not being resigned.

Nyck De Vries got fired but Raikkonen got sent to Sauber/Alfa Romeo because of the Ferrari connection so he was probably still being paid by FIAT.

Probably.

I'm talking about 2010-2011 seasons when Raikkonen competed in rallying after Ferrari let him go, in spite of him having contract for the 2010 season. Raikkonen is still Ferraris latest champion. He returned to F1 in 2012 and raced for Lotus. Then went back to Ferrari in 2014.