Caporegime
Charles Leclerc crashed Lauda's classic Ferrari in the Monaco historic GP. Oops. (Was apparently a brakes failure, he wasn't hurt).
Motorsport Off Topic Thread
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Man of Honour
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He’s far too prone to errors to be champion.
Soldato
Absolutely superb Indycar race in mixed conditions last night - it had a bit of everything, including one of the saves of the season, akin to Alonso's epic save at Interlagos in 2012, though at a much slower speed. If anyone has the chance to catch up with it I'd thoroughly recommend it.
His F2 season (the first I'd really seen of him as I missed most of his GP3 season) was impressively consistent domination, though the field was rather mixed, with some still rated drivers further down than expected and some journeymen featuring above expectation.
This season is the first where he's started with a car considered a championship challenger, and most champions made unforced errors in their first championship challenging years; including both seven times world champions, Schumacher and Hamilton, as well as Senna, Prost, Mansell, Max Verstappen, Villeneuve (both of them), Vettel, Alonso, Hakkinen, Damon Hill, Button, Nico Rosberg and so on).
Indeed I'm struggling to name anyone who didn't make errors in their first season in such a car since I started watching in 1989 or in the few years before that - I think the closest I can get is Raikkonen in 2003, who had a remarkably consistent season but had a couple of crashes on first laps, neither of which was his fault, but in the first of those cases he was in such a position (last) because he went off in qualifying in Spain.
Yeah, base it on a jolly in a historic car around Monaco when his brakes apparently failed.
His F2 season (the first I'd really seen of him as I missed most of his GP3 season) was impressively consistent domination, though the field was rather mixed, with some still rated drivers further down than expected and some journeymen featuring above expectation.
This season is the first where he's started with a car considered a championship challenger, and most champions made unforced errors in their first championship challenging years; including both seven times world champions, Schumacher and Hamilton, as well as Senna, Prost, Mansell, Max Verstappen, Villeneuve (both of them), Vettel, Alonso, Hakkinen, Damon Hill, Button, Nico Rosberg and so on).
Indeed I'm struggling to name anyone who didn't make errors in their first season in such a car since I started watching in 1989 or in the few years before that - I think the closest I can get is Raikkonen in 2003, who had a remarkably consistent season but had a couple of crashes on first laps, neither of which was his fault, but in the first of those cases he was in such a position (last) because he went off in qualifying in Spain.
Man of Honour
It was a brake failure in a 1974 racing car.
Soldato
A decent interview (for once) by Andrew Benson for the BBC with a very open Alonso on his career (so far): 'Welcome to my world, Lewis!' Fernando Alonso on life in F1
For the record, I think performances like Imola show Alonso's still got a lot of the speed that made him, at the very least, one of the modern greats. Whether he'd still be able to keep up with the likes of Verstappen, Hamilton or Leclerc over such a long season these days I'd have doubts, but he's still a bloody good racing driver in my opinion and an asset to most teams on the grid.
It's just a shame Piastri is left on the side lines, as a line up of Alonso and Piastri over Ocon would be much more exciting.
For the record, I think performances like Imola show Alonso's still got a lot of the speed that made him, at the very least, one of the modern greats. Whether he'd still be able to keep up with the likes of Verstappen, Hamilton or Leclerc over such a long season these days I'd have doubts, but he's still a bloody good racing driver in my opinion and an asset to most teams on the grid.
It's just a shame Piastri is left on the side lines, as a line up of Alonso and Piastri over Ocon would be much more exciting.
Man of Honour
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Alonso as salty as ever with Hamilton on his brain.
Soldato
You picked and chose the bits you wanted to I guess, or Benson's leading comments, as if you'd read the quotes themselves it doesn't come across that way at all.
Commissario
Wow, Sato hits the wall and still goes twelfth. He won’t keep it but that was pretty good.
Soldato
Well, you say that... The session was stopped due to lightning a few runs later (nobody beat his time), then resumed with a couple more runs (no faster), then more lightning and rain came, and last I saw there was no chance of any more running as the track was soaking, so incredibly he will go into the fastest 12 running tomorrow.
Still, he shouldn't have needed to. He only had to do that second run because he made a stupid mistake holding up Andretti by not entering the pits on the backstraight. This is his 13th Indy 500, so he knows the drill.
Commissario
Aye, we’ve had it on all evening. Was very surprised at his mistake earlier. It must have just been a brain fart.
Interesting take on the differences between Hamilton and Russell, and how their respective seasons have started this year, from Ross Brawn.
Will always listen to what Ross says, and with his connections to the teams, you have to consider his words to have a massive amount of truth behind them.
Link
Will always listen to what Ross says, and with his connections to the teams, you have to consider his words to have a massive amount of truth behind them.
Link
Caporegime
Interesting. Thanks.
Or George gets exactly the same car every race so gets used to how it drives.
While Hamilton gets new parts and setup changes every race, so has to learn the differences and changes every time.
Always two sides to, and two ways to view, every situation.
To be fair if I was Lewis I’d be thinking along the same lines. It’d be very hard to win this year, seen as nothing is changing next year why not spend the whole year improving the car and testing for all eventualities. Mind you, weren’t they supposed to be concentrating on this car all last season as well 
Caporegime
To be fair if I was Lewis I’d be thinking along the same lines. It’d be very hard to win this year, seen as nothing is changing next year why not spend the whole year improving the car and testing for all eventualities. Mind you, weren’t they supposed to be concentrating on this car all last season as well
Porpoising caught them all by surprise. Judging by last race, the car is pretty solid once they've got on top of that.
Still it is way to early to judge if Mercs are on top of the porpoiseing.
They had very little at Barcelona pre season testing, then loads at Bahrain in the pre season test.
So Barcelona might just suit their car better.
Will have to wait and see at other tracks, as no one will learn anything at Monaco, as they don't go fast enough for it to occur.
Caporegime
Indeed. But my point is that when the porpoising is under control the car is good. The failure of not predicting the level of porpoising is not Merc's alone; it caught the whole grid out.