Modern Vespa

Yes Porsche tried that during the negotiation stages and were given short thrift.

I'm talking about Ford failing within itself rather than wrestling power from its employer.

It's going to be fascinating to watch when so many elements in 2026 will have changed.

The hope for future Mercedes, Antonelli, bins it first outing. Ouch!

Just a bit overconfident on a newly-resurfaced green track. Oof.

The more I watch F1, the more I become dissatisfied with the bleak prospects that rookies face getting into the sport. In particular, there have been a number of F2 champions that have been denied a shot solely because of timing and bad luck. For instance, Felipe Drugovich, the 2022 F2 champion, is without a seat, and unlikely to get one. Ever.

Imagine sacrificing your entire childhood to work your way through the junior series, paying enormous amounts of money and making huge sacrifices, then reaching the pinnacle of the feeder system only to be told "Yeah, sorry mate -- no room for you."

This system sucks.

Thus, I hereby propose a rule change for the FIA's consideration: At the end of the year, whatever team is ranked dead-last in the constructor's championship will be obligated to take one rookie, of their choice, for the following year -- replacing either of their two drivers, at the team's discretion.

This gets rid of underperforming, stagnant drivers, creates an automatic 5% turnover rate in the driver market, and provides a genuine opportunity for rookies from F2 to make it into the sport.

Alternate proposal for the FIA: Pay any team with a rookie driver for more than 75% of the races over one season an extra €1 million bonus at the end of the year.

Don't flub the start, Lando!

George ruins the tifosi's day…

Kimi Antonelli signed to Mercedes for 2025, despite the shunt yesterday.

The signed him days after Hamilton said he was leaving.

Woooooooooo!
Magical result in Monza today!
🇮🇹🇮🇹🇮🇹

w00t! So happy for Charles.

Also, I can't believe Ferrari won on strategy. It must be a cold day in Hell today.

Thoroughly enjoyable race, too!

So whose going to replace Magnussan in Baku if the FIA get their way ?

Bearman ?

Seems likely. Also, I should point out that Bearman is -- with only a single F1 race under his belt this season -- still ahead of Magnussen in the driver standings.

(Okay, technically they are tied for points, but Bearman is ahead because he secured those points earlier).

Zing!

Two nice home GP wins for LeClerc this season.
With all that Ferrari excitement, forgot to mention newbie Franco Colapinto's solid 12th for Williams; something Sargeant could never have done.

Franco did very well

after his Q1 screw up and starting P18 then finishing P12 that's a huge win for williams.

cant wait to see him the rest of the year and his progress.

hope he can score some points the rest of the season.

The Safety Car that crashed apparently had a rear brake failure.

Being an Aston Martin I'm not surprised.

The way that sprint races are done has always seemed a little odd to me. Why not use them to show off rookie talent? Or, rather, require them to. (I get that the cleanup could be expensive, but some changes to spares and extras could get us through that.)

Because that's what F2 is for.

Also Bottas is now 22nd in the championship!

Bottas has stagnated and needs to vacate the seat. There are promising F2 drivers that don't have a seat because that guy doesn't have any sense of decency.

I do wonder whether Audi will want him or Ricciardo in their second seat. I feel both are in a similar position, but their experience might be useful for a year or two during the transition.

I almost spat out my coffee after reading that.

Bottas doesn't have enough talent for Audi.

Ricciardo will stay with Red Bull.

Agreed on both counts.

I think there's a case to be made for Mick Schumacher in that seat -- not because he's got the talent, but because he has the name and it plays up the German angle that Audi seems to be pursuing.

Ted Kravitz said in his race notebook post Monza that he's seen a telegram and that it's Daniel out, Lawson in. He said he's seen this himself (message from Daniel?), and that it will be announced very soon.

His manner when saying it made it seem like it's Ricciardo out of a drive, rather than Ricciardo going to Red Bull.

Edit: Bottas doesn't have talent for Audi, but he knows the inner workings of the Mercedes team, and I think Audi will want to set routines and processes in place that Mercedes would already be using.

That's even funnier.

Bottas hasn't been with Mercedes Benz for 3 years so I'd suggest that things have moved on since then.

He's a lovely guy is Valtteri, but he doesn't have the talent to justify being in a top team.

I doubt that we'll see in F1 next year.

For me Ricciado's face just fits at Red Bull.

They know him and he doesn't threaten Verstappen in any way.

My feeling is that he'll be faster than Perez is now, Christian Horner loves him and all he'll need to do would be to sign a contract for next year.

Liam Lawson has been promised a seat with RB somewhere so rather than drop him in at the deep end, let him learn his craft at VCRAP and go from there.

the manufactures are at fault for not getting rid of him and paying him. He is just collecting a check. Why should he give up the money if the manufactures want to keep paying?

Dignity? Self respect?

Reports are starting to appear that Adrian Newey is in fact headed to Aston Martin.

Which I find eminently plausible.

What's this "F2" thing that keeps getting mentioned? I only have so much time for my engineers-meet-millionaire-models reality show every week; is it worth following?

I think F2 qualifies as "inside baseball". As the feeder series, you get to see up-and-coming drivers, one or two of whom might make it into F1, and a few more that will be perennial reserve drivers.

As a spec series (all the cars are theoretically identical) it is much more about driver skill (or lack thereof!) than it is a technology race.

So if you've absorbed all of F1, the next step is to sink your teeth into F2. Or not.

There is a lot of "all" to absorb there

As I'm already "paying" for F2 in the app, I've seen it a few times to feed the need on off weeks, but I haven't invested the time to know the stories enough to engage. Yet. Maybe I'll try and spin up with it as this year wraps up; I can do the season from the beginning.

Part of me keeps thinking that I should enjoy MotoGP, but something about it is a little unapproachable for me in a way that F1 has not been.

I think I have the same problem. I am in the same boat with many new American F1 fans -- I was introduced to the sport by Netflix, which gave me a great introduction to the personalities. And knowing their stories makes it more interesting for me to watch the races.

While there is some story in F2, it is not nearly as compellingly presented like Drive to Survive.

I actually watched an F3 race on Sunday, the season-finale for that series. I didn't know any of the drivers at all, and so it was hard to get my head around, even though it was by all accounts an outstanding and history-making race. Wait until they Netflix-ify it, then it will become more compelling.

Dallara make the Spec Chassis for F2 and it's mated to a 3.4 Litre V6 engine with a single turbo charger and they sound fantastic.

You'll never hear anything about a F2 driver, unless of course when it's connected to a F1 team, be it for a future seat or as the next World Champion bla bla bla.

Many F1 teams will have F2 pilots under contract as test or replacement drivers when someone has an acute appendix and can't race.

I've often suggested that F2 cars should be the specs that F1 should use but I think that I was being naive with regard to reducing costs.

If racing in F1 was open to teams who had a lot less than 145 Million Bucks to burn you'd have too many drivers with the skill of Stroll and the technical ability of Andrea Moda.

No one wants that.

The cost cap was never ever about making F1 more accessible or affordable or an attempt to get more teams into F1. It was always about trying to level the playing field. The playing field is still sky-high, but now the teams can't spend unlimited money in the pursuit of a win.

Of course, it's still quite a bit more expensive than 145M per year, since there are exemptions for driver salaries and executives.

Now if you have 50 Million to pay the top driver or maybe 100 Million ( over 4 years ) to pay the top designer that's going to have a huge bearing on how much potential can be rung from the team's financially constricted efforts so a team may still dominate regardless of the budget cap.

Teams still dominate for however long it takes for a driver, engine manufacturer or team members want to be there and then they go things soon crumble.

On a lighter note -

If Newey gets the Aston Martin gig and Stroll stays on, that scenario is going to be fascinating to watch when only one driver ( who will be appointed to carry the team ) will have the responsibility to wrestle the best out of the car because I doubt that Alonso will stay on until he's 45.

Now I hope I'm wrong but would you sign with a team that only has one driver to show just how good your car is ?

If Lance has enough of being out driven what's Daddy going to do with his Train Set when the novelty wears off ?

I just know Newey's going to sign but I pray to God he doesn't.

The latest report is claiming that it's $150 million over three years, plus bonuses. And that it is Aston Martin, as predicted.

I mean, jeebus.

I honestly believe that Lawrence has more money than sense because I can't ever see Aston Martin winning anything.

There's talk of Verstappen going to Mercedes Benz at the expense of George Russell.

I don't believe a word of it. Maybe in 2026 but not next year.

I dunno. I think Lando Norris to Mercedes makes more sense at this specific moment.