Modern Vespa

It looks like Ferrari's talks with Fred Vasseur have been productive as he's agreed to stay for the long term.

Maybe Hamilton will stay for the 2nd year after all.

I didn't watch the whole thing but there are a couple of amazing occasions during the track segment where Max is calmly flying around (and Harris is bouncing around like he's in a different car on a different road) where Max takes about 1.5 seconds to actually truly focus on what he's doing and the expression on his face is so concentrated and deep it's a bit terrifying. It's almost embarrassing in a way, a private thing we're not ever really meant to see and it passes quickly. When he looks into the corner he looks the way Michelangelo must have looked when he gazed upon the giant untouched chunk of marble in his studio and saw the completed form of David sitting inside waiting to be released. That's the secret sauce Harris is trying to get ahold of and if he really looks at those images, he'll know better than to even try to find it.

And, to flesh out the Michelangelo comparison, we have this: https://vocal.media/humans/it-s-hard-out-here-for-a-renaissance-man#

C'mon. More like Joe Dirt (with a greman accent) gazing upon an unattended fireworks stand.

McLarens fastest in Free Practice.

Ferrari next.

Leclerc on Pole.

Aston Martins 5th and 6th.

Still motoring through the souther half of inland Spain and only seen the grid and thát is one to
Chapeau Leclerc and AM.
Should silence anyone about Leclerc, Ferrari, Russell and Stroll.

Just finished watching Quali. End was a very pleasant surprise.

Aside from the egg Hamilton layed I am excited for this grid!

Well, well - what could have been just a processional race became beautifully intense towards the end. Loved it.

What a farcical non-race.
Also F1 is adopting more and more of football's worst element

Seems that Hamilton venting over the radio has unleashed Leclerc. He drives the car to pole, the team decides something without conferring scuppering his drive. And then he gets an imo insulting 5 seconds penalty to boot.

Probably a post race penalty for Verstappen too. Regardless, too close to call during the race so how can those blokes see? i.e. making a farce of racing.
If the nit pickers need time to scrutinize all camera angles then it should be 'in'.
Remember that the engineers fought the view obstructing oversized wheels and guards tooth and nails for technical reasons too.

As to Hamilton one can only hope he steps aside like Ecclestone thinks he should.

You see, I like it when the McLaren duke it out in the closing laps.

Russell on the podium also.

Alonso up in 5th.

Ferrari dropped the ball again.

Alpine were terrible.

The top 5 all
Not the drivers' fault the sport has gone but it was a drag with a few last laps tension imo not making a race.
If anything the Russel/Leclerc and Piastri/Norris moves both ilustrated how far it has derailed even with the artificial overtaking device. Leclercs penalty highlights it further.
I mean the ony thing that actually happened was penalised!
Stroll did not do half bad either btw so to him.

Unsurprisingly Leclerc has meanwhile changed his tune.

a 95-year-old's opinion counts for anyone? dude's just waiting to die trying to stay relevant

also Leclerc's issues were chassis related, his drive wasn't scuppered by anything other than a broken car.

also BillDog beat him to it hence his change of tune

Also notable is your change of tune....was max the victim of anti Dutch (despite him being Belgian that is) racism again today? Or is there another excuse this time? 😂

This is just wrong on every level. This was a genuinely exciting race. You must have been watching a different race, or maybe a different sport altogether.

I'll not even bother reading the rest of your post. It would be pointless waste of time.

I thought todays raceway pretty darn good and had some differing strategies by teams and even with in the same team.

There were good battles between drivers throughout the race from start to finish.

I liked the Sauber running hard and finishing well today.

Charles deserved his penalty for moving and then trying to block Russell, even thou it didn't have any affect on his finishing position.

Redbull needs to figure out what the hell they are doing wrong and why they are going backwards.

The racing bulls have been doing very good lately and I like seeing their consistent finishes and not in the bottom.

Agreed. I'm a big fan of Charles but I felt the penalty was deserved. And I'm certainly not going to grasp at straws and invent some kind of "anti-Monegasque" conspiracy theory to explain away the failings of my favorite driver.

Actually not knowing the end-results of penalties, but on live it was humorous that Max:s possible penalty was put after race..and then Tsunoudas bit like situation was "not penalty" and I was guessing fast that means max shall not be get any too.
That Leclerc one was just a marking how seems that everyone looking like icyih-man is actually a snappish child when pressed a bit. Vetter was turning silly time to time, Hamilton too, and Schumi of course. Ha, my countryman Kimi did not loose his temper more than "leave me alone!"
What was sure the wrong penalty to me, was the Hulks "jump" as to me he dod not jump the line of his.

But this classic: "F1 is so dull and spoiled NOWADAYS" its classic because you have heard it always, sure from year 66 ad why? Because people forget that in principle F1 is not a sprint, it is endurance. There was more happening when one died on every race and 6 cars came to end as others broken up. But, we sure heard even then this same argumet: "races are dull as nearly all brokes up and always the same cars get to end"

Forgot to mention firs time watching f1 in my language at my friends, as never have put money watching these, so it was kind of interesting to hear do my countrymen and women in tv know anything about the sport. At least it was clear that women have always to know plenty more than men to get the license to be there. Just like skys Bernie, as she puts the tire situation clear to boys, who did not have thought these at all
Anyway, it was kind of mood "Lets talk (majority of the time) max this and max that and poor redpull oh redbull, lets talk more about redbull...oh there are more teams, but still what about redpull?" ;-D

I was really glad I have not paid them....

I think what Red Bull are experiencing is like when the song writer in a successful band leaves and the album that follows is pretty average.

All the rest of the band members are trying to find their feet and the new guy is doing the same.

The rebuilding takes time.

I predict that Red Bull's performance will improve towards the end of the year.

Fernando Alonso: Gabriel Bortoleto would be 'front page news' if he were English.

I say but so I say but nothing and that is already too much


Imo F1 has become overregulated into a motorised version of cricket.

I feel very sorry for those superhuman drivers. What they are doing, áll of them, is at speeds too fast for the human brain to respond to when it happens. No way even reflexes are 'instantly' enough.
Look at the start response times. It has even a set limit for false start flagging!! Now calculate the meters per second they are doing while racing within that time lapse their neurons need for signal to be processed.

Ergo their brains are continuously predicting the future based on experience, mind map, expectations, extrapolations. Call it trained instinct or what. For the most part not in the conscious brain. Hence they have conscious brain capacity to do some 'normal' thinking besides.
It is like us mere mortals catching a ball; you move your hand where you expect the ball to be. But then with lots more variables at warp speed and 'balls' with minds of their own.

Add to this their vision problem. Look at their challenge in finding the starting grid position limits even with the modded extra lines! Then the nit pickers with their rule book at hand in front of multiple camera angles expect them to be cm perfect. Man the drivers cannot séé this exact; they need to mind map it all.

I think they all should receive way more freedom for 'racing accidents'.

I've seen a fair degree of stories linking Horner to Alpine but I'm pretty sceptical about that.

Actually, here's a good question. What team would you associate Horner with ?

Maybe he's had enough and the Motivational Circuit is next ?

Possibly a book deal and an endless promotional tour.

He strikes me as someone who would do well as a F1 TV analyst/commentator.

You mean it becomes edge-of-seat stuff as it nears the finish!
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/live/2025/aug/04/england-v-india-fifth-cricket-test-day-five-live-score-updates

Birdsnest. I honestly hadn't thought of that.

Roll on a career at Sky TV.

The camera does love him.

Especially the one on his phone it seems.

I think this begs a question.

What do you have to do to never be allowed back ?

If I were him, I would fuck off into the sunset with my millions and millions of dollars and never be heard from again.

But I'm obviously not him, and retiring from public life (and F1) to enjoy his millions with his family is probably not in Horner's nature. He needs the adrenaline, the power, the camera, and most of all winning.

I don't think being a commentator fulfills enough of those things to satisfy Christian.

Yes, I very much doubt that we've seen the last of him.

In fact I'll bet that his phone started ringing with job offers minutes after he was sacked.

Agreed.

I think not, as I predict they are going to do same as Wlliams: "This season is over".
Of course they make plenty thinking, about what is wrong with that car? But they are not rolling parts and check if that helps or not.
The sport is interesting as just for this: Teams many times say that they do not know whats is wrong, but rarely say what Aston Martin (which skys boys say astin martin) said: We do not know why we were fast. And that is more important question. That brings the working car again, if know what was good. Not that what makes it bad.

The motoring version of 'you get what you reward'.

The reason that Aston Martin didn't share why they were running so well is because they don't want the other teams to know why they are running so well.

Very few teams are spending much time looking for improvements in their 2025 cars because everything is focused on next years new regs, so I'll predict that Red Bull will recover but the rest of the teams will stay where they are, performance wise.

Who thinks that Ferrari made a mistake in sacking Sainz and replacing him with Hamilton ?

Me. I've thought that since it was announced, actually. Though I was hopefully optimistic things would turn out better.

Silly me.

Sainz got jobbed.

Ferrari looks like they in turn got jobbed by offering Hamilton the seat. I did not expect Hamilton to flounder like he has. Everyone there looks bad at this point.

Financially Ferrari got their worth in stock rise when it was announced.

Performance wise it made no sense at all.

A classic example of act in haste, repent at leisure.

SVG wins again at the weekend by 11 seconds.

I'm going back to Spa in 2 weeks.

It's all good.